Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/41

 bon and oxygen. And even when the purely chemical pattern is settled, and when the region containing the mixture is given, there are an indefinite number of regional patterns for the distribution of the chemical substances within the containing region. Thus, beyond all questions of quantity, there lie questions of pattern, which are essential for the understanding of Nature. Apart from a presupposed pattern, quantity determines nothing. Indeed, quantity itself is nothing other than analogy of functions within analogous patterns.

Also, this example, involving mere chemical mixture, and chemical combination, and the seclusion of different substances in different subregions of the container, shows us that the notion of pattern involves the concept of different modes of togetherness. This is obviously a fundamental concept which we ought to have thought of as soon as we started with the notion of various