Sketch of an Orgtwismal Theory of Consciousness 347 



of decompositions whereby carbonic acid and other matters 

 are discharged first into the substance of the muscle and 

 subsequently, into the blood." 34 And he points out in other 

 connections that what is true of muscle in this regard is es- 

 sentially true of all other tissue systems. In another still 

 more recent text book we read: "Nothing definite is known, 

 however, as to the nature of the probable combinations 

 formed by oxygen with the different materials for building 

 up muscles and other tissues, or of the intermediate anabolic 

 and katabolic forms through which it passes in combining 

 with carbon into carbonic acid." 35 And this author then 

 expresses what are, apparently, his own views, by quoting 

 from Foster as follows : "The whole mystery of life lies hid- 

 den in the story of that progress [that of construction and 

 destruction in the tissues] and for the present we must be 

 content with simply knowing the beginning and the end." 



The kernel of my suggestion so far as metabolism is Con- 

 cerned, is that the anabolic, or the assimilative, the truly 

 synthetic aspect of the complete operation, is the continual 

 renewal, or keeping up of the oxygen constituent of the 

 organism which comes to it by heredity, that is which has 

 always been in the "line of descent." It is the maintenance 

 of what might be spoken of as the original oxygen constitu- 

 ent of the organism. There would always then be operating 

 in the organism oxygen of two sources, that from the one 

 source designated, employing our well-established evolutional 

 terminology, phylogenic or hereditary oxygen ; and the other 

 ontogenic or individual oxygen. In general the same kind 

 of reasoning would hold for the other chemical simples, car- 

 bon, nitrogen, and so on; but these are in quite a different 

 status from oxygen owing to the fact that they are not 

 normally taken by the animal organism in the pure or uncom- 

 bined state, but only in some other organic combination, 

 as food in the ordinary sense. 



Metabolically expressed, then, we may say in short that 



