76 SYMBIOSIS 



case of assimilation is somewhat similar to that of mental 

 assimilations. No doubt, discrimination must be increasingly our 

 watchword in the future. It cannot be insisted upon too much that 

 symbiotically disposed organisms enjoy an immense advantage 

 over non-symbiotic in that they receive the best regulated, 

 the most directly effective, pabulum for body and mind, which 

 not merely sustains the life of the species, but assists also pro- 

 gressive evolution. This is quite the opposite to what happens 

 in the case of non-symbiotic species. The fact is incontestable 

 that, other things equal, the symbiotic everywhere vastly 

 outstrip the non-symbiotic and predaceous organisms in those 

 mental, moral, and aesthetic achievements that count in pro- 

 gressive evolution. In our climate, for instance, the chances 

 of survival are infinitely better for these animals that rely upon 

 the surplus stores of the plants than for those that seek their 

 provender predaceously among living organisms. In the 

 winter time, as Mr. G. G. Desmond lately reminded us, insect 

 fare being " off," the animals that feed on insects are palpably 

 worse off than those that feed upon hard fruits and grain. 

 The latter have made their winter store, and may remain awake 

 and active enough to go out and about on fine days. 



Surely the chances of fruitful social and mental life are, 

 therefore, higher amongst cross- than in-feeders. From the 

 storage of food-supplies for the winter it is not a far step to the 

 formation of intellectual habits, which, as Professor Sully tells 

 us, aid in their turn the increase of facility in acquiring and 

 reproducing new knowledge. The cross-feeders, therefore, 

 other things equal, must excel in " Plastic power of the Brain." 

 Their brain is healthily occupied and is fed in accordance with 

 the requirements of wholesome and widely useful efficiency, 

 whilst that of carnivores is occupied with theft and murder and 

 fed in accordance with the requirements of selfish efficiency, 

 which is productive of lop-sided developments, such, for instance, 

 as disproportionately long fangs, which may require such extra- 

 vagant supplies of blood for their maintenance as to inhibit 

 valuable supplies from reaching the brain as they otherwise 

 might have done. It would be strange, moreover, if the fruits 

 of genuine biological partnership, e.g., the spare food-substances 

 of plants, were not also instinct with many direct and wholesome 

 psychic influences, which carnivores are obliged to forego. 



To take another tenet of Psychology : We are told that as a 



