Sketch of an Organismal Theory of Consciousness 287 



i 



definite chemical knowledge, that if they are entitled to rank 

 as constituting a legitimate scientific hypothesis, this must 

 be on grounds other than those of present-day technical 

 chemistry quite as much as on those of such chemistry. In 

 attempting, consequently, to establish the propositions on a 

 true and useful hypothetical basis, it will be permissible to 

 notice these other grounds first. 



Preliminary Justification of the Hypothesis as Such 



The proposition that each living individual has the chem- 

 ical value of an elementary substance, will receive attention 

 first, and the initial step will be to inquire what, in general, 

 the criterion is of an elementary chemical substance. Here, 

 for instance, is a lump of phosphorus. In virtue of what is 

 it declared to be such a substance? Not primarily, let us 

 specially notice, because the phosphorus is simple, that is 

 to say, is an element in the sense of not being reducible to 

 still simpler substances. Rather the basal criterion of its 

 being a chemical substance is that upon its being brought 

 into contact under certain conditions with certain other 

 chemical substances, oxygen for instance, there is produced 

 a third substance having very different attributes from either 

 of the original substances. Transformation of substances 

 chiefly through interaction upon one another is the founda- 

 tion fact which has brought it to pass that substances are 

 described as chemical. That is the fact upon which the 

 science of chemistry primarily rests. Facts and problems 

 of simplicity and complexity, relative and absolute, are 

 later and secondary. The task of chemistry "consists in the 

 investigation of substances and those of their processes by 

 which the physical attributes of the substances undergo 

 permanent changes." (Handzvorterbuch der Naturwissen^ 



schaft.) 



Every adequate definition of chemistry and chemical sub- 



