CONSCIOUSNESS AS A VITAL FUNCTION 287 



ergy — physics, chemistry, physiology, optics, acous- 

 tics, etc. These patterns, it is true, may be quantita- 

 tively expressed, and are known to be related in math- 

 ematically definite orders; one British thermal unit of 

 heat is mechanically equivalent to 778 foot-pounds of 

 mass movement. Though there are physiological pro- 

 cesses which as such are not identical with any pro- 

 cesses of inorganic nature, yet these may be shown to 

 be compounded of well-known physico-chemical ele- 

 ments; and they do not thereby lose their distinctive 

 physiological patterns.' 



It is the current scientific belief that all forms of 

 energy are mutually convertible without loss or in- 

 crement and that these transformations are constant- 

 ly taking place in accordance with definite quantita- 

 tive laws, many of which are accurately known. 

 Parallel with this law of conservation of energy there 

 was developed the law of conservation of matter. The 

 chemical fabrications and dissociations of molecules 

 take place in accordance with laws capable of quanti- 

 tative expression, and the recent analysis of the atom 

 has not yet led to any generally accepted fundamental 

 modification of these laws of quantitative relations of 

 material and dynamic units. Throughout all these 

 transformations of energy and matter we meet count- 

 less changes in patterns of combination, but the laws 

 of these changes are knit together in an integral sys- 



^ On the question of pattern in organisms, see Kingsbury (1913) 

 and Child (1921, 1^240). 



