OBJECT AND LIVING ORGANISM 109 



as an example, we have only to consider how a portable engine 

 becomes transformed into a locomotive. 



The great majority of our tools, machines and apparatus, 

 show the following structure : — there is a " main function," 

 to which a greater or less number of " subsidiary functions " 

 are attached. However fully the framework be analysed, 

 there is always some residue of accompanying properties that 

 do not enter into it, but can be interchanged without damage 

 to the implement. For the most part, they belong to an 

 implement that has been destroyed in order to form a new 

 one, or to the substance from which the implement was 

 made. 



A boat, for instance, always shows certain properties of 

 the tree from which the boards were procured, properties 

 which are inessential to the boat as such. In like manner, 

 all those of our implements which are prepared from metals 

 or other substances are laden with properties which do not 

 belong unconditionally to the framework of the implement, 

 but are conditioned by the structure of the substance alone. 



To all our implements something extraneous is attached, 

 pertaining to the material only, and not entering into the 

 framework of the functions and subsidiary functions. 



The framework itself displays everywhere the same 

 principle, i.e. a main function, achieved often through the 

 agency of a multitude of part-functions (one has only to think 

 of how many functions must be exercised before an automobile 

 gets going), and a large number of subsidiary functions 

 (which are expressed in the " body " of the car). 



In all cases, the properties of an implement can be analysed 

 into the properties of the material and those of the functional 

 framework, without anything being left over. There is never 

 anything unexplainable attaching to our implements, such as 

 makes the study of the living organism at once so difficult 

 and so fascinating. 



