THE ORGANISM AS A NATURAL THING 17 



The motions of Jupiter's satellites and the apparent motions 

 of the fixed stars are in the environment of man, for he can 

 utilize these motions. He may find his longitude at sea by 

 observations of the occultations of the Jovian satellites and he 

 finds the moment of midnight by observing the transit of a fixed 

 star. Even when man observes, but does not utilize some 

 astronomical observation he acts upon the cosmic bodies that he 

 observes — for the radiations from these stars are really the stars : 

 the latter are wherever they act. And when the astronomer 

 diverts stellar radiation into a spectroscope or camera, or when 

 he adjusts telescopes, etc., as to cause that radiation to enter 

 instruments, he acts upon it with his organs of sense and muscle. 



Whatever, therefore, an organism acts upon, or utilizes, or 

 avoids, or is affected by, is in its environment. And according 

 to its status in the evolutionary career — that is, according to its 

 power of acting upon natural things that are not already made, 

 the environment of an organism is the more or less extensive. 

 And things that are in the environment of one organism may 

 not be in the environment of another one. 



6. ON ARTIFACTS 



Artifacts are natural things that would not exist apart from 

 the existence of organisms. They are such as we see them, 

 because their materials have come together by reason of the 

 activities of organisms ; or they are things that have been segre- 

 gated from other inanimate things ; or have been modified or 

 shaped ; or have been manufactured consciously or unconsciously 

 by organisms. Examples are coal, peat, vegetable mould, globi- 

 gerina ooze, limestones, coral reefs, fossils, chalk, worm-reefs, 

 the nests, burrows, hives, houses and other shelters of animals, 

 human habitations, cities, roads, harbours, ships and other 

 vehicles, weapons, tools, machines, synthetic chemical substances, 

 fabrics, etc. 



They are lifeless things, but they obviously belong to a different 

 category of natural things from those that we have called 

 " inanimate." 



Artifacts are not all of the same kind. Organic remains, such 

 as coal, oil found in shale-beds, shelly gravel, adipocere, etc., 

 are the chemically altered tissues of the dead bodies of plants or 



