^42 The Unity of the Organism 



investigator, was to the effect that chemical analyses make 

 known what they find and absolutely no more. In other 

 words such analyses never exclude the possibihty of sub- 

 stances other than those found. And this chemist asserted 

 furthermore that all organic analyses leave residues to some 

 extent. No manipulative methods are known, it appears, 

 capable of effecting a really complete analysis of any or- 

 ganic substance. Whether these restrictions on analyses 

 still hold I am not sure, though I have seen or heard nothing 

 which leads me to suppose they do not. 



It is this general shadow of manipulative imperfection 

 which overhangs all formal physics and chemistry, coupled 

 with the advances being made from time to time in our 

 knowledge of oxygen and air which has led me to put into my 

 hypothesis a shade of doubt as to whether oxygen is the con- 

 stituent of the air the reaction of which with the organism 

 produces consciousness. The demonstration of helium and 

 argon, and probably neon, crypton, and xenon in atmos- 

 pheric air, all within a little more than two decades, has 

 influenced my thinking in the same direction. Besides, the 

 idea, become a commonplace of physics and chemistry in a 

 single night, figuratively speaking, that the "atom is as com- 

 plex as the solar system" has had its part in shaping my 

 conceptions ; as have also such well-credentialed conceptions 

 from the inorganic sciences as that "Uranium II" is "a long- 

 lived element" which is the "parent of the actinium series of 

 elements, but has no genetic connection with the uranium 

 series" ; and that "in the lead pleiad there are seven ele- 

 ments having quite different atomic weights." ^^ 



The extent to which, as exemplified by this case, the inor- 

 ganic sciences have found themselves driven into the organic 

 realm for terms with which to express their new conceptions 

 must impress every thoughtful person. Earlier, what we 

 might describe as p\4rely contemporaneous physical dynamics 

 had to borrow such terms as energy, power, force, work. 



