igo SYMBIOSIS 



adumbrates that there is a struggle between Good and Evil, 

 i.e., between physiological and pathological factors, a 



lutte du Bien et du Mai lutte incessante, avec des alternatives de 

 succes et de* revers de part et d'autre et cela, depuis 1'etat embryonnaire 

 jusqu'a la mort de 1'individu ; depuis 1'apparition jusqu'a 1'extinction 

 du groupe ; mais lutte dans laquelle, nous venons de le voir, le Mai finit 

 toujours fatalement, bien qu'a la longue, par 1'emporter sur le Bien. 



This amounts almost to a religion of fatalism, and it has its 

 basis in the fact that the founder only begins with the symptoms 

 of comparatively advanced disease, the phase past redemption, 

 and ignores the inceptional stage, including the real " raison 

 d'etre " of the conflict concerned. The fatal ending of the 

 Degenerate is not at all to be regarded as a victory of Evil over 

 Good. What is past praying for is eliminated : that is all. The 

 41 Good," i.e., the bio-economically useful, survives. 



In arguing that it is " Degenerescence," and not " Natural 

 Selection/' which is chiefly responsible for destruction, the 

 author tells us that it is a great error to believe that the approach- 

 ing extinction of elephants and whales is due to the action of 

 man : 



La verite est que ces animaux sont en train de disparattre parce 

 qu'etant considerablement reduits et amoindris par la Degenerescence 

 demontree par les lesions anatomo-pathologiques de rAcromtgalie-Gigan- 

 tisme, la destruction brutale [chasse] peut s'operer et s'accomplir efficace- 

 ment. Cette action serait au contraire negligeable, comme elle Test chez 

 les lapins et les Rongeurs en general, si les Elephants et les Baleines etaient, 

 de meme que ces derniers, des animaux normaux, c'est-a-dire capables 

 de reparer leurs pertes par une extreme fecondite : ce qui n'est pas. 



We have seen, however, that " Degenerescence " is no more 

 the true cause of extinction, than extreme fecundity is a symptom 

 of genuine survival. Man, by his inferior instincts, becomes a 

 kind of scavenger, a kind of "executioner," to whom many 

 over-fed and morbid types fall a prey much in the same way as 

 they do to parasitic micro-organisms. We need not, therefore, 

 deny the well-known agency of man in the destruction of these 

 types in order to bolster up a distinctive " Contre-E volution." 

 What we need to do is this : to apportion the role played by the 

 respective appetites in determining the fate of the organism. 

 Dr. Larger's continuation, indeed, very pertinently provokes 

 such an interpretation : 



Pareil fait a celui qui s'est passe a la Jamai'que arriva en Australie 

 ou les conditions, en depit de la grandeur de Tile, sont cependant 



