THE ORGANISM AS A NATURAL THING 7 



etc., chemical substances, like sands, no longer capable of them- 

 selves of entering into new combinations, the ultimate low- 

 frequency radiation of the universe, etc. In respect of these 

 things nature has passed. 



3. ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF INANIMATE 



THINGS 



Inanimate things have a certain *' individuality " in that they 

 can be observed, measured and thought about by themselves. 

 Thus the whole earth is a planet, having its mass and dimensions 

 and its motions relatively to the sun, moon and stars : in these 

 respects it is an individual thing. But we can find parts in the 

 earth : thus it has a dense, central, metallic core ; a basaltic 

 substratum, a siliceous lithosphere, a watery envelope, and an 

 atmosphere. All these parts can be separately investigated. 

 Also the lithosphere can be seen to be composed of igneous and 

 sedimentary rocks of very many kinds. In the earth these various 

 rocks are the parts of a structure and their characteristics can 

 be stated in terms of their relations to other parts of the earth- 

 structure. Thus the basaltic substratum underlies the lithosphere 

 but rests on the metallic centrosphere : that may be considered 

 as its main characteristic. But the basaltic substratum has this 

 relation to the other earth-parts because of its mineral nature : 

 it is lighter than the metallic centrosphere, or kernel, but it is 

 heavier than the overlying lithosphere. 



We can, however, isolate any part of the lithosphere and 

 regard it as a thing quite apart from its relation to other things. 

 Thus the Old Red Sandstone is a geological series of strata and 

 its characteristics are that it was deposited after the Cambrian 

 rocks were formed but before the Carboniferous ones were laid 

 down. Yet a small piece of old Red Sandstone is a definite 

 kind of rock quite apart from its place in the geological formations, 

 and it has quite definite lithological characteristics. Again, this 

 kind of rock is made up of grains of sand cemented together 

 and each sand grain is a particle of silica. When we consider 

 the form, the crystalline structure, the density and the chemical 

 nature of a sand grain we think about it as a separate thing. 



Clearly the individuality of inanimate things may be conferred 

 upon them by our analysis of nature. Their characteristics may 

 be their relation to other things. Thus an island is a piece of 



