METHODS 133 



effect that we are forced to recognize in them, strictly speak- 

 ing, one and the same phenomenon studied in two different 

 scales. But with regard to the man, the anatomical pheno- 

 menon alone has direct meaning ; it constitutes the loco- 

 motor manifestation and brings the animal into direct rela- 

 tion with exterior objects of the same scale as man. 



" I take my pen, I dip it in the inkstand, I write." Here 

 are phenomena which take place in the scale of man and 

 are capable of purely anatomical description, as here given, 

 in human language. 



An observer of the order of magnitude of colloid pheno- 

 mena would describe the same phenomenon quite differently. 

 He would never speak of pen or inkstand or hand or writing ; 

 the ink alone would still be ink for him. Such an observer 

 would describe the changes in the distribution of the particles 

 which are of his own scale ; and the act, so simple for us 

 men, would be for him an incomprehensible story of astro- 

 nomical chaos. 



Yet it would be the same phenomenon, but observed 

 in colloid mechanisms. Only, as its adaptation belongs to 

 man's order of magnitude?, this would be lost on a colloid 

 observer too small to get acquainted with human synthesis. 



On the contrary, in the case of the struggle of a toxin 

 with a histological element where the phenomenon itself 

 is of colloid order, the colloid observer would describe it 

 in a very simple and clear way ; but for us men the fabrica- 

 tion of antitoxic serums is simply a wonder. And yet, 

 thanks especially to the genius of Willard Gibbs, we are 

 now able to speak of phenomena that take place on a scale 

 smaller than our own in the synthetic language of equilibrium. 

 For that matter, we can work out syntheses on a smaller 

 scale than our own more easily than on a larger scale. If 

 there is one being formed of nebulae, just as we are formed 



