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Holistic behavior (no division without qualitative destruction, etc.)  ( NOTE 276)   and wholeness-involvement [wholeness-orderedness, the parts are ordered to the whole] is present in all world-individuals, including inorganic molecules [they are true metaphysical substances or true beings, which fact we had established in the series of documents preceding the present series (on Unimol)].  There [in inorganic wholes], it is not a problen to us because we believe to have it determined by definite simple rules [such as the stoichiometric laws in chemistry] and because our scientific curiosity in this respect is sufficiently satisfied by physical and chemical laws. For us, now, only the active organismic wholes are important, whose causal functions are based on fimal tendencies followed by these wholes for the sake of their existence [they are strategies to exist].

The problem of organismic wholeness, since long having been demanded and acknowledged by diagnostic and therapeutic medicine, as well as by experimental biological research ( NOTE 277) , can expect to obtain far-reaching clarification from the standpoint of Unimol.

If one considers in a non-preconceived manner only the individual life processes taking place in the "parts", then, with respect to the cooperation resulting in a rational whole [a cooperation, of parts, ordered to the whole], the idea of entelechies [immaterial, but immanent, principles of organismic formation]  ( NOTE 278)   as coordinating factors, is almost unavoidable. In this, it doesn't matter what expression one cares to choose, because as long as behind the concept of wholeness there is not an at least hypothetical rational attempt to explain, it is just an entelechy. Therefore, also the view of the living whole to be a  system of interactions  consisting of a number of components ( NOTE 279) , can only be seen as a virtual vitalism in the form of an attempted but in no way succeeded mechanistic explanation. The same features are also shown in the statements of the sort that the dynamical order as opposed to a static one is emphasized. Despite the seeming smallness of the difference [to be given right in a minute], it is highly important :  the whole does not causally -- and then in fact metaphysically -- influence the parts, i.e. does not have impact  upon  the parts [as if there were two entities, viz., the whole and the parts], but acts in quasi-molecular unity  within  the parts  as  a whole.  Wholeness is not something accompanying, something super-ordered, nothing additional, but a direct personal identity.

It is not an immaterial priciple of order and not an accessory phenomenon, but the  truest inner structure,  determining the behavior of the parts (in fact an awkward expression). This wholeness is of course also not a from time to time or often intervening act, but an uninterruptedly in itself identical act.

That a hypothetical first living molecule, as any other molecule, was an undeniable and clarifying whole, certainly doesn't need to be discussed. When did this one-molecular-holistic life end to transform itself into another form? Never!. It was continued up to the present day without disruption of the molecular framework. Today it is still unadulteratedly realized in every organism, albeit transformed, realized in an expanded fashion, and documents itself rationally in the wholeness problem, and above all in the holistic-causality, as such [i.e. as coming from a one-molecular framework] finding the one and only possible explanation.

Life can never be reduced to a principle. It is present in the whole human being, in the unicellular amoeba, in the hypothetic pre-cellular system-free living molecule, and "potentially" still even in organogeneous elementary matter. But it doesn't reside in the organismic parts. Therefore, the (correct) impression of the bio-analyst that life recedes where and when one wants to apprehend it. The holistic fully intact organism is the true concrete substrate, which itself is life ( NOTE 280)

The organismic wholeness, as we find it today in every organism, is the consequence of descent and development -- through a holistic "primordial cell" -- from a holistic first life-combination. And this combination was, as we can assume with great probability, a primordial matter-order system of the kind of a single molecule with all the typical features of life. The harmonic coordination of the reactants of the life-chemical basic substrate is causally continued in the harmony of the organismic ensemble of all parts and processes in the macro-organism of today ( NOTE 281) . The harmony of the holistic order is the evident consequence of the uni-molecular unity, and this really is the best point of departure of a rational all-embracing wholeness consideration.

The development of life from the unimolecular beginning through the unimolecular cell to the still unimolecular metazoans [multicellular organisms] ( NOTE 282)   was not a summation or combination, not an additive multiplication, or at least not essentially such, but a  homologous  quantitative extension under conservation of the qualitative framework. The organism -- the most primitive, as well as the highly differentiated organizational stage -- is not a conclusion of certain parts into a whole, but it is the temporally further developed extension of something that always already was one whole. It [the organism], in all its development, remains a case of true chemically founded-as-to-bonding wholeness. The organism is not constituted of parts from the bottom up, but, in downward expansion [i.e. from the top down], forms parts. In all physiologic functions, as also in considering the holistic organism, we must never forget that here we have in a lesser degree to do with a wonderful  synthesis  of a multi-component system, but much more with a reason-techical  analysis  of an absolute unimolecularly founded unity. Our present sensory life and workings of the sense organs reflect the abilities of perception of that once living primordial molecule, our present motorics reflects that primordial molecule's motility. Presently we possess that what then already was present, and what could be amplified in differentiation.

The meaningful ordering and governing of all processes in the higher organism is the direct enhancement of the original unimolecular living "system", and based on this, in such a high degree automatically-accurately functioning. The "ensemble", not as concept, but in this special regard, is as old as life itself and is precisely a part of it. The evolutionary origins [appearances] are not true new-formations of mechanisms [i.e. not new mechanisms]. They only became in such an extent amplified and expressed that they became accessible to conceptual distinction ( NOTE 283) . With this, also the question of the origin of the order is answered. As origin of life, the germ of this order has once been generated, stably fixed in a special structure of the proper material substrate (?). It is maintained by multiplicative processes in an identical way [i.e. the germ of this order has not been changed thanks to these subsequent (merely) multiplicative processes] ( NOTE 284) , while irreversible changes (mutations) bring about variations of this architecture, and on the eventual existential advantages of these variations natural selection will decide. Newly appearing orders in the domain of developing life could not be explained, nor understood at all. But, indeed, [since the origin of life] no new order [of life] has actually appeared anymore, because the pre-constituted order of the living one-molecule (now representing the entire enigma) has never been cancelled during the subsequent multiplication process ( NOTE 285) . The systematic [purposeful] order and ensemble [as it is present in living beings] is not an object of particular classically physico-chemical laws or some extension of them, but the result of a right from the beginning centralized "mental" guiding by the  existential driving force self-function. The chemical and physico-chemical processes, proceeding as life-processes, become chemico-physiological organs and limbs of the order-system.

Unimol wholeness is the expression of the almost completely satisfying and wholly functioning construction of intrinsic order and organization.

Unavoidably, now the concept of  wholeness causality  pops up, which without doubt is a reality, which, however, as a result of the usual analytically methodical causal enquiry, can hardly be uncovered. For  this  causality works from the very point of departure, i.e. from the initial condition of the whole organism, and one cannot, in analysing penetration, encounter this causality anymore, because, doing so, one more and more recedes from it (one has already pierced through it). All this is perhaps a bit unusual and new, but one has to deal with it.

In an earlier attempt to at least interpret unexplainable "complex" conditions in the organismic, one could do nothing more clever than to assume a special-causal wholeness-action. As a result of this, this concept was kept alive up to the present day, because one was able to recognize the constructionally known wholeness as rational cause.

Evidently, the  wholeness causality  is not bound to any stage [of organization], but :  always there where true wholenesses are present, also the true wholeness causality is for 100 percent present. At higher stages [i.e. in higher organisms] it is especially conspicuous to us because there its range of application is a wider one, its "parts" more numerous, more diverse and complex, rendering its visible performance especially spectacular. From there we have come to know it. In the acts of  "free will"  it  [i.e. the wholeness causality] has its most striking expression, an expression which is most inaccessible to reductionistic and abstracting interpretation. At the lower stages [i.e. in lower organisms] it makes, especially in methodically poor and superficial consideration, the impression of something dumb, almost mechanico-machine like, which, however, by now we know to be wrong ( NOTE 286) .

If only we would see ourselves as true undiminished wholeness, and stick to it, without the ever tedious crave for analysis, then our wholeness behavior would at least not be so astonishing anymore, for how do we want ever to explain a case when we take as almost non-real already the "optical" open-minded phenomenon? How do we imagine :  to separate the wholeness behavior  in  our body from the wholeness behavior  of  our body, especially because the sutureless transition -- an dominating object of dispute -- doesn't make probable such a separation (division) at all. In a more or less elevated fashion, one might say :  Unimol is the causa in persona, for it is evident that Unimol just as the existential self-function is nothing superpositioned, superadded, or adjacent, however much our usual way of thinking seduces us to hold such a view.

Wholeness causality does not  control  the living organism (which is a hard-to-eliminate residue of dualism [a dualism of body-and-mind, of matter-and-spirit, of inorganic-organic, etc.] ), but  is  expressed  therein.  "Wholeness"  is especially not an opposite of  "causality", but one of its finest expressions. It is true :  before the advent of Unimol it was difficult to fully acknowledge and appreciate the concept of wholeness without cutting down on causality (as well acknowledged) and giving up much of it.

The one-molecule view is the consequent synthetico-chemical completion of our up to now held analytical scientific view of life, which view is, with respect to the chemical nature of the metabolic processes, the performance of active ingredients, etc., truly essentially chemically oriented ( NOTE 287) . The particular nature of the life-carrying substance and many practical phenomena legitimize us to consider not only the compound substance but also the, as it is demanded by natural philosophy, connection of components [in a living body] in a chemical fashion. Thus, our one-molecule view is the sought-for physico-chemical expression of the organismic wholeness view [i.e. of the holism of the organism] forcing itself onto us everywhere, and if denied or even only overlooked would be straightforwardly an experimental error. The one-molecule view reveals the organism as a  true  unity and wholeness whose parts are  really  and rationally connected with one another.

The one-molecule view (individual-view), being some sort of quantum vitalism or quantum-monistic vitalism, is the rational interpretation of many apparently irrational circumstances and at the same time the point of departure of the characteristic final-teleological biological causality and the central principle of the to be observed autonomy of the living. Functionality becomes more transparent, preformation, epigenesis, form-dominants, and others, are revealingly exposed ( NOTE 288)   and the psycho-physical problem is as such, it is true, not yet wholly removed (solved) but yet at least brought into the range of the rational ( NOTE 289) .

The one-molecule view (Unimol) in the end transforms analytic, i.e. reductionistic, research back into true enquiry, i.e. holistic enquiry, and results in presenting a holistic end-product [the organism] of similar, but scientifically deepened, illustrativity, a picture proper to the [original] starting-product [point of departure or object] of [biological] research, namely the organism-as-a-whole.

In organisms, one had let oneself to be misled by chemico-physiological analysis :  for a long time having taken true wholeness to be just a functional wholeness, and thus a mere pseudo-wholeness, instead of taking it to be a constitutive wholeness [i.e. not only being a whole in the functional sense, but also in the sense of material constitution]. Much thinking has been devoted to understand the organismic process, yes the complete organism, as a total- or summation-effect and as an effect of combination of the analytical pseudo-parts. Now Unimol removes every doubt, and definitely establishes that the organismic is not a mere functional pseudo-wholeness, but a constitutive true wholeness.

Although the one-molecule view mainly refers to the life-specific physiological aspect (alongside the psychical aspect where it is especially relevant), also morphology may gain much by this synthetic view. Its functionality appears in a new light. The morpho-physiological form is the overall functional frame for the unimolecularly constructed  chemical  form of the living, that is [the overall functional frame] for the maintenance and execution of its intrinsic rules [the organism actively maintains itself]. But recall, that it here is not about a literal equation of organism and one-molecule [because, again, an organism  a c t i v e l y  maintains its existence, and also the mega-molecule's intrinsic support medium belongs to the organism].

Today, the real, especially also the philosophical, problems of wholeness are limited to organismic wholeness ( NOTE 292)   (note with important comment ! ). The molecular-organismic view is capable of simply removing a large amount of these wholeness-problems  (not the facts of wholeness). If, right from the beginning, one had assumed [in all organismic bodies] a true [chemical] bonding relationship, as today one has in classical chemistry, then many wholeness problems would never have appeared. In lower molecules, where one was always already convinced of the bonding relationship [chemical bonding between the constituent atoms], the wholeness behavior is not in a lesser degree surprising [than in living, organismic molecules] [the apparent holism in (all) small molecules is as surprising as it is in organisms. Wholeness is not confined to organisms.].

The bonding relationship among the true high-molecular organismic system-partners (plasm-proteins of the individual cells, cell enzymes, sensory substance, nerve-muscle substance, etc.) is not a  from-outside-summingly-governed  bonding relationship, but a concrete internal bonding as in the chemical bonding in micro-molecules. The special nature of the omnipresent protein-equivalent substances seems especially adapted to create an almost limitless number of true bondings.

This organismic bonding relationship -- which assumption were also legitimate when it would not refer to the classically chemical material bonding relationship ( NOTE 293) -- renders it unrestrictedly understandable that the material processes of life are in such a high degree "working according to plan" and holistic. In it, wholeness is not a new principle, but something that is known already for a long time in the adjacent domain of micro-molecules, and having become there something obvious ( NOTE 294) .

The molecular-individual organismic wholeness is just a yet-to-come methodically and actually legitimate homologous extension [extrapolation from micro-molecule to living mega-molecule]. The familiar concept of  "molecule"  is, when applied to organismic life, neither abused nor inadmissibly stretched, but it is -- in a well founded way -- profitably applied to this domain.

The strong extension of the original living forms, resulting in the present macro-organisms, prevents the localization and isolation of living substance in units smaller than the whole. The differentiating splitting-up in the development of life lets presently existing organismic life chiefly appear [for each organism] as a heterogeneous condition of ordering, as "interactive system". But also in that, there still is, as evident kernel, the continued unimolecularity. The birth of the organization of the bio-system [the living organism] is the "unique act" of the unimolecular origin of life. It has, without disrupting the molecular framework, been continued up to the present day. The molecular-chemical holistic system [the organism] should in every case form a conceptual and real opposite to the colloid-chemical or physical system-only. In the molecular-chemical holistic system the arrangement and subordination of the parts, partners, and components is rationally and actually accomplished by the chemical bonding relationship.

Once one was right to assert that no effectivity can be attributed to the  principle  of  wholeness,  but one would now be wrong in asserting that full effectivity could not be attributed to the  homogeneously substantial  aspect of wholeness.

The Unimol  concept of wholeness  not only provides the frame for a correct problem-formulation, but it is at the same time the fundamental -- albeit still not detailed -- solution of the problem.

Wholeness is an -- held together by genuine physico-chemical bonding forces -- individuality with absolutely sharp boundaries toward the outside [well defined external boundaries], but -- at least from the viewpoint of natural philosophy -- no boundaries at all toward the inside ( NOTE 295) .

All wholes, at least those that are above the atomic (boundary) frame [i.e. are above the atomic (size) level], are true bodies [i.e. true Substances in the metaphysical sense], definable and "reproducible" matter-aggregates [here, intrinsic aggregates], subject to simple natural rules ( NOTE 296) . Origin as well as existence (= temporal fixation of the origin) of such a whole are strictly causal, also when there is not complete clarity and possibility of artificial re-creation. The parts ( NOTE 297) do not found and explain the whole, but they potentially contain the foundations of the wholeness structure. The upper limit of true wholeness known to us is the highly differentiated animal organism with man as the most significant representative. We surely may speak of higher and lower wholes, indicating stages of complexity, but they all are elementary wholes [See comment of our's [JB] in NOTE 292]. Super-ordinated wholes, not satisfying the above definition, do not exist. Of them there only exist unclear and vague indications ( NOTE 298) .

In a true whole the constituents integrate, in the spurious whole they at most only add up [ In a true whole the constituents, in addition to letting some of their properties be conserved in the whole, create new properties (totality resultants), while in mere mechanical aggregates they at most create inter-additions and combinations.].

Wholeness, of course, always goes together with  individuum, and wholeness formation is a genuine individuation ( NOTE 299) . In the sensible world, it seems, there are only individual discontinuous wholes and no continuities (even time -- as real "constituent" -- is not continuous). The individuum is defined according to its origin (history, and thus the process of its individuation), its inner unity (chemical bonding with existential self-function) and, based upon it, qualitative unity (constant qualitative and quantitative measure of specific properties). Nowhere there are [in a true individual] blurring possibilities, and, if otherwise, then it is already something else.

It must be stressed that the organismic body-boundary is a truly univocal closing boundary, because beyond it there is nothing -- apart from mass gravitation -- left, not even a force field, while within it one finds an uninterrupted space-filling bonding-continuum.

The reason of individuation, as individuation characterizing the phenomenal world, must be located in some elementary act linked with the origin of this world. Today one might say that the physical constant  h  of Planck [responsible for the discretion of energy, resulting in it to appear in definite quanta] is at the root of all individuation taking place in Nature. But precisely considered, that would be a confusion of cause and effect, because the quantum univocally is itself a consequent [So quantization of matter and energy is not the cause of individuation in things but a consequent following upon individuation.]

An attempted more precise analysis of the forces of  "attraction" and "repulsion", an analysis avoiding the concept of electrical charge, an analysis only considering specific interactions, an analysis we must for several reasons give up, might have much to reveal about individuation :
The physical forces of attraction (with the ground type of the electrical one) make the impression of residues or evidence of the differentiating splitting-up of a something which "by itself is one and the same". The forces of repulsion are then -- seen in the light of the same basic setting -- merely superficially an opposite to them [i.e. to the forces of attraction], because they are the correlative consequents of the same mentioned differentiation and amend, that is, merely compensate for certain conditionally enforced or caused spatial deformations ( NOTE 300) .

Repulsion (of the "same") is, in a certain sense, a necessity in order to make individualization possible. So repulsion took place already at the origin of the world in the form of the birth of individualization ( NOTE 301) . So the forces of repulsion are always the prerequisite of the fact that there are individuals  at all, and the forces of attraction are the prerequisite that there exist qualitatively  different  individuals. [A attracts B, so always AB individuals result.  C attracts D, so always CD individuals result.  AB and CD are qualitatively different individuals.]. Therefore the individuum is the common result of basically-individualizing forces of repulsion and consequent-individuality-constituting forces of attraction ( NOTE 302) .

Organismic wholeness is not a "useful" or "most powerful" fiction of explanation, not a concept "compactly" and "illustratively" expressing some particular phenomenon, but an unequivocal natural reality which is precisely what the concept signifies, namely an indivisible molecular unit, a truly physico-chemical individuum and not merely one of natural philosophy ( NOTE 303) .

The concept of the (holistic) individuum must be fixed unimolecularly-existential-functionally, and not inextricably tied up with the notion of indivisibility (compare the division of earthworms, polypes, etc., restoring themselves again into whole organisms). Yet, divisibility or indivisibility is a 99 percent decisive experiment, and as such still the best test and therefore preferred as practical criterion.  Unimol / existential self-function  is  the  true absolute  unit,  is  the  individuality. All practically occurring (illustrative) dubious cases can be unequivocally decided upon. Such existing unclear uncertain "intermediate" forms, such as for instance (1) syphonophora [social yelly-fishes/polypes, in which the "individuals" are materially inter-connected with each other] (polyp states consisting of "individuals" with division of labor and corresponding morphology and physiology, such as preying polyps, propelling polyps, and defence polyps, etc.)  or (2) slime molds (aggreations of amoeboid cells), [or (3) colonial radiolaria], do not present objections against our strict well-defined and uncompromising view of wholeness [entirely based on chemical bonding]  ( NOTE 304) . Either there are in these forms temporary or permanent protoplasmic bridgings (= chemical bondings), and then they are true wholes, or there are no such bridgings, and then they are pure states or colonies. So we can, uninfluenced by external images, rather sharply and unequivocally discriminate [between individual and colony]. Without Unimol one can proceed and judge only by making blurred functional comparisons.

Similar considerations also go for beginning and end [in time]. An [organismic] individuum as such begins when its existential self-function has acquired a certain magnitude or value, which [magnitude or value] one may fix in a definition :  either as the value of full practical functionality (which surely is the best characterization of when something begins to be a true organismic individual), or one, in characterizing this beginning, shifts back this beginning and thus takes into account (to outrun certain difficulties) also the earlier state of continuous becoming, i.e. the completing formation of that particular existential self-function, where it is said to be wholly immaterial that in this [becoming] a considerable amount of time is involved ( NOTE 305) . In a corresponding way irreversible cessation of the existential self-function means the end of that particular individual.

As especially valuable we would take it when also the mechanists, from whom we owe a lot, would see in our Unimol solution a useful point of departure for them. The fact that "vitalism" has been forced back to an "apparative"-physically unreachable zone of essence [i.e. a domain in the organism which cannot be reached by experimental techiques], namely to about the same limit where mechanicism finds the limits of matter in the structure of electromagnetic fields, may render this decision [for mechanists to adhere to the Unimol view] an easy one.

The chemical bond is, as such recognized in exact science, the mechanism of how from two wholes a new one is produced. Or of how, in the relevant cases, as a result of dissociation or breaking of bonds (especially in a dimerous molecule) from one whole two new wholes can be retrieved again. The chemical bond within an existentially functionally determined material aggregate is the robust general-mechanism summarizing or replacing all otherwise necessary and partly contradictory "mechanisms" brought forward in the most diverse biological clarification systems.

The qualitative existential self-function [i.e. the strategy of the living mega-molecule to exist and persist, a strategy encoded by the molecule's structure and content] is the ultimate deciding "authority" whether -- not considering small differences -- a materially damaged or crippled "wholeness" may be able to maintain itself as such. The same qualitative existential self-function also tells us in what degree the concept of wholeness may be applied to ontogenetic [earlier] stages [stages in the individual development of the organism], and from what point onwards a defined living being as such truly exists. Ontogenetically one cannot neglect the concept of the "wholeness-just-begun", the "still incomplete wholeness", or "germ-wholeness".

In biology one cannot expect complete success as long as one -- analytically -- attempts to win understanding of the whole from the understanding of its parts. For only by following the at least acknowledged guiding line saying that here things are the other way around, one will obtain precisely such details whose nature at all allows for the desired re-synthesis. It is not the sheer number of details that fetters the knowing intellect, but the often entirely illogical debris-structure of this set of details.

It is in no way necessary to take already just from the start the wholeness merely as biological wholeness and then perhaps as something [still] "vague". It can be dealt with in the most matter-of-fact way. If one reverses the familiar statement  "the whole is more than just the sum of its parts"  [resulting in "the sum of the parts is more than just the whole"],  then one will say that the constructive association [the constructive bringing-together] of individual parts posits, together with the additive sum (of, for instance, the masses) a new quality, namely the whole, that is, posits the wholeness-construction, rendering the whole to be "more" than the (especially  analytically isolated )  parts alone. Also in purely physical forms the constructive element cannot be entirely suppressed, even not in the case of a pile of bricks, in which that constructive element manifests itself -- as a pyramid or some other shape -- at least geometrically morphologically.

So the difference [between whole and accidental aggregate] first of all lies in the construction, the arrangement, the spatio-temporal positioning, which in the case of a pile of bricks is only an insignificant element, while in living forms constituting the greatest enigma. In the case of the pile or heap of bricks the construction principle is transparent and known, and the difference between the many parts and the one construction principle is almost only morphologically evident. In the case of a living form, on the other hand, the construction principle is unknown. One may, of course, interpret the constructive element as to be a  part  too, but must then realize that it never is essentially equivalent to the other parts [i.e. that it is never a part as are parts the other parts] and may never be expressed at one stroke along the same line with these. Up to now, in the case of life, there is no unequivocal idea of this constructive element. But we are as much convinced of its rationality (not including its metaphysical "background") as we are of the rational nature of the geometrically morphological order of a pile of bricks.

A pile of bricks, a wall, as also a crystal, is a quasi and facultative wholeness, namely :  seen under very special selected viewpoints just representing the limiting example of "wholeness". In this, a crystal is insofar superior that it possesses  partially  fixed construction principles such as angles and axes, but it does not possess principles governing defined linear and spatial extension [a crystal has principles governing its internal order but not those that govern external size and extension. The external shape of crystals is, it is true, co-governed by these principles, but apart from these the shape of crystals is entirely dependent on  e x t e r n a l  conditions]. An organism, on the other hand, is a true effective, in virtue of bonding, wholeness (as formally is also every inorganic molecule), which wholeness is maintained under all points of view. Every conceptual division destroys the original nature. Discontinuous diminution, enlargement, or change of properties is here one of the criteria for the exceeding of wholeness boundaries.

In organismic [intrinsic] aggregates basically things are not very different from qualitative inorganic micro-molecules. On the one hand we only demand more of such organismic aggregates [as to what they are capable of], while, on the other hand, we still don't know sufficiently much of them. Or we do not seize the openly present and accessible possibilities.
[In not seizing them] Bünning (in "Theoretical basic questions in physiology") asserts :  " We must be aware of the ever re-appearing error of concluding  from  the processes resulting in the maintenance of a given whole (be such processes physical or psychic)  to  the causing of these processes by precisely that what is accomplished by them (either wished for or not [i.e. results, either intended or not intended] )".  [that is, he warns for a teleological explanation of certain chemical processes taking place in a living body.]
The  system-only  view leads to such opinions. And such statements,- which are consistent on analytic grounds from which they grew (together with many other such statements having the same origin and the same legitimacy), - force biological thinking in a direction that was, it is true, highly successful, which, however, now is exhausted. And its  exclusive  retention represents a "dead-end street", and with it a serious limitation in biological research. They are directions in research that should not be revived again on the basis of poor arguments of well-intentioned morphologists (Dacqué).

This, then, is the conclusion of  [our translating and commenting of ]  Müller's chapter on wholeness in molecules and organisms. Before we move on to the next chapter (on the organismic self-function, i.e the existential and individualisation function), we first want still more to elaborate on the theme of  wholeness (which always has been a dominating topic throughout our website anyway).
While Müller's exposition of wholeness is safely on scientific grounds, the concept of wholeness is not in fact a concept from natural science, but from natural philosophy. Holism ('wholism') is indeed a metaphysical notion, it points to self-subsistent unities, and such unities, such holistic things, need not be exclusively the "elementary particles" of physics, they can be molecules as well, and even crystals and organisms. As a true whole such a unity is a "Substance" in the metaphysical sense of the word. And with this characterization we enter the philosophic theory of Being, or metaphysics of Being.
Every subsistent  being  which is a true unity, a true whole, is a Substance in the sense of the theory of Being (in fact "substance" in the sense of being a whole, or, equivalently, a true single being, which notions -- "a  whole", "a  single being" -- are metaphysical concepts). And the best theory of Being we know of is still that of Aristotle (4th century B.C.).  Here it is in place to present a (very!) short summary of this theory inso far as "Substance" is described. In this concise "summary" the original Aristotelian theory has been preliminarily altered somewhat in certain elements where it proved necessary. Further, we enquire how well such a theory of Being, with its emphasis on Substance, fits with our theory of the Explicate and Implicate Orders of Reality and with the Unimol conception of organisms. In fact, we can appreciate Unimol maximally if we know more about wholeness. And for it we must turn especially to the doctrine of Substance and Accident which forms the center of the Aristotelian theory of Being.

In order to appreciate the ensuing summary of the theory of Being, it is perhaps instructive to consult the first fifth of length of  Fifth Part of Website, where the Aristotelian metaphysics is introduced.
In all this, we must realize a few paramount characteristics of this philosophy.
First of all the fact that there is, in the domain of Being qua Being, a so-called  pros hen  equivocity in terms denoting (aspects of) Being, like the terms "Substance", "Being", "form", "matter", "substrate", "individual", "singular", "cause", "Enitity" and others. That is, each such a term may be equivocal in the sense of pros hen equivocity. Each such a term may represent a group of instances (types), instead of one instance (type) only. For this doctrine the reader should consult the  Introductory document of Fifth Part of Website.
Further, it should be realized that in this theory,  "Being"  does not have direct existential connotations. Existence is not a particular problem in this philosophy. It is not something apart from things or forms. "Being" is something definite, being so and (therefore) not so [being, say, A, not B]. For this philosophy of Being,  "to be a definite abiding something"  is simply  to be.  Again, there is no existential import. The only 'existential import' there is, is the fact that every essence, i.e. every qualitative content, every "what", is ordered to "esse", to existence, in the following way :  Each "what" is related to its "esse" as any other "what" is related to its "esse". This is the "proportional nature" of Being (apart from its pros hen nature). And "Being" is finally reduced to "Entity" (Beingness, Substance) and then to "Form", the primary instance (in the sense of the pros hen equivocity) of Entity.  The statement  " the Form is the cause of a definite something"  is the same in meaning as  "the Form is the cause of Being", meaning in fact that Being (now reduced to Enity) is more precisely reduced to the formal cause, the primary instance of Entity within sensible things. But such things are of their very nature changeable. The unchangeable Form (formal cause) has therefore to be prior to them, yet to be within them (i.e. not separate from them) and to be identical with them per se. It cannot be a universal, and yet it has to be the basis of the specific identity of singular things (i.e. for the possibility of many individuals of one and the same species). It cannot be singular (because it can be defined), yet it has to cause the individual unity in the sensible thing. So the Form of any given Substance, the Substantial Form, the primary instance of Enity, is neither a universal nor a singular. As to individuality, we may say that the Substantial Form is the first instance of "a this", while the singularity of the matter-form composite is a second instance of "a this". In this way the Substantial Form confers individuality to the matter-form composite, rendering it to be a singular, but this cannot be accomplished by that Form alone, because repetition of the Form (yielding individuals of the same species) would cause these repetitions to coincide. For repetition, prime matter is needed, it is needed to prevent coincidence of qualitatively the same Forms. We may say that the Substantial Form is a an equivocal, not only a pros hen equivocal but also an equivocal according to potency and act :  The sensible Form may be equivocally applied (1) to (the 1st instance of) Entity, which is a "this", and thus rendering the matter-form composite to be a singular (2nd instance of "a this"), and (2) to the species which is a universal. So again, the Form of the material thing is neither singular nor universal, it is prior to the singular (which is the individuality of the matter-form composite, a second instance of "a this") and also prior to the universal (the species), it is actually "a this" and potentially a universal. And because the Form is not primarily a universal, but (already) "a this", no principle of individuation is needed for the matter-form composite to become a singular. It already is a singular in virtue of the "thisness" of its Form.
Under all these limitations, can the sensible Form (= the Substantial Form in material things) be the absolutely primary instance of Entity? Or does it not by its very nature prompt the search for a higher type of Entity than the sensible? That is, are there separate Entities, yet not thereby being Platonic Ideas (because these are just sensible things (concepts) with the addition "itself " )?  Or, again, are there Forms not-informing matter, Forms that are "immaterial forms", constituting the very primary instance of Entity? In Aristotelian metaphysics it is assumed that these separate Entities are the final causes of the sensible entities, the Substantial Forms, in matter-form composites.
Yet another characteristic of Aristotelian metaphysics must be stated here :  The Primary Philosophy (i.e. the metaphysics, or theory of Being of Aristotle) is not directed towards constructing a 'system' of general concepts and propositions ('ultimate presuppositions' or 'the most fundamental assumptions' of the natural sciences and of common sense thought and action). It is concerned directly with  things  (objective things), which are neither presupposed nor assumed, but are seen as evident in secondary instances of Being.  Things require no justification other than themselves. The Primary Philosophy is a  contemplation  of Being (which in itself is :  definiteness, (intelligible) content, Form, and act), which is exhibited in a secondary way in sensible things.

Having stated these important characteristics of the Aristotelian philosophy of Being (metaphysics), we can now present the (very!) concise thematic and revised summary of it (i.e. we further work out this metaphysics to reveal the metaphysical background of wholeness as (physically) expounded by Müller).
We do this first of all by relating this metaphysics to our theory of the Implicate and Explicate Order. This is to show the very relevance of Aristotelian metaphysics to this theory. And of course its connection with the Unimol view of organisms is evident through the concept of wholeness which in turn is connected with that of Substance. After all this, we will give some arguments (not proofs!) in favor of the basic metaphysical constitution of material reality more or less presupposed by aristotelian metaphysics. This metaphysical constitution is the so-called "Substance-Accident Structure" of material things  ( We have already written much about it in  First Part of Website (Back to Homepage), and also, together with the Logic (intentional logic) based on this ontological structure, in  Fifth Part of Website).  In Greek philosophy this ontological structure is concluded from the forms (ways) of predication, not necessarily from their linguistic forms (i.e. syntactic forms) but the way how states of affairs are made clear in verbal communication, in the sense of how and what (in reality) is intended in these communications. And the way we do this (we, humans, in language and behavior, animals in behavior) is supposed to reflect the objective basic ontological structure of material things, that is, their Substance-Accident nature. Therefore, the ways of predication (the connection of a predicate to a subject) play an important role in Aristotelian metaphysics (and in logic too).

How are the  separate Entities  (envisaged by Aristotelian metaphysics) to be understood as the source of Being and Entity to all sensible things? Perhaps by way of simulation (in the sense of computer simulation). Aristotle's metaphysical treatises state that all corruptible things "imitate" the incorruptible, and that all sensible things depend on separate Entity, that is, corruptible but also incorruptible things (such as the Form in material things, a Form that is, it is true, independent of prime matter as to its content, but nevertheless depending on separate Entity as its final cause).
Now, we can, in this respect, assume  three ways of final causality  obtaining between the Explicate and Implicate Orders, viz., (1) as to ontological completion (the Form becomes a matter-form composite) (this is alien to Greek philosophy), (2) as to eternal existence, and (3) as to intelligible content.
If it is true that the separate Entities (the truly immaterial forms) strive for ontological completion (i.e. to become material forms), then, in this respect, sensible Forms are the final cause of the separate Entities, and not vice versa (as is assumed by Aristotle in book Lambda of his Metaphysics). But the separate Entities certainly are (in both views) the initial (original) beings in the process of projection of forms from the Implicate Order into the Explicate Order :  Separate Entities ==> sensible Entities (sensible, i.e. material, things). As it is about ontological completion, the "aspiration", as exercised in final causality, is, according to our theory of the Explicate-Implicate Orders, not towards the "eternal and divine", but from the eternal and divine to the material things in the Explicate Order. Here, that is in this respect, the final cause is (in) the sensible things (not (in) the eternal and divine things). Immaterial forms become material things by projection of them into the Explicate Order. Thus, at least in this respect, final causality is exerted by ontologically complete things, or, said differently, by ontological completeness (which, as has been said, is entirely alien to Greek philosophy, and perhaps to all philosophy for that matter).
But, so we may theorize, there is yet another final causality working the other way around (in conformity with our thesis of interaction between the two Orders by "projection" and "injection") :  While immaterial forms want to  exist -- as material forms -- in the Explicate Order (in order to obtain ontological completion), they want, moreover, to  persist  in that Order too. And so the material things simulate the eternal duration of the immaterial forms (as the latter have it in the Implicate Order). They do this as best they can :  Inorganic things accomplish their persistence by remaining thermodynamically stable, resisting disturbances and perturbations as best they can (that is what "stable" means). They are in thermodynamic equilibrium, that is in a state of lowest energy (in the Implicate Order there is no such thermodynamic regime). In organisms, on the other hand, (which also are material things) stability is  actively  realized, i.e. by active and purposeful behavior (also in the sense of their chemical machinery), because organisms are in themselves thermodynamically unstable, and they will remain so unstable because they, in order to maintain their (high-energy) organismic structure, must stay far from thermodynamic equilibrium. They accomplish this by actively replacing dissipated energy by new (useful) energy. If they don't do this, they fall back into thermodynamic equilibrium but at the cost of their very integrity and structure, that is, if they don't do it, they will disintegrate, resulting in thermodynamically stable mere fragments or elements. And even all this will finally not do, organisms eventually fall back into thermodynamic equilibrium and will thus sooner or later disintegrate. Nevertheless, organisms can and do avoid extinction of their species, of their "form", by being capable of reproduction, and so may, as species, persist.  So this 'other way around' final causality (i.e. striving for eternal existence, which in the metaphysics of Aristotle means maintaining intrinsic structural coherence) consists, for material things, in imitating (simulating) as best they can the eternal duration of their corresponding immaterial forms in the Implicate Order.
Finally, final causality (related to the last mentioned as to direction, and contrasted in this respect with the first mentioned), consists in the material things of the Explicate Order to simulate the  content  of their corresponding immaterial counterparts in the Implicate Order. The encoded (noëtic) description of forms and of strategies in the Implicate Order finds its 'signification' or 'expression' in the Explicate Order by projection (that is, in fact, by an alternation of projection and injection from the one Order into the other, as was explained earlier in the present (Sixth) Part of Website in connection with organic evolution).
So all in all there are three final causations (final cause ==> effect) :

• Ontologically complete things  ==>  Separate Entities.
• Eternal persistence of intrinsic structural coherence (= eternal existence) of the Separate Entities  ==>  Maintenance, as best as possible, of intrinsic structural coherence (= still not eternity, but nevertheless longevity) of material things.
• (Encoded) Specific content of Separate Entities  ==>  (Decoded) Specific content of material things.

But we must realize that by Aristotle, and rightly so, final causality is ultimately reduced to formal causality.
This mutual final causality neatly expresses the  interaction  between the Explicate and the Implicate Order.
So it is interesting that we now have two 'arguments' (better ;  indications) for positing an Implicate Order in addition to the Explicate Order (the physical and biological world) :  The first indication is based on the nature of organisms :  their purposeful, i.e. functional, adaptations and survival strategies. The Explicate Order cannot account for functionality, only  per accidens  it can do so (i.e. some material structures only later [i.e. in new circumstances] happen to be functional structures, i.e. could be used to do something). The second indication arises when (largely) accepting the metaphysics of Aristotle, in which the enquiry into the nature of Form leads us to the existence of Separate Entities, i.e. the nature of the Substantial Form as Entity in material things points to a more primary instance of Entity, which is wholly independent and absolutely immaterial, that is, separate from matter as substrate.
So in these two ways -- through the nature of organisms, and through the metaphysics of Aristotle -- a second Order of Reality, although not being deduced, may legitimately be assumed. A new Order, which we -- following Bohm -- have called the "Implicate Order".
But, in contrast to Aristotelian metaphysics (as also to Platonic metaphysics), there is no one-way "traffic" between these two Orders. According to our view the two Orders, the Explicate Order (the unfolded Order, the world of sensible [material] things and [physical] processes) and the Implicate Order (the enfolded Order, the world of the Separate Entities, the immaterial forms, and of noëtic descriptions)  interact  with each other by the phenomena of "projection" and "injection" --which are an expression of the mentioned three-fold final causality (itself consisting of "imitation", "simulation", "signification", etc.) -- across the boundary between the two Orders.
A two-fold Reality generally is not what one wants to find. One wants to uncover a single Order of Reality, or if two, then one of them being prior to the other. In our theory, the Implicate Order is, in a sense, some sort of origin of the Explicate Order. However, the latter Order is the very goal for which immaterial forms strive, and so, in a sense, the cause or origin of the structure of the Implicate Order (especially by the fact that in the Implicate Order noëtic descriptions of strategies-to-exist-in-the-Explicate-Order are "developed" (better : formally derived)). Surely, because, in our theory, the two Orders interact, we in fact do have but one single Reality.
In all this, it is remarkable and significant that also even already Aristotle concludes to the existence of some eternal Order (which is here to be understood as the Order of the Separate Entities, i.e. Entities separate from matter)  on the basis of the nature of organisms -- "... the most natural act is the production of another like itself, an animal producing an animal, a plant a plant, in order that, as far as its nature allows, it may partake in the eternal and the divine".  So organisms try to maintain, not their individuals, but their species, to be eternal, that is, here, to persist in the Explicate Order. All of the organism's strategy consists in this maintaining of its species, and thus of its Form. Indeed, Aristotle's metaphysics has as its point of departure the biological world. Of course, in our theory material organisms do not strive for becoming immaterial forms, the striving is just the other way around :  immaterial forms strive for ontological completion.

As to Substance and Accident  ("accident" is here either a necessary (proprium s.l.) or contingent (true accident) further determination of Substance, it inheres in the Substance as its substrate), they are enfolded into one another (i.e. their respective natures are so enfolded) through the Implicate Order, that is, in the Implicate Order they are, or become, non-locally connected to each other. So their real unity is accomplished by the Implicate Order.
In the case of  necessary  accidents (necessary with respect to the Substance involved), they  are  so enfolded into one another, while in the case of  per accidens  accidents (true accidents) they  become, in the individual case concerned, so enfolded into one another. The  becoming  so enfolded is a matter of the Explicate Order, whereas  necessarily  to be so enfolded is a matter of the Implicate Order. That is to say, while also a  necessary  accident is something merely inhering in a Substance, it nevertheless belongs to the essential nature of that Substance (in the case of organisms it belongs to the organismic species' strategy), whereas a  per accidens  accident, also inhering in a Substance, does not belong to the essential nature of that Substance.  So also here, in the case of a Substance-Accident complex, the Implicate Order plays a role, a role in accomplishing the enfoldment of Substance and accident.
As to beings, observable reality (the Explicate Order) contains only Substances and accidents of Substance. But accidents are not self-subsistent beings but always only beings insofar as, and referring to, Substance. So the only subsistent beings are Substances only. On the other hand, subatomic particles, "elementary particles", such as electrons, protons, neutrons, mesons, etc. are, according to me, mere deficient beings, fragments of beings (like virusses are mere fragments of living being). How things are with 'things' like electromagnetic radiation is not so easy to determine. Electromagnetic radiation consists of "photons", which are also, in a way, elementary particles, and thus merely fragments of beings.
If a given accident, as inhering in a Substance, forms a  per accidens  unity with a given Substance, it must be the result of a non-chemical reaction between two Substances (which may be organisms or molecules), or between a Substance and one or more elementary particles such as electrons or photons (energy), or between two Substances by mediation of such particles (donation of electrons by one partner to the other) but then it may already be a true chemical reaction and such a reaction always results in new Substances, while a non-chemical reaction does not.  A non-chemical reaction between  material  Substances, resulting in at least one of the participating Substance to become further determined (or being differently determined) by a (new, i.e. replacing) accident, but without thereby losing its original identity, is wholly a matter of events in the Explicate Order. But the Implicate Order guarantees in such an event the mutual enfoldment of Substance and (new) accident.
A necessary accident (i.e. a proprium s.l.), on the other hand, forms a  per se  unity with its proper Substance, it is a necessary 'further' (better : completing) determination of the intrinsic nature of a given Substance. Indeed, in the case of a necessary accident the Substance-accident-, i.e. the Substance-necessary-accident complex is 'already there', it is not the result of a particular (non-chemical) event of interaction between Substances  ( In a true chemical reaction new Substances are generated, each with its own proprium created collaterally). The proprium is necessarily implied by the Substance's nature, it belongs to that nature, and is seen to be 'merely' inhering in that Substance as long as that proprium is considered in isolation :  Every 'part' of the (given) Substance's nature, when considered in isolation, is itself not that Substance but merely inheres in it (later we shall call it "adhere" and contrast it with "inhere"), whereas not so considered, it is an integral part of it. So far about accidents of Substance. Further down we'll expound more about them.
It has been found out that molecules are true Substances. And because (1) we see an organism as a single mega-molecule (embedded in a special multimolecular support medium), that is, because we adhere to the Unimol view of organisms, and (2) because organisms are true Substances too, we will, in the next section, consider molecules (in general) more closely with respect to their being Substances.

The molecule.
Chemical reactions between atoms and molecules (that is, between atoms and atoms, atoms and molecules, and molecules and molecules) result in the generation of new molecules. And, as has been said, not only atoms, but also molecules are true Substances in the metaphysical sense. This means that a molecule is one single whole, and that thus its constituent atoms, as atoms, exist in the molecule only virtually, while the molecule itself exists actually [ NOTE ].  The conserved atomic properties are now properties of the molecule (in addition to its new properties). So the molecule is the substrate of a pattern of qualities, the pattern of its qualities, in fact it is that pattern of qualities, while the true substrate (of that pattern) is its prime matter. These qualities are the above mentioned "necessary accidents" and only when one or another such quality is considered in isolation it merely inheres in the Substance instead of being an integral part of it. Indeed, we call such a quality an "accident" (in the sense of Aristotle's Categories), because, although it is a "being" of some kind, it cannot subsist, i.e. it cannot  be,  cannot exist, all by itself. The fact that it cannot "exist", here (in Aristotle's metaphysics) means that it is in itself not a definite content. For it to be a definite content it must refer to Substance, which we [JB] express by saying that it, not only in a molecule, but also in the case of every Substance whatsoever, needs all the other necessary accidents to constitute a true "Form", the form of a Substance, the Substantial Form. On the other hand, a non-necessary accident does not, as to its content, partake in the Substance's nature, but like the necessary accidents (propria) it also is not subsistent. In small molecules such non-necessary accidents are absent or very few in number. This is, because such molecules are relatively simple as contrasted with very large molecules such as proteins, and certainly as contrasted with living mega-molecules. In such large molecules there is plenty of room for all kinds of conditions or states of these molecules. And these states may legitimately be considered as non-necessary accidents of these molecules. Crystals can also be considered as large molecules (but of non-definite molecular weight) and they indeed show many possible non-necessary accidents such as deformations as a result of unequal growth of intrinsically equally growing sites of the crystal.

The argument in favor of the Substance-Accident Structure of material things.
The metaphysical explanation of the necessary existence of Separate Entities, that is, of a domain of immaterial forms, must start from the doctrine of Substance and accidents. So we must present an argument in favor of the Substance-Accident Structure of material reality. It will be an argument completing and updating that of Aristotle, and, moreover, completing the  by us provisionally updated version  of the Substance-Accident relationship as outlined above (As we have seen, our version of Substance and Accident doesn't differ much from that of Aristotle). In fact the true update (as to what a "Substance-Accident structure" precisely is) will be further worked out in the process of the argument (whether there  is  in fact such a structure in material reality).
Let us begin to sketch the broader frame within which the Substance-Accident relationship has its place.  "Beingness" (not as an abstract notion, not as a concept, but as an objective real qualitative content) is called by us, following  OWENS, 1978,  " Entity". And Entity (like Being) is a  pros hen  equivocal, meaning that Entity is in fact only truly present in its primary instances. In its seemingly primary instances it is "Substance", i.e. in the material world it is, to begin with, Substance.
Substance (Entity) is the primary instance (in the sense of pros hen equivocals) of Being. Accidents are secondary instances of Being. The being of accidents can be reduced to (that of) Substance (Entity) as to their substrate. Substance is a secondary instance (also in the sense of pros hen equivocals) of "substrate". It is the substrate of the accidents. The absolutely undetermined matter, prime matter (rendering things material), carrying the Substantial Form, is the primary instance of "substrate". It cannot be the primary instance of Entity because in itself it is undetermined. Within the matter-form composite (Substance) the Substantial Form is the primary instance of Entity, while the composite and the (prime) matter are secondary instances of Entity. This is because the matter is undetermined and the composite is posterior to Form (and matter). The Form is, through the composite, the substrate of the accidents. But "substrate" cannot be a key characteristic (i.e. a determining factor) of Entity because then prime matter would be the primary instance of Entity, which it cannot be because, as has been said, it is absolutely undetermined, it has no qualitative content. The Form, as it is in the composite, is determined by the necessary accidents  ( NOTE )  (and  per accidens  determined by the non-necessary accidents, true accidents). But true Entity cannot be determined by anything, because it is prior to anything  ( Entity, as it is only truly present in its primary instances, must at least be :  (1) not matter, but content, (2) definite, (3) independent (i.e. not determined, but determining, and thus prior), (4) subsistent, and (4) be one intrinsic whole. With all these characteristics Entity is Being in its supreme sense. So the Form in the composite, seemingly the primary instance of Entity, this Form, being determinable and determined by other beings, cannot be the very primary instance of Entity. Therefore, the primary instance of Entity must be absolutely separate Entity (actually separate from matter, that is, not only separated in notion, but in fact). The nature of separate Entity is, according to Aristotle, that of immobile Entity, the unmoved mover. It is free from any kind of matter, and the Stagirite [Aristotle] proceeds to draw conclusions about its nature. The unmoved mover causes motion [i.e. change], not by itself being moved, but simply by being good, i.e. as a final cause. Aristotle supposes without question that a form which is not the form of a matter is a mind. Such a form cannot be dependent on any other knowable, [i.e. is not necessarily ordered to know other things (knowables) ], for it would then be in potency to that knowable. It must therefore be a knowing of itself. [Indeed, we [JB] take our Implicate Order to be a "noëtic", i.e. thought-like, Order.]
Having here presented an indication of the existence of a domain of immaterial forms, an indication in addition to that provided by the nature of organisms, there is yet a third indication of the existence of such a domain from the theory of knowledge (also within Aristotle's philosophy) :  The Form (the Substantial Form) is the principle of knowledge of sensible things. Because the Form is in singular sensible things they can be known universally. But the Form is not  entirely  identical to the singular thing. The identity is never complete. May not that fact be pointing in the direction of some absolutely primary Entity and primary knowability (from the side of the thing) that are completely identified (thus Form and thing completely identified)? May it not indicate the necessity of Aristotelian Entities that are  only  Forms?  (and yet not Platonic Ideas, i.e. not Platonic Ideas because in Plato the Ideas (and thus the principles of knowledge) are not in sensible things. The latter only participate in the corresponding Ideas).

Predication, Substance and Accident.
Here we present an update of the theory of Substance and Accident, which theory, as we have seen, points to the existence of Separate Entity (truly immaterial Being).
An elementary knowledge of this theory is here presupposed. The reader can find an introduction to it in the document  "Substance and Accident" in First Part of Website, and also in the document  on the "predicaments" (Via Praedicationis) in Fifth Part of Website.
The praedicaments or categories are the highest genera of beings, i.e. the highest classes of them. They are obtained by taking any real being -- be it an individual thing, say "Socrates", be it a quality, say "red" (color), be it a quantity, say "1.70 m" (length), be it an action, say "walking", etc. -- and predicate of it, as to what-it-is, first its species, then its proximate genus, then its next higher genus, etc., all the way up to the very end. This will result in a list of the "highest genera of beings", and these are the predicaments or categories. These categories cannot be further defined, because they are the highest genera, there isn't a genus above them anymore. Further, they cannot conceptually be derived from one another (for instance, quantity cannot be derived from quality). When we start, for instance, with "Socrates", we will, through "human being", "mammal", "vertebrate", "animal", "living being", etc., end up with the category of  "Substance", which is the highest genus in this series. If we do the same with "Plato", with "Vicky the dog", or with "this crystal", "this molecule", we will also end up at that category of  "Substance". But if we do it with, say, "red", we will, through "color", etc, end up at the category of  "Quality". And also when we start from "hot", we end up with the same category. And if we do it with "1.70 m", we will, via "length", end up at the category of  "Quantity" (Size). The same category will result when we (from any member of any ascending series of size-related predications) start from "surface area", from "volume", or from "proportion".  And starting from, say, "walking" will result in another category, namely the category of  "Activity". And starting from, say, "being beaten", "made to walk", or "being moved", through "being influenced", yields the category of  "Passivity". In addition to the categories mentioned here, viz., "Substance" (a this), "Quality" (a such), "Quantity" (a so much), "Activity", and "Passivity", there are others, such as that of  "Relation", that of  "Place" (where), and that of  " Time" (when).
So proceeding in this way, we, as has been said, obtain a list of all the highest genera of beings. The first member of this list, the first category, is that of  "Substance".  All the other members, categories, may generally be characterized as expressing possible states or conditions or affections of a given Substance. These states are the so-called "accidents".  And "accidents" in this sense come as qualities-of, quantities-of, relations-between, activities-of, passivities-of a given Substance. This, then, is the theory of Substance and Accident. Together with the above mentioned two documents in First and Fifth Part of Website, this should be sufficient to be able to engage in the ensuing revisionary (but still preliminary!) exposition of the theory of Substance and Accident.
Before we do so, however, it might be important to expound the philosophical import of the doctrine of the Categories in the context of Greek thought, especially as confronting the problem of Parmenides (from the Eleatic school, known to Aristotle) according to whom all Being is one (i.e. one single whole, without holes), and that there is no non-Being (even not a void or space between beings). In Book N of the Metaphysics Aristotle addresses the problem of Parmenides against the background of his own doctrine of the Categories (Oxford translation with minor variations) :

There are many causes which led them [the Eleatics] off into these explanations, and especially the fact that they drew up the aporia [theoretical difficulty] in an obsolete form. For they thought that all things that  are  would be one (viz. Being itself), if one did not join issue with and [not] refute the saying of Parmenides :
"For never will this be proved, that things that are not are."  They thought it necessary to prove that that which is not is [for instance as a void or space between those things that truly exist]. For only thus -- of that which  is  and something else -- could the things that are  be composed, if they are many.
But first, if Being is expressed in many ways (for one way signifies Entity [Substance], another that it is of a certain quality, another that it is of a certain quantity, and the other categories accordingly), what sort of 'one', then, are all the things that are, if non-Being is to be supposed not to be? Is it the Entities that are one, or the affections, and similarly the other categories as well, or all together -- so that the 'this' [Substance, Entity] and the 'such' and the 'so much' and the other categories that indicate each some one class of Being will all be one? But it is strange, or rather impossible, that the coming into play of a single nature should bring it about, that part of that which is  is a 'this', part a 'such', part a 'so much', part a 'here'."

OWENS, J., 1951, 1963, 1978, in his  The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian 'Metaphysics',  p. 437, comments on this text as follows :

The Parmenidian position of the 'one and many' problem is considered [by Aristotle] as already out-moded. Being is accepted as expressed in many ways. No nature -- i.e. not-Being -- is possible that could homogenize all these ways. Different types of Being are seen to be a fact. No  one  nature could account for the differences in Being [the Categories cannot all be derived from some one single entity, nor could they be derived from one another]. Being cannot be one -- except by reference ["Being" is a pros hen equivocal, and also, in cases, an equivocal according to act and potency].
The Aristotelian approach is the reverse of the Parmenidian. Parmenides sees Being as one, and asks how it could be many. Aristotle sees Beings as manifold. He asks :  How could any  one  nature account for their differences?

As has been explained above, the  list of categories or predicaments  is obtained by following consecutive what-is-it predications. The ensuing diagram attempts to visualize these possible predications, in each case starting with the 'lowest class', the lowest subject (at the right-hand side of the diagram), and then following out the increasingly higher classes of beings by successively connecting correspondingly higher (i.e. more general) predicates. Each horizontal section ('layer') of the diagram is a bundle of parallel and related series of predications, all ending up at the same category, that is, the whole of such a bundle converges on the corresponding category or highest genus, while the bundles of the other horizontal sections ('layers') respectively lead to other categories or highest genera.
For example, the first, i.e. the upper, horizontal section (that of Substance) may have entries (at the right in the diagram) like :  "Socrates", "Jaap Bax", "Vicky-the-dog", " Tyra-the-dog", "this crystal" (pointed to), "that crystal" (pointed to), "this molecule" (pointed to), "that molecule" (pointed to), etc. In the diagram we have called this entry "individual", and exemplified it with "Socrates", "individual" in the sense of "an individuum".
The second horizontal section (that of Quality) may have entries like :  "red" (color), "green" (color), "hot" (heat), "positively electrically charged" (electrical charge), etc.
The third horizontal section (that of Quantity or Size) may have entries like :  " 2.60 m" (length), " 1.70 m" (length), " 25 cm² " (surface area), " 800 cm³ " (volume), etc.
The fourth horizontal section (that of Relation) may have entries like :  "(at a) distance (from)", "father (of)", "son (of)", "greater (than)", etc.
The fifth horizontal section (that of Activity) may have entries like :  "walking", "falling", "moving", "biting", "causing", "making", etc.
The sixth horizontal section (that of Passivity) may have entries like :  "being moved", "being heated", "being beaten", etc.
Each horizontal section leads to it particular category (highest genus).
For reasons of clarity we shall not present the remaining few Categories (if these have any significance at all).
In the diagram, the direction to the left symbolizes the possible what-is-it predications leading to higher and higher classes (genera) of beings. (Other possible predications are symbolized in a second diagram.)

This diagram shows how, through predication, we arrive at the highest genera of beings (the Categories). Each horizontal section (row) in the diagram is in fact a bundle of parallel what-is-it predications, i.e. each such a bundle consists of a number of  "fibers"  each one of which begins with its own 'first subject' and then proceeding left-wards by following out increasingly general what-is-it predicates. All these fibers of a same row will then eventually converge onto the same highest genus or category. In the diagram only one fiber in each category row is depicted.
The diagram is in fact a collection of terms, terms ordered as to generality and type of real entity to which they refer. The terms at the right-hand side (all the entries of the fibers) are all concrete terms (such as "red" (concrete) instead of "redness" (abstract)). All other terms are (or eventually become) abstract (such as "length" (abstract) instead of "long" (concrete)). We just said (partly in parentheses) :  "or eventually become abstract". It seems natural that directly after every entry all subsequent terms are abstract. So the term "mammal" (which is itself concrete) should in fact be replaced by "mammality". But this latter abstract term cannot be predicated of any individual Substance (which is concrete). So it must remain "mammal" afterall. The best we can do for the moment is to say that, nevertheless, the terms directly after the entry-term are abstract, abstract in the sense that they are supposed to be abstract except when they have to be predicated of the first subject which itself is concrete. In fact, concreteness or abstractness of the predicate term depends on that of the subject term (and vice versa). If, in predication, the subject term is concrete, then the predicate term must be concrete too. If the subject term is abstract (such as the term "humanity" (human nature)), then the predicate must be abstract too (such as "mammality" in :  "humanity (more generally) IS mammality" (meaning that man belongs to the genus mammalia, i.e. man is a mammal). We just said that all terms in a category row, coming after the first subject, are "supposed to be abstract". This is because when we say "Socrates (concrete) IS a mammal (concrete)" the statement in fact means that a certain general nature (abstract) is attributed to Socrates, not qua Socrates (concrete) but qua human being (abstract), whereas when we say "Socrates IS walking" we mean by "Socrates" Socrates qua Socrates, and then the predicate does not signify a general nature but a state or condition in which Socrates finds himself to be in.
Readers may work this out further, as they wish.

In the next (version of the same) diagram we add possible predications (a few examples only) in addition to those directly leading to the highest genera of beings.

Not all these possible predications, as indicated by red lined or curves in the diagram, are genuine what-is-it predications, and only such predications play a role in finding the highest genus, i.e. the category. Only the "horizontal" predications are such what-is-it predications. The other predications, going from the upper row to another row (for instance from the Substance row to the Quality row, or to the Quantity row) are not what-is-it predications but predications expressing some condition of the particular individual Substance. So when we say  "Socrates  IS  1.70 m long",  it is not about finding in what category "Socrates" belongs, but is a condition in which Socrates finds himself.
As to what-is-it predications, we can say :  "Socrates (individual subject) IS a human being (species)",  as well as  "Socrates IS a mammal (genus)",  "Socrates IS a vertebrate" (higher genus), etc. But we may also say :  "a human being (species) IS a mammal (genus)",  as well as  "a human being (species) IS a vertebrate (higher genus)",  and also :  "a mammal (genus) IS an animal (still higher genus)", etc. But, of course, we cannot say "Socrates IS a species", neither can we say  "Socrates IS a genus",  because "Socrates" is an individual, while a genus (as genus) (and also species as species) is a universal. So when we say  "Socrates IS a mammal", we do not mean that he is a genus, but that he is an individual belonging to the genus or class called "mammalia", but not (so belonging) qua individual. Socrates qua Socrates does not belong to the genus mammalia, but Socrates qua human being does so belong. Or, again :  Socrates-exclusively-in-so-far-as-he-is-Socrates, which as such is a one-off thing, that is, "Socrates", exclusively according to being Socrates, cannot be placed in any category of content (what-is-it category, such as the category of "mammalian", itself belonging to the Category, the highest genus, of Substance) because, taking from him, for consideration, whatever features, is not having these features as possessed by him precisely qua individual, because these features do not stem from Socrates as Socrates, but from Socrates as  human being.  And indeed "human being", i.e. human nature, which itself is not an individual, may, as any nature, involve features such as necessary or non-necessary conditions or attributes. So far let it be our consideration of predication of features belonging to the Category of Substance (i.e. predication while staying within the row of Substance)  of  an individual such as Socrates. And further, now as to the Category of  Quality, we may not say, of course, that Socrates is (a) quality, but that Socrates, not qua Socrates, but qua human being, qua mammalian, or qua vertebrate, etc. is possessing qualities (such as whiteness), and as to Quantity, that he is possessing quantities (such as being 1.70 m long), and so on. Also here, qualities and quantities can only be possessed by an individual, but not qua individual, but qua general nature. Precisely by the fact that a same (qua content) nature, a same (qua content) Substance, or, better, a same Substantial Form, may, simultaneously, but at different places, find itself in different conditions, or is further determined (per accidens) by different features, such a nature comes in individuals, that is, individuality is consequent upon that nature, and so it is consequent to the mentioned features and conditions. The individual as individual, therefore, does not possess these features and conditions.
As has been said, each horizontal section ('layer') of the diagram consists of a thick bundle of parallel what-is-it predications each starting with a possible first subject, i.e. each fiber of the bundle having its own entry (its own lowest subject), and all these fibers converging onto the same category (the category of that particular horizontal section).
One or another genus in the row of Substance (upper horizontal section in the diagram) predicated of a lower (i.e. less general) genus, or of a species, from the same fiber in the same row -- (examples :  an insect IS an arthropod,  a mammal IS a vertebrate,  iron IS a metal,  a metal IS a chemical element,  a metal IS a Substance,  a mammal IS a Substance,  a human being IS a Substance) -- is a genuine what-is-it predication, as also is predicating such a genus or species in such a fiber  of  the very entry (the first subject) of that particular fiber, i.e. predicating such a genus or species of an individual Substance (examples :  Socrates IS a human being,  Socrates IS a vertebrate,  this particular crystal (diamond) here IS carbon (like any other diamond),  this (individual) butterfly IS an arthropod (like any other butterfly),  this creature here IS a radiolarian).
The same applies to the other horizontal sections in the diagram (the rows of the 'accidents'), i.e. also in such a section a higher genus may legitimately be predicated of a lower genus or species in the same fiber, or (be predicated) of the very entry (the lowest subject) of that fiber, and they too are what-is-it predications (examples :  red IS a color,  a color IS a quality,  1.70 m IS a length,  length IS (a species of) size (quantity),  (numerical) proportion IS (a species of) quantity).
Only the possible individuals (Socrates, this crystal, etc.) at the beginning of each fiber at the upper right corner of the diagram, i.e. at the right-hand end of the row of Substance, can be the subject of a predication of some accident from the remaining rows (i.e. the rows of Quality, Quantity, Relation, etc.), meaning that apart from the predications symbolized by downwardly directed arrows at the right-hand side of the diagram (all coming from the upper right (broad) corner), and apart from all the predications radiating out from the upper right (broad) corner, there can be no other legitimate "vertical or oblique" (as in the diagram) predications, beause in all these cases the subject term is abstract, and an abstract term can only be the subject of a predication of which the predicate comes from higher up in the same fiber in the same row (so we cannot, for instance say :  a vertebrate IS a color,  an insect IS a length,  red IS a length,  a length IS a father-of,  a color IS moving, etc.). Such predications are not what-is-it predications. And when we, nevertheless, say  "a color IS moving", then we do not mean that "color" belongs to the category of "Activity", i.e. here we do not express what something essentially is, but what something is doing, i.e. we mean :  "something that is colored moves", and thus meaning some individual Substance (or mixture of Substances) that happens to be colored moves. And this is a predication expressing a condition of some given individual Substance, not (expressing) a "what-is-it". And if we say  "the white there IS an animal", we mean that the Substance there, which happens to be white, is an animal. And this is a predication expressing an alleged fact, not (expressing) a genuine what-is-it. So except when predication is in the same fiber, and thus also within the same category (such as :  red IS a color,  a color IS a quality), an accident (i.e. a term from any row, except from that of Substance) cannot be a subject in any (what-is-it) predication. This illustrates the independence of the Categories of each other, i.e. they are conceptually independent of one another, despite the fact that ontologically accidents always depend on Substance.
The individual Substance, as term, can never be a predicate in what-is-it statements. There it always is the subject. When we say "that thing there is Socrates" we only mean an alleged fact. It is not a genuine what-is-it statement (proposition, predication). And an 'individual' accident, such as "the white", always refers to the individual Substance (or mixture of Substances) of which it is an accident, a 'thaten'. Therefore the real subject in a proposition with an individual accident as quasi subject is in fact an individual Substance (An accident, a 'thaten' can, in what-is-it predications, only be a subject if it is taken abstractly, such as "whiteness"). A 'thaten' can only be predicated  of  an individual Substance, because all other members of the Substance row are abstract. So, individual Substance, as term, can never be a predicate in a what-is-it predication. It is always a subject term.
In the abstract domain, terms other than those expressing individual Substance can function as a subject (a mammal IS a vertebrate,  green IS a color,  motion IS activity, etc.), and only in the abstract domain ("a mammal" here is meant to be an abstract term, likewise "a vertebrate"). So, indeed, in the concrete domain (i.e. terms expressing concrete things or affections) the subject is always an individual Substance.

Metaphysics and Logic
This way, as depicted above, of linguistically expressing the what-is-it (or in such a linguistic form qualitatively corresponding to it, i.e. meaning the same state of affairs) must have been originated from a fundamental structure of experienced Reality :  predication uncovers at least one of such fundamental structural elements, and that is here the Substrate (Substance)-Accident (thaten) Structure of experienced Reality. And this has implications as to what in fact the science of Logic is or should be. What is its true function? Well, Logic is the science or discipline that investigates the mental instruments of knowledge, such as concepts, propositions, etc. And it is clear that these instruments must be adapted to what is to be known, that is, in order to be proper instruments they must be adapted to the general structure of Reality, the general structure, as it exists independently of being known. And from what we've just stated may follow that these instruments have indeed adapted themselves to the fundamental Substance-Accident Structure of Reality, resulting in the subject-predicate structure of certain propositions. So it is clear that Logic must depend on metaphysics and not vice versa, i.e. it must depend on the metaphysical structure of Reality (if the other way around, we have Idealism). This implies that it must be an intentional logic, not a mathematical logic. And if the true metaphysics (theory of Being) is taken to be that of Aristotle, then we have an intentional logic as was expounded in Fifth Part of Website. In it the subject-predicate structure is, as subject-predicate structure, a genuine logical intention, i.e. a formal sign directly intending some part of Reality, without it having to be structurally similar to that part, turning the sign into an instrumental sign (which makes genuine knowledge impossible, knowledge then goes no further than knowledge of the sign). We must realize in this, that the (general) subject-predicate structure of a proposition is the (logical) instrument, while the actual proposition itself, the proposition qua its content, is not an instrument of knowledge. The other formal signs are concepts and arguments (syllogisms). In mathematical logic no distinction is made between intentional non-instrumental signs (and therefore genuine mental instruments of knowledge, i.e. logical instruments), on the one hand, and non-intentional, merely instrumental signs (and therefore not genuine instruments of knowledge, not logical instruments), on the other. A "model", as so often used in natural science, for example a (mathematical or computer) model of turbulence in fluids, or, more generally a model of weather formation, indeed is a simulation of a certain part or aspect of Reality, and in this way representing it. But the model's existence does not exclusively consist in representing something else, it itself is just there (after it has been produced). So as long as the model is not totally confirmed by observation, our knowledge of the mentioned natural structures (turbulence, weather) goes no further than that of such models. Therefore a model is but an instrumental sign, not a logical sign. It simulates, not intends, a part of reality. To be sure, a subject-predicate structure is nowhere to be found in extramental Reality, likewise a concept, a proposition or an argument. They are logical instruments of knowledge of states of things in reality (where, here, "reality" is meant to be objective reality and thus including proven or supposed mathematical relations and structures). These instruments are formal signs, not instrumental signs (mimicking reality) but intentional signs (effecting a certain identity between knower and known) (See the documents about Intentional Logic in Fifth Part of Website). An intentional sign exclusively consists in the fact that it is of or about things other than itself. And although smoke points to fire, its "what-is-it" is not exclusively limited to this referring. It truly can exist in reality. Not so with genuine logical intentions, formal signs, they cannot exist in extramental reality.
Logic, as has been said, is about the mental instruments of knowlege. This knowledge is supposed to be about objective reality (which may include, in addition to really existing things, supposed facts in the world of mathematical relations and forms). And with "objective reality" we mean what is expressed by the following two salient theses of  philosophical realism (as it is held in Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy) :

• There are beings (material or mathematical) which are, and are what they are, quite independently of anyone's knowledge of them (When a mathematical form, say a triangle, is exhaustively defined (and they can be so defined), it then is what it is, and the science of mathematics can now enquire into those features that necessarily follow from it, i.e. it can prove necessary attributes).
• These beings are capable of being known in human cognition, more or less adequately (this is, because material things or aspects of such things which are not observed are not truly known, and in mathematics many conjectures are not yet proven or cannot be proved), and often with great difficulty, but still known, and known as they really are in themselves and not merely as they are relative to some knower.

If these theses are accepted (and we do so), then Logic must be intentional, which means that the cognitive instruments are such that in and through and by means of them our knowledge can become formally identical with what it knows. These instruments are called intentions. According to the above theses these instruments must directly intend that what is to be known, that is, without any mediating entity that first had to be known. As soon as such mediates are conceded, our knowledge could not go beyond these intermediates, implying that our knowledge is not objective and so violating the second thesis of philosophical realism. And that's why logical forms may not be structures in themselves but only insofar as they are about things other than themselves (in fact they are not "themselves", all what they are is being about objective things or patterns, and nothing else (they are)). Things, non-intentional things, exist, or are supposed to exist, of their own and in their own right, independently of being known. They are objective, or, said differently, an objective world does exist. And this world can, in principle be known as it objectively is, i.e. without being changed by the act of cognition. This is philosophical realism. Anyone who denies it, concedes to know that the world is objectively (i.e. in itself) such that it cannot be known objectively (knowledge cannot go beyond knowledge of concepts, models, and ideas). And in this way the opponent of realistic philosophy contradicts his own position. So, as should now be clear, truly logical instruments are very special mental tools enabling knowledge. They are formal, intentional signs, not instrumental signs (logical signs are instruments of knowledge because they are not instrumental but intentional). Such logical instruments are concepts, propositions and arguments (syllogisms). And in studying them the subject-predicate structure (in propositions and arguments, and implicitly in concepts) is highly important, because it reflects (or one may say intends) the basic metaphysical structure of objective reality, the Substance-Accident structure. So because genuine Logic (and that is intentional logic) depends on metaphysics, in the sense that the logical tools studied by it are necessarily adapted to objective reality, intentional logic, when itself is studied, may reveal features of the fundamental structure of objective reality.

Logic and natural science
What is natural science? Modern natural science attempts, mainly through linking relevant observational data with one another, to reveal the precise structure of the workings of Nature. For this, it has developed certain methods. As to the phenomenon of weather for instance, -- while admitting it to be a process totally independent of being known, remaining what it is also after having come to be (partly) known, in short admitting that the weather is an objective phenomenon, -- one, guided by experience of, i.e. familiarity with, a number of atmospheric phenomena (rain, fog, etc.), sets up a model (mimicking the weather), consisting of a set of differential equations. And by letting a computer calculate a number of possible solutions corresponding to imported initial conditions in these equations, the model is expected to predict the weather of the next few days. If the predictions of the model come true more often than sometimes, then the model is said to be a useful one, and one can legitimately say that this model has increased our knowledge of certain general aspects of the weather machinery as it is in itself.
The study and evaluation (as to legitimacy and effectiveness) of the widely used methods (as the one just described) in natural science is called epistemology :  things as truth, certainty, confirmation, falsification, objectivity, etc. play a role in it.
And to be distinguished from epistemology is logic. So what, then, is logic? Well, logic should be the study of the mental instruments of knowledge, not only knowledge of Nature, as it is seeked after in natural science, but also that in mathematics, in metaphysics, and in whatnot. These mental instruments are the logical intentional signs such as the concept, the proposition, and the argument (syllogism), of aristotelian-based logic (intentional logic). So genuine logic must not be confused with epistemology. This confusion has taken place precisely where modern logicians claim that their generalizations and classifications of propositions and inferences ("mathematical logic") constitute a logic. But if we adhere to the realistic theory of knowledge -- there are things, existing independently of their being known, which can, at least partially, be known as to what they are in themselves and not merely as to how they appear to us -- then mathematical logic cannot be a logic at all, because its signs are not intentional but instrumental (in intentional logic the signs are, it is true, instruments of knowledge, but they are not instrumental signs, but intentional signs). And through such instrumental signs there is no direct cognitive contact with the object, and thus these signs, these instrumental signs, do not make knowledge to penetrate all the way down to the object :  It is then knowledge, not of the object itself, but of the sign. Nevertheless, such a sign could be a useful collaborating tool to gain knowledge of some object, as we saw in the case of the weather model, which indeed is an instrumental sign. And mathematical logic studies such signs in their highest generality. But generalized models and generalized and classified enunciations (resulting in schemes of so-called propositional functions, formal systems, etc.) have been actually constructed (by the mathematical logicians), they are not our intrinsic, constant, mental biological tools for obtaining knowledge just as such, however useful they may turn out in special cases. So to study such instrumental signs is not doing logic but doing epistemology. And thus having epistemology, it is still worthwile in addition to study our mental and intentional tools of knowledge, i.e. doing genuine logic. And this logic can be no other than the " Intentional Logic" as developed by VEATCH (1951) (and given in Fifth Part of Website) by further working out the Aristotelian Logic (Aristotle could not be biassed by epistemology), a logic based on the realistic theory of knowledge. And indeed, this logic (being about intentional signs) is ordered to obtaining knowledge as such, without being epistemology, a knowledge, whose acquisition certainly may involve instrumental signs (such as models). These latter signs cannot, however, guarantee the objectivity of knowledge. As they are in themselves, they cannot point beyond themselves. This is only accomplished by the truly intentional signs. So, holding that "mathematical logic" is  THE  logic, i.e. the only logic, is contradicting the realistic theory of knowledge, namely by not guaranteeing true direct cognitive contact with the object-to-be-known. If one stays loyal to this realistic theory one doesn't, of course, need to reject the results of "mathematical logic", but should reject the claim that they, and only they, constitute the one true logic. They either just form a mathematical system or systems (of symbols and the rules of their combination) that may be incorporated into the methods of natural science.
In genuine logic, it is a correct theory of  s e m a n t i c s  that counts :  In mathematical logic the  m e a n i n g  of a sign is based on its structural  s i m i l a r i t y  with the object-to-be-known, that is to say on the "isomorphy" that is supposed to obtain between the sign and the object (isomorphy generates meaning). But how do we recognize such a similarity, such an isomorphy? Well, this can only be accomplished through true intentional signs, that is by recognizing the respective "whats" of the model (the instrumental sign) and the object mimicked by it. So, in fact, in mathematical logic true intentional logic turns out to be presupposed.

Intrinsic and extrinsic qualitative (intelligible) content of a given Substance.
Only the  i n t r i n s i c  qualitative content of a given Substance is its genuine whatness-content. Extrinsic contents are added to the content of a Substance without altering its true whatness (To discuss such things, is, by the way, typically a matter of natural philosophy, and certainly not of natural science). Let us try to further explain these metaphysical notions as good as possible, i.e. as good as they allow themselves to be clarified at all.
Let us, to begin with, consider the statement "man is a mammal", meaning that man is a species of the genus "mammalia". Because not only human beings are mammals, we may further specify this predicate by the term  "having the ability to rationally behave".  We then arrive at the (complete) definition of the term "man" :  "man IS a mammal having the ability to rationally behave" (in which "man" is the species to be defined, "mammal" is the genus, and  "having the ability to rationally behave"  is the (specific) difference). So by the difference the genus "a mammal" is contracted to the species "man". But in fact, in this definition, while being in the category row of Substance, we borrow a term that belongs to the category row of Quality. We also do that when saying  "Socrates IS a mammal having the ability to rationally behave",  but here the subject "Socrates", although individual (and as such not definable), is not meant qua Socrates, but qua human being (which is definable). So this statement is a definition too, applied to an individual of a species.
The term  "having the ability to rationally behave"  is, no doubt, a quality. For man (and thus also for Socrates qua human being) it is moreover a necessary quality, i.e. it is an essential ingredient of the what-is-it of man, and has thus an intrinsic cause. This in contrast to, for example, the term  "having a brown face (because tanned by the sun)",  being a quality too, in the statement  "Socrates IS having a brown face" :  This quality is not an essential ingredient of the nature of man, and even not of Socrates qua Socrates. It is only a condition or state as a result of extrinsic causes. It is, nevertheless, temporarily belonging to the qualitative content of Socrates.
So there indeed are 'accidents' (such as the (complex) quality "having the ability to rationally behave") which are  n e c e s s a r y  elements of the intrinsic whatness of a species or of an individual Substance qua species, despite the fact that such a necessary quality is called "an accident" in Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics while recognizing its  per se  nature with respect to man, and therefore calling it a "proprium". Other accidents may of course be none-necessary qualities or (other) affections with respect to a given species of Substance, and are then 'true accidents'. So the intrinsic whatness of an individual Substance qua species consists, according to me, entirely of necessary intelligible contents ('qualitative contents'). Each such a content has intrinsic causes lying in the Substance itself. But one or another such a content (i.e. one or another necessary quality)  taken apart,  i.e. conceptually considered as isolated, then is no more than a mere  condition or state, albeit a necessary condition, of the individual Substance qua species. On the other hand, a quality (an intelligible content) attributed to the individual Substance qua individual is a non-necessary condition of that Substance qua species, and such an intelligible content or quality (s.l.) then is a true "accident" of Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics. It has extrinsic causes, extrinsic with respect to the given Substans qua species. Such a content may or may not be typical of that Substance qua individual ("typical" in the sense of  "Ah, that's typical of Socrates!").
So we can summarize with confidence the following about the status of Substance and Accident  ( Despite the narrower printing format, the statement (the summary) is ours, it is not a quotation) :

Taking all instances of both types of intelligible contents, i.e. 'accidents' (necessary and non-necessary), but now each one of them considered apart from one another and especially apart from the Substance as a whole, and thus considering each such a content in isolation (so, for example, taking "redness" instead of "red-thing", taking "rationality" instead of "rational-thing"),  causes such a content (such an intelligible content) to lose its status as integral (and that is virtual) part of the Substance, i.e. (to lose its status as) integral part of the Substance's Substantial Form, and thus become a non-integral (and therefore actual) true part of the (one) Substance, a content, not ontologically inhering in the Substance anymore, but now merely adhering onto it, and becoming a mere condition of it, becoming a content that may be predicated of it, reflecting the separate status (followed by unification) of subject and predicate. But, of what, in fact, are these contents (now having become conditions) then predicated? They are predicated of the complete matter-form composite, and ultimately of the (complete) Substantial Form of that composite, and only of this Form, because that Form's substrate, prime matter, is, of itself, absolutely undetermined. This Form intrinsically is the 'piece of music' (to express its harmonious unity) composed of all necessary contents, composed by integrating these contents into one single whole, the Substantial Form, where "necessary" here means :  If, in a given Substance, one of these contents is taken out or has been replaced by another, then the original intrinsic whatness of that given Substance changes, or that Substance disintegrates. Also all non-necessary contents (which always are mere conditions) do adhere onto Substance when these conditions are considered isolated, and, also, ultimately onto the Substantial Form and only to it. But here, in the case of non-necessary contents, this adherence is caused by extrinsic factors, factors outside the own qualitative content of the Substance, factors rendering them to be always mere conditions only (while the adherence in the case of necessary conditions is intrinsically caused, and therefore this adherence is in fact inherence [In the present context the terms "intrinsic", "extrinsic", "necessary" and "non-necessary" are always meant with respect to the Substance, and ultimately to its Substantial Form, under consideration] ).
So while any given  non-necessary content  is in fact always, which here means under any consideration whatsoever, a mere  condition  of some Substance, and thus merely adhering onto that Substance,  a  necessary content  is an integrated, and therefore virtual, part of a Substance (ultimately of that Substance's Substantial Form), and therefore not a mere condition of it, but an integrated  content,  that inheres in it.  But as soon as this latter content, this necessary content, is conceptually taken in isolation, then it changes into a mere  condition  of the (relevant) Substance like all the non-necessary contents already were, then it only adheres onto a Substance, also like all non-necessary contents do. So in both cases, viz., that of necessary content and that of non-necessary content, when we conceptually isolate such a content, a necessary content changes into a mere condition, while a non-necessary content, being already a mere condition, remains to be so.
And in this way we can now consider all Aristotelian "accidents", when considered in isolation, to be indeed accidents, adherents, of a given Substance, and this is the true "Substance-Accident Structure" of material things. A structure, in which Substance, as the substrate of accidents, is, qua beingness, prior to the accidents. Substance can also be called Entity, but then Entity comes in several instances, and the Substantial Form is, within the material world, the very primary instance of Entity. And this Form, this Form of a thing, is  in  the thing, it cannot be a universal because in that case all things having the same Form would be one single thing. But this Form, can also not be a singular, because it is definable. Apparently, though itself neither singular, nor universal, the Entity is the cause of both individuality in the singular thing, and universality in the definition. The Entity, the Substantial Form, is the primary instance of 'a this'. A secondary instance of it is the singularity of the whole thing (matter-form composite + accidents). And while the Substantial Form is actually 'a this', it is potentially a universal, because (with the help of prime matter) it may be multiplied, resulting in individuals of the same species.
And so, with all this, i.e. with the Substantial Form (Entity) being an integral whole of different qualitative contents (as expounded above), we have finally arrived at a correct  m e t a p h y s i c a l  d e s c r i p t i o n  of a true  w h o l e,  a true holistic thing, a true "Ganzheit" as discussed by Oskar Müller in the case of the organismic living mega-molecule, but also in the case of non-living micro-molecules :  In such a thing, in such a holistic qualitative total-content, whether it be a molecule, a crystal, or an organism, there are no actual parts, no actual contents 'making it up', but only virtual parts or contents, because it is one integral whole. Such a whole, having no actual parts or contents, may be described in yet another, but equivalent, way : The different 'parts' or 'contents' truly inhere in that whole (not merely adhere onto it). As such they cannot be predicated of that whole. And only when we, conceptually in theorizing or materially in experimenting,  i s o l a t e  such a part or content, it becomes actual and is then a mere  c o n d i t i o n  or true part of the given whole, the given Substance, it then only at most adheres onto that whole, and is predicable of it.
And, further, only in the case of a true whole we can legitimately speak of  "self " or of  "itself ", only such a whole has a self.
As to  p r e d i c a t i o n,  the subject-predicate relation is a relation of identity (the subject term, as to what it means, IS the predicate term as to what it means). It is a relation of identity, because conceptually in the real thing, involved in the predication, a separation is made which is later to be re-identified again [such as in"Socrates IS a human being", supposit and essence were separated and later identified again] ). And in virtue of this, a predication is a true intentional sign. Being itself a relation of identity, it signifies something other than itself, that is, it signifies something that is itself not (necessarily) a relation of identity (because Socrates, as Socrates, is not a human being, i.e. Socrates is not humanity, and likewise, in "Smith IS sick" Smith is not identical with his sickness). So it is through and by means of a relation of identity, as it figures in subject-predicate propositions, that we come to know things or structures that are, however, not themselves necessarily structures of identity. Indeed, when we conceptually isolate a necessary content from the whole to which it belongs (a necessary accident from its Substance), we can predicate it of that whole by re-unifying it with that whole. Also in this case (necessary content of whole) the subject is identified with the predicate (by the copula IS), and thus the predication is itself a relation of identity, and so, again, a genuine intentional sign. But the things that it intends (whole, necessary content) do not themselves stand in a relation of identity :  The whole is not identical with any virtual part of it.

Yet form and knowledge, despite the priority of form from the viewpoint of human science, turn out in their highest instances to be absolutely identical. The Aristotelian form, when found separate from matter, is actual in the highest degree. It is a 'knowing' -- for to know is to have a form without matter. And what it knows is itself -- for it has and is itself without matter. It is a 'knowing' of 'knowing'. There is nothing in any way whatsoever passive in it from either the viewpoint of Being or of knowledge. It is all act. In comparison, the Platonic forms are potential. They are knowables. The Aristotelian separate forms are knowings. The terms "intelligibles" and "intelligences" may be used for the moment to translate these notions, the Platonic forms are merely intelligibles. The Aristotelian forms are intelligences. [...]
The Aristotelian form, moreover, of its very nature denotes  difference, and therefore intelligible  content.  The form of anything is most properly expressed by its  ultimate difference. Consequently, the form does not require anything else to differentiate it. Difference of forms, either in the material or the immaterial order, nowhere appears as a problem in Aristotle. The Stagirite [as he is called, after his place of birth] points out  that  the respective what-IS-Being [the Forms] are different in the case of man, of a god, of a trireme. But he does not seem aware of any need to show  how  or  why  they are different. The things themselves are specifically different because they have a different formal cause. This is the final  why. Similarly Aristotle never feels called upon to offer any explanation of how or why the separate Entities are different from one another. Each is a what-IS-Being, each must be  different. The Stagirite's one problem in this regard is to explain difference where the what-IS-Being is the same, i.e., in singulars of the same species. This requires the presence of matter, which is something essentially unknowable. It adds nothing to the what-IS-Being and so accounts for numerical plurality and indefiniteness. [...]
Aristotle starts with what is knowable in the sensible universe. That is seen at once as formally many -- the different what-IS-being of men, horses, trees, etc., and the various categories of Being. All these what-IS-Being, both primary and secondary (accidents), are there, and are different. The problem of the Stagirite is to see some kind of unity among all these  different  forms [The uncovering of unity, and especially its explanation, is not the task of philosophy but rather the task of modern natural science, investigating  r e l a t i o n s.  Also the pros hen connection of beings is merely an empirical fact expressing the most general differences. It is not an explanation of this connection and of these differences.]. Unlike Parmenides, and to a lesser degree Plato, Aristotle does not commence by taking a 'one' and asking how it can be many. He is taking a 'many' and asking how it can be one. His answer is the pros hen unity [which is not, as has been said, a scientific explanation in the modern sense, because it is not a natural science problem]. [...].
The metaphysical treatises state that all corruptible things imitate the incorruptible, and that all sensible things, both corruptible and incorruptibel [the heavenly bodies], depend on separate Entity as upon their final cause.[...]
The goal sought by all things, and the purpose of all natural actions, is the "eternal" and "divine". The two terms seem employed synonymously and explicatively. They designate very aptly the separate Entities, which are unchangeable and divine in the highest degree, and are the causes of what is visible in the divine. Ultimately it must be their divinity and their eternity that is shared by sensible things. [...]
Permanence, accordingly, but permanence in and through activity, is what imparts the divine to sensible things. [...]
Being is derived to all other Entity and all other Beings according to the degree in which the actual permanence of the separate Entities is shared or imitated. [...]
As a science of pros hen equivocals, the primary Wisdom contemplates form without matter -- which is the nature of the separate Entities -- in itself, and as it is expressed in every other instance of Being. [...]
He [Aristotle] saw a plurality of forms and categories, and reduced them to a pros hen unity. That unity was consequent, not prior. [...]
Being is a group of pros hen equivocals, of which the primary instance is form in the sense of act.

The already fequently used concept of  existential self-funcion  ( Eigen-einfunction, self-onefunction) is still in need of further clarification. First a verbal analysis :  "self " means :  especially belonging to the object in question, only present precisely there, residing in it, being found only there, being revealed only by it. ( NOTE 306) .  "One" [in "self-onefunction] in a lesser degree refers to the number 1, it rather means :  unique, uniform, exclusively, undivisible.  "Function" means :  That what is expressed is specific, basically, however, expressed in  all  characteristic effects of the object in question ( NOTE 307) .

The existential self-function [a function, exerted by some being, by some thing, consisting in keeping itself in existence], in spite of its spontaneous illustrative nature, makes for rather big difficulties. It already quite strongly recalls the notion of a  phenomenon on its own account [an sich], recalls something that, say, "underlies" the psycho-physical parallelism, and indeed, it is hard to imagine, but, nevertheless, with the effort of some intuism from the side of experiencing things, quite well "understandable", for this function does represent the sensing and acting life and experience in all its sorts. By means of the concept of existential self-function, also the very subject of the substrate of perception and experience [in fact this substrate is the subject (of perception and experienc, i.e. having the perception and experience)], the  I, is determined. The traditional concept of soul is hardly more than an illustrative, objectivating, and projecting personification of the existential self-function [ESF], the essence of which cannot be disclosed to us further. So we cannot expect from our more poorly experienced and less trained-in-thinking forebears a full comprehension of this function.

Thinking and mind are not simply summed-up combinational effects [are not addition-resultants], not results or products of a meaningfully ordered manifold, but the qualitative existential self-function of a single molecule. The existential function evades the concept of  "production", and at most has, through the concept of  "character" [Eigenheit], still some connection with the concept of  "property" [Eigenschaft] ( NOTE 308) . Analytic dismemberability is not proper to it, it is not transparant [Note 309 omitted], because a knowable dependency is not a self-function. This function ( NOTE 310) in particular is not a mathematical parallel- or proportional function, but an "identical" existential function or function of being, which goes down together with interruption or cessation of being without any recognizable parallelism ( NOTE 311) .

While one may, in the case of the particular ontogenetic development [the individual development of a given organism], apply the auxiliary concept of  "self-reacton" [Eigenreaktion], the existential self-function (ESF) means the basically essential [feature] of organismic life. ESF with the forms of life, mind, thinking, I-feeling, etc., is the uniform characteristic representation of those uniformly unimolecularly material aggregates that are precisely in need of this function in order to be. It is the fundamental indispensable function coinciding with the very ability for its carrier to exist ( NOTE 312) .

ESF is not merely a different expression, but a  foundation  of physiological proper- and special regularity. Remarkable as to the existence function is that it  seems  merely to consist of a combination of simple, more or less clear regularities and forces. This combination and steering surely is obscure and inapprehensible (just as it is in the case of the soul, being merely a different expression of the same thing).

In the ancient and traditional way of expressing things, the ESF would be something over and above the bodily organismic organization, directing the events and processes into a determined goal-oriented trajectory which is ordered to a uniform target ( NOTE 313) and surely with an accuracy for which we have but approximate examples from our own mind-directed social world. The new interpretation of the ESF now renders it evident that this analogy is a complete one, for that what directs the physiological processes is in fact the same as that directing our actions out into the environment.

The ESF of the living substance is, the otherwise not to be accomlished, bridging between life-potential special qualities of the "elementary particles" and organismic intelligent behavior, and is in this way the sought-for expression of the relationship between matter and life. That what we come to see of life [i.e. that what life reveals to us] is the mediating form between the philosophical notion of  "life" and the philosophical notion of  "matter", that is the "world". The ESF identifies itself with the directing "life force", being the principle of the organism guiding the individual mechanisms ( in man and certainly also in higher animals consciously as " I " ( NOTE 314)  )  and specifies the notion of "carrier" or "connection of the living substance with matter". The ESF can, depending on the nature of the organismic matter aggregate, show the most different variants. It may also be damaged ( NOTE 315) , but it is neither divisible nor composable ( NOTE 316) , it is neither capable of [being subjected to] Fourier analysis [analysis of complex waves into simple constituent waves], nor is it composable from increments or by way of superposition. It is therefore a monochromatic phenomenon.

The existential self-function [ESF] is especially also representative of individuality. Where there is an ESF there also is an individual made up by it, a self-contained singular particle, for the ESF determines the "self", the delimitation to precisely that domain occupied by that what we denote as discrete singular particle. This  boundary  is very sharp and provides us with the rare examples of true stages or levels in Nature. Moreover we know that in fact there are only existence-functionally determined individuals and nothing in between ( NOTE 317) .

As to inorganic ESF's, as such based on analogy ( NOTE 318) , we may suppose that they correspond in the same molecules in such a degree that they satisfy the criterion of sameness of these molecules. As a result these molecules are then "automatons", an expression -- in itself superfluous and only therefore chosen beause in the domain of the living one has already used such expressions -- which is the more justifiable because all details are mechanistic physico-chemical  constants. [Direct hereafter we shall see that the expression "automaton" does not apply to organisms even when inorganic molecules are believed to possess, like organisms do, an ESF.]

This does not apply to the organismic ESF, being correlatively combined with a recognizable existence- and self-awareness, which ESF is altogether of a different nature [than the inorganic ESF] expressing itself especially by the, actively acting, dodging threat, reacting and selecting, tendency of self-conservation. And moreover, no organismic individual is  precisely  similar to another and thus also every ESF (fine-constitutively) exists only once [i.e. is a one-off phenomenon]. The double [i.e. as to content and number] manifold of constituents (large number of distinguishable effective "details", each one of them being moreover quantitatively variable within certain limits), results in an uncountable number of variants. Only already for this reason there is no detectable automatism and so also no complete determinism expoundable by [setting up] natural laws. Thus through the ESF-al divergence we see further possibilities of  "free will". And because the ESF expresses itself most visibly (or better sensibly) in the  " I ", one also doesn't need to say :  it  (in me) wants, but may safely hold to :  I  want (what I should do), an addition which is more than just a bon mot.

Our view creates here yet a special unity because will and idea both enter into the nature of the ESF, being then the common mathematically physical expression of both of these reality-carrying philosophical pillars of conceptualization ( NOTE 319) .

The ESF cannot assume arbitrary, but only definite values ( NOTE 320) , in which it cannot be just like that decided whether the already ESF-ally [existential self-functionally] determined  ( w a s  determined!) structure of the subcomponents expresses the nature of the higher ESF, and, in virtue of that, limiting this structure to fixed definite forms, or whether the ESF (as abstracted concept) does represent a sort of natural law, which can assume not just any value whatsoever but only definite ones and in this way "creating" a definite number of matter combinations. This latter view, which is merely a variation of the first, shows a certain correspondence with the view of something "mind-like" as essential element of the sensible world.

The statement :  that the whole world appears as a staircase of levels of mind-like beings (Becher) may verbally be verified if we let represent the mind-like by the ESF-al ( NOTE 321) , which undoubtedly imports into the concept of mind such a gradation that we (psychologically) take the  in a different way mind-like  to be not  mind-like ( NOTE 322) . The [conceptualization] of ESF completely abstains from the demand of corresponding  way of appearing  -- which is merely a concomitant and accidental expression of something quite different essential, namely precisely the existential function -- while one normally takes that as mind-like that is similar to our own. And in this we see, among other things, the superiority of the ESF-al view ( NOTE 323) .

Included in the  basic concept  of the ESF are all concepts, selected as relevant and pertinent, that are by the many different modern biologists, supposed to characterize the practically existential [aspect] ( NOTE 324) . Yet there is the not surprising but nevertheless remarkable possibility, to derive from the ESF still more concepts in addition to the mentioned ones, concepts that, unseen and not investigated, do fit to Life, as if one wouldn't have derived them from some overall theoretical concept but just obtained them from observation.

The ESF completely satisfies the demands that Driesch enforces onto the entelechy also in the sense of its non-contradiction with physically energetic regularities. The intervention of the entelechy as energy-free "force" (influences that otherwise only pertain to forces) in the natural spontaneous (entropic) course is without contradiction already realized by the fact that the components are, thanks to their embedding and feedback, not free, and so not subjected to the regular entropic fate of free objects. In certain decisive domains there is no possibility of energetic exchange and the concomitant irreversible waste. This stringently holds for the strict molecular life-structure, but also aftereffecting -- in turn symbolized by the molecular bonding connection -- as to the coordination of the whole physiological system of the higher organism. The anchoring of the ESF-al "entelechy" already in the depths of the atomic combination guarantees its well-functioning and uninterrupted effectuation.

Principal property of the ESF is self-maintenance. It is therefore also the  self-maintaining function  and it represents the inner essence, the tendency of realization, the "self-realization", the self-assertion. Instead of the expression ESF ("Eigen-einfunktion") one may also use the expressions "existence function", "existential function" (with the derivation of the existential), etc. The ESF is the, as superposition function constituted from within and working towards the outside world, effect of a (meta)stable combination of elements (elementary combination), for which this superposition function is at the same time the essential element of stabilization (physically there are many model images at the same time stabilizing that what causes them). The organismically ruling and creating goal-oriented principle is the tendency-to-realize of the ESF's, a tendency inhibited [delimited] by specific potencies, ESF's that, as to their further stabilization and maintenance, are in need of  that  what we indicate as life-characteristic and precisely find only here and nowhere else.

Müller (but we too!), evidently, is struggling to express the nature of the ESF (existential self-function) (of things) in general.
Perhaps a comparison with the Substantial Form in the sense of the metaphysics of Aristotle (see the above Intermezzo about this metaphysics) is instructive. The ESF of a Substance (and of every substance present in a mixture of substances), and thus the ESF of any free atom, free molecule, any pure crystal, any organism, would then be its qualitative content insofar this content represents the true what-is-it of such a given Substance, that is, its Substantial Form. Any  p r o p e r t y  of such a given Substance is in fact the Substance's interaction with its environment whatever that environment may at the time be (the Substance's color is its interaction with light, its weight is its interaction with a gravitational field, its volume determines a region of space with zero- or a certain decreased or increased degree of penetrability, etc.). And all true properties (Eigenschaften) depend, as to what properties they are, on the Substantial Form of that Substance of which they are properties, meaning that these properties are derived from that Substantial Form. One might say that they "come from" the Substantial Form, or even, that they are parts or aspects (which are also parts, but not materially delimited) of that Form. Indeed, when one wants to describe the what-is-it of a given Substance, not as an individual but as species, for instance a certain (species of) insect or mineral, one sets up a complete as possible list of properties (being the same in all individuals of the species). As to describing the Substantial Form, the what-is-it of a given Substance, this is how far we can get. In fact, however, we cannot describe the Substantial Form as such at all, because it has no parts. It is entirely one, one Form, a complete unity. Its different "parts" or "aspects" are only virtually in the Form. And they become actual only outside this Form as soon as the Substance interacts with its environment (it then interacts with other Substances), and then show themselves as "properties" of that given Substance. And these properties as such (i.e. as isolated) do not inhere in the Substance (in the Substantial Form as a whole), but merely adhere on the Substance (on the Substantial Form as a whole), and in this ontological sense they are "accidents".
Müller certainly doesn't go so far as we do on this account, but he comes very close to it indeed. As far as we can see, natural science (physics, chemistry, biology) deals with certain (having as such found) constant relationships between physical magnitudes such as mass, velocity, acceleration, electrical charge, volume, pressure, energy, density, wavelenght, distance, etc., together with certain physical constants (gravitational constant, Boltzmann constant, speed of light in vacuo, etc). Natural laws, as formulated by scientists, express these relationships in mathematical terms. It therefore seems that ontologically natural science is dealing with the "accidental" only (not diminishing the importance of its results!), even when attempting to determine the what-is-it of a given Substance (as seen above, it can do it only in terms of "accidents"). The true what-is-it of any Substance cannot be demonstrated and is in fact the subject, not of natural science, but of metaphysics, insofar as the latter is a theory of Being. And in the material world the primary instance of Being is Form, the Form of the Substance, the Form as formal cause of the Substance. All causes of processes in the material world are ultimately reduced to the formal cause, i.e. to the Substantial Form or what-is-it of things. And this Substantial Form may more or less be equated with Müller's ESF (Eigen-einfunktion, EEF) as existential function of the free atom, the free molecule, the pure crystal, the organism. And in the case of organisms we call it the (active) "strategy-to-exist" (expressing itself morphologically, chemically, as well as behaviorally).

The for us most interesting organismic ESF is the most illustrative, though not the most simple basic type, and we have contrasted it with the essentially different inorganic ESF ( NOTE 325) because it must comparably be also there. The organismic ESF appeared for the first time when also Life so appeared. It is the same result. One may now say :  The most elementary beginning of Life could and had to be established. But it wasn't a gradual development [from non-life to life]. This is forbidden already by the consequent quantum mechanical view which, in virtue of the ESF-al resonance coupling, demands a simultaneous (groupwise) appearance of ESF-al coupled groups and with it (despite possibly quantum spreading) being a multiple quantum jump, insofar as one has in mind the energetic equivalent. It was a genuine leap  into  life. Probably we are not in error and possess the most lenient and consequent basis of explanation for everything to come, if we -- also when presupposing all imaginable favorable conditions -- assume that this group coupling is to be identified with omnipotent life and that the discontinuous realization and fixation really was the discontinuous production of life ( NOTE 326) .

But this ESF-al life cannot be understood by concepts which are merely sub-creations from this ESF, subcreations realizing improved existence and [these sub-creations] surely not realizing [any degree of] self-understanding of and by the organism. The unimolecular ESF-al view always clarifies the special status of mind, its aversity towards the body, the seemingly separateness or separatability, the independent existence, and finally also the apparent animation from without. A conviction which certainly is supported by resonance phenomena in other -- but in fact closely related -- minds, that is in similarly constituted ESF-al substrates ( NOTE 327) .

The non-living (also of organic or organogeneous nature) is not a pre-stage, not something incomplete and imperfect, but a fully fledged closed different kind of thing, standing in a sister relationship to the living [both sisters being equivalent]. In both cases it is about complete ESF-al forms. And if we want to evaluate things here, then we should be led by another intention and not being authorized to scientifically-methodically judge them.

The ESF of the non-living from which certainly certain parts do enter into the constitution of the organismic ESF, is "experienced" by us in fact in  t h e i r  characteristic phenomena as we do experience the ESF of the organismic.

The chemical and physical data of the anorgana are more or less strongly relational "sides" [aspects] of the relevant ESF's. In comparison with the organismic it is perhaps not difficult to formulate  an  inorganic ESF, but it will not be possible to find  the  inorganic ESF which represents the true counterpart and analogue of the organismic ESF. It is as always :  Its knowledge would make us able to lay out a sort of world-formula, and, reversely, the knowledge of a truly basic world-formula would render the ESF knowable [so world-formula and ESF are more or less equivalent]. One thing is clear :

There never was so much to discover as there is today, and the enticing problems are uncountable. Whether they are difficult? Would they otherwise entice? We would know much more if we'd always had known how little we still know.

Two basic and guiding conclusions can be made. First let it be noted that in the domain of submicroscopic morphology no new principles of form-generation appear. As in the optic microscope [as compared with the electron microscope] we find bundles of fibrilles, packets of lamellae, porous membranes and sieve plates, boundary lamellae with bulges and invaginations, wicker works, overcrossing textures like shutting plates, as also individual particles of spherical, rod-like, or screw-like shape. Many such found textures can, as to beauty and symmetry, match with the admired microscopical form-world of diatomeans and radiolarians. In a speckled closing membrane with its submicroscopical pores the, for instance, microfibrilles so artistically wind around the apertures that the whole gives the impression of the tailoring of a gothic window. The functional structure of this ultra-texture satisfies our aestetic sense in the same way as does a macroscopical work of art !

Because the new world of forms and shapes is similar to the form-generation in the microscopic domain known to us, we may establish that the division between microscopic and submicroscopic is in fact accidental, originated as a result of the limits of resolution of the light microscope, and therefore artificial. Apparently there is no principal difference between morphogensis in the microscopic and ultramicroscopic domain.

When we ask for the causes of the discovered correspondence between the world of forms in the range of two different orders of magnitude, we conclude that in both of these domains the same formative forces must rule.

Still more important than this unification is, however, the second basic insight obtained as a result of the efforts to clarify the ultra-structures. The possibility to depict virusses and apoenzymes in the form of globular mega-molecules, in certain cases allows to make visible the macro-molecular constitution of cytological objects out of spherical proteid particles. On the submicroscopical lamellae of the chloroplasts, responsible for the assimilatory metabolism [in plants], we find granules having the size of macromolecular chromoproteid molecules, about whose mutual orientation plausible hypotheses may be erected which are discussed lively.

The interest of chemists for morphological questions in cytology is something entirely novel. One may say that in earlier times it was widely lacking. The situation during my student years is best represented by an anecdote told to me by the London muscle physiologist A.V. Hill :  A neuro-chemist called the brain-homogenate with which he worked "the natural brain", and after prussic acid had been added he viewed his tissue pulp as "a denatured brain". But to histologists [who investigate organic tissue] the proper meaning of "natural" brain in no way consists of a homogeneous pulp-like mass, but precisely the reverse, of its highly complex structure. From this it may well be evident how remote from each other the two basic disciplines of biology, namely morphology as doctrine of form and biochemistry as doctrine of matter, have become. As a result the unity of biology is threatened because its most important sub-sciences proceed along independent lines, developing without connection next to each other and subsquently more and more farther away from each other.

But today the situation is fully new, because the interests of both branches of natural science meet one another in the domain of submicroscopic morphology. Because morphology has managed to depict the macro-molecules, it has found the connection with chemistry, and, the other way around, the biochemists must engage in the morphological structure of these macro-molecules if they want to clarify in what way the complex enzymatic chain reactions, which they have discovered, simultaneously run together in the living cell. So we can now see how these originally disparate points of view come happily together, because now the chemists begin to care for biological structural issues, and, the other way around, the morphologists begin to care for the intrinsic chemical structure of the macro-molecules visible in the electron microscope.

When one [chemically] separates, from the submicroscopic rods of the tabacco mosaic virus (TMV) -- these rods chemically representing a nucleoproteid -- the nucleic acid part, one obtains a hollow cylinder which disintegrates into discs with a central hole. So the chemical reaction [resulting in the just mentioned separation of nucleic acid from the TMV ] results in a morphological change of the originally massive cylinder molecule. And, the other way around, it may be presupposed that on the level of macromolecules every morphologically detectable change, as long as it is not the result of simple deformation, must be associated with a chemical transformation. Accordingly, there is no principal difference between chemical and morphological change, as long as the relevant objects are small enough. Therefore, in the attempt to clarify the biological structures to which the life-processes are bound, one can hardly distinguish between what is typically morphological and what is classically chemical.

In this way we have, in the domain of the "neglected dimensions", a welcome synthesis between morphology and biochemistry. In the future biology will not be divided into two basic subdisciplines anymore, but a unifying overall view is developing thanks to the latest insights of macromolecular chemistry and micromorphology, an overall view which doesn't approach the living cell either according to its material only, or exclusively to its form and shape. Therefore, in contrast to the ever progressing specialization and division in the natural sciences, there is a reverse tendency in the domain of submicroscopic morphology where two great subdisciplines, initially contrasting with each other, coalesce into one single biological science with impressive unity.

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