OBJECT AND LIVING ORGANISM 107 



describe the implement, we make allusion to its " functional- 

 ity." A bench, for instance, may be called a " settle " ; 

 and in the word " steps " for " stairs," the function is clearly 

 expressed. 



Even the names given to objects originally imply a func- 

 tion. If you ask children what meaning they attribute to 

 the name of some familiar object, you wiU always meet with 

 a function, composed either from their own actions, or from 

 the action that they ascribe to the object. A stone, for 

 instance, always means something that can be thrown ; a 

 cloud, something that sails across the sky ; and so on. It is 

 only grown-up people who define the object as the sum of 

 properties and capacities, and ignore the function around 

 which the properties have originally crystallised. From which 

 we may conclude that the child's world is still entirely built 

 up of implements, and that the object is a creation only of 

 later reflection. 



Accordingly, for the understanding of aU things, it is of 

 fundamental importance to take exact account of the relations 

 of properties to functions. The most instructive examples in 

 this direction are those in which a new implement arises, or 

 an object is transformed into an implement. 



When a boy collects " skipping-stones," which he wants 

 to send dancing across the surface of a lake, there arises out 

 of the general implement " stone " (whose function in general 

 is to be thrown) a particular implement, the properties of 

 which group themselves round the special function of " skip- 

 ping." The skipping-stone is hard, fiat, circular and of a 

 certain weight. These are the properties required for this 

 special function ; the other properties it possesses, over and 

 above these, — such as colour, smell, taste and resonance, — 

 are " inessential," and are not determined by the function. 

 It follows from this that, by the much misused word " nature " 

 of an implement, we always mean its function. 



