THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 13 



nutrition, on the other hand organisms can remain adequately 

 symbiotic only on condition that they are sufficiently restrained 

 in their appetites, and that quality and quantity of food are 

 not such as to impede widely useful activities. Failure to live up 

 to its highest symbiotic duty causes the organism to drift from 

 Symbiogenesis into Pathogenesis. And organisms are frail. What 

 Burke said of man, namely, that power gradually extirpates 

 from the mind every human and gentle virtue, applies, mutatis 

 mutandis to all organisms. The advent of " lucky " circum- 

 stances, of " prosperity," is universally apt to cause " back- 

 sliding " from the fine qualities which first led to success : 



" Peace makes plentie, plentie makes pride 



Pride breeds quarrell, and quarrell brings warre ; 

 Warre brings spoile, and spoile povertie, 

 Povertie patience, and patience peace : 

 So peace brings warre, and warre brings peace." 



The principle of abuse of power thus applies widely. 



The plant, as the weaker vessel, is easily and generally made 

 the sufferer. We cannot, therefore, be surprised to find that 

 it has been obliged to evolve thorns, poisons, and other defences 

 in self-protection against depredation. Its chief protection, 

 however, must always consist in the fact of its good biological 

 character, which has the virtue of ranging the most potent bio- 

 logical interests on the side of the plant in its struggle against 

 depredation. A number of plants are poisonous to those animals 

 veritable " plant- carnivora " which are wont to be highly 

 destructive vis-d-vis to them ; whilst the same plants nevertheless 

 may continue to supply wholesome food to other more modest 

 animals. The reaction of the plant against depredation, how- 

 ever, has important and far-reaching consequences : it means 

 the exclusion from the best fare of inconsiderate animals, a fatality 

 which is of great physiological and sociological significance. 

 Failing to obtain the best food, the thriftless animals have to be 

 content with inferior and irregular fare, and often with what 

 they can get anywhere and anyhow. Their " industry " therefore 

 becomes increasingly one of robbery and murder, and their 

 organisation and character change accordingly. Such is the 

 decay of most in-feeders, who develop all manner of morbid and 

 inordinate appetites until finally their diathesis and their plight 

 are such as to cause them to prey upon and even to exterminate 

 each other. Now the course of such developments is not entirely 



