THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY 59 



upon the symbiotic organism are as valuable to life as are the 

 direct benefits bestowed by the symbiotic relation on all 

 participants. In Nature as in human life it is thus true that 

 idleness is the end of chastity and that immoral conduct is the 

 cause of waste and disease to others. Dr. Scheppegrell is very 

 emphatic that the large majority of the plants whose pollen 

 give rise to hay fever are worthless weeds, " which are alike an 

 expense to the fanner and a menace to health." 

 We are also told that 



The indirect reaction of pollinosis is partly due to the absorption of the 

 protein contents of the pollen, and the toxin formed by the proteolytic 

 action of the cells. 



The protein content of the pollen, in other words, gives rise 

 in the patient to an " anaphylactic " condition. The subject 

 of Anaphylaxis and its connections with non-symbiotic methods 

 and ways has been fully dealt with in my book on " Symbio- 

 genesis." I think I may fairly refer the reader to that book 

 without enlarging any further on the subject here. 



Reverting now to the way in which Symbiosis from the earliest 

 times involved the inception of bio-moral relations, it was, no 

 doubt, the most portentous and the most memorable moment 

 of time when, in the dawn of life, the " genius " of some unicellular 

 creatures hit upon the method of systematic biological co-opera- 

 tion as a means of solving the economic problems confronting 

 them. There was a very long bacterial stage of life, during which 

 epoch bacteria-like organisms prepared both the earth and the 

 ocean for the further evolution of plants and animals. How do 

 such pioneer organisms live ? They are simple feeders, deriving 

 their energy and their nutrition directly from inorganic compounds. 

 There is no need for them to resort to depredation. On the 

 contrary. And it is more than questionable whether any degree 

 of depredation would have permitted them to carry on their 

 indispensable pioneer work as efficiently and as successfully as 

 it has been performed by them. These primitive workers relied 

 upon cross-feeding, and, so far from habitually inflicting pain 

 on any sentient creatures, seem to have painfully indeed, but 

 without pain to others, produced an all-essential fund of organic 

 capital for succeeding races of plants and animals. Honest and 

 harmless toilers these : what grounds have we for alleging that 

 they were not possessed at least of unconscious morality ? Do 

 they not fulfil the requirements of morality, as laid down in the 



