DISCOVERY 



163 



mention the other Arts subjects — are given the same 

 opportunities, that is to say, until there is access to the 

 minimum of necessary books, humane learning will not 

 and cannot flourish at the new universities, but will 

 atropiiy and die as the spirit of eager inquiry is replaced 

 by belief in the formula; of textbooks. Mr. Wyld does 

 not speak too emphatically when he says that " the 

 establishment and further development of these Teaching 

 Libraries is not a mere lu.\ury, desirable indeed, though 

 of secondary importance, but a necessity of the first 

 urgency at the present time, if the study of English 

 philology in this country is ever to become a reality and 

 to yield fruitful results." 



Finally, since it is impossible to discuss all the inter- 

 esting points made in this lecture, we would call attention 

 to the extremely valuable suggestions about " fruitful 

 lines of research which are open to the student of English 

 Philology." As may be imagined by those who know 

 his work. Professor Wyld does not consider the editing 

 of texts as the first need. He urges rather the publica- 

 tion of a series of minute studies on the dialectical dis- 

 tribution of elements of vocabulary, and of well-marked 

 dialect-features ; the importance of place and personal 

 name studies ; and, above all, the primary necessity for 

 the investigation of M.E. and N.E. sound changes, 

 involving a minute study of documents from about 

 1400 onwards. Further, he points out the absence of 

 any adequate inquiry into colloquial idiom from Chaucer's 

 day to our own, and, allied with this, the question of the 

 relation of Uterary and received standard spoken English 

 to the various other forms of spoken English, regional 

 and social. The field of research is large enough to 

 provide work for all comers. It is the business of the 

 universities so to reorganise English philological studies 

 that the labourers may be ready for their task. 



If Professor Wyld is able to work on the lines he has 

 laid down in this inaugural lecture, then the University 

 of Oxford should lead the way in the revival of philological 

 studies in Great Britain. 



Edith J. Morley. 



Symbiosis. A Socio-physiological Study of Evolution. 



By H. Reinheimek. (Hcadley Bros., London, 



1920.) 

 It is one of the easiest and the most unfortunate things 

 in the world to allow oneself to be run away with by an 

 idea. If we were to translate it into biological terms, a 

 proceeding which I am sure would meet with the approval 

 of our author, we should have to call it over-speciahsa- 

 tion ; and over-speciaUsation, as all we biologists know, 

 lies perilously near to extinction. Mr. Reinheimer 

 believes that he has found the secret of all evolutionary 

 truth. Now, it is always dangerous to think that our 

 own pet theory is going to explain the universe, or, 

 indeed, any considerable portion of its workings. Of 

 course it may do so, and then we are Newtons, or Kants, 

 or Darwins, or Einsteins. But we are so much more 

 hkely to have got mounted on a Hippogriff of the worst 

 disposition, which is running us off into the most out- 

 landish places {though all the tin}e we think that we 



are in perfect control !), that it behoves us to be very 

 careful whenever one of our thoughts begins to move 

 with that seductively exhilarating speed. 



Mr. Reinheimer's Hippogriff is, it must be admitted, 

 a glorious beast. From his back, Mr. Reinheimer believes 

 that he can see the why and wherefore of biological 

 progress and extinction, the time-map of life, spread in 

 all clearness beneath him. 



Briefly, his thesis is this : that co-operation between 

 members of different species— in other words, symbiosis 

 in the broadest sense — is the only mode of existence 

 which makes for biological solvency and biological 

 righteousness. He believes that you can draw up a 

 system of Evolutionary Economics, and can see which 

 modes of life result in an excess of expenditure over 

 income, which lead to a growth of capital ; nay, more, 

 that an ethical flavour may be properly introduced into 

 our evolutionary thinking, since only through symbiosis 

 does life achieve its true destiny, which is progress. 



Now, Mr. Reinheimer is right in a number of very 

 important points. He has seen the wood that so many 

 professional biologists fail to perceive for the trees — he 

 has a clear idea of biological progress ; and he has gone 

 further than that, and stressed in a very original and 

 suggestive manner the value of biological co-operation, of 

 symbiotic modes of existence, for achieving such progress. 



But, then, the Hippogriff has taken the bit in its teeth. 

 In the end, our author cannot allow that anything but 

 symbiosis is good, and tries to apply his thesis, like a 

 quack medicine, to all things singularly and collectively. 



Not content with his interesting suggestion that 

 symbiosis is a contributory cause of progress, he insists 

 that an opposed mode of life is definitely the cause of 

 eventual decay and extinction. However much a carni- 

 vore may flourish for the time (and that whether it eat 

 flesh or be a " plant-carnivore," i.e. a herbivore wluch 

 devours without making its proper symbiotic " bio- 

 economic " return), yet it is sowing within its constitution 

 the seeds of its inevitable biological destruction. In some 

 remarkable way, which is to be commended to the notice 

 of bio-chemists, foods differ in their nutritive properties, 

 and somehow affect the constitution of the species 

 differently according as they are manufactured in the 

 holy bonds of symbiosis or illegitimately and non- 

 symbiotically. A quotation will give his point of view : 



"... they [the ductless glands] require to be supplied 

 by the organism with raw material that avails to life in 

 the fullest sense of the word. . . . And such ' tutored ' 

 food, increasing in adequacy with every higher degree 

 of Symbiosis, and ideally equipped with potencies 

 diff usable [sic] with great benefit and without injury 

 over the co-evolved animal body, can only be obtained 

 with the help of symbiotic vegetable partners. . . . We 

 may take it that great irregularity of glandular action 

 ... is the norm amongst predaceous species, which as 

 the result . . . are in the end left with diminished strength 

 and endurance, and with uncouth, ill-shaped bodies " 

 (as, for instance, a tiger ?). 



Frankly, this sort of tiling won't wash ; and it washes 

 less and less the more we look into it. 



