152 SYMBIOSIS 



usual connotation of the term " environment," but something 

 inseparably built into the organism's flesh and blood. If the 

 organism has by due labour and due exchanges woven biological 

 raw material into its own inner fabric, it seems more justifiable 

 to speak of capitalisation than of " inner environment." I would 

 ask the reader to consider which view is the more judicious and 

 also the less equivocal, that which posits an " internal environ- 

 ment " irrespective of any but physical laws, or that which 

 emphasises the acquisition of capital by adequate efforts under 

 adequate duties and responsibilities all transformation being 

 the result of work and of exchange of surplus products. 

 To quote Prof. MacBride in extenso : 



We have been gradually led to view the nucleus as a storehouse of all 

 the characters of the species and to look for the cause of the first differ- 

 entiation seen in development in the modification of the cytoplasm 

 through the emission of substances from the nucleus ; but to attribute 

 much of the later development to the modification of one organ through 

 the influence of materials emitted into the body-fluid by another organ, 

 so that we may compare the organs of the growing body to an assemblage 

 [partnership !] of semi-independent organisms which constitute an environ- 

 ment for one another [another way of saying that it is the symbiotic 

 relation which constitutes the essence of an " environment."] We all 

 know from medical evidence that there exist certain organs of the body 

 the so-called ductless glands or Endocrine organs whose secretions have 

 enormous influence both on the growth and the function of all the other 

 organs of the body. The question then inevitably occurs to our minds 

 whether all the organs of the body may not exercise the same kind of 

 influence on each other to a lesser degree. (Italics mine.) 



Reasoning further from considerations such as these as to 

 the probability of the inheritance of acquired characters and as 

 to the plausibility, in a somewhat modified form, of Darwin's 

 hypothesis of Pangenesis, Prof. MacBride concludes that many 

 features of the adult are due to the interaction of, and the 

 modifications induced in, one another by the growing organs of 

 the individual. He argues further that 



these modifications are similar in nature to those produced by the external 

 environment (animate rather than physical, I should add) and, like the 

 results of external influences, tend in time to become ingrained in the 

 constitution of the organs on which they act. (Italics mine.) 



All of which may be simplified by saying that evolution is due 

 to a double, i.e., an internal and external form of Symbiosis 

 with the implied work, the capitalisation of the results and the 

 momenta inherent in the respective bio-social processes. 



