644 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I, 
two glucosides is quantitative; coriamyrtin acts more rapidly and more power- 
fully than tutin. Thus, while 0°033 mg. per gramme body-weight of coriamyrtin 
induced convulsions in three minutes, the same dose of tutin took thirty-eight 
minutes. The minimum convulsive dose for frogs is, for coriamyrtin 0-0012 mg. 
per gramme, for tutin 0-012 mg. per gramme body-weight. 
16. Surface Tension as a Factor in determining the Distribution of 
Salts in Living Matter. By Professor A. B. Macatium, F.B.S. 
17. The Secretion of a Mineral Acid by the Kidneys. 
By W. BR. Campsetu and Professor A. B. Macauuum, F.R.S. 
18. Biological Economy. By H. Retnuermer. 
Political and biological economy are complemental. The more this is realised 
the more it becomes evident that the Malthusian generalisation employed in 
Darwinisin is devoid of biological sanction. Constitutionally, organisms are con- 
strained to perform labour, which is activity systematically applied. It is normal 
for organisms to produce values and to render services. The economic bond in 
which they are involved implies due limitation and restraint as regards feeding 
and reproduction. 
The common interests involve praise or blame of each individual or group in 
the degree that their economic behaviour aids or hinders those interests. The 
self-preservation of the organic world demands sympathetic economic relations ; 
whatever is helpful in this direction is legitimate, whatever impedes is 
illegitimate. 
The production of wealth demands a thing to be wrought and individuals to 
use it. Sun and earth are the sources of all organic productions, in which pro- 
ductions under the existing division of labour all classes of organisms co-operate. 
Hence wealth-production is not confined to man. The lowest and humblest 
organisms are often very real economic individuals. 
The fundamental principles of trade—give and take—have been complied 
with as the rule of progressive life before man’s advent. Symbiosis, cross-fer- 
tilisation, cultivation, and distribution of seeds are typical examples. Repro- 
ductive as well as productive powers are subservient to the general interest. 
Cross-fertilisation, based on wholesome economic activity, with generally 
wholesome results, is superior to self-fertilisation, which is more liable to abuse. 
The position of plants in the evolutionary scale is according to production of 
valuable substances. 
The large facts of Nature proclaim that economic sterility spells degeneration. 
Compare the economist’s teaching that labour is the only source of wealth. 
Degeneration is not synonymous with simplification or progressive atrophy. 
The term ‘useful’ in biology is confounding without a definite standard. The 
‘usefulness’ of degeneration is fictitious. 
The ‘in-feeding’ habit causing metabolic abnormality, detrimental to mutual 
aid, is the usual associate of degeneration. It is chiefly responsible for deter- 
mining inferior environments. Cross-feeding, analogous to cross-breeding, is 
superior to ‘in-feeding.’ Parasitism originates in ‘in-feeding’ habits. The 
intensification of the ensuing metabolic abnormality—parasitic diathesis—causes 
antithetic and teratological developments—sexual dimorphism female prepon- 
derance in parthenogenesis and those phenomena of increase of size during 
paleontological periods which Cope’s law takes into account. 
The view that parasitism is but a peculiar physiological habit is insufficient. 
It over-emphasises attachment whilst under-estimating food-stimulation and the 
resulting pathology, being prejudiced against the obvious pathological conclusion 
by the corollary of the doctrine of Natural Selection, which asserts that what- 
ever is, is best. 
The prodigious reproduction of parasites suggests processes of intracellular 
