64 SYMBIOSIS 



as having already made a large step in advance by accounting 

 for the evolution of the moral sentiments, as for instance, when 

 he recognised sympathy as giving rise to the superior controlling 

 emotions of man. It is no coincidence that economic thinkers 

 have contributed so largely to the theory of evolution. 



Spencer considered that Adam Smith's theory of the moral 

 sentiments required to be supplemented, for, he says, the 

 natural process by which sympathy becomes developed into 

 a more and more important element of human nature has to be 

 explained ; and there has also to be explained the process by 

 which sympathy produces the highest and most complex of the 

 altruistic sentiments that of justice. Respecting the natural 

 process, Spencer states : 



I can here do no more than say that sympathy may be proved, both 

 inductively and deductively, to be the concomitant of gregariousness ; 

 the two having all along increased by reciprocal aid. 



Having thus emphasised the importance of mutual aid in the 

 evolution of the moral sentiments, Spencer goes so far as to 

 state that the respective gregarious creatures must have " kinds 

 of food and supplies of food that permit association." 



We stand here before an all-important convergence of physio- 

 logical, sociological, and psychological factors, which is well 

 worth investigating and an understanding of which will serve 

 as an earnest of much that follows in succeeding chapters. One 

 might ask, on reading Spencer's passage, whether food is a direct 

 or merely indirect, an active or merely passive, agent in the 

 development of gregariousness and in what this entails in fruitful 

 psychological stimulations. Is it merely that, as Spencer puts 

 it, certain kinds of food, by obviating conditions which render 

 antagonism necessary although, of course, this means much 

 passively " permit " higher forms of associations to be formed, 

 or is it perhaps a normal function of certain foods actively and 

 directly to provide useful " influences," sociological and psycholo- 

 gical ? I think I have made it to some extent clear in previous 

 chapters that much more is involved in food and food-getting 

 than is commonly supposed, and that food in general must be 

 regarded as a very potent determinative and formative agent. 

 It was there also to some extent shown that whether we can have 

 food and food supplies essential to successful association depends 

 upon bio-economic and bio-moral relations as between supplier 

 and supplied. Here it is the more purely psychological aspects 



