 Merleau-Ponty argues that this understanding extends to all physical laws, which “express a structure and have meaning only within this structure”; the laws of physics always refer back to “a sensible or historical given” and ultimately to the history of the universe (SC: 149/138, 157/145). At the level of life, form is characterized by a dialectical relation between the organism and its environment that is a function of the organism’s vital norms, its “optimal conditions of activity and its proper manner of realizing equilibrium”, which express its style or “general attitude toward the world” (SC: 161/148). Living things are not oriented toward an objective world but toward an environment that is organized meaningfully in terms of their individual and specific style and vital goals.