Physical environment

“ First among these is the physical factor which conditions human activity but is not a compelling force, for man has often subdued his environment when it has put obstacles in his way. This physical element includes the geographical conditions of mountain, valley, or seashore, the climate and the weather, the food and water supply, the physical inheritance of the individual and the laws that control physical development, and the physical constitution of the group. ”

“ The tremendous importance of the direct influence of the physical environment on living creatures is most clearly seen in the case of plants and animals. Two or three illustrative points may be mentioned. (a) In some cases the environment exercises a regularly recurrent influence, and the living creature simply falls into step with it. ”

“ Temperament varies according to climate. Language, the generative power, diseases likewise depend indirectly on climate. [46] Man’s talents and capacities do so no less. [47] The climate in each region 17always favors the development of some special aptitude; on this basis he groups the peoples of the earth. [48] Although the nexus between human abilities and the physical milieu is thus intimate, yet reason, common to all men and invariable, is per se independent of physical environment. ”

“ CONSERVING OUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT Beyond civilization we will conserve, share, beautify and, if possible, improve the earth, which is our physical base of operations.
The earth is an irregular sphere, one of a number of planets circling the sun, from which we get light, heat and radiation. The earth has a shell or crust made of various minerals. ”

“ While they bring out clearly the effect of mountain barriers, indented coasts, and easy routes whether by land or water, they scarcely touch on the more subtle relationships between man on the one hand and the climate, plants, and animals which form the dominant features of his physical environment on the other hand. ”

“ Other physical circumstances of the environment, however, such as temperature and exposure, surface and altitude, which make life in some places comparatively easy, in others difficult or impossible, exert an influence not to be overlooked. ”

“ What the biologist calls the natural environment of an animal is from a physical point of view a rather rigid combination of definite forces. It is obvious that by a purposeful and systematic variation of these and by the application of other forces in the laboratory, results must be obtainable which do not appear in the natural environment. This is the reasoning underlying the modern development of the study of the effects of environment upon animal life. ”

“ Its flora and fauna have been described, and thereby its capacity for supporting human life approximately calculated. The other physical conditions which govern the development of man, such as temperature, rainfall, and the direction of prevalent winds have been examined. Thus we have acquired a treasury of facts relating to the causes and conditions which help the growth of civilisation and mould it into diverse forms, conditions whose importance I shall presently discuss in considering the relation of man to his natural environment. ”

“ The influence of environment on the organism may not be quite so potent as it was once believed to be, in the writings of Buckle, for instance, [9] and certainly man, the ultimate term in the series, reacts upon and greatly modifies his environment; yet the fact that environment does influence all distributions is established beyond the possibility of doubt. In this way also the position of geography, at the point where physical science meets and mingles with mental science, is explained and justified. ”

“ The most common things are the best examples of this adaptation, and of the agency of environment in effecting the Lord's purpose concerning us. Take the atmosphere as an example. We live in an ocean of air as fishes in an ocean of water. It presses upon us on all sides; we breathe it every moment. It contains the substances we need to purify and vitalize the blood and give us natural sensation and consciousness. It is the universal symbol of life, because it is the material medium by which physical life is given to us. Notice its adjustment to our physical organism and to all our needs.. ”

“ A Sketch of the History of the Idea of Milieu Since the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century Anthropo-geography, Geography and History The theory of social environment, as we have seen, gradually rises, especially since the renaissance, parallel with the theory of physical milieu. ”

“ And since the environment is constituted of two classes of objects, the objective and the subjective—the purely physical and the organisms possessing feeling—so the correspondences established in the individual are of two kinds, the psychological and the emotional. In the former class are comprised all the objects and relations of the inorganic world, the great laws and intricacies of nature and her past history, including the history of organisms and of man. ”

“ If the environment or the physical conditions underwent a variation, a corresponding variation in the forms that could by possibility exist must ensue, and, from a thorough study of those not eliminated, the physical conditions might be ascertained; and conversely, from a thorough knowledge of the physical conditions, the forms that could escape elimination might be designated. ”

“ The relation between physical conditions and history in its wider acceptation being thus fundamental, it may be well to consider in somewhat greater detail the special reactions of a single tolerably definite portion of the natural environment upon human development. ”

“ But, while these exceptions show what the human will can do, the general course of life shows the inexorable effect of conditions upon 2humanity. Of these conditions we share with other living things the environment of the material universe. We are affected by climate and locality, by physical, chemical, electrical forces, as are all animals and plants. ”

“ The same influence of the environment is to be noticed on the other manifestations and aspects of human life as well. Just as the lower organisms assume different shapes and characteristics under the varying conditions of the physical world and preserve their identity and continuity under different forms adapted to these conditions, so also human life undergoes a variety of transformations according to the divergence of the influences and circumstances in the physical and social worlds. ”

“ Within a certain kind of environment, an activity may be checked so that the only meaning which accrues is of its direct and tangible isolated outcome. One may cook, or hammer, or walk, and the resulting consequences may not take the mind any farther than the consequences of cooking, hammering, and walking in the literal—or physical—sense. But nevertheless the consequences of the act remain far-reaching. To walk involves a displacement and reaction of the resisting earth, whose thrill is felt wherever there is matter. It involves the structure of the limbs and the nervous system; ”

“ The sum of all the conditions in which a plant or an animal is placed is called its environment, that is, its surroundings. The environment comprises the conditions of climate, soil, moisture, exposure to light, relation to food supply, contention with other plants or animals. ”

“ Home exercise.—The study of the factors making up my own environment and how I can aid in their control.
Environment.—Each one of us, no matter where he lives, comes in contact with certain surroundings. Air is everywhere around us; light is necessary to us, so much so that we use artificial light at night. The city street, with its dirty and hard paving stones, has come to take the place of the soil of the village or farm. Water and food are a necessary part of our surroundings. Our clothing, useful to maintain a certain temperature, must also be included. ”

“ Further, if we are to study the effects of man-induced changes in a natural environment, it would have been advantageous to have known the nature of that environment before the changes were introduced—which, by and large, in the case of the ocean we do not. ”

“ Let us only for a moment consider how various are the external physical conditions in which animals live—climate, soil, temperature, land, water, air—the peculiarities of food, and the various ways in which it is to be sought ”

“ External Factors.—He begins by pointing out that living creatures are in the grip of a complex environment, which acts on them and to which they react. And whether we think of the seasons or the climate, the soil or the sea, we find that this environment is intricately variable. ”

“ The earth, its surrounding enveloe of life-giving water and air, and all its living things comprise the biosphere. Finally, man's total environmental system includes not only the biosphere but also his interactions with his natural and manmade surroundings. ”

“ But, in this connection, it is also obvious that, when we, from our point of view, distinguish between the organism as acted on by the environment and the environment as acting, we make a distinction that may be both useful and necessary for many purposes, but that is yet an arbitrary one. ”

“ I must ease my conscience once for all on this point, and say what I feel about atavism and environment. Environment in the shape of friends, of locality, and other material circumstances, has certainly influenced my life very much, and I could never see why such a hybrid word as environment should be used instead of surroundings or circumstances. Creatures of circumstances would be far better understood than creatures of environment; but environment, I suppose, would sound more scientific. ”

“ Every surface has, therefore, a peculiar constitution, by which it gives rise to the diversified hues of nature. The rich and lively green, which so abundantly overspreads the surface of the earth, the varied colours of the flowers, and the numberless tints of animals, together with all those of the productions of the mineral kingdom, and of the artificial combinations of chemical manufacture, result from powers by which the relations of matter to light are rendered permanent, until its physical conditions undergo some change. ”

“ The life conditions consist in variable elements of the environment, the supply of materials necessary to support life, the difficulty of exploiting them, the state of the arts, and the circumstances of physiography, climate, meteorology, etc., which favor life or the contrary. ”

“ But there is another side to vital activity besides acting upon [Pg 76] the surrounding world; the living creature is acted on by influences from without. The organism acts on its environment; that is the one side of the shield: the environment acts upon the organism ”

“ In these ways a complicated network of changes arise that are to be referred to ultimate changes in climate, food, health and activity. These causes create types differing in a thousand ways, physical and social. Types are easy to recognize, but hard to measure. ”

“ Environment—what part does it play? Its stamp is upon us, but other forces and influences also determine our reactions and mould our characters. Is the objective environment alone the sea in which we swim? More significant still are the emotions which a given environment induces in each individual. ”

“ We live not only upon nutriment, air, heat, and light, but also upon a mysterious, imperceptible force, that comes to us from the mother earth.
In addition to the biological potentialities which control the development of every individual, all living creatures owe something of themselves to their environment. ”

“ From our point of view it is just as much a non-premeditated, non-created, irrational portion of our environment, as is the weather. Entering it in the closing years of the Nineteenth century, we find it as it exists and as it has developed through the centuries of human change. ”

“ Another eminent naturalist, Professor Karl Semper of Würzburg, also adopts the view of the direct transforming power of the environment, and has brought together an immense body of interesting facts showing the influence of food, of light, of temperature, of still water and moving water, of the atmosphere and its currents, of gravitation, and of other organisms, in modifying the forms and other characteristics of animals. ”

“ To those who look at climate and the physical conditions of life as the all-important elements of distribution, these facts ought to cause surprise, as climate and height or depth graduate away insensibly. ”

“ Among the conditions of the environment, of hygiene and of health, which can be managed for the whole of a population, we should designate first the normal conditions which tend to assure the normal development or performance of the organs, such as pure air, nutritious and sufficient food, proper clothing, healthy houses, the adjustment of the work to the strength, etc. ”

“ Science attains the laws of Nature by the study of animal and human history. But this record is a history of continually closer conformity to environment on the part of all advancing forms. The animal kingdom is the clay which is turned, as Job says, to the seal of environment, and it makes little difference whether we study the seal or the impression; we shall read the same sentence. Environment has stamped its laws on the very structure of man's body and mind. ”

“ They are a reaction of the environment. “The idea of life,” says Auguste Comte, “constantly assumes the necessary correlation of two indispensable elements:—an appropriate organism and a suitable environment. It is from the reciprocal [Pg 190] action of these two elements that all vital phenomena inevitably result.” The environment furnishes the living being with three things:—its matter, its energy, and the exciting forces of its vitality. ”