MALADIE ET SYMBIOSE 249 



this is a great error and is, in fact, confounding two opposite prin- 

 ciples, namely, that of obtaining food by honest labour, on the 

 one hand, and that of obtaining it without, on the other though 

 still under association ; for it is, of course, not so much associa- 

 tion per se as the value in organic civilisation of the association 

 that counts. Had the French Botanist but fully realised the 

 real possibilities of the " aptitude physiologique a la symbiose," 

 as illustrated by the highest forms of Norm-Symbiosis, how very 

 different would have been his outlook ! Even his discovery of 

 the occasional use made by higher plants of a kind of Phagocytosis, 

 and his reference to the " humoral " capacities of organisms, 

 fail to convince us that Symbiosis is cognate to disease. These 

 factors of defence merely come under the head of general resistance, 

 in which an organism is the richer the more it contributes to the 

 sum of organic well-being. The power of Phagocytosis itself I 

 consider to be the outcome of (internal) Symbiosis. I have 

 already stressed the fact that many low and parasitic species of 

 animals are deficient in wandering phagocytes the lack of 

 useful activity on the part of the species involving lack of symbiotic 

 support. In the symbiotic relation between orchid and fungus, 

 Prof. Bernard sees 



un trait de moeurs tres ancien, anterieur meme, selon toute apparence, 

 a 1'epoque reculee ou sont apparus les premiers representants de cette 

 grande famille de plantes. 



Instead of " trait de moeurs," I would here speak of symbiotic 

 sense as a conception more in accordance with the facts 

 of co-evolution between animals and plants, including 

 psychological correlations. Such symbiotic sense is capable of 

 many special applications, modifications and also of reversals. 

 We may well grant the remote origin of the inter-relation between 

 orchids and fungi ; but, as I have said, we must weigh the 

 possibility of a onetime totally different value in the relation. 

 Evidently, some fungi have preserved the symbiotic sense better 

 than others, for we are told that : 



D'autre part, la perte du pouvoir de faire germer les graines chez les 

 Rhizoctones soumis a la vie autonome tend a montrer qu'il existe dans 

 la nature, pour chaque espece de ces champignons, deux series de races 



distinctes L'une de ces series comprend les Rhizoctones 



commensaux qui sont passes sans cesse d'une Orchidee a une autre, sans 

 intervalles de vie autonome assez longs pour que 1'activite necessaire a 

 1'etablissement de chaque association nouvelle ait 6te perdue. L'autre 



