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Excerpt from Symbiosis a Socio-Physiological Study of Evolution Ours is a busy age, and it has little patience with long dissertations. I have thought fit, therefore, to preface my remarks by as brief as possible a statement of my case. The main conclusion which I wish to enforce is that the normal relations between organisms, more particularly those having regard to food, involve, quite indispensably, a stupendous amount of systematic biological reciprocity, so that upon all organisms, be they high or low in the scale of life, there devolve definite duties and obligations, on pain of degeneration or destruction, viz., to contribute in their several ways to the welfare of the organic family as a whole. I consider the normal growth of organic wealth in the shape of powers and capacities as not dissimilar, and not inferior in importance, to that of the normal growth of wealth in human societies. In either case wealth is due to effort, genius, and to the co-operation of all in the utilisation of natural riches. 1 regard the totality of organisms as a kind of world-society, the various species and families of plants and animals being the individuals of which this world-society is made up; and, just as in human societies, the progress and the success or happiness of the individuals depend upon the character of their mutual relations and behaviour, i.e., their conduct. As in human societies, too, such conduct either makes for the good of the whole and the parts or it does not, and so a quasi-moral character belongs to all such "conduct" of individual species. The ways, movements, efforts and aims of organisms are all in this sense "good" or "bad," and there is, therefore, a biological morality throughout, which docs not, of course, involve conscious decision or really ethical praise or blame of the individuals concerned. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgot