The concept of "environment" is certainly difficult and may even be misunderstood; but we have no handy substitute. It seems enough to distinguish between the organism and the surrounding environment and to separate forces acting on an organism into those that are internal and biological and those that are external and environmental. But in actual practice this system breaks down in many ways, because the organism and the environment are constantly interacting so that the environment is modified by the organism and vice versa.
In the case of man, the difficulties with the environmental concept are even more complicated because we have to deal with man as an animal and with man as a bearer (持有者) of culture. If we look at man as an animal and try to yze the environmental forces that are acting on the or-ganism, we find that we have to deal with things like climate, soil, plants, and such-like factors common to all biological situations; but we also find, always, very important environmental in-fluences that we can only class as "cultural", which modify the physical and biological factors. But man, as we know him, is always a bearer of culture; and if we study human culture, we find that it, in turn, is modified by the environmental factors of climate and geography. We thus easi-ly get into great difficulties from the necessity of viewing culture, at one moment, as a part of the man and, at another moment, as a part of the environment. Which of the following words can best describe the popular understanding of "environment" as the author sees it