176 SYMBIOSIS 



But does he really explain very much with " Degen- 

 erescence " ? His reference to the " means of defence " 

 as the " unique " cause of success, without telling us, however, 

 wherein consists the real strength of resistance in a species, is 

 after all, but a statement of facts a way of begging the true 

 question. And if the " marvellous adaptation " for running 

 is to be considered as the antithesis of degeneration, this 

 rather contradicts the previous generalisation that in Nature 

 every use unfailingly involves degeneration. I agree with 

 Dr. Larger's diagnosis as far as it goes, for instance, when he 

 says : " le Gigantisme Acromegalique est toujours une tare 

 degenerative grave." 



I view the phenomenon, indeed, as so grave as to consider it 

 as but the last link in a long chain of a pathological process 

 due to trespasses against the bio-moral order of the world. 



We are told that the Pterosaurians, which disappeared 

 suddenly with Pteranodon, " sont acromegaliques tout a leur 

 origine," which is merely a conjecture, for we know nothing 

 about origins. The author, however, corrects himself by saying 

 that they were 



Semi-degeneres par avance, mal ou insuffisamment adaptables, par 

 consequent, ils etaient aussi mal armes pour se defendre des maladies et 

 de toutes les causes de destruction. Demi-d6generes des le principe, 

 ils restent des demi-adaptes jusqu' a la fin. 



But whence their initial semi-degeneration ? Did they not 

 spring from erstwhile normal ancestors ? It is futile to trace 

 degeneration down to semi-degeneration and to leave the matter 

 there. Elsewhere Dr. Larger himself protests against the 

 practice of placing " en tete d'un Phylum, au titre ancestral, 

 des animaux degeneres," exclaiming that "c'est purement et 

 simplement un non-sens." I would enter a similar demurrer to 

 his placing at the beginning of a race a semi-degenerate. 



Darwin at least hinted that carnivora may improve their 

 chances of life by becoming less carnivorous, and he further stated 

 that liability to extinction may be due to " lack of improvement 

 according to the principle of the all-important relations of 

 organism to organism in the struggle for life." But there is 

 scarcely an allusion to such (semi-sociological) considerations in 

 Dr. Larger's work. He only just notes that the difference between 

 Pterosaurians and Birds consisted in the fact that the former 

 were cold-blooded animals, whilst the latter are warm-blooded 



