CHAPTER I 

 THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 



" Life is that which feels and knows and wills, that for which values 

 exist and which itself exists as a value," DR. R. M. MAC!VER. 



BACON, in Sylva Sylvarum, says : " There are in Nature certain 

 fountains of justice, whence all civil laws are derived but as 

 streams." This shows a philosophic insight into Nature which 

 is very surprising for the time at which it was written, and which 

 is strictly in line with the conclusions of modern science, a fact 

 which has not hitherto been recognised even by scientific men. 



Although mutual aid, sacrifice and altruism have in a general 

 way been recognised as important accessory factors of progress, 

 the special part played throughout by Symbiosis and all it involves, 

 has never been demonstrated, nor even, so I venture to assert, 

 approximately apprehended. Those who conceded " co- 

 operation," for the most part held it to be a rather tardy and 

 adventitious auxiliary of " Natural Selection." 



It scarcely seems to have occurred to any one so far that 

 a principle so simple as Symbiosis should contain the secret of 

 integrative evolution to a degree which renders it of first-rate 

 importance. True, Herbert Spencer, Geddes and Thomson, 

 Prince Kropotkin, and Henry Drummond have gone so far in 

 adumbrating the economic and quasi-ethical aspects involved in 

 Symbiosis as to concede that without gratis benefits to offspring, 

 and " earned " benefits to adults, life could not have continued, 

 nor evolved into higher forms. Yet, so overshadowed has been 

 the whole literature of evolution by the unfortunate metaphor 

 of " the struggle for existence," that the systematic study of 

 the economic and sociological aspects of evolution has been 

 persistently neglected. Whilst " competition " was given the 

 foremost place, the rendering of the long overdue account of 

 what is actually due to co-operation on the one hand and com- 

 petition on the other, has not even been attempted. Obviously, 

 before we can pronounce as to the relative merits of either factor, 



