Spencer Heath Archive

Item 59

Important fragment penciled by Heath on deteriorating notepad paper.

October 1944

 

Original is in item 56.

 

/SYMBIOSIS/

 

     All animals, above the very lowest, have some form of association. When conjoined in structure as well as in function they form the higher animals. This is called con­junctive symbiosis. When they are separate in structure, and conjoined only in function, they form colonies, families, flocks, herds, clans and tribes. This is called disjunctive symbiosis. In both cases, the result of the symbiosis (living together) is an organism higher and more complex than the more or less specialized organisms of which it is composed.

     In conjunctive symbiosis, as in the case of all the higher animals, every single animal cell, however modified, is the lineal descendent from the same original embryonic cell. In disjunctive symbiosis, every single member of the organism is a direct lineal descendent of the founder of the family, flock, herd, clan or tribe. In conjunctive symbiosis organisms of the highest differentiation of parts and complexity of structure have evolved. In disjunctive symbiosis there is a lesser amount of differentiation and, except in connection with reproduction, a lesser degree of interdependence among the units of which the higher organism is composed.

     In both cases the association (symbiosis) is between and among members having a common ancestry, and it results in greater adaptation and conformity to the dictates of environ­ment.

 

     But in the case of mankind there is a form of disjunc­tive symbiosis that includes and transcends and does not depend on any community of ancestry, in which the relation­ship between the members is not biological but societal, and in virtue of which relationship society or the social organism is formed.