238 SYMBIOSIS 



scarcely conceivable that from so unreliable an example of natural 

 reciprocity an adequate and comprehensive view of the role of 

 Symbiosis could be derived. 



When, in the normal course of agriculture, we tend our food- 

 plants, we act (usefully and healthfully) as the symbiotic partners 

 of those plants. We serve them, and they reciprocate by serving 

 us in an equally wholesome manner. The various secretions 

 and " swellings " of plants, which are of high nutritive and 

 evolutionary value to ns, are thus provided by the plants in 

 accordance with the socio-physiological principle of compensation. 

 Upon this fundamental principle, Symbiosis is primarily based 

 a fact which Prof. Bernard is throughout loth to recognise, misled 

 as he is by the idea of the identity of Symbiosis with disease. 



It so happened that the kind of Symbiosis which more 

 specially concerned him, was one taking place in the ends of the 

 earth, as it were to be more exact, in the roots of orchids, 

 inhabited, or " infested," as these frequently are, by various kinds 

 of fungi. (" Les Orchidees et leurs Champignons commemaux.") 



My intention in criticising the " memoire," is not to minimise 

 the merit of the French Botanist's admirable research, or to 

 make any animadversion upon his excellent and painstaking 

 work ; it is rather to impress my contemporaries as profoundly 

 as possible with the fundamental truth, often obscured, or 

 implicitly traversed, by such papers, that sociological laws apply 

 very aptly in Nature, and, further, that such application is well 

 calculated to open a new horizon with regard to the perennial 

 problems of Health and Disease. 



The usual orthodox aversion to a sociological view obtrudes 

 itself in the very definition of Symbiosis, as vouchsafed for us 

 by Prof. Bernard. He says that " symbiose implique sou vent 

 la croyance a une association mutualistique entre des commensaux 

 capables de s'entr'aider," which is certainly non-committal, 

 particularly with regard to sociological implications. Instead 

 of "partnership," Prof. Bernard has thus hit upon " Commens- 

 alism," which is neither fish, flesh nor fowl, although sufficiently 

 " non-moral " to neutralise the yet unavoidable sociological 

 suggestion of " entr'aide." 



(" Commensalism " is a term introduced by P. J. Van Beneden 

 to cover a large number of cases in which animals have established 

 themselves on each other, and live together on a good under- 

 standing and without injury.) 



