CHAPTER II 

 LA VIE NORMALE 



LONG before I began writing on " Evolution " I had satisfied 

 myself by years of observation that there existed amongst 

 organisms, including man, a vast amount of pathological develop- 

 ment connected with change of form, with outgrowths and 

 excrescences of all kinds, and, particularly with abnormal or 

 " teratological " increase of size, affecting not only single organs 

 or individuals, but in the end even whole groups, species and 

 genera, and diminishing their chances of life. 



Naturally I sought for the cause of the phenomenon. As 

 a medical student, it struck me that it would be of the utmost 

 importance if an inquiry into these matters were to bring out 

 as I believe it has brought out the exact separating lines 

 between Physiology and Pathology. 



As a result of many years of investigation and after carefully 

 checking and counter-checking my results, I have arrived at 

 the conclusion that the general cause of pathological change 

 of form is ill-feeding and a consequent diathesis a predisposi- 

 tion to a well-marked pathological process. It remained to be 

 seen, however, why some feeding habits, more than others, produce 

 pathological increase of size, augmenting with a kind of arith- 

 metical progression with every succeeding generation. There 

 was moreover the geological fact, that side by side with the 

 monsters there had remained those types a kind of normal 

 kin which have not undergone a startling increase of size nor 

 developed a tendency to disease and early senescence. What 

 kind of good fortune, of virtue or integrity, has been theirs to 

 differentiate them so favourably from the monsters ? My 

 analysis has brought out the fact that the normal kin are those 

 which have remained tolerably faithful to a mode of feeding 

 which is bio-economically sound, entailing forbearance with 

 life, i.e., the live-and-let-live principle such as that governing 

 the relations between partners in Symbiosis. The normal organ- 

 ism, in fact, is that which is a symbiotic cross-feeder, though 

 it be not physically attached to the biological partner. The 



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