268 



SYMBIOSIS 



deux aspects differents, le degre d'adaptation de parasites a leurs 

 hotes." 



The underlying fallacy, of course, is that Parasitism, and not 

 Co-operation, is the fundamental principle of life ; that all 

 Symbiosis indeed began with Parasitism errors which are widely 

 prevalent amongst Biologists. Were it not that Prof. Bernard 

 had confined his study to a rather " exotic " case of Symbiosis, 

 he would have had little difficulty in meeting with more harmony 

 and less instability. The wonder is that there exists so much 

 harmony when we are faced on the one hand by an eccentric 

 family of monocotyledonous plants, which, by their strange 

 peculiarities, their strange needs and shortcomings, hold a 

 precarious place in the world of life ; and on the other hand by 

 a low and degenerate organism showing almost incalculable 

 fluctuations of character. If two such species can combine with 

 a tolerable measure of success, we can only surmise that it is one 

 of Nature's fundamental ways of extending her sanction to 

 co-operation wherever possible. 



Prof. Bernard had discovered that " la vie dans un embryon 

 peut done rendre a un mycelium completement attenue une 

 partie de 1'activite qu'il avait perdue." In other words, the 

 spirit of Symbiosis is infective. The relatively stronger dis- 

 position for Symbiosis on the part of the higher plant, under 

 adequate conditions, stimulates the weaker disposition of the 

 lower plant. More generally expressed, symbiotic momenta 

 operate so as to encourage, or, where partly lost, to restore, the 

 disposition towards (widely) useful work. Again we may thus 

 conclude that the symbiotic relation provides a fundamental 

 education fitting the organism for useful organic citizenship. . It 

 reads as a further corroboration of this view when Prof. Bernard, 

 as the result of his experiments, tells us that uniformly " les 

 champignons les plus actifs etaient toujours ceux qui avaient 

 le plus longtemps vecu en symbiose." 



As a result of further experiments bearing on the " influence 

 du degr d'activite des Rhizoctones sur 1'evolution des Orchidees," 

 Prof. Bernard inclines to the view that the fungi 



grace a 1'activite meme qu'ils acqueraient progressivement par la symbiose, 

 aient reussi a imposer aux Orchidees des modes de vegetation favorables 

 a une symbiose de plus en plus parfaite. 



Apparently it was this experience, more than any other, that 

 led him to speak of a " Selection " of the orchids by the fungi. 



