1252 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



or trying to think, of the three aspects, the organism, the environment 

 and the functioning. No line of biological progress can be sound 

 and secure that does not take heed of these three commonplace, 

 common-sense aspects of the problem. We are apt to concentrate 

 our energies on one thing; and that is to a certain extent to the 

 good, because we are usually most efficient in connection with the 

 things for which we care most. Yet even our practical efforts are 

 blunted if we do not correct our mental astigmatism. We suffer, all 

 of us, from a lack of stereoscopic vision in our mentality. One 

 authority says everything depends on food : it is question of nutri- 

 tion. Another expert says it is housing that is all-important, and, 

 of course, he is right up to a certain point. We want houses that 

 are not simply built to be hidden, but houses that may be homes — 

 yet what is the good of a well-constructed house if the owners 

 keep rabbits in the coal-cellar and the coal in the bath? 



Sir William Ramsay once said that human progress consisted in 

 increased economy in the use of energy. Now that is admirable up 

 to a certain point, but in such an economical definition of progress, 

 think what has been omitted, in regard to life, mind, and society. 

 Prof. Karl Pearson says that the main thing is to breed from the 

 best and to prevent the unfit from having children. A fine ideal, of 

 course, and part of the eugenic ideal, yet limited by taking no 

 account of environment or of function. What of a hypothetical fine 

 breed if they continue to live in a black country or in a slum? 



We like reforms carried out for other people and to be left alone 

 ourselves. But it is not that sort of thing we are declaiming against 

 so much as partiality of view, and our discussion here is an 

 attempt to see things more wholly. In other words, we wish to 

 visualise the biological idea of the prism of life. Biologists seldom 

 fall into the common fallacy of one-sided vision, for they are always 

 thinking and working with the three aspects, organism, environment, 

 functioning, plainly in view — meaning by functioning not only 

 breathing and digesting and the other everyday processes which are 

 almost wrapped up in the word "organism", but rather the activities 

 and ongoings of the organism, e.g. in its search after mates and food. 

 We must think of the organism as a functioning body spending a 

 great deal of its energy in regulating itself and keeping itself going; 

 but what we mean by functioning is rather the action and interaction 

 of the organism as a whole on its environment. This, then, is the 

 prism by which the biologist seeks to analyse the light of life: 

 Organism, environment, functioning; in plain English (i) the 

 living creature ; (2) the surroundings, including everything that has 

 an influence ; and (3) the activities of the creature in reacting on its 

 surroundings. Though often ignored, this corresponds to the socio- 

 logical diagram. For, as has been explained, all social processes 

 must be envisaged within the three categories of (i) the people or 



