LIFE FROM THE BIOLOGIST'S STANDPOINT 181 



that same criterion you must apply to all other natural objects, no 

 matter whether some of these be constituents of others, or stand in 

 some other relation to one another. 



Making the statement specific for the case of objects that are com- 

 posed of other objects or substances, it runs thus: Whatever criterion 

 of reality you apply as the test of the elements of a complex body or 

 substance, exactly that same criterion you must apply as a test of 

 the reality of the complex body itself. 



It follows from this, that with the question of a fundamental 

 essence or substance behind properties, we are, as students of objective 

 nature, in no wise concerned. As to whether there is or is not a real 

 essence of sodium, or of salt, to which the sensible properties of these 

 substances adhere, is no affair of ours. Physical science can not even 

 raise the question of an absolute reality or realities behind the objects 

 with which it deals. 



Now let us carry these considerations of the nature of objects and 

 of minds, and the relation existing between them, up into the realm 

 of objects that we call living. The formulary will run thus: In 

 whatever sense you predicate reality, or fundamentality, or ultimateness 

 to the germ or any part of an organism, in exactly the same sense you 

 must predicate reality, or fundamentality, or ultimateness to the com- 

 pleted and whole organism. 



If you have been accustomed to look upon living nature with the 

 conception that somewhere deeply hidden in the plants and animals 

 you daily meet there is something more real than the organisms them- 

 selves, something possessed of a potency wholly unique and mysterious 

 as contrasted with that possessed by the visible beings; or, if you have 

 regarded living beings as ejects of your own consciousness — if, I say, 

 you have been wont to thus regard organisms, grasp fully this concep- 

 tion of reality and of measuring reality and you will find, I believe, 

 that it will transform your world. It will increase your interest in 

 every developed organism as contrasted with your interest in its germ, 

 or any portion of the organism physical or psychical in almost direct 

 proportion as the sensible complexity of the organism as a whole 

 exceeds the sensible complexity of the germ or any part of the 

 organism. 



Here is the epistemological necessity for the conception of an 

 " organism as a whole," the biological compulsion of which we speak 

 later. The point is simply this : Every object in nature has some 

 nature of its own. That is just what makes it belong to nature. Con- 

 sequently there must be something about it which can not be fully 

 accounted for by referring it to something else in nature. For if you 

 could thus dispose of every natural object, nature would consume 

 itself in explanation. You would have the case of the Kilkenny 



