THE SPECIFIC FORM. 203 



take a given crystalline form. It is from experiments 

 such as this that we derive the idea of a specific form 

 connected with a chemical constitution. 



But in drawing this conclusion our logic is at fault. 

 The real interpretation suitable to this case, as in all 

 others, is that the specific form is suitable to the 

 substance, and also to the physical, chemical, and 

 mechanical conditions in which it is placed. And 

 the proof is that this same substance, sulphur, which 

 takes the prismatic form immediately after fusion, 

 will not retain that form, but will pass on to the 

 quite different octahedral form. 



It is so with the specific form of the living being 

 that is to say, with the assemblage of its constituent 

 materials co-ordinated in a given system in a word, 

 with its organization. This is suitable to its sub- 

 stance, and to all the material, physical, chemical, 

 and mechanical conditions in which it is placed. This 

 form is the condition of material equilibrium cor- 

 responding to a very complex situation, to a sum of 

 given conditions. The chemical condition is only 

 one of these. And further, it is hardly proper to 

 speak of a " chemical substance " when we refer to an 

 astonishingly complex mixture which is in addition 

 variable from one point to the other of the living 

 body. When we thus reduce phenomena to their 

 original signification, false analogies disappear. To 

 say with Le Dantec that the form of the greyhound 

 is the condition of equilibrium of the "greyhound 

 chemical substance " is saying much ; and too much, 

 if it means that the body of the greyhound has a 

 substance which behaves in the same way as homo- 

 geneous, isotropic masses like melted sulphur and 

 dissolved salt It were better to say much less, if it 



