38 SYMBIOSIS 



a simple and harmoniously balanced dietary is more effective in 

 the end than one consisting of " rich " food and of dainties, replete 

 with artificial stimulations. " Abbondanza genera fastidio." 



But fastidiousness must entail a loss of essentail symbiotic 

 stimulation with less resistance to disease and with greater 

 strains thrown upon the eliminative system. Hence costly 

 eliminations must ensue in order to maintain a modicum of racial 

 purity, and they cannot but leave baneful effects both upon the 

 digestive and generative systems. There is, that is to say, a 

 nemesis of reproduction following in the wake of nutritional 

 exaggerations, which may now be seen in reality to be a nemesis 

 incumbent upon violations of the biological law of Concord, the 

 ^fast-moral law of Symbiosis. 



It has been found that in the reproduction of a " lawless 

 entity," such as the cancer cell, mytosis is defective. My 

 interpretation is that such abnormality is the result of a pro- 

 nounced and prolonged " parasitic diathesis " due in the majority 

 of cases to non-symbiotic feeding which acts as the very anti- 

 thesis to the so-called " law of physiological control," which, as 

 already stated, is no other than the law of Symbiosis. When 

 we come to the norm of life, it is everywhere apparent that Nature 

 is frugal, that she is, in Shakespeare's words, " like a thrifty 

 goddess," and that Milton in particular proved himself " skill 'd 

 to sing of Time and Eternity," in comparing Nature to a good 

 cateress, who 



Means her provision only to the good 

 That live according to her sober laws, 

 And holy dictate of spare temperance. 



Plant and soil, on Dr. Russell's showing, constantly react 

 upon each other ; " each plays an active part, disturbing both 

 the reaction and the distribution of the products." I should 

 say that the plant has its needs and the soil has its needs ; and 

 further that the needs of organic civilisation generally must be 

 adequately considered by the agriculturist. 



Apart from Symbiosis one might have expected that, in view of 

 its predilection for the end-product, the plant would tend to hasten 

 the essential process of nitrate formation spoken of above. But 

 in reality the strenuous plant, being a typical symbiotic worker, 

 a genuine, agent in the web of life, which does not work for 

 " getting rich " quickly and regardless of other interests the 



