BIOLOGY AND HUMAN SOCIETY.
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as an animal. But it is fair to admit that the appeal of Human
Society to Biology for help in modifying the characters and
qualities of Man's symbiotic partners is not due to altruism.
The modifications Biology is asked to bring about may increase
the vigour, the pace, or the staying power of the horse; may
augment the size, the weight or the value of the ox; may
enhance the quality of the fleece or the flesh of the sheep: may
render all three animals less liable to sickness. Changes induced
in particular plants may render a crop easier to cultivate or to
save ; may improve its yield by increasing its out-turn or by
rendering it less liable to damage by blight, or pest, or weather.
But the primary purpose of this biological attention is to render
the animals and plants concerned better fitted to meet the needs
of Human Society and more useful to Man. Individualism
being now a social misdemeanour, Human Society deprecates
the bestowal by Biology of similar attention upon Man as an
animal.
If Human Society has found it necessary at times to substitute
Captivity for Exploitation, and promote useful animals and
plants from slavery to symbiotic partnership, it has also on
occasions had to turn contented serfs adrift and part company
with faithful allies. Last year we had to consider a typical
example of the kind in the case of the Woad crop, which was
so important to Mediaeval Europe as to be regarded a pillar
of civilisation, but found its status impaired in Renaissance
days owing to the competition of exotic indigo, and has, within
our own memories, been banished, along with its rival, from
Human Society because chemistry can now supply indigo
derived from gas-tar at a lower price than the cultivator can
offer natural indigo. The synthetic chemist had, at an earlier
date, by supplying alizarin, similarly rendered the cultivation
of Madder uneconomic; and had, by supplying a cheaper
substitute for cochineal, ruined the planters of Nopal. The
synthetic chemist has similarly deprived the collector of lac-resin
of a market for lac-dye, and has made it unprofitable to cultivate
or to exploit many plants that, a century ago, were relied on as
the sources of drugs. The demands of the motor industry for
varnishes having exceeded the ability of the exploiters of vege-
table resins to meet them, synthetic substitutes were devised
to meet the emergency. Some of these substitutes have proved