148 SYMBIOSIS 



stimulation. If, as Mr. Stiles says, there is no way of limiting 

 their distribution and bringing them to bear upon a restricted 

 portion of the system, as might be conceivably of some benefit in 

 the application of drugs, such limitation of the operation of 

 internal secretions may not be in the least desirable or beneficial 

 to the organism. I should say that health and growth depend 

 precisely upon a uniform diffusion of these special products of 

 the joint evolution of plant and animal, the effect of which 

 is to stimulate all parts harmoniously to co-operative and widely 

 useful work. Mr. Stiles concedes that the body needs a " slow 

 and uniform delivery " of internal secretions, as though having 

 regard to the requirements of symbiotic moderation. It is not 

 enough, however, to say that the glands, as the suppliers of 

 indispensable normal stimulations, work according to " duty," 

 and to leave it there. We must recognise that they require in 

 turn to be treated according to " duty." For instance, they 

 require to be supplied by the organism with raw material that 

 avails to life in the fullest sense of the word. This necessitates 

 an adequate supply of special, matured food food, instinct 

 with influences congenial to a permanent and harmonious co- 

 operation of the parts. And such " tutored " food, increasing 

 in adequacy with every higher degree of Symbiosis, and ideally 

 equipped with potencies diffusable with great benefit and with- 

 out injury over the co -evolved animal body, can only be 

 obtained with the help of symbiotic vegetable partners. 

 We are told : 



At the back of the abdominal cavity, above the kidneys, are the paired 

 structures known as the adrenal bodies. Insignificant as they appear, 

 they are vital organs, the removal of which is followed swiftly by prostra- 

 tion and death. Something must go out from them which gives tone 

 and efficiency to more than one system. When the adrenals are gradually 

 wasted by disease, the failure of strength corresponds with the degree 

 of their destruction. Their extracts do not successfully compensate for 

 the lack of living cells ; the body seems to need a slow, uniform delivery 

 of this internal secretion, and periodic dosing does not prove equivalent 

 to the natural condition. 



And what, again, is the " natural condition " in which all 

 the parts may be slowly and uniformly, i.e., moderately and 

 harmoniously supplied in a manner not to be equalled by 

 artificial means ? It is the condition provided by a symbiotic 

 relation with the implied reliability of support and the 



