CONFORMITY WITH PLAN 303 



substances. By affinity was at the same time understood a 

 mutual process of attraction, which was part of the peculiarity. 

 The word affinity was then applied to the relationship of 

 sounds, although these possess no reciprocal power of attrac- 

 tion. Since chemistry has developed more and more into 

 microphysics, concrete, mechanical ideas have begun to 

 break down the concept of affinity. As a matter of fact, 

 nothing nowadays stands in the way of our basing all mixing 

 of substances on a mechanical idea. To understand the 

 fixed arrangement of the atoms in the molecule, we may 

 represent the atom as an already formed spatial magnitude, 

 holding on to its neighbours by means of peg and socket joints. 



/'An atom of this kind is already a shaped, three- - 

 dimensional object, and has lost the original meaning implicit 

 in the word, i.e. indivisibility : for only what is without form 

 can be thought of as indivisible. We must so express our- 

 selves that there can be no misunderstanding as to which 

 kind of atom we mean — whether an elementary particle 

 having form in space, and carrying out certain mechanical 

 tasks, or the ultimate sense-quality from which the world of 

 appearance is constructed. The latter is always just a local 

 sign associated with a content-sign.) 



It is possible to refer all chemical processes to the con- 

 crete idea of peg and socket joints, if, in addition, we bring 

 in a polar tension drawing the pegs to the sockets and repelling 

 like structures from one another. 



For the building up of a living organism from the germ 

 the impulses have at their disposal numerous chemical struc- 

 tures with complicated peg and socket joints, and their polar 

 tensions. What the impulses themselves must bring in is the 

 building-sequence through their rhythm. 



The mistake of all anti-vitalistic hypotheses as to the 

 genesis of the organism lies in their regarding the building- ^ 

 sequence as already given in the material. It is just as 



