MALADIE ET SYMBIOSE 253 



We are told : 



Quand on consulte les statistiques donnees par Schlicht, Janse, Stahl, 

 Gallaud, ou d'autres, sur les cas de symbiose chez les vegetaux superieurs, 

 les meilleures regies generates qu'on arrive a degager sont les suivantes : la 

 presque totalite des plantes herbages vivaces et le plus grand nombre des 

 plantes arborescentes hebergent des champignons ; les plantes annuelles au 

 contraire sont regulierement indemnes. 



I should consider it, on many grounds, far from likely that in 

 most of these cases the fungi have played the same part as in 

 the orchids. In some cases their role may have been merely to 

 supply water ; in others they may have gained ingress only 

 temporarily and without being permitted to effect any noteworthy 

 change at all. 



Prof. Bernard throws out the hint that all evolutionary progress 

 may be based upon what one might call " nurtural " (socio- 

 logical) contrivances, as the following passage indicates : 



Peut-on affirmer que des caracteres constants dans les conditions 

 naturelles de la vie, apparemment capables de servir a la definition des 

 especes, ne sont pas en realite des caracteres adaptatifs persistant grace 

 au maintien de conditions de vie constantes bien qu'encore inconnues ou 

 trop mal definies, comme persistent les caracteres propres des betteraves 

 sucrieres grace aux soins constants et bien connus du cultivateur ? 



In other words, the organism has become what it is, because 

 of what it has done or left undone in the course of its evolution, 

 and the conditions of its development " encore inconnues ou trop 

 mal definies/' are precisely the sociological conditions for which 

 it was itself in large measure responsible. Instead of " culti- 

 vateur " and "soins constants et bien connus," read " symbiotic 

 partner," " symbiotic endeavour," and " symbiotic awareness," 

 and it is plain that the study of Symbiosis has brought Prof. 

 Bernard " malgre soi," as it were, within measurable distance 

 of the recognition for which I contend, namely, that evolution 

 is pre-eminently a socio-physiological process. 



According to Prof. Bernard's discovery, the fungi which live 

 in Symbiosis with the orchids, are marked by a special mode 

 of growth when living in the roots or in the tissues of seedlings : 



ils envahissent les cellules de proche en proche en formant dans chacune, 

 avant de gagner la voisine, un peloton de filaments contourne"s, ramifies 

 et enchevetres d'une fa9on fort complexe. 



That is to say that the hyphae of the fungus, under such 

 conditions, form very characteristic clusters. I would interpret 

 this as indicating that the effect of Symbiosis upon the fungus 



