THE ECONOMY OF NATURE 15 



survival or about its real importance and status in the web of 

 life. The fundamental and abiding fact in the above example 

 is the symbiotic industry of the plant. In this industry the humble- 

 bee shares, not by way of " intervention," as Darwin puts it, 

 but by way of systematic biological partnership. " Interven- 

 tions " begin with the uncalled for and illegitimate role of the 

 mice, whose predatoriness calls upon them the infliction of the 

 hyper-" intervention " of the still more predatory cats. Further, 

 this hyper-" intervention " is not so unconnected with influences 

 coming from Symbiosis as at first sight it looks. For the cats 

 exist only by the good will of man a symbiotic partner of the 

 plant whose interest is in so far identical with the plant's as to 

 require the decimation of vermin, if need be by biological 

 " executioners." 



Who would deny that man is pre-eminently in need of the 

 industry of the plant ; that he is a symbiotic partner of the 

 plant ; and that, hence, it is his biological duty to protect the 

 industrious plant as far as possible against its enemies ? Is it 

 not, therefore, that the symbiotic plant by its good services 

 unconsciously obtains the most potent, i.e., conscious pro- 

 tection in the world of life ? Is it not also that in the place of 

 " unexpected " checks in a vague or blind " struggle for exist- 

 ence/' we arrive at the conception of definite checks with strict 

 reference to the bio-economic usefulness of the respective species 

 in the world of life ? Professor J. Arthur Thomson states in one 

 of his books that the only correct way of viewing life is to view 

 it whole. " But," he adds, " it is somehow difficult to make 

 good science of the tout-ensemble." I believe one reason why 

 we have not yet succeeded in obtaining a good and compre- 

 hensive biological science is the wholly arbitrary way in which 

 Biologists regard man as a being apart from nature. No sooner 

 had " Evolution " established man's descent from animal origins 

 than it proceeded to pitchfork him out of Nature a being quite 

 unique in aims and compelled by them to be in perpetual 

 rebellion against natural law a view as absurd as that which 

 regards the animal generally as a typically predaceous kind of 

 organism. But man is inseparably linked to the plant-kingdom 

 by eternal laws of organic sociology, and his whole make-up 

 must be understood in the light of that relation. This fact 

 largely accounts for his abhorrence of vermin and even for his 

 occasional alliances with the feline animals a type of creature 



