86 SYMBIOSIS 



sense have the bulk of strenuous orders, genera and species of plants 

 kept to the path of bio-economic usefulness difficulties and bio- 

 logical temptations notwithstanding, and have made their great 

 sacrifices for the attainment of cross-fertilisation, by means of 

 which they have achieved not only a higher status for them- 

 selves but also conspicuous service to the world of life ? How 

 have they " learnt " to " recognise," as Maeterlinck puts it, that 

 self-fertilisation conduces to degeneracy ? 



a la suite de quelles exp6riences innombrables et immemoriales ont- 

 elles reconnu que 1'auto-fecondation, c'est-a-dire la fecondation du stigmate 

 par le pollen tombe des antheres qui 1'entourent dans la meme corolle, 

 entraine rapidement la degenerescence de 1'espece ? 



It is begging the question, as Maeterlinck rightly insists, to 

 say that the force of circumstances has eliminated those plants 

 that did not do what was somehow required of them. Even 

 though we give some place still to " chance," it is necessary to 

 recognise that there must be a reason for the rise of some species 

 and the fall of others. The explanation, on my view, is none 

 other than that some species did, and others did not, preserve 

 the integrity of the symbiotic sense the necessary endowment 

 of a useful member of a co-evolved biological community. To 

 say that the plants have recognised nothing and that the force 

 of circumstances has eliminated some in favour of others, is halving 

 and unduly externalising the problem of survival. To say that 

 the plants recognise everything and that memory is everything, 

 is equally halving the problem by undaly internalising it. What 

 the plants have experienced in constant laborious contact with 

 the environment, they have capitalised in the form of symbiotic 

 sense. The behaviour of plants thus has to do with consciousness, 

 though they be not directly conscious, as we sometimes are of 

 our doings, of all they do ; it has similarly to do with Bio- 

 morality, though they be not consciously moral as we are. 



What is required of the plants, in the interest of organic life, 

 is that they follow in the main the guidance of their symbiotic 

 sense, i.e., that they retain a tolerable degree of co-operative 

 usefulness. Such obedience to bio-economic law, and not the 

 uninspired weeding out by " Natural Selection," assures their 

 continuance. 



The case of disobedience to the bio-economic law of Symbiosis, 



as instanced by Degeneration and Parasitism, clearly shows a 



isintegration of the symbiotic sense. Sir E. Ray Lankaster 





