204 The Unity of the Organism 



other well-known attributes of the elements, they possess 

 dog's-scratch-reflex attributes. But, the name thus sug- 

 gested for the newly discovered attributes being cumber- 

 some, we may devise for them some term more simple and 

 convenient — for example, do-sca-re-x, doscarex. 



In virtue, then, of the doscarecious powers of oxygen, 

 carbon, and so forth (the fact that these powers can only 

 be assigned in the lump and not distributively to the several 

 elements should not be lost sight of though it may be neg- 

 lected for the present argument), a complete physico-chem- 

 ical explanation of the phenomenon under consideration is 

 reached. 



Does this discussion advance the interpretation, the under- 

 standing of biological phenomena beyond the familiar sar- 

 casm about explaining drug-induced sleep as due to a dor- 

 mitive principle of the drug? Yes, I maintain, it does, 

 because in place of a "principle" attached to no particular 

 drug but to any sleep-producing substance, the doscarecious 

 powers recognized by us are definitely assigned to the chem- 

 ical elements known to be the sole constituents of organ- 

 isms. The new powers take their place perfectly, definitely 

 and positively among the other attributes of the elements, 

 the assignment being based on the solid ground of analyses, 

 laboratory and other, made through years of scientific re- 

 search. But an exceedingly important point which comes 

 in sight here is that though these doscarecious powers are 

 proved to be real ones, they are latent and wholly unknown 

 to inorganic chemistry for tlie reason that they never mani- 

 fest themselves under any other combination of things than 

 just that which in its totality Zoology has named dog. A dog, 

 and a dog only, is able to cause oxygen, carbon and the 

 other elements to reveal these particular scratch-reflex 

 powers. The dog comes in as a sine qua non to the pro- 

 duction of, and hence to the causal explanation of, the 

 particular group of activities under consideration. We 



