28 SYMBIOSIS 



Darwin also tells us that Andrew Knight (Philosophical Trans- 

 actions, 1799, p. 202) saw the truth much more clearly, for he 

 remarked that " Nature has something more in view than that 

 its own proper males should fecundate each blossom." 



My contention is that fertilisation entails but one though, of 

 course, a most important form of symbiotic specialisation, and 

 that Nutrition entails another form of such specialisation, 

 and further that " cross-feeding " is superior to " in-feeding " 

 in a similar way, and for the same reason that cross-breeding 

 is superior to in-breeding., namely, that it is more congruous with 

 the requirements of the symbiotic nexus of life. 



The law relating to Nutrition may indeed be stated in analogous 

 and in corresponding terms with that stated by Darwin with 

 regard to Fertilisation, viz., " Nature abhors perpetual in-feeding," 

 with the addendum that what " abhorrence " there is in Nature 

 is mainly due to economic discrepancies arising from modes of 

 feeding subversive of Symbiosis. The term " in-feeding," 

 therefore, is used to denominate the indolent appropriation of 

 food manufactured by close relatives in the biological scale 

 and the correlated shirking of the economic duty of production 

 or of mutual service of some kind. The term " cross-feeding," 

 on the other hand, designates the norm of healthy feeding, associa- 

 ted with symbiotic endeavour, and so far as the animal is 

 concerned generally with the ingestion of properly matured 

 surplus products of plant life, which represent the food ideally 

 adapted to the requirements of the animal world. 



Nature has thus indeed " more in view " than mere breeding 

 and even mere feeding, and her secret, I maintain, was only very 

 partially discovered by Sprengel, Knight, and even by Darwin. 

 According to my own version of the underlying reality, the bio- 

 economic law of Reciprocity, i.e., that of Symbiogenesis, demands 

 that some new factors or parts of factors and certainly at 

 least a modicum of legitimate external support shall be garnered 

 by the partners in their respective spheres of (specialised) action, 

 and, in a befitting way, be brought into the union. The require- 

 ments of a growing organic civilisation, moreover, demand, and 

 actually effect, that many and various symbiotic systems with 

 their " symbiotic momenta " shall push each other on unceasingly 

 to their mutual advantage, that the concord once established 

 between one symbiotic system and another shall be adequately 

 maintained. Such being the essential economic realities of life 



