52 Vil.alHi/ and Organization of Protoplasm. 



nature is evidenced here by the peculiar work it is performing ; the work 

 of chemically reintegrating the structure and form of organic beings, 

 whose modes of reaction are mechanically unaccountable. It may 

 therefore confidently be looked upon as vital and formative energy with- 

 out losing its character as essentially a chemical process. A chemical 

 fragment of the living substance represents a phyletically accumulated 

 store of most specific potential energy. There is here no abrupt intro- 

 duction of some transcendent kind of force or energy imposed from 

 outside upon the chemical substance composing organic beings, and be- 

 lieved to mould and to vitalize their structures. The living substance 

 is by force of its own chemical composition structurally organized, and 

 by force of its cycle of chemical activities vitalized. Vital energy arises 

 here naturally and inirinsically from the chemical constitution of the 

 substance composing organic beings, and is displayed in consequence of 

 their functional interaction with the influences of the medium. It is 

 obvious that the maintenance of the definite structure of protoplasmic 

 individuals is the work of this formative and vitalizing energy. The 

 definite chemical constitution of the living substance evinces itself to 

 our spatial vision as a definitely organized form. 



If we, furthermore, ask what in reality constitutes chemical compo- 

 sition with its specific modes of qualitative reaction, we have to confess 

 til at this question transcends as yet the limits of our knowledge. Suf- 

 fice it to say, that, whatever theory may be advanced with regard to the 

 ultimate constitution of what is called matter, chemical constitution is 

 clearly recognized as a mode of composition, differing from mere physical 

 aggregation of equal molecules by forming integrant bodily units, of 

 which all component elements are interdependently bound together by 

 a specific bond which is figuratively called chemical affinity. And it 

 is certain that the qualitative modes of reaction of such chemical com- 

 pounds, which in organic beings give rise to such striking phenomena; 

 that these specific modes of reaction are mechanically incalculable. 

 Driesch conceives them as "intensive manifoldness," because they have 

 their being, not in a spatially mechanical arrangement of parts, which 

 could react on stimulation only in one single definite nianner; but sub- 

 sist in a hypermechanical, superspatial, vital sphere, which admits of 

 manifoldly complex modes of reaction on the part of one and the same 

 spatially visible substance. 



