CHAPTER I 

 THE ORGANISM AS A NATURAL THING 



1. ON NATURAL THINGS 



By " natural things " we simply mean whatever can be in- 

 vestigated and described in a scientific way. Natural things are 

 located in space and they endure, more or less, in time. They 

 have forms and dimensions. They can be measured and weighed. 

 In them energy-transformations occur, or they are energy-trans- 

 formations. We can see, hear, smell, feel them and so on, either 

 by our unaided sense organs or by means of the latter, rein- 

 forced by telescopes, microscopes, balances, spectroscopes, etc. 

 In short, natural things are whatever become known to us in 

 the data of sensation and are thereafter thought about. 



They are the earth, the sun, moon, the planets and other 

 cosmic bodies ; earth-features, that is the oceans and seas, con- 

 tinents, islands, etc. ; the water of the ocean, the atmosphere, 

 sands, stones, rocks, minerals, etc. ; all chemical substances and 

 mixtures of such ; all animate things and the things that are 

 fabricated by animate things. 



They are also whatever we cannot directly see, hear, smell, 

 touch, etc., but whatever may be inferred by observations of 

 some kind. Thus molecules, atoms, protons and electrons are 

 natural things although we cannot see any of them and can only 

 infer their objective existence by the observation of phenomena 

 that are not molecules, atoms, etc. Forms of energy, that is, 

 electric currents and charges, radiation, fields of force, etc., are 

 also things in that they are measurable in space and time. 



Thoughts in themselves, logical and mathematical relations, 

 ideas, dreams, hallucinations, phantasms, etc., are not natural 

 things in the sense adopted here. 



la. The Classes of Natural Things. These are (i) in- 

 animate things, (2) organisms, and (3) artifacts. It is not easy 

 to make rigid definitions that will include one of these classes 

 of things and exclude the others, but these definitions are un- 



