Sketch of an Organismal Theory of Consciousness 305 



the status of an indirect participant in producing the par- 

 ticular consciousness which we call observational knowledge 

 of the gas. Our knowledge of this one gas is due to two 

 things, (1) to our reaction to it through our sense organs 

 in the usual psychological meaning of react; and (2) to our 

 reaction with it through the protoplasmic basis of all con- 

 sciousness, reaction in this case having the meaning which 

 chemistry has given the word. What the relation is be- 

 tween the attributes of the gas in virtue of which it reacts 

 with the organism in these two ways, and also what the rela- 

 tion is between the attributes of the organism in virtue of 

 which it reacts with the gas in these two ways, are questions 

 with which a theory of knowledge would deal but which lies 

 outside of the scope of this sketch, which, as has already 

 been said, restricts itself to a theory of consciousness. I 

 may, however, refer in passing to the fact that chemistry 

 appears to be all at sea on the problem of the relation be- 

 tween the chemical and the physical attributes of all sub- 

 stances whatever ; so the difficulties about oxygen in this one 

 particular are not an unshared difficulty. 



Finally, to bring this exposition of the historical setting 

 of my hypothesis down to the present hour, I call attention 

 to the way the hypothesis connects with the best that formal 

 philosophy in our own day has done, or as I suspect is 

 competent to do, towards making out what "experience" is. 

 No philosopher with whom I have met has gone farther in 

 this direction than John Dewey. In his recent essay, A Re- 

 covery of Philosophy, we read : "Dialectic developments of 

 the notion of self-preservation, of the conatus essendi, often 

 ignore all the important facts of the actual process. They 

 argue as if self-control, self-development, went on directly as 

 a sort of unrolling push from within. But life endures only 

 in virtue of the support of the environment. 9 ' The italics 

 are mine and mark the most vital part of the quotation for 

 us. And a page farther on: "Experience is no slipping 



