236 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY 



From passivity and un-co-ordination come symmetry 

 and order. 



This argument withstands superficial examination, 

 but to accept it is truly to be " fooled by a metaphor." 

 For what is the pattern on the wall ? It is the environ- 

 ment, says the critic. But what is the environment ? 

 Inevitably we think of it as something that makes or 

 moulds the organism, a way of regarding it that drags 

 after it all the confusion of thought implied in the 

 above analogy. Clearly the environment is made by 

 the organism. Its form, that is, space, is only the mode 

 of motion possible to the organism ; it is clear that 

 whether the space perceived by an organism is one-, 

 two-, or three-dimensional, space depends upon its mode 

 of motion. Its universe is whatever it can act upon, 

 actually or in contemplation. Atoms and molecules, 

 planets and suns are its environment because it can in 

 some measure act upon these bodies, or at least they 

 can be made useful to it. Chloroform or saccharine, 

 or methyl-blue and all the dye-stuffs prepared from 

 coal-tar by the chemists, are part of our environ- 

 ment because we have made them. They existed only 

 in potentiality prior to the development of organic 

 chemistry. They were possible, but man had to 

 assemble their elements before they became actual. 

 In making them, he conferred direction on inorganic 

 reactions. 



Surely the organism itself selects the variations of 

 structure and functioning that are exhibited by itself. 

 If we hesitate to say that these modifications are crea- 

 tions, let us say that they are permutations of elements 

 of structure, and that they were potential in the 

 organisation of the creature exhibiting them. They 

 occur in the latter if we must not say that they are 

 produced. If they are detrimental, the organism is the 



