THE WONDER OF LIFE 507 



that he regards the first introduction of the albuminoid 

 substance as modifying the blood by producing in it, 

 during the so-called incubation period, a chemical sub- 

 stance, which is not in itself toxic, but which is capable of 

 becoming immediately and violently toxic in the presence 

 of the original albumiuoid. 



Chemical Individuality. — One of the general ideas 

 that rises in the mind after a consideration of some of the 

 facts of anaphylaxis, is that of the chemical individuality 

 of an organism. It is characteristic — fundamentally 

 characteristic — of an organism that it carries its past into 

 its present, that ' time bites into it ' as Bergson puts it, 

 and there is often very considerable variety in individual 

 experience. Many different kinds of substances enter into 

 the organism, and some of them may bring about modifica- 

 tion, either in the direction of anaphylactization or immuni- 

 zation, and thus each individual of a species may differ 

 from every other in chemical composition. We know 

 indeed experimentally that there are these individual 

 differences, some of them probably germinal or innate, 

 some of them modificational or extrinsic, in origin. An 

 individual is an individual not only to his finger-prints, 

 but to his chemical molecules. And it seems to us that 

 the anaphylaxis experiments clearly show that the vague 

 ' idiosyncrasy ' of the past must give place to a more 

 definite conception of a chemical individuahty which not 

 only expresses the new imity which is estabhshed in every 

 fertihzed egg-cell, but embodies the results of the indivi- 

 dual's physiological history, just as his psychological 

 personahty is ever registering his mental experiences. 



But while there are minor idiosyncrasies (distinguishing 

 between the individual members of a species, distinguish- 



