Holism and Evolution

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HOLISM AND EVOLUTION 
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HOLISM AND EVOLUTION

BY GENERAL THE RIGHT HON. J. C. SMUTS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1927

COPYRIGHT 
trst Edition . . 1926 
Stcond Edition . . 1927

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

IT is very gratifying that a book dealing with such abstruse  topics as this work should within a comparatively short  period of months call for a second edition. I am indeed  grateful for this favourable reception. I had the fear at the  beginning that this effort of one whose life-work had lain  in other spheres might perhaps not be taken seriously. On  the contrary, whatever its many shortcomings, it has been  received seriously and considered on its merits not only by  the general public but by many workers who occupy a fore-  most place in science and philosophy. The little seed seems  really to have fallen into fruitful soil, and there I am content  to leave it. Holism, whether old or new, is essentially a  great idea and, like all great ideas, it will once it has  appeared on the horizon move of its own momentum and  reach its own fruition.

It must be clear to those who look below the surface of  things that far-reaching changes in our fundamental ideas  and attitudes are setting in, and that the world of to-morrow  will be a very different one from that which carried us into  the abyss in 1914. In this connection a grave duty arises  also for our science and philosophy. The higher thought of  our day should not exhaust itself in fine-spun technicalities  of speculation or research, but should regard itself as  dedicated to service and should make its distinctive contri-  bution towards the upbuilding of a new constructive world-  view. We are passing through one of the great transition  epochs of history ; we are threatened with reaction on the  one hand and with disintegration on the other. The old  beacon lights are growing dimmer, and the torch of new ideas  has to be kindled for our guidance. The word is largely  with our intellectual leaders. In the last resort a civilisation 
vi PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 
depends on its general ideas; it is nothing but a spiritual  structure of the dominant ideas expressing themselves in  institutions and the subtle atmosphere of culture. If the  soul of our civilisation is to be saved we shall have to find  new and fuller expression for the great saving unities the  unity of reality in all its range, the unity of life in all its  forms, the unity of ideas throughout human civilisation, and  the unity of man's spirit with the mystery of the Cosmos in  religious faith and aspiration. Holism is in its own way a  groping towards the new light and to new points of view. 
And I cannot help feeling that if the full extent of its implica-  tions is realised, both science and philosophy will enter into  a more favourable atmosphere for further advance.

Several of my friendly critics have pointed out meta-  physical difficulties and omissions in this book. The  omissions are deliberate, the difficulties perhaps unavoidable. 
I recognise that there is a Metaphysic or Logic of Holism  which has still to be written ; but it is not for me to write it. 
There are others who are trained for the job and who, I feel  sure, will do justice to it. All I have attempted is to explain  the broad idea, to show some of its more important applica-  tions, and to create a general atmosphere favourable to it. 
This I may fairly claim to do for Holism; I have felt its  power, and I have found it an idea that works. I therefore  believe in it and do not view it merely as an interesting bit  of speculation.

It has been a cheering discovery since the publication of  this book to see along how many different lines the idea of  the whole is already inspiring research in science and thought. 
But few apparently have realised the wide scope of the idea. 
And I hope this book has done some good in pointing out  its fundamental and universal character. The more it is  realised by workers along the new lines that they work under  the impulse of a common idea and ideal, the sooner we shall  attain to the great vision of the unity of knowledge, and  through it of the unity of reality.

No great alterations have been made in the body of the  work. Minor slips or obscurities of expression have been

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION vii 
corrected, an additional sentence or paragraph here or there  will, I hope, bring out more clearly the meaning. But the  main principles and contentions of the book remain un- 
*afected. Special reference is made to the important  work of Professor A. N. Whitehead, who is partly influenced  by Professors Alexander and Lloyd Morgan, and who is  evidently wrestling with the same problem as myself,  though from a different standpoint and on different lines. 
Even so, however, there is a striking similarity in the  solutions suggested.

J. C. SMUTS.

February 1927.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

THIS work deals with some of the problems which fall  within the debatable borderland between Science and 
Philosophy. It is a book neither of Science nor of Philo-  sophy, but of some points of contact between the two. To  my mind it is the surface of contact between the two that will  prove fruitful and creative for future progress in both, and  to which special attention should be directed. Some border  problems between the two are here considered in the light  of recent advances in physical and biological science. And a  re-examination of fundamental concepts in the light of these  advances reveals the existence of a hitherto neglected  factor or principle of a very important character. This  factor, called Holism in the sequel, underlies the synthetic  tendency in the universe, and is the principle which makes  for the origin and progress of wholes in the universe. An  attempt is made to show that this whole-making or holistic  tendency is fundamental in nature, that it has a well-marked  ascertainable character, and that Evolution is nothing  but the gradual development and stratification of progressive  series of wholes, stretching from the inorganic beginnings  to the highest levels of spiritual creation. This work deals  with our primary concepts of matter, life, mind and person-  ality in the light of this principle, and discusses some of the  problems of Evolution from this new point of view. The  discussion is not technical, specialist or exhaustive in any  sense. It is intended to sketch and explain the general lines  of argument rather than to go into details. It is especially  the fundamental concept of Holism which I wish to explain  and justify, as well as the scientific and philosophic view-  point to which it leads. The detailed elaboration must be  left to more competent hands and to those favoured with 
ix 
x PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 
more leisure than I can find in a busy public life. I have  tried to sketch the general lines of reasoning in a way which,  while I hope scientifically accurate so far as they go, are yet  popular enough to be readily understood by readers with  a fair average reading in general science.

It is my belief that Holism and the holistic point of view  will prove important in their bearings on some of the main  problems of science and philosophy, ethics, art and allied  subjects. These bearings are, however, not fully discussed  in this work, which is more of the nature of an introduction,  and is concerned more with the laying of foundations than  with the superstructure. I have no time at present to do  more than write an introductory sketch ; but I hope in the  years to come to find time to follow up the subject and to  show how it affects the higher spiritual interests of mankind. 
The old concepts and formulas are no longer adequate to  express our modern outlook. The old bottles will no longer  hold the new wine. The spiritual temple of the future, while  it will be built largely of the old well-proved materials, will  require new and ampler foundations in the light of the  immense extension of our intellectual horizons. This little  book indicates the lines along which my own mind has  travelled in the search for new and more satisfactory concepts.

A generation ago, when I was an undergraduate at Cam-  bridge, the subject of Personality interested me greatly, and 
I wrote a short study on " Walt Whitman : a Study in the 
Evolution of Personality," in order to embody the results I  had arrived at. This study was never published, but the  subject continued at odd intervals to engage my attention. 
Gradually I came to realise that Personality was only  a special case of a much more universal phenomenon,  namely, the existence of wholes and the tendency towards  wholes and wholeness in nature. In 1910 I sought relief  from heavy political labours in an attempt to embody my  new results in a study called " An Inquiry into the Whole/'  which also was not published. I had no time to return to  the subject until, in 1924, a change of government released  me from burdens which I had continuously borne for more

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION xi 
than eighteen years. When I came to read once more the 
MS. of fourteen years earlier I found much of the scientific  setting out of date and I found my conception of Holism  had also altered in certain respects. I therefore decided once  more to make a fresh start with my study of wholes and 
Holism in nature. The present work is the first-fruits of this  fresh effort. The aspects and bearings of Holism in which I  am mainly interested are not yet reached in this study,  which, as I have said, is of an introductory character. But I  feel that unless I now make a determined attempt to pre-  pare at least a part of my inquiry for publication, it will in  all probability never get beyond the incubation stage in  which it has remained so many years. This I would person-  ally regret, as I think that in Holism we have an idea which  may perhaps prove valuable and fruitful, and which for  better or worse should be lifted out of the obscurity in which  it has so long remained in my mind. Whether my partiality  for the idea, which has been my companion throughout a  crowded life, will be shared by others, time alone will show. 
The work has unfortunately had to be written in some-  what of a hurry and amid the pressure of many other calls  on my time. Nor in writing it have I had the advantage of  consulting any expert friends on details. This must be my  excuse for any incidental mistakes or slips which may be  found in it.

J. C. SMUTS.

Irene , Transvaal, 
September 1925.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION v

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION ix

I. THE REFORM OF FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS . . i 
II. THE REFORMED CONCEPTS OF SPACE AND TIME . 23 
III. THE REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER ... 36 
IV. THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM .... 60 
V. GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM .... 87 
VI. SOME FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES OF HOLISM . 125 
VII. MECHANISM AND HOLISM 152 
VIII. DARWINISM AND HOLISM 190 
IX. MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES . . . 233 
X. PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE .... 270 
XL SOME FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS OF PERSONALITY . 299 
XII. THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 326 
INDEX 354  xiii

HOLISM AND EVOLUTION

CHAPTER I

THE REFORM OF FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS

Summary. In spite of the great advances which have been made  in knowledge, some fundamental gaps still remain ; matter, life and  mind still remain utterly disparate phenomena. Yet the concepts  of all three arise in experience, and in the human all three meet and  apparently intermingle, so that the last word about them has not yet  been said. Reformed concepts of all three are wanted. This will  come from fuller scientific knowledge, and especially from a re-survey  of the material from new points of view. The fresh outlook must  accompany the collection of further detailed knowledge, and nowhere  is the new outlook more urgently required than in the survey of these  great divisions of knowledge.

Take Evolution as a case in point. The acceptance of Evolution  as a fact, the origin of life-structures from the inorganic, must mean  a complete revolution in our idea of matter. If matter holds the  promise and potency of life and mind it is no longer the old matter of  the physical materialists. We have accepted Evolution, but have  failed to make the fundamental readjustment in our views which  that acceptance involves. The old mechanical view- points persist,  and Natural Selection itself has come to be looked upon as a mere  mechanical factor. But this is wrong : Sexual Selection is admittedly  a psychical factor, and even Natural Selection has merely the  appearance of a mechanical process, because it is viewed as a statis-  tical average, from which the real character of struggle among the  concrete individuals has been eliminated.

Nineteenth-century science went wrong mostly because of the hard  and narrow concept of causation which dominated it. It was a  fixed dogma that there could be no more in the effect than there was  in the cause ; hence creativeness and real progress became impossible. 
The narrow concept of causation again arose from a wider intellectual  error of abstraction, of narrowing down all concepts into hard definite  contours and wiping out their indefinite surrounding " fields." The  concept of " fields " is absolutely necessary in order to get back 
B 
to the fluid plastic facts of nature. The elimination of their " fields "  in which things and concepts alike meet and intermingle creatively  made all understanding of real connections and inter-actions im-  possible. The double mistake of analysis, abstraction or generalisa-  tion has led to a departure in thought from the fluid procedure of  nature. Abstract procedure with its narrowing of concepts and  processes into hard and rigid outlines, and their rounding off into  definite scientific counters, temporarily simplified the problems of  science and thought, but we have outlived the utility of this pro-  cedure, and for further advance we have now to return to the more  difficult but more correct view of the natural plasticity and fluidity  of natural things and processes. From this new view-point a re-  survey will be made in the sequel of our ideas relating to matter,  life and mind, and an attempt will be made to reach the funda-  mental unity and continuity which underlie and connect all three. 
We shall thus come to see all three as connected steps in the same  great Process, the nature and functions of which will be investigated.

AMONG the great gaps in knowledge those which separate  the phenomena of matter, life, and mind still remain un-  bridged. Matter, life, and mind remain utterly unlike each  other. Apparently indeed their differences are ultimate, and  nowhere does there appear a bridge for thought from one to  the other. And their utter difference and disparateness pro-  duce the great breaks in knowledge, and separate knowledge  into three different kingdoms or rather worlds. And yet they  are all three in experience, and cannot therefore be so utterly  unlike and alien to each other. What is more, they actually  intermingle and co-exist in the human, which is compounded  of matter, life, and mind. If indeed there were no common  basis to matter, life, and mind, their union in the human  individual would be the greatest mystery of all. What is  in fact united in human experience and existence cannot be  so infinitely far asunder in human thought, unless thought  and fact are absolutely incongruous. Not only do they  actually co-exist and mingle in the human, they appear to  be genetically related and to give rise to each other in a  definite series in the stages of Evolution ; life appearing to  arise in or from matter, and mind in or from life. The actual  transitions have not been observed, but are assumed to have  taken place under certain conditions in the course of cosmic

Evolution. Hence arise the three series in the real world :  physical, biological and psychical or mental. These con-  nections between them, which are based not on thought but  on the facts of existence and experience, tend to show that  they cannot be fundamentally alien and irreconcilable, and  that some sort of a bridge between them must be possible,  unless we are to assume that our human experience is  indeed a mere chaotic jumble of disconnected elements.

As I have said, the problem does not arise from the facts  either of experience or of existence. The problem is one for  our thought and our science. It is for our thought that the  mystery exists, and it is for knowledge that the great gaps  between the physical, the biological and the mental series  arise. The solution must therefore ultimately depend on  our more extended knowledge of these series and the dis-  covery of interconnections between them. The great dark-  nesses and gaps in experience are mostly due to ignorance. 
Our experience is clear and luminous only at certain points  which are separated by wide regions of obscurity; hence  the apparent mystery of the luminous points and of their  isolation and unlikeness. Hence also the still greater  mystery of the actual union of the three series in the  threefold incarnation which constitutes human personality.

But it is just this union which ought to warn us that the  apparent separateness of these three fundamental concepts is  not well founded in fact, and that a wider knowledge and a  deeper insight might be able to clear up the mystery, at least  to some extent, and to lead to some sort of union or harmony  of these apparently unrelated or independent elements in  our real world. More knowledge is wanted. Our physical  science ought to provide the solvent for our idea of hard  impenetrable inert matter, and in the third chapter I  shall inquire in how far there are already the materials  for such a solvent. Again, our biological science should  dispel the vagueness of the concept of life, and replace  it by a more definite meaningful concept, which will yet  not depend on purely material or physical elements. At  present the concept of life is so indefinite and vague that,  although the kingdom of life is fully recognised, its govern-  ment is placed under the rule of physical force or Mechanism. 
Life is practically banished from its own domain, and its  throne is occupied by a usurper. Biology thus becomes a  subject province of physical science the kingdom of Beauty,  the free artistic plastic kingdom of the universe, is inappro-  priately placed under the iron rule of force. Mind again,  which is closest to us in experience, becomes farthest from  us in exact thought. The concepts in which we envisage  it are so vague and nebulous, compared with the hard and  rigid contours of our concepts of matter, that the two appear  poles asunder. Here too a reformed concept of mind might  bring it much closer to a reformed concept of matter. And  thus, out of the three at present utterly heterogeneous polar  concepts of matter, life and mind it might be possible to  develop concepts moulded more closely to fact and experience,  freed of all adventitious and unnecessary elements of  separateness and disparity, and forming (as in all true science  they should rightly form) the co-operative elements and  aspects in a wider, truer conception of Reality. It may be  said that in making this demand for new concepts of matter,  life, and mind we are imposing an impossible task on thought. 
We are asking it to go beyond itself and deal with matters  entirely beyond its own proper world. Matter, it may be  urged, is essentially outside and beyond thought, something  hard and impervious to thought, an object to thought which  thought can only just barely reach up to in its utmost effort,  and no more. Life is, of course, not alien to thought in the  same sense as matter, but still it also falls outside the province  of thought, it also has a reality of its own beyond thought,  and it also is a terminus to thought. How then could thought  embrace these provinces, how could it be a measure of these  provinces beyond its ken ; how could the part envisage the  whole? Our standard of measurement is inadequate, our  task therefore impossible.

The answer is that, while mind or thought may not have  made matter, it has undoubtedly assisted in making the  concept of matter ; and this concept, based as it largely is on  empirical tradition and inadequate knowledge, and covered  with a thick over-burden of unsifted tradition, calls for  a thorough overhauling. A reform of the concept of matter  is urgently required, and is indeed amply justified by the  unprecedented recent advances in physical science, and  especially in our knowledge of the constitution of matter. 
And a reform will, as I shall show in the third chapter, bring  matter considerably nearer to the concept of life.

With regard again to the concept of life, what is most  urgently required is that it should be rid of that haziness,  indefiniteness, and vagueness \\hich makes it practically  worthless for all exact scientific purposes. Biological  science has not in recent years made the same gigantic  strides forward in the knowledge of fundamentals that  physical science has taken, and yet for Biology too the sky  has considerably cleared, and what two or three decades ago  was still hotly disputed is to-day generally accepted. Besides,  the greatest development in Biology during this century  has taken place in the science of Genetics, and the trend  there has been steadily away from the hard mechanical  conceptions which dominated Biology more than a generation  ago. The time here too may be ripe for a reconsideration of  some of the fundamental concepts and standpoints. I may  express the hope that the masters of this science will not  concentrate all their attention on special researches, how-  ever promising the clues at present followed may be, but  that they will find time for a reconsideration of the wider  conceptions which is becoming urgently necessary. Unless 
Biology can succeed in clarifying and harmonising her  fundamental conceptions there is risk of great confusion  in a science in which old general ideas have persisted in  spite of great progress in detailed knowledge and the  elaboration of a host of new fruitful ideas. If in the sequel 
I join in the discussion of the foundations of Biology, not as  entitled of right to speak but more in the character of a  friendly spectator urging the importance of a certain point of  view, I hope my presumption in so doing may be forgiven me.

For welcome as any new and deeper knowledge would be  on these high matters, the present situation calls even more  urgently for fresh points of view. Matter, life, and mind  are, so to speak, the original alphabet of knowledge, the  original nuclei round which all experience, thought, and  speculation have gathered. Their origin is purely empirical,  their course has been shaped by tradition for thousands of  years, and all sorts of discarded philosophies have gone  towards the making of their popular meanings. In spite,  therefore, of the great fundamental aspects of truth which  they embody, the kernel of truth in them has become over-  laid by deep deposits of imperfect and erroneous knowledge. 
Modern science and philosophy have repeatedly ventured on  reforms, but the popular use of these terms tends to  obliterate all fine distinctions. I do not believe that an  abiding scientific or philosophic advance in this respect will  be possible until a more exact nomenclature has been  adopted. A particular suggestion towards such a reform 
I am going to advocate and develop in the sequel, but in the  meantime I wish to emphasise how important it is, not  merely to continue the acquisition of knowledge, but also to  develop new view-points from which to envisage all our vast  accumulated material of knowledge. The Copernican revo-  lution was not so much a revolution in the acquisition of new  knowledge, as in view-point and perspective in respect of  existing knowledge. The most far-reaching revolutions in  knowledge are often of this character. Evolution in the mind  of Darwin was, like the Copernican revolution, a new view-  point, from which vast masses of biological knowledge  already existing fell into new alignments and became the  illustrations of a great new Principle. And similarly 
Einstein's conception of General Relativity in the physical  universe, whatever its final form may yet be, is a new view-  point from which the whole universe and all its working  mechanisms acquire a new perspective and meaning.

More knowledge is undoubtedly required, but its acquisi-  tion must go hand in hand with the exploration of new con-  cepts and new points of view. It will not help merely to  accumulate details of which, even in the special departments  of the separate biological sciences, the masses are already  becoming more than any individual mind can bear. New  co-ordinations are required, new syntheses which will sum  up and explain and illuminate the otherwise amorphous  masses of material. While research is being prosecuted as  never before, while in biological science great, and in the  physical sciences unprecedented, progress is being recorded,  the call becomes ever more urgent for a reconsideration of  fundamental concepts and the discovery of new view-points  which might lead to the formulation of more general prin-  ciples and wider generalisations. Nowhere are new view-  points more urgently called for than in respect of the funda-  mental concepts of matter, life, and mind, of which the reform  is overdue and the present state is rapidly becoming a real  obstacle to further progress. And I may point out that the  formulation of new view-points will depend not so much on  masses of minute details, as on the consideration of the  general principles in the light of recent advances, the collation  and comparison of large masses of fact, and the survey of  fairly large areas of knowledge. The road is to be dis-  covered, not so much by minute local inspection as by wide  roaming and exploration and surveying over large districts. 
Both methods are needed, and the question narrows itself  down to one of comparative values. Just as happened in  the cases of Newton and Einstein, so here too the new clues  are more likely to be indicated by certain crucial dominant  facts than by small increments of research. It would there-  fore be a great mistake to let the completion of present  detailed researches take precedence over the more general  and urgent questions to which I am drawing attention.

Let me in this connection mention one matter of crucial  significance to which I think sufficient importance has not  yet been attached. To-day I think it is generally accepted  that life has in the process of cosmic Evolution developed  from or in the bosom of matter, and that mind itself has its  inalienable physical basis. I do not think that among those  who have given thought and attention to these matters there  are to-day any who seriously question this position. Life is  no dove that has flown to our shores from some world beyond  this world ; mind or soul is not an importation from some  other universe. Life and mind are not mere visitants to this  world, but not of this world. There is nothing alien in them  to the substance of the universe ; they are with us and they  are of us. The popular view still looks upon the association  of life and mind with matter as a sort of symbiosis, as the close  living together of three different beings, as the dwelling of life  and the soul in the body of matter, just as in the organic world  one plant or animal organism will be found normally living  with and in another. This popular traditional view comes  from the hoary beginnings of human thought and speculation,  but it is definitely abandoned by all those who have assimi-  lated the modern view-point of Evolution. For them in some  way not yet fully understood, but accepted as an undoubted  fact, both life and mind have developed from matter or  the physical basis of existence. The acceptance of this fact  must have far-reaching consequences for our world-view.

But before I refer to these consequences let me point  out how this acceptance affects the grave issues over which  our fathers fought a continuous battle royal during the latter  half of the nineteenth century. The materialists contended  for this very point, namely, that life and mind were born of  matter. From this priority of matter they proceeded (quite  illegitimately) to infer its primacy and self-sufficiency in the  order of the universe, and to reduce life and mind to a  subsidiary and subordinate position as mere epiphenomena,  as appearances on the surface of the one reality, matter. 
To use the Platonic figure, to them matter was the lyre,  and the soul was the music of that lyre ; the lyre was the  substantive and abiding reality, and the music a mere  passing product. And thus the priority and dominance of  matter made of life and the soul merely transient and  embarrassed phantoms on the stage of existence. This  materialism was most hotly resented and contested by those  who held to the spiritual values and realities. They denied not  only the primacy of matter but also its priority or that life or  mind sprang from it and were dependent on it in any real  sense. In fact they denied the principle of Evolution as  undermining all the spiritual and moral values of life. Both  sides, materialists and spiritualists alike, were under the in-  fluence of the hard physical concepts of cause and effect which  played such a great part in the science and philosophy of the  nineteenth century. There could be nothing more in the  effect than there was already in the cause; and if matter  caused the soul, there could be nothing more in the soul  than there already was in matter. In other words, the soul  was merely an apparent and no real substantial advance  on matter. The general validity of this argument was  never questioned and was thoroughly believed in by both  sides. Hence those who affirmed the theory of Evolution  logically tended to be materialists, and those who were  spiritualists were logically forced to deny Evolution.

Without their knowing it the great battle raged, not over  the facts of Evolution, but over a metaphysical theory of  causation in which they both believed and were both wrong. 
Such is the irony of history. To-day we pick the poppies on  the old bloody battlefield of Evolution, and can afford to be  fair to both sides. The essential terms have changed their  meaning for us. We believe in Evolution, but it is no more  the mechanical Evolution of a generation or two ago, but a*  creative Evolution. We believe in the growth which is  really such and becomes ever more and more in the process. 
We believe in Genesis which by its very nature is epigenesis. 
For us there is no such thing as static evolution, a becoming  which does not become but in its apparent permutations  ever remains the same. The absolute equation of cause  and effect, which was a dogma implicitly believed in by  the men of that day, does not hold for us, as I shall in due  course explain. The temperature has changed, the view-  point has shifted, and to-day thoughtful men and women  are sincere and convinced evolutionists, without troubling  themselves over the dead and forgotten issue of materialism  versus spiritualism. We accept the theory of descent, of  life from matter, and of the mind from both. For educated  men and women to-day Evolution is just as much part 
 and parcel of their general outlook, of their intellectual  atmosphere, so to say, as is the Copernican theory.

As I said before, this is a fact with very far-reaching  consequences. If we believe that life and mind come from  matter, if they are evolved from matter, if matter holds the  promise, the dread potencies of life and mind, it can for us  no longer be the old matter of the materialists or the  physicists. The acceptance of the view for which the  materialists fought so hard means in effect a com-  plete transformation of the simple situation which they  envisaged. Matter discloses a great secret ; in the act of  giving birth to life or mind it shows itself in an entirely  unsuspected character, and it can never be the old matter  again. The matter which holds the secret of life and mind is  no longer the old matter which was merely the vehicle of  motion and energy. The landmarks of the old order are  shifting, the straight contours of the old ideas are curving,  the whole situation which we are contemplating in the  relations of matter, life and mind is becoming fluid instead  of remaining rigid. The point to grasp and hold on to  firmly is that the full and complete acceptance of Evolution  must produce a great change in the significance of the  fundamental concepts for us. Life and mind now, instead  of being extraneous elements in the physical universe,  become identified with the physical order, and they are all  recognised as very much of a piece. This being so, it  obviously becomes impossible thereupon to proceed to erect  an all-embracing physical order in which life and mind are  once more declared aliens. This cat and mouse procedure  is simply a case of logical confusion. This in-and-out game  will not do. If Evolution is accepted, and life and mind are  developments in and from the physical order, they are in  that order, and it becomes impossible to continue to envisage  the physical order as purely mechanical, as one in which  they have no part or lot, in which they are no real factors,  and from which they should be logically excluded. If 
Evolution is right, if life and mind have arisen in and from  matter, then the universe ceases to be a purely physical  mechanism, and the system which results must provide  a real place for the factors of life and mind. To my mind  there is no escape from that argument, and its implications  must have a very far-reaching effect on our ideas of the  physical order, and on a biology in which mechanical views  are still dominant.

The point I have been trying to make is that our  ultimate concepts need reconsideration, and that above all  new view-points are necessary from which to re-survey the  vast masses of physical and biological knowledge which have  already accumulated. I have said that certain large domi-  nant facts may be sufficient to lead to a new orientation of  our ideas. And I have taken the accepted fact of Evolution  as a case in point. The older materialists and the present-  day mechanical biologists have both fought hard for the  acceptance of Evolution as a fact, without realising that such  an acceptance must inevitably mean a transformation of  their view-points, and that both the meaning of the concept  of matter and the idea of the part played by mechanism in  biology must be seriously affected by such acceptance. It  is clear that the full significance of the great dominant idea  of Evolution and its effect on the ordering of our ultimate  world-view are not yet fully realised, and that we are in"  effect endeavouring simultaneously to go forward with two  inconsistent sets of ideas, that is to say, with the idea  of Evolution (not yet adequately realised) and the pre- 
Evolution physical ideas (not yet quite abandoned). This  is, however, sheer confusion, and a clarification of our  ideas and the realisation of new view-points have become  necessary.

Let me now leave the general fact of Evolution as bearing  on our world- view and call attention to another and some-  what similar case which arises in Darwin's theory of 
Descent. In that theory Natural Selection is usually but  erroneously taken to be a purely mechanical factor. It is  understood to operate as an external cause, eliminating  the unfit in the struggle for existence, and leaving the  fit in possession of the field to reproduce their kind and to  continue the story of Evolution. Natural Selection, from  whatever cause arising and in whatever way operating, is  on this view taken to be merely a mechanical cause or factor,  just as is a hailstorm which kills plants and animals with  hailstones, or a drought which kills them from want of water. 
Whether the destruction arises from physical mechanical  causes like storms or drought or lightning, or whether it  arises from the action of living agencies in the organic  struggle, makes no difference to the result, which is in  either case the same. A broad generalised statistical view  of the causes of elimination has been taken and Natural 
Selection, thus considered at large and in bulk, has assumed  the appearance of a mere external mechanical factor. On  this view of Natural Selection, therefore, Darwin's theory of 
Evolution has come powerfully to reinforce the generally  prevalent mechanical position. The effect has been just  the opposite to what one might have expected from a  great biological advance. The Kingdom of life, instead of  fighting for its own rights and prerogatives, has tamely  and blindly surrendered to the claims of physical force  and actually joined hands with it and contributed to  its supremacy. The acceptance of Darwinism, therefore,  so far from stemming the tide of mechanical ideas, has  actually furthered and assisted it, and raised it to full  flood. Through too broad and abstract a view of Natural 
Selection the mechanical ideas have invaded the domain of  life, where opposition might have been expected, and through  the conquest and occupation of that domain the mechanical  position, which would otherwise have been confined to the  material physical sphere, has been extended and powerfully  consolidated. This result was due, as I say, to the generalised  and abstract statistical concept of Natural Selection, irrespec-  tive of the concrete manner in which the selection occurred  in individual cases.

There is, however, one form of Selection which cannot be  thus indiscriminately dealt with. It arises not only from  organic causes, but still more narrowly and quite indisputably  from psychical causes. Darwin called it Sexual Selection,  and in spite of the opposition of A. R. Wallace and others he  attached great importance to it, and as time went on and he  saw his great vision more clearly, he gave it an ever-growing  emphasis in his theory of Descent. Natural Selection operates  on the unfit by destroying them or killing them off ; Sexual 
Selection, on the contrary, has a more limited operation and  applies only in respect of males, whose mating it promotes or  handicaps by making them attractive or repulsive to females. 
I In other words it is a struggle among males for the possession  of females, and in this struggle males are assisted not only  by their superior strength or fighting powers, but also by their  superior power of song or beauty or scent or general attrac-  tiveness or excitiveness to females. It is clear that the real  motive power of this form of selection is mostly emotional and  psychical. The female is stimulated, excited, and attracted  by superior fighting force or superior artistic endowments  among males competing for her favour. And when one con-  siders the degree of perfection to which the male forms have  attained largely under this stimulus of the female sex instinct,  one is struck with amazement at the emotional sensitiveness  thus implied on the part of female insects, birds, and beasts,  and at the wonderful subtlety and fineness of the emotional  discrimination which has shaped the male forms. The beauty *  of form and colour which characterises, for instance, the  peacock's feathers is such that even our human eye can  scarcely do justice to it. And yet on the principle of Sexual 
Selection that perfection of beauty is due to the amazing  emotional sensitiveness and appreciation of the peahen,  which through countless generations must have been  attracted by the minute superiority of the one male over  others scarcely inferior in this respect. And the same applies  in regard to the wonderful power of song among male birds  and all the other secondary male characters. And it makes  no difference whether by his arts arid display the male  makes a direct appeal to mating, or merely invites the  female to his territory. The psychical emotional powers  implied on the part of the female on this theory are  so wonderful as to be almost unintelligible; in many  respects they are superhuman, and would appear to  throw an astonishing light on the unconscious psychical  developments of what we are pleased to call the lower  creatures. If secondary sexual characters with all thei*  perfection of form and colour did originate and develop  under the stimulus of Sexual Selection, we shall have to  revise our views radically as to the psychical sensitiveness  and endowments of large classes of these lower animals. 
If, for instance, the human female showed the same sensitive  choice and discrimination for the superior male as the  female bird or insect shows in her sensitive sex instinct,  what supermen we sorry males in time would become ! I  am afraid, however, that the theory of Sexual Selection  as ordinarily understood does not tell the whole story,  and that there is more in the sexual situation than appears  from that theory. I shall refer to the subject again  in Chapter VIII. But for my present purpose it is  only necessary to emphasise that this form of selection  is not mechanical but psychical. If Sexual Selection plays  the great part in organic Evolution which Darwin, Weismann  and many other great biologists assign to it, we can only  conclude that to that extent at any rate the motive force in 
Evolution is essentially psychical and not merely mechanical. 
I would go further and, in opposition to current views, 
I would contend that even Natural Selection, in so far  as it is really an organic struggle and not merely the  pressure or age-long effect of the inorganic environment,  is fundamentally psychical. The advance takes place  generally because the more fit organism for its own  purposes destroys the less fit organism. In its essence  the organic struggle creates a psychical situation just  as much as war among humans is a psychical situation. 
And it is only because we abstract from the situation its real  character of individual struggle and view the total statistical  effect of innumerable situations as itself a sort of personified  operative force in the form of Natural Selection, that the  appearance of a mechanical external factor is created,  operating on Evolution from the outside and determining  its course mechanically. Looked at in general, and at a  distance in which all concrete cases are blurred in the general  view, the struggle for existence among animals and plants  seems to operate blindly and mechanically without any  reference to that improvement of species which results. 
But this general struggle is actually composed of infinite little  concrete struggles in which the fit destroy the unfit, and  the idea of improvement is thus involved. And the  trend of the struggle is towards organic progress actually  because of the character of the little concrete struggles. 
I do not mean to say that the striving, struggling individual  in nature intends to improve its species. But it does fight  for itself or its family or its tribe ; and in so far as it is more 
" fit " than its beaten opponent it is in effect fighting the  battle of organic progress. The psychical semi-purposive  character of the little concrete struggles should thus impart  a psychological almost purposive character to the generalised  factor of Natural Selection. In fact the current view of 
Natural Selection is a very striking illustration of the way in  which a so-called mechanical force or cause is gratuitously  constituted by abstraction and generalisation and statistical  summation from elements which in their individual character  and isolation are undoubtedly psychical and sometimes even  purposive. And this only shows how careful we must be to  scrutinise concrete details and not to rest satisfied with large  abstract generalisations, if we would know what really  happens in nature. Abstraction and generalisation, how-  ever useful and necessary for scientific purposes, do largely  deprive real events of their true characters, which are vital  to a correct understanding of reality.

To sum up, therefore : apart from the influence of the  physical environment, the motive and directive forces of  organic Descent in the form of Natural and Sexual Selection  are largely psychical and not merely mechanical. And  this result of the special Darwinian theory is therefore in com-  plete accord with the more general result which we derived  from the consideration of Evolution in general. Both in 
Evolution as a whole and in Darwin's more special theory of  organic Descent, life and mind are no mere shadows or unreal  accompaniments of some real mechanical process ; they are  there in their own right as true operative factors, and play a  real and unmistakable part in determining both the advance  and its specific direction. From the point of view of 
Evolution each of them must be looked upon as essentially  a real vera causa. This does not affect what I have already  said about the vagueness and unsatisfactoriness of their  present concepts and the necessity of looking for more  definite and adequate concepts. All I mean to say is that  the things they stand for are real factors in nature and not  mere words or appearances. In the sequel an effort will be  made to give greater defmiteness to these concepts, and to  determine the nature and character of the activity of these  factors. Here it must suffice to emphasise that the nature  of Evolution has been obscured by mechanistic conceptions,  and that erroneous views as to the character and operation  of causation have contributed to this misunderstanding. 
And it may be useful, before concluding this introductory  chapter, to add a few remarks on this subject, to which I  have already briefly referred above.

The science of the nineteenth century was like its philo-  sophy, its morals and its civilisation in general, distinguished  by a certain hardness, primness and precise limitation and  demarcation of ideas. Vagueness, indefinite and blurred  outlines, anything savouring of mysticism, was abhorrent to  that great age of limited exactitude. The rigid categories of  physics were applied to the indefinite and hazy phenomena  of life and mind. Concepts were in logic as well as in science  narrowed down to their most luminous points, and the rest  of their contents treated as non-existent. Situations were  not envisaged as a whole of clear and vague obscure elements  alike, but were analysed merely into their clear, outstanding,  luminous points. A " cause," for instance, was not taken  as a whole situation which at a certain stage insensibly  passes into another situation, called the effect. No, the  most outstanding feature in the first situation was isolated  and abstracted and treated as the cause of the most out-  standing and striking feature of the next situation, which  was called the effect. Everything between this cause and  this effect was blotted out, and the two sharp ideas or rather  situations of cause and effect were made to confront each  other in every case of causation like two opposing forces. 
This logical precision immediately had the effect of making  it impossible to understand how the one passed into the  other in actual causation. The efficient activity, which had  of old been construed on the analogy of our voluntary  muscular activity, was therefore resorted to in order to supply  the explanation. As the voluntary muscular movement pro-  duces external action, so material cause was supposed to  produce a material effect. Even then the mind found it  difficult to realise the passage from the one to the other. 
Every causation seemed to imply some action at a distance,  unless cause and effect were in absolute contact. But we  know that there is no such thing as absolute contact even in  the elements of the most closely packed situation. Hence  causation of this rigid type really became unintelligible. 
Not even the old fiction of an ether which embraced all  material things, and as a vehicle made transmission of influence  from one to the other possible, seemed able to overcome the  contradictions into which thought had landed itself through  its hard and narrow concepts of cause and effect. And in  fact there is no way out of the impasse but by retracing our  steps and recognising that these concepts are partial and  misleading abstractions. We have to return to the fluidity  and plasticity of nature and experience in order to find the  concepts of reality. When we do this we find that round every  luminous point in experience there is a penumbra, a gradual  shading off into haziness and obscurity. A " concept "  is not merely its clear luminous centre, but embraces  a surrounding sphere of meaning or influence of smaller or  larger dimensions, in which the luminosity tails off and  grows fainter until it disappears. Similarly a " thing "  is not merely that which presents itself as such in clearest  definite outline, but this central area is surrounded by  a zone of vague sense-data and influences which shades  c

 off into the region of the indefinite. The hard and abrupt  contours of our ordinary conceptual system do not apply  to reality and make reality inexplicable, not only in the case  of causation, but in all cases of relations between things,  qualities, and ideas. Conceive of a cause as a centre with a  zone of activity or influence surrounding it and shading  gradually off into indefiniteness. Next conceive of an effect  as similarly surrounded. It is easy in that way to under-  stand their interaction, and to see that cause and effect are  not at arm's length but interlocked, and embrace and  influence each other through the interpenetration of  their two fields. In fact the conception of Fields of force  which has become customary in Electro-Magnetism is  only a special case of a phenomenon which is quite  universal in the realms of thought and reality alike. 
Every " thing " has its field, like itself, only more  attenuated; every concept has likewise its field. It is in  these fields and these fields only that things really happen. 
It is the intermingling of fields which is creative or causal  in nature as well as in life. The hard secluded thing or  concept is barren because abstract, and but for its field it  could never come into real contact or into active or creative  relations with any other thing or concept. Things, ideas,  animals, plants, persons : all these, like physical forces, have  their fields, and but for their fields they would be unintelli-  gible, their activities would be impossible, and their relations  barren and sterile. The abstract intelligence, in isolating  things or ideas, and constituting them apart from their fields,  and treating the latter as non-existent, has made the real  concrete world of matter and of life quite unintelligible and  inexplicable. The world is thus in abstraction constituted  of entities which are absolutely discontinuous, with nothing  between them to bridge the impassable gulfs, little or great,  which separate them from each other. The world becomes  to us a mere collection of disjecta membra, drained of all  union or mutual relations, dead, barren, inactive, unintelli-  gible. And in order once more to bring active relations into  this scrap-heap of disconnected entities, the mind has to  conjure up spirits, influences, forces and what not from the  vasty deep of its own imagination. And all this is due to the  initial mistake of enclosing things or ideas or persons in hard  contours which are purely artificial and are not in accordance  with the natural shading-off continuities which are or should  be well known to science and philosophy alike. One of  the most salutary reforms in thought which could be  effected would be for people to accustom themselves to  the idea of fields, and to look upon every concrete thing  or person or even idea as merely a centre, surrounded by  zones or aurae or penumbrae of the same nature as the centre,  only more attenuated and shading off into indefiniteness. 
The concept of "fields" will be developed in subsequent  chapters.

There is one more remark I wish to make in regard to the  activity of the abstract intelligence in construing our actual  experience. I have already shown how in a special  case this abstract activity has converted the psychical  factor of Natural Selection into the semblance of a  mechanical force. The risk of error is, however, much  greater than that particular instance would serve to  indicate. One may say that the analytical character of  thought has a far-reaching effect in obscuring the nature  of reality, which has to be carefully guarded against. In  order to understand and explore any concrete situation,  we analyse it into its factors or elements, whose separate  operation and effects are then studied, in isolation so to say. 
This procedure is not only quite legitimate, but the only one  possible, if we wish to understand and investigate the com-  plex groupings of nature. It is the analytical method which  science has applied with such outstanding success ; and but  for this analysis of a complex phenomenon or situation into  its separate elements and the study of these in isolation, it  is fair to assume that very little progress would have been  possible in the understanding of Nature with all her obscure  processes. When the isolated elements or factors of the  complex situation have been separately studied, they are  recombined in order to reconstitute the original situation.

Two sources of error here become possible. In the first  place, in the original analysis something may have escaped,  so that in the reconstruction we have no longer all the  original elements present, but something less. I have  already shown how " fields " escape in the idea of things  and even in concepts. The same happens in regard to the  elements into which a situation is analysed. And it is certain  that in every case of analysis and reconstitution of a concrete  situation something escapes which makes the artificial  situation as reconstructed different from the original  situation which was to be explored and explained. An  element of more or less error has entered. This may be  called the error of analysis.

In the second place, we are apt after the analysis and  investigation of the isolated elements or factors to look upon  them as the natural factors of the situation, and upon the  situation itself as a sort of result brought about by them. 
The abstract analytical elements thus become the real  operative entities, while the concrete situation or phenomenon  to be explained becomes their product or resultant. As a  matter of fact, just the opposite is the case. We start in  nature with the complex situation or sensible phenomenon as  the reality to be explained. The analytical elements or  factors are merely the result of analysis, and might even be  merely abstractions. But because they are simpler and  admit of closer scrutiny and experiment, we have come  to look upon them as real or constitutive, and upon  the situation from which they were abstracted or analysed,  as artificial or constituted. Thus it has come about that  in physical science, for instance, the elements of matter  or force into which bodies have been analysed have  tended to become the reals. Thus scientific entities like  electrons and protons, and the physical energies or  forces which they represent, are taken to be the real  entities in nature, and sensible matter or bodies as  something derivative and merely resulting from their  activities. The abstract thus becomes the real, the concrete  is relegated to a secondary position. This inversion of

I FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS 21 
reality is very much the same procedure as was condemned  in the case of the scholastic and other philosophers who  attributed reality to universals instead of to concrete  particulars. This may be called the error of abstraction  or generalisation. Against both these forms of error we  have to guard, if we wish faithfully to interpret Nature  as we experience her.

Analysis, abstraction and generalisation are indeed neces-  sary as instruments of scientific understanding, but they also  necessarily involve a departure from the concrete, and thus  a possible element of error which in its ultimate effects may  produce a serious distortion in our general view of reality. 
The concrete whole of a situation comes to be deduced from  its abstract parts, and the principle of natural explanation  thus proceeds by way of the parts to the whole. The whole  as so understood is confined to its parts and comes to suffer  from the same limitations as its parts. For the full concrete  reality comes to be substituted a more limited scheme or  pattern of parts, an aggregation rather than a natural  organic synthesis.

Our object in studying and interpreting Nature is to be  faithful to our experience of her. We do not want to,  recreate Nature in our own image, and as far as possible we  wish to eliminate errors of observation or construction which  are due to us as observers. We do not wish to spread Nature  on a sort of Procrustes bed of our concepts and cut off here  and there what appears surplus or unnecessary or even non-  existent to our subjective standards. Our experience is  largely fluid and plastic, with little that is rigid and with  much that is indefinite about it. We should as far as  possible withstand the temptation to pour this plastic  experience into the moulds of our hard and narrow pre-  conceived notions, and even at the risk of failing to explain  precisely all that we experience we should be modest and loyal  in the handling of that experience. In that way a good deal  of what we have hitherto felt certain may once more  become uncertain ; the solid and recognised landmarks may  once more become blurred or shifting; the stable results

22 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP, i 
of nineteenth-century science may once more become  unstable and uncertain. But the way will be open for the  truer constructions of the future, and the foundations of  our future science will be more deeply and securely laid.

In the following chapters a modest effort will be made to  apply the above ideas and principles to a new interpretation  of Nature, including, as it does, Matter, Life, Mind, and 
Personality. Matter, Life, and Mind, so far from being dis-  continuous and disparate, will appear as a more or less  connected progressive series of the same great Process. And  this Process will be shown to underlie and account for the  characters of all three, and to give to Evolution, both  inorganic and organic, both psychical and spiritual, a funda-  mental unity and continuity which it does not seem to possess  according to current scientific and philosophical ideas. 1

1 It is interesting to note how Professor A. N. Whitehead in his 
Science and the Modern World deals with the situation which I have  tried to meet by means of the concept of " fields/' He also takes the  view that the thing or event taken by itself in its spatial limits is a  false simplification, which he calls the fallacy of Misplaced Concrete-  ness. According to him, the mistake is due to the assumption of  the simple location of things or events, in other words, to the mis-  taken belief that a thing or event, as it appears in a definite space at a  certain time, is all there is of it, and that it has nothing to do with  other spaces or other times. This mistake of simple location is  therefore identical with that pointed out above of confining a thing  or event to its apparent spatial contours or boundaries, with nothing  of it beyond them. 1 following the lead of physical science  attempt to remedy the mistake by extending the thing or event into  its " field " beyond these contours or boundaries. Professor White-  head proceeds in a more radical and perhaps more correct way by a  re-examination of the status of Space-Time in relation to things and  events. In this way he arrives at the result that a thing or event  is not confined to its own simple Space-Time location, and is thus not  itself alone, but that it reflects the aspects of all other things and  events from its particular standpoint, and thus in a sense involves  their locations also. In the larger context of nature the thing or  event is, therefore, a synthesis ot itself with the aspects or perspec-  tives of everything else as mirrored from its standpoint. White-  head's searching analysis leads to results which closely resemble those  of Leibniz's Monadology, and involve a radical transformation of  current practical and scientific concepts. The alternative concept  of " fields," while less revolutionary and simpler to understand,  seems to meet the purpose in view sufficiently well. On both views  a thing or event transcends its apparent limits. That the popular  view of " simple location " involves a most insidious and far-  reaching error of abstraction is common ground to both Professor

CHAPTER II

THE REFORMED CONCEPTS OF SPACE AND TIME

Summary. It is not only in organic Evolution that the old fixed  concepts and counters of thought are breaking down. Recent  advances in physical science have extended the revolution to the  domain of the inorganic ; the fixity of the atom has followed that of  species into the limbo of the obsolete. In many directions new  concepts, more in harmony with the fluid creative process of nature,  are called for.

We begin with the new concepts of Space and Time, which in the  system of Relativity are taking the place of the old Newtonian  concepts still commonly accepted. The new ideas of Space and 
Time arose from researches in the higher mathematics and physics,  and were primarily concerned with the relative character of all  actual motion in the universe, and the mathematical and physical  consequences of this relativity. Thus according to the mathematical  physicists, to a moving observer a moving body appears to contract  or to be shorter than it would be to a stationary observer, and the  faster either of them moves the greater the contraction becomes. 
Time varies similarly, but in the opposite direction ; while the  space of the moving body appears to contract, its time appears  to expand, so that it takes a longer time to pass a point than it  would do if viewed by a stationary observer. This joint and  inseparable variation of Space and Time was not only most  important in itself, but led directly to the revolutionary conception  that neither of them existed independently, but that together  they form the Space-Time medium of the real physical world. From  this point of view bodies and things as merely spatial are not real  but abstractions, while events, which involve both Space and Time, 
Action in Space-Time, are real and form the units of reality. The  deposition of the old Space and Time and their replacement by 
Space-Time have been tested in the most searching way both in the  immense world of astronomy and the most minute world of the atom,  and in both cases the new concepts have been found to work -satis-  factorily.

The variation of Space and Time has led to the further conclusion  that in a world of relative motion such as ours, where all observers

23  and all observed bodies are in motion, all standards of measurement  and all clocks of Time are themselves variable and give no constant  results. But a varying standard must produce a warped or twisted  field. Applying this conclusion to gravitation and the rotational  movements of the universe, we find that the Space-Time medium of  the universe is curved and warped and not of the homogeneous  character which was attributed to Space and Time according  to the old ideas. In all gravitational fields events happen in  curves and follow the fundamental curves of the Space-Time  universe. The result is that the entire universe acquires a definite  structural character, and is not a diffuse homogeneity as was formerly  supposed. According to the new Space-Time concept, structure,  definite organised structure, becomes the essential characteristic  of the physical universe, and this structural character accounts for  many hitherto inexplicable phenomena.

Newton's and Kant's ideas of Space and Time compared with  those of Einstein.

IN the preceding chapter I have tried to explain how the  acceptance of the theory of Evolution must inevitably and  profoundly affect our views as regards the nature of matter. 
In this chapter I proceed to inquire what bearing recent  far-reaching physical researches and speculations have on  this position. Our problem is to break away from the hard  and narrow conceptions of the Victorian age, to see Nature  once more in her fluid and creative plasticity, and to formu-  late our conceptions afresh from this deeper point of view. 
A great change has come over our views of Nature, a change  great enough in the end to amount to one of the fundamental  revolutions in human thought. But we are still in the  process of that change, and it is therefore difficult for us to  realise its full significance. Three dates stand out in bold  relief as inaugurating that change : 1859, when Darwin's 
Origin of Species was published; 1896, when Becquerel  discovered Radioactivity; and 1915, when Einstein pub-  lished his General Theory of Relativity. Round these three  great events other discoveries of profound interest have taken  and are still taking place ; and in the result our entire view-  points and standpoints as regards Nature and reality are  undergoing a fundamental change which must in the end  affect every province of human thought and conduct. The 
ii CONCEPTS OF SPACE AND TIME 25 
fixity of organic species is gone; the fixity of inorganic  elements is going. The position is once more becoming  fluid, the old rigid order is visibly dissolving, the fixed land-  marks and beacon-points by which former generations steered  their course in science are becoming submerged. And the  task awaits the future out of this fluid situation and these  instabilities once more to build a stable world of ideas, which  will be in closer harmony with the reality around us and within  us. One of the aspects of Darwin's Theory has already briefly  engaged our attention in the last chapter, and other aspects  of it will be considered in Chapter VIII. In the present  chapter reference must be made to Einstein's General Theory  of Relativity and the bearing it has on our ideas of space and  time as the framework in which events are located, and the  medium in which Evolution takes place. The resulting  view of the universe as structural, and of the element of  structure as fundamental to the universe and all its forms, is  important for the subject and the argument of this work.

People become frightened when they are invited to consider 
Einstein's theory. Its refined abstractions, its abstruse  mathematical form, its complete novelty and reversal of  ordinary common-sense view-points make it a terror to the,  uninitiated. And yet I believe the Einstein view-point can  be quite simply and intelligibly put. Indeed it must be so  put if it is ever to become part and parcel of ordinary  educated thought. We must distinguish between the simple  and clear view-point itself, and the recondite mathematical  processes by which it was reached, and the technical mathe-  matical form in which it is expressed, and from which for  all ordinary purposes it can be separated. The understand-  ing and appreciation of the Relativity view-point are not  dependent on a knowledge of the process by which Einstein  reached that view-point. The result is quite distinct from  the process. It is like groping our way through a long, dark,  rough tunnel, and at the end emerging into the clear daylight  beyond : it is not necessary for the appreciation of the new  view that one should plunge back into the dark tunnel. 
Besides, I must frankly state my own lay impression that the

Einstein theory, as distinguished from the broad view-point  attained, has not yet found its final expression. All great  truths are in their essence simple; and the absence of  simplicity of statement only shows that the ultimate form  has not yet been reached. The day may yet come when the  ten recondite Einstein equations of gravitation may appear  as but the scaffolding of the simpler structure yet to arise,  the naturalness and inevitableness of which will be as evident  to every educated person as the heliocentric conception of 
Copernicus has become.

The Einstein theory arose originally from researches in  the higher mathematics and physics, and a brief reference  to this mathematical origin will be useful. Galileo  and Newton were the fathers of the modern classical  mechanics; they (and especially Newton) formulated  the laws of moving bodies in an exact mathematical  science. Now the germ of the new Relativity mechanics is  the almost obvious fact that the motion of a body is never  absolute, but is always relative to some other body or point. 
If this body or point of reference is stationary, Newton's  laws of motion apply completely, and the geometry of 
Euclid also applies, so that the movements of bodies can be  represented by geometrical figures. Such bodies are said  to move in Euclidean space, which is the same and homo-  geneous all through and in all directions. Now since New-  ton's time a great deal of attention has been given to the  case where the body of reference or the observer is not  stationary but is also in motion. This case is important,  because it is actually that of all bodies in our universe, in  which all observers or points of reference are themselves in  motion. A point on the earth, for instance, rotates with a  certain velocity round the centre of the earth, while the earth  again rotates with another velocity round the sun. The sun  itself is not stationary but moving with reference to some  star in the constellation Hercules, which is itself in motion  with reference to the star stream of the Milky Way. It  is this case of the moving observer or point of reference  with which Einstein's theory deals, and it is therefore 
ii CONCEPTS OF SPACE AND TIME 27 
clear that this theory faces the problem of motion as  it actually exists in the universe. The impression of  rest or stationariness to us as observers in the universe  is a mere illusion, and the great service of Einstein was  to explore this illusion and to show in exact mathematical  form to what extent it affects our vision and judgment of  movement in the world. Let us therefore take the case of  moving observers. Now when a moving object (say a train  in motion) is viewed by an observer in motion (say an  observer in a motor-car moving on a road parallel to the  train), certain curious results have been worked out by 
Fitzgerald and Lorentz, of which the following are two  important samples :

(A) The train appears a little shorter than it would to a  stationary observer.

(B) The time taken by the train to pass a point appears a  little longer (or the train appears to move somewhat more  slowly) than it would to a stationary observer.

In other words, to a moving observer the length or the  space occupied by a moving body is smaller in the direction  of its motion than it would appear to a stationary observer^;  and similarly the time taken by the observed body to pass  a point will be longer. And the faster the observer  or observed body moves, the more the space and time  of the observed body will vary for him, compared to what  they would do if he were at rest. These two variations  of space and time are joint variations, happening simul-  taneously but in an opposite direction, the one becoming  less in proportion as the other becomes more to the  moving observer. Space contracts and time expands in  inverse proportions according to the rate of motion of a  moving body of reference or a moving observer. One  may generalise this result and say that so long as  several observers move at different rates but uniformly  and in straight lines with regard to each other, the velocity  or speed of the moving body which they are observing  follows the same law for all of them, as the proportional  covariations of their respective spaces and times cancel each  other out, so to say. This is a popular way of stating the  main principle of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity > first  published in 1905, in rigorous mathematical form. It  explained the fact, which had been repeatedly confirmed by  the most accurate experiments of Michelson and Morley,  that the velocity of light is always the same, whatever the  velocity of its source, and however great may be the  difference in velocities of the moving observers who are  trying to measure it. An observer moving away from a  flash of light at a rate which is half that of light will  see the flash at the same time as a stationary observer,  and not later as one might suppose. The reason is that  the time and space measures of the moving observer  have changed jointly so as to neutralise the results which  his motion might have on his observation. For all bodies  or observers moving at ordinary terrestrial rates the  change is so small as to be negligible, and it is only when one  or both of them move at a rate approaching that of light  that the apparent contraction and expansion become  important and have to be considered in actual calculations.

The two salient facts to bear in mind as a result of the  above is : that to moving observers clocks and standards  of measurement in motion are no longer absolute but vary  according to the rates of motion of these observers or  of the clocks or standards, and that there is this curious  joint and opposite variation of the space and time  measures of moving observers or bodies. In fact separately 
Space and Time must be mere abstractions, as in all actual  movements they are always found in inseparable conjoint  action.

From this co- variation of Space and Time it is but a step to 
Minkowski's great idea, first formulated in 1908, that in  natural events Space and Time are not independent factors,  and that in the mathematical representation of events the  correct way is to introduce time as a fourth dimension, not  of space, but of the Space-Time continuum in which events  really take place. Time is, of course, in many ways unlike 
ii CONCEPTS OF SPACE AND TIME 29 
space and is not another dimension of it, but this inseparable  co-variation in all events which happen in nature makes it  both feasible and proper that we should substitute the real 
Space-Time continuum of events for the old abstract three-  dimensional space of bodies or points in space. In passing  it may here be pointed out that the old notion of the separate  reality of space and of time involved both the errors of  analysis and of abstraction to which attention was drawn in  the last chapter, and Minkowski's brilliant idea has simply  brought us back to the natural fact as it occurs in experience,  where nothing ever happens in space alone or in time alone, but  always in both together, and where objects are not observed  by themselves, but always as elements or items in the stream  of perceived events. Nay more, it can be easily shown that  the very ideas of Space and Time interpenetrate each other  and are dependent on each other. Succession or the time-  series, and co-existence or the space-series, are necessary to  each other and would not be even intelligible apart from  each other. For the succession (time) would perish at each  step and would not even form a series, unless it had enduring-  ness or co-existence (space). And similarly the co-existence 
(space) would stop at its first step and would not be spread  out or extended unless it had also succession (time).

To Einstein this concept of a Space-Time continuum  proved most welcome and fruitful, and he proceeded to  apply it to the explanation of all movements in the universe,  not only to uniform and rectilinear motions which take place  in uniform Euclidean space, but also to rotating and accele-  rated motions which take place in a gravitational field of a  non-Euclidean character.

His first step was to illustrate, by purely theoretical  considerations, the fact that a body under the influence of a  constant force, and therefore moving with a constantly  increasing acceleration, would to an observer situated on it  behave in exactly the same way as a body acted on by  gravitation. Thus suppose a man enclosed in a cage so that  he cannot observe any other body and cannot notice his own  motion. And suppose this cage suspended in distant space  where there is no gravitation. And suppose further that  this cage is drawn upward with a constant force, so that it  moves faster and faster with a constantly increasing accelera-  tion. In truth the case is therefore one of acceleration. But  by the enclosed observer this motion and acceleration of the  cage and himself will not be noticed. He would only feel  like being pulled down by his own weight. If he loses any  object from his hand, it will fall to the bottom of the cage  like a stone dropped on the earth. What is more, the rate  at which the object drops is the same, whatever its figure or  size or amount of material. The fact italicised is distinctive  of gravitation. In other words, the man in the cage will  think that he and the cage and the object therein are all acted  upon by gravitation. What is really due to acceleration  appears to be a case purely and simply of gravitation. Thus  we see acceleration and gravitation are really the same  phenomena and only different in appearance to observers. 
Acceleration and gravitation are, in fact, equivalent expres-  sions. Einstein's closed cage may yet become as historic  as Newton's falling apple.

Now take rotation, which is simply a special case of  acceleration. And let us imagine an observer situated on a  rotating or revolving plane circular disc and proceeding to  measure the area of the disc and the rate at which it is  revolving. He has two identical clocks, one of which he puts  near the centre of the disc and the other near the circum-  ference in order to take some time measurements. When he  proceeds to take the time of the clock near the centre he finds  that it moves faster than when he proceeds to read the  clock placed near the circumference. We have already seen  why this is so. The motion of the disc at the centre is  nil, and its motion at the circumference quite marked, and  the times of identical clocks near these two points will  therefore vary to the observer. And similarly the rate  of any identical clock will vary according to the distance of  its position on the surface of the disc from the centre, as the  motions of all points on the disc will differ according to their  distance from the centre, where the motion is slower. 
ii CONCEPTS OF SPACE AND TIME 31

He then proceeds to apply identical measuring rods  and finds the same continual variation. He finds that  the identical measuring rods vary in length according  to their position on the disc; one placed on the circum-  ference is shorter than one placed near the centre. 
And the differing lengths of the rods will measure up  different spaces. The observer will become utterly con-  fused, and will finally conclude that the spaces on the  disc are not the same everywhere and in all directions, but  appear to vary in all directions and to be twisted, warped  and curved. Or, as we would say, the space of the disc is  not straight-line homogeneous uniform Euclidean space, but  curved and non-Euclidean. Taking the variations of the  spaces and times on the rotating disc together, we conclude  that the disc is not a Euclidean space but a non-Euclidean 
Space-Time continuum.

As we have seen that the phenomena of acceleration 
(including rotation) and gravitation are equivalent, these  considerations in reference to the rotating disc apply also to  every gravitational body. We know that gravitation acts  at a distance from the centre of the gravitational body;  in fact every such body is surrounded by a gravitational  field far larger than itself. Therefore the non-Euclidean  characters will also distinguish the Space-Time continuum  in this field. In other words, movements and happenings  in this field will not follow the law of a uniform time and a  homogeneous identical space in all directions. They will  take place in curves, exactly as on our rotating disc. A body  falling in space through such a field will on entering  it and while in it follow, not a straight path, but  the curve which coincides most closely with its original  straight path ; a ray of light passing through the field will  similarly follow the nearest curve instead of a straight line. 
And indeed any physical event within that field will, in so far  as it is of a translational character, follow the curve on which  it happens to take place. These deductions from theory  have been experimentally verified in the most important  particulars.

According to this theory the mysterious " attractive "  power of matter, which is called gravitation, assumes quite  a different character. The apparent attraction is simply the  curved or bent paths due to the movements in the universe  of masses charged with energy, which (except as pushes and  pulls on our bodies) we ourselves do not particularly notice as  we happen to partake of the same movements as the observed  phenomena. This, however, does not make of gravitation an  unreality, due to the subjective vagaries of the observer. 
Gravitation, as we have seen, now becomes the curves of the  real Space-Time world ; it marks the inevitable paths which  all events must follow in the physical universe. So far  from being subjective or merely relative to the observer,  gravitation becomes the very structure of the real world and  connotes the stratification which characterises the vast fields  of the Space-Time continuum. Our whole conception of the  universe is altered. Instead of conceiving the universe as  consisting of material bodies floating in a medium of uniform  homogeneous space, we now look upon the vast variable  masses of " matter " associated with high-speed energies as  developing huge " fields " called Space-Time, in which  the curves of the lines can be calculated and the course of  events happening in them can be predicted. For events  follow the curves and their future course can be calculated,  once their position on the curves is determined. The  physics of Nature thus becomes in part an annex  of the geometry of Space-Time, and a new power is  placed in the hands of man, limited only by the limitations  of his mathematical insight and genius. The distance be-  tween mind and matter is immeasurably reduced, and matter  appears to become plastic to the moulding power of mind. 
The concept of the " field " becomes all-important in science  and in thought. The " field " of matter is simply the curved  structure of the real Space-Time, which extends far beyond  sensible matter itself. Throughout its vast " fields " the  universe assumes a form not very much unlike the curved  contours and unevennesses which we associate with the  physical appearance of this globe. The contours of the

[i CONCEPTS OF SPACE AND TIME 33 
unseen universe of our field which surrounds us follow very  much the lines which meet our eye on sea and land. But  these lines are not mere empty form. They are not mere  curves of beauty; they are real and causal, for they  determine the course of events in the universe. The  peripheries of rotating bodies are such curves, the planets  move round the suns in such curves; light is propagated  along such curves; in fact these curves are the path-  ways of the physical universe which all physical events  must follow. The inmost nature of the universe is active 
Energy or Action and involves the interplay of tre-  mendous activities, whose result is expressed in these  curves; and these curves are nothing but the actual  orientation or direction of events in the Space-Time  framework of the universe.

What is or would be the situation beyond the material  universe and its vast fields ? There we pass beyond the  bounds of gravitation, where there is neither rotation  nor acceleration, where " bodies " (if such astral ab-  stractions could be imagined) persist in their state of rest  or of uniform motion in a straight line according to 
Newton's First Law. There Space-Time, if it could be  imagined to exist, would not be warped or curved, but would  be homogeneous and continuous, and would be exactly the  form of empty nothingness. In fact, homogeneous Euclidean 
Space-Time beyond all real fields is simply a limiting con-  ception of thought and would correspond to nothing that we  have any knowledge of in our universe, in which the great  masses of matter everywhere produce curved fields.

It may be interesting, in conclusion, to point out the  difference between this conception of Space-Time in the 
Relativity Theory and the conceptions of Space and Time  formulated by Newton and Kant. For Newton both Space  and Time were absolutes ; that is to say, were real invariable  permanent entities or characters of things and events. They  were each homogeneous and continuous and therefore  adequately expressible by the geometry of Euclid. There  was nothing subjective about them. For Kant, who in other

D  respects profoundly admired the Newtonian system, the great  problem of knowledge was how to determine the relative con-  tributions made to our knowledge of the world by the sub-  jective and objective factors respectively, and especially how-  much and what the mind brought into the common pool of  knowledge and experience. His answer in effect was that  the action of the mind was creative in experience and that  it contributed to our knowledge (a) the elements of Space  and Time which are nothing but the mind's own sensuous  forms of intuition or perception imposed on the materials  of sense and experience, and (b) the general conceptual system  of knowledge which follows from the categories of the Under-  standing, and (c) certain ultimate regulative principles of the  human Reason. According to this view, therefore, Space and 
Time are nothing but the necessary forms of man's sensuous  perception ; they do not exist in external reality, but are  imposed by the mind on all objects of sense. While accepting  the homogeneous universal Euclidean characters which New-  ton ascribed to Space and Time, Kant denied that they were  real entities or characters of things or events. If these  characters belonged to things, Kant failed to understand  how the a priori synthetic character of mathematical  knowledge was possible, and he could only explain this fact  by making the sensuous form of things a subjective con-  tribution of the mind itself. According to him the uni-  versal forms of Space and Time in experience were due,  not to the things or the world to which they seemed to  belong, but purely and simply to the perceiving mind  which invested all things or events with them.

In contradistinction to both these theories, Space and Time  in the theory of Relativity as conjoint co-ordinate forms  belong both to the mind and to things ; and the whole effort  of Einstein was to separate the subjective appearance from  the objective reality, to separate the relative, variable and  disturbing contribution made by the observing mind from  the real permanent Space-Time factor which is inherent in  the physical universe. If the confirmation of theory by  facts means anything it must be admitted that Einstein has 
ii CONCEPTS OF SPACE AND TIME 35 
been singularly successful in his analysis and evaluation of  these two subjective and objective aspects of the Space- 
Time concept. That Space and Time were not, on the one  hand, merely subjective conditions of experience as Kant  held, nor, on the other, merely objectively given elements  for experience as Newton held, but that they were both  subjective and objective contributions to experience, might  have been the discovery of a sound psychology or episte-  mology. But that these two factors of Space and Time have  been fused into one synthesis, from which both the subjective  and objective elements have been properly sorted out and  isolated and valued and rigorously determined, is an achieve-  ment of the most outstanding importance not only for  science but also for philosophy. It is unnecessary to point  out that in the Theory of Relativity Space and Time are not  metaphysical conceptions or forms. The infinite homo-  geneous Space and Time which to Kant were mental pre-  suppositions and preconditions of all sensuous experience,  and to Leibniz the pre-established permanent universal order  of co-existence and succession among things, are to Einstein  mere limiting pseudo-concepts, metaphysical abstractions  without relation to our real experience. In our experience 
Space and Time are given elements just as colour, weight and  the rest. The task of science is to co-ordinate these elements  in an intelligible form, and in doing so Einstein has simply  explored them as if they were real physical experience like  the rest. The result is the elimination of certain historic  errors from the concepts of Space and Time, and the deter-  mination of their physical qualities in line with the rest of  our physical experience and concepts. The Space-Time  continuum, instead of being a vague, homogeneous, formless,  metaphysical concept, becomes a part of physical reality,  becomes the " field " of the material world, with a definite  structure of its own. Structure, real differentiated structure,  becomes the inmost form of the real Space-Time world. 
The close bearing of this on the main argument of this work  will appear from the following chapters.

CHAPTER III

THE REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER

Summary. Coming now from the Space Time continuum to 
Matter we find the feature of structure much more conspicuous and  important. The physical and chemical constitution of matter is  almost entirely a matter of structure. Chemistry has traced matter  to its ultimate units or atoms, and to the combination of these into  molecules and substances according to structural schemes dependent  on the placing and spacing of the different units in the various  chemical combinations. The New Physics has carried the process  a step further back by analysing atoms into their constituent elec-  trons and protons, or units of negative and positive electricity. 
These units are so arranged structurally as to approximate to the  form of more or less complicated solar systems, with central  positive nuclei and revolving planetary electrons. The explanation  of the physical and chemical properties of matter has been traced  to the structural arrangements in these atomic systems and the  number and changes in position of their various units. Matter is  thus a structure of energy units revolving with immense velocities  in Space-Time, and the various elements arise from the number and  arrangement of the units in an atom; as these can be varied, the  transmutation of elements becomes possible, as in Radioactivity. 
The peculiar serial character of the Periodic Table of the elements is  thus due to the number of units and their architecture in the atoms. 
Atomic Weights and Atomic Numbers reflect this inner arithmetical  character of the atoms.

The states of matter, as gaseous, liquid or solid, are also the results  of the residual surface forces in atoms and molecules, due to their  inner structure. Crystal structure is another result of inner atomic  structure. But perhaps the most remarkable state of matter is a  combination of the other states ; this is called the colloid state, in  which very minute particles of one material are dispersed throughout  another. This colloid state is much more universal than is commonly  thought, and is specially important because the protoplasm of cells  is organised in this state. The minuteness of the dispersed particles  means the exposure of a maximum surface area compared to their  mass. These surfaces bring into play the surface forces and show  peculiar affinities or selective properties of various kinds, and in this  way certain chemical and physical reactions are facilitated at these  surfaces, which make them useful in the industries as well as in the

CHAP, in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 37 
processes of organic life. In fact, some reactions in the colloid state  approximate strangely to the biological type.

From the above analysis of the structural energetic constitution of  matter certain conclusions can be drawn which very much narrow  the gulf between matter and life.

In the first place, the old view of matter as inert and passive dis-  appears completely. Matter like life is intensely active, indeed is 
Action in the technical physical sense ; the difference is not between  deadness and activity, but between two different kinds of activity. 
Through their common activities the fields of matter and life thus  overlap and intermingle, and absolute separation disappears.

In the second place, Radioactivity in matter plays a somewhat  analogous r61e to Organic Descent in life. Both render fluid the old  fixed entities and forms ; although the difference between them must  not be minimised. Especially must it be recognised that Radio-  activity is regressive, while Organic Descent is progressive. But  this may be due to the extreme age of matter as compared with the  youth of life in the history of the earth.

In the third place, the Periodic Table of Chemistry has a distinct  resemblance to the Systems of Botany and Zoology ; the concepts  of families, genera and species could be applied to both. This shows  that the characters of activity, plasticity and probably of develop-  ment and genetic relationships apply to both the organic and inorganic  domains.

In the fourth place, the structural character of matter indicates  that it is also creative, not of its own stuff, but of the forms, arrange-  ments and patterns which constitute all its value in the physical  sphere. Just as life and mind are creative of values through the  selective combinations and forms which they bring about, so matter  also, instead of being dispersive, diffusive, and structureless, effects  through its inner activities and forces structural groupings and com-  binations which are valuable, not merely to humans, but in the order  of the universe. But for its dynamic structural creative character  matter could not have been the mother of the universe.

In the fifth place, matter in its colloid state in protoplasm discloses  properties and manufactures substances, such as chlorophyll and  haemoglobin, which are necessary for the functions of life, and which  go far toward bridging the great gap between the two. In its colloid  state we thus see matter reaching up to the very threshold of life. 
A great leap may have taken place across what remained as a gap. 
A great " mutation " may have occurred. But as life probably  began on a much lower level than the lowest forms we know to-day,  the mutation may after all not have been so great. In any case a  close scrutiny of the nature of matter, as revealed by the New 
Physics, and especially colloid chemistry, brings it very near to the  concept of life.

LET us now proceed to consider how recent advances in  our knowledge of the constitution of matter have empha-  sised the importance of this same feature of structure in the  physical universe. Chemistry had for a century been explor-  ing with great success the structure and constitution of  matter, but the New Physics of Radioactivity has during  the last twenty years proved a most powerful aid to Chemistry  and led to discoveries which are little short of revolutionary. 
To Chemistry was due the analysis of matter into a certain  number of elements, each with its own physical and chemical  properties ; the discovery of the atom as the ultimate unit  of each element of matter ; the union of atoms of each element  into simple molecules of that element, and the union of atoms  of various elements into compound molecules. The com-  binations of elements in definite quantitative proportions  was explained as the union of one or more of the atoms of  these elements with each other. From this it might be  inferred that the combinations of Chemistry were like the  combinations of Arithmetic, and that the whole numbers of 
Arithmetic might properly represent the atoms of Chemistry  and their combinations into compounds. This inference has,  however, only been actually verified by the recent physical  discoveries. It was not only the fact of numerical or  quantitative structure that was important to Chemistry ;  the spatial or positional structure of matter, the order of  placing and spacing of the atoms in the chemical substance,  the architecture of matter became almost equally important,  and in many cases the properties of a substance could only  be explained on the basis of its real or supposed inner  structure and configuration. Thus molecules of carbon  could be either coal or graphite or diamond, and this great  dissimilarity in the same chemical substance was explained  as the result of the difference of structure in the placing  and spacing of the atoms in the carbon molecule. Sulphur  and many other elements show a similar polymorphous or,  as it is called, allotropic character. It was, however, when  chemists had to explain the different characters of quite  distinct chemical compounds, which yet had the same 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 39 
chemical composition, that the importance of " structure "  and constitution became most highly accentuated. Such  compounds are called isomers. So important is structure  to matter that without it one may safely say that  organic chemistry becomes unintelligible. The more  complex the composition of substances (as in organic  chemistry), the larger the number of permutations and  combinations that are possible in the relative positions and  placings of atoms or groups of atoms in the make-up of  matter, the more important does the phenomenon of  isomerism become, and the greater is the part played by  structure and configuration in the building up of matter. 
The chemical formula is no longer sufficient, it is a mere  abstract notational shorthand which may be thoroughly  misleading in the absence of a diagrammatic representation  of the constitution or structure of the compound substance. 
The crystal forms of solids illustrate not only the structural  character of chemical substances, but also the invariable way  in which the same substance follows the same pattern of  structure. To Chemistry structure, or the proper representa-  tion of relative positions of atoms or their groups in the  three dimensions of space, has become indispensable. And  the New Physics has now gone a step further and shown that  this minute structure of the chemical atom and compound  is not static in space, but dynamic and intensely active in  that Space-Time continuum which we have already found  dominant in the relations of astronomical bodies and  events. Space-Time prevails at both ends of physical  infinity and everywhere between.

To Chemistry the atom was a hard indivisible unit, the  constitution of which (if there was any) could not be known ;  nor could it explain chemical affinity or why atoms combined  into molecules; nor could it explain the strange serial  character of the Periodic Law in reference to the atomic  weights and the properties of atoms. These triumphs were  reserved for the New Physics, and they have traced structure  back into the innermost recesses of the atom. The discovery  of Radioactivity by Becquerel in 1896 at Paris was the first  indication that the atom was not indivisible and could break  up spontaneously in nature. The discovery in the previous  year of the X-rays by Rontgen for the first time revealed the  existence of invisible rays whose wave-length was as small  as atoms, and the elaboration of the spectrum of these rays  has provided an instrument of incredible power and accuracy  in the investigation of the almost infinitesimally small  phenomena of atomic structure. Then followed in 1897 the  isolation by Sir J. J. Thomson of the ultimate unit of nega-  tive electricity in the electron; and in 1900 Max Planck  of Berlin University discovered what came to be known  as the quantum, the unit of radiant action emitted by  all radiant bodies or even dark bodies. The application of  these new ideas and means of investigation by a number of  brilliant researchers has led to the elucidation of the nature  and constitution of the atom of matter in the theory which is  specially associated with the names of Sir Ernest Rutherford  and Professor Niels Bohr. Without entering into details  which do not concern us, and simply to illustrate the element  of " structure " in the atom with which we are dealing, I shall  summarise the salient points in this theory. According to  it, an atom is an electrical constellation somewhat like our  gravitational solar system ; the centre of the system being a  minute very massive nucleus positively electrified, round  which revolve equally minute electrons or negative particles  of very small mass so small that in the Hydrogen atom,  for instance, the nucleus has 1835 times the mass of the  electron. The electrons revolve at various rates in their  different orbits, all of which can be measured through their 
X-ray spectrum; and an electron can suddenly and all at  once jump from one orbit to another, increasing its orbit  when it receives one or more quanta of radiation from some  outside body, or decreasing its orbit and taking one nearer  the central nucleus, and in the act of doing so releasing one  or more quanta of radiation. It is these quanta of radiation,  released when the electron jumps to a narrower orbit in the  atom, that account for the light which comes from the sun  and the stars, and in fact all radiant bodies ; and it is the 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 41 
definite quanta of radiation so emitted which account for the  peculiar spectrum of the elements in the spectroscope. Why  atomic light should be emitted in these definite amounts or  quanta is not yet known, but it is known that the quanta  follow a scale somewhat similar to the notes in music, and  we may therefore think of light as the music of the spheres,  in which the total harmony or light effect is made up of  definite discontinuous notes instead of continuous variations  of light. The wonderful thing is that in regard to all these  matters we have the most minute and accurate knowledge :  the amount of a quantum ; the mass, velocity and orbits of  an electron ; the mass and velocity of rotation of a nucleus,  and the total sphere of an atom, with its small nucleus and  electrons and vast empty spaces, comparable to the empty  spaces in our solar system. The electron is by now very  well known, and indeed all electric currents are nothing but  streams of free electrons. But of the corresponding positive  unit which is called a proton next to nothing is known, as  the proton has never yet been isolated. Now the nucleus of  an atom may be simple or complex; it may be a proton,  as in the case of the Hydrogen atom, or it may consist of  several protons, some of which, again, may be neutralised  by closely associated electrons, and some remain unneu-  tralised, so that the nucleus as a whole always remains  positively electrified. In the Hydrogen atom there is one  proton in the nucleus, and hence there is one electron  revolving round it. In the Helium atom, again, there is a  nucleus of four protons, two of which have electrons in  association with them, and two not ; the nucleus, therefore,  has two positive units, to which correspond two electrons  which revolve round the nucleus in the atom. The com-  bination of four protons and two electrons in the Helium  nucleus appears to persist in other nuclei, so that the nuclei  of the other elements appear to be a combination of simple 
(Hydrogen) and complex (Helium) nuclei. The number of  revolving electrons in an element always corresponds to the  number of unsatisfied positive units in the nucleus, which  is called the atomic number of the element, and which is  always an integer; and thus the atomic numbers of  the elements run from i in the case of Hydrogen to 
2 in the case of Helium, 6 in the case of Carbon, and so on  to 92 in the case of Uranium, the heaviest of all the known  elements. Of these 92 possible elements, very few have not  yet been isolated, although their atomic numbers and weights  and positions in the Periodic Table and their approximate  properties are known. 1 Atomic weights are in every case  integers, the apparent exceptions being cases where we  have to do with isotopes or elements of which the atoms  are not all identically the same but slightly different in  their electron contents. Thus the New Physics has inci-  dentally explained the mystery of the Periodic Table.

The mystery of the atom has now largely narrowed down  to the nucleus, which consists of an inner revolving system  of protons of which comparatively little is known except that  they rotate round their centre with an enormous velocity  probably not much less than that of light and that the  quantum law as well as the mass law of Relativity holds  with regard to them. As space or volume contracts with  velocity in Space-Time, the mass of the nucleus increases  with high speeds out of all proportion to its size, and  the positive nucleus of the atom is therefore its virtual mass,  the rest of the atom being either empty space or very light  insubstantial electrons. Owing to its massiveness the nucleus  of protons is therefore coming to be identified with matter,  as if matter were ultimately only high-speed densely massed  positive electricity. The proton may thus yet prove to be  the fundamental unit of matter. The significance of this  view is that it reduces matter simply to a form of energy,  or rather Action, and therefore still further simplifies the  scheme of the universe.

There is another fact which shows the intimate relation  between energy on the one hand and structure or mass on  the other. The mass or atomic weight of the free Hydrogen

1 If the claims to the recent discoveries of Hafnium, Masurium  and Rhenium are allowed, only at most a couple of further elements  await discovery. 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 43 
atom has been determined as 1-0077. ^ n the Helium  nucleus, as we have seen, there are four protons or Hydrogen  nuclei, but here their mass only appears as one. In other  words, the free Hydrogen atoms or protons (they are practi-  cally identical as regards mass) suffer a diminution of mass  when they are concentrated into the Helium nucleus, as if  in this nucleus, which is itself an inner constellation system,  the protons and electrons are so close as to jam each other,  and therefore move more slowly and thereby decrease their  mass or matter. When the Helium nucleus is again split up  into Hydrogen protons, this loss of mass would be recover-  able in the form of energy, which, small as it is in the 
Helium nucleus, must be enormous in the world, as in all  matter the nuclei are composed either of Hydrogen pro-  tons or Helium protons (their compressed form) or both. 
Should this energy ever become economically available, the  greatest potential source of energy in the universe will  be opened up for the benefit of mankind.

This would involve the artificial breaking up of matter,  and this is the phenomenon which we actually witness in  a natural spontaneous form in Radioactivity. In Radio-  activity the nuclei of the heavier elements (Uranium, 
Thorium, and Radium) spontaneously break up and eject 
Helium at an invariably slow rate, which is regular  enough to be a geological clock, now being used as a  measure to calculate the age of the oldest rock-formations  of the earth. 1 Thus the Periodic Table shows that the  expulsion of three Helium atoms from Uranium will con-  vert it through Thorium into Radium; the expulsion of  one more Helium atom will convert Radium into an  element called Radium Emanation; and so on until  eight Helium atoms have been expelled, when Lead will be  reached. If the process of expulsion could be continued, 
Mercury will next be reached, and next after that Gold, 
The alchemists were then not so far out when they guessed

1 The age of these oldest formations, the Algonkian mountains oi 
Canada, has thus been calculated as approximately 1400 million years 
Thus on this basis we obtain the lowest limit for the age of the earth  that Mercury could be transmuted into gold ! Unfortunately 
(or rather I should say fortunately as a citizen of the  greatest gold-producing country) this spontaneous break-  up of matter has not yet been observed to proceed beyond  lead. And the artificial break-up of matter in the labora-  tory has only just begun in the experiments of Sir Ernest 
Rutherford, who by bombarding Nitrogen gas with a  particles from Radium C has succeeded in splitting the 
Nitrogen atom into Hydrogen atoms and a residual apparent  combination of Helium nuclei which might result in Carbon  according to the Periodic Table, but which is more likely to  split up into Helium atoms. To what extent this artificial  destruction of the elements is possible, and whether, if  possible, it would be economically feasible, are questions for  the future to answer.

We have seen that the positive charges of the nucleus have  to be balanced by the corresponding number of negative  electrons grouped in their orbits round the nucleus. On the  number and grouping of these planetary electrons the external  physical and chemical properties of the atom will depend. 
If the orbits followed impose a strain on the equilibrium of  the atom, a quantum adjustment to a different orbit will be  made. If the number of electrons and their orbit distribu-  tions produce complete equilibrium the atom will be very  stable internally and inert or inactive external!} 7 ; it will  belong to one of the inert group (Helium, Argon, Neon, 
Krypton), On either side of this inert group of elements in  the Periodic Table we find elements whose atoms have one  electron too many or too few ; in other words, they are not  internally in equilibrium and have a negative or positive  charge unsatisfied; they will therefore combine with any  other element which has an opposite charge unsatisfied. At  another remove from the inert elements in the Periodic Table  we find elements with two negative or positive charges un-  satisfied, which will again combine with another element  which has two opposite charges unsatisfied. And so on to  the elements which have three, four or five charges un-  satisfied. In this way both chemical affinity and the valency 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 45

(monovalency, divalency, etc.) of the elements are accounted  for. In every case the external properties of the element  are simply the expression of its internal structure and its  condition of stable or unstable equilibrium in respect of its  inner elements.

Not only the combination of atoms into molecules, but the  formation of the most complex compounds rests on this con-  dition of unstable equilibrium due to unsatisfied negative or  positive charges in the combining elements. The compound,  instead of being a single system of the solar type, is a far more  complex affair, and represents the case where suns with their  attendant planets again revolve round a greater central sun,  or where several solar systems are linked together externally  and not by a common centre. In either case the distribution  and equilibrium of the moving internal electric units deter-  mine the structure of the substance as matter as well as its  physical and chemical properties, while the movements of  the substance as a whole and of its parts relatively to each  other create the gravitational field or curved Space-Time  system which forms the medium and the field of the  substance. There is thus structure through and through,  not only in matter or the energies which in their extreme  concentration and velocity assume the massive form of  matter, but also in the field which surrounds this matter.

The gaseous, liquid and solid forms of matter are also the  result of this inner condition of electrical stability in the  atom and molecule. If the positive and negative charges are  quite equal and properly distributed the result, as we have  seen, is an inert element. And this element will also be a  gas, as the inner satisfaction of the charges and balance of  the system will make it inactive or inert externally. All  gases are states of matter where the inner balance of equili-  brium in the atoms and the molecules is such that there is no  residual force to work externally; the atoms (in inert  elements) and molecules (in others) therefore move freely  and unhampered. If the inner balance of charges is not quite  complete, there will be some external residual force as be-  tween the molecules, and the liquid state will result. If this  inner satisfaction is lessened still further, the resultant  external strain among the molecules will increase, they will  attract each other still more strongly and tend to closer  aggregation, and thus the solid form will appear. The  negative or positive electrical condition of the gas, liquid or  solid will be an index of the still unsatisfied charges residing  in the substance in that state. The free and unhampered  movement of atoms in an inert gaseous element and of  molecules in other gases makes the question of the particular  forms of such elements or gases immaterial; they have as  gases no particular form. In the case of liquids, however,  the resultant residual forces of the atoms and molecules will,  as is the case in electrical bodies, act mostly at the surface,  where the resulting force between the molecules of the surface  layer, or the surface tension, as it is called, will give a par-  ticular form or shape to the liquid (as in a drop of water). 
The molecules inside a liquid appear to be stratified into layers  loosely superimposed on each other. And in the case of  solids the still larger residual force will result in arranging  the molecules in a definite crystal structure on the pattern  of a lattice, which is the special and specific form of solid  chemical substances. Crystal structure is to solid com-  pounds what the planetary structure is to the atom not only  a specific ordering of inner units, but the index and source  of all external properties and activities. One of the most  interesting recent discoveries is that in crystals there is a unit  body or minute structure consisting of two or more molecules  which is of atomic or radicle character in that it always acts  as a unit in the upbuilding of the crystal.

Besides the gaseous, liquid, and solid phases of matter just  discussed there is a fourth, to which in recent years an ever-  increasing amount of attention has been and is being devoted. 
This is the colloid state, in which one substance is dispersed  throughout another in very minute particles which are yet  larger than molecules. Originally substances were divided  into colloids and non-colloids ; but more recently it has been  shown that non-colloids (like mineral salts) can under certain  conditions be reduced to the colloid state. And now this 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 47 
division has been abandoned, and the colloid state is recog-  nised as a fourth form of material aggregation applying to  substances generally under certain conditions. Much of the  earth and the air exists in the colloid state ; but the colloid  state is specially important because it seems to be distinctive  of all life-forms the protoplasm of all organic cells being  organised in the colloid state. The protoplasm of the cells  contains solid substances in most minute form dispersed  throughout its jelly-like fluid, and this colloid state seems to  link the inorganic with the organic elements in the cell.

Owing to their minute size, particles in the colloid state  expose the maximum surface area in comparison with their  mass ; and the colloid state in consequence brings into action  the play of surface energies more than any other phase of  matter. In all forms of aggregation the surface molecules  of matter are specially orientated ; the active sides of the  molecules being turned inwards, and the outer surface thus  consisting of the weak ends of these molecules. This  orientation affects the surface tensions, chemical behaviour  and energies of the surface molecules ; and as colloids expose  a maximum of such surfaces they show properties which are  of a distinctive character. Thus at these surfaces loose  unstable combinations with other special substances are easily  formed, and colloids appear in consequence to have a peculiar  and almost mysterious selective action for other substances. 
The phenomenon is called " adsorption " ; the selected sub-  stances being adsorbed at the colloid surfaces. Colloids are  thus used in many industrial processes to separate other  substances from each other, to remove impurities, and in  other ways to act as a selective separator of mixed sub-  stances. They also act as catalysts ; that is to say, at their  surfaces chemical actions take place and combinations are  effected which otherwise would not be brought about. 
The colloid surface is apparently a special field of force or  influence in which other chemical or physical reactions besides  selective adsorption are facilitated. The enzymes, for  instance, in the protoplasm of the cell are complex chemical  substances in very minute colloid form, with the surface  molecules or radicles specially orientated so as to facilitate  in a most marvellous way the chemical and physical pro-  cesses which are necessary for the organic activities of life. 
But enzymes are very particular in their action, and each  particular process has its own particular enzyme to bring it  about. Thus enzymes transform the sugar or sugar-like con-  tents of certain plants into alcohol ; but each species of plant  has its own enzyme, which will only operate on the material  of that species. Similarly chlorophyll is probably a complex  chemical compound probably in colloidal dispersion in the  protoplasm of leaf cells and other green cells, and its colloidal  surfaces are " fields " in which the energy of sunlight can  synthesise the carbon dioxide of the air into organic com-  pounds which ultimately take the form of sugar, starch and  cellulose. No laboratory has ever been able to make sun-  light perform this wonder ; l but the colloidal surface 
" field " of chlorophyll can do it, and in that way provide  for the sustenance of all organic life on this globe.

The marvellous behaviour of matter at its surfaces in the  colloid state, and especially its mysterious "selective power,  has raised the hope that here the bridge may yet be found  between the inorganic and the organic. Thus Dr. E. F. 
Armstrong says : " Enough has been said to show how the  conception of an orientated active structure at the surface  of a colloid aggregate might endow it with selective power of  so fine a nature as almost to merit the description of intelli-  gence; the further prosecution of research on these lines  may well serve to bridge the gap between us and the full  understanding of vital activity/ 1 2

It has been usual to distinguish "physical from 
" chemical " combination. The New Physics has, however,  made it clear that there are two types of chemical change,  involving two types of chemical combination and structure. 
The one type, which prevails among the salts, acids, and  bases of inorganic chemistry, is a much looser, less rigid  combination or union than the other, which prevails among

1 See, however, p. 70 below.

1 Chemistry in trie Twentieth Century, p. 17. 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 49 
the carbon compounds of organic chemistry. Thus common  salt, which is a combination of sodium and chlorine, is now  understood to be a more or less loose aggregation of free  positive sodium atoms or ions held in equilibrium by an  equal number of free negative chlorine atoms or ions ; the  equilibrium being fairly stable, without any actual union  of the atoms such as was assumed by orthodox chemists. 
In organic compounds, however, the linkage of the constituent  atoms is real, and the compound is not a system of free ions  in equilibrium, but a real combination or fixed structure of  the atoms concerned. Organic compounds thus display an  advance in respect of chemical structure in substances. 
While in inorganic salts and similar substances the looser  arrangement of the atoms or ions approximates to the type of 
" physical " combination, in organic substances, on the other  hand, the chemical union is more thorough and intense, and  leads to a closer structural character, linked together by  common electrons. In this connection it is important to  remember that organic compounds are the mechanisms of life :  we may therefore say that as we approach life we witness  a more intense element of structure in chemical compounds. 
Life may have arisen in at least it now uses as its  mechanisms chemical substances of a subtler structure  than that which characterises inorganic compounds.

In connection with the explanation of the structure of the  atom given above the question arises whether the structure  of the atom is really as above indicated, or whether we have  merely to do with a hypothesis to explain certain facts. 
The question is important, because it raises one instance of  the general method of scientific explanation. Science deals  with sensible phenomena and tries to co-ordinate them in  accordance with known physical laws, and in doing so has  often to interpret the sensible phenomena in a particular way  in order to effect the necessary intelligible co-ordination. 
Thus, in the case of the atom, its existence as a fact is no  longer disputed, but its structure on the model of a planetary  system is no more than an inference from well-grounded  sensible phenomena ; and we cannot, therefore, say for 
E  certain that the above is the actual structure of the atom. 
The sensible phenomena are quite different from the inferred  structure, but they are quite definite, and have been most  minutely measured or calculated. The electron and the  nucleus have not been observed, but certain light effects,  which they accurately express, have been observed, and from  these effects their mass and other properties have been cal-  culated. The sensible phenomena actually observed include  light effects, which are explained on the hypothesis of their  transmission in particular wave-lengths ; these explanations  accord with the observed effects, and again form the basis  of the supposed velocities, rotations and orbits of the electrons  and nuclei, which are not directly observed but calculated  with extraordinary minuteness and accuracy on the basis  of the observed light effects. Similarly the light from the  atom comes in definite observed quantities, which it has  hitherto only been possible to interpret intelligently as sudden  changes in the orbits of the rotating electrons. The observed  phenomena are light effects of various definite qualities and  quantities; the rest is theory or hypothesis, in which the  elements of quality and quantity in the sensible phenomena  are so minutely analysed and translated into elements of  time and space as to result in the structure of the atom above  given. And this hypothetical structure is then tested by all  the phenomena which call for explanation, and it is only finally  accepted when it affords a complete explanation of them all. 
The electrons, the nucleus, the revolutions of the electrons  round the nucleus, the sudden leaps of the electrons from one  orbit to the other : these are not observed realities or sensible  phenomena, but they all rest on a basis of sensible light  effects, which have been most meticulously determined and  tested by reference to other observed phenomena. They are  therefore not sensible realities but scientific realities. They  are not directly observed, but deduced from observations. 
They are the reflection, so to say, of the sensible phenomena  in the human mind with its particular conceptual equipment. 
And if they are not the actual forms of nature, they are so  close to them and measure and represent them so com- 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 51 
pletely, that for us humans they are accepted as true and  correct, that is, in experimental accord with the deliverances  of our senses. Thus the apparently unrelated and unintelli-  gible data of sense in a particular case are by hypothesis con-  strued into the structure of the atom ; and the atoms with all  their inner units and arrangements become the conceptual or  scientific entities which correspond to, reproduce, and repre-  sent the data of sense. In other words, the conceptual or  scientific order arises on the basis of the sensible observed  order, and as long as the two are in complete accord we accept  them both together as the explanation of Nature. While thus  according complete respect to both orders, we should always  bear in mind that the sensible order is the governing factor to  which the conceptual order has to conform. As long as it does  so conform we accept it, not as sensible reality, but as an  accurate measure and expression and completion of sensible  reality. The hypothetical structure of the atom reproduces  and expresses the observed facts ; without such structure the  observed facts are unintelligible and inexplicable. We  therefore accept the structure as a true and accurate  explanation of the observed facts, even though it has not  been directly observed as a structure. But the structure is  really no more than a hypothesis, to be discarded as soon  as it comes into conflict with new facts.

I conclude this chapter with a few general reflections on  the nature of matter which will serve to emphasise and  interpret the results of the foregoing discussion.

As indicated in the first chapter, the object of this work is  to make a modest contribution towards the reform of the  fundamental concepts of matter, life and mind, to assist in  bridging the apparently impassable gaps between them  and to interpret them in such a way as to present them as  successive more or less continuous forms and phases of one  great process, or as related progressive elements in one total  coherent reality. In pursuance of that general object my aim  in this chapter is to pave the way for a reform of the concept  of matter, to break down the old concept of matter as  something inert, passive, barren, dead, as something with  absolute contours and nothing beyond, as something present-  ing an impassable barrier to the kingdoms of life and mind  beyond. This cannot be done by general philosophical  reflections on the nature of matter as an object of thought,  nor by launching a general invective against it, but only by a  careful consideration of the concept of matter by the light  of all the available physical knowledge. This must be my  excuse for having referred to the Relativity Theory and the 
New Physics at some length. Certain general results emerge  from our discussion which have an important bearing on the  concept of matter.

In the first place, the old concept of matter as dead, pas-  sive, inert is clearly inconsistent with the recent develop-  ments of physical science. The old contradictory notion of  dead matter as the vehicle and carrier of life must disappear  in the light of our new knowledge. The difference between  matter and life is no longer measured by the distance between  deadness or absolute passivity on the one hand, and activity  on the other a distance so great as to constitute an impass-  able gulf in thought. The difference between them is merely  a difference in the character of their activities. So far from  matter being pure inertia or passivity, it is in reality a mass  of seething, palpitating energies and activities. Its very  dead-weight simply means the push of inner activities. Its  inertia, which is apparently its most distinctive quality and  has been consecrated by Newton in his First Law, has received  its death-blow at the hands of Einstein. From the new point  of view the inertia of matter is simply the result of the move-  ment of Nature's internal energies; its apparent passivity  is merely the other side of its real activity. Matter itself  is nothing but concentrated structural energy, energy stereo-  typed into structure. As space contracts with velocity, so  mass or the inertia of matter increases through that con-  traction, and both the mass of matter and its quality of  inertia or passiveness are therefore mere variable dependent  aspects of Nature's high-speed energies. From this point  of view matter is but a form of energy, concentrated by its  exceeding velocity, and structured to appear massive or 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 53 
substantial. The very nature of the physical universe is  activity or Action. The Law of the Quantum rules all.

The repercussion of all this on the old concept of matter  is deadly. Once the new point of view is thoroughly realised  and assimilated into popular thought, the bugbear of matter  will cease to trouble our peace. We shall no longer continue  to stare at a hopeless irreconcilable contradiction in ex-  perience. With the dissolution of the old traditional concept  of matter the dead-weight of its utter passivity will dis-  appear from men's minds, and one of the greatest partition  walls in knowledge will fall down. The contacts with life  may still be very difficult to establish. But at any rate the  impassable gulf will have disappeared. With the contours  of matter razed, its field will itself point the way for the  transition to the kingdom of life beyond. For the fields of  matter and life will overlap, intermingle, and interpenetrate  each other, the fruitful contacts will be established, and the  enriched and broadened concepts of matter and life will  appear as what they are different phases in the evolution  of an essential unity. The breakdown of the old concept of  matter will have prepared the way for a great advance  towards a new synthetic world-conception.

In the second place, another advance of the New Physics  has perhaps even greater significance in effecting a rapproche-  ment between matter and life. I refer to the effect of Radio-  activity in destroying the permanence of the natural elements,  and in explaining the genesis of the elements from one  another. Radioactivity has done a somewhat similar work  for matter as Darwin's theory of Organic Descent did for  life two generations ago. The fixity of the types of matter  has followed the fixity of the types of life to the limbo of  the obsolete. Of course there are marked differences in the  operation of Radioactivity and Organic Descent. In one  respect Radioactivity has not proved as powerful a factor  as Organic Descent, for it holds out no promise of the creation  of new species or elements beyond those already known. 
The Periodic Table does indeed indicate the vacant places  for one or two more guests yet to arrive. But the number  of elements is definitely and narrowly limited, and we have  no reason to look forward to any large increase beyond those  already known. In another important respect Radioactivity  differs from Organic Descent. Organic Descent professes  to show how new and future species arise through variation  and selection from those already existing. Radioactivity  operates in the opposite direction and indicates how by  elimination of certain unit constituents from a complex  element there may be established a regress to another  simpler known element. In the time-series Organic Descent  professes to move forward, while the process of Radioactivity  appears to be backward, or to retrace evolutionary steps  taken in the past. In still another respect Radioactivity  appears to be even more effective than Organic Descent,  for it exhibits before our eyes the process of the transmuta-  tion of elements, while it is not yet definitely established  that any natural species has yet been raised in the laboratory  or will ever be raised in any period of time short of  geological periods. In a final respect there is a striking  similarity between the two factors in that they both appear  to proceed by definite substantial increments or decrements  in effecting transmutations. Radioactivity expels definite  numbers of Helium nuclei as steps in the transmutation of  elements. According to De Vries and others the process  of advance from old to new species or varieties is by way of  definite marked mutations, and not by the slow summation  of minute discontinuous variations. And the present day 
Geneticists emphasise this similarity still more by identify-  ing all organic variations with differences of chromosomes  or genes in the nuclei of varying or mutating species.

The above differences in the operation of the two factors  of Radioactivity and Organic Descent arise partly no doubt  from inherent differences between matter and life, but also  partly from other possible differences in their circumstances  of a less fundamental character. Thus life is a mere child on  this globe and is yet in the heyday of its growth and increase. 
As yet it .recognises no limit or barrier in its first flush of  youth. It spends with a lavish prodigality, which is in 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 55 
striking contrast to the frugality and conservatism of matter,  for which the laws of Conservation and of Least Action have  become the last word of wisdom and the unbroken rule of  action. But then matter is old, old as the beginning, so old  that its wrinkles are the fundamental curves of the Space- 
Time universe. Life has only just begun, since the yester-  day of Eozoic times, in the upbuilding of its new forms  and types, and in this task it can proceed for millions of  years to come. Matter, on the contrary, had completed  its active race probably more than a thousand million years  before life began. It had built up slowly and laboriously  in nebular and solar heat, and amid conditions beyond the  possibility of our knowledge or imagination, the elements  from their simplest to their most complex forms, and from  these again substances and compounds in rising complexity  until at last protoplasm was reached. And in the favouring  bosom of protoplasm life could be nurtured from its simple  chemical beginnings and launched on its great career, most  of which is still before it. The work of matter is done ; in  the great Space-Time curve it is now regressing from the  more complex to the simpler types or elements, just as in  organic Evolution we see a tendency for the most highly  evolved and differentiated types to hark back for stability  to simpler and stronger types. Radioactivity is doing to-  day what Organic Descent (when it will indeed have become  a descent) will do in the fullness of its time, when Life's spirit  of adventure will have abated, and its aim will be safety and  conservation rather than progress.

When all allowance has been made for the differences in  character and operation of Radioactivity and Organic 
Descent, there still remains a striking and unmistakable  similarity between them. And between the Periodic Table  of Chemistry on the one hand and Systematic Botany and 
Zoology on the other there remains something very much  like a family resemblance. The concepts of orders, genera  and species could be applied to both ; and in both cases there  is a fluidity and plasticity of types which proves that,  although they are in different kingdoms, yet they are in the  same world of forms and geneses. One rises from a study of  the Periodic Table and the New Physics with the feeling that  matter can quite justifiably claim some distant relationship  with life, and that life need not be quite ashamed of the  rock whence she was hewn.

The intimate character of structure which the material  universe and its field disclose justifies another general  observation as bearing on the concept of matter. We have  already seen that, properly understood, the ideas of activity,  plasticity and development apply to matter in a sense not  entirely dissimilar to that in which they apply to life. I  am going to make a more daring suggestion and to indicate  that in another even more important respect matter approxi-  mates to life. The structure of matter indicates that matter  is also in a sense creative creative, that is to say, not of its  own stuff, but of the forms, arrangements and patterns which  constitute all its value in the physical sphere. It is creative  in a sense analogous to that in which we call life or mind  creative of values. Remember that according to the new  point of view we have not to judge of matter from the out-  side and as indifferent external spectators. We have to  identify ourselves with the point of view of matter, so to  speak. We have humbly to get into that closed cage; we  have to take our post on that plane circular rotating disc. 1 
We have to interpret matter from the inside, from a point of  view which is that of matter and not remote from and indiffer-  ent to it. And from that intimate angle matter is seen to  create its structures and patterns and values very much as  life or mind does on another much higher plane. Hitherto  the idea of creativeness has been confined to the organic  and mental aspects of the universe. Those who have called  the universe creative have implicitly referred to the activity  of life and mind in creating new arrangements, meanings  and values. It has not been suggested that, from another  point of view, the physical universe is also creative. The  principles of the conservation of matter and energy have  effectively barred any such idea. Novelty, originativeness

1 See pp. 30-31. 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 57 
and creativeness are quite inconsistent with the ordinary  point of view and the popular ideas of matter as well as the  more rigid mechanistic conceptions of science. Nobody,  however, could have followed the above exposition of  the structural character of matter without beginning to  appreciate that in its evolution or creation of the forms,  structures and types which characterise it from beginning  to end, matter or the physical element in the universe is in  a sense as truly creative as is organism or mind, The 
" values " of matter or the physical universe arise purely  from these structures and forms. If the stuff of matter or  energy or action were not definitely structural but diffuse  throughout space, the entropy of the universe would be abso-  lute, and its value for this cosmos from all points of view  would be nil. The efficiency, utility and beauty, in short  the values of matter, arise from the structures which are the  outcome and the expression of its own inherent activities. 
In a very real sense the idea of value applies as truly  and effectively in the domain of the physical as in that  of the biological or the psychical. In both cases value is  a quality of the forms and combinations which are brought  about. Whether they are structures resulting from the  activities of matter, or works of art or genius resulting  from the activities of the mind, makes no real difference to  the application of the ideas of creativeness and value in either  case. Once we get rid of the notion of the world as consisting  of dead matter, into which activity has been introduced from  some external or alien source ; once we come to look upon  matter not only as active, but as self-active, as active with its  own activities, as indeed nothing else but Action, our whole  conception of the physical order is revolutionised, and the  great barriers between the physical and the organic begin to  shrink and to shrivel. Organism has by its inner activities  and the influences of the environment evolved its own forms  and types, and this great life-process is still going on before  our eyes. As I have already suggested, a similar evolution  of material structures and elemental types may have gone  on during the practically infinite period of past time. And  it may even be that, although new elements will no more be  evolved, derived structures are still being created under  suitable conditions. It is interesting to note, for instance,  that under novel laboratory conditions new substances are  continually being synthetically produced. The whole  romance of the Aniline dyes is a tribute to the still active 
" creativeness " of matter under the proper external con-  ditions.

These considerations, in so far as they have any force,  must influence our concept of matter and tend towards reduc-  ing the utter heterogeneity which marks our traditional  concepts of matter and life. Of course a great difference  remains between these two concepts, between the chemical  compound on the one side and the organic cell on the other. 
It would be futile to attempt to argue away this difference. 
It is and remains great, but its character has been funda-  mentally transformed. We may put the conclusion of our  discussion in this way. In organic Evolution we come across  mutations not absolute breaks with the past, but sudden  long steps of advance on the past, where one species or  variety leaps forward from and in advance of another. In  the advance from matter to life there is a leap forward, not  as between species, but as between kingdoms. And we may  conclude by saying that, instead of the old impassable gulf  between matter and life, between the chemical compound and  the cell, we have found on closer scrutiny only a mutation  the greatest mutation of all undoubtedly in the whole range  of science, but essentially nothing more than a mutation. 
They present the faint lineaments of a family resemblance,  and as science advances and our philosophy looks more  deeply, the resemblance will become clearer and more unmis-  takable.

Lastly, we have seen that matter in its colloidal state dis-  closes properties and shows a behaviour which seem in some  way to anticipate the processes and activities of life in its  most primitive forms. In any case it begins to lay the basis  of those physical and chemical reactions which are specially  required for vital activities. It shows a certain power of 
in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 59 
selectiveness, which may be related to chemical affinity, but  which seems to have a farther reach and to partake of the  character of life. It begins to manufacture substances, such  as chlorophyll and haemoglobin, which are the special  mechanisms of life, and without which life as we know  it could not be. These substances are the links which  connect material structure with the life structures which  are to follow in the course of Evolution. They are them-  selves inorganic chemical substances, but they are the special  instruments and the very basis of life, so to say. At  their colloidal surfaces the energies of Nature are utilised  to convert the inorganic material of Nature into the most  complex organic substances required for the sustenance of  life ; and the conversion is brought about by processes which,  however simple and direct apparently, have hitherto defied  all attempts at imitation in our most highly equipped labora-  tories. We therefore see matter in this colloidal state  reaching up to the very threshold of life, so to speak. A gap  remains ; a great leap may have taken place across it. But  beyond a doubt some forms of matter in their colloidal state  are fairly close to life in their properties. And it may even  be that life began with much more primitive forms an$  structures than any of which we have knowledge to-day. 
Thus the gap may not have been so wide nor the leap so  great as would appear to us to-day.

CHAPTER IV

THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM

Summary. The cell is the second fundamental structure of the  universe. It is possible that both before and after the origin of  atoms and cells, as well as in between, other structures arose in the  course of cosmic Evolution. If so, they have passed away, and we  have now only these two permanent survivals which we can scrutinise  for clues as to the basic character of the universe.

In the study of animate nature Evolution or Organic Descent has  till recently attracted most attention. But more recently the study  of the structure and functions of the cell has come rapidly to the front  and now probably forms the principal centre of interest in Biology. 
That all plants and animals consist of cells; that cells contain  certain peculiar bodies called nuclei ; that all higher organisms arise  from cell-fusions in which the nuclei play a prominent part all  these facts have been discovered only in comparatively recent years ;  and our knowledge of cells is therefore stil in its earliest stage. But 
Cytology is now, with much-improved methods and appliances,  making rapid strides, and great discoveries are confidently looked  forward to.

Besides the nucleus the cell consists principally of a rapidly  circulating jelly-like fluid, enclosed in a more or less well-marked wall  or membrane of a permeable character; and the fluid contains  numerous exceedingly complex chemical compounds in solution or in  the colloid state. The structure of a cell is therefore most complex,  and in fact comparatively little is yet definitely known about it. Its  functions are even more mysterious, for they include practically all  the activities which we see in developed organisms birth, growth,  breathing, feeding, digestion, self-healing, reproduction and death. 
Its most distinctive function is metabolism, which means that it  thoroughly alters and transforms all food materials before assimi-  lating them; and all its apparently physical activities are of this  transformative metabolic character instead of being simple mechan-  ical operations. It appears to form complex chemical compounds,  called enzymes, which in their colloid state enable these distinctive  radical transformations to be effected. The apparently simple  physical processes such as osmosis, etc. in the cell are really much  more complicated, as they are effected through enzyme action,

60

CHAP, iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 61 
which is a physico-chemical mechanism distinctive of organisms. 
The laboratory attempts to repeat organic processes throw, therefore,  little light on the exact nature of these processes.

The origin of the cell is the origin of life and is still a profound  mystery. However, the reproduction of cells seems to admit us to  the inner secrets of life, and the cell-divisions which precede cell-  fusions in reproduction have an extraordinary semblance to electrical  situations, and seem somehow to connect the electrical structure of  the atom with a possible electrical origin of the cell. It is now,  however, impossible to follow up this clear semblance further, as the  original electrical processes (if any) have probably become overlaid  with other developments which have transformed them.

Judging from the action of sunlight in the growth of plants it is  not improbable that the cell of life arose when the sun was both  warmer and richer in chemically active rays, and when the waters  of the earth still contained many substances in solution and colloid  dispersal. The adhesion of cells to each other would account for the  origin and development of multi-cellular organisms; and the  divisions of cells, which we now see in growth and reproduction, may  have arisen originally from the breakdown of cells or groups which  had become too complex to be stable.

The reproduction of plants and animals, including the preparatory  reduction division of the sexual cells, follows largely the same plan ;  and it is therefore probable that this wonderful organic mechanism  was evolved before the bifurcation of life into the plant and animal  forms took place, and thus dates back to the early beginnings of life on  this globe. The plant type arose from its dependence for food on  air and earth, which was consistent with fixed positions; while  animals, needing organic foods, required mobility, and in consequence  developed a motor system, with a nervous system to work it, and  ultimately a brain to co-ordinate and control it.

The cell differs from the atom or molecule in its far greater com-  plexity of structure and function, in the differentiation and special-  isation of its parts and organs, and in the system of co-operation  among all its parts which make them function for the whole. This  co-operative system exists not only in the single cell but among the  multitudinous cells of organisms. The system of organic regulation  and co-ordination among an indefinitely large number of parts which  makes all the parts function together for certain purposes is a great  advance on the system of physical equilibrium in atoms and com-  pounds, and is yet quite distinct from the control which, at a later  stage of Evolution, Mind comes to exercise in animals and humans. 
Mind as we know it should therefore not be ascribed to the cell or the  lower organisms ; but organic regulation seems on that lower level  to be even more effective than Mind is at a later stage.

This organic regulation and synthesis of functions is seen not only  in all the ordinary functions of organisms, but more especially in  their capacity for self-restoration in case of mutilation. In such  phenomena there seems to be something more in actual operation than  merely the parts ; the parts appear to play a common part and to  carry out some common purpose or to act for the common well-  being. They seem to respond to some central pressure. There seems  to be a central regulator. We have seen a factor in matter making  for structure ; we now see a factor in organism making for central  regulation and co-ordination of all parts. We are evidently in the  presence of some inner factor in Evolution which requires identifi-  cation and description. That will be attempted in the next chapter.

THE atom and the cell are the two fundamental structures  in the universe that we at present know of the atom being  the unit of the world of matter, the cell the unit of the world  of life. In the last chapter we considered the structure of  the atom and showed how the external properties of the  atom were the expression and resultant of its internal  energies and their structural grouping inside the atom. We  saw the atom as a little complex world of its own, under-  lying the outward properties as well as the field of that  little world. We now pass on to consider the vastly more  complicated little world of the cell and its field. In the  science of life the two most significant conceptions are 
Evolution and the Cell, the one being the unit structure  and the other the general character and trend of the  activities or functions of life. Round the investigation and  development of these two governing conceptions most of  the progress and interest in biological science since the  middle of the nineteenth century has centred; and the  results hitherto obtained have been most important, and  practically revolutionary for our entire world-conception. 
And the end is by no means in sight yet. In the first  chapter we saw that there were still deep-seated misunder-  standings of the nature of Evolution, and that a proper  appreciation of Evolution would mean a recasting not only  of biological concepts but also, and above all, of our concept  of matter. Let us now turn to the cell as the other and  no doubt the real governing factor of the situation of life, and  see what light it throws on the nature and concept of life. 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 63

A few introductory words in regard to the history of our  knowledge of the cell may not be out of place here. It will  be seen that accurate information even of what little we do  know about the cell is of very recent date, and that we are  only at the beginning of what may yet prove a great story.

In the second half of the seventeenth century Robert 
Hooke observed with the crude microscope then in use that  cork and other vegetable substances had a vesicular appear-  ance, and he called the apparent cavities " cells/ 1 A few  years later Grew and Malpighi independently observed in  plant tissues these same cavities filled with fluid and sur-  rounded with firm walls, as well as what appeared to them to  be tubes likewise with walls and filled with fluid. Towards  the end of the eighteenth century Treviranus showed that  these tubes were cells placed in a row and elongated in the  direction of the row and with the partitions between them  lost. Then followed in 1831 Robert Brown's great discovery  of the nucleus in the cell in plants, and in 1838 Schleiden's  elucidation of the great part which the cell with its nucleus  plays in the structure of plants, and shortly afterwards the  application by Schwann of the new knowledge of the cell to  the structure of animals also. Both Schleiden and Schwann  attached great importance to the cell wall and looked upon*  the cells as having crystallised out of some mother substance. 
The contents of the cells Schleiden called vaguely " vegetable  slime " ; and it was not till about the middle of the nine-  teenth century that the great German biologist von Mohl  correctly explained the contents of both vegetable and  animal cells as nucleated masses of what he called " proto-  plasm," which was not a chemical crystallisation from other  substances, but always came into being as the offspring or  daughter cells from other pre-existing cells. Hence arose the  formula : omnis cellula e cellula. This paved the way to the  correct understanding of sexual fertilisation as the union of  two cells, the discovery of cell divisions, and the part played  by the nucleus with its chromosomes in these divisions, and of  the origin of embryos through repeated cell-divisions. And  finally a concentrated effort was made by many investigators  in many countries to discover in cell-divisions and fusions,  and especially in the part played by the nucleus, the physical  mechanism of heredity. During this century the re-discovery  of Mendelism by De Vries and others, and the rise of the new  science of Genetics, have led to redoubled efforts to find the  explanation of the many peculiar phenomena of heredity in  an analysis of the parts played by the nucleus and the other  elements in the protoplasm of the cell, and at present  experimental Cytology is being vigorously prosecuted with  numerous improved methods and appliances.

Let us now consider the structure of the cell and the part  it plays in organisms. I shall only summarise its most  general and outstanding features, with a view to illustrating  the considerations and speculations which will be advanced  later. I am trying to find concepts for vital phenomena,  which will be coherent not only with those phenomena but  also with wider aspects of knowledge and reality, and a  reference to the scientific facts and results is therefore  necessary. The time is past when a philosophy of life could  be evolved without a knowledge of or reference to the  scientific facts and view-points.

All plants and animals consist of cells, these cells being  again usually composed of various chemical substances, some  of which have a very complex constitution. The number of  cells in an organism varies according to its size and com-  plexity, some of the lowest, most primitive organisms being  unicellular or composed of comparatively few cells, while at  the other end the higher plants and animals may contain  untold millions of cells. The human brain alone is estimated  to have about 9000 million cells ! These cells again are of  a most diverse character, the cells which build up the various  parts and organs of the body being different from each other. 
Thus the cells of the nerves and the bones and the muscles  and indeed of all parts of the animal organism differ markedly  from each other, and the number of the different kinds of  cells that go to the making up of a body may be indefinitely  large. All these almost innumerable cells of all kinds and  degrees of differentiation and complexity are arranged in a 
v THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 65

.table, orderly structure in the plant or animal body; and  his structure is not stationary but like its constituent cells  n continual movement and development. The structural 
>rder which we have seen characterising the inorganic  dement or compound is even more characteristic of the  vastly more complex organic body with its continuous  nobility and transformations.

A plant or an animal can be considered from the point of  riew of its structure or its functions, that is to say, the  ictivities performed by the structure as a whole or the parts 
>f which it is composed. Viewing it merely as a structure  ve see the same orderly combination and arrangement of 
Darts as in the inorganic body, only the constituent parts  md the structural arrangements are far more complex than  n the inorganic body. In water, for instance, or any other 
:hemical compound, all molecules are more or less the same,  md the body consists simply of a repetition of the funda-  nental molecule, and the structures in which the molecules  ire arranged are likewise of a repetitive character ; while in  in organic body there may be an indefinite number and 
/ariety of cells, and the varieties of arrangements and  structures according to which these cells are combined in the  several parts and organs of the body may also be indefinite  n number.

But the difference between inorganic and organic bodies  ies not only in their structures, but even more in their  functions, especially the functions of the organic cells, to 
>vhich there is apparently nothing corresponding in the  norganic world. About these cells we at present know 
:omparatively little, except that their functions and activities  ire the basis of the functions and activities of the organisms 
>vhich they compose, all being co-ordinated into a single  system of a new type called " life." In the march of Evolu- 
:ion from the inorganic to the organic the cell is the real  nnovation, to which nothing corresponding in the inorganic  las yet been discovered. To use a metaphor, the cell is the  point where matter or energy aroused itself from its slumbers  md became active from within, with activities and functions 
F  which reveal its inner character and nature, so to say. 
It is a new structure in which energy develops or acquires  a new form of activity, becomes functional, becomes in  some inexplicable way endowed with special characters of  selectiveness and reproduction, of self-help and self-control,  which constitute a unique departure in the universe.

Let us summarise briefly some of the points that are known  of the structure and the functions of the cell; and as the  plant cell is simpler than the animal cell let us take that as the  type. It consists of chemically very complex substances  called in the aggregate protoplasm, which is the physico-  chemical basis of all forms of life. Comparatively little is  known of its composition or chemical structure. In the plant  cell (less so in the animal cell) it secretes a containing wall  or membrane for itself from which the cell derives its name. 
Inside the wall the protoplasm appears as a jelly-like fluid  and consists principally of a small nucleus, which contains  certain chromatin bodies of a rich protein character, and of a  larger body of cytoplasm surrounding the nucleus and  reticular in structure, that is to say, consisting of a network  of spaces which contain various cell-saps and solutions and  even minute particles of crystals and other inorganic bodies. 
The whole constitutes a colloidal system, as we saw in the  last chapter. The cell walls are semi-permeable, admitting  of the osmosis through it of certain substances and not of  others, so that suitable food and other substances can be  passed through the cell walls from one cell to another. There  is a constant circulation and agitation of the cell fluid, which  gives it the appearance of a stream, and is much more than  the usual promiscuous Brownian movement in inorganic  colloidal mixtures. The movement of protoplasm, whether  it is Brownian or something different, has much more of the  character of definite specific direction ; and this is probably  only an expression of that selectiveness and directiveness  which are inherent and universal characteristics of all life-  forms. Although little is definitely known of the details of  cell-structure, the functions it performs are so many-sided,  delicate and complex that one may safely say that the cell 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 67 
must have an immensely complex organisation, and that the  details of its constitution may never be fully known or even  adequately pictured by the human mind. It represents, at  the one end of the scale of existence, a minute detailed com-  plexity which is in some sense comparable to the wonders  of the astronomical universe at the other end. And all this  intricate and complex little system is maintained in a state  of active, moving equilibrium; it is dynamic through and  through and incessantly active in all its details, and its  almost innumerable activities are finely adjusted to each  other and co-ordinated into a harmonious process, which not  only maintains its balanced functioning for its individual  life, but increases and improves it in the duration of innumer-  able generations. Looking at this baffling mystery of active,  continually changing and developing organisation, with its  continuous delicate adjustments of innumerable moving  parts into one co-ordinated forward movement, we find that  ordinary physical categories of description fail us. We feel  ourselves in the presence of an entirely new phenomenon,  which we call life, and we may even feel tempted to go further  and to say that the cell has not only life but also mind. To do  so would, however, be going too far, as I shall explain later.

To appreciate the position more fully let us look at some  of the functions of the cell. It is very difficult to realise it,  and yet it is the fact, that the little microscopic or ultra-  microscopic cell probably does all or most that the plant or  animal is known to do. It literally breathes or respires;  it takes in, manipulates, digests and assimilates its food ; it  reproduces its kind; it grows, decays and dies; it heals  itself when sick and restores itself when a breakage takes  place. It develops special means and mechanisms to assist  it in carrying out these operations, and it co-ordinates and  regulates all its manifold activities in a way which implies  some wonderful central control of all these functions. Let  us look at these operations with a little more detail.

Unlike any other substance in nature, the protoplasm of  the cell is vitally active and is in an incessant process of real  creative change ; parts are continually being destroyed and  replaced by new protoplasm which is continually being  formed. No other substance has this power of making its  own material, so to say. A crystal, for instance, builds itself  up from its own material already existing in solution without  any change being made in its constitution. The crystal  serves merely as an attractive centre round which its  material, already present in dissolved form, may be  deposited in solid form. With protoplasm the process of  growth or renewal is quite different. The material taken  in is entirely altered and recombined into the substance of  which the protoplasm is composed, and this material, so  altered and transformed, is then by some yet unknown  process taken up and assimilated into the protoplasm or  living substance of the cell. This complete transformation  and this mysterious assimilation of its material is one of  the most unique functions of the cell, and its far-reaching  significance will later on be more particularly stressed.

The technical name for this complete transformation which  the cell effects in the material it takes in is metabolism, and  it may therefore be said that metabolism is the process which  above everything distinguishes living from non-living matter. 
The cell is not a static or stationary organism ; it is for ever  being built up by new material which it transforms into its  substances, and it is for ever being broken down through  the new cell substances which it forms and gives off in order  to build up the various parts of the complete plant or to  supply the energy necessary for its functioning. And the  activity by which the material is taken in in one form, then  transformed and assimilated into the substance of the cell,  and then again given off as different cell substances for the  building up of the various parts of the plant or the  energy supply this activity, while apparently a series  of chemical and physical processes, implies a co-ordinated  system which is unlike anything seen in the purely  physical or chemical domain. The physical and chemical  procedure seems to be merely the mechanisms or instru-  mentalities used by a deeper organic process, which  means and does much more than the physical or chemical 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 69 
details which we can identify. Not only is there control and  organisation of these details, but the physico-chemical  agencies themselves are of a new type. For instance,  oxygen and carbon dioxide appear to be taken in through the  stomata of the leaves, but this is not merely a case of ordinary  osmosis. Again, liquid materials in the form of dissolved  salts or other inorganic substances are taken in through the  roots, but this also is not a case of ordinary physical osmosis. 
Again, these liquids rise in the plant cells as if it were  merely a case of surface tension or capillary action. But as a  matter of fact these are all cases of metabolism in which  subtle changes take place in the protoplasm, changes whose  details are no doubt apparently all of a physico-chemical  character, but whose distinctive character lies not in these  details so much as in the new system of control in which they  are organised and regulated. The theory which has been  developed to account for the physico-chemical reactions  which take place in all organic change and functioning is  based on the assumption of very complex substances of the  nature of ferments or enzymes being formed and acting in  the protoplasm. It is, for instance, through the agency of  the enzymes in the protoplasm that all the secretions are  formed which build up the different parts of the plant. 
Thus also the transformation of the carbon dioxide in the  green cells of the leaves into starch is not a chemical change  of the ordinary type, but is effected in the presence of  colloidal catalysts like chlorophyll and other enzymes, at  whose surfaces sunlight can transform the carbon dioxide  so as to form successively formaldehyde, dextrose, maltose,  and finally soluble and insoluble starch. Mere physical  and chemical reactions have been identified. But it is quite  possible that there is much more, and that the organic  process behind them is much more complicated and  characteristic. Again, both respiration and metabolism  are processes effected through enzyme action at colloid  surfaces instead of being of the ordinary mechanical  character. The enzymes are thus conceived as being  catalytic agents existing in colloidal form in the cells and 
yo HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP, 
as having at their surfaces or in their " fields " the power  of transforming other substances in the presence of the  energy of sunlight or electricity. They do this according  to the well-known chemical and physical laws, without  themselves being thereby used up or transformed. The  cell has the power to build up or secrete these complex  enzyme compounds ; with the help of these, again, it manu-  factures other complex substances necessary for the plant or  animal life. It carries on many other functions in addition to  these manufacturing processes. Throughout it seems to  follow simple physical and chemical rules but on a new plan. 
All this will serve to emphasise how vastly complicated  cell structures and activities must be. A large number of  the most complicated processes are carried on, scarcely one  of which the best-equipped laboratory in the world can  perform, and all are carried on by a little cell which is  microscopic or smaller in size !

During recent years resolute attempts have been made to  repeat under artificial laboratory conditions what takes place  in the living plants, and certain very interesting results  have been obtained. Thus an attempt has been made by 
Professor Baly and others to imitate photo-synthesis in the  laboratory. Light of a short wave-length from a mercury  vapour lamp was made to act on water and carbon dioxide,  and as a result formaldehyde was obtained and, as in the  green leaf, oxygen was set free : CO 2 + H 2 O = CH 2 + O 2 . 
Light with a somewhat longer wave-length was made to  turn this formaldehyde into simple sugars. 1 However inter-  esting and valuable these and similar results are, it is probable  if not certain that they have only a distant resemblance to  what takes place in the organic process, where the physical  factors of sunlight and electrical change acting in the field  of colloid chlorophyll are quite different, and the chemical  results are brought about by mainly different processes. 
From a scientific point of view, however, the laboratory work  is of undoubted interest and importance, for the further it is

1 It is claimed that sunlight has quite recently been successfully  substituted for artificial light in these experiments. 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 71 
prosecuted and the greater the success in the synthetic  formation of organic substances, the easier it will become  to differentiate clearly and unmistakably between the  organic and the mechanical laboratory processes.

The origin of the cell is the origin of life, and we know  nothing definite about it. But the question arises whether  sufficient is not known about the cell and organic develop-  ment to justify us in trying to form some general idea as to  its possible origin. And here we find one set of phenomena  which throws a special light on the nature and development  of organisms and perhaps also on their origins. The  phenomena of reproduction seem to hold the very secret of  life and, moreover, bring us close to the secret of matter. 
And this secret common to both, jealously guarded and  preserved throughout the whole range of terrestrial evolution,  shows a continuity unique in science, which brings together  some of the apparently most diverse facts which confront us  in the world of life. How well the secret has been guarded  and kept and shielded from all outside influences is  evidenced by the extraordinary fact that though plant and  animal life must have diverged near the beginning of things,  and must through many millions of years have been  moving further apart in the history of this globe, yet the  methods of reproduction in plants and animals are still very  much alike. The romance of the reproduction of a flowering  plant, which is one of the most wonderful in the world, is  practically the same, down to many details, as that of the  reproduction of one of the higher animals. Going very far  back, we find that it is very much the same in the simplest,  most primitive alga as in the other members of the rising  plant series the ferns, the cycads, the conifers and the  flowering plants. When we go still further back into the  past and come to the case of unicellular organisms, which  reproduce themselves not by cell-fusions but by cell-division,  we come to the situation, or something very close to the  situation, which must have arisen when matter first organ-  ised itself into life. For what do we see ? The cell when it  proceeds to divide into two assumes the appearance of an  electrical and polar system; its nuclear material arranges  itself in parallel bodies or chromosomes like an electrical  or electro-magnetic field ; its centrosome (if any) splits up,  as if under some unbearable electrical strain, just as is  the case in Radioactivity, and two polar bodies are formed  from it at opposite sides of the nucleus, from which lines of  force proceed throughout the now disintegrating nucleus and  cell ; the nuclear bodies of the breaking-up cell divide them-  selves equally between the two polar bodies, and aggregate  and concentrate towards them until finally the separation  between the two systems is complete and the material of  the nucleus and cell has split into two. The division of the  cell into two cells is complete. It is apparent from this  summary statement how the cell in division approximates  to the character of the atom of matter described in the last  chapter. Were they not in the beginning both electrical  systems with their nuclei, their fields and their cataclysmic  behaviour ? In the cell the original hypothetical electrical  character of the division has become overlaid with and  obscured by other factors so that the electrical character is no  longer recognisable, except in the general appearance and  scheme of division. But originally it possibly was electrical,  as it still is in appearance. Arguing back from the analogy  of cell-division to the probable original rise of the cell  from inorganic matter, we may imagine the building up  of very complex organic or hydrocarbon compounds  under favourable external conditions, in which the influence  of sunlight and other forms of electrical energy played  an important part, just as sunlight in the presence of  chlorophyll still plays a foremost part in the production  of new cells and organic substances in plant-life. We know  that millions of years ago, when life arose, the sun was  much hotter than it is to-day, and sunlight contained  much more of the chemically active rays which facilitate  organic changes. The peculiar electrical energy of the  sun may therefore have played a decisive part in the  origin of life. In other words, the part which electrical  changes appear to play in the process of cell-division may be 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 73 
somewhat analogous to the part they probably played in the  original rise of the cell. The basic electrical structure of  matter would thus be paralleled by the more complex  electrical origin of the cell. Reproduction of the most  primitive forms takes place in a fluid medium, and all  protoplasm still has a fluid jelly-like consistency. It is  therefore probable that the most primitive forms of proto-  plasm might have arisen under favourable conditions of  sunlight and warmth when the warm water still contained  much of the crust in solution or dispersed in small particles  in colloidal form, and thus presented conditions favourable  for the selective formation of complex substances, such as  the predecessors of the present forms of protoplasm. Recent  advances in bio-chemistry have led to the isolation and  discovery in the animal body of very complex substances 
(such as glutathione) whose external surfaces absorb free 
Oxygen and whose interior undergoes the opposite change  of setting free this Oxygen and building up higher  organic structures. Thus a continual chemical process  is set going which is at the same time an electrical  current from without inwards, transmitting the electrical  energy of sunlight contained in the Oxygen of the air to  the interior cell substances, where the Oxygen is deprived  of its energy and set free, and where with this energy  complex compounds are built up which again store the  energy required for the nutrition and other functions of the  living organism. The chemical electrical system which  forms the fundamental mechanism of life in the last resort  simply uses the energy of sunlight, stored in the free Oxygen  of the air, for building from it the body of life ; and there is  thus the closest connection between sunlight and life-  structures. In that connection, without a doubt, the origin  of life must be sought. The cell structure having once been  evolved from pre-cell structure, probably by way of prolonged  trial and error or " natural selection " extending over long  periods of time, its multiplication or reproduction would  take place through the part that electrical tension would  play. Thus the complex unstable electrical structure or  organic substance, whose internal equilibrium would pass  through various crises and changes in its " development/'  would finally tend to break up and under certain conditions  proceed to divide. This original haphazard division would  gradually become stabilised and standardised, so to speak,  until cell-division becomes the regular basis not only of all  growth but also of all reproductive processes in both plant  and animal.

At first there could have been no essential difference  between growth and reproduction of cells. By division  one cell was formed from another, and might either remain  in association with the old cell, as is the case in all multi-  cellular organisms (growth), or it might separate from the old  cell and develop on its own as an independent organism 
(reproduction) . This simple division still remains the process  of growth in all organisms without distinction, and it remains  the process of reproduction in all unicellular and the lowest  forms of multicellular organisms. In less primitive, more  developed multicellular organisms the process of repro-  duction has, however, become more complex, and has altered  to the union or fusion of two specialised cells or gametes to  form a new cell ; and in such cases another scheme, involving  a double set of divisions, has taken the place of the simple  division. While one of these simply halves the total  contents of the old cell as between the two new cells, the  other or reduction division separates out the individual  chromosome elements in the contents so that each of the two  new cells has half of these elements. This halving is  necessary to prevent the continual and cumulative doubling  of cell elements in the repeated reproduction of the same type  of organism, and to keep the chromosome contents of cells of  similar organisms constant. The two cells or gametes, thus  reduced in all respects to half the original cells, then unite  to form the new cell, which has once more the full com-  plement of chromosome elements. This reduction division  in reproduction is common to both plants and animals above  the most undeveloped types, and we therefore seem to have  some justification for the most remarkable conclusion that 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 75 
this phase of reproduction must have developed before the  separation of plant and animal forms took place. It forms  also the basis for that alternation of generations which is  one of the most remarkable of all the phenomena of life. 
Thus all organisms which are reproduced through cell fusion  have a generation in which the cells have the single or haploid  contents (after the reduction division) and another in which  the cells have the double or diploid contents (before the re-  duction division). In the higher forms of plants and animals  the generation of the single-content cell, or the gametophyte  generation as it is called, is reduced to a very subordinate role  and a short life, as it covers the short period of the gametes or  conjugating cells (the ripe sperm-cells and ova) in flowering  plants and in the more developed animals. The generation of  the double-contents cell, or the sporophyte generation as it is  called, has become dominant and appears as the developed  plant or animal which we see in nature to-day. But in some  divisions of plants the gametophyte generation is still of  some prominence. Thus the moss plant is the gametophyte  generation, the sporophyte generation appearing as a sub-  ordinate parasitic form. And in the ferns, where the sporo-  phyte is the dominant form, the gametophyte appears as a  distinct plant which is in some cases a perennial. And its  relation to the fern was unknown until about the middle  of the nineteenth century.

This generation of the single-content or haploid cell,  or the gametophyte in the developed plants and animals  of to-day, is interesting because it is probably only  another illustration of the well-known principle that  ontogeny repeats phylogeny, that is to say, that the  history of the individual organism recapitulates in its  earlier or embryonic stages of development the various  phases of development through which its types of ancestors  have evolved in the past. Thus the gametophyte generation  is a reminder of that earlier, simpler, more primitive phase in  plant evolution when the more complex sporophyte genera-  tion, which is dominant to-day, had not yet been evolved  through cell fusion in reproduction. Another interesting  deduction has also been made. The gametophyte repro-  duces in a liquid medium, and in this and in other ways  carries us back to the time when life on this globe was still  more or less aquatic, and the later land forms of the sporo-  phyte had not yet arisen. And it is even possible that the  form of the present gametophyte may throw light on the  particular descent of plant forms. Thus the gametophyte  of the fern is a flat thallus-like plant which both in form  and character reminds one of an alga. And it is quite  possible that this form of the fern may give the clue of its  origin from some alga-like progenitor in the far-distant past. 
May we not say that the prothallus of the fern appears to  connect the alga and the fern, and thus to bridge widely  separated epochs of the past in the evolution of plant forms ? 
I suggest the idea merely for further investigation.

From speculations as to the origin of the cell we pass on  to consider the differentiations which have taken place  among cells generally, and the particular differentiation of  cells which has led to the divergence between plant and  animal forms. It is commonly thought that the animal  forms are a later development and advance on the earlier  plant forms. This idea is largely due to the fact that in the  animal there has been the special development of the new  factor of mind which, rapidly rising through the higher  animals, has reached its highest level in the human  race. But although animal forms may have developed  farther and come to attain to much higher levels than the  plant forms, the question of origins stands on a different  footing. And the evidence points rather to a common  origin and to the earliest cells of life having been common  to both plants and animals. Thus the lowest forms of cell  life are even now practically indistinguishable into plant  and animal. And it is probable that this common phase,  prior to differentiation into plant and animal forms, must  have lasted a very long time and have been marked by  considerable advances in the development of the common  cells, especially in view of the probable fact, already noted,  that sexual reproduction of a fairly advanced type had 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 77 
perhaps been reached before the bifurcation took place  and plants and animals were launched on their separate  careers. What advance in cell development had been  reached before this bifurcation it is impossible to say, as  only the very lowest unicellular organisms of a common  character still survive, and the geological record has no  evidence to give. Differentiation in cells must have com-  menced as soon as the daughter cells began to adhere to  the parent cell and multicellular organisms were formed. 
In the unicellular Pleurococcus, which is about the simplest  plant form known, noticed as the green slime on the damp  bark of trees or wooden posts, we see the beginnings of  this process of cell aggregation, as daughter cells adhere to  the parent cell until several divisions have taken place and  only then separate into individual cells. The Pleurococcus  cell is globular, but during this attachment the cells are  flattened at the surfaces of contact. In the multicellular  organisms a layer of cuticle covers the outer cell walls in  contact with the air and retards the loss of water. Step by  step other differentiations appear, and the plant body  becomes more complex as we advance from alga to fern,  and from fern to the higher seed-bearing plants. The  differentiations into various organs, such as the root, stem,  leaf and reproductive organs, are simply means towards the  division of physiological labour. Thus in cells away from  the light photo-synthesis is impossible, and they become  dependent on the outer green cells ; similarly the roots under-  ground become dependent for starch on the green cells and  in return absorb dissolved salts for supply to the rest of the  plant. The water requirements render necessary the fibro-  vascular cell system, while the reproductive functions become  confined to special organs. All this differentiation means  more organisation and a more elaborate structure of the  plant. In addition to this division of labour the struggle  for existence tests the structure in other directions, and  means more modification in response to the stress of the  struggle and the stimulus of the environment generally. 
As a result the plant structure comes to be elaborated and  adapted to the inner and external demands upon it, and to  assume the forms which are known to us.

Besides this general differentiation and organisation,  there are special causes which have brought about the  divergence of plant and animal forms. A consideration of  these matters falls outside the scope of our task. Generally  it may be said that plant-life has been determined and  stereotyped through the two processes of photo-synthesis  and osmosis, the second of which has enabled it to get water  and mineral salts direct from the soil, and the first of which  has enabled it by the help of chlorophyll to utilise the energy  of sunlight for making sugars, starch and cellulose from the  carbon dioxide of the air. The plant, being thus dependent  for its food solely on the soil and the air, could afford to  remain stationary and mostly fixed in the soil ; while animal  forms, which are dependent on organic foods, have had to be  mobile in order to look for and find the necessary plant or  animal substances on which to live. The struggle for food  has been a much harder one for animals, which have in  consequence not only had to be mobile and develop a complex  motor system, but also to evolve in the nervous system a  special co-ordinating mechanism with which to work the  motor system. This mechanism, again, has led to unique  developments in the direction of sensitiveness and con-  sciousness, which in the case of man have come to over-  shadow all that has gone before. But mind is a later  development, the discussion of which should not be raised in  connection with the cell. The primitive cell of life is  on the way to Mind, but Mind in any proper sense of  the term is at this stage still far off, and those who  ascribe Mind or even potential Mind to the cell open the  door to the most serious confusions. The cell undoubtedly  presents a great mystery. And there is a strong temptation  to ascribe its surprising activities to an inner mentality or  organic psychism. But even the most highly evolved human  intelligence finds it difficult to understand all that goes on in  the cell. If psychism is the key, we should have to ascribe  to the cell so large a measure of mentality as to reduce the 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 79 
whole supposition of psychism to absurdity. The cell has  not yet mind. Mind as we know it, or anything at all  resembling it, is a much later development in the process of  organic Evolution, as will be shown in Chapter IX.

Enough has been said about the structure and the functions  of the cell to give a rough general idea of what the cell is. 
Let us now pass on to consider the inter-relations of elements  in the cell, and among cells in the same organism, and  especially the aspect of co-ordination in and among cells. 
In the first place I ask : Is the cell and are cells in an organ-  ism a co-operative system, in which the parts and their  functions are so ordered and arranged that they co-operate  for common purposes, and do not merely subserve the  separate ends of the individual parts?

There could be no doubt as to the answer. The whole  meaning and significance of Metabolism is that the activities  of the cell are not self-centred or self-regarding. The cell  functions for other cells and for the plant as a whole. One  element in the cell functions for other elements and for the  whole cell organism. The secretions formed in one cell are  intended to build up other cells or to serve the plant as a  whole. The fibro- vascular cells carry liquid food from one  part of the plant to the other parts. The carbohydrates  formed in the green cells are transmitted and stored as food  for all the other cells ; the woody substances secreted from  them are meant to strengthen other cells and the plant as  a whole against the forces of the environment ; the aroma  and bloom which are secreted from them are meant to  render attractive and adorn other parts of the plant with a  view to the preservation of the plant species as a whole. 
Indeed, all the processes of Metabolism go to prove that  the plant is one vast co-operative system, in which the  individual cells in their continuous functions and labours  make their contribution to the common cause, and work  so that other cells or the plant itself or the species to which  it belongs may live. The cell is a delicate problem not only  of structure but also of inter-related functions, so co-adapted  that a real whole is thereby constituted. The cell in its  normal structure and functions is the very type of co-  operative action.

So far I believe we are still on firm ground in our description  of cell activities, and the co-operative character of organic  functioning will be generally admitted. Can we go further  and characterise this co-operation more closely? What is  the nature of this cell or organic co-operation ? Is it spon-  taneous or controlled? And if controlled, is it controlled  internally or externally? Let me repeat the question in  another form. Are the cells and the organs which they form  in the same plant or animal free and independent, so that the  co-operation which we observe in their functioning is a mere  accidental result of their individual uncontrolled reactions  and behaviour ? Or is there some co-ordinating factor which  influences the cells and their organs in some specific direction,  and thus co-ordinates and unifies their functions and pro-  duces the co-operation we observe ? And if the cells are not  independent agents in the make-up of the organism but are  under some form of unifying influence or control, is their  apparent co-operation due to an external factor, like Natural 
Selection as commonly understood? Or is there some  internal element of co-ordination, the influence of which is  felt by the different cells, and in response to which they  react, so that their functions proceed generally on the lines  of a plan or pattern given by the nature of the particular  organism? In either case there would be co-operation on  the basis of co-ordination, but in the one case there would  be an external, and in the other an internal, factor at work  in this co-ordination. It will be seen that the issue here  raised as between the cells inside the organism is analogous  to that which Darwinism has raised as between separate  organisms in their struggle for existence. The answer, so  far as the struggle among organisms is concerned, will be  discussed in Chapter VIII. And the results there reached  will probably apply also to the case of the cell or the cells  in an organism which is here raised. The subject is not  free from controversy, and in this chapter I wish to avoid  controversy and simply to describe the facts in the ordinary 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 81 
language of metaphor which I trust will not prove mis-  leading. And looking at the facts in an unprejudiced  way, and without a bias in favour of any particular  theory, one cannot help being struck by the way in  which the cells in an organism not only co-operate, but  co-operate in a specific direction towards the fulfilment  and maintenance of the type of the particular organism  which they constitute. At this stage we have to steer clear  of all ideas of plan, purpose or teleology in the organic  procedure. But, even so, the impression is irresistible that  cell activities are co-operative, that they are inherently or  through selective development co-ordinated in a specific  direction, and that the impress of the whole which forms the  organism is clearly stamped on all the details. The case  is utterly unlike that of physical forces, which are alike,  which are repetitions of each other, and which can be added or  subtracted or otherwise expressed arithmetically. The cells  are different, they are differentiated in definite respects,  and the totality of differentiations fit into a plan or scheme,  the fulfilment of which constitutes the complete organism. 
There are no repetitions, there is uniqueness everywhere,  and the various unique entities and their functions fit into  each other more or less so as to produce an organic whole,  unlike any other organism. And in some indefinable way this  whole is not an artificial result of its parts ; it is itself an active  factor like its parts, and it appears to be in definite relation  with them, influenced by them and again influencing them,  and through this continuous interaction of parts and whole  maintaining the moving equilibrium of structure and  functions which is the organism.

Look, for instance, at the way in which organisms behave  when some cells or organs, necessary for their maintenance,  are removed or injured. It is well known that many plants  and animals have the power of restitution in case of damage  or mutilation. The newt forms a new leg in the place of the  severed limb. The plant supplies the place of the severed  branch with another. The regeneration may be effected  from different organs and by different organs. Thus if the  crystalline lens is removed from the eye of a Triton, the iris  will regenerate a new lens, although the lens and the iris  in this case have been evolved from quite different parts. 
Numerous similar curious facts of restoration could be  mentioned. The broken whole in organic nature restores  itself or is restored by the undamaged parts. The cells of  the remaining parts set themselves the novel task of restoring  the missing parts. The power to do this varies with various  plants or animals, and varies also with the different parts in  the same plant or animal. Generally one may say that the  more highly differentiated and specialised an organism or a  cell is, the smaller is its plasticity, or the power of the remain-  ing cells to restore the whole in case of injury or mutilation. 
But the fact that the power exists in numerous cases is a  proof that not only can the cells through reproduction build  up the original organism according to its specific type, but  also that when this type is damaged, the remaining cells or  some of them can restore it, and recomplete the whole. The  normal power of the cells to build up an organism in repro-  duction or cmbryological development according to type is  one thing, and it is marvellous enough even though one looks  upon it as merely a case of inherited routine. But the  abnormal power to do this in the very unusual case, so  far removed from all idea of routine, where the type is  accidentally broken down is something different, and shows  how effective is the power of the organism as a whole, and how  strong is the tendency towards the whole even in the in-  dividual cells. In some subtle way the damage creates a  need, and the need stimulates the remaining parts to perform  the functions of the damaged parts or to restore them in whole  or in part. The very nature of the cells is to function as parts  of a whole, and when the whole is broken down an unusual  extra task automatically arises for them to restore the breach,  and their dormant powers are aroused to action. And this  happens, so far as we can see, simply as a matter of interior  economy and domestic regulation in the organism itself and  without previous education for the new role. The inter-  action between the organism and its cells is indeed most 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 83 
subtle and intimate ; both seem to be active factors in the  maintenance of the whole and in the restoration of any parts  that may be missing and necessary for the whole. So inti-  mate is their interaction that it is almost impossible to say  where the influence of the one ends and the other begins.

The aspect of co-ordination or subordination of parts to  the whole is also most significantly illustrated by the  phenomena of reproduction which I have already referred to  in another connection. Reproduction not only carries us  back to the past and its riddles, but also forward to the  future, and it is the reproductive system of organisms that  we must scan most closely if we wish to understand this  aspect of organic activities. For in reproduction the cell or  the organism clearly appears to go beyond itself, its functions  become transcendent, as far as it is itself concerned; its  blind strivings and energies embrace objects and situa-  tions beyond itself. In fact, in reproduction the cell or  the organism bears clear testimony to the fact that it is not  itself alone, and that it is part of a larger whole of life  towards the fulfilment of which its most fundamental  functions are directed. As an illustration of the co-  ordinated inter-relations of parts and whole in organism,  nothing can therefore be more significant and important  than the facts of organic reproduction. Here more than  anywhere else the importance of the whole as an operative  factor appears, not merely the immediate whole or individual  organism, but also the transcendent whole or the type  which has to be reproduced and maintained at all costs. 
Throughout the entire range of organic nature one is  impressed with the essential selflessness, the disregard of self,  and the transcendence of self in the reproductive process,  which harnesses the individual to the needs of the race,  exhausts its reserves of strength, and often costs it its life. 
On that process is stamped, as on the very heart of Nature,  the principle of sacrifice, of the subordination of the part to  the whole, of the individual to the race or type.

The preceding analysis will have enabled us to realise that  the plant or the animal is a whole consisting of millions  of parts in the form of cells of all kinds, while the cells again  are smaller wholes of indefinite complexity and marvellous  activities. All these parts are co-ordinated and arranged  down to the most minute details, and function with the  most complete collaboration in support of each other and  the whole organism. The organism is indeed a little living  world in which law and order reign, and in which every  part collaborates with every other part, and subserves the  common purposes of the whole, as a rule with the most perfect  regularity. It is this perfect community of functions and  unity of action in a system consisting of innumerable parts  and the most complex structural arrangements that makes  the organism such a striking type of a whole. We have  seen structural order as the characteristic of inorganic matter ;  we now see active co-operation and unity of action super-  added as the characteristic of the organism. We admire the  order and co-operation of a beehive or a community of ants ;  in the organism we see a more perfect order and a more  wonderful co-operation in a situation which is perhaps not  much less complex than either. And just as the individual  bee or ant lives its own life and is not lost in the joint venture  of the hive or nest, so the individual cell lives its own life and  specialises and perfects itself for its role in the organism  which it helps to form and to serve without loss or sacrifice  of its own identity. The organism embraces innumerable  smaller organic units whose identity is not swallowed up  in it, is expressed and not suppressed by it. The large  organism does not only mean the union and co-operative  harmony of its smaller units, but also as a rule the more  perfect individuation and specialised development of these  units in the harmony of the whole. The plant or animal  body is a social community, but a community which allows  a substantial development to its individual members. And  its nature and structure are such that it can only perfect itself  through the differentiation and development of the members  which compose it. But while this is so, while (as we shall see  more clearly in the sequel) individuation is fundamental  in Nature, we have to recognise that intensive co-operation 
iv THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 85 
plays a no less important and fundamental part. An  organism is fundamentally a society in which innumerable  members co-operate in mutual help in a spirit of the most  effective disinterested service and loyalty to each other. 
Co-operation and mutual help are written large on the face  of Nature. Nay, more, if cell structure and function can  teach us anything, they are imprinted deep on the nature  of the universe, they are the very meaning and soul of 
Nature. We may travel far through the realms of Evolution,  but nowhere shall we find a more perfect co-operation or a  more beautiful illustration of mutual help of one part for  another, and of all parts for the whole, as well as of the  whole for all its parts, than in the little insignificant cell,  which seems to hold the very secret of the universe. 
Anticipating the language of later developments, we may  say that in the cell there is implicit an ideal of harmonious  co-operation, of unselfish mutual service, of loyalty and  duty of each to all, such as in our later more highly evolved  human associations we can only aspire to and strive for. 
When there was achieved the marvellous and mysterious  stable constellation of electrical units in the atom, a  miracle was wrought which saved the world of matter from  utter chaos and chance. But a far greater miracle was  wrought when from the atomic and the molecular order there  was evolved a still deeper and subtler order in the inner co-  operative harmony of the cell. These two fundamental  structures are the great abiding achievements in the course  of Evolution, before the advent of Mind, and though many  other experiments were probably made before and in between  these successes, they proved unstable and were discarded  and abandoned, and are now searched for in vain. We  have to scrutinise these abiding peaks of achievement  if we wish to understand the real nature of the Evolutionary  process, and if we wish to form an idea of the nature  of the ground in between these permanent structures  which has been washed away in the endless lapse of time. 
And when we find the two to be not utterly different but  expressions of a somewhat similar inner progressive tendency

86 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP, iv 
of Nature, and when we find later, on the mental and spiritual  levels of development, still clearer expressions of a similar  tendency, we shall be justified in concluding that we are face  to face with something real and causal in the form of a  natural operative factor of a fundamental and universal  character. The impression becomes so strong that it  is not so much a matter of speculation as a recognition of  clear simple facts before us. The permanent structures  in Nature have been and are still being patiently investi-  gated for us by Science. As I said in the last chapter, they  present more than a faint family resemblance and enable  us to recognise the unity which underlies them all and to  draw certain conclusions as to the origin of this unity. In  their constitution, functions and development they point  strongly in the direction of some inner natural factor in 
Evolution of which they are the expression. The evidence  in favour of such a natural factor of a synthetic ordering  character has been accumulating in this and the two pre-  ceding chapters; it requires isolation, identification and  exact formulation, if that were possible. And in the  next chapter a preliminary attempt at such an identification  and formulation will be made.

CHAPTER V

GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM

Summary. The close approach to each other of the concepts of  matter, life and mind, and their partial overflow of each other's  domain, raises the further question whether back of them there is  not a fundamental principle of which they are the progressive  outcome. That is the central problem of this work.

Two conceptions of genesis or development have prevailed. The  one regards all reality as given in form and substance at the beginning,  either actually or implicitly, and the subsequent history as merely  the unfolding, explication, evolutio, of this implicit content. This  view puts creation in the past and makes it predetermine the whole  future ; all fresh initiative, novelty or creativeness is consequently  banned from a universe so created or evolved. The other view  posits a minimum of the given at the beginning, and makes the  process of Evolution creative of reality. Evolution on this view is  really creative and not merely explicative of what was given before ;  it involves the creative rise not only of new forms or groupings, but  even of new materials in the process of Evolution. This is the view  of Evolution to-day commonly held, and it marks a revolution in  thought. It releases the present and the future from the bondage of  the past, and makes freedom an inherent character of the universe.

Creative Evolution involves both general principles or tendencies  and particular forms or structures ; philosophy studies the former,  while science has more exclusively concentrated on the latter. Yet  both are necessary to reality ; and any universal formula of Evolu-  tion must include both the general activity or tendency and the  particular structures, as one cannot be deduced from the other. 
Bergsonmade an attempt to deduce Evolution with all its multi-  tudinous forms from homogeneous, pure, undifferentiated Duration. 
This was, however, not possible, and he had to call in the practical  spatialising Intellect to infect and fertilise Duration in order to make  hei productive ; he thus made the Intellect play a one-sided and, at the  same time, excessive role in the shaping of the forms of the universe. 
It would be a better procedure to take some natural unit or sample  section of Nature for our starting-point, and thus to keep as close  to her and her concreteness as possible. The last two chapters give  us a clue where to look for a beginning. Both matter and life consist  of unit structures whose ordered grouping produces natural wholes  which we call bodies or organisms. This character of " wholeness "  meets us everywhere and points to something fundamental in the  universe. Holism (from ti\os = whole) is the term here coined for  this fundamental factor operative towards the creation of wholes in  the universe. Its character is both general and specific or con-  crete, and it satisfies our double requirement for a natural  evolutionary starting-point.

Wholes are not mere artificial constructions of thought; they  actually exist; they point to something real in the universe, and 
Holism is a real operative factor, a vera causa. There is behind 
Evolution no mere vague creative impulse or Elan vital, but some-  thing quite definite and specific in its operation, and thus pro-  ductive of the real concrete character of cosmic Evolution.

The idea of wholes and wholeness should therefore not be confined  to the biological domain ; it covers both inorganic substances and  mental structures as well as the highest manifestations of the human  spirit. Taking a plant or an animal as a type of a whole, we notice  the fundamental holistic characters as a unity of parts which is so close  and intense as to be more than the sum of its parts ; which not only  gives a particular conformation or structure to the parts, but so  relates and determines them in their synthesis that their functions  are altered ; the synthesis affects and determines the parts, so that  they function towards the " whole " ; and the whole and the parts,  therefore reciprocally influence and determine each other, and appear  more or less to merge their individual characters : the whole is in  the parts and the parts are in the whole, and this synthesis of whole  and parts is reflected in the holistic character of the functions of the  parts as well as of the whole.

There is a progressive grading of this holistic synthesis in Nature,  so that we pass from (a) mere physical mixtures, where the structure  is almost negligible, and the parts largely preserve their separate  characters and activities or functions, to (b) chemical compounds,  where the structure is more synthetic and the activities and functions  are strongly influenced by the new structure and can only with  difficulty be traced to the individual parts; and, again, to 
(c) organisms, where a still more intense synthesis of elements has been  effected, which impresses the parts or organs far more intimately with  a unified character, and a system of regulation and co-ordination, and  finally of central control of all the parts and organs arises ; and from  organism, again, on to (d) Minds or psychical organs, where the Central 
Control acquires consciousness and freedom and a creative power  of the most far-reaching character; and finally to (e) Personality,  which is the highest, most evolved whole among the structures of the  universe, and becomes a new orientative, originative centre of reality. 
All through this progressive series the character of wholeness 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 89 
deepens ; Holism is not only creative but self-creative, and its final  structures are far more holistic than its initial structures. Natural  wholes are always composed of parts ; in fact the whole is not some-  thing additional to the parts, but is just the parts in their synthesis,  which may be physico-chemical or organic or psychical or personal. 
As Holism is a process of creative synthesis, the resulting wholes are  not static but dynamic, evolutionary, creative. Hence Evolution  has an ever-deepening inward spiritual holistic character; and the  wholes of Evolution and the evolutionary process itself can only be  understood in reference to this fundamental character of wholeness. 
This is a universe of whole-making. The explanation of Nature can  therefore not be purely mechanical ; and the mechanistic concept of 
Nature has its place and justification only in the wider setting of 
Holism. In its organic application, in particular, the " whole " will  be found a much more useful term in science than " life/' and will  render the prevailing mechanistic interpretation largely unnecessary. 
A natural whole has its " field," and the concept of fields will be  found most important in this connection also. Just as a " thing " is  really a synthesised ' ' event ' ' in the system of Relativity, so an organism  is really a unified, synthesised section of history, which includes not  only its present but much of its past and even some of its future. An  organism can only be explained by reference to its past and its future  as well as its present; the central structure is not sufficient and  literally has not enough in it to go round in the way of explanation ;  the conception of the field therefore becomes necessary and will be  found fruitful in biology and psychology no less than in physics.

IN this chapter we approach the central problem of our  inquiry. In the preceding chapters we have seen the con-  cept of matter coming closer to the concept of life ; we have  seen the concept of life, in the cell, and in organism, and in 
Evolution generally, tending towards the concept of mind. 
We have seen these three fundamental concepts, at first  apparently so utterly unlike and so far apart, approaching  each other and overflowing each other in the real structures  and evolution of the universe. The question now arises  whether there is not something still more fundamental in the  universe, something of which they are but the developing  forms and phases, something out of which they crystallise  at the various onward stages of its progress. And if there is  this more fundamental principle, can it be formulated into  a definite concept, and will it account for the specific concrete  character of our universe? That is our problem, in the  consideration of which a commencement will be made in this  chapter.

Throughout the history of human thought there have been  two ultimate points of departure in the explanation of the  universe, two contrasted mental attitudes or view-points  from which the universe has been envisaged and accounted  for. According to the one view everything is, in one  way or another, given at the beginning; according to  the other a minimum is assumed at the beginning, and  the universe is a progressive creation or evolution from this  minimum s tar ting-point. On the first view it makes no  difference whether the original creation was complete in all  details or whether merely its logical or metaphysical scheme  was complete, while the contents were only implicitly  given. In either case there can be nothing new in the  course of the subsequent history of the world. If the  original creation was complete and absolute, all subsequent  events and changes can only be rearrangements, reshufflings  of the original groupings : both the material elements and  their principles or forms of arrangement are there as original  data, and determine all subsequent events and arrangements. 
If, again, the metaphysical scheme or structure of the  universe must be taken as given, the evolution of the universe  is merely a logical development in compliance with this  scheme ; or in other words, the logical development of the  scheme will give us the material universe as a result. The  development of Hegel's Idea is just such an attempt at a  logical unfolding of the universe. In both cases the explana-  tion of the universe is in the past, at the beginning : that  beginning governs all and predetermines all. The past is the  efficient cause of the future, and no new creation, nothing  essentially new, can arise in the future. The full volume of  reality was there at the beginning and continues to roll on,  changing its forms and appearances by the way, but making  no fresh addition to the original current. All real novelty  and initiative, all real freedom of choice and development  disappear from the universe. The process of the world 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 91 
becomes at most an explication, an unfolding of what was  implicitly given, and not a creative evolution of new forms. 
This view-point has been dominant in Western science and  philosophy from its early beginnings in the sixteenth and  seventeenth centuries until quite recently. In physical  science it fits in naturally with the orthodox laws of  conservation, which preclude either the creation or the  destruction of energy, mass or momentum. And in proportion  as mechanistic ideas have prevailed in science and philosophy,  all change has come to mean merely mechanical rearrange-  ments without any substantial addition to or subtraction  from the sum total of reality. Those thinkers, again, who 
(like Leibniz) did not subscribe to the mechanistic formula  were led by their theological standpoints and their pre-  formation ideas to look upon reality as completed in  the past, and to leave to the future the merely sub-  ordinate role of unfolding, evolving, explicating what was  virtually contained in that past. This, therefore, is the very  limited sense in which the terms development or evolution as  used by them must be understood. Where they believed in a  dynamic progressive universe, they meant merely a universe  which was progressively unfolding what was implicitly  contained in the past. The view-point of Evolution as  creative, of a real progressive creation still going forward  in the universe instead of having been completed in the past,  of the sum of reality not as constant but as progressively  increasing in the course of evolution, is a new departure  of our own time, and it is perhaps one of the most  significant departures in the whole range of human thought. 
Not only has the old static view of reality with its fixed  elements and species disappeared, the new dynamic view of 
Evolution does not merely negate the old static view, it has  gone much further. Evolution is not merely a process of  change, of regrouping of the old into new forms; it is  creative, its new forms are not merely fashioned out of the old  materials; it creates both new materials and new forms  from the synthesis of the new with the old materials. The  creativeness of matter is, as we saw, confined to the aspect  of structure and to the refashioning of new structures out of  the pre-existing material units : in that sense matter has  only a limited though real creativeness. When we come to  organisms we find a very much larger measure of creative-  ness in Evolution. For, as will be shown in Chapter VIII, the  new qualities or characters which give rise to new varieties or  species are really new in the sense that they have not been  there before and are not mere reshufflings of characters which  were there before. New characters are created, and on the  basis of them new varietal or specific forms of a stable kind  arise. A still larger measure of creativeness applies to mind  both in its intellectual and ethical aspects ; thought is creative  in all its activities from the simplest sensation up to the most  complex judgment; and the ethical or practical reason is  creative of values, moral, spiritual and religious values, in  the fullest sense. Hence arises the view of Evolution as  creative of the new, as an epigenesis instead of an explication,  as displaying novelty and initiative, as opening up new paths  and rendering possible new choices in the forward march,  as creating freedom for the future and in a very real sense  breaking the bondage of the past and its fixed pre-  determinations.

The view-point of creative Evolution is to-day embraced  by scientists and philosophers generally, and this consensus  between them in a matter of cardinal importance con-  stitutes a most promising situation for the future, and may  lead to far more fruitful co-operation between science and  philosophy than we have known for some hundreds of years. 
Let me point to one important direction in which this  co-operation is called for.

In their actual procedure philosophers have occupied  themselves with general principles, while scientists, except  in the domain of Mathematics pure and applied, mostly  occupy themselves with the investigation of particular  things, bodies, organisms and the like. Scientists have  more and more buried themselves in details, exploring  facts to their minutest details, and looking to ever greater  specialisation to give the clues to the unsolved problems. 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 93

More than ever before they are occupying themselves with  the problems of structure, the structure of matter and the  physical universe, the structure of cells and organisms as  explaining the systems of life, the structure of the nervous  system and the brain with a view to understanding the  movement of Evolution in its higher reaches. While science  is thus preoccupied with the details of structure, philosophy  continues very much on the old lines of exploring general  points of view, general principles and tendencies and con-  cepts. Philosophy, in endeavouring to demarcate a province  of her own and distinct from the special regions ruled by  science, is more and more confining herself to the critical con-  sideration of ultimate concepts and principles, and thus  runs the risk of getting further away from science instead of  drawing closer to it. The result of this divorce is lamentable  in the extreme. For science, divorced from the view-  points and principles which philosophy embraces, structure  becomes merely mechanism. For philosophy, divorced from  the actual structural facts which science studies, the  general principles remain in the air, and never generate  this specific concrete sensible world which is there to  explain and understand. But the real world is neither a  mere principle nor a mere structure, neither a dis-  embodied soul nor a soulless mechanism. The creative 
Evolution which both scientist and philosopher embrace  works as a general principle or tendency in and through  particular concrete specific forms. Evolution is thus  structure plus principle, interpenetrating each other,  reacting on and vitalising each other. Individuation and  universality are equally characteristic of Evolution. The  universal realises itself, not in idle self -contemplation, not in  isolation from the actual, but in and through individual  bodies, in particular things and facts. The temple of the 
Spirit is the structure of matter ; the universal dwells in the  concrete particular; neither is real nor true apart from  the other. All this sounds like truisms and platitudes. 
But yet it is most important, for it means this, that  the pursuit of the separate paths of science and philosophy  will not bring us to our goal. Their paths must be made  to converge. Concepts must be developed which will  include the material and the view-points of both science  and philosophy. The pathway of the real is neither abstract  general principles nor the wilderness of details ; and if we  wish to understand Evolution, we must develop concepts  adequate to its actual process, concepts which will be repre-  sentative of its real characters of concreteness and uni-  versality. In other words, we must form a conceptual  model which will as accurately as possible reproduce what  actually goes on in the process of cosmic Evolution, our  main concern being to make our explanation of Nature's  process as true to actual observed facts as possible. Abstract  principles alone cannot carry us to the understanding of the  concrete procedure of Evolution. Structures by themselves,  again, cannot generalise themselves into a universal process  such as Evolution. Mere structure is not enough, because  it misses the generic, the universal in reality. General  principles or tendencies are not enough, because they are not  concrete such as natural reality is. The two must be  blended in a new concept. And it may be found that the  new concept is actually not a blend of them, but the original  unity from which they have been dissociated, and that the  synthesis produces more than a mere concept, reveals in  fact an operative causal principle of fundamental significance, 
To illustrate how philosophers operate with general  principles or tendencies which refuse to produce particularity ,  and therefore fail to explain the concrete character of reality,  let us glance for a moment at Bergson's system. Any othei  would have served perhaps equally well, but Bergson has the  great merit of being the most influential and brillianl  exponent of the philosophy of Evolution in our time, and a  reference to his work will therefore keep us close to our own  subject matter. Bergson singles out the principle oi 
Duration as both ultimate and all-embracing and as thus  capable of both generating and explaining reality. He  reaches the concept of Duration by going back into the  depths of subjective experience until he comes to the poinl 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 95 
where we feel ourselves most intimately within our own life. 
He divests this experience of all elements of change or  differentiated features ; all subjective and objective items of  experience are eliminated ; and there remains the bare flow  or passage of the inner life. This is Duration ; this homo-  geneous flow or passage is for him the creative principle in the  universe. It underlies and generates our idea of time. But  time is not pure Duration, it has become infected with the 
Intellect, and instead of being a continuous enduring process  it has become a summation of units, or points, or small unit  lengths of happening. In other words, time has become  spatialised, analytical and arithmetical in character in  proportion as it has become divorced from its original pure  form as uniform flow or process or Duration. This creative 
Duration is not only the tap-root of time, but also of Evolu-  tion, and is the source of all the multiplicity of forms and  activities which we see in the universe. Bergson's Creative 
Evolution is an attempt to show how this fundamental  principle, beginning as nothing but bare flow or passage,  builds up the concrete universe within us and around us. 
To him belongs the signal merit of having elucidated the  concept of Time more clearly than has been done before  in philosophy. The theory of Evolution has made the  aspect of time in the universe more important than ever  before, and Bergson has rescued the concept of time from  the confusions in which it had become entangled, not only  in our empirical experience, but even in our scientific and  philosophic ideas. But while freely conceding this great  merit to Bergson I must confess that I fail to see how from  pure Duration he has produced concrete reality. It simply  cannot be done. From bare, undifferentiated, homogeneous  unity you cannot reach out to multiplicity. You may call  pure Duration creative, but it will create nothing until it is  mixed with something very different from itself. And  indeed Bergson has had to summon to his rescue another  principle, which he has invested with all the characters of  which he had so carefully deprived Duration. This is the 
Intellect. The Intellect is practical, differential, analytical,  selective, purposive; it is at once the principle and the  instrument of action ; it can analyse the material before it  and choose what is useful for its purpose. It is spatial, it  converts pure Duration into impure Time. Nor is Time its  only offspring. From its marriage with pure Duration the 
Intellect has produced all the sensible forms in the universe. 
Bodies and things are simply our lines of action on matter. 
The practical Intellect selects what it wants for action and  ignores or simply does not notice the rest. The sensible  qualities it distinguishes are those which attract its attention  by their practical usefulness or serviceableness for its pur-  poses. The forms of bodies and things are therefore merely  the result of this selective action on matter. 1 Structure  is thus the creature of Intellect ; in fact in its forms the  sensible universe is an intellect-made universe. He admits  that the result is a hopelessly lop-sided affair, and he has to  call in the assistance of Instinct and Intuition another  twin of this marriage who partake more of the pure and  gentle character of the maternal Duration to correct this  lop-sidedness and to prevent reality and truth in the universe  from being distorted beyond recognition. Intuition and  instinct do indeed help to soften and tone down the hard  lines drawn by the selective intellect. But even they do  not avail to reproduce the continuous curve of Duration,  but only an approximation to it. Such is a very summary  statement of what seems to me the essential point in 
Bergsonism. For my present purpose I have only two  criticisms to make. In the first place, as already indicated,  the principle of pure Duration fails either to generate or  to explain impure concrete reality. In the second place,  there is far more in structure than the mere creation of the 
Intellect. Admitting the practical instrumental selective  character of the Intellect, it would yet be a profound mistake  to make it the sole cause of the forms and structures of  sensible bodies or things. The Intellect is not creative in  that fundamental sense. To make of Intellect what Kant  made of Space and Time the framework or the forms

1 Creative Evolution, p. 102. 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 97 
imposed ab extra on sensible reality by the activity of the mind  would be a travesty of psychology and nature alike. In-  tellect selects and orders, but not arbitrarily; it is itself merely  an element in a greater, more universal order. Structure  is the creature of experience, and experience is an interaction  of the subjective and objective factors so intimate and un-  analysable that it is impossible to say how much of the result  is due to one factor and how much to the other. Structure  is as much objective as subjective in its psychological origin. 
To put the forms, the structures, the order of Nature to the  sole account of the Intellect or subjective factor in experience  is most seriously misleading and is subjective Idealism in  its most dangerous form. As we have seen in the pre-  ceding chapters, structure or something in the nature of  structure is inherent in the objective order of Nature, just  as it is inherent in the orders of life and mind.

Where Bergson seems to me to have gone wrong was in his  impoverishment of the creative principle by reducing it to  the bare empty form of Duration. In order after that false  step to set his Creation going it was inevitable that another  mistake should be made, and that a relatively subordinate  factor,like the Intellect,shouldbeoverloaded with importance, 
Thus the Intellect, which is a sort of Machiavelli or Mephisto-  pheles in the Bergsonian system, has a role assigned to it  which is accentuated both unduly and in a one-sided manner. 
In order to understand Nature we have to proceed more  modestly and in closer touch with our ordinary observation  of her ways.

Let me try to make my point clear by stating it in another  way. I wish to get as near as possible to what one might  call Nature's point of view in our explanation of her. To  understand Nature we must take one of her own units, and  not an abstract one of our own making. We must as it were  take a small sample section of Nature which will include as  one and indivisible both the element of activity or principle  and the element of structure or concreteness in her. Our con-  cept must correspond to such a section as our starting-point,  and we must then proceed to apply it as a sort of standard 
H  with which to measure up the whole range of Evolution, 
In this way we shall try to explain Nature by reference to  herself and her own standards, so to say, instead of by  reference to intellectual abstractions of our own devising.

It may be objected that in taking such a small section or  unit of Nature as our starting-point I am implicitly assuming  all that follows; that I am taking a small section of the  evolved in order to explain Evolution ; l that I am therefore  begging the question ; and that I shall be only finding here-*  after what I have posited at the beginning. This, however,  is not so. The criticism would have force if Evolution  was merely explicative and not creative, and if my natural  unit would by mere unfolding produce all the rest in the  course of time. We have, however, seen that Evolution is  creative. The assumption of an evolving unit is therefore  by no means an assumption of the evolved results which  follow. This is so because the evolution of an assumed unit  would by no means unfold the implicit contents of that unit,  but would proceed creatively, and would thus in the end  far transcend the elementary unit which was the starting-  point. Let us therefore proceed in the way I propose and try  to reach a concept of Nature and her progress which will  not be imposed on her from without, but which will keep as  close as possible to her own natural evolving units, structures  or standards, so far as we have experience of them.

At this stage we return to the difficult question which was  asked at the beginning of this chapter. We are trying to  dig down to the very roots of reality and to raise an issue the  solving of which will be no light task. The issue has indeed  become inevitable as the result of the preceding chapters.

In Chapters II and III we found the physical properties  of matter were geometrically, that is in a sense mentally,  determinable. We found also that matter, instead of the  inertness, fixity and conservatism traditionally associated  with it, was in reality plastic, mobile and transmutable in  its types, and in a sense creative of its forms and values.

1 Bergson's criticism of Herbert Spencer; see Creative Evolution,  p. xiv. 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 99

How have we to understand this? Is life or mind  implicit in matter, and are the characters just referred to an  appeal of the human mind to immanent mind imprisoned in  matter? Has Science gone so far in her long search for  truth that at last mind greets mind in the inner nature of  things ? Have the rescuers reached the imprisoned in the  long dark tunnel of Nature ?

Again, in Chapter IV we found in the organism and even  in the cell a perfectly adjusted system of co-operation so  closely approaching the social in character, a complicated  system of controls so closely approaching the mental in  character as once more to raise the question of mind on a  really extensive scale implicit in Nature. As we find life  on the one hand encroaching on the domain of matter, so  again we find mind encroaching far beyond its own proper  domain on that usually assigned to life. Is life implicit  mind, mind asleep and almost waking ? Is life latent in  matter, and is mind latent in life ?

What is the answer to these questions, and how have we  to conceive matter, life and mind to explain this overflow  into each other's domain ? Is it possible to have a concept  which will embrace all these facts as phases of its own  creative development ? Is it possible to develop the concept  of a principle which is successively physical, biological and  mental in its evolving phases, in other words, of which  matter, life and mind are the growing manifestations ? Is it  possible to have a fundamental concept of Evolution, of  which matter, life and mind would be the successive stages ?

This is the sort of question which naturally arises as a  result of the point which we have reached in our discussion. 
And the answer which one ventures to bring forward must  not only have reference to fundamental principles, but also  to that requisite of concrete character which we have just  now seen to be essential in any solution which professes to  be true to nature.

The last two chapters have not only raised the question  but prepared the way for the answer which will be given in  the sequel. We there saw that reality is not diffuse and 
i dispersive; on the contrary, it is aggregative, ordered,  structural. Both matter and life consist, in the atom and the  cell, of unit structures whose ordered grouping produces the  natural wholes which we call bodies or organisms. This  character or feature of " wholeness " which we found in the  case of matter and life has a far more general application  and points to something fundamental in the universe, funda-  mental in the sense that it is practically universal, that it  is a real operative factor, and that its shaping influence is  felt ever more deeply and widely with the advance of 
Evolution. Holism is the term here coined (from 6'Xo<? =  whole) to designate this whole-ward tendency in Nature,  this fundamental factor operative towards the making or  creation of wholes in the universe. Let us first try to get  some general idea of what Holism is and what " wholes "  are ; thereafter I shall try to define these terms more closely, 
We are all familiar in the domain of life with what is here  called wholes. Every organism, every plant or animal, is a  whole, with a certain internal organisation and a measure  of self -direction, and an individual specific character of its  own. This is true of the lowest micro-organism no less than  of the most highly developed and complex human per-  sonality. What is not generally recognised is that the  conception of wholes covers a much wider field than that of  life, that its beginnings are traceable already in the inorganic  order of Nature, and that beyond the ordinary domain  of biology it applies in a sense to human associations  like the State, and to the creations of the human spirit in  all its greatest and most significant activities. Not only are  plants and animals wholes, but in a certain limited sense the  natural collocations of matter in the universe are wholes;  atoms, molecules and chemical compounds are limited  wholes; while in another closely related sense human  characters, works of art and the great ideals of the higher  life are or partake of the character of wholes. In popular  use the word " whole " is often made to cover some of these  higher creations. A poem or a picture, for instance, is  praised because it is a " whole," because it is not a mere 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 101 
artificial construction, but an organic whole, in which all the  parts appear in a subtle indefinable way to subserve and con-  tribute to and carry out the main purpose or idea. Artistic  creations are, in fact, mainly judged and appraised by the  extent to which they realise the character of wholes. But  there is much more in the term " whole " than is covered  by its popular use. In the view here presented " wholes "  are basic to the character of the universe, and Holism, as  the operative factor in the evolution of wholes, is the  ultimate principle of the universe.

The creation of wholes, and ever more highly organised  wholes, and of wholeness generally as characteristic of  existence, is an inherent character of the universe. 
There is not a mere vague indefinite creative energy  or tendency at work in the world. This energy or  tendency has specific characters, the most fundamental  of which is whole-making. And the progressive develop-  ment of the resulting wholes at all stages from the most  inchoate, imperfect, inorganic wholes to the most highly  developed and organised is what we call Evolution. The  whole-making, holistic tendency, or Holism, operating in and  through particular wholes, is seen at all stages of existence,  and is by no means confined to the biological domain to  which science has hitherto restricted the concept of wholes. 
With its roots in the inorganic, this universal tendency  attains clear expression in the organic biological world, and  reaches its highest expressions and results on the mental and  spiritual planes of existence. Wholes of various grades  are the real units of Nature. Wholeness is the most  characteristic expression of the nature of the universe in  its forward movement in time. It marks the line of evolu-  tionary progress. And Holism is the inner driving force  behind that progress.

It is evident that if this view is correct, very important  results must follow for our conceptions of knowledge and life. 
Wholes are not mere artificial constructions of thought,  they point to something real in the universe; and Holism  as the creative principle in them is a real vera causa.

1
It is the motive force behind Evolution. We thus have  behind Evolution not a mere vague and indefinable creative  impulse or ilan vital, the bare idea of passage or duration  without any quality or character other than that of uniform  flow, and to which no value or character could be attached,  but something quite definite. Holism is a specific tendency,  with a definite character, and creative of all characters in  the universe, and thus fruitful of results and explanations  in regard to the entire course of cosmic development.

It is possible that some may think I have pressed the claims 
of Holism and the whole too far; that they are not real 
operative factors, but only useful methodological concepts 
or categories of research and explanation. There is no 
doubt that the whole is a useful and powerful concept under 
which to range the phenomena of life especially. But to 
my mind there is clearly something more in the idea. The 
whole as a real character is writ large on the face of Nature.

It is dominant in biology; it is everywhere noticeable in 
the higher mental and spiritual developments ; and science, 
if it had not been so largely analytical and mechanical, . 
would long ago have seen and read it in inorganic 
nature also. The whole as an operative factor requires 
careful exploration. That there are wholes in Nature 
seems to me incontestable. That they cover a very 
much wider field than is generally thought and are of 
fundamental significance is the view here presented. But the 
idea of the whole is one of the neglected matters of science 
and to a large extent of philosophy also. It is curious that, 
while the general view-point of philosophy is necessarily 
largely holistic, it has never made real use of the idea of the 
whole. The idea runs indeed as a thread all through 
philosophy, but mostly in a vague intangible way. The 
only definite application of the idea has been made by the

Absolutists, who have applied the expression of " the whole " 
to the all of existence, to the cosmic whole, to the tout 
ensemble of the universe, considered as a unity or a being.

This particular use of the idea does not interest us at 
this stage of our inquiry. The great whole may be the 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 103 
ultimate terminus, but it is not the line which we are follow-  ing. It is the small natural centres of wholeness which we  are going to study, and the principle of which they are the  expression. And I should have thought that the matter  would be of profound interest to philosophers and scientists  alike. But no real use has been made of this great concept  even by philosophers, while by scientists it has been steadily  neglected or ignored under the iron rule of the mechanistic  regime. And yet the stone rejected by the builders may  become the corner-stone of the building.

Let us now proceed to consider the idea of a whole more  closely ; and let us once more begin with natural biological  wholes, such as plants or animals. An organism, like a  plant or animal, is a natural whole. It is self-acting and  self-moving. Its principle of movement or action is not  external to itself but internal. It is not actuated or moved  by some external principle or force, like a machine or an  artificial construction. The source of its activity is internal  and of a piece with itself, is indeed itself. It consists of  parts, but its parts are not merely put together. Their  togetherness is not mechanical, but rests on a different basis. 
The organism consists of parts, but it is more than the sum  of its parts, and if these parts are taken to pieces the organism  is destroyed and cannot be reconstituted by again putting  together the severed parts. These parts are in active  relations to each other, which vary with the parts and the  organisms ; but in no case is there anything inactive or inert  about the relations of these parts to each other or to the whole  organism. The organism further has the power of main-  taining itself by taking in other parts, such as food, but  again, as we saw in the last chapter, it does so not by mere  mechanical addition, but by a complete transformation,  assimilation and appropriation into its own peculiar system of  the material so taken in. Moreover, the organism is creative  in that it is capable, under certain conditions, of renewing  itself and of reproducing itself in closely similar wholes.

This rough summary is sufficient to indicate the main  general characters of biological wholes. When we reach  the more advanced levels of development in the higher  animals and man, we are confronted with additional  characters of a psychological nature, such as intelligence,  will, consciousness, central control and direction of a more  or less voluntary and deliberate kind. For our present  purpose of a preliminary survey in this chapter we need not  consider these characters more closely. But it is necessary  that we should form a clearer conception of the differences  which distinguish a whole in the above sense from something  which is not a whole.

In the first place, I wish to emphasise that a whole accord-  ing to the view here presented is not simple, but composite  and consists of parts. Natural wholes such as organisms  are not simple but complex or composite, consisting of many  parts in active relation and interaction of one kind or  another, and the parts may be themselves lesser wholes,  such as cells in an organism. Wholes are composites  and not simples. The idea of a whole as a simple unique  individual entity is a metaphysical view which we have  to guard against. Philosophy has elaborated the concept  of a unique whole which is really an absolute, indestruc-  tible and unchangeable. Plato in the Phcedo, for instance,  presented the human soul as such a whole, and from its  indivisibility derived an argument in favour of its im-  mortality. What is simple, indivisible and ultimate must  necessarily also be indestructible. Natural wholes accord-  ing to my view, however, are not such simple indivisible  entities, which are really philosophic abstractions.

Then, again, the philosophic conception leaves no room  for change, movement or development of a whole. The  whole or absolute of philosophy is necessarily static. The  simple unique ultimate whole cannot change or develop. 
It is what it is unchangeably. It negatives the idea of 
Evolution which is essential to the conception of wholes as  here presented. The view of the universe as a whole or an  absolute in the philosophic sense leaves no room for progress  or development, and is in conflict with all the teachings of ex-  perience and all the most significant results of science. The 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 105 
parts indeed (if any) may move and change, their relations  inter se may show a flux to which the name of development  may be given. But it will not be real creative development. 
The absolute whole of philosophy is immutable, withdrawn  in itself, and unlike anything of which we have experience  in this world. The idea of Evolution as creative is the very  antithesis of this static absoluteness. And this idea must be  decisive for us. Anything which militates against the idea  of the universe as progressive and creative must be dis-  carded by us. The creative whole or Holism must not be  confused with the philosophic whole or absolute.

Having warned against a philosophical misconception,  let me proceed to guard against a still more dangerous  scientific misconception. The mechanical view of the  universe which has been, and to a large extent still is,  dominant in science is in one degree or another at variance  with the conception here brought forward.

The whole is not a mere mechanical system, that is,  a system of parts externally related to each other. It  consists indeed of parts, but it is more than the sum  of its parts, which a purely mechanical system necessarily  is. The essence of a mechanical system is pure external-  ity or the absence of all inwardness, of all inner tendencies  and relations and activities of the system or its parts. 
All action in a mechanical system is external, being  either the external action of the mechanical body on  some other body, or the external action of the latter on  the former. And similarly when the parts of the body  or system are considered, the only action of which they are  capable is their external action on each other or on the body  generally. There is no inwardness of action or function  either on the part of the body or its parts. Such is a  mechanical body, and only such bodies have been assumed  to exist on the mechanistic hypothesis. A whole, which is  more than the sum of its parts, has something internal,  some inwardness of structure and function, some specific  inner relations, some internality of character or nature,  which constitutes that more. And it is for us in this 
i inquiry to try to elucidate what that more is. The point to  grasp at this stage is that, while the mechanical theory  assumes only external action as alone capable of measure-  ment and mathematical treatment, and banishes all inner  action, relation or function, the theory of the whole, on the  contrary, is based on the assumption that in addition to  external action between bodies, there is also an additional  interior element or action of bodies which are wholes, and  that this element or action is of a specific ascertainable  character.

Wholes are therefore composites which have an internal  structure, function or character which clearly differentiates  them from mere mechanical additions or aggregates or  constructions, such as science assumes on the mechanical  hypothesis. And this internal element which transforms a  mere mechanical addition or sum of parts into a whole  shows a progressive development in Nature. Wholes are  dynamic, organic, evolutionary, creative. The character  of creativeness should (if true) be enough to negative the  purely mechanical conception of the universe.

It is very important to recognise that the whole is not  something additional to the parts : it is the parts in a definite  structural arrangement and with mutual activities that  constitute the whole. 1 The structure and the activities  differ in character according to the stage of development of  the whole; but the whole is just this specific structure of  parts with their appropriate activities and functions. Thus  water as a chemical compound is, as we have seen, a whole  in a limited sense, an incipient whole, differing qualitatively  from its uncompounded elements Hydrogen and Oxygen  in a mere state of mixture; it is a new specific structure  with new physical and chemical properties. The whole as a  biological organism is an immensely more complex structure

1 A friendly critic, Mgr. F. C. Kolbe, in a valuable review of this  work in the Southern Cross, has pointed out the striking similarity  between this doctrine of Holism and the Aristotelianism of St. 
Thomas Aquinas, from whom he quotes the following sentence : 
" Forma substantial totius non superadditur partibus, sed est  totum complectans materiam et formam cum prsecisione aliorum." 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 107 
with vastly more complex activities and functions than a  mere chemical compound. But it must not be conceived  as something over and above its parts in their structural  synthesis, including the unique activities and functions  which accompany this synthesis. It is the very essence of  the concept of the whole that the parts are together in a  unique specific combination, in a specific internal related-  ness, in a creative synthesis which differentiates it from  all other forms of combination or togetherness. The  combination of the elements into this structure is in a  sense creative, that is to say, creative of new structure  and new properties and functions. These properties and  functions have themselves a creative or holistic char-  acter, as we shall see in the sequel. At the start the  fact of structure is all-important in wholes, but as we ascend  the scale of wholes, we see structure becoming secondary to  function, we see function becoming the dominant feature of  wholes, we see it as a correlation of all the activities of  the structure and effecting new syntheses which are more  and more of a creative character. The parts in a whole are  also affected by the structure and are different and behave  differently from what they would have done apart from  such a whole. It is the very essence of a whole that while it  is formed of its parts it in turn influences the parts and affects  their relations and functions. This reciprocal influence  constitutes the internality or interior character of a whole.

There is a creative activity, progress and development of  wholes, and the successive phases of this creative Evolution  are marked by the rise of ever more complex and significant  wholes. Thus there arises a progressive scale of wholes,  extending from the material bodies of inorganic nature  through the plant and animal kingdoms to man and the great  ideal and artistic creations of the spiritual world. However  much the wholes may increase in complexity and fruitful  significance as we go upward, the fundamental activity  which produces these results retains its specific holistic  character all through. At first, according to our present  knowledge, it appears only as a definite material structure of 
i energy units, as a specific synthesis or arrangement of  material parts, for instance, in a chemical compound or a  crystal or a colloid. We have already seen how this structure  approaches in several respects the more holistic characters  of life, and it may well be that the future progress of science  will add greatly to our evidence on this point. But even as  it is now known, the specific structure and character of the  chemical compound make it a sort of whole, quite distinct  from mere physical or mechanical mixtures. As we proceed  in the rise of Nature we see in plants how this specific struc-  ture, this synthesis and arrangement of parts and characters,  assumes a new co-operative character the character of  groups of related activities which are all co-ordinated into  intimate relations and functions so as to preserve the plant  and maintain its activities as a whole. As we proceed to  animals we find not only this intimate structural synthesis  of parts and characters on a co-operative basis and with  co-ordinated functions, but in the emergence of the central  nervous system and brain we see a new element of control  and direction, which transforms the entire system, makes  its co-operation more complex and efficient and gives it an  entirely new range of meaning and activity. When we come  to the human stage we find the highest flowering of this  central control in the human personality. We find a range  of values and activities undreamt of at the earlier stages. 
And we find these values and activities themselves tending  to become wholes in the higher ranges of spiritual and artistic  production. The wholeness which was only structural,  inchoate, partial at the beginning of the scale of Nature,  here becomes to a large extent dominant and all-pervasive. 
Holism, which on the lower levels was working against  almost insuperable obstructions and difficulties, here  emerges in a sense victorious. It is as yet only a very  partial victory. Even the most complete human person-  ality and the most perfect artistic creation are still full of  imperfections, and are only an approximation to the ideal  wholeness. Holism has still a long way to go. From the  high human level it points the way to the future, and 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 109 
shows that in wholeness, in the creation of ever more perfect  and significant wholes, lies the inner meaning and trend of  the universe. It is as if the Great Creative Spirit hath said : 
" Behold, I make all things whole."

The ascending order of wholes or the stages in which 
Holism expresses itself in the progressive phases of reality  may therefore be roughly and provisionally summarised as  follows :

1. Definite material structure or synthesis of parts in  natural bodies but with no more internal activity  known at present than that of mere physical or chemical  forces or energies : e.g. in a chemical compound.

2. Functional structure in living bodies, where the  parts in this specific synthesis become actively co-  operative and function jointly for the maintenance of  the body : e.g. in a plant.

3. This specific co-operative activity becomes co-  ordinated or regulated by some marked central control  which is still mostly implicit and unconscious : e.g.  in an animal.

4. The central control becomes conscious and cul-  minates in Personality; at the same time it emerges  in more composite holistic groups in Society.

5. In human associations this central control be-  comes super-individual in the State and similar group  organisations.

6. Finally, there emerge the ideal wholes, or holistic 
Ideals, or absolute Values, disengaged and set free from  human personality, and operating as creative factors on  their own account in the upbuilding of a spiritual world. 
Such are the Ideals of Truth, Beauty and Goodness,  which lay the foundations of a new order in the universe.

Through all these stages we see the ever-deepening nature  of the Whole as a specific structural synthesis of parts with  inner activities of its own which co-operate and function in  harmony, either naturally or instinctively or consciously. 
i 
The parts so co-operate and co-function towards a definite  inherent inner end or purpose that together they constitute  and form a whole more or less of a distinctive character,  with an identity and an ever-increasing measure of individu-  ality of its own. The functioning of the parts is influenced  by their place in the milieu of the other parts, and whole  and parts thus reciprocally constitute and determine each  other. And the whole thus formed is creative of new  development at all stages, even at the first, although this is  only an inchoate, immature stage. We thus arrive at the  conception of a universe which is not a collection of accidents  externally put together like an artificial patchwork, but  which is synthetic, structural, active, vital and creative in  increasing measure all through, the progressive development  of which is shaped by one unique holistic activity operative  from the humblest inorganic beginnings to the most exalted  creations and ideals of the human and of the universal Spirit.

We find thus a great unifying creative tendency of a  specific holistic character in the universe, operating through  and sustaining the forces and activities of Nature and life and  mind, and giving ever more of a distinctive holistic character  to the universe. This creative tendency or principle we call 
Holism. Holism in all its endless forms is the principle  which works up the raw material or unorganised energy  units of the world, utilises, assimilates and organises them,  endows them with specific structure and character and  individuality, and finally with personality, and creates  beauty and truth and value from them. And it does all  this through a definite method of whole-making, which it  pursues with ever-increasing intensity from the beginning  to the end, through things and plants and beasts and men. 
Thus it is that a scale of wholes forms the ladder of Evolu-  tion. It is through a continuous and universal process of  whole-making that reality rises step by step, until from the  poor, empty, worthless stuff of its humble beginnings it  builds the spiritual world beyond our greatest dreams.

The concept of the whole as a means of tracing the evolu-  tion of reality has several advantages. In the first place, 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM in 
as the whole is at once both structural and expressive of an  inner general principle or tendency, its concept is as it were  a working model of the natural wholes we find in the universe,  and is as near as we could get to that concrete character of  reality to which we should have the closest regard. The  concept of Holism and the whole is as nearly as possible a  replica of Nature's observed process, and its application  will prevent us from appearing to run the stuff of reality  into a mould alien to Nature. It will, therefore, enable us  to explain Nature from herself, so to say, and by her own  standards. In this way justice can be done to the concrete  character of natural phenomena.

In the second place, the fundamental concept of Holism  will bring us nearer to that unitary or monistic conception  of the universe which is the immanent ideal of all scientific  and philosophic explanation. At the same time it will  enable us to bridge the chasms and to resolve the anti-  nomies which divide the concepts of matter, life and mind  inter se. Their absolute separateness as concepts is overcome,  and their actual overlapping (in the way we have seen) is  explained, by viewing them as phases of the development of  a more fundamental activity in the universe. The concept  of Holism, so to say, dissolves the heterogeneous concepts  of matter, life and mind, and then recrystallises them out as  polymorphous forms of itself. The monism which results  is not static or barren, as monism necessarily is in the  philosophy of Absolutism, but progressive, creative and  pluralistic in accordance with the demands of scientific  theory and practical common sense. We shall thus be  prepared to find more of life in matter, and more of mind in  life, because the hard-and-fast demarcations between them  have fallen away. While accepting these terms (matter, life  and mind) as generally and roughly marking off the main  divisions of reality, we shall not be tempted to force their  application too far, and we shall be prepared for such limits  to their extensions as science may show to be necessary.

In the third place, a very real advantage will accrue from  the substitution of a more definite concept for the vague and 
i unsatisfactory popular idea of life. The vagueness and in-  definiteness of the idea of life have proved a serious stumbling-  block and have largely influenced biologists to look for the  way out in the direction of mechanism. The concept of  life has no definite content which makes it of any scientific  value. Its value is roughly to demarcate an area from  other areas; it is a name for a class of phenomena which  differ generally from other classes. As such it will remain  useful in Science, in addition to its popular use, which of  course no amount of criticism will ever affect. The term 
" matter " will remain in popular use in spite of the fact  that Science may completely change its meaning; its  connotation may be revolutionised while it remains in use  to denote a class of sensible phenomena for which there is  no other equally convenient name. Similarly with the use  of the term " life." It will remain useful to denote a class  of phenomena, without it remaining or being useful in  describing them, which will have to be done through more  rigorous concepts. The concept of life is too vague to be  definable and pinned down to a definite content; at the  same time, and perhaps for that very reason, it is liable to  be hypostatised into a substance or a force apart from the  organism which it denotes. It is this abuse, in addition to  its indefiniteness, which has led to its abandonment by the  great majority of biologists, who have preferred to see in life  nothing but a specific type of mechanism. I suggest that  the substitution, for scientific and philosophic purposes, of  the concept of the whole for life would give far more precision  to the underlying idea. Thus a definite concept, whose  properties could be investigated and defined, would take  the place of a vague expression, already ruined by popular  use and abuse. A living organism is not an organism plus  life, as if life were something different and additional to it ;  it is just the organism in its unique character as a whole,  which can be closely defined. The sense in which it differs  from a chemical compound considered as a whole is also  capable of accurate definition ; and thus it is quite unneces-  sary to resort to the dubious concept of mechanism in order 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 113 
to describe the living organism or, as I prefer to call it, the  holistic organism. The concept of the whole enables us to  use a technical scientific terminology, which is not vitiated  by popular usage, and which is capable of accurate definition  and description.

The substitution of the concept or the category of the  whole for that of life will probably be found a solvent for  many of the most perplexing problems in biology as well as  the philosophy of life. The whole connects not only with  the physical on the one side and the psychical on the other,  thus maintaining the contacts of Nature ; it brings to bear a  perfectly definite and intelligible concept on the phenomena  of " life," for which hitherto no other definite category has  been found except the other misleading and misplaced one  of mechanism.

In the foregoing I have tried to give some preliminary  and introductory sketch of the concept of the whole, which  will be further developed and filled in as this inquiry proceeds. 
For the sake of simplicity I have omitted reference to an  important feature in that concept which I must now proceed  to mention and explain. I have stated that by the whole I  mean, not the All- Whole of Absolutist philosophy, but the  whole as exemplified and operative in small natural centres  or empirical wholes such as we observe in Nature. I must  now add that by the whole I mean this whole plus its field,  its field not as something different and additional to it, but  as the continuation of it beyond the sensible contours of  experience. I have before drawn attention to the vital  importance of this concept, and I now proceed to explain  and emphasise this point more fully.

Perhaps the most important contribution which the Theory  of Relativity has made to our understanding of reality is the  integration of time with our spatial conceptions of the  sensible world. We are too prone to look at things merely  in their spatial relations, to consider them merely as objects  in space. They are just as much events in time, coming  from the past, enduring through the present, and reaching  out into the future. As we have seen, they are not static  i 
i but dynamic in their inmost structure, they are moving and  active in Space-Time; and indeed their active energy is  their very essence, much more than the mere static spatial  appearance which they present to the observer. As merely  extended, spatial and external, objects are barren abstract  concepts and not the sections of concrete reality which we  know them to be. It is the time-factor that makes the  difference ; Time integrated with Space is active and creative,  and productive of reality. The sensible objects and things  of which we are aware in Nature are active energy systems  in Space-Time; they are events even more than objects  and things ; they are concentrated centres of happening in  the physical sense just as, at a higher stage of evolution, we  find minds as active concentrated centres of experience. 
To understand Nature properly it is essential that we should  habituate ourselves to look upon material bodies or things  literally as events, as centres of happening, and upon the  time element in them as being no less important than the  sensible space element. The limitation of objects or things  to their space relations or aspects obscures and distorts their  real character for us and has to be got rid of at all costs.

The effect of another serious limiting factor in our sensible  experience has to be recognised and eliminated. I have  already referred to Bergson's description of the intelligence  as a selective, discriminative, eliminative, limiting factor  in our experience of the world. But the trouble really goes  deeper than that. Not only our intellect but our senses  also show the same tendency and defects. All our senses are  definitely limited and reveal to us directly only a limited  narrow range of the properties of things. It is one of the  main tasks of Science to construct instruments which will  supplement the limitations of our senses. An object just  visible to the naked eye presents a very different appearance  when seen through a powerful microscope. The microscope,  the telescope, the spectroscope, photomicrography, the 
X-ray spectrum with its revelation of the constitution of  the atom all these and many more are devices to extend  our senses beyond their limited natural range. The 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 115 
combined effect of our limited sensibility and the practical  selective character of our intelligence accounts in part for  the fact that things appear to us limited in size and form,  with definite contours and margins and surfaces beyond  which they do not go and come to a dead stop. This dead  stop is an illusion largely due to the defects of our natural  apparatus of observation. The activities which constitute  the thing go beyond the sensible contours. The material  part which we popularly call the thing is merely the con-  centrated sensible focus which discloses itself to our limited  sensibility and selective intelligence; beyond that it is the  dark " field " which is formed by the activities and properties  of the thing beyond its sensible focal centre. We have seen  in Chapter III how the inner structure of matter results in  certain physical and chemical properties which constitute  its field. The field is as much an integral part of matter as  the sensible part which it surrounds. Anything coming  within that field will be affected by it ; the field shows the  same properties as the thing. The field may either be viewed  as activities or as structure as elements of force or as curves. 
Indeed from many points of view structure and function,  curve and force are convertible terms for the purpose of  describing physical effects. The essential point is that the  physical field is an extension of the active energy system of  the thing beyond its sensible outlines, an extension which  shows the same properties and has the same effects on other  things within that field as the thing itself, though with ever-  diminishing force or strength as the field recedes from the  thing. I have already explained how this concept of the  field renders intelligible the phenomena of physical action  at a distance as well as of physical causation. So far as a  body acts or is acted upon by external bodies this process  takes place in its field and nowhere else. In their fields  bodies interpenetrate each other and thus secure that  continuity between them which supplies the bridge for the  passage of change between them.

So much for purely physical fields. In the consideration  of organisms as wholes the question of the field becomes 
i much more important than in the case of physical bodies. 
What is the field of an organism ? Many will be tempted  to reply offhand that it is its environment. That answer  will, however, be too wide and may be seriously misleading. 
The environment is a confused complex concept, and there  is much more in it than belongs to the field of a particular  organism. The field of an organism is its extension beyond  its sensible limits, it is the more there is in the organism  beyond these limits. To get to the field of an organism  we Jiave to answer this question : In order fully to under-  stand the nature, functions and activities of an organism,  what more is necessary to its concept beyond its sensible  data ? An organism appears a mystery because the sensible  data are insufficient to account for its character and proper-  ties. Biologists dissect and ransack its sensible structure  to find there the physical basis and explanation of its  activities; but in doing so they put a weight upon that  structure which is often more than it can bear. For the  fact is that the sensible structure is not the whole structure,  and is too narrow a base for the superstructure of organic  activities which seem to grow from out of the sensible  structure. For the full explanation of these activities we  have to search another part of the structure which is not  sensible and has on that account been ignored hitherto; I  refer to the field. Biologists have tried to find in the  organic structure physical elements or mechanisms to account  for all the properties and functions of the organism. But  there are literally not sufficient sensible elements to go  round ; the infinity of variations which take place in organic  life vastly transcend the apparent physiological elements. 
A minute speck of protoplasm is supposed to carry in its  structure, on a sort of point to point correspondence, the  hereditary experience of the race for untold millions of years,  and this structure is in addition required to account for much  more besides in the individual life. The industry and  ingenuity which have been displayed in this search  for the inner mechanisms are above praise, but beyond  a certain point the search is certain to be vain; results 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 117 
become mere guess-work, and the very existence of the  structures and mechanisms sought for is more than  problematic. The concept of the field overcomes this  difficulty. According to this view the sensible structure  is a narrow concentrated sensible focus beyond which is  indefinitely extended an insensible structural field as the  carrier of organic properties. And the question arises how  we have to conceive this field and what there is in it. What  has been said of the Time factor in the physical field applies  with tenfold more force here. The organism much more  than the physical body is an historic event, a focus of happen-  ing, a gateway through which the infinite stream of change  flows ceaselessly. The sensible organism is only a point, a  sort of transit station which stands for an infinite past of  development, for the history and experience of untold  millions of ancestors, and in a vague indefinite way for  the future which will include an indefinite number of  descendants. The past, the present, the future all meet in  that little structural centre, that little wayside station on  the infinite trail of life. But they only meet there,  without its being able to contain them all. From that  centre radiates off a field of ever-decreasing intensity  of structure or force, which represents what has endured  of that past, and what is vaguely anticipated of the  future. The organism and its field is one continuous  structure which, beginning with an articulated sensible  central area, gradually shades off into indefiniteness. In  this continuum is contained all of the past which has been  conserved and still operates to influence the present and the  future of the organism ; in it also is contained all that the  organism is and does in the present; and finally, in it is  contained all that the organism vaguely points to in its own  future development and that of its offspring. In other  words, the organism and its field, or the organism as a 
" whole " the holistic organism contains its past and much  of its future in its present. These elements are in it as active  factors, the future and the past interacting with the present. 
The whole is there, carrying all its time with it, but clear 
i and definite only for a small central area, and beyond that  more and more fading away in respect of the dim past and  the dimmer future. And this time is not the abstract time  of mechanics, but real creative passage or duration in the 
Bergsonian sense. The biological whole is fully explained not  merely in the light of its past and its present but also of  its future. The force which it exerts in its field is the ex-  pression of its total time factor. It is impossible to over-  estimate the importance of this time factor in the develop-  ment and consequently in the explanation of organism. An  organism is a continuous autogenesis : behind it is its  phylogeny, which it partially repeats in its individual his-  tory, and which in any case is a powerful factor in its  individual development; before it, again, is the future to  which it points, not only as general orientation of coming  development, but more specially as the realisation of the  potentialities which it holds as the seeds of the future. 
The pull of the future is almost as much upon it as the  push of the past, and both are essential to the character,  functions and activities which it displays in the present. 
But without the concept and the imagery of the field,  which contains both the future and the past in the whole,  it would be difficult to render the presence and the operation  of the future as a factor in organic activity and development  intelligible. The current view of structure restricts it entirely  to the past and explains it as a product of the past, and  therefore fails to give a complete view of it.

A word of explanation may here be said about the nature  of an organic field. The functioning of individual structures  in an organism is not the isolated business of these structures  alone, but takes place in the milieu of other structures and  their functions and is influenced and modified by them. 
This functioning, so influenced and modified, again becomes  in due course incorporated into structure. Thus structure  and function react on each other and develop in the general  dynamic make-up of the organism with its field. All  functioning takes place in a field, that is to say, in a milieu  of other functionings. Every organic happening takes place, 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 119 
not in isolation, but in a general modifying atmosphere of  happenings. This subtle interdependence of functionings  in an organic field forms an essential part in the inner  laboratory of change and advance. The analysis of living  forms merely into elements with their functions misses the  real mark. In the cell and the organism everything functions  as influenced and modified internally by everything else;  and the result is not so much due to this or that element,  this or that factor or gene by itself, as to the inter-relations  between the factors in the general structure and field. The  whole is as operative a factor as the parts and should always  be kept in view by the researcher. Besides this internal  organic field constituted by the reciprocal inter-relations of  the parts in the cell or the organism, there is the external  field which connects the organism with the environment. 
In this field there is a continual interchange of external  stimulus and inner response. The close adaptation of  organisms to their environment is a proof of the close con-  nection between this external and the internal field of the  organism. The structural and functional evolution of  organisms takes place largely in response to this external  environmental influence. The external field forms the  extension of the internal field, and together they form the  total milieu for all happening and change in connection with  organisms. And whatever takes place in this total field  does so holistically, that is to say, not in isolation but in  reciprocal and mutual association with all other functioning  within that field. The past, the future, the internal elements  in the organic structure as well as its external environment,  all form integral features in the total field of an organism,  influencing its functioning and its evolution.

It is unnecessary at this stage to explore further into the  field of organism, as we shall have to recur to the concept  of the field when we come to consider the principles of  organic Evolution in Chapter VIII. Enough has been said  to show that in biology, perhaps even more than in physics,  the concept may prove helpful in the elucidation of  phenomena which it is almost impossible to explain on  the narrow and confined basis of the existing organic  concepts.

In explaining the important topics with which this chapter  deals I do not know in how far I have succeeded in making  my meaning clear. Nor do I feel sure that the ideas here  developed have been presented in their best or final form. 
It is quite possible that in more expert hands they may  prove capable of better statement and more skilful develop-  ment. I trust, however, that what seems unclear and  doubtful at this stage will become both intelligible and  acceptable in the following chapters, where the concepts of  this chapter will be further developed and applied in the  explanation of organic and psychic Evolution.

Let me conclude with a word on nomenclature, intended  to prevent ambiguity and misconception in the sequel. 
According to the view expounded in this chapter the whole  in each individual case is the centre and creative source  of reality. It is the real factor from which the rest in each  case follows. But there is an infinity of such wholes com-  prising all the grades of existence in the universe; and it  becomes necessary to have a general term which will include  and cover all wholes as such under one concept. For this  the term Holism has been coined; Holism thus comprises  all wholes in the universe. It is thus both a concept and a  factor : a concept as standing for all wholes, a factor  because the wholes it denotes are the real factors in the uni-  verse. We speak of matter as including all particles of  matter in the universe : in the same way we shall speak of 
Holism as including all wholes which are the ultimate  creative centres of reality in the world.

Difficulty may arise because Holism will sometimes  also be used in another sense, to denote a theory of the  universe. Thus while matter and spirit are taken as real  or substantive factors, and material-ism and spiritual-ism  or ideal-ism as concepts or theories in reference to them  respectively, it would by analogy not be improper to use  the term Hoi-ism to express the view that the ultimate  reality of the universe is neither matter nor spirit but 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 121 
wholes as defined in this book. And sometimes Holism  will be used in that wider sense as a theory of reality. But  its primary and proper use is to denote the totality of wholes  which operate as real factors and give to reality its dynamic  evolutionary creative character. No confusion need arise  if these two distinct applications of the term are borne in  mind.

NOTE

WHITEHEAD'S DOCTRINE OF ORGANIC MECHANISM

So far as I am aware, the principle of Holism as here formulated  is of all philosophers approached most closely by Professor A. N. 
Whitehead in his Science and the Modern World. In an earlier note 
(at the end of Chapter I) it was explained that in the fallacy of Mis-  placed Concreteness due to simple location he wrestles with the same  problem of concealed abstraction which I have sought to overcome  by the concept of the " field." We envisage the same problem  though arriving at alternative solutions. In regard to what is here  called Holism we again envisage the same situation and reach results  which are very close to each other. Our procedures are different. 
In arriving at the concept of Holism I follow the lead of Science along  a route suggested naturally by the accepted facts of physical and  biological science. Professor Whitehead, on the other hand, is  guided more particularly by psychological and philosophical analysis, 
He thinks that the current scientific scheme is at fault in that " it  provides none of the elements which compose the immediate psycho-  logical experiences of mankind. Nor does it provide any elementary  trace of the organic unity of a whole, from which the organic unities  of electrons, protons, molecules, and living bodies can emerge ' 
(p. 108).

Professor Whitehead therefore assumes on the analogy of 
Spinoza's ultimate Substance that there is in the universe " one  underlying activity of realisation, individualising itself in an inter-  locked plurality of modes " (p. 108). We must here understand that 
Whitehead's modes (unlike Spinoza's) are " simple locations " taken  in their separateness. Now, as was explained in the note at the end  of Chapter I, the mistake of simple location is, according to White-  head, overcome if we conceive a thing or event as embracing in its  apparent spatial limits, not only its own intrinsic characters, but  also the perspectives, from it, of all other things or events. The  concrete thing or event is thus a synthesised unity which transcends  its simple spatial appearance and includes a little unified world, so  to say. These are the concrete events. The actual world is a com-  plex of such concrete finite entities or events. " Space and Time  exhibit the general scheme of their interlocked relations. You  cannot tear any one of them out of its context. Yet each one of  them within the context has all the reality which attaches to the  whole complex. Conversely, the totality has the same reality as  each event, for each event unifies the modalities to be ascribed, from  its standpoint, to every part of the whole. A prehension (event)  is a process of unifying. Accordingly, nature is a process of expansive  development, a structure of evolving processes. The reality is  the process " (pp. 107-8).

Thus Whitehead arrives at the result that there is a fundamental  process in the world which realises and actualises individual syntheses  or unities, which are for him the real concrete events of the world. 
The things, entities or objects of physical science are for him abstrac-  tions, deprived of their essential relations, connections, and per-  spectives with the rest of the world.

Whitehead then proceeds to point out (p. 115) that these abstract  entities of science underlie the whole concept of scientific materialism,  and that for these entities has to be substituted the concept of  organisms, which emerges from his analysis. His doctrine of  organisms he then proceeds to formulate as follows : " The concrete  enduring entities are organisms, so that the plan of the whole influences  the very characters of the various subordinate organisms which enter  into it. In the case of an animal, the mental states enter into the  plan of the total organism and thus modify the plans of the successive  subordinate organisms until the smallest organisms, such as elec-  trons, are reached. Thus an electron within a living body is different  from an electron outside it, by reason of the plan of the body. The  electron blindly runs either within or without the body, but it runs  within the body in accordance with the general plan of the body, and  this plan includes the mental state. But the principle of modification  is perfectly general throughout nature, and represents no property  peculiar to living bodies. This doctrine involves the abandonment  of the traditional scientific materialism, and the substitution of an  alternative doctrine of organism. I would term the doctrine the  theory of organic mechanism. In this theory, the molecules may  blindly occur in accordance with general laws, but the molecules  differ in their intrinsic characters according to the general organic  plans of the situations in which they find themselves " (pp. 115-16). 
Again : " An individual entity, whose own life-history is a part  within the life-history of some larger, deeper, more complete pattern,  is liable to have aspects of that larger pattern dominating its own  being, and to experience modifications of that larger pattern reflected  in itself as modifications of its own being. This is the theory of 
v GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 123 
organic mechanism. . . ." " The general state of the universe, as  it now is, partly determines the very essences of the entities whose  modes of functioning the laws of nature express. The general  principle is that in a new environment there is an evolution of the  old entities into new forms " (p. 156). Again : " The whole point  of the doctrine is the evolution of the complex organisms from  antecedent states of less complex organisms. The doctrine thus  cries aloud for a conception of organism as fundamental for nature. 
It also requires an underlying activity substantial activity  expressing itself in individual embodiments, and evolving in achieve-  ments of organisms. The organism is a unit of emergent value, a  real fusion of the characters of external objects, emerging for its own  sake " (p. 157).

It will be seen from the above quotations how close the theory of 
Organic Mechanism is to that of Holism. In both there is the  fundamental natural activity, which is of a real substantial character  and no mere general descriptive formula of the evolutionary process. 
In both there is an evolution of forms, structures, patterns and their  functions in accordance with the law of the whole. The nature of  the whole prescribes the modus operandi of evolution, that is to say,  the complex structure or pattern, and its parts reciprocally influence  and modify and constitute each other. My treatment brings out  more clearly the holistic character of the process and its results, and  emphasises the character of wholeness more than does Whitehead's  exposition. I also extend the application of the whole as a formative  principle to the entire range of reality, including personality and the  ideal spiritual sphere, whereas Whitehead discusses the new idea  merely in its application to the domain of the physical and the  biological. In spite, however, of these minor differences of treat-  ment, our underlying ideas seem to come very closely together, if not  to coincide. This is indeed a most remarkable circumstance, in view  not only of the difference of the methods we have followed, but also  and especially of the fact that our ideas have been worked out quite  independently, and indeed mine had been formed and formulated as  far back as 1910. I venture to hope that this convergence of views  points to something really significant in the new theory or theories. 
They certainly touch the most important issues in our outlook on  science and philosophy.

I have great admiration for Professor Whitehead's penetrating  analysis, to which he brings an equipment rare since the " century of  genius." But in one respect I submit that my treatment has  perhaps an advantage over his. My wider application of the main  idea has compelled me to look upon the concept of " organism " as  itself subordinate and sectional and to call the underlying process by  a different, more significant name. Holism as the principle of the

124 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP, v 
whole can be so defined in its progressive applications that it fits  inorganic as well as organic situations, and mental, personal, and  spiritual situations no less well. I am afraid " organism " will not  do in its application to the inorganic, and still less when used in  reference to the phenomena of Personality and the ideal spiritual  values. A theory of organism or organic mechanism which raises  the inorganic to the same level as organisms may in the end prove  almost as faulty or misleading as the opposite scientific view which  depresses organisms to the level of the inorganic and purely physical. 
To call an atom an organism, as Professor Whitehead does, seems  to me to open the door to serious confusions, to break down scientific  distinctions which are really valuable, and to render the ordinary  reader liable to the pitfalls of metaphors in matters calling for  accurate description. Professor Whitehead's chapter on the Quantum  is to me a proof that the new terminology proposed by him will  largely tend to obscurity, to forced expressions and possibly to  misunderstanding. The atom has a different structure or pattern  different in kind from that of the organism, and it is not really  helpful to use the same descriptive, or worse, explanatory term for  both. Nor could the soul or a personality, or the Supreme Good be  rightly or usefully called an organism. I would put in a strong plea  for the term Holism, which, uncouth though it has been called, has  no confusing associations, and is wide and significant enough to cover  all the groups of emergent synthetic entities and values in the  universe, and throughout points to the basic character constituting  all of them.

CHAPTER VI

SOME FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES OF HOLISM

Summary. Avoiding as far as possible philosophical categories and  confining ourselves to scientific view-points, we shall now try to  consider more closely the concept of the whole and the results  flowing from it. We have already seen that the concept of the  whole means not a general tendency but a type of structure, a schema  or framework, which, however, can only be filled with concrete  details by actual experience. A whole is then a synthesis or struc :  ture of parts in which the synthesis becomes ever closer so as  materially to affect the character of the functions or activities  which become correspondingly more unified (or holistic). It is,  however, important to realise that the whole is not some tertium  quid over and above the parts which compose it; it is the parts  in their intimate union, and the new reactions which result from  that union. But in that union the parts themselves are more or  less affected and altered towards the type represented by the union,  so that the whole is evidenced in a change of parts as well as a  change of resulting functions.

The whole thus appears as a marked power of regulation and  co-ordination in respect of both the structure and the functioning  of the parts. This is probably the most striking feature of organ-  isms that they involve a balanced correlation of organs and  functions. All the various activities of the several parts and organs  seem directed to central ends ; there is thus co-operation and unified  action of the organism as a whole instead of the separate mechanical  activities of the parts. The whole thus becomes synonymous with  unified (or holistic) action.

This intense synthesis and unification in the action of a whole  involve a corresponding transformation of concepts and categories. 
Thus while in a mechanical aggregate each part acts as a separate  cause, and the resultant activity is a sum of the component activities,  in organic activity or the activity of the whole this separate action  or causation disappears in a real synthesis or unity which makes  the components unrecognisable in the unified result. Yet even  here we must realise that the whole does not act as a separate cause,  distinct from its parts, no more than it is itself something additional  over and above its parts. Holism is of the parts and acts through

125  the parts, but the parts in their new relation of intimate synthesis  which gives them their unified action.

The whole, therefore, completely transforms the concept of 
Causality. When an external cause acts on a whole, the resultant  effect is not merely traceable to the cause, but has become trans-  formed in the process. The whole seems to absorb and metabolise  the external stimulus and to assimilate it into its own activity ; and  the resultant response is no longer the passive effect of the stimulus  or cause, but appears as the activity of the whole. This holistic  transformation of causality takes place in all organic stimuli and  responses. The cause or stimulus applied does not issue in its  own passive effect, but in an active response which seems more  clearly traceable to the organism or whole itself. In fact the  physical category of " cause " undergoes a far-reaching change in  its application to organisms or wholes generally. The whole  appears as the real cause of the response, and not the external  stimulus, which seems to play the quite minor r61e of a mere  excitant or condition.

The most important result of the idea of the whole is, however,  the appearance of the concept of Creativeness. It is the synthesis  involved in the concept of the whole which is the source of creative-  ness in Nature. Nature is creative, Evolution is creative, just in  proportion as it consists of wholes which bring about new structural  groupings and syntheses. The whole evolves these new structural  groupings out of the old materials; and thus arises the " creative-  ness " of Evolution, as well as the novelty and initiative which  we see in organic Nature. The concept of creativeness which  flows from that of the whole has the most far-reaching effects in  its application to Nature. Once we grasp firmly the fact that 
Nature and Evolution are really creative, we are out of the bonds  of the old crude mechanical ideas, and we enter an altogether new  zone of ideas and categories. But the important point for our purpose  is that " creativeness " is simply a deduction from the concept of  the whole and is characteristic of the order of wholes in the universe. 
It is wholes and wholes only that are creative. The formula omne  vivum e vivo could therefore be generalised and applied to wholes  generally. This creativeness issues not only in the origin of new  organic species, but also in the great Values which are the creations  of the whole on the spiritual level.

From this it is clear how also the concept of Freedom is rooted  in that of the whole, organic or other. For the external causation  is absorbed and transformed by the subtle metabolism of the whole  into something of itself; otherness becomes selfness; the pressure  of the external is transformed into the action of itself. Necessity  or external determination is transformed into self-determination  or Freedom. And as the series of wholes progresses the element 
vi FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES 127 
of Freedom increases in the universe, until finally at the human stage 
Freedom takes conscious control of the process and begins to create  the free ethical world of the spirit. Holism thus becomes basic to  the entire universe of organic progress and free creative advance,  to the Values and Ideals which ultimately give life all of worth it  has, and to the Freedom which is the condition of all spiritual as  well as organic progress.

But Holism is seen not only in the advance, in the changes and  variations for ever going forward. It is seen just as much in the  stability of the great Types. The new always arrives in the bosom  of the pre-existing structure, and at its prompting and largely in  harmony with it. Its novelty is small compared to its essential  conservatism. Variation is infinitesimal compared to Heredity. 
It is this fundamental unity or unitariness and wholeness in organ-  isms and organic Evolution generally which seems to explain their  essential stability as well as the regulation and co-ordination of  the whole process, its conservative self-control if one may use a  metaphor.

Individuality and purposiveness, as holistic categories, are referred  to more especially in Chapter IX.

The chapter concludes with a summary of the functions which 
Holism exercises in the shaping of Evolution.

IN the last chapter the ideas of the whole and Holism  were sketched in a general and preliminary way. Before  we proceed to test the working value of the new ideas it  will be necessary to explore somewhat more deeply into  them. It is the vagueness of the concept of Life which  makes it unsatisfactory for scientific purposes, and we  should make certain that the concept of the whole, which  is intended to make it definite for scientific purposes, be  made as clear as possible.

Let me here say a word about the method we are pur-  suing. Hitherto we have as closely as possible followed  the results of science; we have studied the fundamental  structures of physical and biological science in the atom  and the cell, and endeavoured to frame a concept of the  whole on the basis of those structures. I propose to con-  tinue to pursue this course, and to explore and build up  the concept of the whole from the results of the analysis  of Nature. We shall try to understand what is involved 
i and implied in the processes of the small centres of unity  in Nature, and derive as much aid and illumination from  them as possible; in that way we shall try to proceed as  a matter of method from the apparently simple to the  complex. We are trying to build up a natural concept  of the whole, and for that as well as other reasons we  are avoiding a recourse to philosophical considerations. 
The temptation is very strong for investigators when  they approach the domains of life and mind, so different  apparently from that of physical science, to abandon the  scientific categories of research for philosophical categories,  and to seek for an explanation of the phenomena of life  in concepts which sound strange and alien to science. 
No wonder that most biologists, frightened by this procedure  and by this appeal to ideas and methods of which they  are traditionally suspicious, react in the opposite direction,  and seek refuge in purely mechanical ideas and explanations  of the phenomena of life. At first sight the concept of  the whole may appear to wear a metaphysical garb ; but  whatever its occasional use in other connections, the  intention here is to eschew metaphysics and to hammer  out a concept which will supply a real and deeply felt  want in the explanation of organic processes, and which  will at the same time give expression to the natural  affiliations of the phenomena of life with those of matter  on the one hand and of mind on the other. We shall  follow the scientific clues as far as is in any way possible  in the carrying out of this intention. Above all it is neces-  sary to make the concept of the whole as simple, clear and  definite as possible.

I wish to guard against the impression that philosophy has  no contribution to make to the consideration of the whole  and Holism generally. On the contrary, here as elsewhere  the last word will probably be with philosophy. There is a 
Metaphysic or Logic of Holism still to be written, which will  lay bare the ultimate ideas involved and their relations  and validity. That task is not attempted here. Avoiding  the metaphysical implications, I am in this book merely 
vi FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES 129 
endeavouring to elucidate as clearly and simply as possible  the idea of the whole with its most obvious general  consequences, and to state the broad effect which its clear  realisation must have on our methods of thought and research.

Let me repeat what was said in the last chapter; the  whole is not a general principle or tendency; it is a  structure or schema. A natural body or organism can be  analysed into two factors; the form, structure or schema,  and the concrete characters or qualities which fill up  that form or structure. For these concrete characters  or qualities we have in every case to rely on experience;  the colour, feel or smell of a thing or the characters  of an animal can only be learnt from observation or  experience in any particular case. But the form or  structure involves features which can be most conveniently  generalised into concepts, and if these concepts are clear  and definite, results can again be deduced from them  which make them most useful as counters of thought and  explanation. The generalised concepts of space and time  as developed, not so much by the philosophers as by  the mathematicians, have these qualities of clearness and  definiteness which make them specially fruitful for in-  vestigating the structure of the physical world, as we  have seen in the discussion of the Theory of Relativity. 
And similarly the concept of the whole, if clearly appre-  hended and firmly held, may become a powerful means  of exploring the intricate phenomena of life and mind. 
The concept of the whole is a generalised structure  or schema, a framework to be filled in in any particular  case; and it is this structural or schematic character  which brings it close to that concrete character which  distinguishes all natural objects in the world of experience. 
For the sake of clearness let us proceed to analyse the  fundamental characters of a whole as we see it exemplified  in, say, a simple organism.

A whole is a synthesis or unity of parts, so close that  it affects the activities and interactions of those parts,  impresses on them a special character, and makes them

K

130 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP, 
different from what they would have been in a combination  devoid of such unity or synthesis. That is the fundamental  element in the concept of the whole. It is a complex of  parts, but so close and intimate, so unified, that the char-  acters and relations and activities of the parts are affected  and changed by the synthesis. The analogy of a physical  mixture and a chemical compound is very useful and  instructive in this connection, and we have already seen  that in a real though limited sense a chemical compound  is a whole. A whole is not some tertium quid over and  above the parts which compose it; it is these parts in  their intimate union and the new reactions and functions  which result from that union. It is a new structure of  those parts, with the altered activities and functions which  flow from this structure. The parts are not lost or destroyed  in the new structure into which they enter; the atoms or  molecules persist in the new compound, just as the cells  persist in the organism. But their independent functions  and activities are, just as themselves, grouped, related,  correlated and unified in the structural whole. A new  bent is impressed on these functions. They follow a new  modus operandi in the new pattern of the whole. To the  structural unity of the parts in the whole corresponds an  equally and perhaps even more significant functional unity  or correlation of activities. Just as in dynamics a body  subject to pulls in various directions moves with one result-  ant velocity in one definite direction, so the functions and  the activities of the parts in the whole are all co-ordinated  and unified into one complex character which belongs or  appears to belong to the whole as such. With this differ-  ence, again (just as in the difference between a physical  mixture and a chemical compound), that the resultant  function is not a mere addition and composition of the  unaltered composing functional elements, but the change  involves both these elements and their final result. Thus  taking x to represent a mixture and x l to represent a whole,  we cannot say that a + b + c + d x (mixture) in the  one case and = x l (whole) in the other ; but in the synthesis 
vi FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES 131 
which results in x l the functions of the parts themselves  are changed into a v b v c v d v so that corresponding to  the formula of mixture a + b+c+d = x we have the  holistic formula a x + b + q + d v = x v It is most im-  portant to realise this point ; both the individual functions  of the parts (cells, organs, etc.) and their composition or  correlation in the complex are affected and altered by the  synthesis which is the whole. Not only does the synthesis  of the parts influence and indeed constitute the whole ;  the whole in its turn impresses its character on each indi-  vidual part, which feels its influence in the most real and  intimate manner. The whole-ward tendency and activity  of the parts are most deeply characteristic of the nature of  the whole. This, then, is the primary and most important  element in the concept of the whole : the synthetic unity  of structure and its functions which affects the parts and  their functions or activities without their loss or destruction. 
The unity, although so close and intimate and so deeply  affecting the parts and their functions, is not such as to  merge the parts completely, but to leave them a latitude  which varies with individual wholes at the same state of  development, and still more at different stages of develop-*  ment.

From this fundamental unification of the parts which con-  stitute the whole, and the intimate reciprocal influence which  parts and whole exert on each other, follow certain results  of great importance for our general concept of the whole.

In the first place, unity of action, which is characteristic  of the whole, shows itself in the marked power of regulation  and correlation which the whole appears to possess in  respect of its parts. This is perhaps the most striking  feature of organic wholes; however complex they are, a  certain balanced correlation of functions is maintained. 
If there is any disturbance among the parts which upsets  the routine of the whole, then either this disturbance is  eliminated by the co-operative effort of many or all the  parts, or the functions of the other parts are so readjusted  that a new balance and routine is established. The synthetic  unity of the whole produces synthetic or holistic action  throughout the whole; the activities and functions of the  parts also become holistic, so that in addition to their  ordinary routine they have a whole-ward aspect or tendency  which becomes active whenever the balance of the whole  is disturbed. It is this holistic character distinguishing  the activity and functions not only of the whole but also  of its parts which underlies the remarkable phenomena of  co-operation among cells to which attention was drawn in  the fourth chapter. The co-operation is not so much the  interaction of independent units as in truth and really the  pressure of the whole on the parts. Indeed the entire  function or system of the organism is holistic ; the synthetic  unity of the whole is so deeply stamped on the parts and  reflected in the activities of the parts, that they all appear  to " play up " to each other, and to co-operate in maintaining  or, in case of disturbance, restoring the balance of equilibrium  of activities which is characteristic of the particular whole. 
From the synthetic unity of the whole follows the holistic  action of all its parts, as well as the characteristic power of  correlating and regulating which the whole seems to exert  in respect of the parts. All these properties really flow from  the idea and nature of the whole ; once this idea is clearly  realised, the true principle of organic explanation is found,  and the application of the ideas and methods of mechanism  or vitalism becomes superfluous, as we shall see later.

In order to assist us in rendering clear our ideas of the  whole and holistic action, as distinguished from those of a  mechanical aggregate and mechanical action, let us consider  a material system in dynamic equilibrium, which has many  analogies to the ideas we are exploring. The character  of such a system is that within certain limits it will maintain  its equilibrium against disturbance and interference. If it  meets with any disturbance, such as an external impact  or any interference with its internal movements, its equi-  librium will for a moment be disturbed; but immediately  readjustments will take place, the effects of the disturbance  will become distributed throughout the system, new positions 
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of the parts and new movements of these parts will result,  with the effect that a fresh equilibrium is established, and  the system, with a somewhat altered arrangement of parts  and movements, will once more be in dynamic equilibrium. 
When we pass from this physical system to an organic  whole a transformation of ideas takes place : the system  becomes a synthesis qualitatively different from the system,  a synthesis so intense that a new unity arises and a different  order of ideas becomes necessary for its explanation. To  the mechanical readjustment of the parts correspond the  regulation and correlation which the organic whole exercises  in respect of its parts; with this difference, again, that,  while the new mechanical equilibrium is the exact mathe-  matical resultant of the component forces, in the organic  whole, parts and whole reciprocally influence and alter  each other instead of merely the parts making up the whole,  and in the end it is practically impossible to say where the  whole ends and the parts begin, so intimate is their inter-  action and so profound their mutual influence. In fact so  intense is the union that the differentiation into parts and  whole becomes in practice impossible, and the whole seems  to be in each part, just as the parts are in the whole. There*  is an intensification of synthesis or unity, as we rise from  the mechanical composition to the chemical compound,  and from this again to the organic whole ; an intensification  which is already qualitatively different as between the first  two, but which becomes entirely sui generis in the last. To  mistake the unity of the whole for the mere mechanical  system of dynamics, and the holistic action which shows  itself in organic regulation, correlation and co-operative  interaction for the readjustment of forces and self-mainten-  ance of equilibrium in the dynamic system, is to confound  two quite different orders of ideas and facts. The whole  differs essentially from the mechanical system; holistic  action or function differs even more essentially from the 
" action " or " reaction " of dynamics, and from the mean-  ing of those terms as used in Newton's Laws of Motion  and still current in the physical science of to-day.

1
Watch the activities of an animal. See how innumerable  movements are blended in one definite action. The unity  and specificity of the action are not reducible to mechanical  terms ; it is not the dynamical equivalent of its components,  it follows a quite different pattern or plan. Its unity is  indeed unique and only explicable by resort to new categories. 
In other words, organic action is holistic and not merely  mechanical.

In other directions too the nature of the whole brings  about this intensive transformation of concepts. Let us  take the idea of cause and see how it is affected by the  concept of the whole. The causal idea is quite an interest-  ing test to apply to the whole, and it will help to elucidate  the point we are dealing with, as well as some other points  that concern the nature of the whole. The question, for  instance, whether the whole is something different from  and additional to its parts is paralleled by the question  whether the whole acts as a cause as distinct from its parts ;  in other words, is the causality of the whole exhausted by  the causal operation of its parts, or is there something over  and above the influence of the parts which must be attributed  to the whole as such? I have already explained that the  whole is nothing but the specific synthesis of the parts and  not something additional to them. Similarly the causality  of the whole is not an additional factor, but simply the  causality of the parts in their intimate synthesis in the  whole. In mechanical composites each element in opera-  tion or action has its own effect and is a separate cause;  and the final result is the resultant blending of all these  separate effects. In the whole, as we have seen, there is  not this individual separate action of the parts; there is  a synthesis which makes the elements or parts act as one  or holistically ; and the action or function is an inseparable  holistic unity just in proportion as the synthesis is a  whole or realises the character of wholeness. It is in  this sense, and in this sense only, that the whole is a cause ;  it is a cause not apart from its parts, but solely through  their synthesis in action. The whole fuses the action of 
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its elements into a real synthesis, into a unity which makes  the result quite different from what it would have been as  the separate activities of the parts. The structural synthesis  of the whole results in a similar synthesis of activity or  function. Just as the whole as a structural unity, and  only as such, is something different, something new com-  pared with its parts in their separateness or isolation, so  too its action is radically different from the blending of  their separate actions.

Thus the causality of the whole is explained, and from  this explanation one can appreciate how immensely com-  plicated the action or functioning of an organism must be. 
When a stimulus is applied to an organism a whole is  set in motion, and the response which results is not merely  an affair of the original stimulus, but of the entire whole  in all its unique complication of parts and functions which  has been set in motion. The comparatively simple, isolable  phenomenon of causation as observed in the interaction of  material bodies undergoes a complete and radical trans-  formation when observed in the case of an organism ; and  the difference is not a mystery, but is deducible from the  nature of the whole as exemplified by an organism. I shall  return to this matter immediately, and pass on to another  important result of the nature of a whole.

In the preceding chapters I have more than once  used the word " creative/' I have called the whole 
" creative " ; I have called Evolution " creative " ; I have  even applied the term to matter in its structural char-  acterisation. It is important to see in what sense wholes,  or Evolution generally, or even matter is called " creative/ 1  and the foregoing discussion will have prepared us for  the explanation which follows. There is a sense in  which the word " creation " falls outside the scope of  an intelligible science or philosophy. I refer to abso-  lute creation creation, that is to say, out of nothing. 
Absolute creation just as absolute annihilation cannot be  comprehended by the human mind. E nihilo nihil fit is a  fundamental principle of thought as well as of Nature.

1
But there is another form of creation which is not only  intelligible but follows directly from the explanation of  holistic action which I have already given. Holistic action  is creative, and is the only form of creation or creativeness  which is intelligible to us. Here again the distinction  between mere physical mixtures and chemical compounds  illustrates the difference between what is and what is not  creative. A mere mechanical aggregate is nothing new,  and is no more than the sum of the mixed ingredients, while  the chemical compound is new in the sense that out of the  constituent materials another qualitatively different sub-  stance has been made. A new structure has been formed  in the chemical compound. In the same way a new struc-  ture and substance is made in the atom out of the quali-  tatively different electrons and protons. It was on this  account and in this sense that we called matter creative;  creative, that is to say, of structures and substances different  from their constituent elements or parts.

It is, however, when we come to consider organisms that  we see the whole creative in a full and proper sense. In  thought we distinguish between the deductive and the  inductive between the deduction of the particular from  the general, the drawing out, unfolding, or explicating what  is given, and the reverse inductive process, the integration  or synthesis of the given parts or elements into a new,  more complex content. The action of organisms proceeds  on the analogy of induction. We have seen how the char-  acteristic feature of organic process is metabolism, the  transformation of the given materials into something  different, of the inorganic into the organic, of the organic  material of one kind into that of another kind. Creative  synthesis is characteristic of all organic actions and functions.

But it is not in metabolism only that this creative trans-  formation is exemplified ; perhaps the phenomena of growth  and development afford even more characteristic and  significant examples of the creative synthesis which is  the clearest expression of the nature of Holism. Creation  is stamped on the face of organic nature; the differences 
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which separate individuals into species, genera, orders and  so forth are real differences which were either originally  created in one great creative Act at the beginning, or were  creatively evolved in the gradual process of organic descent,  so that the Process is creative. Everywhere we meet the  new, which is irreducible to the old elements from whicli  it seems to have sprung; the qualities and characters on  which new stable varieties or species are founded cannot  be explained on the basis of known pre-existing qualities  or characters. And even where it is possible to recognise  certain of the old elements in the new, the new is some-  thing different and contains something more than the old  elements. We may say that the creative synthesis consists  in the making of a new arrangement of old elements, that  the old elements have been fixed in a new structure which  has different qualities from the old pre-existing structure ;  in this case it would only be the synthesis which is really  new. But to my mind if we take big stretches of organic  descent and compare the main great Types which distinguish  the Vegetable and Animal kingdoms, we must inevitably  come to the conclusion that there is more than this in the  creative process of evolution. Compare a protozoon with  a vertebrate animal, or one of the higher animals with  man, and it surely becomes foolish to say that the elementary  units are the same in both cases, and only their arrange-  ment or synthesis into structures is different. Mere re-  arrangement of supposed unalterable pre-existing elements,  mere reshufflings of the old cards, will give us a sort of  chemistry of Evolution, but not the vast range of real  effective advance which we know. The process of creative 
Evolution is not a mechanical rearrangement of old  material; it involves the qualitatively new at every stage,  from the most minute elements to the most complex struc-  ture. It is not merely the structure which is new and  different from what has gone before, some of the materials  are also new ; the details of the new structure also involve  new smaller structures along with the old inherited  structures ; and in the final analysis (if that were possible)  we would find among the elementary units also new ones  in addition to the old ones carried forward in the process  of descent. There is the creation of the new variety or  species (the new structure) ; there is the creation of new  unit characters (parts of the structure) which justify the  new species or variety ; and there is behind the new unit  characters not mere re-arrangements of elements of old  character units, but an integration of new materials or  quality elements with the old elements in the formation  of the new unit characters. The process is creative of  the new at every step and at every stage, and in the  smallest quality elements no less than in the large or  total structures. Starting from imaginary elements a, 6, c,  d, we find in organic advance in no case a mere struc-  tural regrouping of these elements only, but everywhere  an element of qualitative newness, x, incorporated along  with the old elements into the new structure. In every  advance we would find not merely a new structure but also  an % in one form or another. I have used the concept of  units or elements for the purpose of illustration ; but really  the creative process of Evolution is holistic, and in the last  resort unanalysable into definite units; the blending of  inherited with new structures and characters is so close  that no dissociation is possible, and it is impossible to say  where the old elements end and the new begin. But beyond  any manner of doubt in the advance the new is there along  with the old in such a way that we can only understand the  process, both in its entirety and in its minutest detail, as a  real creative one.

It may be argued that my view of organic creativeness as  meaning, not merely new grouping or structures but also  new character units and quality elements, brings us back  to that conception of absolute creation which I have already  declared to be incomprehensible. Is it not better then, it  may be asked, to fall back on the idea of potentiality rather  than creativeness, and to conceive the organic advance as  the rendering actual what was implicit and potential in the  organism in the beginning? In this way new characters 
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which emerge in the course of organic descent would not  be taken as absolutely new, but as the appearance or emerg-  ence of potential characters which were there all along in the  ancestors of the new organism. My answer would be that the  concept of potentiality is quite useful but not applicable  here ; the expression of the implicit new is usually a very  long process which may occupy an indefinite number of  generations before its actual emergence in a new sensible  character or species. During this process of subsensible  growth or incubation the character may be fairly described  as potential in the ancestors of the new species. But to  go further back and to say that the new is there in potential  form from the very beginning is to fall back into the pre-  formation view of Evolution which we have already in the  last chapter discarded as making a farce of all real organic  advance. Potentiality presupposes that the real creative  work is already done, and that the slow finishing touches of  expression alone remain to be put on. We have simply to  face the facts of Nature frankly as we find them ; and to my  mind there is no doubt, however hard it is to picture to our-  selves the underlying idea of creation, that the emergence of  the really new, in other words, the creativeness of the  evolutionary process, is the only view which is in harmony  with our scientific knowledge. Real creativeness is a  fundamental characteristic of holistic structure and action. 
It necessarily means such integration of structures and  activities as results in new characters not there before and  which cannot be reduced to pre-existing elements. Holistic  action, therefore, necessarily issues in real progress and  creative Evolution.

There is no doubt that the concept of creativeness raises  a fundamental issue in respect both of reality and know-  ledge. If there is this evolution or making not only of  new wholes or structures, but also of new quality elements  therein, the whole fabric of Mechanism as ordinarily under-  stood is shaken to its foundations. The iron rule of the  past is broken; the future is not a mere rehearsal of the  past; in many cases the new effect is more than its 
i 4 pre-existing cause. The universe ceases to be a hide-bound,  cast-iron, completely closed system from which real progress  and freedom are excluded. It is open in one direction,  the direction in which time is moving; the future faces an  open gateway, and the universe is the highway of the  creative movement, of that great march in which all the unit  wholes and formations of Reality take their part and advance  towards a fuller measure of wholeness. The freedom is  limited, the movement is slow, the character of the universe  is essentially conservative. But at any rate conservatism  is not the last word to be said about it. It does not  go like a clock, completely manufactured, and once for all  wound up at the beginning to mark a time fixed and pre-  determined for it. It is slowly making itself, it is slowly  winding itself up, it is slowly making its own time. It is  a slow, tentative, perhaps in details a somewhat blundering  process ; but it is real and creative ; the new successful  effort is for ever issuing out of the old mistakes, and a  slow advance is being laboriously recorded and continuously  maintained. This figurative language, although perhaps  somewhat highly coloured, is really no exaggeration. 
" Creativeness " is the key- word, and it is also the key  position in the great battle which is now being fought out  between the nineteenth-century and the twentieth-century  conceptions of the nature and trend of the universe, between 
Mechanism as ordinarily understood and what is here called 
Holism. Those who wish to defend the old position of 
Mechanism (and they are still the great majority in the  army of Science) will have to concentrate their forces at  this point. If the concept of creativeness, of the emergent  new in the Evolution of the universe, really wins through, 
Mechanism as a scientific and philosophical category will  be reduced to very modest proportions.

The creativeness of Evolution at all stages has indeed the  most profound effect on our views of Nature and her order  and on all our methods of explaining her processes. To  illustrate this let us revert once more to the oft-quoted  difference between a mere physical mixture and a chemical 
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compound. The mixture is, like the compound, a structure,  much looser, of course, than the compound, but still a  structure of sorts. But the compound differs from it in  being a radically different structure, a new structure has  emerged in the compound, a creative moment has entered  into the process which was not there before. And the result  is a complete difference in all the pertinent phenomena of  the two. Even our very categories of description have to  undergo a corresponding transformation. If we tried  to describe the properties and actions of a chemical com-  pound on the same principles as those of a mechanical  mixture, we would go grievously wrong, and the real facts  would be hopelessly distorted. The creative moment which  has entered into the chemical compound in its passage from  a mere physical mixture, the new structure which has  resulted from the change, requires new concepts and principles  of description. And this is freely admitted by chemists  and physicists alike. The case for new categories of descrip-  tion becomes far stronger at the next creative advance,  where chemical structure is transformed into organic struc-  ture. In both cases new wholes are produced, and we  may therefore say that Holism is at work ; in the organic  structure the creative advance is admittedly far greater  than in the chemical compound. The concentration  and intensification of structure which we call the whole  in the organism are comparatively far greater and higher  than the similar phenomena in the chemical compound  as compared to the mere mixture. Something indisputably  new has been produced; there has been creation; a  new structure has arisen which has its own categories  of description; and to apply mere chemical and physical  concepts of action and description to this new structure  is to ignore the creative advance which has taken  place and to confound two entirely different, however  closely related, structures and stages of Evolution. The  physico-chemical view and explanation of organism there-  fore rest on a fundamental misconception and on a denial  or disregard of the creative advance in natural Evolution. 
i 4
There is the physical description of the mixture; there is  the chemical description of the compound; and there is  what I call the holistic description of the organism, which  recognises the qualitative newness and sui generis nature  of the structure which bears the characters of what we call  life. The apparent materials may even be the same in all  three cases ; but the character and intensity of their union  in each case varies in such a way that entirely different  structures with entirely different characters result. There is  a rising element of wholeness in all three structures, and the  holistic character is by no means confined to the third or  organic structure. But its wholeness is much more marked  and pronounced than that of the other two; it is, in fact,  the very type and exemplar of a whole; and a purely  physico-chemical explanation of its nature and functions  cannot possibly do justice to this unique holistic character. 
This is but another way of affirming the creative character  of the advance from the mere physical mixture to the  chemical structure, and still more in the advance from the  chemical to the organic structure in Nature. The creative  advance is the fact, to which our conceptual theories of  explanation have to conform. The creativeness consists  in the progressive advance in respect of the character of  wholeness which distinguishes the three stages of structure ;  and the advance is in a geometrical rather than an arith-  metical progression, that is to say, the ratio of wholeness  increases with the advance. The physical and chemical  categories still apply, but they are not sufficient, and have to  be supplemented by the holistic categories which correspond  to and express the greater and qualitatively more intense  wholeness which characterises the organism as distinguished  from the mixture or the compound.

Let me here point out that it is not all causation which  is creative ; much of the causation in the universe is purely  mechanical and produces nothing new. Only wholes are  creative ; only the causality of wholes produces effects which  are really new. Structure in fact and in Nature arises from  pre-existing structures whether in the organic or inorganic 
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domain. Omne vivum e vivo is a formula which applies to  all wholes and not merely to organic wholes. Only wholes  produce wholes, and only in wholes does the new emerge ;  wholes form the pathway of creative reality; only the  causality of wholes is creative of the new.

This is so because of what I have already pointed out  above when discussing how a whole transforms a " cause "  or stimulus applied to it into something quite different from  what it was before. If an external " cause " is applied to  an organism or a living body it will become internalised and  transformed, and will be experienced as a stimulus, which  in its turn will be followed by a response. The response is  not the mere mechanical effect of the cause, and this is due  to the complete transformation which the latter has under-  gone. In the moment which elapses between stimulus and  response a miracle is performed; a vast series of organic  changes is set going of which comparatively little is known  as yet. The inorganic becomes organic, the alien stuff of  the environment is recreated into the stuff of the living  organism. The organic changes which take place are  assumed to have their physical and chemical equivalents ; but  even though that is so, they are much more than the mere  physico-chemical tale they tell. The stimulus has been  transformed and absorbed and become a series of states  of the organism; the organism has made the stimulus  its own, as it were. And as a result the response is not  the mere passive effect of the stimulus, but is the free and  spontaneous movement of the organism itself under the  influence of the appropriate stimulus. The passive external  stimulus has been recreated into an active, free response  of the organism. Anything passing through the organic  whole thereby becomes completely changed. Any action  issuing from it has the stamp of the whole upon it. The  procedure is transformative, synthetic, recreative, holistic,  and the result is " new " in one degree or another.

From this it will be seen that if the concept of causation  is to be retained in connection with organic or psychical  activities, it will have to be substantially recast. The  resultant activity of an organism under a stimulus is never  the effect of that stimulus, as it would be in the case of  mechanical action, but always of the stimulus as trans-  formed by the organism; the organism appears as the  dominant element in the causal concept, and the stimulus  appears in a minor role. The more active the state of the  organism, and the more thorough its reaction to the stimulus,  the less is the influence of the stimulus on the response,  which appears as the free and almost original action of the  organism. The organic response is often so great com-  pared to the stimulus, it is so out of all proportion to it and  so transcends it in every way, that the organism appears  clearly as the real cause, and the stimulus merely as a  minor condition or excitation.

It is thus seen that the organism is a new system, with its  own activities and laws and categories of action and descrip-  tion. It is a new centre, with a large measure of inde-  pendence of the environment. This does not mean that  the environment does not influence it, but it means that  the environment influences it only indirectly and after a  more or less complete transformation and metabolism of  such influence. Vis-d-vis the environment the organism is  something apart and unique, something sui generis, which  does not passively accept and reproduce the influence of the  environment, but utilises and appropriates it for its own  purposes and in its own ways, as if it were some superior  arbiter and disposer of the whole situation. The concepts of  dominion, of mastery, of creation which the orthodox view  places at the beginning of things are now distributed and  assigned to all organisms, whose inmost nature it is only  possible to express through these concepts. In other words,  organism is not so much an effect of external causes ; nor  are its states and characters merely effects of external causes ;  it is in a large measure its own cause causa sui and the  cause of its own states and functions. External environ-  mental influences are merely the rough material with which  it works and builds up its own system. And in the act of  building the material is itself more or less completely 
vi FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES 145 
changed into the character of the structure built. I say 
" more or less," because this character of creative mastery  and transformation which organism displays in respect of  external influences and materials is itself of a progressive  character. In the lower organisms there is much more of  passive acceptance and response than in the higher; and  the whole process of Evolution is largely a continuous growth  towards organic independence and self -regulation ; in other  words, towards wholeness. The concept of wholeness  contains and explains all the distinguishing organic attributes  in their various grades throughout the wide range of organic 
Evolution.

Thus it is that the creative element in Evolution, the  emergent new, is associated with the nature and action of  wholes, and is confined to them. Not only is the activity  of wholes holistic and creative, as yet it is the only creative  activity of which we have knowledge.

From this discussion it is clear how the concept of Free-  dom is rooted in that of the organic whole. The whole is  free, the parts are bound : such would be a formula of  metaphysics. For beyond the whole there is nothing ex-  ternal to determine it, and it is therefore free ; while the parts  are necessarily bound by their relation to the whole and  to each other in the whole. But we are not concerned with  metaphysical wholes, but with those of reality, such as  organisms. And we have seen how the functioning of an  organic whole releases it from the domination, the causation  of the external, and conduces to its freedom. The external  causation, the stimulus which operates on it ab extra, is  transformed by its subtle metabolism into something of  itself; otherness becomes self ness; the pressure of the  external or the other is transformed into the action of itself. 
The organism is largely detached from its surroundings and  centres in itself. Necessity is transformed into freedom. 
The causal chain of physics becomes the new badge of  freedom. The whole, therefore, even in its most humble  organic forms, lays the foundations of the new world of  freedom. We can arrive at the same result by another 
L  process of reasoning, based on the creative activity of 
Holism. Under the physical system the effect equals the  cause, and is therefore completely determined by the cause. 
Causa = effectum. But we have seen how this formula  disappears before creative Holism ; how the effect comes to  contain the new and therefore to transcend its cause. The  element of newness, of novelty in the holistic order of the  world, means a release from the complete bondage of matter  and its causality and necessity. It means a certain latitude  for expansion and growth. It widens the range of possi-  bilities; the straight and narrow path of physics becomes  the prospect which ultimately widens into the great horizons  of life and mind. Freedom broadens out into a world of  opportunities. The animal finds that it is no longer im-  prisoned in its cell like the plant ; it begins to move about. 
Gradually it learns the great lessons of direction and self-  direction. The great Experiment of life assumes ever-  widening degrees of freedom, until finally at the human  stage freedom takes conscious control and begins to  create the free ethical world of the Spirit. With that  development we shall deal at a later stage of this work. 
Here it must suffice to have pointed out the humble begin-  nings of Freedom. And even at this stage it is important  to bear in mind that the domain of life is largely distinguished  from that of matter and energy by its greater degrees of  freedom. Scientists speak of the degrees of freedom even  in an inorganic situation. And by this they mean the  element of contingency which seems inseparable even from  the purely physical order. The causal chain of Nature,  the necessity which characterises the procession of physical  events, does not exclude elements of chance or contingency. 
An event may happen in this way or that way; there are  alternatives between which only the actual fact can decide. 
To these possibilities or alternatives the phrase " degrees  of freedom " is applied. But in the domain of life it acquires  an added meaning, or rather, let me say, a real meaning. 
Life is not entirely bound, even in its most primitive forms. 
Hence its trials and experiments, its variations, its novelties 
vi FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES 147 
and its creativeness, which become ever more accentuated  in its progress. Evolution traces the grand line of escape  from the prison of matter to the full freedom of the Spirit. 
It is clear that the beginnings of freedom are laid far back  in the early dawn of life itself, if not earlier.

The above discussion of unified organic functioning, or  unity of action, causation, creation, and freedom will suffice to  indicate how the whole as factor and concept involves a trans-  formation of physical actions and categories. They have  been selected as samples of holistic functions and categories  and are not intended to be in any sense an exhaustive  enumeration of such functions and categories. A full  list would, for instance, include " individuality " and " pur-  posiveness " as essential features, functions, and categories  of wholes. They are, however, referred to in Chapter IX  in connection with Mind as an organ of Holism. At this  stage it is only necessary to make the briefest reference to  them. Thus with regard to the character and category of  individuality it is only necessary to point out here that  individuality is distinctive of wholes. Wholes are not  arbitrarily divisible and the divided parts are not arbitrarily  interchangeable. Every whole has a real character, a  unique identity, and an irreversible orientation which  distinguishes it from everything else and is the very essence  of individuality. And this character of individuality rises  with the rise of wholes in the scale of Evolution, and acquires  decisive importance at the ultimate level of human Per-  sonality. Purposiveness, again, is a special form of that  unified organic action which has already been discussed. 
It means a correlation and unification of actions towards  an end, whether this is consciously conceived or apprehended  or not. On the animal plane and especially on the psychical  level of Evolution it is quite distinctive of wholes. In an  exhaustive treatment of holistic characters and categories  individuality and purposiveness would have no less impor-  tant a place than those above discussed.

Let us now pass on to consider organism as a centre of  internal regulation, adjustment and co-ordination of its  own functions and activities. The phenomena that meet  us here are indeed most wonderful. No cunningly devised  machine of human contrivance can rival or even approach  in delicacy of co-ordination or fineness as well as complexity  of adjustment the organic wholes we see in Nature. Pro-  fessor Haldane has described the wonderful combination of  processes which go to make up the physiology of breathing l  a combination which is marvellous enough under normal  conditions, but which becomes far more so when we see how  curiously breathing adjusts itself to abnormal conditions, to  situations artificially brought about, which it has probably  never had to face in all time. No " experience " or here-  ditary " memory " can guide it here; and yet it rises to  the occasion every time, within a wonderfully wide range of  adaptability and plasticity. Practically every major physio-  logical function shows the same power of co-ordination of  various organs and activities, and the same delicacy and  ingenuity of adjustment to novel situations. Any one of  the functional features involved would be a wonder in  itself; but when the co-ordinated combination of all is  studied, when, moreover, the great variety of adjustments  of this combination to unusual situations is considered, the  marvel becomes baffling to our human intelligence. The  most delicate processes, involving vast numbers of co-  operating factors, happen not clumsily or slowly, but most  finely and as it were in less than the twinkling of an eye.

What guides and controls such a complex physiological  process? Intelligence such as we know it is clearly not  equal to the task; nor have we any reason to ascribe  intelligence to organic processes. The assumption of a  vital force explains nothing, as our problem concerns some-  thing far more subtle and directive than force. Again,  to look upon it as a marvellous self-working mechanism  does not meet the real situation, which is more than  one of mechanism, however marvellous. The theory of 
Evolution presupposes an original start from simple  beginnings, which have multiplied, evolved and become

1 Organism and Environment, 1917. 
vi FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES 149 
complex in the course of Evolution. The pure chance  presupposed by Mechanists has never ruled the world. 
There has never been a blind sorting out of possibilities  according to the laws of probability; and if there had  been, the chances against the present organic situation  in the world would have been infinite. Not thus has the  new arisen and gone forward. The new has always arisen  in the bosom of the old, and under its aegis and influence. 
Not blind chance or contingency but the existing state of  affairs has always shaped the course and direction of Evolu-  tion. The new arises from the old and largely at its prompt-  ing, and thus in harmony with it. Its novelty is very small  compared to its essential conservatism. Variation is infini-  tesimal compared to Heredity. It is this fundamental  character of unity, unitariness and wholeness as distinct  from mechanical aggregation of parts which seems to me  to explain the phenomena of organic regulation and co-  ordination. Organisms, of course, contain a great deal of  mechanism; the detailed processes and functions are  largely carried out by what one might call organic mechan-  isms, structures with particular functions assigned to them. 
But the unification of the entire system and its self-regulating  character; its plasticity of co-ordination and adjustment  under all the situations of the environment which it has to  face and to which it has to adapt itself ; its creative move-  ment in time, so different from what one would expect on  the second law of thermodynamics; the unique facts of  growth, restitution and reproduction, which not even a  strained application of the mechanistic scheme would fit  these are facts and features distinctive of wholes which 
Holism alone can properly justify and explain.

It may be convenient if, before concluding this chapter, 
I give a summary of the various functions which are here  assigned to Holism in the shaping of reality.

(A) i. In the first place, Holism is a creative factor,  and as such shows itself in the upbuilding and differentia-  tion of organic structures and their functions. These may  be modifications or variations or mutations. They may  be ordinary specific differences such as explain the origin of  different species. These differences may include new organs  and structures, or merely the general complexifying of  existing structures which makes organisms as a whole more  complex. All these aspects of Holism are discussed in 
Chapter VIII.

2. This creative Holism is, of course, responsible for  the whole course of Evolution, inorganic as well as organic. 
All the great main types of existence are therefore due to  it, such as the atom, molecule, cell, organism, the great  groups of plant types, the great groups of animal types,  and finally the human type. Creative Holism is thus  responsible for all the great divisions of Science. The  cursory discussion of these aspects of Holism is spread over  various chapters.

(B) i. In the second place, apart from the detailed  structural and functional differentiations above referred  to, Holism is a general organising, co-ordinating or regulating  factor in organisms over which it exercises a measure of  guidance, direction and control. The nature of this regu-  lative or controlling activity is discussed in this chapter,  and the difficulties it gives rise to in its relation to the  body or the energy system generally are discussed in Chapters 
VII and X.

2. This regulation and control is exercised over the  structures and functions of organisms generally, but some-  times special holistic organs are evolved, which seem  specially destined to assist in the exercise of this regulation  and control. Such special holistic organs are the ductless  glands which pour regulative secretions into the general  system, the nervous system, and especially the brain with  its correlate mind. These and other holistic organs are  special aids to Holism in its regulative activity. Various  aspects of these holistic organs are discussed in different  chapters.

(C) In the third place, in order to express and explain  these activities of Holism at the different grades of Evolu-  tion and at the various levels of differentiation of types 
vi FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES 151 
and structures, categories of the Whole or holistic categories  are necessary, some of which have been discussed in this  chapter and others are dealt with in other chapters. Thus  arise the physical, chemical, organic, psychical, and personal  categories, which are all expressive of holistic activity at  its various levels and reducible to terms of Holism.

Holism thus appears in this scheme as the fundamental  activity of the universe from which all others are derived;  and the concept of Holism is the ultimate category of  description and explanation from which likewise all other  categories are derived. Holism therefore constitutes the  ultimate view-point from which to orientate our survey of  all the various forms and departments of reality.

(D) There is one more aspect of creative Holism which 
I must for the sake of completeness mention, although its  exposition falls outside the plan of this work. We have  seen that Holism is creative of all structures, inorganic as  well as organic. Thus all the types of structure in the  worlds of matter and life are its work. But more; as we  proceed upward in the course of Evolution we find Holism  the source of all values. Love, Beauty, Goodness, Truth :  they are all of the whole; the whole is their source, and  in the whole alone they find their last satisfying explanation. 
Holism not only prescribes the law in the world of struc-  tures, forms and organisms; it is the very ground and  principle of the ideal world of the spirit. It is in the  sphere of spiritual values that Holism finds its clearest  embodiment in fact, and its most decisive vindication as  an ultimate category of explanation. Its creativeness will  nowhere be found more fruitful than in that last and  highest reach of its evolution. Here it would be premature  to do more than merely refer to this aspect of creative 
Holism. The exposition of its creative activity in shaping  the great Ideals of the Whole is, however, too large a task  to be undertaken in this introductory work.

CHAPTER VII

MECHANISM AND HOLISM

Summary. The discussion in the last two chapters has disclosed  a grading-up of such structures as can in any way be called holistic ;  beginning with the physico-chemical structures, into which physical  and chemical relations enter; passing on to bio-chemical structures  or organisms, into which those relations plus something new, usually  called life, enter; and culminating in psycho-physical structures, in  which all three relations enter, together with the new elements of mind  and personality. In this grading-up the earlier structures are not  destroyed but become the basis of later, more evolved synthetic  holistic structures; the character of wholeness increases with the  series and the elements of newness, variation and creativeness  become more marked.

Mechanism is a type of structure where the working parts maintain  their identity and produce their effects individually, so that the  activity of the structure is, at least theoretically, the mathematical  result of the individual activities of the parts. With the two  concepts of Mechanism and Holism before us we can see how the  natural wholes of the universe fall under both concepts. There is  a measure of Mechanism everywhere, and there is a measure of 
Holism everywhere ; but the Holism gains on the Mechanism in the  course of Evolution, it becomes more and more as Mechanism becomes  less and less with the advance. Holism is the more fundamental  activity, and we may therefore say that Mechanism is an earlier,  cruder form of Holism; the more Holism there is in structure, the  less there is of the mechanistic character, until finally in Mind and 
Personality the mechanistic concept ceases to be of any practical use.

What is the relation between the earlier (mechanistic) and the  later (holistic) elements in composite structures, such as bio-chemical  and psycho -physical wholes ? How can the material and the im-  material influence or act on each other? This is still one of the  great unsolved problems of philosophy, and science finds it no less  embarrassing. The tendency for science has as a rule been to look  upon the earlier physico-chemical structures as dominant, and upon  the later holistic elements of life and mind as essentially unreal or  as having only an apparent reality. Science looks upon the physical  realm as a closed system dependent only on physical laws, which

152

CHAP, vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 153 
leave no opening anywhere for the active intervention of non-  material entities like life and mind. On this view the activity and  causality of life and mind are therefore at bottom essentially illusory. 
On the other hand, if we have to be guided by our clear and unequi-  vocal experience and consciousness, nothing can be more certain  than that our human volition issues in active movements and external  actions. Besides, if life and mind were merely ineffective illusions,  how could they have arisen and grown in the struggle of existence ? 
While science denies reality to life and mind, the other side retort  by erecting them into vital and mental forces with a substantiality  of their own. Thus arises the counter-hypothesis of Vitalism. 
Both views as a matter of fact are one-sided and misleading; the  mechanistic view by ignoring the essentially holistic element in organic  or psychical wholes; the vitalistic view by misconceiving the vital  or psychic element in such wholes. The fundamental mistake is  the severance of essential elements in a whole and their hypostasis  into independent interacting entities or substances. Thus body and  mind wrongly come to be considered as two separate interacting  substances.

In reply to mechanistic Science it can be shown that the holistic  factors of life and mind do not interfere with the closed physical  system, and that a proper understanding of the laws of Thermo-  dynamics permits of the immanent activity of a factor of Selective-  ness and Self-direction, such as life or mind, without any derogation  from those laws.

Again, in reply to the Vitalists, who invent Entelechy or some  other substantive entity for the system, of life and mind, it can be  shown that no such deus ex machina is necessary; that the funda-  mental concept of Holism suffices to explain the creative, directive,  controlling activity of organic and psychic wholes ; and that the  attributes of life and mind are inherent in the advanced concept of  wholes, and in organisms and humans as wholes. We thus get rid of  the notion of separate interacting entities and view organisms and  humans as wholes, which involve both the earlier mechanistic and  the later holistic phases of Holism. As we have seen Mechanism to  be but an earlier, cruder phase of Holism, the problem essentially  disappears. A thorough grasp of the concept of wholes and its  consistent application to organisms and humans are thus a solvent  for the perennial Body-and-Mind problem. We thus envisage the  physico-chemical structures of Nature as the beginnings or earlier  phases of Holism, and " life " as a more developed phase of the same  inner activity. Life is not a new agent, with the mission of interfering  with the structures of matter ; it involves no disturbance of the prior  structures on which it is based. Holism has only advanced one step  further; there is a deeper structure, more selectiveness, more  direction, more control, But the new is a creative continuation of  the old and not a denial of or going back on it. Holism as an  active creative process means the movement of the universe  towards ever more and deeper wholeness. This is the essential  process, and all organic and psychic activities and relations  have to be understood as elements and forms of this process. No  explanation is possible which ignores this active creative inner whole  at the heart of all organic or psychic structures ; in the light of this  whole all apparent contradictions tend to disappear. This point is  further considered in Chapter X.

The fact of Evolution shows that Holism determines the course  and the character of the advance. Thus Holism is pulling all the  evolving structures faintly but perceptibly in the direction of greater  creative synthetic fullness of characters and meanings, in other  words, towards more wholeness. The inner trend of the universe,  registered in its very constitution, is directed away from the merely  mechanical towards the holistic type as its immanent ideal.

How Holism operates in organic Evolution will appear from the  next chapter.

AT various points in the preceding chapters I have  appeared to contrast Holism with Mechanism and to treat  them as opposed processes and concepts. We shall now  have to consider their relations more closely, as a proper  understanding of these relations will be found to underlie  some of the greatest problems both of science and of  thought. We shall see that Mechanism and Holism are  not necessarily opposed ; that both ideas have their proper  scope and sphere of usefulness, but that Holism is the more  fundamental concept and in its most far-reaching reactions  transforms, transcends and absorbs the concept of Mechan-  ism. A proper view of their interactions and inter-relations  and of the leading and more fundamental role of Holism  in comparison with Mechanism is in my opinion important  for science no less than for philosophy.

Let me, even at the risk of reiteration, return to what  has repeatedly been said before. For me the great problem  of knowledge, indeed the great mystery of reality, is just  this : How do elements or factors a and b come together,  combine and coalesce to form a new unity or entity x different  from both of them? To my mind this simple formula of  synthesis sums up all the fundamental problems of matter 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 155 
and life and mind. The answer to this question will in  some measure supply the key to all or most of our great  problems. My answer has already been given ; it is in one  word Holism. But it is necessary to show how the answer  works in detail, and what its relations are to the current  and popular view-points which still dominate our science  and philosophy. Science and philosophy alike are vast  structures, laboriously built up on the basis of certain  fundamental concepts. The attempt I am making is to  introduce into these elaborate systems a new basic concept,  perhaps more fundamental than any of them. And it will  be clear that such an attempt must be a most difficult and  hazardous one; it involves far-reaching readjustments of  settled points of view, the reopening of questions long looked  upon as answered and done with, the envisaging of many  old problems from a new and novel point of view. To insert  the spear-point of the new concept into these vast closed  settled systems may at first sight appear a revolutionary, an  iconoclastic procedure. But I hope I shall be able to show  that this is not really so, that at any rate to begin with the  concept of Holism will fit constructively into the work of  the past, whatever its ultimate effects may be in the reshaping  of these systems on the new basis; that in relation to the  old concepts it appears in the field not as an enemy but as a  friend and ally in the great battle of knowledge, and that  it will help materially in the solution of problems which are  practically insoluble on the lines of the old concepts. The  concept of Holism is brought forward as a reinforcement at  a critical point in the battle, in the hope that it will help to  bring victory. But I do not conceal the further hope that  in its ulterior effects it will lead to a recasting of much of the  situation of knowledge as at present envisaged, and will  render obsolete and replace much that is at present con-  sidered valuable if not fundamental both in science and  philosophy.

How then does the concept of Holism fit into that of 
Mechanism without directly negativing it, but with the ulti-  mate effect of transforming and transcending it? Let us  return to consider our formula once more from this point  of view. We have to consider how elements or entities  a and b produce the new unity or entity % different from  both; and how this involves the concepts of Holism and 
Mechanism. For the sake of simplicity I take as an illustra-  tion for discussion the case where only two elements enter  into the new entity, although usually the number of com-  ponent elements is much larger; the illustration will cover  all cases irrespective of the actual number of such elements. 
I also assume that the concept of Holism has been suffi-  ciently defined and explained in the two preceding chapters  to make its relation to the concept of Mechanism clear  without further definition. I need only repeat that the  concept of Mechanism involves a system or combination of  parts in relation to each other, of such a character that  these parts do not lose their identity or substantial independ-  ence in the combined role they play in the system. The  system consists of the parts maintained in their identity,  and its action is the resultant of the independent activities  of all these parts. The parts remain, and the activity of the  system is the mathematical summation of their activities. 
That is in essence the idea of Mechanism a system or  combination whose action can be mathematically calculated  from those of its component parts.

Now let us test the application of the concepts of Holism  and Mechanism to possible combinations or systems into  which the elements or parts a and b enter as components. 
What are these systems in Nature of which we have know-  ledge, and how do they exemplify our two concepts? We  find the following possible situations :

(i) Elements a and b are material elements in the loosest  possible mixture without any active relation to each other ;  this is the case of a mere mechanical mixture, in which there  is no combination of any sort whatever and nothing new  arises, and to which neither of our two concepts can be  usefully applied. The mixture is arbitrary or mechanical  in the vaguest sense, but is not and cannot be called a  mechanism, and it is the negation of the idea of a whole. 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 157

Mere juxtaposition in space and time is the only description  which could be applied to such a situation, which must  necessarily be a rare one in Nature.

(2) Elements a and b are material elements in active  physical relation to each other in the combination or system,  and this relation affects the characters of the combination. 
The relation may be one of gravity or electricity or magnetism  or any other of the forces by which matter acts on matter. 
In such a case the resultant system is physical, and may be  properly called a mechanism. There is combination of  parts, which do not lose their identity, and whose individual  actions are summed up and expressed in the action of the  system. The ordinary physical categories apply to such a  system.

(3) Elements a and b are material elements which enter  into chemical relation to each other, and without losing  their identity form a system which is in substance new and  different from the component elements. This is a chemical  combination of a substantially different character from the  physical combination mentioned under (2), which calls for  other categories of explanation besides the purely physical  ones. As the parts still retain their identity and individual  action, the concept of Mechanism applies to their combina-  tion; but it is evidently a different kind of mechanism in  which a higher degree and intensity of union of the parts  are displayed which affect the character and nature of the  resultant entity x. It is, of course, true that the New 
Physics is rapidly assimilating chemical categories of  explanation to physical categories, but a real difference in  the results remains; in character a chemical mechanism is  substantially different from a mere physical mechanism,  although ultimately the underlying forces of union may be  proved to be the same in both cases. Material substances  in Nature arise from the combination of both forms of union  or synthesis; hence all material substances are properly  called physico-chemical mechanisms.

(4) Elements a and b enter into a combination which  transforms one or both of them so completely that its or  their identity is lost and irrecoverable ; the resultant entity %  cannot be explained as the result of their separate and  individual influences and activities; and the merger of  elements is far more complete than in the preceding case (3) . 
If this were a complete statement of the facts the concept  of Mechanism would not apply here, and it would be a case  of Holism pure and simple. But as a matter of fact the  energy contents of the elements appear to be at any rate  quantitatively reproduced in the new entity x ; and besides,  x, in so far as it is a material system, still seems to conform to  a mechanistic type and arrangement of parts. In both  these respects, therefore, the concept of Mechanism may  still be partly applied to x. But A: is a mechanism of an  entirely new type, quite unlike the preceding case (3). It is  called a bio-chemical mechanism. But it is a mechanism  only in certain respects, and to a limited extent, and of a novel  character which necessitates new categories of action and  explanation. Beyond that it ceases to be a mechanism and  appears to conform to the idea of Holism in all other respects. 
This is the case where cell a takes in food b, which it trans-  forms into its own system according to a metabolism which  differs in material respects from the ordinary mechanical  phenomena of physics and chemistry. 1 This is also the case  where cell a unites with cell b to form a new entity, in which  both a and b disappear finally and irrecoverably, and whose  character and behaviour cannot be traced mathematically or  mechanically to those of a and b. The cases falling under 
(4) therefore display a mixture of Mechanism and Holism,  the relations of which it remains for us to study in this  chapter. They form the province of life, and at one end of  the vast ladder of life they are much more mechanistic and  at the other much more holistic in character. They are the  bio-chemical wholes which we shall discuss just now.

(5) The new entity x arising under (4) as a mixed  mechanistic-holistic type enters into combination with a new  factor of an immaterial psychic character, called Mind ; and  this, the human type, effects a complete merger of the

1 See p. 68. 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 159 
biological and psychic elements, with an interaction so close  and intimate that the psychic element can only be properly  looked upon as an outgrowth or development of the bio-  logical characters. In other words, the holistic element  which entered into % at stage (4) now becomes inextricably  blended with another even more pronouncedly holistic  element; and the result is a still further approximation to  the full holistic type. In fact man is only mechanistic in  respect of his physical bodily organism ; the true personality  which arises from the blending of the biological and psychic  elements into one unique whole is the highest and fullest  expression of Holism which Nature has yet realised. If we  apply mechanical characters to man's mental or spiritual  world, that is only by way of analogy from lower forms of  experience, and not because his spiritual structure is in any  way of a mechanistic type. Man is based on both worlds ;  while he has one foot planted on the mechanistic plane, his  other is firmly planted on the holistic plane, with a distinct  lean-over towards the latter. Essentially he is a spiritual  and holistic being, not a mechanistic type, with sui generis  categories of the mental and ethical orders. But his physio-  logical basis gives him partly a mechanistic character. He  is thus what is called a psycho-physical whole. This will be  more fully elaborated in its proper connection later on in  this work. 1

This rough summary of the main phases and stages of  synthetic development through which inorganic and organic 
Evolution has passed there are, of course, innumerable  subordinate phases which we need not consider here will  suffice to make clear two points which I wish to emphasise :

In the first place, Mechanism as applied to types of evolu-  tion is an elastic concept, capable of much refinement in  its application to ever higher forms and types. The mechan-  ism envisaged from the point of view of chemistry is different  from that of physics, while again the mechanism of the cell  and of simple organisms is a vastly different affair from that  of chemistry, and even so is stretched to a limit beyond

1 See Chapter X.  which it ceases in many respects legitimately to apply. 
We have different levels of Mechanism, with their appro-  priate concepts and categories of structure and function. 
When we reach the human stage in its full development in  personality, we pass beyond the limits of all possible  mechanistic concepts and categories and we find ourselves in  the domain of Holism. Mechanism is thus a matter of degree.

In the second place, Holism is also a matter of degree. It  begins, as we have seen, as structure ; and in its earlier phases  as structure it is scarcely different from Mechanism. Indeed  we may look upon Mechanism as incipient Holism, as a crude  early phase of Holism. In proportion as Holism realises  its inwardness more fully and clearly in the development of  any structure; in proportion as its inward unity and  synthesis replace the separateness and externality of the  parts, Mechanism makes way for Holism in the fuller sense. 
But its realisation is a matter of degree, and there will  probably always remain some residuary feature of Mechanism,  which will to some small extent justify the resort to mechan-  istic concepts and categories, even where the most developed  and refined Holism is concerned.

It follows from the above that science is not at fault when  for heuristic purposes it applies mechanistic methods and  concepts to either the inorganic or the biological sciences. 
Up to a certain point the resort to such methods and con-  cepts is fully justified, and their clearness and narrowing of  issues are especially useful for purposes of analysis and  research. It is only when the larger holistic considerations  behind the mechanisms are ignored, or when mechanistic  concepts are pressed too far in their application to essentially  holistic structures and functions, that the process becomes  harmful and misleading.

It will be noticed that in the synthetic grading-up of the 
Mechanistic-Holistic process of Evolution the lower unit  always becomes the basis of the next higher unit, becomes as  it were the stepping-stone to the next stage. Thus the earlier  simpler structure of the atom becomes the unit for the mole-  cule ; the molecule for the crystal ; the complex of molecules 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 161 
for the colloid and the cell ; the complex of cells for the higher  organism; while the still more complex groups of cells  become the units for the higher psychic or personal structures. 
Thus stated, the process seems to be merely a regular  mechanical, additive series based on the mixture of previous  elements. But such a conclusion would be most misleading. 
The process is not mechanical or additive but essentially  creative; at each stage something new arises from the  mixture, interaction and fusion of the component elements. 
But while this newness, this creative novelty arises every-  where, it is at two stages in particular that something sui  generis and wholly different in kind and nature arises from the  union of the pre-existing elements ; those are the stages where  so-called life and mind appear ; the stages where bio-chemical  and psycho-physical wholes make their appearance. These  are the two great saltus or mutations in Evolution ; and it is  in connection with them that the great problems of life and  mind arise. They are the structures in Nature which do not  exemplify pure Mechanism on the one hand or pure Holism  on the other ; they are double structures apparently exempli-  fying both at the same time and, what is worse, in a some-  what disharmonious manner. The attempt to harmonise  them, to smooth away their discrepancies and to reconcile  the contradictory results to which they lead, has taxed  the resources of our science and philosophy to the utmost ;  nor can it be said that the results hitherto attained are in  any sense satisfactory. But that should never discourage  us from renewing the search for solutions which is given by  the very nature of the human spirit.

Now it seems to me that it can be shown that the problems,  difficulties and contradictions which arise in connection  with these bio-chemical and psycho-physical wholes are due  to fundamental misconceptions, and that the application of  the category of Holism to living bodies and human per-  sonalities will transform the situation and help towards a  solution of the apparent contradictions. Let me broadly  state the problem as it presents itself from the point of view  of physical science and of human sciences respectively. 
M

1
Now natural science looks upon the physico-chemical order,  upon physical nature, as it is commonly understood, as a  closed system, complete in itself. The chain of physical  causation is complete, and there is no need or place for any-  thing of a non-physical character. There is a complete  system of equations as between the past and the future. 
Effect equals cause ; and there is no necessity or place for any  tertium quid. Necessity and determination characterise the  order of Nature, the laws of thermodynamics supply a test of  its working character. Where then do life and mind come in ? 
What are their function and their relation to this physical  order? What difference can they make to this complete,  closed, self-sufficing system ? If they have any effect, it can  only be by interfering with the inevitable chain of physical  causation and thus breaking the laws of energy. If life or  will or mind has any practical effect, that would mean an  interference with physical causes, with the fixed and deter-  mined energy equations. But no such interference can be  detected in any direction ; the causal physical chain remains  unbroken; the laws of energy are unalterable. We are  therefore forced to the conclusion that life and mind have  no real effect and are of no avail in the world. If they were,  the fundamental laws of Nature would be upset. Such is  the view-point of physical science.

But, on the other hand, we are just as firmly persuaded  by the most clear and unequivocal deliverances of our  consciousness that we can choose, that we can direct our  attention and action to definite purposes; that our willing  is effective ; that we can will to perform an act, and perform  it accordingly ; that our bodily organs respond to the act of  will in spite of all the energy equations ; that within limits  we can do what we will to do. Unless our consciousness  and our senses quite deceive us, this seems to be as plain and  self-evident as anything in our experience. And thus we  are landed in self-contradictions. On the one hand, the  unbreakable chain of natural causation and the laws of  energy ; on the other, our indubitable consciousness of the  effectiveness of our power of free self-directed action. How 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 163 
is the contradiction to be overcome ? We are not concerned  with the hoary old philosophical conundrum of free-will,  but the issue is the very live and real one of the fundamental  veracity of our clear conscious experience. If in the last  resort we cannot believe our consciousness and senses, we  had better give up the problem of knowledge altogether.

In this dilemma it seems to me that only one course  remains open for us, and that is to accept the direct deliver-  ance of our senses at its face value. If we cannot trust our  consciousness when it produces clear, direct and immediate  testimony to our power of self-direction and action, how  can we rely on it when it proceeds by way of inference to  build up a vast construction such as the universal causality  or closed system of Nature? If we cannot trust our  experience where it is perfectly clear and unequivocal, it  is useless to attempt to proceed any further in our search  for truth. But then the question at once arises, how our  minds can act on Nature without breaking the causal chain  of Nature. How is the link of Mind inserted into that  closed chain? It is unnecessary to discuss at length the  answers which philosophers and scientists have attempted  in reply to these questions. Science on the whole tends to  accept the physical view of natural necessity and to look  upon mind as ineffective, as an epiphenomenon which does  not avail to alter the course of Nature. It is forced to this  view in spite of the difficulty which thereby arises of explain-  ing how this useless and ineffective organ of mind could  have arisen in the grim struggle for existence ; what biological  function it performs and what survival or other value it  possesses. But that question need not detain us here. 
Nor need we consider the theories of psycho-physical  parallelism and pre-established harmony and such like, to  which philosophers have been driven in their distress in  order to explain the apparent miracle of the adjusted  co-working of body and mind. There is no doubt that  none of these views can be looked upon as satisfactory. 1 
And the necessity remains for further exploration. Instead

1 They are summarily reviewed in Chapter X.  of rummaging in the scrap-heap of philosophy, let us rather  explore some new way out amid these historic problems  and difficulties of thought. Perhaps our basic categories  have been faulty or inadequate; perhaps the facts are all  right, and it is only our way of envisaging them, our view-  points and fundamental concepts, that play us false. The  difficulties may be of our own making, and should therefore  be of our own un-making and solving. Anybody who has  carefully followed our account of Holism in the two pre-  ceding chapters will at once appreciate the line of thought  which it naturally suggests as the way out of these diffi-  culties. The radical mistake made by both science and  popular opinion is the severance of an indivisible whole  into two interacting entities or substances, the view of life  and mind as separate entities from the body. Life and  mind are not new entities which interact with the physico-  chemical entities or structures. It is the assumption of  these entities and of their interaction with physico-chemical  entities of a different order which produces the contradic-  tions for thought and the problems for experience. The  assumption of these entities is based on a false view of  reality; it leads again to an assumed interaction which  does not exist in fact. Between them these two assump-  tions distort our whole perspective in experience and conjure  up for thought a number of contradictions which experience  shows not to exist in fact. Thought fails to understand  how mind and body interact in a human person; and yet  we see the phenomenon before our eyes all the time. 
Thought fails to understand how the immaterial entity or  factor of life can influence a physico-chemical structure which  obeys simply and solely the laws of energy. And yet we  see the phenomenon in a living organism all the time before  our eyes. It seems inevitable that our experience must be  right and our categories of thought must be wrong or  inadequate, and that the insoluble puzzles which arise  must be due to a misreading of the facts. But, I shall  be answered, if life and mind are not real substances  and do not exist in fact, we are back again in the old 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 165 
crude, crass materialism, and the Evolution of which life  and mind are the main products and organs becomes a  mere hallucination. No, I reply, it is not the reality of  life and mind that is denied, but their construction as  independent entities of a character and kind to interact with  other entities. It is the false constructions of life and  mind and their erection into independent entities which are  the source of the trouble and ought to be demolished. A  true view of the facts will not only do justice to life and  mind, but will remove the problem which a false view has  artificially created. And Holism is brought forward as a  concept, a category, and an activity which reproduces  reality and renders the facts intelligible without distortion  or contradiction. Current views of life and mind are wrong;  and it is partly to correct these errors that the wide concept  of Holism, which includes, underlies and transcends them  both, is introduced. Our views of immaterial things have  been in process of evolution for thousands of years, and  the process is far from complete yet. Remember the view  of the soul, held by the Homeric Greeks, as a pale copy of  the body ; and indeed the present popular notion of ghosts  scarcely yet differs from this view. Remember the con-  troversy among the early Christians, of which there is an  echo in St. Paul's great chapter in the Epistle to the 
Corinthians (i Cor. xv. 35-50) whether it is the corporeal  body or a spiritual body corresponding to it which would  be raised to immortality. We still construe life, mind and  the soul as quasi-material substances according to physical  analogies or material categories. Let anybody sit down  and try to form for himself an idea of the soul's dis-  embodied existence, and he will convince himself how  difficult it is to get away from physical analogies, from the  pale copies of earthly existences, not very much different  from the shades which wander through the cold Homeric 
Hades. We conceive spiritual things very much on the  lines of material things ; though conceived as on different  planes they are not placed too far apart, nor are they too  different from each other to be able to act on each other

1 66 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP 
and influence each other. It is these conceptions of life  and mind as semi-physical entities, reminiscent and redolent  of the past, which at bottom underlie many of the great  problems of thought. We have really outgrown them;  and in a sense they survive as anachronisms and disturbing  factors in a world which in most other respects has made  the most revolutionary advances in knowledge. They  should be reformed and brought into line with the advanced  front which is at present held on the battle-field of science.

This vague, popular, ghost-like concept of life is stereo-  typed and rendered definite by the scientific concept of 
Vitalism; for our purpose we may take the two as  equivalent. Now what is Vitalism ? It is nothing but a  pale copy of physical force. According to the Vitalists or  the Vitalistic hypothesis, a living body is conceived as a  material system in which the physico-chemical forces are  supplemented by a new force, not of the same character  as they, but still sufficiently like them to act on them and  to be acted on by them. The Vitalistic hypothesis is right  in so far as it considers physico-chemical agencies, con-  siderations and categories as insufficient to explain the  phenomena of living bodies. But it is wrong when it  proceeds to assume the existence and the interaction with  them of a new so-called vital force, which may or may not  affect their quantitative relations, which may or may not  quantitatively add to or subtract from them, but which  somehow has the power to supplement them and to inter-  act with them on their own level, so to say. This  assumption is a misreading of the facts. A living organism  appears to have the power to direct its energies to some  definite end, and it will make all sorts of experiments, of  trial-and-error co-ordinations of its bodily movements, until  it successfully achieves that end. The specific power of  directing its energies to certain definite ends or objects or  with a certain measure of purpose seems to be characteristic  of all living things from the lowest to the highest. This  capacity of direction may be conscious or unconscious; it  may be reflex or instinctive or deliberate and intentional; 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 167 
but as a phenomenon and a fact of universal observation  it is beyond dispute. It is the explanation of the pheno-  menon and fact which is in dispute as well as its relation  to the physical-energy system which it seems to influence  or direct. And Vitalism is a theory which attributes this  power of inner direction or control to a new sort of force  which distinguishes living from non-living bodies. It is,  of course, true that with many of the older biologists Vitalism  was more a standpoint than a theory; more an attitude of  protest against the supposed adequacy and sufficiency of  mechanistic or physico-chemical explanation of living  bodies than a definite assumption of a new vital force. 
They realised that there was something more in the living  organism than what could be accounted for on the action  of purely physical and chemical forces. In this standpoint  they were no doubt right; and in this vague negative  sense there is not only no harm, but positive value in the 
Vitalistic standpoint. But with some of the more recent  biologists the Vitalistic standpoint has crystallised into a  definite hypothesis which assumes a specific life-force. And  it is against this hypothesis that our argument will be  directed.

It follows from what has already been said that the very  conception of such a " force " is an anachronism, an assimi-  lation of the concept of life to ideas and view-points which  are or should be obsolete. It is a question whether the  concept of force has any validity at all in physics ; whether  the dynamical notion of force is more than a mere mathe-  matical notation or terminology with nothing in physical  reality behind it. There is a tendency among physicists to  discard the idea of force as unnecessary and misleading and  to restrict themselves to the concept of energy. Whether  they are right or not, it is at any rate clear that the idea  of force can only have an application, if it has any at all,  in the material physico-chemical order. When it is extended  to the province of life, it becomes illegitimate and only  serves to materialise what is in its essence non-material  and spiritual. The concept of life is already deeply tainted

 in this and other ways ; and that is one of the reasons why 
I have proposed for purposes of scientific thought and  reasoning to discard this vague and abused term, and to  substitute instead the notion of Holism, which can at any  rate be made clear and definite, and is not vitiated by  popular associations and accretions. The Vitalistic hypo-  thesis moves in the opposite direction ; by constituting a life-  force somewhat on the analogy of physico-chemical forces, it  tends to materialise life, to hypostatise it into a definite  entity, and in this form to set it over against the material  body in which it has its seat. Not only is life constituted into  an entity interacting with other material entities, but its  non-material, spiritual character is reduced to the level of  a force among other forces, different from them indeed, but  not so different as not to influence them or to be influenced  by them. Life as Vitalism or vital force is considered a  real entity, and its relations with the rest of the living  organism become the source of serious difficulties and  contradictions.

I have above briefly stated the naturalistic scheme of  science and its sharp opposition to and contradictions of the  claims of life and mind as ordinarily understood. That  opposition and those contradictions arise from fundamental  misconceptions which have their origins in the past in the  naive dualism of our ordinary views of life and mind. Body-  and-soul is the model or scheme on which both thought and  science are based. There is an anima dwelling in a corpus,  one entity living in close symbiosis with another, and the two  profoundly influencing each other. As Descartes formulated  it, there is the res cogitans and the res extensa ; there are two  distinct separate res or entities, and the difficulties and  contradictions arise from their mutual assumed interaction. 
The theory of Vitalism or the vital force seems simply to  repeat and to stereotype this dualism. But if we wish  to overcome these difficulties and contradictions we have  to probe more deeply below these popular views and to  resolve the apparent dualism by showing the underlying  unity and harmony. 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 169

I shall put the case from the Holistic point of view as  follows : I am going to show that selection and direction,  which are inherent in life and mind, are pervasive holistic  characters which appear in matter already, evolve from it,  and grow to maturity in life and mind. These characters  show no opposition or antagonism to the system of matter,  but co-exist with and interpenetrate it as higher phases of  itself, so to speak. They tolerate the laws of matter and  discharge their functions without interfering with these laws. 
In other words, the action of life and mind is consistent with  the principles of energy. Now for my argument.

" Selectiveness," as was pointed out in Chapter III,  seems an inherent and fundamental property of matter. 
Electro-magnetism is a striking instance of that pheno-  menon ; so is the very constitution of matter, whose ultimate  forms of structure depend on inherent affinities and selec-  tivities of still smaller structures or units. So is the  behaviour of matter in the colloidal state. In the selective-  ness of matter we seem to meet with an ultimate property  for which no accounting on further more ultimate grounds  is possible.

Now selectiveness is likewise the fundamental property  of all organism; it is indeed the most primitive property  of life. Perhaps it is the very point where the organic and  inorganic were still one and began to diverge. A cell shows  selective power or selectivity in all its processes, such as  the assimilation of its food and the rejection of what is  not suitable for its nourishment. An organism shows this  selective power in all its movements as well as in its nutri-  tion. There is a selection of ends and an adjustment of  its movements to the attainment of those ends. If the  adjustment is wrong, if mistaken or abortive movements  are made, the experiment is repeated until the object is  attained the food is reached, the danger is avoided, or  the enemy is routed. This primitive power of selection or  selectivity is not yet choice or will as seen in the higher  phases of organic development, but it is the tap-root  of choice or will. One form of this selective power is

HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP. 
self-direction, which is equally characteristic of organisms. 
Life has a power of self-direction, of selecting to go in one  direction rather than in another, of taking the path which  leads to the attainment of its unconscious or consciously  realised object. This power of self-direction is clearly only  a particular form or species of the more general power of  selectivity.

It is not difficult to see that this selectivity is an  inherently holistic attribute or quality. A natural whole  as a small limited centre of unity has a definite structure  which necessarily limits its functioning to certain ways or  modes and no others. All possibilities are not open to it;  it has only more or less limited degrees of freedom for its  activities; it has to confine itself to these and implicitly  to reject all others. Anticipating later stages of develop-  ment, one may say that its choice is limited; in other  words, selective action is essential for it. What is perfectly  clear at later, more mature phases of Evolution already  exists in undeveloped immature form in the most primitive  organisms. There is a primitive stage of organic function-  ing when concepts like will, choice or purpose are clearly  not yet applicable, but their root already exists in a sort  of organic selectivity or power of self-direction and self-  orientation. This primitive organic power of selection is  probably not far removed from the inorganic property  which I have called by the same name.

Let us next consider the most universal generalisations  or laws of matter and energy and especially how they  are affected by the selective and directive power of  life and mind. I refer to the two laws of Thermo-  dynamics, the first of which affirms the universal principle  of conservation or constancy of the amount of energy  in a closed physical system; while the second affirms  the universal principle of the dissipation or degradation of  energy. It is these two supreme generalisations which  seem to come into irreconcilable conflict with the principles  and properties of life and mind, and therefore call for a  careful analysis. Now when bodies and souls (including 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 171 
life and mind) are taken as separate entities in interaction  with each other, the simplest way of expressing the observed  facts is to say that life or mind has a directive power over  the body. It was Descartes who first suggested that mind  might have the power (to use the language of later scientific  developments) of directing the forces or energies in a body  without affecting their amount, and therefore without a  breach of the first law of Thermodynamics. According to  this view life or mind in an organism would direct the  energies of the body without either creating or destroying  any of these energies. We have already seen that this  power of self-direction is characteristic of life; and the  suggestion was that the exercise of this power, while not  interfering with the laws of matter, would explain the  influence of life or mind over the body. Leibniz, however,  pointed out in answer to Descartes that force (as energy  was then called) is not only quantitative but also directional  in character. And the second law of motion according to 
Newton made this perfectly clear. The direction in which  a force is acting can only be altered by another force, and  this change of direction would therefore involve an expendi-  ture of force or energy. If, therefore, the mind has a  directive influence over the body, it can exercise this only  by way of adding to or subtracting from the energy of the  body considered as a closed system, and would therefore be  in conflict with the first law of Thermodynamics. Now  in the body as a closed system experiment or observation  has never yet shown any such addition or subtraction of  energy. The energy put into a living body by way of food,  heat or otherwise is always, within the limits of error,  equalled by the energy of the work done, the heat pro-  duced, and the waste products thrown off. As an energy  system the living body is unaffected by life or mind or any  other factor of a non-physical character. There can, there-  fore, be no such direction of the energy of a living organism  by life or mind as is assumed ; and if there were, the effect  would at once be detected in an alteration of the amount  of energy in the body. The first law of Thermodynamics,  therefore, seems to negative this assumed power of direction  of life or mind over the body, and seems to be fatal to any  view of directive interaction between the two. Either the  first law must be given up, or life and mind are nullities :  such are the fatal horns of the dilemma on which we are  impaled. But the surrender of the first law is not to be  thought of. Although not exactly proved in a rigorous  mathematical sense, it is a norm of science which works  successfully in practice and which has never been known  to be contradicted by any actual observations. It may be  that in view of the recent discoveries of the New Physics,  which associates the concepts of energy and mass very  closely, the law may have to be expanded so as to  include both the energy and mass of any closed system. 
But the surrender of the law would bring the whole  structure of science toppling down. Nor, on the other  hand, is the nullity of life or mind for a moment to be  conceded. As I have already pointed out, the sense of  effective choice, willing and self-direction is the clearest,  most indubitable deliverance of consciousness we have, and  its denial must necessarily destroy the very foundations on  which experience and knowledge are built. Besides, if Life  and Mind are nullities, then the Evolution which produced  them must be a farce; but this is totally inadmissible. A  way out of this dilemma must therefore be found. But let  us first look at the second law of Thermodynamics.

The second law affirms the principle of the universal  dissipation or degradation of energy. It likens energy to  water; as water constantly tends to run down from a  higher to a lower level, so the potential of energy constantly  tends to run down, and the energy tends to lose its efficiency  and availability. While the energy of a closed system  therefore remains constant in amount, it changes in char-  acter, it becomes dissipated or degraded and less efficient  and useful. And this principle is apparently of universal  application in the physical world. When any phenomenon  seems to contradict it, that phenomenon will in the end be  found to be based on faulty observation. 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 173

But living bodies seem to contradict it. In a living body  the potentials of energy and efficiency are rising instead of  falling. In living bodies complex substances are for ever  being built up with a high energy efficiency ; and the break-  ing down of these substances in the processes of life supplies  the energy which the living body requires for its proper  functioning. These complex chemical compounds with high  energy efficiency have been called the high explosives which  are necessary for the battle of life. And it is the essential  function of living bodies through their subtle metabolism  to manufacture these high explosives whose breaking down  liberates the energy which life needs for its functions and  processes. The process of organic Evolution marks a con-  tinuous rise in the complexity of the organic substances  produced and the level of the energy potentials reached. 
Living bodies and Evolution generally, therefore, seem to  run counter to the stream of natural tendency as expressed  in the second law of Thermodynamics. The systems of  life and mind seem to be in contradiction to both the great  principles of physical science. Is a reconciliation possible ?

Clerk-Maxwell, one of the heroic figures of nineteenth-  century physics, was the first to suggest an idea which may  open up a possible clue to the solution of the problem. 
He pointed out that the laws of energy were statistical in  character ; they regarded bodies, systems and their energies  en masse, and their principles apply to these energies  taken statistically and on an average. When, therefore, the  energy of a physical system is spoken of, the average of  its particular energies considered together and as a whole  is referred to. In this sense, for instance, the principle of  the degradation of energy held true, but in no other sense. 
And he illustrated his meaning by taking as an instance  a volume of gas with a certain ascertainable total kinetic  energy. In this volume the molecules of the gas would  have different energies according to their rates of motion. 
In accordance with the formula E = \mv*, the energy of  a particle is proportional to the square of its velocity. Now  some molecules would be pushed forward by the impact of  other molecules in their line of motion and would therefore  have their motion accelerated; others, again, would suffer  impacts contrary to their line of motion and would be  slowed down. And, as a fact, the molecules constituting  the volume of gas would have all sorts and rates of motion  and consequent differences of energy. Now if, without  introducing any additional energy into such a system,  some sifting and sorting out and grading of the different  molecules according to their velocities could take place, we  could have an assortment of molecules with a higher energy  than the average of the gas, while the balance would have  an energy below the average. In other words, by sorting  out instead of merely averaging we could have bodies with  a higher energy potential or efficiency than the average of  the mass from which they have been separated or segre-  gated. And this higher energy potential would not be due  to the imparting of any additional energy from the outside. 
Clerk-Maxwell imagined some demon manipulating an  aperture inside the volume of gas to effect this sorting and  grading, and thus producing a result in apparent conflict  with the principle of the second law, which affirms the  constant degradation of energy. His point was to make  clear that the second law referred merely to a statistical  average and was correct only in that limited sense.

But it is obvious that his limitation of the law has a  far-reaching significance, and his illustration points the way  to the reconciliation of the systems of life and mind with  that of physical energy. What if life and mind were con-  ceived as demons of the Maxwell type ? We have already  seen that their most essential function is selection and  self -direction. The sifting, sorting out and grading which 
Clerk-Maxwell ascribes to his hypothetical demon is the  very function of life and mind. Through this selective  activity all collision with the second law is avoided, which  is true of statistical averages only. Life or organic structure  can build and does build itself up and increase its energy  reserves and potentials in spite of the second law. And  similarly selection and direction may be and are exercised 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 175 
in spite of the first law and without derogating from it. In  other words, the self-direction which is inherent in life  and mind involves no fresh creation of force or energy in its  application to matter, as Leibniz held, and constitutes no  infringement of the first law, as is commonly assumed. 
The same argument which holds for selection (of molecules  with a particular speed) in reference to the second law holds  also for direction of molecules in reference to the first law. 
The supposed demon, dealing with our volume of gas, would  select molecules, not of a certain velocity, but moving in a  certain direction, molecules with a certain orientation, in  preference to others, and could thus obtain a body moving  in a certain direction without the expenditure of any  additional energy in bringing about this change of direction. 
Change of direction need not, therefore, involve any change  in the energy situation, as Leibniz held and as is commonly  assumed. It is only when bodies are considered as a whole  and as averages, and without reference to their detailed  structures and arrangements, that the difficulties arise and  the physical system seems to come into conflict with the  systems of life and mind.

If my reasoning is correct the result is most important. 
It suggests and indicates the way in which, in bio-chemical  and psycho-physical wholes, Life the selector and Mind the  director may exercise their essential functions in bodies  without coming into conflict with the laws of energy as  ordinarily understood. The detailed method and mechanism  of interaction are not yet explained, but at least the possibility  of conflict is eliminated ; we see that these two systems may  function in harmony and without violation of fundamental  physical principles on the one hand or the stultification  and nullification of life and mind on the other. The possi-  bility of harmonious functioning is established ; the actuality  of the process and its details remain for further discussion.

Let me once more state the issue raised by physical  science in connection with life and mind and see how  the result we have now reached meets that issue. Taking  for granted that the statistical laws of energy apply  fully to all purely physical systems, the following questions  arise :

1. Do they also apply to systems, such as living organisms  or conscious personalities, which are not purely physical  systems ?

2. Further, in such mixed systems, is the effect of the  non-physical factor, life or mind, on the physical part of  the system such that the laws of energy do no longer fully  apply to this part? In other words, do life and mind  disturb, deflect and alter the application of the principles  of energy to the physical part in such mixed systems as  living bodies or conscious personalities ?

The answer to the first question is in the affirmative and  to the second question in the negative. The laws of energy  hold for the physical mechanisms of organisms and persons  no less than for purely physical systems ; and the influences  of life and mind, whatever they may be in other directions,  do not invalidate the application of these laws to bodies or  persons, in so far as they are physical systems or mechanisms. 
The laws of life and mind are not in conflict with the laws  of energy. An organism is more than a physical structure ;  but in so far as it is a physical structure it obeys the laws  of energy just as if it were nothing but a physical structure.

The result is important, because it does justice to both  the physical and the non-physical aspects of bio-chemical  and psycho-physical wholes. Ordinarily in the grand tug-  of-war between the two aspects in these mixed systems,  the palm of victory is awarded to one or the other, accord-  ing to the naturalistic or spiritualistic leanings of the  judges. According to those who adopt the standpoint of  physical science, the laws of energy apply to the mixed  systems, even to the extent of reducing life and mind to  the role of impotent semblances or mere empty simulacra  on the scene of existence. Again, according to the spiritualist  view, the factors of life and mind are real and operative,  not only on their own proper level and in their own domain,  but to the extent of qualifying and modifying l even the

1 Hobhouse : Development and Purpose, pp. 326, 329. 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 177 
mechanical relations of the bodily or physical structure,  and thus affecting the application of the laws of energy to  it. The first conclusion (Naturalism) is contradicted by  our direct consciousness, the second (Spiritualism) by the  experimental results of observations on living bodies. The  reasoning we have followed so far, on the suggestion of one  of the great masters of physical science, has indicated  to us how life and mind may discharge their essential  functions without impinging on the universal laws of  energy, which are the very foundation of the whole system  of science. The higher structures of life and mind do not  mean the annihilation of the lower structures of energy. 
Here again, as we have seen before in the general process of  creative Evolution, the lower becomes the unit for the next  higher ; there is a grading of the advance without a destruc-  tion of the steps or grades constituting the advance. The  higher structure is based on the lower structure without  the absorption and disappearance of the latter in the pro-  cess. Thus mind structures presuppose life structures, and  life structures presuppose energy structures, which are  themselves graded according to the various forms of physical  and chemical grouping.

The via media, the way of reconciliation between the  mistaken extremes, which we have followed, is often missed  by others because they are misled by hypostatising body  and mind as two distinct entities or substances or res, as 
Descartes called them. These two entities or substances  are then brought to interact by way of external relations,  which are naturally of a mechanical character, as all external  relations are. This interaction by way of externality  reduces mind to the level of body and thus ends by a  practical denial of mind. This mistake is then corrected by  the opposite mistake of an attack on the body or the physical  order. Thus the Naturalistic and Spiritualistic fallacies  arise. Here these mistakes have been avoided by our  refusal to look at the two physical and non-physical systems  as distinct entities coming into external relations. Clerk- 
Maxwell's suggestion has taken us right into the inner

N  structure of the gas, and has shown us an inner selective  process at work which is by no means merely mechanical,  and which has resulted in the segregation of a new structure  from the old in a way which constitutes an apparent, but  merely an apparent, and no real breach of the universal  laws of energy. The fable of the selective demon contains  a real truth, and points to the nature of the activity of life  and mind in bodily structure. But at best the fable is  but a crude and rough version of a matter which requires  much more careful exploration. And we therefore pro-  ceed now to consider in closer detail the nature of  the bio-chemical and psycho-physical unities or wholes,  and the relations between the two mixed systems which  they include in their wholeness or unity. The best vindi-  cation of Holism as a category of explanation would be  the light it could throw on the mode of union of the  two systems, on the way in which body and life, life and  mind constitute unities or wholes such as we know in  experience.

Life the selector, and Mind the director, how do they  operate, what is the mechanism which interlocks them and  makes them one with the physical? What fundamental  conception can we form of the physical, the vital, the  psychical which will represent in thought the unities which  they are and form in fact? Life starts from the simplest  almost purely mechanical forms in the vegetable kingdom  and passes upward until it flowers into the marvels of  organisation of structure and function, of beauty of form  and activity, which we see in the plant and animal kingdoms. 
And it probably had an immensely long history of develop-  ment before it attained even the lowest forms now known  to us. But all through, the fundamental function of selec-  tion, of selective taking and leaving, has distinguished it. 
Mind again, by selecting the selected, has initiated the  power of direction which has gradually evolved into the  new world of the free spirit. How can we envisage the  physical, the vital, the psychical as together forming  unities and wholes as they do in fact ? 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 179

Naturalism answers this question, as we have seen, by  making life and mind the mere unreal accompaniments,  the reflexes or shadows, of the real mechanistic physico-  chemical system. A solution which in effect rules out half  of the world of reality as revealed in our experience cannot  be accepted as satisfactory and need not detain us here. 
Vitalism again puts forward a theory of its own which we  may examine for a moment. We shall take it in the form  presented by Professor Hans Driesch, who has elaborated  a special form of the Vitalist theory with an imposing  apparatus of proofs. This is the theory of Entelechy. 
Driesch supposes a non-mechanical agent at work in psycho-  physical systems which has the power of suspending their  action in particular respects, thus enabling them to store  up and retain their energies, and which again relaxes its  suspensory power and thereby allows their energies to be set  free and their action to proceed when the situation of life  requires it. Where this controlling action on the part of  the mysterious Entelechy comes from, Driesch does not  profess to know. It evidently corresponds somewhat to 
Maxwell's mythical demon. But its power is more closely  defined as checking action, when action would mean mere  dissipation of energy, and releasing the check when necessary,  and thus setting free the stored-up energy of the system  to produce the effects, such as we see in the organic world. 
This relaxing action of Entelechy is non-energetic; it is  not the removal of some mechanical obstacle, as such  removal would involve some expenditure of energy, however  small. The releasing action of Entelechy is entirely an  action sui generis, just as the suspending action is. Driesch  considers that this assumed action of Entelechy is the only  possible way in which the causal relation between the  mechanical and the non-mechanical world can be made  intelligible without sacrificing the fact that organic life  is limited by matter. 1 Entelechy is obviously little more  than another name for life; life being conceived as a real  agent, a real operative factor inside the physico-chemical

1 Problem of Individuality, pp. 38-40. 
i system which we call the body, and with a real power of  action upon it. But as Entelechy is expressly a non-  mechanical, non-energetic agent, the mystery of the action  of this non-mechanical agent on the mechanical physical  body remains entirely unexplained. I fail to see how the  concept of Entelechy takes us much further than the fable  of Maxwell's demon does. Something like selection, the  suspension of action and its relaxation, may probably take  place. But the difficulty remains of conceiving how this  is brought about and operates. The introduction of the  concept of Entelechy does not really help us. We have  still to see whether there is anything in the physico-chemical  situation which throws any light on the mystery, and  whether it is possible to avoid the appearance on the scene  of a dcus ex machina, such as Entelechy undoubtedly is. 
I shall therefore proceed to inquire what light the concept  of Holism, as it has been expounded in previous chapters,  throws on this problem of the nature of " life," and of its  action on the physico-chemical system which constitutes its  body in any living organism. It is unnecessary to point  out that we are in a region of speculation, where no theories  can be brought to the test of decisive experiment or  proof. All that we can hope to achieve is to render  intelligible what is in itself a great mystery to thought;  to supply some possible explanation even if we are not  sure that it is the real one; to suggest a scheme of a  possible modus operandi which the imagination can visualise  to itself. More than a possible explanation I do not pretend  to give.

Science has made clear, as we have seen in previous  chapters, that the physico-chemical system is a structure,  a structure composed of elements in more or less of equili-  brium. Such is the atom of matter, such the molecule and  all chemical compounds which form the substance of living  bodies. The equilibrium of the structure is also only  approximate; were it complete, little room would be left  for change; the physical world would be a stereotyped  system of fixed stable forms, and little or no room would 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 181 
be left for those changes and developments which make 
Nature a great system of events, a great history moving  onward through Space-Time. The fundamental structures  of Nature are thus in somewhat unstable equilibrium. 
A change in equilibrium does not mean an alteration  in the position and activity of one element of the structure  only ; there is a redistribution which affects all the elements. 
It is the very nature of the structure in changing its equili-  brium to distribute the change over all its component  elements. No demon is at work among these elements to  transpose them, to rearrange them, and to vary their  functions slightly so as to produce the new balance or  equilibrium of the whole. It is an inherent character of  the physico-chemical structure as such, and is explicable  on purely physical and chemical principles which do not  call for the intervention of an extraordinary agent. Another  peculiar feature about the change in equilibrium in a  physico-chemical structure is that it is never such as to  produce a perfect new equilibrium; the new is merely  approximate just as the old equilibrium was. We may  say that the change is from too little to too much. A  structure remains unchanged in spite of a small change  in its inner equilibrium; hence the inner instability must  pass certain limits before the readjustment in equilibrium  takes place. The instance of a supersaturated solution is  a case in point, where the solidification or crystallisation  lags behind the conditions which bring it about. When  the change does come, it again proceeds too far; it swings  beyond the necessities of the case; it passes the limits of  perfect equilibrium on to the other side, so to say. From  too little adjustment it passes to too much adjustment, and  again there is a condition of instability which has to be  righted by a swing back in due course. Thence arises the  rhythmic character of natural change, which links it on to  the rhythm of the life-processes, and shows that they spring  from the same source in the inner nature of things. Hence  probably arise also the definite quantitative increments  of change which the New Physics reveals. 
i
This mysterious tendency to equilibrium or inner stability  shows the inner holistic character even of physico-chemical  structures. There is an internal balance which preserves  the type, a push-on when the structure is endangered from  one quarter, a pull-up when it is endangered from another. 
These inner pushes and pulls are not the work of extraneous  demons, but represent the inner holistic nature even of  natural physical things in their total make-up. And the  pushes and pulls are adjusted into a great rhythmic process  which becomes the law of life in the next higher grade  of structures. We may call the structure a mechanism  and its action mechanical. But both ideas are but a super-  ficial view of the real facts, which are so remarkable as to  be almost as mysterious as the similar though more  complicated phenomena which meet us in the structures of  life. Not laissez-faire, not utter Chance and Hazard, but  control or governance meets us in the inner courts even  of physical nature.

I envisage the physico-chemical structures of Nature as  the beginnings and earlier phases of Holism, and " life "  as a more developed phase of the same inner activity. 
Life is not a new agent, with the mission of interfering  with the structure of matter; the control which it appears  to establish is not a disturbance and upsetting of the  natural order. It is itself a structure, based on the lower  structures of the physico-chemical order; and the control  it introduces is nothing but an extension and develop-  ment of the natural physical control which, as we  have just seen, is already in operation in the lower  structures for the maintenance of the inner stability. Life  is a new structure of the physico-chemical structures  of Nature. It is not there to cancel them, to upset or  destroy them, but to introduce a still deeper, more  fundamental element of structure into Nature. And the  structures of the lower order are necessary to it. With-  out matter no life, without the physico-chemical structures  no structure of life. The one is a stepping-stone to the  other; nay, more, is an essential element in the other; 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 183 
the physico-chemical structures become the elements in the  new complex structure of life. No cancellation, no annihila-  tion, no repudiation of the past; but only more intensive  organisation of the pre-existing factors into the new creative  structure of life.

The new structure of life differs from the physico-chemical  structures which are its material, its constituent elements ;  the difference is most important and far-reaching, but  does not amount to antagonism. A deeper harmony is  introduced; the earlier, cruder notes of the physico-  chemical order become a new music of being. There  is an element of newness, of structural and functional  synthesis, introduced, but the new does not conceal  or annul the old. The structural march of Holism  has only proceeded one step, one great step forward; but  the system and character of its advance remain funda-  mentally the same. The new is a greater complication, a  deeper intensification; there is more selectiveness, more  direction, more control; there is more of the whole, of  the character of wholeness, in the new structure than in the  old. But there is no switching off from the old to the  new ; the one is a continuation of the other, a continuation  indeed of a novel and creative character, but not a denial  of and a going back on the other.

Thus life is a structure like matter; and a structure in  a similar state of unstable equilibrium. The change of  equilibrium has the same rhythmic character; only this  character is far more noticeable and pervasive than the  similar phenomenon in matter. The rhythmic oscillation  becomes the distinguishing mark of the functions of the  life-structures. The pulsations, the rhythmic flow of the  functions of cells form the law of life, and incidentally  become the basis of the new element of music in life;  they give to music that primordial fundamental character  which takes us back to the very beginnings of life on  this globe, and makes music the deep appeal of all the  long ages to emotions the most primitive as well as the  most highly evolved. The rhythm of equilibrium shows  the close linkage between the physical structures and the  life-structures. And its music links all life together through  all the ages.

The equilibrium of the life-structure also gives us the  origin of the idea of life as the selector, the suspensor and  relaxor of the activities of the new structures. In any  change in the equilibrium of the physico-chemical structure  already there is, as we have seen, the distribution of  the change over all the component elements; there are  the new arrangement and alignment of elements and their  activities which conduce most effectively to the balance  of the whole. This is exactly what happens, though on  a much larger scale, in the rhythmic change of the life-  equilibrium. In the movements of that change, elements  are rearranged, functions are readjusted with a view to the  conservation and activity of the whole. Selection and  direction and control are inherent activities. No extraneous  factor does this ; no mysterious stranger needs to be intro-  duced from some alien world to work the mechanisms. 
It is the very nature of the equilibrium of the new structure  thus to direct and regulate thus to transpose and distribute  the factors of equilibrium among its component elements,  thus to rearrange and readjust and interchange elements  of structure and function so as to constitute its new balance  of structure and function, and to preserve it as a whole. 
The selective regulative nature, character and activity of  life arise from the very nature and process of the equili-  brium in the new structures which we associate with life. 
The conception of Entelechy is therefore not necessary. 
The regulative equilibrium of the new structures which we  call organisms is sufficient. This equilibrium oscillates  between certain limits, and within these limits the structure  maintains its balance of parts and activities inside the  physical system of Nature. Beyond those limits it is, of  course, destroyed, and the structure of life is therefore  most closely and intimately associated with the conditions  and properties of its material medium. It is not an inde-  pendent entity, self-created and free from the trammels 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 185 
of matter. It is a complex structure of the simpler struc-  tures of matter, and therefore dependent on those structures  and their laws. But within certain limits it creates internally  its own adjustments as a structure and is to that extent  free from matter. It is more of a whole, it has a measure  of freedom, and in its self -maintenance and dynamic stability  it shows a power of internal regulation and co-ordination  which is quite beyond the range of the lower physical  structures. Take, for instance, the manner in which the  bodily temperature is maintained under all sorts of con-  ditions through a most minute and delicate co-operation  of a vast number of physiological factors and mechanisms. 
Professor Haldane has very ably dealt with this aspect of  the matter and has shown with great force that Physiology  demands imperatively new categories of explanation, and  can no longer rest content with the crude conceptions of  mechanism which have so far been prevalent. But, on the  other hand, his argument must not blind us to the funda-  mental similarities between inorganic and organic structures. 
Organic structures do but repeat on a higher plane of  organisation and with an added element of newness, inherent  in Holism, that process of self -adjusted, self-regulated  equilibrium and of inner self-control which likewise, though  in a less degree, characterises inorganic structures.

I have to make one more assumption in regard to the  character of the new structures of life and their change of  equilibrium. Evolution is a fact of observation and experi-  ence; and it shows a persistent trend. From matter to  life, from life to more life and to higher life ; from higher  life to mind, from mind to more and higher mind, and to  spirit in its highest creative manifestations. There is a  process with a persistent trend, which cannot possibly be  the mere result of accident. If it were all a matter of  chance and contingency, the odds would be infinitely more  in favour of chaos than of this persistent trend of intensi-  fying structure and order. In fact the idea of chance arises  from too limited and abstract a view of the facts. The more  limited our survey of the facts, the more unintelligible their  relations and coherences become, and hence the more  fortuitous appears to be the course of events. On the other  hand, the wider, more concrete our survey of the facts, the  more coherent become their relations, the more clearly their  place in the general scheme is discerned, and the less of  chance there is. Chance, like so many of the other fallacies  of thought already dealt with in previous chapters, is a child  of abstraction. The view of the whole and of happening as  holistic largely eliminates this source of error.

The creative process of Holism consists in the intensifica-  tion of structures, in small elements of newness appearing  in existing structures until the basis is thereby laid for a new  departure in structure; but still on the basis of the pre-  existing structures, and so to say in line with the pre-existing  structures. Matter and energy were probably such depar-  tures in structure from pre-existing structures which have  now passed away and are unknown to us. Similarly life is a  new departure in structure, but still in harmony and more  or less in line with matter, whose laws are only in appearance  and not in reality opposed to the processes of life. Life,  again, represents a rising scale of structure until the founda-  tions have been prepared for a new departure in structure  in the form of Psychism or mind ; and mind is on the whole  in harmony with life and in line with it. There is thus a  persistent trend in the evolution of structures and of the  forms and types of existence : how is this to be accounted  for on our theory ?

I can only say, in keeping with the spirit of our whole  subject, that all structures are under the fundamental  influence of Holism, which is faintly but perceptibly pulling  them in its direction. The trend of slight overbalance is thus  towards Holism, towards a structural character which will  ever more approximate towards wholeness. In other words,  the inner trend of the universe, registered in its very con-  stitution, is directed away from the merely mechanical  towards the holistic character and towards the realisation  of Holism as its immanent ideal. The nature of the universe  points to something deeper, to something beyond itself. 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 187

The persistent direction on the whole shows that it is not  self-sufficing. It has a trend; it has a list. It has an  immanent Telos. It belongs to or is making for some  greater whole. And the pull of this greater whole is  enregistered in its inmost structures. I return to this  subject in the final chapter.

At the conclusion of my argument I shall be asked how  the result bears on the problem of Mechanism and Holism  with which I began this chapter. Life has been shown to  be a structure, or structure-like, or best represented by the  imagery of a structure, just as matter is. Life has appeared  as a continuation on a higher plane of the sort of structure  which matter is on a lower plane a higher structure of  the same material, and therefore at bottom not something  utterly alien to and different from it. And I shall be asked, 
"Is Mechanism then final? Is life only a more refined  mechanism, a mechanism of a higher type, but still a  mechanism ? And is Mind a still more refined mechanism ? 
If not, then where in the progress of my argument  does the Mechanism come to an end and the Holism  begin ? Where is the great break, the great rift between  the material and the non-material which experience  reveals? Or is experience at fault in accentuating this  great break or rift? " In answering these questions I  shall not go back to the preceding argument, but I  shall briefly state my general impression, my standpoint  in this matter, which is both the source and the outcome  of the preceding argument. Mechanism is not final. It is  not all Mechanism at the beginning, nor is it all Holism in  the long run. If the two have to be distinguished we may  say that they vary in inverse proportions with the forward  march of Evolution. But the deeper view does not dis-  tinguish them, and discloses the fundamental unity. 
Mechanism, as I have said, is a phase, an earlier immature  phase of Holism ; just as life is an intermediate phase, and  mind is a later phase; while other phases are probably in  store for the experience of the higher race which will  succeed the human in the future. Holism is a mediating

 concept; it is the reality which underlies all the phases. 
And in the self -fulfilment of Holism, one phase passes  into another. And the past phases endure, though in  ever diminishing degree, and in compressed diminished scope,  in the newer phases. Hence I have adopted the imagery of  the structures, ever more complex structures embracing the  same material as the earlier structures, together with these  earlier structures which are the units of the later structures. 
I have adopted this structural imagery because thought is  relational or structural, and therefore more easily grasps  elements of structure than principles or tendencies; and  because in its interpretation of the physical world thought  has already adopted the imagery of structures. I have  therefore represented Holism as structural at all its known  phases, and have distinguished the phases as differences of,  and advances in, structure. But structure does not mean 
Mechanism. Mechanism is but one form of structure. 
The structure of mind is not mechanistic, nor is that of life. 
The fact is that there is an insensible passage of change  from the earlier to the later, but that the change is never  complete and that something of the earlier mechanistic  phases survives in the later spiritual phases, which are  essentially non-mechanistic. The passage is a creative one  at all stages, elements of the new are continually appearing,  but on the whole so minute as to escape notice. It is only  at certain stages that the new appears to be not only  sensible but striking. And here our experience seems to  have magnified the change by hypostatising the new into  a distinct substance or entity, and placing it in opposition  to the old according to a fundamental polar tendency or  polarity in all thought and experience. In measuring and  reading-off reality we must make allowance for the small  eccentricities of our instrument of thought, and we  need not on that account discredit the instrument  itself. If we make the small allowances necessary within  the margin of essential error, we find the breaks and gaps  and hypostatised distinctions are smoothed out and  accounted for, and there remains one great fundamental 
vii MECHANISM AND HOLISM 189

Process creatively flowing forward and giving to all the  manifold and diversified forms of existence the unity  which is theirs by inalienable birthright. That Process  is not a mere ideal; it is already, in some measure,  a fact, accounting for all the particular facts and things  of the actual universe. It is Holism, and its pathway is the  concrete universe, in which all the differences and gaps and  apparent antagonisms are but the steps in the progress,  the moments in the great line of advance. Unity thus  underlies all the differences and is the final ground for  their reconciliation.

CHAPTER VIII

DARWINISM AND HOLISM

Summary. Darwin's conception of Organic Descent and his  formulation of its laws were the beginning of one of the most far-  reaching revolutions in human thought. Holism gives a new view  of one of the Darwinian factors, and extends the scope of Evolution  beyond the purely organic domain.

Darwin traced Organic Descent to the interwoven effects of two  factors ; an inner creative factor, Variation, operating spontaneously  and somewhat mysteriously inside organisms and modifying their  hereditary structures and functions in very slight degrees; and an  external factor, Natural Selection, which operates selectively on  these slight variations, weeding out those organisms whose variations  were less suitable to their environment, and leaving the organisms  with suitable variations to multiply and develop. By continuous  summation of small useful variations through many generations  definite specific characters would in time be achieved and new  species arise.

Darwin laid most stress on the factor of Natural Selection; on 
Variation he was vague and hesitating, but there is little doubt  that he included not only inborn variations but individually acquired  modifications among the elements which ultimately become specific  characters. Thus all the multitudinous forms of life would in the  end be moulded by both factors into very close conformity and  adaptation to their conditions of life.

The great Darwinian conception has been somewhat blurred by  later developments, in which attention has been concentrated on  the factor of Variation rather than on Natural Selection. First 
Weismann denied the transmissibility of acquired characters, and  thus made it difficult to understand how organisms through their  experience and habits of life become gradually fitted and adapted to  their environment. Then De Vries eliminated all small variations  from the account and attributed all specific advance to large well-  marked " mutations " occurring very occasionally. This made it  still more difficult to understand slow age-long adaptation, for  instance, to habitats and ecological conditions. Finally, the 
Mendelians or Geneticists have developed the conception that in  organisms there are well-marked stable unit-characters whose

IQO

CHAP, viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 191 
combinations in crossing follow a certain definite law; and the  experimental Evolution and Cytology of to-day consist mostly in  tracing these unit-characters and their manipulations in breeding  and in the laboratory. The idea of more or less mechanical com-  binations thus takes the place of the idea of creative variations,  which underlay the Darwinian conception, and it becomes most  difficult to understand how the new variation arises, and how it is  that Evolution is really progressive and creative, and not a more or  less stationary regime of casual character combinations.

These later developments take too narrow a view of Evolution  as a whole and therefore tend to become one-sided and to over-  emphasise certain aspects of the whole process. They are, however,  right in their emphasis on the inner creative factor which is the  real positive motive force of Evolution. The real secret is in the  cell, in the germ-cell or fertilised ovum rather than in the external  situation, important as that is. That is the inner seat of Holism,  which is the real source of all variation and Evolution.

There is, however, no doubt that variation is influenced directly  by external ecological conditions, which show themselves in the  general characters of plant formations and societies, for instance. 
And there can likewise be little doubt that acquired characters in the  long run reach down to the hereditary germ-cell and become trans-  missible variations. While these variations are still small and  without survival value the acquired characters and animal routine  shield and nurse them until they are strong and developed enough  to confer survival value on their organisms. Modifications thus are  the rough material of variations ; and to that extent Weismann was  wrong, and Darwin and further back, even Lamarck right.

There is, however, a further complication which cannot be dealt  with on purely Darwinian principles. Modifications and variations  do not come singly but in complexes, involving many minor and  consequential modifications and variations. Are they all individually 
" selected/' even before they have any survival value or strength? 
These difficulties force us to look deeper, to abandon the idea of the  individual selection of variations, and to look upon the advance as  not being that of a single variation or variations but of the organism  as a whole. It is the organism that advances on a certain more  or less limited front; the " variation " is only the most conspicuous  point of advance, but there is a whole curve of advance involving  many other minor points. In other words, the advance is holistic  and the variation is only the most striking item of a whole series. 
And the progress and survival of the variation are an equally holistic  affair. The organism is simply maintaining its own advance in the  variation; the variation issues from it and is in conformity with  its whole trend and movement; the variation is not single and  unsupported, but behind it is the whole force of the organism, of  whose inner movement the variation is but the most tangible expres-  sion. It is thus the organism as a whole which in the first instance 
" selects " the winning variation or series, and confers on it support  and survival value. " Holistic Selection " is therefore in operation  at the birth and through the early nursing stage of the variation,  and it is only at its maturity that Natural Selection takes over, and  the variation begins to fend for itself, so to say.

Holism must likewise be called in to explain organic co-ordination. 
It is, for instance, impossible without it satisfactorily to explain all  the innumerable co-ordinations and co-adaptations in structure and  functions which constitute the action of a living organism. No merely  mechanical explanation of co-ordinated animal movements or action  has even been given. The animal acts as a whole, with a unity and  effectiveness of action which is no mere mechanical composition of  its movements. Holism not merely as a concept, but as a real  factor, is necessary to account for this unique unity of organic or  psychic action.

Holism is not merely creative of variations, but just as much  repressive of variations. It is as often inhibitive as creative; it  holds in check certain features while it releases and pushes forward  others. Thus the balanced whole of the Type is achieved. This  repressive aspect of progress is neglected by Darwinism, but it is  just as real as the active variation. Both together underlie the  types and structures of life. This repressive tendency, already fully  at work on the organic level, becomes much more conspicuous on  the psychical level, where it operates as ethical restraint, so essential  in the formation of the Personality as a moral whole.

From the holistic point of view it can be shown that the inner  and outer factors in Evolution lie much closer together than is com-  monly thought, and the grandeur of the Darwinian vision, instead  of being dimmed, stands out in even greater fullness.

Finally, Beauty in Nature is holistic, is of the whole, comes from 
Holism, and is explicable on no other principle. Holism thus  accounts not only for the origin of forms and types, but also for  their Values, which far transcend the survival values necessary  merely for the utilitarian purposes of Nature.

NEWTON'S Law of Gravitation is perhaps the most striking  instance in the whole history of science of one simple  generalisation bringing within its sweep the widest array  of physical facts. The new heliocentric point of view had  already become generally accepted when this law was  formulated, but vast masses of facts remained which could  not be co-ordinated, and required explanation from the 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 193 
new point of view. The law of the Inverse Square, as laid  down by Newton, was completely effective. The phenomena  of falling bodies on this earth, the motions of all terrestrial  bodies, the movements of the solar system and of the  starry universe as a whole, many of the phenomena of  physics as known and understood at that time all seemed  to find their correct place and explanation under this  all-embracing formula.

Newton did not pretend to understand or explain gravi-  tation itself, and his lifelong meditations on this profound  problem afforded him no clue as to the nature of gravitation. 
But the law of its action, the phenomena which happen on  its assumption, he formulated with a simplicity and effective-  ness which made it another instance of Columbus' egg. 
In the way of all human matters the law itself came to be  looked upon as more than a law, as an explanation, indeed  as an operative factor explaining all the phenomena which  it covers. And it is only in our own day that gravitation  in this sense has been shattered, and its law as formulated  by Newton has come to have a restricted application. 
Relativity has dethroned gravitation, and for the moment 
Einstein's Ten Equations rule the universe, where before  the equation of the inverse square was the only and  unquestioned code.

Immanuel Kant, himself one of the great kings and  legislators of thought, looked upon the Newtonian system  as final ; he raised the vision of some future Newton who  would discover and formulate the laws of life, as Newton  had laid down the laws of motion and of matter. Beyond  all doubt Darwin fulfilled that vision, not perhaps in the  sense intended by Kant, yet in a way which has made him  perhaps an even more epoch-making figure than Newton. 
Newton proved epoch-making for science, while Darwin  has become epoch-making in a far more fundamental  sense. He has changed our whole human orientation  of knowledge and belief, he has given a new direction to  our outlook, our efforts and aspirations, and has probably  meant a greater difference for human thought and action  o  than any other single thinker. But even he is not final. 
He even less than Newton is final. He has pointed the  great way, and on that way we are already travelling beyond  his great vision.

Let me first state Darwin's law, which was just as simple  as Newton's, and much more easily intelligible. Among  living beings there is a tendency to vary and over-multiply ;  in consequence, a struggle for survival becomes inevitable,  and in this struggle for existence the fittest survive. This  explains the origin of species and all organic differences in  the world. The tendency to variations is a fact patent to  everyone ; so is the over-multiplication of individuals under  favourable conditions and in the absence of external  restraints; the resulting struggle which Darwin calls 
Natural Selection is well known to everyone who has the  least knowledge of animate Nature. These are the simple  bricks of fact with which the Darwinian theory is con-  structed. Surely as striking a case of Columbus' egg as  was ever presented. The genius of the Master was shown  by the vastness of the structure he produced from these  simple materials of common-sense and common experience. 
From these simple commonplace facts he explained the  infinite variety of the forms of life which occupy the earth,  their geographical distribution both in the past and in the  present over the face of the globe, and the marvellous close-  ness of their adaptation to the physical and other conditions  among which they live adaptation to land and sea, to  fresh and to salt water, to conditions of soil and climate  embracing the extremes of heat and cold, to the widest  range of wet, arid and desert conditions, and to all the  innumerable facts and situations which lead to the inter-  weaving of the mysterious web of life.

The whole Darwinian theory is summarised in the last  sentences of the Origin of Species with a simplicity and  beauty of statement worthy of the simple but profound  genius of the Master, and they raise before us in a few  touches the great Darwinian vision. They have often been  quoted, but will bear re-quotation here, and for all time : 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 195

"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank,  clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds  singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting  about, and with worms crawling through the damp  earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed  forms, so different from each other, and dependent  upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been  produced by laws acting around us. These laws,  taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Repro-  duction; Inheritance which is almost implied by  reproduction ; Variability from the indirect and direct  action of the conditions of life, and from use and  disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a  struggle for life, and as a consequence to Natural 
Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the  extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the  war of Nature, from famine and death, the most exalted  object which we are capable of conceiving, namely,  the production of the higher animals, directly follows. 
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several  powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator  into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this  planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law  of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms  most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are  being evolved."

I am free to confess that there are few passages in the  great literature of the world which affect me more deeply  than these concluding words of Darwin's great book. They  have a force and a beauty out of all proportion to their simple  unadorned phrasing. They are the expression of a great  selfless soul, who sought truth utterly and fearlessly, and was  in the end vouchsafed a vision of the unity of life which  perhaps has never been surpassed in its fullness and grandeur.

Darwin assumed two operative factors in the organic  world : (i) Variation in the reproduction and inheritance  of living beings, and (2) Natural Selection, or the survival 
i 9 of the fittest, as Herbert Spencer called it. Darwin's name  is principally associated with the second factor, with which  his works mostly deal, and which he elaborated with an  unrivalled wealth of detail. He devoted much less attention  to Variation, and indeed used it chiefly as a peg on which  to hang his theory of the origin of species through Natural 
Selection. Variation was to him a mysterious fact for 
Natural Selection to work on. But its spontaneous uncon-  trolled character puzzled him. He found no helpful  imagery to explain the puzzle. He suggested the theory  of Pangenesis, which showed great insight, but it has not  been adopted by his successors. The germ-cell theory,  which supplied a mechanism for heredity and variation  alike, was a later discovery. The science of Genetics has  mainly arisen since his day. Not only were his views on  variation meagre and vague, but such views as he had have  not been adopted by later Darwinians. Thus in the passage  just quoted he attributes variation to the " direct and  indirect action of the conditions of life, and to use and  disuse/' Most Darwinians to-day hold very pronounced  views in the opposite direction, and deny that these are the  sources of Variation. At present there seem to be indications  of a reaction, of a return to Darwin and even to Lamarck,  and a tendency to look more favourably upon the views of 
Darwin on this important point. But the fact is that 
Darwin is on the whole vague on the subject of Variation,  and concentrated all his strength on the other principle of 
Natural Selection and its effects in shaping the organic  world.

However this may be, there is no doubt that both Varia-  tion and Natural Selection are essential elements in the 
Darwinian theory. Darwinism, in fact, implies two factors :  an internal factor, operating mysteriously in the inmost  nature and constitution of living organisms, and an external  factor working along independent lines on the results achieved  by the internal factor. The inner factor, Variation, is  positive and creative, producing all the variations which  are the raw material for progress. The external factor, 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 197

Natural Selection, is essentially negative and destructive,  eliminating the harmful or less fit or useful variations, and  leaving the more fit or useful variations free play to con-  tinue and multiply, and in this process fitting and adapting  the individual to the character of its environment. As De 
Vries has phrased it, the inner factor explains the arrival,  and the external factor the survival, of the fit or useful  variation or organism.

Darwin's over-emphasis of the second or external factor  had one very unfortunate result : it directly and powerfully  reinforced and exaggerated the mechanistic conception of  the universe. The vera causa of organic change and progress  appeared to be Natural Selection, an external factor operating  on organisms ab extra, in the same way as physical or  dynamical forces are impressed on bodies or their parts  from the outside. Mechanical analogies began to be applied,  and Evolution came to be looked upon as the mechanics of  organic development Entwicklungsmechanik, as it has  been called by Wilhelm Roux. The whole tendency of 
Darwinism has therefore been vastly to add to the dominance  of the mechanistic hypothesis, which has through it come  to extend its sway from the kingdom of matter to that of  life. What is more, the simplicity of the Darwinian theory  has helped to make, not only Evolution, but the mechanical  view of Evolution, common property. The mystery of  progress seemed to become quite simple and intelligible on  this theory. It all depended on the survival of the fittest,  and the survival of the fittest was so simple and clear an  idea, and one too so deeply rooted in our ordinary empirical  experience, that it seemed all a matter of course which had  only to be pointed out by Darwin to be accepted by every-  body. The difficult part of the theory, the aspect of it  which even to Darwin had remained a mystery, the inner  creative factor of Variation, was ignored while Darwinism  was in the course of being generally accepted, and accepted  in the mechanical sense.

This was the first phase of Darwinism, the phase during  which Natural Selection was chiefly stressed and was the  dominant note in the theory. Then came the second phase,  when attention began to be given to the other factor of 
Variation. With this Neo-Darwinian phase the name of 
Weismann is for ever honourably associated. Many great  labourers there have been in this field, but the name of 
Weismann will ever stand out pre-eminent as the biologist  who, whatever his mistakes in detail, initiated and developed  the exploration of the germ-cell as the source of Variation  in Evolution. Weismann turned the gaze of Evolutionists  from the outside to the inside of the process, from the  apparent mechanism of external interaction and clash to  the mystery of the inner process. And what he taught was  not only most surprising, but remains one of the most  significant and important truths in the whole range of  biology. I shall deal with this matter just now. But  before doing so I wish to point out that Weismann and his  fellow-workers were handicapped in their labours by the  mechanical view of Evolution which had already become a  fixed dogma in the earlier stage of Darwinism. If any-  where, the mechanistic conception should have received its  quietus in the domain of Variation, in the exploration of  the inner process or factor of Evolution. Unfortunately 
Weismann and several of the most prominent biologists who  developed this second phase of Darwinism arrived at their  task not only as convinced Darwinians, but as mechanistic 
Darwinians.

The great battle in which Darwinism had won was tacitly  considered a victory for the mechanical view of it. And thus  the whole problem of Variation, as viewed by these leading 
Neo-Darwinians, came to be one of investigating or finding  the mechanism of Variation. Their services have been  great, and the route they have opened up will in the years  to come lead to even greater results. But there is no doubt  that the mechanistic conception has been a grave handicap  to them, and that many of their errors are directly traceable  to its disturbing and distorting influence. In the first  chapter I tried to show how erroneous the conception of 
Natural Selection as a purely mechanical factor in Evolution 
vin DARWINISM AND HOLISM 199 
was. In this chapter I shall endeavour to show that the  purely mechanistic conception of Variation is just as arbitrary  and misleading.

The root of Weismann's difficulties lies in his mechanistic  conception of the germ-cell. The cell, as we saw in Chapter 
IV, in its metabolism already shows many of the functions  and activities which we associate with the complete indi-  vidual organism. It is itself a holistic individual, with the  most marvellous selective and regulative powers, reminding  us (on a much lower plane) of what at a later stage of 
Evolution appears as the psychical factor. This applies to  the germ-cell even more than to the ordinary body-cells. 
The germ-cell has its " field," and the field of the germ-cell  is much more important than is ordinarily thought. Experi-  mental Evolutionists seek more in the physical elements of  the germ-cell than is there. There is much more in the  inheritance of the germ-cell than can be identified by an  analysis of its elements. And this more is in its field, which  represents that part of the germ-cell which has not yet been  crystallised and hardened into sensible structure. The  organic field, as explained in a previous chapter, is the milieu  of interwoven influences, of internal and external stimuli and  responses, in and around the cell or the organism. The  functioning of the cell or organism as a whole depends on  this milieu much more than on individual elements in the  structure. Much of its past and its future is in its field;  in its field the creative adjustments are begun which are  ultimately translated and incorporated into its structure. 
Here as elsewhere the field is the area of becoming, of  creativeness, the growing surface of the structure. To con-  fine our view of the germ-cell to its apparent elements of  structure is simply to atomise our conceptions on chemical  analogies, and to narrow them unduly to the neglect of very  important features in the functions and activities of the  germ-cell, and to compel us in the end to adopt that mechani-  cal view which is the negation of its inmost nature as a living  holistic individual unity. In this chapter I shall endeavour  to show how the concept of Holism acts as a solvent for the  difficulties created by the mechanistic conception of 
Variation.

The alterations in the Darwinian scheme introduced by 
Darwin's successors have had a profound effect on that  scheme as a whole ; so much so that it is to-day difficult to  say how much of Darwin's great vision still survives. In  order to realise this, it would be advisable to compare 
Darwin's general ideas of the facts of Variation with the  modifications introduced by his successors.

In Darwin's view, it was not only the operation of Natural 
Selection that was moulding living things in conformity  with their environment, by eliminating those that were  less suited to the conditions of the environment. Varia-  tion was also bearing its share in this process of  assimilating and adapting them to the environment. The  close fitting of species to their habitats and environmental  conditions which is so distinctive of animate Nature was,  according to him, the combined effect both of Natural 
Selection and Variation.

In order to ensure clearness in what follows we have to  distinguish between various forms of so-called " variation "  in living things. In the first place, we have modifications,  which are due to the functional activities and experiences  of the individual in its own life, and not to inheritance from  parents or ancestors. The effects on the bodily organism  or on particular organs of their use or disuse in any definite  way would be such modifications. An animal changes its  mode of life and in consequence ceases to use certain organs,  or begins to use them in a new way or for a new purpose. 
Such disuse tends to the atrophy of these organs, just as  such new or increased use would develop them. Such  atrophy or development respectively in the bodily organism  is a modification. All changes or characteristics acquired  during the individual life are modifications.

In the second place we have variations, which are small  changes passing by inheritance, and not due to the develop-  ments or acquisitions of the individual life. A small  alteration from the type which an animal has inherited 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 201 
from its parents is a variation, in contradistinction to a  modification which has been brought about in its own  lifetime. In the third place, a large very marked inherited  change is called a mutation. Any inherited change large  and marked enough to constitute a new variety or species  is a mutation.

Now I think it is beyond question that according to 
Darwin's view all three forms of change modifications,  variations and mutations were useful and operative in  the ultimate production of new species. Modifications due  to individual use or disuse he certainly pressed into the  service of his scheme of Evolution ; and although it is not  quite clear how far other modifications were similarly treated  by him, it follows from the above quotation as well as from  other passages in his works that variations due " to the  indirect or direct action of the conditions of life/' in other  words, alterations affecting the individual life, could, to an  extent never clearly defined by him, avail for the production  of new species. As regards mutations, while he gave reasons  for disbelieving in great and sudden changes as the ordinary  rule of evolution, it can certainly not be said that he excluded  them. His view was that the slow and gradual summation  of small modifications and variations continuously conserved  or kept going by Natural Selection would, and in fact did,  in the course of many generations amount to a sufficiently  large and marked change to constitute a new type or species. 
The continuous summation of the effects of use and disuse  and the other conditions of life, as well as the accidental  inherited variations which were of a more mysterious origin,  would necessarily co-operate with Natural Selection in  bringing about the close adaptation of the species to its  environment. The result was the vast and intricate system  of adaptations and co-adaptations, of harmonious adjustment  between Nature and organic life, ramifying through the  infinite details of the web of life which we see in Nature. 
Thus Evolution was explained, thus all the fine adjustments  and adaptations in Nature were explained. Only a very  long time was required for the infinitesimal calculus of

2
Natural Selection to produce the various results, and that  requirement was conceded by the astronomers and geologists. 
Darwin's view seemed very well to fit in with the fossil  record as well as with the facts of geographical distribution,  which he looked upon as the keystone to the laws of life. 
No wonder that the appeal of Darwin's theory proved  irresistible and its effect crushing on all the older points of  view. The triumph of Darwin's splendid vision of Evolution  seemed complete.

Then the second phase of Darwinism began, with the  detailed search for the methods and mechanism of Variation  and with the venue shifted from the ample range of Nature  to the research laboratory of Genetics. First Weismann  negatived the inheritance of acquired characters, and of  modifications due to use or disuse or other environmental  conditions operating on the individual life. Only the  accidental germinal variations, and none of the moulding  effects of the environment on the individual, could avail in  the building up of new species. Then De Vries came  forward and largely eliminated small ordinary variations  from the account, and thus practically confined progress to  mutations. Finally, the experimental Mendelians or Gene-  ticists appeared, and through their researches and experi-  ments appeared to confine Evolution to the interchange,  the combinations and permutations of definite existing  unit characters. The combined effect of these three  advances on the Darwinian theory might appear largely  destructive of Darwinism itself. If, following the Men-  delians, we hold that the interchange of definite pre-  existing unit characters is all there is in the process of 
Evolution, advance becomes impossible and creative Evo-  lution disappears. If, according to De Vries, accidental  mutation is in a large measure all there is for Natural 
Selection to work on, the advance becomes indeed a most  precarious affair, instead of that steady, continuous, delicate  process which has been going on through the geological ages. 
If, according to Weismann, modifications from use and  disuse and similar causes have no survival value and are 
vni DARWINISM AND HOLISM 203 
inoperative in the formations of new species, it becomes most  difficult to understand the universal close-fitting adaptations  of species to their conditions of life. For there is nothing  in common between the accidental variations and Natural 
Selection, and there is no clear reason why or how this clash  should not produce chaos and disaster, rather than the  harmonies and adjustments which actually characterise the  relations of animate and inanimate Nature. Darwin's  theory, even if it were wrong in its details, certainly served  to explain and render intelligible the broad facts of the  order, adjustment and progress observable in animate 
Nature. His successors 1 theories, even where they are  correct in detail, fail to explain these facts, and make of  the world of life as a whole an unintelligible and in some  respects an incredible affair.

It would, however, be a serious mistake to look upon the  more recent developments in the nascent science of Genetics  as covering the whole wide field of the Darwinian theory. 
So far as I know, they have no such scope, nor are they so  intended or understood by those who are responsible for  the very important researches in Genetics now being success-  fully carried on in biological laboratories. These researches  are intended to follow up a special line which was first  opened up by the experiments of the Abbot Mendel of 
Briinn in the time of Darwin. They occupy a very restricted  area of the whole field of organic Evolution, and are really  concerned only with the .elucidation of the special set of  problems arising from the crossing or hybridising of races,  varieties or definitely distinct variations. Those problems  centre around the important question how biological  characters already in existence, whether patent or masked,  behave when brought into contact with each other. Mendel  found that certain existing characters behaved as firm and  stable units, very much as atoms or molecules do in chemical  combination, and he also discovered the law of the propor-  tions in which these unit characters are reproduced in the  offspring. Thus if individuals of dominant character a are  crossed with individuals having recessive character 6, then  in the second filial generation the members of individuals  respectively with a characters, and b characters, and mixed  a and b characters are given by the algebraic formula 
(a + b) 2 = a 2 + 2a6 + b 2 . In other words, 25 per cent,  of the second generation will be pure a's and pure 6\s  respectively, and 50 per cent, will represent individuals  with mixed qualities, which on being again crossed with  each other will again produce pure a's and 6's and mixed  ab's in the same algebraic proportions ; and so on apparently  ad infinitum. His researches have been amply confirmed  by later inquiries, and they have also established that not  only do these unit characters behave as fixed and stable  entities, but, very much in the manner of radicle groups in 
Chemistry, groups of such unit characters also sometimes  behave as stable combinations, and enter into combination  with other unit characters as persistent unities. This is all  very remarkable and interesting, and has important bearings  on the practical improvement of breeds and races of animals,  and on the beginnings of the new science of Eugenics. But  for our present purpose it is merely necessary for me to  point out that Mendelism or Genetics deals with the mani-  pulation of existing characters, and not with their origin,  genesis or creation. The main question before organic 
Evolution, how specific characters are produced which have  not existed before, is not directly touched by Mendelism. 
The problem of the creativeness of Evolution in the origin of  species, and in organic progress generally, lies beyond the  province of Mendelism. Mendelism deals with results  already achieved by Evolution, and not with the creative  process by which they are achieved. No doubt it may and  in due course will incidentally throw important sidelights  on the mysterious creative process; but it will probably  be no more than sidelights. In other words, Mendelism is  not the real method or path of organic Evolution, but at  best only an important side-track. This is not intended  as a reflection on the science of Genetics, but only to place  it in a proper perspective in the whole field of organic 
Evolution. 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 205

Having ruled out Mendelism, can we accept De Vries' 
Mutation as the ordinary method of Creative Evolution? 
Mutation takes place when specific or varietal characters  appear, not as the result of a slow age-long summation of  small variations, but at one bound, with a great leap of one  generation to the next. An individual of species X produces  offspring which constitute a stable variety or a new species Y . 
De Vries saw this happening in the case of cultivated 
(Enothera lamarckiana growing wild in a potato-field at 
Hilversum in Holland. Other instances have been observed  by other investigators. It is objected that De Vries' 
(Enothera was perhaps a cultivated artificial hybrid, with  mixed qualities, like the ab's of the Mendelians, and that  all he observed was the emergence of pure qualities from  this mixture; in other words, not the emergence of new  characters but the setting free and unmasking of concealed  or latent characters already existing. Other criticisms also  have been levelled at the Mutation theory which it is not  necessary for our purpose to consider here. In spite of  these criticisms it is practically certain that mutations do  take place in the course of Evolution. But while they almost  certainly happen on special occasions, they are not common,  and do not constitute the ordinary method of organic Evo-  lution. On rare occasions there is a saltus, a creative leap  forward from one generation to another. A species having  long balanced itself precariously on the edge of a great  change suddenly makes the jump, secures a foothold on the  edge of the other side, and marks the beginning of a new  variety or species. But it can at best only be an exceptional  if not a rare effort on the part of Nature. These sudden long  jumps can only be very occasional, and not the normal  course or procedure in the origin of species. Otherwise we  w r ould certainly see more of them, and they would not be  the subject of doubt or dispute. The rarity of their observa-  tion points to the rarity of their occurrence. And they  must be largely confined to cultivated artificial species or  varieties which are more unstable and violently variable  than natural species or varieties. Mutation in wild nature  is an occasional and exceptional occurrence, and is not the  ordinary procedure of Evolution. 1

Having thus ruled out both Mendelism and De Vries' 
Mutation as the usual method of creative Evolution, we  now come back to the earlier Germ-cell theory of Weismann,  who initiated it and through it the second phase of Dar-  winism, and thus became, and still remains, the second most  important figure in the history of Darwinism. His great  and essential service consisted in this, that he found the  real source of Evolution in the inner factor of Variation,  and that he traced this factor to its seat in the germ-cells  of the organism. Not the outward mechanical struggle and  clash of organisms, but the penetralia of their deeply hidden  and sheltered germ-cells were the mysterious, spontaneous,  independent and original source of all organic development  and of the origin of species. Of course this theory became  possible only by reason of the rapid advance in the know-  ledge of the cells, and especially of the part they play in  reproduction. But on the basis of that new knowledge the  theory became quite simple and indeed inevitable. The  body-cells of advanced organisms have no part or lot  in reproduction, and the seat of all organic variations  must therefore be looked for in the reproductive cells  of the parents. All organic progress was thus traced  back to the inmost nature of the organism itself, and  not to the environment or any mere external factor. 
This is the essential truth in the hypothesis of Weismann,  and this constitutes his real and lasting contribution to the  theory of Evolution. The mysterious Variation which  forms the inner factor of Evolution has its seat and source  in the fructified ovum or germ-cell from which the new life  begins. There and nowhere else take place the great play

1 Professor J. P. Lotsy, who bases Evolution on hybridisation  between varieties and species, and has made a survey of the flora of  several countries from this point of view, has come to the conclusion  that hybrids are by no means uncommon in Nature, and that a fair  percentage of natural species, usually classed as such, are really  hybrids. Both Mendelian and experimental species such as those  which T. H. Morgan has bred in the fruit-fly Drosophila are held by 
Lotsy to be nothing but hybrids. 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 207 
and inter-play of forces, tendencies and influences which  shape the destinies of life in organic development. This is  not the whole story, but it is important; it is indeed  fundamental.

Weismann drew a sharp distinction between the individual  and the race, between the body-cells which constitute the  one and the germ-cells which are the carriers of the other. 
According to him the race or species is continued unbroken  in the substance of the germ-cells, which flow on as a con-  tinuous stream from one generation to the next. From these  racial germ-cells are differentiated the body-cells in the  individual life, both in its ante-natal and post-natal stages. 
After the differentiation has taken place in the fructified  ovum, there is, according to him, practically no connection  between the germ-cells and the resulting body-cells which  build up the individual, except in so far as the former  are nourished through the latter. The individual becomes  separated from the race factor, and becomes an inde-  pendent growth from it, becomes, so to say, an excrescence  or epiphyte on the race, which continues in the germ-  cells uninfluenced by the fate or the development of  the individual. This complete severance and indepen-,  dence of the individual from the germinal constitution  from which it has sprung is a distinctive tenet of 
Weismannism. It embodies a profound truth, which we  recognise in the freedom and independence of individuality. 
But at the same time it makes the severance of the racial  and individual elements in the whole too great, and it ignores  important reciprocal influences between them which main-  tain a certain balance between individual and racial develop-  ment. To these points we shall have occasion to return. 
Here it is instructive to note that for Weismann the sharp  distinction between the individual and the germ-cells, from  which it sprang and which it carries forward for the race,  was based on his view of the nature and constitution of  these germ-cells. These cells contained the hereditary  constitution of the race or species, and in so far registered  the past, and made the past an operative factor in the  present. They also embodied the mechanism of variation  and thus linked the future with the past in the continuity  of the race. In a way, therefore, the germ-cells, unin-  fluenced by the ephemeral and accidental influences of the  individual life, contained in their wonderful constitution  not only the present but also the past and in a measure the  future of the race. They were eternal, self-contained units,  carrying their future and their past in themselves, unin-  fluenced by the accidents of their environment. The  individual was a mere bit of bread cast on the waters of  destiny, to be lost utterly, or to be found after many days. 
But the past and the future of the race dwelt sublime and  secure in the eternal sanctuary of the germ-cell.

Such was the great Weismann conception, which in effect  largely withdrew creative Evolution from the arena of exter-  nal conflict and the mechanical struggle for existence, and  located its origins in the secluded depths of the inner world  of the germ-cell. And this great conception was based on 
Weismann's view of the mechanism of the germ-cell, on  which a great deal of light has since been thrown by experi-  mental research and observation.

Without going into details we may just note that the  chromosomes of the dividing nucleus have been identified  as on the whole the carriers of the hereditary characters of  organisms; these characters have to some extent been  correlated with distinct chromosomes, and the number,  shape, size and other differences of chromosomes in  the nucleus of the germ-cell are therefore taken to be the  physical basis of the characters which distinguish the  species. It has been found necessary to go further and tOi  assume in the chromosomes themselves active elements or  factors or genes which are productive of organic characters. 
These researches and speculations are still in their initial  stages, but they are important and have this advantage,  that the results of intercrossing and hybridising in producing  a change of characters can be studied in conjunction with  the simultaneous change in number and form of chromosomes. 
In the prosecution of experimental Evolution the parallelism 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 209 
of cell structure and of variation in organic characters thus  supplies a double weapon of attack.

While the germ-cell as the mechanism of heredity is easily  understood, the question still remains how it operates as  the sole and independent cause of Variation. The inter-  mixture of chromosomes from two separate individuals in  sexual reproduction, and the changes in the chromosome  contents of the reproductive cells in their previous meiotic  division, undoubtedly provide the occasion for a great  intermixture of parental elements and are thus potent sources  of Variation. But Variation operates even apart from and  in the absence of sexual reproduction and the related meiotic  divisions of the germ-cells. And the question remains  whether the individual life is, in fact, so isolated from the  germ-cell that it has no influence on the latter and the  resulting offspring. On this isolation Weismann was par-  ticularly insistent, and in the popular mind his teaching is  identified with the doctrine that acquired characters are  not transmissible. The principle of the non-transmissibility  of organic modifications (as above defined) rests on empirical  experience, as no clear and indisputable case of the passing  of such individual modifications to the offspring has been  recorded or observed. Weismann's germ-cell theory was  intended to supply the scientific basis for this negative result;  but in the end he so completely isolated the germ-cell from  the rest of the individual organism that he came to consider  it practically impossible that modifications could become  hereditary, or that somatic cells could in any way, except  through nourishment, influence the germ-cells.

There can be little doubt that in adopting this extreme  standpoint Weismann went too far. He not only cut clean  away from the Darwinian tradition, but also, in fact, made  it impossible to understand the double fact of progress and  adaptation ; in other words, to understand how the experi-  ence of the race, which after all is only accumulated individual  experience, helps to promote development, and to mould it  in congruity with the environment. Unless the " trial and  error " experiments of individuals produce some racial  p  result ; if, in other words, every individual throughout the  ages has to begin to learn once more at the beginning, organic  progress becomes unintelligible, if not impossible. The  extreme isolation and independence which Weismann  attributed to the germ-cell therefore led to a further hypo-  thesis intended to give the individual some sort of indirect  influence in shaping racial evolution. He assumed that a  struggle for existence took place among the elements or  genes inside the nucleus of the germ-cell for the food that  came from the body-cells, that Natural Selection was thus  already at work inside the germ-cell, and that it was the  vigorous, well-fed surviving genes that shaped the course  of the resulting variation in the direction to which the  individual had thus contributed. In this way the body-  cells and the individual modifications of the parent might  have some vague and indirect influence on the germ-cells  and their offspring. This arbitrary and unsatisfactory  hypothesis has found no favour and probably amounts to  no more than a confession of failure on the part of Weis-  mann to maintain his doctrine in its extreme form. To  transfer the venue of the struggle of existence from an arena  where we can watch and observe it among organisms to the  inner arcana of the germ-cells, where it is beyond observation  and where its operation, if any, is pure guesswork, is not a  helpful hypothesis, and can only be a last desperate resort  of a theory in distress. Weismann no doubt felt the difficulty  keenly, but he saw no way out of it, and his hypothesis of 
Germinal Selection was no way out.

The dilemma is indeed a most formidable one, not only  for Weismann but also for all current views of Darwinism. 
On the one hand, there is the negative evidence, the absence  of any clear and incontrovertible case where mere individual  modifications have been transmitted to offspring. On the  other hand, there are the very numerous cases where the  disappearance of certain characters can only be satisfactorily  explained on the assumption that modifications due to  disuse of an organ have become hereditary. Again, there  are the still more numerous cases where parts of the body 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 211 
have been constantly used in certain ways and have finally  become specialised organs with which animals are now born  ready-made. There is also the class of cases mentioned  by Herbert Spencer in his controversy with Weismann and  never satisfactorily answered, where, for instance, the  sensitiveness of the finger or tongue (now hereditary) is  compared with the much smaller sensitiveness of the back  or other parts of the body, which have never been used as  an organ of touch or taste. Above all, there is the difficulty,  one might almost say the impossibility, of understanding  organic Evolution, if its advance depends upon mere for-  tuitous variations in reproduction, and remains uninfluenced  by the work, the experience, the learning through trial and  error and the consequent modifications of the individuals  which compose a race or species. While it is admitted  and intelligible that mere artificial and singular modifica-  tions, such as cutting off the tails of dogs or sheep continu-  ously for thousands of years, will have no germinal and no  hereditary effect, the case may apparently be quite different  with modifications which are due to the frequent or constant  activity of the animal, and which register the routine of  its life. Such modifications are far more intimate to the  animal organism, and may in the course of time produce  such a deep impression on the body-cells as to penetrate to  and reach even the germ-cells, and register a change there  which leads thereafter to hereditary and apparently  spontaneous variation.

Apart from Weismann's extreme doctrine of germinal  isolation, which even he by implication appears to have  found untenable, there is nothing in principle directly  negativing such an assumption, and it does render intelligible  the progressive evolution and specialisation of bodily organs  which on any other assumption it is most difficult to under-  stand. The absence of direct experimental evidence in  support of this view is not a fatal objection. The laboratory  of Nature is very different from that of experimental research. 
Life has not been made in the latter but was made in the  former. The slow intimate operations extending over  thousands and even millions of years, such as brought about  most of the organic species of which we know, are not  on a par with our latter-day researches in experimental  evolution. With all our chemical knowledge we can yet  never hope to rival in our laboratories the results which 
Nature has through the countless ages achieved, say, in  the crucible of the geological record. Still less can we  hope to achieve through biological experiments in the  laboratory what her silent processes have amounted to  through millions of years. 1

If we set aside this negative and really irrelevant evidence,  and also reject Weismann's extreme doctrine of germinal  isolation, we find nothing in theory or fact to preclude us  from viewing modifications as having an influence through  more or less long biological periods on the germ-cells. On  the hypothesis of the " field " which we have found useful  before, we may consider these somatic modifications as in  the first instance influencing the field of the germ-cells,  and only later and in the course of time becoming incor-  porated from the field into the hereditary structure of the  germ-cell.

We come thus in effect to look upon modifications as partly  the material from which variations have been formed.

1 Even so, however, some experimental evidence seems to be  forthcoming. In this connection the recent work of Harrison and  others on Melanism in moths is very important. It was found that  among English native moths species after species with pale ground  colour gave rise to forms so heavily pigmented that they appeared  in some cases to be dark grey and in others perfectly black. This  melanism has been found in the coal areas of England, Germany and  even at Pittsburgh in the United States. The foliage of trees in the 
English area was found to contain relatively large quantities of salts  of manganese, iron and other metals. Moths reared on food charged  with a percentage of these compounds also developed melanism,  which was transmitted to their offspring in the Mendelian ratios.

So far as these significant experiments have gone, they tend to  show that chemical changes in the environment of organisms may  more readily lead to hereditary variations in them. In other words,  migrations and other changes in habitat which lead to new sources  and kinds of food may have an important bearing on the evolution  of new characters and species. This chemical clue appears un-  doubtedly to be an important one and deserving of being more  widely followed up.

(See Harrison's note in Nature, pp. 127-9, of 22nd January, 1927.) 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 213

Modifications due to constant use or disuse, or to per-  manent changes in the conditions of physical environment,  influence in the first instance the field of the germ-cell,  and are thus the earlier phase of the later hereditary  structural variations. In fact we may say that modi-  fications are to variations what variations are to specific  characters. Throughout organic Nature we find this  grand calculus at work, adding up and conserving what-  ever in the experience and development of the individual  is of survival value to the race, and carrying on this  organic summation with a fineness and delicacy sur-  passing that of any mere mechanical calculus. What is  not incorporated into the hereditary structure remains  conserved in the invisible " field " until it is finally accen-  tuated enough to become so incorporated. Nothing of  value is lost traces and residua of organic reactions,  reflexes and tropisms, instincts and intelligence, all are  conserved or registered in the field until in the lapse of  time they are ready to become part of the physical structure. 
There is no reason, except our ignorance of the facts, why  modifications should not thus to a large extent be the con-  ditions precedent of variations. Only in this way can we  explain why the trend of Variation is on the whole in  harmony with the experience and the past of animate Nature,  why Evolution makes steps in advance on the road on which  it is already moving, instead of making incalculable twists  and turns, as it might do if its course was merely dependent  on purely accidental, arbitrary and unmotivated variations. 
That modifications of a certain intimate bodily character,  and continued through many generations, may in the end  influence the germ-cells and even modify their hereditary  structure is easier for us to appreciate than it was for Weis-  mann. It is only recently that we have learnt to understand  the important functions which the hormones given off by  the ductless glands perform in the regulation and balance  of our whole animal economy. We now know that the  germ-cells, so far from being independent of the developed  system of body-cells, have even apart from their reproductive

2i functions a most intimate regulative effect in co-ordinating  the functioning of the bodily system as a whole. If there  is this open door between them, there is no reason why  there may not be the reverse influence of the body-cells on  the germ-cells. 1

This question of the way in which non-hereditary  modifications are conserved brings us to another difficulty  which Evolutionists have found it very hard to explain on  the accepted Darwinian principles. I refer to the natural,  selection of small variations. How can small variations  be selected and conserved in the struggle for existence until  they are marked enough to become specific ? To begin with,  they are so small that it is difficult to understand that they  have any survival value at all. Take an organ which is being  differentiated from the rest of the body-cells. At the be-  ginning any variation must be utterly insignificant and practi-  cally valueless in the struggle for life, and Natural Selection  has really nothing to work on. How then could an animal  with such a minute variation be selected as being more  adapted to its environment ? It is this awkward question  which has led to the hypothesis that very marked varieties  or mutations alone are selected. Various more or less  ingenious attempts have been made to answer this question,

1 The recent experiments of Professor Pavlov on the associative  memory of white mice are also interesting, and though the correct-  ness of their results has been doubted they indicate important clues  to be followed up by further research.

An electric bell was rung while the mice were feeding. It was  found that a firm association was built up after this process had  been repeated 300 times ; that is to say, after that the mice looked  for their food whenever the bell was rung. For the first generation  offspring of these mice a less arduous lesson was necessary : after 
150 rings the association was established. For the second genera-  tion offspring only 30 rings were necessary ; while for the third filial  generation only five rings were necessary to establish the association. 
In other words, the acquired experience of the parents made the  acquisition of similar experience progressively easier for their off-  spring. An attempt to repeat these experiments is said to have  failed. No conclusions can therefore be based on them for the  present. Of course, should corroboration be forthcoming, these  experiments would be most important as throwing light on Evolu-  tion as progressive facilitation of experience ; in other words, on the  inheritance of educability or psychic experience. 
vin DARWINISM AND HOLISM 215 
but to my mind they are all more or less unsatisfactory. 
The result is that we cannot understand how the Darwinian  machinery of Natural Selection is set in motion in any  particular case. Once individuals with marked specific or  varietal differences exist in superabundance, we can under-  stand why the struggle for existence between them will  take place and Natural Selection become operative. But  on Darwinian principles as ordinarily understood these  marked differences between individuals can only arise from  a prior selection as between variations so minute that there  is apparently nothing sufficiently substantive for Natural 
Selection to work on. In other words, Natural Selection  will move all right when once set in motion, but Darwinism  fails to set it in motion.

In my view the difficulty can only be satisfactorily removed  by the principle of Holism, as I shall just now proceed to  explain. In the meantime, however, I wish to point out  how my suggestion that the modifications influence the  field of germ-cells and prepare the way for variations can  prove helpful to Darwinism in its plight. According to that  suggestion the small initial variation does not stand by itself,  and on its own merits, so to speak. It appears powerfully  supported in the struggle for existence. Individual use and  practice for very many generations are on its side. It does  not appear as a stray, helpless infant in a hostile world. It  appears in a friendly, one might say, in a prepared universe. 
It has a stalwart nurse in the use and routine of the indi-  vidual in whom it appears. It is protected, shielded and  in its struggle reinforced, by this constant use and routine. 
A small variation in the direction of a nascent organ, for  instance, finds itself in line with the traditional use of  generations of individuals which powerfully support it in  the struggle with contrary variations. Under the shelter  of this use it develops and beats its competitors, until in  the end it can fend for itself and engage in the struggle on  its own account.

This explanation applies not only to variations in develop-  ing organs which are supported by use and practice on the

2i6 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP 
part of a long line of individuals. It applies also to cases  where permanent changes in the physical conditions impress  themselves continuously on the organism. The growth-  forms of plants, for instance, under particular ecological  conditions are such as almost to render necessary the view  that ecological modifications, due to the direct, silent, long-  continued pressure of the environment, finally become varia-  tions. The sameness or close resemblance of the growth-forms  under the same physical conditions, as seen, for instance, in  the general characters of formations and associations in  the vegetable kingdom, is probably in a measure due  to the age-long operation of ecological factors which have  impressed themselves on plant development and have  produced modifications which finally have become variations. 1 
The resulting general features of formations and associations  are no doubt in part due to Natural Selection, but in part  the physical environment has probably exercised a direct pres-  sure all its own and produced an effect which has powerfully  reinforced the results of Natural Selection. The hereditary  variation ultimately appears, but it does so not accidentally  or from the blue, but from the long-continued stimulus

1 While this book was going through the press I was much  interested to see this view corroborated by certain observations of 
Professor F. O. Bower in Evolution in the Light of Modern Know-  ledge (p. 206). After discussing the evolutionary structures of  ferns he continues : "It would seem a natural interpretation of  the facts that the characters (under discussion), acquired by a  direct impress upon a succession of individual lives, should have  been imposed hereditarily upon each race. Naturally the reply  may be made that probably mutations favourable to the perpetuation  of the imposed character may have made that character permanent. 
If we grant that, do we not thereby simply admit that the distinction  between fluctuating variations and mutations is not absolute ? 
In other words, that fluctuating variations repeatedly imposed upon  successive generations are liable to become mutations ? It is  difficult to see any other rational explanation of the wide-reaching  facts of homoplastic adaptation, such as are shown with exceptional  profusion in the ancient class of the ferns, and are evident in plants  at large." (In this quotation fluctuating variations correspond to  what have above been called modifications, while mutations corre-  spond to what have been called variations.) The experiments of 
Kammerer and Durkhen on animals and plants would seem to  tend in the same direction. But they require further corroboration,  and have indeed been called seriously in question. 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 217 
of environmental conditions which have influenced and  affected the field of the germ-cell.

While some variations thus have their roots in the  traditional use and practice of individuals or in the  conditions of the physical environment, and can survive  under the protection thus afforded them, many varia-  tions cannot be thus accounted for, and probably  originate in what appears to us as a spontaneous, indepen-  dent, more or less sudden and accidental manner. The  mode of their selection and survival has still to be accounted  for. Before doing so it is advisable to mention a third set  of difficulties which Darwinism encounters in its explanation  of organic Evolution. I refer to the phenomena of co-ordina-  tion and co-adaptation of organs and characters which it  is almost impossible to account for satisfactorily on orthodox 
Darwinian lines.

I have hitherto spoken of variations as if they came  singly in the evolution of organisms. But they do appear  but rarely as single units. Generally they appear in  associated groups. A small variation is generally found to  be accompanied by a number of still smaller associated  variations. If an organ varies, the associated muscles,  nerves and other body-cells undergo a corresponding varia-  tion. The evolution of the horns of a wild beast, for  instance, means minor and consequential adjustments to  its head, its neck, its muscular system, the development of  the forepart of the body, and its relation to the back parts,  as well as to many other parts and details of its body. 
And when we come to consider the question, already so  difficult, of the selection of a small variation in respect of  such a horn, we are confronted with the still more hopeless  difficulty of having at the same time to account for many  other minor correlated variations, each of which has to be  selected. Besides this, there is their joint and associated  use or functioning which has also to be accounted for as a  factor in their selection. We are obviously throwing a  weight on the principle of Natural Selection which is more  than it can bear. It is being arbitrarily and artificially

2 applied far beyond the area of its natural and proper  application. And here it is where Natural Selection breaks  down completely. The whole body is a system of co-ordin-  ated structures and functions, and its origin and development  can only be represented as a complex movement forward in  time of a mass of associated variations which have resulted  in the most marvellous co-adaptation of structures and  co-ordinated functions. Before the problem of this complex  yet orderly evolution, Natural Selection stands baffled. 
It can deal with individuals and markedly formed and  developed characters, but not with their delicately adjusted  and associated infinitesimals.

The fault, however, lies not so much with Natural Selec-  tion, as with our fundamental organic conceptions. Our crude  uncritical mechanistic conceptions are the real source of the  difficulty, and Holism appears to me to be the way out. The  root of the error lies in our disregard of the individual organ-  ism as a living whole, and in our attempt to isolate characters  from this whole and study them separately, as if they  were mere mechanical components of this whole. The  fatal mistake involved in this procedure has already been  fully exposed in previous chapters. The whole is not a  mechanical aggregate indifferent to and without influence  on its parts. It is itself an active factor in controlling and  shaping the functions of its parts. The parts bear the  impress of its directive influence, without and apart from  which it is vain to speculate on their characters and their  activities. Whereas mechanical action is isolable and  additive, so that the total activities of a system are repre-  sented by the sum of all the individual activities, the situation  is entirely different in the case of a living whole. Here all  action, as we have seen, is holistic, not only that of the whole  itself, but also that of the parts. The stamp of Holism is  impressed on the activities of the parts no less than on the  individual whole itself. The individual and its parts are  reciprocally means and end to one another ; neither is merely  self-regarding, but each supports the other in the moving  dynamic equilibrium which is called life. And so it happens 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 219 
that the central control of the whole also maintains and  assists the parts, and the functions of the parts are ever  directed towards the conservation and fulfilment of the  whole. With this conception of living unity and holistic  action in an organism before us, let us try once more to read  the riddle of Variation and Natural Selection as the twin  factors in Evolution.

In the first place we realise that each individual organism  is a unitary system whose inmost nature is its own balanced  self-maintenance and self-development as a whole. Here-  dity is but the expression of this self-conservative character. 
The organism both as structure and field, while carrying  with it the past which is its expressed self, also carries with  it the still unrealised future which flows organically from  that past, and it maintains a living, moving harmony  between the two ; its presently existing self is the more or less  harmonious realisation of the organic unity of its past and its  future in its present. Variations arise as the tentacles it  throws out under environmental stimulation towards the  future, a stretching of hands dimly and unconsciously  towards future adjustment, welfare and betterment. 
These variations, while apparently accidental and uncon-  trolled, arise from the stimulus of the environment and  are under the central control of the organism as a whole.

Let us for a moment consider the appearance of a small  variation. It is really neither spontaneous nor accidental. 
It is the expression of the moving, developing organism as  a whole in a particular direction. It is normally conditioned  by what has gone before in the history of the organism and  is really of a piece with the organism as a whole. Nor does  it as a rule appear alone. The organism as a whole is on  the march, and while the variation may be the first and  most significant indication of the inner movement, the  advance is not confined to a single point, but is represented  by a curve of progress on which other minor advances are  registered at the same time. Thus variation A when  closely scanned will be seen to be really more like A + b +  c + d 9 where 6, c and d represent minor variations which  adjust A in various respects to the organism. The appar-  ently isolated variation is seen to be what it really is, an  advance of the organism as a whole in a particular direction,  a holistic as distinguished from a singular and mechanical  variation or change. Mechanical analogies may assist us  to understand to some extent what happens. A mechanical  system of a given number of elements in equilibrium is  given a push or blow with a certain force in a certain direc-  tion. When it has recovered from the push or blow and  is in equilibrium once more, it will be found that the change  is not merely in the direction in which the force was applied,  but that all the other elements have also been affected and  have undergone adjustments in order to achieve the new  equilibrium. The same happens, only much more intensely  and intimately and organically, in the case of a change in a  living whole. Variation A necessarily involves a number of  collateral adjustments which are dependent on A, and are  not independently originated or conserved. In other words,  holistic variation or variation of a whole in any particular  respect is the cause and carrier of minor variations which  are not independently selected or conserved, and for which 
Natural Selection need not, therefore, be called into action. 
It is really the whole which does the " selection " in the  exercise of its central control. We may call it a case of 
Holistic Selection as distinguished from external Natural 
Selection. Variation A of the whole, which is the expression  of an inner urge of the whole and is therefore supported by  the whole, carries with it the minor and consequential  adjustments involved in variations b, c and d.

This explains one of the main difficulties which we encoun-  tered above the question, that is to say, of the selective  co-ordination of subsidiary adjustments. But the main  difficulty remains how variation A itself is selected after  its appearance. How is the main small variation, perhaps  too insignificant for Natural Selection to get a grip on,  selected and conserved in the holistic system? If it were  a mere accidental appearance, with nothing more behind it,  it might be a toss up whether it is saved or lost, and generally 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 221 
it is lost. With the prodigality of life itself, organic changes  are scattered broadcast like seeds, and most of them, with  nothing particular in the urge of the organism behind them  to give them continuous momentum, perish as soon as they  are born. But some are in a different position; they are  in the main direction of development, they are on the road,  so to say, on which the organism is travelling; they have  the whole weight of the organism behind them; they are  nursed and cared for, figuratively speaking ; and in the end  they survive. Once more a case of Holistic Selection as  distinct from Natural Selection. And sometimes in these  cases, as we have seen, the organism has long before the  appearance of the variation begun to move in its direction. 
The functioning of the organism has anticipated its future  structure. It has for many generations devoted a part of itself  to a particular use ; the part has in consequence undergone  modification; from an undifferentiated system of cells it  has been modified in certain respects so as to anticipate an  organ. When finally in the course of time this modification  is superseded by and merged into an organic variation, it is  in direct harmony with the needs and the practice of the  organism as a whole; the practice continues along with  the variation and becomes accentuated, the pressure of the  needs of the organism is behind the variation and probably  increases; and the variation, covered by the habitual  practice of the organism, and urged forward by the organic  needs, makes headway and has a fair chance of survival. 
It has a distinct advantage ; the dice are loaded in its favour  by the nature, pressure and practice of the organism as a  whole. These forces behind it are probably strong enough  to keep it going, though only at the very slow pace at which all  biological Evolution moves. Eventually, when it has developed  enough to add a sensible measure of strength to the parent  organism, it will reward its parent for its secular support,  it will join forces with it, and fight a victorious battle against  its competitors. At this stage the belated force of Natural 
Selection has arrived on the scene. But not earlier, the earlier  phases having depended on what I call Holistic Selection.

2
The Holistic Selection which acts within each organism  in respect of its parts inter se is essentially different from  the Natural Selection which operates between different  organisms, which is more appropriately called the struggle  for existence. Holistic Selection is much more subtle in  its operation, and is much more social and friendly in its  activity ; it puts the inner resources of the organism behind  the promising variation, however weak and feeble it may  be in comparison with other characters, and makes it win  through powerful backing rather than through the ruthless  scrapping of the less desirable variations. In the organism  the battle is not always to the strong, nor is the struggle an  unregulated scrimmage in which the most virile survive. 
The whole is all the time on the scene as an active friendly  arbiter and regulator, and its favours go to those variations  which are along the road of its own development, efficiency  and perfection.

The continuous Holistic Selection of small variations may  be compared to the survival of obsolete organs in an organism. 
Both are carried forward by the organism as a whole,  perhaps for millions of years, without being in either case  directly useful to the organism. The whole, to speak meta-  phorically, takes long views, both into the future and into  the past ; and mere considerations of present utility do not  weigh very heavily with it. It carries its infant variation  with it in the same way that it carries the aged and dying  members or atrophying organs. Both are borne along,  covered and shielded by the main characters of the  organism. From the point of view of survival value,  as from so many other points of view, the whole is more  important than any of its parts. And so it comes that  the organism is a most complicated system, a present  living unity embodying its far-away past no less than  its dim distant future. The whole controls, guides and  conserves all. The fate of any particular part, con-  sidered by itself and on its own merits, would be an inexplic-  able mystery, and might be expected to be the very opposite  of what happens in practice. When, however, it is viewed 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 223 
from its position and function in the whole, the mystery is  explained; we see how different the laws of life are from  the laws of mechanics, and how wrong it is to apply mechan-  istic and atomistic conceptions in a region where Holism  prevails.

To understand how a small variation is favoured, we may  represent an organism as a moving developing equilibrium,  which is never perfectly adjusted because it has a persistent  slight overbalance in the direction of development. Com-  plete equilibrium is never attained, and would be fatal if it  were attained, as it would mean stagnation, atrophy and  death. And so the overbalance in a certain direction or  with a definite orientation continues indefinitely, and all  small developments and adjustments and " variations "  which have that specific orientation have the momentum of  the whole behind them and tend to survive and grow while  others in other directions are dropped and discarded. One  may accordingly say that in each case " the whole " is a  co-worker with its small variations which will eventually be  useful ; that as an active factor its influence is on the side  of such small variations, and that with this inner nurture  and support these small variations are in their infant stages  practically independent of external support for their survival  and steady evolution.

The activity of the whole is seen not only in the main-  tenance and evolution of the small variation and all the  subordinate adjustments that go with it, but also and  especially in all the innumerable co-ordinations and co-adap-  tations in structure and function which constitute a living  organism. I believe it is generally admitted that this  phenomenon of organic co-ordination is one which cannot  be satisfactorily explained on mechanical principles. The  functioning of an animal as a whole has something unique  about it, and the term " whole " in this connection is no  mere phrase but a fact of vital significance. We have  already considered the matter fully in Chapter VI. Here  we shall only add that to suppose that Natural Selection has  not only brought about the separate organs of animals and  their functions, but also accounts satisfactorily for their  adjustments to each other and their co-ordinated activities  in the animal behaviour, is to suppose what certainly has  never been and cannot be explained in detail, and what  probably is in conflict with the facts of development. Intel-  ligent and purposive action of a human or other animal  cannot be explained on mechanical principles; nor can  instinctive action, not even reflex or organic activities and  functions below the level of instinct or intelligence. An  animal even of the lowest type makes an unconscious  effort to catch food or beat an enemy, and in the process  performs a large number of acts which are all effectively  co-ordinated towards the attainment of its object. No  mechanical explanation of this process of co-ordinated move-  ments has ever been given. The animal acts as a whole,  with a unity and effectiveness of action which is no mere  mechanical composition of its movements. The concept  of the whole is the only category that will explain such unity,  and we have seen good reason in previous chapters to go  further and to infer that Holism is not merely a category  or concept, but a fact and a factor of far-reaching signifi-  cance. Co-ordination and co-adaptation in organic structure  and behaviour cannot be explained on any other ground.

So far we have considered Holism as creative of variations ;  and as regulating and co-ordinating groups of actualised  variations and organic characters generally. But this by  no means exhausts the function of Holism in organic develop-  ment. It is not only productive of variation, it is just as  much repressive of variation. Holism is as often inhibitive  as creative; it keeps back certain elements at the same  time that it pushes forward others, and in this way secures  a balanced movement and progress of the organic whole. 
When, for instance, the form and characteristics of a gorilla  are compared with the human type it becomes clear that in  the human evolution certain tendencies have been held  definitely in check, and the utter caricature in appearance,  which would have resulted from unrestrained development,  has thus been prevented. Nobody who ignores this negative 
vin DARWINISM AND HOLISM 225 
aspect of Evolution can possibly understand the present  forms of animals, compared with their living or fossil affilia-  tions. Tendencies to variation, which were realised in the  case of Neanderthal man, have been more or less severely  repressed in the present human races. If there had been,  unrestrained evolution of all potential variations, the results  would have been truly dreadful in their grotesqueness. In  fact we find at work in organic Evolution an influence not  unlike that which at a much later stage we recognise as the  ethical control of feelings, impulses and instinctive move-  ments of an undesirable character. The whole in personality,  the whole in its ethical flowering in the human, means not  only expression of certain moral qualities, but also and  equally repression of others. Elements and tendencies  which we find strongly operative in our instinctive or organic  nature we have to keep in check, to hold down severely, and  to prevent from emergence in our characters as a whole. 
This is the very essence of Holism in its mature ethical  development. There is something very similar and equally  fundamental in the activity of Holism in the earlier purely  organic phases of Evolution. In any individual organism  the whole is in control, pushing forward some tendencies  and keeping back others, expressing some variations and  repressing others, and through all maintaining a mobile  equilibrium of all the elements, positive and negative, that  are uniquely blended in the individual. Thus it is that if  we wish to understand the details of organic Evolution in  any particular case we should look for the repressions no  less than for the variations; it is the combination of the  two which constitutes Evolution.

I shall no doubt be asked what experimental verification  there is for the holistic view of Evolution here set forth. 
My answer is to repeat what I have already said : that  natural Evolution as distinguished from experimental 
Evolution is a process, not of the hour or the day, but of  geological time, and that the results, matured and con-  solidated through immemorial periods, cannot be repeated  or rehearsed by short-dated laboratory experiments, 
conducted too under conditions very different from those of 
Nature. These experiments, however valuable and instruc-  tive in affording subsidiary clues and hints of the natural  process, do not by any means exhaust or even seriously  affect the real problem of creative Evolution ; and a correct  view of Evolution must have regard to this difference and  be based on an intelligent appreciation of the natural  processes rather than on the very limited data yielded by  our laboratory experiments. There is no doubt that experi-  mental Evolution has, through its unavoidable limitations,  greatly blurred the great Darwinian vision of organic Evolu-  tion, and instead of making us more fully realise its truth  and effectiveness and grandeur as a whole, has tended to  deflect our attention to particular problems which are  special and limited enough to be capable of laboratory  treatment. The special and exceptional cases of Mutation  and Hybridisation come to be looked upon as covering the  entire process of organic Evolution. My endeavour in this  chapter has been, through a re-examination of the position  thus created, to explore and reconnoitre a way back to the  broader and wider view of Evolution. And in doing so I  have sought the assistance of a concept which we have  found at work, not only in organic Evolution, but in all  organic structures and processes and even, to a limited  extent, in inorganic Nature itself. I shall now briefly  summarise the results we have reached in this chapter in  order thus to see how they bear on the wide Darwinian  conception from which we started.

The relative importance of the internal and external  factors in Evolution has materially altered since Darwin's  time. Variation has become much more important than 
Natural Selection, not only in biological studies and experi-  mental researches, but also in our view of it as an operative  factor in organic Evolution. While remaining a substantial  and important factor Natural Selection has yielded pride  of place to Variation. The factor of intense struggle and  competition in Nature on which Darwin, following the 
Malthusian clue, laid so much stress is now seen not 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 227 
only to have less importance relatively, but also to bear  a somewhat different character from what it had in 
Darwin's view. The struggle for existence is, like Muta-  tion, an exceptional and not the usual procedure of  organic Nature. This world is at bottom a friendly universe,  in which organised tolerant co-existence is the rule and  destructive warfare the exception, resorted to only when the  balance of Nature is seriously disturbed. Normally Natural 
Selection takes the form of comradeship, of social co-  operation and mutual help. Normally also the organic  struggle is very much in abeyance, and the silent, effortless,  constant pressure of the physical and organic environment  exercises a very powerful influence. The young science of 
Ecology has been built up since Darwin's time and is based  on the recognition of this fact, that, in addition to the  operation of Natural Selection, the environment has a silent,  assimilative, transformative influence of a very profound  and enduring character on all organic life. In the subtle  ways of Nature, sun and earth, night and day, and all the  things of earth and air and sea mingle silently with life,  sink into it and become part of its structure. And in  response to this profound stimulus life grows and evolves,  the lesser whole in harmony with the greater whole of 
Nature.

The interaction between the inner and the outer factors  in Evolution is far more close and subtle than one would  infer from Darwinism, either in its earlier or its later (Weis-  mann) form. It is not merely a case of one factor creating  variations, and another eliminating some of these creations  and leaving free the rest, which are then said to be selected  for perpetuation. The inner creative factor in a measure  acts directly under the stimulus of the external factor, and  the variations which emerge are the result of this intimate  interaction. The isolation of the inner from the outer factor,  which was so much emphasised by Weismann, is, in spite  of its apparent agreement with observation, really a mis-  taken assumption, based on the neglect of the factor of  time in Evolution. Environment is a great stimulus of  variation, and even more so is the somatic organism itself,  which is closer to the germ-cell than the environment.

We can only understand the process of organic Evolution if  we assume that, deeply as the germ-cell carriers of Variation  are hid from external contacts, they are not completely or for  ever isolated therefrom ; that changes due to habitual be-  haviour or to environmental or chemical or ecological pressure  affect the " field " of the germ-cells, and if sufficiently long-  continued and intense, sooner or later penetrate the structures  of these germ-cells, and stimulate and set in motion the in-  ternal factor of Variation. The response comes back in a crisis  of variation or mutation which permanently alters the internal  hereditary structure. In these cases the inner and outer  factors of Evolution do not operate independently and by  opposed and contrasted methods; they collaborate in the  closest manner as the stimulus and response which we find  distinctive of all organic action. From this external factor,  which operates as a stimulus of organic variation, we have  to distinguish Darwin's Natural Selection, which is another  external factor operative not in connection with the stimula-  tion of variations, but in connection with their subsequent  elimination or destruction, and acting like a sieve through  which all life has to pass on pain of destruction. The  external factors in Evolution are therefore according to this  view twofold ; the environmental or ecological factor which  to some extent influences or induces variation, and the  factor of organic struggle which sets in motion the warfare  among organisms for the limited goods of life, which Darwin  called Natural Selection.

But it is only in certain classes of cases that the " use "  factor or the external or ecological stimulus of variation  comes into action ; in others the stimulus of variation is  entirely internal, and must be found in the fresh mix-  ture and readjustment of the chromatin elements of the  germ-cell nucleus at certain critical stages in the evolutionary  process, such as in the sexual reproduction of some organ-  isms, or the endomixis and rejuvenescence which occur at  certain stages in others. 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 229

This internal factor in Variation and Evolution was  stressed, and rightly stressed, by Weismann, and has  supplied a suggestive clue for the researches in Genetics  which have been conducted since his day. But the view of  this factor as purely mechanical must lead to great diffi-  culties in detail, and make it impossible to understand the  process of organic Evolution as a whole. I have therefore  endeavoured to stress the contrary view of this inner factor,  and to show that it is holistic in character and operation,  that it thus solves the difficulties which the mechanistic  hypothesis has created for itself, and that it leads to a  reconciliation of the two factors operative in Evolution. 
Holism has thus once more, though in a way different from  that envisaged by Darwin, brought us back to the great 
Darwinian vision of universal adaptation. 1

But Holism has done more; it has enabled us to realise  the pervasive creative unity which makes all the diverse  elements of existence the co-operative members and  inhabitants of an essentially friendly universe. Operating  as the inner creative factor at the heart of things, it has led  to the evolution of a universe in which all the factors and  products, organic and inorganic alike, are not alien to and  destructive of each other, but are capable of mutual adapta-  tion and adjustment, just because they own a common  origin and have an indisputable, though often scarcely  recognisable, family relationship. This is not to assume a 
Pre-established Harmony, which would be as great a mistake  in one direction as the contrary and more usual mechan-  istic assumption that universal adaptation and organic

1 I am afraid that the current " gene " theory, especially as it is  being worked out and applied by Professor T. H. Morgan and others  in their important researches, is far too deeply tainted with mechan-  istic elements. They search for organic change in individual genes  rather than in the intra-organic field or milieu of interacting and  mutually modifying functionings. There may soon be more of the  hypothetical " genes " than the nucleus or the chromosomes can  bear. Here too the concept of the whole as the centre and source  of modifications in a network of connected influences and functions  may appear as the way out of the difficulty. The organic or holistic  concept should be faithfully applied in all its subtle implication and  should not be translated into a sort of chemistry of genes.  co-ordination are in effect the accidental results of utterly  unconnected factors would be in the other direction. The  true conception not only for philosophy but also for science  is that of parts in a whole. It is the high task of science to  explore the mechanisms of adaptation and variation in all  their details, and to pursue at all costs the chemistry and  physics of the cell, of which we still know so little. But  in doing so it must also explore the unifying, regulating,  co-ordinating activity of the holistic factor, which even  from a purely scientific point of view is just as important  as the study of the special mechanisms. Above all, biological  science must ever keep before itself the standpoint of the  whole, without and apart from which all the details so  far from being recognised as being organic to each other  are mere loose meaningless items, like the sands of the sea-  shore, utterly useless for the understanding of that unique  unity which constitutes an organic individual. The whole  is the ultimate category not only of organic explanation,  but also of organic adaptation and evolution. And it is  more than a category; as the creative factor of inner  structural and functional control operative in all existence,  it is the ultimate real in the universe and the creative source  of all reality, whether organic or inorganic. Nay, more : 
Holism is also creative of all values. Take the case of  organic Beauty. It is undeniable that Beauty rests on a  holistic basis. Beauty is essentially a product of Holism  and is inexplicable apart from it. Beauty is of the whole; 
Beauty is a relation of parts in a whole, a blending of  elements of form and colour, of foreground and background,  of expression and suggestion, of structure and function, of  structure and field, which is perceived and appreciated as  harmonious and satisfying, according to laws which it is  for ^Esthetics to determine.

It may be a question how far the phenomena of repression  in conjunction with expression in organic Evolution, of  regulated development as a whole, of beauty and of similar  phenomena can be properly subsumed under the Darwinian  factors. Perhaps it is better to recognise that there is 
viii DARWINISM AND HOLISM 231 
something wider and deeper at work in Evolution than the  factors as found by Darwin and his successors, something of  which those factors are themselves but an expression. 
The whole is itself an active factor, and its activity as such  explains phenomena which it is difficult if not impossible  to account for in any other way without very forced inter-  pretations. The inner sources of wealth and beauty in 
Nature are inexhaustible, and they are poured forth with  a lavish hand in the creative process of Evolution. Not  merely survival values on Darwinian lines count; on the  foundation of variations with survival value is raised a  superstructure of development which far transcends that  narrow basis. Mind in its marvellous human efflorescence  rests no doubt on a basis of survival value ; but how much  more it is than that ! The glories of art and literature, the  peace of the mystic religious experience, the creative Ideals  which lift this life beyond the limitations of its lowly origin  all these experiences and developments have built a new  spiritual world on the humble foundations of survival values. 
In the kingdom of life is visibly arising its capital, the City  of God. Apart from the great human development, beauty  in Nature tells the same tale. The song of birds, with its  primary appeal to sex, but with so infinitely much more in  it than the mere sex-appeal ; the glorious forms and colouring  of birds and beasts and insects, which no doubt rise in and  from the struggle for existence, but finally rise above it,  and rob it of all its sordidness and drabness ; above all, the  wonder of plants and flowers, which were meant for the  eye of birds and insects, but which contain so infinitely  much more than the eye of bird or insect ever beheld or  ever can behold it is everywhere in Nature the same. 
Everywhere we see the great overplus of the whole. So  little is asked; so much more is given. The female only  asks for a sign to recognise the male, and to help her to  select him and stick to him in preference to others. And  for answer she gets an overpowering revelation of beauty  out of all proportion to her modest request. The peahen  has no discriminating understanding of the wondrous

232 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP.VIII 
colouring of the peacock, which far transcends even our  human powers; but in some inscrutable way something of  an emotional nature in her takes it all in and is satisfied. 
It is deep calling unto deep ; it is the whole appealing to the  whole. There is evidently more in all this than the Dar-  winian factors can satisfactorily explain, and it would be  both foolish and unscientific not to recognise this frankly. 
To me the conclusion of the matter is that the inexhaustible  whole is itself at work, that Holism is an active factor  influencing and interacting with the particular Darwinian  factors, that not only its tendency but also its output far  exceed the immediate present utilities and needs of organic 
Evolution, and that its bow is bent for the distant horizons,  far beyond all human power of vision and understanding.

CHAPTER IX

MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES

Summary. Mind is, after the atom and the cell, the third great  fundamental structure of Holism. It is not itself a real whole,  but a holistic structure, a holistic organ, especially of Personality  which is a real whole.

Psychology treats mind in man and the higher animals as a factor  or phenomenon by itself, and analyses it into various modes of  activity, such as consciousness, attention, conception, feeling,  emotion, will, etc. In this work Mind is viewed from a different  angle ; it is a form of Holism and it is studied as a holistic structure,  with a definite relation to other earlier holistic structures. It has,  therefore, a much wider setting and performs more fundamental  functions in the order of the universe than appears from Psychology.

Mind springs from two roots. In the first place, it is a con-  tinuation, on a much higher plane, of the system of organic regula-  tion and co-ordination which characterises Holism in organisms.

Mind is thus the direct descendant of organic regulation and  carries forward the same task. This is the universalising side of 
Mind, and appears in the conceptual-rational or reasoning activity,  which co-ordinates and regulates all experience. Its physical basis  is the brain and neural system, which is the central system of  regulation and co-ordination in the body. It is thus the crowning  phase of the regulative, co-ordinative process of Holism.

In the second place, Mind is a development of an " individual "  aspect of Holism which already plays a subordinate part in organ-  isms. In man it pushes to the front as conscious individuality or  the Self of the Personality, and becomes as conspicuous a feature  of developed Holism as regulative co-ordination, if not more so. 
This intense element of individuality is the principal novelty in  the development of Mind, the real revolutionary departure from  the prior system of regulative routine, and in Personality it cul-  minates in a new order of wholes for the universe. Mind in its  individual aspect is thus the chief means whereby organic Holism  has developed into human Personality.

Mind is in some respects as old as life, but life outran it in the  race of Evolution. Besides, Mind needed life as a nurse, and its  full development has therefore had to wait for that of life. The

233  extraordinary self -regulation of organisms must, therefore, not be  put to the credit of Mind, which was essentially a later development  of Holism.

Mind is traceable ultimately to inorganic affinities and organic  selectivities. The " tension " of a body in disequilibrium gradually  became covered with a vague " feeling " of discomfort, which had  survival value ; instead of remaining a passive state it became  active as ad-tension or attention, and ultimately consciousness. 
Interest became appreciable. Simultaneously the individual side of 
Mind developed as conation, seeking, experiment; and from this  double basis Mind grew with phenomenal rapidity in the earlier  species of the genus Homo.

The individual self-conscious conative Mind is rightly stressed  by psychology as the Subject of experience or the Self. In the  universal system of order this individual appears as a disturbing  influence, as a rebel against that order. But the rebel fights his  way to victory, achieves plasticity and freedom, and is released from  the previous regular routine of Holism. Mind thus through its  power of experience and knowledge comes to master its own conditions  of life, to secure freedom and to control the regulative system into  which it has been born. Freedom, plasticity, creativeness become  the keynotes of the new order of Mind.

This is, however, only one side of mental evolution. Pari passu  with this individual development the universalising conceptual-  rational side of Mind also develops rapidly; its regulative Reason  makes Mind a part of the universal order, and the individual and  universal aspects of Mind mutually enrich and fructify each other,  and on the level of human Personality result in the creation of a  new ideal world of spiritual freedom. This union of the " indi-  vidual " subjective Mind with the universal or rational Mind is  possible because the individual Mind has itself arisen in the holistic  regulative bosom, j Pure individualism is a misleading abstraction ;  the individual becomes conscious of himself only in society and  from knowing others like himself; his very capacity for conceptual  experience results mostly from the use of the social instrument of  language. The individual springs from universal Holism, and all  his experience and knowledge ultimately tend towards the char-  acter of regulative order and universality. Thus knowledge assumes  in the first instance the form of an empirical order, as a system of  common sense. /Gradually the discrepancies of this system are  eliminated and knowledge approximates to science, to a scientific  conceptual order, in which concepts and principles beyond empirical  experience are assumed to underlie the world of experience. 1 The  scientific world-conception marks the triumph of the universal  element in Mind, but only on the basis of the freedom and control  which the individual mind has mainly achieved. Mind as an organ 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 235 
of the whole, while taking its place in the universal order, has emanci-  pated itself from the earlier routine of regulation and has assumed crea-  tive control of its own conditions of life and development. Thus it  creates its own environment in society, language, tradition, writing,  literature, etc., instead of being dependent on an alien environment  as on the organic level. Again, Mind frees itself from the intoler-  able burden of organic inheritance by inheriting merely the widest,  most plastic capacity to learn, and letting the social environment  and tradition carry on the onerous duty of recording the past. 
While the animal is hidebound with its own hereditary characters,  the human Personality is free to acquire a vast experience in his  individual life.

/Mind has its conscious illuminated area and its subconscious 
" field." In this field the forgotten experience of the individual  life as well as the physiological and racial inheritance exercises a  powerful influence. It is this influence that proves decisive for  our fundamental bias, our temperament, our point of view, and  our individual outlook on persons and things. It is of an intensely  holistic unanalysable character; it is even possible that our neura]  endowment carries with it more in the way of sensation and intui-  tion than appears from the special senses; that the sensitive basis  from which they have been diiferentiated has continued to develop  pari passu with them and to-day forms a subtle holistic sense, a  capacity of psychical sensing or intellectual intuition which explains  our holistic sense of reality as well as other obscure phenomena,  such as telepathy. So much for the influence of the past. The  future also becomes a potent influence on Mind. Through its dual  activity of conception and conation Mind forms " purposes " which  envisage future situations in experience and make the future an  operative factor in the present. Purpose marks the liberation of 
Mind from the domination of circumstances and indicates its free  creative activity, away from the trammels of the present and the  past. Through purpose Mind finally escapes from the house of  bondage into the free realm of its own sovereignty. All through  its great adventure its procedure is fundamentally holistic, and this  can be shown by reference to the various activities of Mind as  analysed by psychology. Free creative synthesis appears every-  where in mental functioning, and not least in the region of Meta-  physics, Ethics, Art and Religion, which, however, fall outside  the scope of this work. .

IN previous chapters Mind has often been mentioned  as a factor in Evolution. In all the references only the  well-known meanings and activities of Mind have been  assumed, and my procedure in making use of the factor of

2
Mind in anticipation of its full discussion is therefore not  so objectionable as it might appear from a purely theoretical  point of view. The successive phases of the whole so tele-  scope into each other that it is impossible to treat each  phase in a water-tight compartment, and any attempt to  do so would only result in a distorted view of the subject  as a whole. In dealing with matter we had to anticipate  the coming development of life ; in dealing with life we had  to anticipate the beginnings of the future development of 
Mind. So far from there being a disadvantage in this  overflow of these concepts into each other's domain, a truer  picture of reality results from such a treatment, which  softens the contours of the somewhat too hard and artificial  distinctions popularly drawn between them and helps to  disclose the underlying unity which pervades them all. 
It is, however, advisable now to look at the factor of Mind  more closely, to define its characters, and to study its  functions as an organ and expression of Holism.

It will be readily recognised that the problem of Mind  is not for us the same as it is for the psychologist. Psycho-  logy treats of the mind in man and the higher animals as  a distinct phenomenon by itself, which it analyses and  explores in its various elements, and which it studies as a  separate department or rather compartment in the total  domain of science. For the psychologist the question of  boundaries is, therefore, essential; he must demarcate his  area of Mind from other areas in the total world of know-  ledge. He must at all costs vindicate the claims of psycho-  logy as a separate science, distinct from the rest. And  having with more or less success differentiated the scope of  his science from those of other sciences, he then proceeds  to explore the details of his science in the manner which  is well known to us from the methods and procedure of the  great masters of psychology. It is just here in the settle-  ment of boundaries, in the demarcation of the domain of  psychology from other domains in science, that the funda-  mental difficulty for psychology arises. For Mind is much  more elusive and penetrative than life and still more 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 237 
so than matter. Its " field " covers and penetrates the 
" fields " of matter and life in a way which makes the  tracing of hard-and-fast boundaries very difficult, if not  practically impossible. It seems to impinge in all directions  on areas already apparently securely held by the other  departments of natural and biological science; its claims  are contested in many directions; and serious doubts arise  in how far it really has a territory of its own distinct from  other territories in science. The nature of Mind makes  this difficulty inherent and irremediable, and psychology as  a separate science will always have to remain content with  an intensive cultivation of its central area only, and a  sharing of the outer marches and outlying territories with  the natural and biological sciences. To me it seems that  such a condominium of the debatable area, however  awkward for psychology, is by no means an unmixed evil  for science in general, and that the intimate contact of the  different view-points and methods of psychology and the  other sciences over this area may prove fruitful and pro-  ductive of great advances in future. This is, however,  remarked by the way. My real point is the difference in the  treatment of mind from the standpoints of psychology and of 
Holism respectively. For psychology Mind is a distinct  phenomenon to be studied by itself. For the theory of 
Holism Mind is but a phase, though a culminating phase, of  its universal process. The question of boundaries, so funda-  mental for the psychologist, does not exist for us. From  our point of view that is a mere parochial question ; for us 
Mind is not merely a phenomenon of human and animal  psychology. We have to trace the connections of Mind  with the earlier phases of matter and life; we have, so to  say, to lay bare the foundations of Mind in the order of the  universe. Mind as an expression of Holism, Mind as an  organ of Holism : that is our problem.

We have already seen that the atom and the cell were  the two great departures in the upbuilding of the universe,  the two great abiding peaks of achievement in the march  of creative Holism, which have in turn become the basis

238 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP, 
and fundamental units of all existence. We now come to  the third, which in the order of the universe is perhaps as  great a departure, and from our human point of view even  more significant than the other two. In Mind we reach  the most significant factor in the universe, the supreme  organ which controls all the other structures and mechan-  isms. Mind is not yet the master, but it is the key in the  hands of the master, Personality. It unlocks the door  and releases the new-born spirit from the bonds and shackles  and dungeons of natural necessity. It is the supreme  system of control, and it holds the secret of freedom. 
Through the opened door, and the mists which still dim  the eyes of the emergent spirit, it points to the great vistas  of knowledge. Mind is the eye with which the universe  beholds itself and knows itself divine. In Mind Nature at  last emerges from the deep sleep of its far-off beginnings,  becomes awake, aware and conscious, begins to know  herself, and consciously, instead of blindly and unconsciously,  to reach out towards freedom, towards welfare, and towards  the goal of the ultimate Good. Mind is thus the organ of  control, of knowledge and of values. No wonder that to  the young Socrates it came as a great spiritual revelation  when first he learned from Anaxagoras that not matter but  mind was the ultimate principle of the universe. It is at  any rate worthy to be set by the side of the atom  and the cell as among the fundamental advances in creative 
Holism.

It would be an interesting speculation at this stage to  pause and ask, from our knowledge of the previous lines of  advance in the atom and the cell, what the next step was  to be, or rather in what direction it might be looked for. In  what way precisely does Mind fit into the scheme of the  earlier structures and mark another step forward in the great  line of holistic advance? An answer to this larger, more  speculative question may give us some general clue to the  nature of Mind as the next great factor or phase in the  evolution of the universe, and may form a fitting in-  troduction to the narrower, more practical question of 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 239 
the functions and activities of Mind in the higher animals  and man.

Mind is an advance on what has gone before in two  directions. And it is the peculiar interaction between the  double lines of advance, the intersection of the two curves  of advance, so to say, that produces the uniqueness of Mind  as a natural phenomenon. In order to appreciate this we  have to grasp the point which has been reached in the  preceding sketch of the evolution of Holism.

We have seen that both matter and life are structures,  and that the advance of Evolution consists in the emergence  of ever more complex and intensive structures, ever more  complexly and highly organised wholes. In the structures  of matter the number of co-operative elements are fewer  and their interactions are simpler, so that it is still possible  to some extent to trace elementary effects to their separate  causes and sources in the structure itself. Structure is  dominant and its functions are calculable as elements of  structure. As, however, we proceed from physical to  chemical structures the fusion and unification of elements  and functions become more marked, and the structures  become at the same time more complex. When we come  to the structures of life we find not only the structural  elements far more numerous and the structures far more  complex, but also the organisation much more intensive  and unified and the functions much more single and unified,  individual and unanalysable. In a tree or an animal, for  instance, we find an infinity of cells and cell-structures of  all degrees of specialisation mutually adapted to and co-  operating with each other for the maintenance of a single  individual whole in a most wonderful way. We do not  ascribe this co-operation and unity of action to some pre-  siding intelligence in the tree or animal. In organism as  such there is no psychic control ; and yet there is a control  so simple, so automatic, so effective as to baffle our powers  of understanding. The inner co-ordination and self-regula-  tion in organisms which is the organic phase of Holism is  indeed something marvellous, almost something miraculous.

2
And in its way and on its own plane nothing more wonderful  or perfect has been reached in the evolution of the universe. 
Conscious Mind with its uncertainties, its aberrations, its  failures, seems a mere bungling experiment compared with  this massive certainty and regularity. The irregularities and  eccentricities of Mind in man compare very unfavourably  with the unerring precision and regularity of organic activity  and functioning in all highly developed plants and animals. 
Think of the well-ordered society which constitutes a big  animal or tree ! Compare the love-making and union and  reproduction in plants and organisms with the love-making  and union of hearts of humans ! Compare the social organ-  isation of insects with our social disorganisation and anarchy,  our painful and uncertain social experiments and expedients  even in the most highly developed human societies ! No,  organism has nothing to learn from highly developed Mind  in the way of regulation, co-ordination or inner control of  structures and functions. The self-balance of processes  and activities in organism surpasses anything our ingenuity  can understand or encompass. It is by reflections such as  these that the impression is borne in upon us that conscious 
Mind is no mere continuation and development of the organic  process, but largely a fresh experiment in the universe, an  experiment still in the making, and by no means in every  respect a successful one. Mind, in fact, is a new structure  still in process of making, and not a direct continuation or  expansion of what has gone before. It is a superstructure  on the basis of the pre-existing physical and physiological  structures, and it carries on the task of Evolution on some-  what new lines of its own, and initiated by itself. It has  not appeared suddenly and from the blue at any particular  point, though its advance may have partaken of the char-  acter of a mutation, or a series of mutations. Its primordial  roots probably lay in the beginnings of life itself, and in  the favouring bosom of life its embryonic structure developed  until in time it could appear as an independent factor, with  a steadily growing power over life itself. But during all  that immense formative period it was but a nursling of 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 241 
life and in no intelligible sense was it responsible for the  delicate, complicated, internal self-ordering of the life-  structures which must be attributed to another prior factor,  or rather to a prior development of the same underlying  holistic process of which Mind is a later development.

Let me now turn to the consideration of the double lines  of advance along which Mind emerges arid pushes forward  in its evolution. In the discussion of cell-structures in 
Chapter IV we noted a double process in Holism, one of  which is the regulative universalising process of structural  order to which so much attention has been paid in this  study, and the second of which I called individuation. 
Let me here say a few words about the latter aspect of  the holistic advance, which remained of a somewhat sub-  ordinate character and comparatively minor importance  until the appearance of Mind. Holism, as its very idea  implies, is a tendency towards unity, a blending and order-  ing of multiple elements into new unities. From the more or  less homogeneous to the heterogeneous ; from heterogeneous  multiplicity again to greater, more advanced harmony, to  a harmonious co-operative ordered structural unity ; such a  formula may serve as a rough-and-ready description of the  holistic process. Thus, for instance, in the process of 
Evolution we see the advance from material systems to  individual organisms. One organism is not merely a dupli-  cate of another, as one molecule of water is a duplicate of  another. It is single and individual, with a character of  its own. And the element of separate individuality increases  as the differentiation and variation increase with the  advance of Evolution. Such individual differences tend to  increase, and at the same time their blending in the indi-  vidual tends to become ever more unique. This tendency  towards individuation is inherent in the holistic process  and receives an immense impetus when the human level  of development is reached. Here for the first time indi-  viduality acquires its true and full meaning. Everyone  knows what is meant by individuality as applied to humans. 
Not only are no two human beings alike; their separate 
R  characteristic individualities are what is most distinctive  of them and what they are known by and what principally  determines their relations in life. There is in each human  being not only a peculiar blending of characters but also a  sense of the uniqueness of this blending, a sense of separate  and specific selfhood which constitutes his or her very  essence. Humans are not mere units (as material bodies),  they are also individuals; they are not merely individuals 
(like organisms), but also unique selves. Thus is the  fundamental principle of individuation finally consummated  in the human. The human being is a conscious self, and  this selfhood becomes in turn the basis of his Personality,  which is the supreme structure yet reached in Evolution  and with which we shall deal in the next chapter. It is a  striking fact that in the holistic advance as I have sketched  it in previous chapters the dominant note and feature of  progress is order, with an ever-increasing measure of regula-  tion and co-ordination and control so as to make that order  effective ; while the feature of individuation is comparatively  insignificant. As old as structural order itself in the  evolution of the universe, and an inseparable accompaniment  of it at all stages, individuation as an evolutionary variation  remains in the background, so to say, until the emergence  of conscious Mind leads to a rapid and indeed phenomenal  outgrowth of this hitherto minor feature. The appearance  of Mind, therefore, especially at the human level where it  is most marked, seems to constitute a break in the even  and regular advance of Evolution, and to mark a new  departure of a very far-reaching character. The fact is  that in and with Mind a significant change takes place in  the relative importance of the two fundamental aspects  in Holism. While the aspect of order and regulation  continues to develop and grow, the other aspect of indi-  viduation pushes relatively much more to the front, and in  the latest human phase of evolution not only assumes a  dominant importance in itself, but also begins to exert a  far-reaching influence on the other feature of order and  regulation. That it will and indeed must have such an 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 243 
influence is at once intelligible from the fact that at bottom  individuation and regulation are, as we have seen, dual  aspects of the same inner process or activity, and any  accentuation of the " individuation " factor must at once  react on the other " regulation " factor. Thus it is that  while in Nature order is of a mechanical character and in  the world of life is of an automatic character, certain, regular  and unfailing; in man, where the mental factor has come  into its own, it is neither mechanical nor automatic, but of a  new plastic variable type which we call conscious and volun-  tary. In fact the whole system of regulation and control is  fundamentally transformed ; new mental agencies seem to be  at work and new categories of description and explanation  become necessary. The appearance of conscious Mind has  meant, not only an epoch-making development of the feature  of individuality, but also and in consequence a new system  of regulation and control, not so regular and automatic and  effective as the older inorganic and organic systems, and  still comparatively vacillating, irregular and uncertain in  its action, but vastly more comprehensive and with a power  which promises ultimately to give a complete command  over the conditions of matter and life. There is a mastery  in the new system of control such as was not dreamt of at  earlier stages of Evolution. Organic regulation, however  vast, elaborate and effective, has nothing of the sheer  mastery and domination and free creative power which  characterise the new control. Conscious planning on the  mental level entirely revolutionises the situation and sub-  stitutes freedom and action for the fixed automatic behaviour  and routine of the biological order.

These general remarks will serve to place Mind in the  history of Evolution, and to show the nature of its relations  to what has gone before and what is to follow. It marks  a new departure not only in the feature of holistic regulation  and control, to which so much attention has been paid in  the foregoing chapters, but also and far more specially in  the feature of individuation, which up to now has been of  an insignificant character, but which from now on begins  to assume a dominant position, and to give a new direction  and character to the pre-existing system of organic regula-  tion. Mind is not so much a direct continuation of the  holistic advance on the previous lines of life as a fresh  start, with a new factor pushed to the fore in the process,  and a new orientation given to the whole movement. It  marks the new stage of intensive individuation which  becomes Personality; and at the same time it marks the  new system of control which culminates in conscious rational 
Purpose as a function of Personality. Mind underlies and  supports both these great closely related departures in the  process of Evolution. Having thus indicated the general  function and activity of Mind in the history of Evolution,  let us now proceed to look more closely at its nature and  character.

Mind has its earliest beginnings in the inorganic structures  of Nature already. Disturbance of the equilibrium of  physical structures leads, as we have seen, to a state of  tension, and a tendency to compensation; and one phase  of this tension and compensating movement is seen in the  selective action which matter already exercises, and which,  as explained in Chapter VII, becomes far more accentuated  in the subsequent structures of life. This tension with its  selective compensation is without a doubt the original  stimulus and source of Mind as well as of life, but the  evolution of life proceeded far more rapidly and completely  outstripped Mind in the race which followed. Mind as a  matter of fact needed the support of life for its full fruition,  and was therefore dependent on the prior development of  life. In the course of the subsequent developments this  tension underwent two radical changes which had far-  reaching effects, as they led directly to the evolution of 
Mind. In the first place, the tension in the life-structures  or living bodies developed (in some unknown manner) an  additional intensity which took the entirely new form of  a vague sense of irritation or discomfort which began  to accompany it. In other words, the tension or strain  in the living bodies led to the epoch-making development 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 245 
of this vague sense of uneasiness or discomfort, which  had the effect of strongly reinforcing and stimulating  the efforts made for the removal of the strain. The  successful effort, again, was accompanied by a sense of  ease or comfort which must have been a real helpful  stimulus and have had considerable survival value for  the organisms that developed it. We see thus that the  tension or strain came to be accompanied by vague feelings  which radically transformed it and gave a different meaning  and value to it. The feeling became a potent force working  behind and inside the organic system for the removal  of the tension or strain. This feeling or sense of comfort  or discomfort must originally have been of the vaguest  possible character, but at any rate it was a beginning,  and indeed a revolutionary beginning, and it performed a  useful function in reinforcing the effort or rather tendency  for the removal of the strain or uneasiness. It marked an  enormous step in advance, and is probably still exemplified  in the " tropisms " which characterise the movements of  the most primitive animal organisms.

In the second place, the tension became intensified in  another direction. Instead of remaining merely a passive  result of the state of disequilibrium, it became an active  state or relation between the structure or body affected  and the cause of the affection or discomfort. The passive  tension became an active ad-tension or attention, and in  this transformation we reach the most primitive, most  characteristic function of Mind. The living organism no  longer suffers passively, blindly and in darkness, so to speak. 
The worm turns upon the source of its torture. The  organism begins to attend to the source of its discomfort;  and this attention, at first vague and diffused, gradually  develops, until it becomes an awareness or low form of  awareness of its object, and consciousness in its most  elementary form thus appears. In its most primitive  form it showed itself at quite an early stage in animal  development, probably not long after sensori-motor  mechanisms had been evolved.

2
These are the principal steps in the beginnings of Mind ;  and whatever immemorial periods this evolution may have  taken, and whatever other intermediate phases it may have  passed through, in the result the basis of Mind was well  and truly laid in the rise of the power of attention, accom-  panied and stimulated by feelings of comfort or discomfort,  and by a certain awareness or consciousness of the object  to which attention was directed. As we saw in Chapter VI,  it is one of the special effects of Holism to transform  passivity into activity, and nowhere has that transforma-  tion had a more far-reaching character than in regard to  the origin of attention as an active response on the part  of organism from the passive state of tension which had  preceded it. In this transformation we see not only what  is perhaps the origin of mental activity but also a new  departure in the system of power, of freedom and of  control over its surroundings with which Mind is specially  associated.

The actual steps in the evolution of Mind, in so far as  they can be traced from available evidence, need not be  discussed here in detail. No doubt we have to start with  sporadic and uncertain variations in mere organic structural  functioning ; as these become regular and stereotyped they  assume the form, first of tropisms in plants and animals,  and then of reflexes in the activity of special organs or cells. 
Then in the case of animals trains of reflexes are gradually  co-ordinated into regular modes of activity of the organism  as a whole, as instincts. Sensori-motor co-ordinations  are effected, by which the passive influences and effects  coming from the outside world are transformed into definite  modes of active response by the organism. This active  power of response enables the organism to strive more  effectively for the satisfaction of its needs, endows it with  a definite conative power, so to say. It begins to strive,  to seek, to experiment and explore. The original reaction  of inorganic, and then of organic, selectiveness has become  a real function and capacity of conation. The originally  vague and diffused feeling increases in volume and intensity 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 247 
and propels this striving or conation all the more effectively. 
The awareness or consciousness of objects becomes clearer ;  consciousness becomes a real illumination of outside objects  which before were dark and unknown. It becomes the  torch with which the organism explores its way in a dark  and somewhat alien world. Consciousness thus increases  the influence of the environment on the organism ; and its  correlative attention pari passu increases the power of  response and the return influence which the organism can  exercise over the environment. This mental activity con-  tinues to grow in its double inner and outer aspects, its  inner capacity of attention and active reaction, and its  outward-facing capacity of assimilating external materials  in the form of awareness or consciousness of objects. A  metabolism of a higher order than that seen on the biological  plane sets in; a new psychological structure has been  evolved ; and Mind starts on its active and creative career. 
No elaboration of the steps sketched here can be attempted,  and the details must be studied in works dealing with 
Biology and with animal and human Psychology. We are  concerned with the underlying processes and the general  character of their results. Details must be left to the  special sciences.

I have traced Mind to its dual source, and wish now to  draw attention to the consequent duality of Mind itself. 
Holism on the advanced psychic plane discloses two distinct  though interdependent tendencies the one individual, the  other universal and Mind shows both these contrasted  characters, and faces in both apparently opposed directions. 
Psychologically the duality of Mind is best expressed in the 
Subject-Object relation which is fundamental for Mind. 
Consciousness as it develops splits up the indefinite mass of  experience into two definite aspects : the self or Subject,  which is conscious or attending, the Object, which it attends  to or fe conscious of. " The Subject conscious of an 
Object " is thus a general formula for all experience of a  mental character. The Subject is not before the Object,  nor the Object before the Subject, but both arise  simultaneously and pari passu in the mental activity which  we call consciousness. The world is not the creature and  result of the Mind, as idealists would have it; nor is the 
Mind the resultant of external stimuli on the brain, as the  materialists would have it. Experience is one ; and experi-  ence as it becomes conscious differentiates or unfolds itself  into the Subject-Object relation. They are the double  aspects of experience at its conscious level, and reflect but  the duality of the source of Mind itself. The inmost nature  and essence of Mind is this activity which appears as conscious-  ness and the Subject and Object aspects which crystallise  out of it in experience. They are at bottom and in real  truth not independents, but dependent correlates in the  psychic medium called consciousness. A clear and firm  realisation of this fundamental fact is basic for all true  science and philosophy alike. We saw in Chapter VII  what insoluble problems arise both for science and thought  from hypostatising Mind and Body as independent reals or  substances. Here we are at the tap-root of this source of  error. Mind-and-Body is but a particular form of the  general Subject-Object situation. They are not inde-  pendents, they are interdependents ; they are poles in the  field of Mind; they are elements or rather aspects of the  same reality given in solution in experience and precipitated  from it by consciousness. Out of this fundamental unity 
Mind in the larger sense has elaborated our experience of both  the inner and outer worlds, of the self and the external uni-  verse. It is the business of psychology to show how this has  been done, and to trace the progressive stages in this con-  structive process. For me it is only necessary here to  emphasise that no correct interpretation of experience is  possible unless we bear in mind that both the Subject and 
Object aspects are absolutely essential to it. Subject and 
Object are held together in experience as necessary elements  in the unity of Holism from which both are differentiated. 
Neither element can be ignored in our reading and explora-  tion of experience. The Einstein standpoint of Relativity  is not only the soundest science, it is fundamental to 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 249 
psychology. The world in experience is at bottom my  reading of the world in which / am the centre of refer-  ence, where the system of co-ordinates of measurement  is my private system ; and the space, time and experience  which go to the making of it are my space, time and  experience. Objectivity and universality are indeed  attainable, but only from a subjective and individual  starting-point and centre of reference. Individuation is  bound up with reality on the psychic plane. What has  been looked upon as a reproach to psychology, namely, the  essentially subjective standpoint which rules it, the self  which it discloses as central to all our experience of  reality, now appears to be equally necessary for all the  other sciences as well. Natural Science, which has always  prided itself on its objectivity and freedom from all sub-  jective considerations, now finds that after all psychology  has been right; that the despised subject or Self of  psychology is not only a real factor in the universe, but  is central to all true knowledge of it. Here at last natural  science and psychology can clasp hands and together in true  partnership go forward on the great adventure of knowledge  which is their common task. Their separation has been a  calamity to both ; their reunion will prove fruitful beyond  our fondest dreams. Einstein's great achievement is but  the first-fruits of that reunion.

Let us for a moment look a little more closely at this  individualistic aspect of Holism in its higher developments. 
We have seen how it begins as physical and chemical affinities  and selectivities ; later on in the region of life we saw it  appearing as organic selection and appetitiveness. On the  mental level again it emerges as a certain striving, a seeking,  a conativeness, which, when attention has risen to the  level of consciousness, becomes purposive. Thereafter the  individual no longer floats forward on inorganic or organic  drifts, tendencies and appetites, but begins to direct his  course according to conscious voluntary purposes. The  individual makes his own plans and no longer automatically  follows Nature's plan. Conscious ends emerge; things the

2 individual strives after as desirable and good attract him  more than the unconscious organic urge behind, the vis a  tergo, propels him; the pulls in front begin to dominate  the pushes behind. The desired things become the 
Values, which intelligence illuminates and magnifies and  emotions suffuse and intensify until they become the  dominant Ideals of action. We see the rise not only of new  mental activities but of new categories such as Purpose and 
Value, which were not possible or necessary on the organic  level. It is evident that these new activities, such as  attention, consciousness, intelligence, emotion and will, as  well as the new categories which accompany them, are all  in line with the individuational development of Holism, and  mark so to say a deviation from the direct line of organic  regulation and systematic co-ordination which characterised 
Holism in its earlier organic development. They make  directly for the development of the individual, of the self,  of the Personality. Holism seems for the moment to depart  from its vast plan of extensive co-ordination and harmonisa-  tion in order to foster little centres of intensive Wholeness  in individuals, to place the little wholes before the great 
Whole, and to abandon universality for individuality. In  fact the largely individualistic nature of Mind makes it  apparently a deviation from the universal order. Mind  appears as a rebel in the universe, whose self-centredness  and purposeful striving might and largely does make for  disharmony and disorder rather than for peace, order and  harmony. Thus the great Ethical problem arises ; thus the  conflict between individual ends and purposes on the one  hand and universal claims and rights on the other comes to  the surface on the psychic plane of Evolution. Mind the  rebel has appeared, Self the anarchist has emerged, and the  ancient order of the universe is profoundly disturbed. The  new psychic individualistic situation applies a most searching  test to the foundations of the holistic universe. The war in  heaven has broken out, the archangels have revolted. Who  will win, and what is the character of the new peace going to  be ? Such is the question which we now proceed to consider. 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 251

The first and most important point to make is that we  should not be misled by our own metaphors. Individuation  is but an aspect and no more, is but one aspect of the holistic  advance. The other, universal, aspect remains of funda-  mental importance throughout, although for the moment it  may be and probably is pushed somewhat into the back-  ground. The two aspects are complementary and inter-  dependent, and each has a vital grip on the other. The  individual is going to be universalised, the universal is  going to be individualised, and thus from both directions the  whole is going to be enriched. The individual development  is necessary for the advance. Organic regulation, however  great an advance on inorganic structural order, is not enough. 
It is still too mechanical and rigid ; it is still too external in  character. It must acquire new characters of internality;  there must be more self-regulation and less external regula-  tion. There must be more inner intensive mobility, more  plasticity and less rigid regulation. Plasticity, freedom,  creativeness are necessary for the new groupings and  structures which are to arise on the psychic level. The  higher metabolism of mind demands more freedom from the  routine of organic regulation. The area and degrees of  freedom must be indefinitely enlarged, and in the Self a new  organiser of victory must be constituted. That is the one  side of the dual advance ; but the other is there all the time  and in the end just as important. Thus there must also be  a higher order, a more developed and enriched universality,  a more coherent objectivity. More wholeness not only  means a deeper, more intensive individuality in the Self,  but also a more perfect order in the structure of Reality. 
And the two must interpenetrate each other and mutually  transform each other in that unity which is the whole. And  that is exactly what happens in the evolution of mind in  man and animals, and in the development of mind in the  human individual. The selfish appetite is gradually curbed  and subdued and co-ordinated with other motives; the  conative activity is not merely self -regarding but gradually  becomes linked with the interests of others, and finally  becomes an impersonal endeavour towards the Good. A  new era of adjustments and co-ordinations sets in, and the  individual on the psychic plane pursues the double task of  self-perfection and perfection of the All. And the two  mutually and reciprocally influence and modify each other  and shape an ideal of Good which incorporates elements  from both. Holism has narrowed itself into the individual  only thereby to advance to a more perfect all-embracing  order. The apparent retreat to the individual level is  merely for the purpose of a greater advance towards whole-  ness. The newer, deeper Self becomes the centre for a  fresh ordering and harmony of the universal.

The possibility for this great transformation is given in  the very nature of Mind ; for Mind is not merely conative  and purposive. It is also rational, it is the basis of the 
Reason. And Reason becomes the basis of the new order  in the universe. It is not only the principle of order in the 
Self, but also the link which binds the Self and the Not-self  into a whole. Reason is the organ of universality, of the  deeper, more intensive universality of the spirit. Reason  is largely creative of the new structures of Reality and 
Truth. In the Reason, Mind, instead of pursuing its  individualistic, purposive activity, resumes the primeval  march of Holism towards more regulation, a higher co-  ordination and a greater order. Our will is the urge towards  self-expression, and is therefore the organ of individuality. 
" Our wills are ours to make them Thine." In other words,  our will is individualistic and has to be harmonised and  through effort and struggle to be adjusted to higher ethical  and spiritual ends and ideals. But our Reason is in its very  essence more than individual; it is expressive of univer-  sality ; it is a part of that Order which regulates the universe,  and in a deep sense it is a creative factor or co-creator of  that Order. Through our Reason we partake of universality  and are members of the everlasting Order of the universal.

Mind in its rational as distinguished from its purely  conative activity is in the direct line of Evolution from  organic regulation : psychic reason is the direct descendant 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 253 
of organic regulation. This would appear from the simple  fact that the central nervous system is the physiological  organ of regulation and co-ordination in the living body ;  and the brain, which is nothing but the crowning develop-  ment of the nervous system, is again the organ and physio-  logical correlate of Mind. In other words, as the brain is  merely a development of the nervous system, so the Mind is  nothing but a development of prior organic regulation. 
Mind qua Reason is thus the organising principle, the  principle of central control and co-ordination, and carries on  the tradition and evolution of Holism in the direct line, so  to say.

And in the entire range of its rational activity Mind shows  the same synthetic co-ordinating character. This could  easily be proved by running through the psychological  functions, ranging from their beginnings in attention and  passing through sensation, perception, imagination, con-  ception, and on to judgment or reasoning. In every case  an ordering synthetic activity is at work producing structural  masses of experience arranged on definite ascertainable  principles of selection and grouping. These products of the  rational activity of Mind are not mere artificial aggregates,  mere assemblages of psychological items arranged according  to mechanical principles or so-called laws of association or  rules of logic. On the contrary, they are synthetic unities  of an advanced holistic character. A percept or an image  or a concept is a holistic unity, built up out of a mass of  materials, on definite principles of cohesion and co-ordination. 
So too is a judgment. It is the business of psychology to  study these syntheses and their structures, and the principles  according to which they are formed and connected with each  other. Mind in its rational activity is thus synthetic and  co-ordinative through and through, and its products are  synthetic, organic and holistic in a marked degree.

Mind the organiser transforms, reorganises and reconsti-  tutes even the individualist Self. The rebel in the end has  to submit and swear fealty to the controlling power. Indeed  the purely individualist Self or mere individual is a figment  of abstraction. For the Self only comes to realisation and  consciousness of itself, not alone and in individual isolation  and separateness, but in society, among other selves with  whom it interacts in social intercourse. I would never  come to know myself and be conscious of my separate  individual identity were it not that I become aware of others  like me : consciousness of other selves is necessary for  consciousness of self or self-consciousness. The individual  has therefore a social origin in experience. Nay, more, it  is through the use of the purely social instrument of language  that I rise above the mere immediacy of experience and  immersion in the current of my experience. Language  gives names to the items of my experience, and thus through  language they are first isolated and abstracted from the  continuous body of my experience. Through the naming  power of language, again, several items of experience can be  grouped together under one name, which becomes distinctive  of their general resemblances, in disregard of their minor  differences. In other words, the power of forming general  concepts becomes possible only tlnxnigh the social instrument  of language. Thus the entire developed apparatus of thought  with which I measure the universe and garner an untold  wealth of personal experience is not my individual equipment  and possession, but a socially developed instrument which I  share with the rest of my fellows. Nay, my very self, so  uniquely individual in appearance, is, as I have said, largely  a social construction, and rounded out of the social inter-  course and psychical interaction with my fellows. The  individual Self or Personality rests not on its individual  foundations but on the whole universe. Psychology con-  clusively proves that, and Holism but accentuates it by  tracing the individual to his sources in the whole. The  individual Self is not singular, springing from one root, so  to say. It combines an infinity of elements growing out  of the individual endowment and experience on the one hand  and the social tradition and experience on the other. All  these elements are fused and metabolised into a holistic  unity which becomes a unique centre in the universe and, 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 255 
in a real sense, of the universe. Nowhere in the world do  we find a greater intensity of the holistic effect produced  than in the individual Self or Personality. And yet even  there it is by no means complete, for the individual Per-  sonality, as we shall see, still shows a discordance of elements  which leads to most of the great problems of thought and  conduct. The point I am trying to make, however, is that  the apparently individualist Mind is in reality deeply and  vitally influenced by the universal Mind; and that the  individual self only comes to its own through the rational  and social self which relates it organically to the rest of the  universe. It is rooted in and dependent on the greater whole,  and only to a minor extent a rebel against its controlling  influence. The immense power of Mind is shown in the way  in which, out of the simple data of the rudimentary Self and  its experiences, it has raised the noble superstructure of  the human Personality. Mind here appears as the great  creative artist. But it is more than that; for its work is  no mere picture of reality, but is reality itself. It is the  great archetype of the artist, and it has this pure creative  power because it is but a form, a phase of the supreme  creative activity in the universe.

When Mind comes to apply its conceptual system to its  experience of the world, we see the same synthetic holistic  activity at work. At first crude, naive experience is simply  taken at its face value, and from it a rough empirical order  is constructed which is sufficiently correct for all ordinary  purposes, and may fairly be called the world of common  sense. Of course even this common-sense empirical order  will vary widely at different levels of culture. But in every  case it is a first rough approximation and a grouping, order-  ing and arranging of experience according to the standards  and the needs of the common man at that level of mental  culture. It is a more or less faithful reading of ordinary  experience, and although it contains many discrepancies and  contradictions, it is on the whole a more or less connected,  coherent Weltanschauung with a fair correspondence to the  facts of direct observation.

2
From this common-sense world of experience is gradually  evolved a more correct and refined system of experience. 
Anomalies are gradually eliminated and the logical rational  character of the system increases. And this refinement  continues until in the scientific conceptual system the  empirical common-sense order is completely overhauled  and reconstructed. In this system scientific concepts and  entities corresponding to nothing in empirical experience  become of fundamental importance, because without them  not only empirical experience but also the more refined  observations of Science become utterly unintelligible. The  matters dealt with in most of the preceding chapters belong  to the scientific conceptual system, as they base the world of  experience on real or hypothetical entities and factors  which, although they lie beyond the world of direct experi-  ence, are yet necessary for the rational order and coherence  and comprehension of the facts which do fall within the range  of ordinary and refined scientific experience. In this system  not only is the seen order made to depend on an unseen order  of ideas of extraordinary refinement, but the immense  movements and changes of the universe are referred to a very  small number of fundamental principles which appear to  govern all happening in the universe. From this esoteric  system to which Science is more and more tending have been  removed most of the anomalies, incoherences and discrep-  ancies of the empirical order. Many final difficulties still  remain, some of which may perhaps never be eliminated. 
But on the whole the system of Science is rapidly becoming  a great rational body of experience and thought, closely  articulated in all its details, and held together by simple  principles of the widest sweep. The system as a whole  represents the proudest achievement of the Mind in its  rational activity as the regulative co-ordinating principle  in the universe. Mind as the principle of the rational  construction of the universe here reaches its highest  expression. Professor L. T. Hobhouse in his great work  on Development and Purpose has with a master's hand  traced the development and interpretation of experience 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 257 
from its humble na'ive beginnings to its culmination in  the vast conceptual system of Science. I must here rest  content with the preceding summary statement. What 
I have said will, however, I hope, suffice to show that 
Mind the Rebel is only one aspect of holistic activity ; and  that Mind the Organiser, Mind the Central Control in our  experience of the world is the other equally true com-  plementary aspect. Behind both aspects is that inner  creative Holism which has flowered into the human Mind  and Personality on the one hand and into the grandeur of  form and content of the infinite universe on the other. 
The theory of Holism thus carries the scientific system  of experience another step further, and tries to read in the  riddles of Science still deeper and more ultimate concepts  of reality.

Mind has been here described as a new variation or muta-  tion or series of mutations in holistic Evolution, in some  respects antithetic to and at variance with its main trend. 
But its final result is immensely to enrich the main process. 
Mind has made all the difference to the later and latest  stages of Evolution. Without Mind the organic and regu-  lative process of the universe, vast and magnificent in any  case, would have been at best but a tame affair. The  universe would have moved forward, as it were in a dream,  with an unearthly regularity and majesty of movement. 
Its process would have become ever more complicated and  ever more frictionless, as of some sublime animated machine,  great beyond all power of conception. All elements of  discord and disharmony would have passed away from its  vast cosmic routine. But it would have gone on sublimely  unconscious of itself. It would have had no soul or souls ; it  would have harboured no passionate exaltations ; no poignant  regrets or bitter sorrows would have disturbed its profound  peace. For it neither the great lights nor the deep shadows. 
Truth, Beauty and Goodness would have been there, but  unknown, unseen, unloved. They would have been cold and  passionless like the distant stars, and would never have  become the great ideals thrilling and inspiring men and  women to deathless action. Love would have been there,  but not the immortal emotion which mortals call by that  name. Into that great dream-garden of Eden, Mind the  disturber has entered, and with Mind sin and sorrow, faith  and love, the great vision of knowledge, and the conscious  effort to master all hampering conditions and to work out  the great redemption. To the music of the universe there  has thus been added a new note, as of laughter and tears,  a new undertone of the human, which transforms and  enriches all the rest. It is no longer a song of the Golden 
Reign of the Elder Gods, but of the intertwining of the 
Cosmos with human Destiny, of the suffering which has  become consecrated and illuminated by the great visions, of  the magic power of knowledge to work out new enchantments,  to break the dumb routine, to set the captive spirit free, and  to blaze new paths to the immortal Goal. Mind has thus  added an infinity of light and shade and colour, of inward  character and conscious content to the great process in and  from which it has emerged. Without Mind the universe  would have been an altogether dull affair, however unimagin-  ably grand in other respects. Even its aberrations have  been woven into the new harmonies ; its eye has beheld the  greater lights, and knowledge has given it the key of power  and mastery over the conditions which previously towered  like an unscalable mountain escarpment athwart its path  of progress.

Let us dwell for a moment on this new power and mastery  which Mind has brought on the scene. Knowledge is power,  and it is unnecessary for us here to trace in detail the steps  by which the present power and mastery of Science over  material conditions have been acquired. Life below the  mental level strengthens the innate capacity to react to  external influences of a harmful or beneficial nature by  various movements which lead successively to the tropisms,  reflexes and automatisms of the lower organisms. When 
Mind appears as an active factor, this power of regulating  movements is greatly enlarged and intensified, until we see the  sureness and delicacy of the instinctive reactions which 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 259 
characterise all Mind in its subconscious levels. It is, how-  ever, when consciousness appears that an immense accession  to this power of control is brought about. Consciousness, as  we have seen, is a power of illuminating objects in the field of  experience. The organism through this power of illumina-  tion can gradually arrive at a fair knowledge of its sur-  roundings in so far as they are harmful or beneficial to it. 
Its power of selection is thus more surely guided, and it  learns to know accurately and easily what to avoid and what  to welcome. When the human level is reached a revolution  in the conditions of knowledge is effected. The human  mind can make its own combinations and correlations from  the materials with which it finds itself surrounded. It  can, therefore, in a large sense make or mould its own  environmental conditions, and thus eliminate or neutralise  hostile influences and reinforce favourable conditions. This  is already the case on the empirical level of knowledge ; it  is far more the case where the empirical stage has been passed  and the developed scientific stage has been reached. Here  the mind does not wait on events, but moulds and creates  events through its control of the appropriate conditions. In  this way the development of the several sciences has meant  continuous increase, not only of knowledge, but of real power  over the material and other conditions of life. Here again 
Mind the Organiser or Correlator has shown its creative  power in shaping the conditions which surround its activity. 
Instead of being the slave of these conditions it gains a more  or less complete mastery over them. It can at will bring  about those combinations and selections which will assist  or further its purposes, and it can, through selective manipula-  tion of the surrounding conditions, neutralise or cancel out  any which are unfavourable to the execution of its aims. 
Knowledge thus becomes an efficient instrument of the  will; and where the will itself is nobly trained, guided  and controlled, the individual acquires and wields an  almost unlimited power for Good. Thus is freedom at last  achieved over the dominance of the conditions of life,  and Mind assumes the sovereignty to which it had been  destined from the beginning as the successor to Life and 
Matter.

In the exercise of its free and unhampered right of self-  determination, Mind on the human level proceeds to create  to a large extent the appropriate conditions for its own  development. Instead of remaining dependent on the  natural environment, Mind builds up a vast social environ-  ment for itself. It builds up a far-reaching social structure  with institutions of all sorts which are intended to develop  and educate the human groups and individuals, intellectually  and morally, to facilitate intercourse and co-operation among  them, to declare and safeguard their rights, and to protect  them against the hostile influences of the animate or inani-  mate environment and of other groups of humans. Thus  language arises as well as the institutions of marriage and  the family, of religion, law and government, and all the other  numerous forms into which social beliefs and practices are  embodied. The very laws of organic Evolution seem to be  modified by this great transformation. In the organic  sphere we saw the individual adapting itself or being adapted  to the environment as the imperative condition of its survival. 
Here we see the environment being more and more adapted  to the individual. The individual appears as the creator,  the environment as the creature, the house it makes for its  habitation, so to speak. In the organic sphere we saw the  individual inheritance and variations incorporated into the  individual organic structure and thus preserved for the future. 
Here we see social traditions take the place of this individual  structural heredity. The human individual does not find  himself over-burdened with an impossible structure, with a  load of inheritance which would be more than he could bear. 
The load is mainly shifted on to the ampler shoulders of the  social tradition. The human individual has the good luck  to find himself born into an environment which largely per-  forms the hereditary function, and all that he is called upon  to do is to assimilate this environment, and so to obtain com-  mand of its gathered resources. Language, customs, writing,  literature, history, knowledge and empirical practice are all 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 261 
storehouses of traditional information at the disposal of the  human individual who learns their use. Heredity with the  human individual comes more and more to mean, not (as  in the case of animals) the predisposition or capacity to act  or react in certain definite ways, but the general capacity of  experience, the capacity to learn or acquire in the individual  life the power to act in an indefinite number of ways. In the  human inheritance general educability takes the place of  definite specific hereditary functions. Whereas an animal  is born with the ability to perform a certain limited number  of functions, the human individual is born with the general  capacity of educability or being educated to learn an indefinite  number of functions in his lifetime. The animal is still  under the domination of his physical structure, and in his  action is limited to the functions inherited with this struc-  ture, with a very limited range of learning new actions. The  human individual, on the contrary, finds himself but little  restricted in his development by his hereditary structure, and  finds himself blest with an almost unlimited adaptability and  capacity for experience and knowledge. In other words,  the inheritance of Mind supersedes the organic inheritance  more and more. With an animal definite modes of function-  ing are inherited ; with the human individual general mental  plasticity is chiefly inherited. And the definite specific modes  of functioning which an animal inherits with his physiologi-  cal structure, the human individual learns and acquires from  the social tradition into which he is born. Nothing shows  more clearly the revolution which the appearance of Mind  has wrought than this far-reaching transformation which it  has effected in the methods and procedure of organic Evo-  lution. On the animal plane structure still largely deter-  mines function, but on the human plane mental plasticity so  dominates everything else in the inheritance that the impor-  tance of structure is completely dwarfed, and it appears as  a subordinate factor in the total human situation. Even  so, however, it retains a great importance which often  comes out in dark and unexpected ways in the individual  conduct.

2
The advent of Mind has undoubtedly meant a large cor-  related development of structure, especially in the human  nervous system and brain, which is, of course, far larger  and more complex than that of even the highest anthropoid. 
But even so the role of structure is comparatively less  prominent in man than it is at earlier phases of organic Evolu-  tion, and its functions have not only been fundamentally  transformed, as we have just seen, but have also relatively  vastly increased in significance. So much so indeed that  structure in man becomes of merely secondary importance,  while its mental functions become all-important. The super-  structure of Mind is immeasurably greater than the brain or  neural structure on which it rests, and is something of a quite  different order, which marks a revolutionary departure from  the organic order whence it originated. Under these circum-  stances the question of primacy as between the Mind and the  brain is deprived of all real importance. It is not a question  of origins but of values, to which there can be but one answer. 
By whatever standard of value it is measured, Mind has  risen above its physiological source as high as, or even higher  than, life has risen above its inorganic beginnings.

From the question of structure we pass naturally on to  consider the " field " of Mind. The field of Mind differs in  character from the field of matter or of organism. It is  neither physical nor physiological, no more than Mind itself  is. Mind is a new type of structure of the immaterial or  spiritual kind, and so also is its field. In Mind there is a  central illuminated area, the area of full consciousness, which  is directly open to inspection and observation. Taking this  area as the central structure of Mind, the " field " of Mind  then comes to mean that area of its functions and activities  which falls below the " threshold " of consciousness, which  remains unilluminated and dark, which cannot, therefore, be  known by direct inspection and which, as in the cases of the  other fields, can only be ascertained by its indirect effects. 
The field of Mind in this sense has been the subject of much  psychological speculation and discussion, and we may there-  fore here rest content with a very summary statement, which 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 263 
will as far as possible be confined to the holistic aspects of  subconscious mental activity.

The activities of Mind below the level of consciousness are  most important for Mind as a whole. It is in this subcon-  scious area or field of its activities that Mind especially  feels the pressure of the past and to some extent the  pull of the future. The time factor is even more im-  portant for the field of Mind than it is for the other  fields previously considered. The central structure of 
Mind functions in the full blaze of consciousness in the  present ; but it is surrounded by a field of the greatest  importance where the past and the future respectively hold  sway. Mind, therefore, integrates the past and the future  with the present; mental activity is a synthesis which  unifies all its time in the present moment of functioning. 
And it is thus enabled to act with far more holistic effect  than either matter or life is able to do. Let us consider for  a moment the influence which the past and the future  exercise on the present in mental activity.

The contribution of the past is twofold. In the first place  there is the experience of the past in the individual life which  has fallen into the background of the Mind and is no longer  directly remembered. Yet this experience, as is well known,  has a most powerful influence on the conscious present of the  experiencing subject. Even the unremembered past experi-  ence is not dead, but alive and active below the level of con-  sciousness. In the debating chamber of the present it may  not speak, but it votes, and its silent vote is often decisive. 
Mind does not work in water-tight compartments, its past  experience is integral with its present action. Its procedure  is entirely massive, integral, holistic. Memory, the great  basic bond of individuality, binding together and fusing all  the past phases and experience of the individual with the  present into one unique whole which is himself, operates  below as well as above the level of consciousness ; essen-  tially it forgets nothing and leaves behind nothing of the  past. Remembered or unremembered, the past exerts its  full force on the present experience.

2
The second contribution of the past comes from farther  back. It is the contribution of the hereditary structure as  modified by ancestral experience, which lies behind all  individual experience. And in many ways its contribution is  even more significant than that of past individual experience. 
It gives us our fundamental bias, our points of view, our  temperament, our instinctive reactions and our particular  individual ways of looking at persons and things. There is  in each human individual a distinctive basis of Personality  composed of these elements which cannot be traced to indivi-  dual experience and which is given by his hereditary struc-  ture and ancestral past. In many ways it is the most  important part of our personal make-up. It is not conscious  or critical or rational in its activity, but it constitutes the  permanent background of the Mind and the Personality  behind all individual experience and development. Experi-  ence, reasoning, criticism usually make no impression on it. 
I like or dislike somebody instinctively and at first sight,  and nothing thereafter alters my attitude to him. There is  nothing analytical about it, and its action is purely massive. 
Generally the result of this massive hereditary memory could  be best described as a " feel " or sensing, an intuitive reading  or subconscious judgment of a person or thing or situation,  which cannot be further analysed to any good purpose. 
Great wisdom and judgment no less than prejudices and  passions usually have their source in that distant past and  rest on no analysable evidence in the individual experience. 
It will thus be seen that this contribution of the hereditary  past is also decidedly of a holistic character. The import-  ance given to it by the recent development of Psycho-  analysis need only be mentioned here.

What has been said so far will be generally admitted. 
To me, however, there is something even more decidedly  holistic in the hereditary factor. To me the ordinary senses  do not exhaust the possibilities of sensuous intuition in the  human mind. These senses have been differentiated and  evolved out of a common pool ; but the pool has not in con-  sequence dried up and ceased to be the ultimate sensuous 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 265 
source of Holism in the human Mind. Is it a far-fetched  idea to assume that behind the special senses and their  evolution, and pari passu with their evolution, the mother  sense from which they were evolved has also silently con-  tinued to grow and evolve as the binding, uniting, cementing  element among the deliverances of the special senses ? There  is a subtle, profound, synthetic activity at work among our  sensations and intuitions which cannot be ascribed to the  ordinary conscious activities of the Mind. All the wholes  we see in life as persons or things are composed of contribu-  tions from all or most of the special senses, so utterly fused  with each other that disentanglement becomes practically  impossible. And these uniquely unitary wholes exist for us  from the early beginnings of sensation and perception. So,  for instance, the unique whole of the mother is present to  the young baby from the early weeks of its life. Is there  not some subtle fusing, unifying sense at work pari passu  with the several differentiated senses ? Is there not a sixth  sense, the sensus communis from which the others have been  derived without exhausting it, and whose development  has kept pace with their development ? Such a sense would  not be particularly noticed, as its activity would be masked  by that of the other senses and is ordinarily and as a matter  of course apt to be ascribed to and apportioned among  the other senses. But the coherence of the deliverances of  the several senses and their fusion into unitary wholes  cannot be ascribed to some assumed attraction for each other  on their part ! It is the Mind which fuses and unites them ;  and if it is the mind, it must be a sensuous element or factor  in the mind over and above these specialised senses. To  me it seems a simple and plausible idea that there is in the  mind more power of sensation and intuition of the synthetic  type than is to be found in or between the special senses. 
Otherwise I find the unities underlying both the subject and  objects of experience inexplicable. I am not sure that  our massive sense of reality, of the reality of the external  world, for instance, is not to be traced in a large measure to  the influence of this deeper sense behind the other senses.

2
Psychologists believe in a general sensibility which shows  itself not only in the vague internal organic sensations, but  also in the other diffused states of our bodies resulting  from light or warmth or other physical conditions. They  have, however, as far as I am aware, not given sufficient  attention to the subject, which seems to me of great  importance in the synthetic make-up of Mind.

The obscure subject of Telepathy seems to me to fall  within the " field " of Mind, and possibly to involve a form  of sensuous intuition which cannot be attributed to any of  the special senses. It is possible that the form of sense  which becomes active in Telepathy is closer to thought  than the ordinary senses, that it lies between thought  and these senses, and that its subtle activity reveals  the thought where these senses cannot do so. In short,  it may be in the nature of what has been called an 
" intellectual intuition." Just as all sensation involves  thought, so all thought involves obscure diffused sensation. 
And it is possible that in this area of obscure sensation  at the bottom or on the fringe of thought the ex-  planation of telepathic sensation may lie. And subjects  who have this form of sensitiveness may sense the thought  itself or other conscious experience of other individuals  without communication in the ordinary ways of the senses. 
This sensitiveness may be a form of the above-mentioned  universal sensus communis, the nature and functions of  which are of great importance for the mind as a whole  and are well worth exploring by psychology. Here I can  only mention the matter in passing.

So much for the contribution of the past to the present  conscious activity of Mind. It will be noticed that it is of a  highly synthetic or holistic character and that, whether it  operates as subconscious sensation or subconscious judg-  ment, it supplies much of the cement which Mind requires  for its constructions and syntheses on the conscious level.

The most significant element, however, in the " field "  of Mind concerns the future, and makes the future an  operative factor in the present mental activity. Mind does  this through purpose; purpose is the function of Mind by 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 267 
which it contemplates some future desired end and makes the  idea of this end exert its full force in the present. Thus I  form a purpose to go on a hunting expedition for my next  holiday, and this purpose forms a complex synthesis and  sets going a whole series of plans and actions all intended  to give effect to the purpose. Thus in purpose the future  as an object in my mind becomes operative in the present  and sets going and controls a long train of acts leading up  to the execution of the purpose. The conscious purpose,  the end as deliberately envisaged and intended, falls, of  course, within the conscious inner area of Mind ; but numer-  ous subsidiary elements in the plan would operate sub-  consciously and thus affect only the field of Mind.

It will be noticed that purpose or purposive activity  involves much more than merely the influence of the future  on the present. Purpose is the most complete proof of the  freedom and creative power of the mind in respect of its  material and other conditions, of its power to create its own  conditions and to bring about its own situations for its own  free activities. My purposive action is action which I have  myself planned, which is not impressed on me or dictated  to me by external necessity, and for the performance of  which I take my own self -chosen measures. Through pur-  pose the mind becomes at last master in its own house, with  the power to carry out its own wishes and shape its own  course, uninfluenced by the conditions of the environment.

Again, purposive activity is peculiarly holistic. Elements  both of the actual past and of anticipated future experience  are fused with the present experience into one individual  act, which as a conscious object of the mind dominates the  entire situation within the purview of the purpose or plan. 
It involves not only sensations and perceptions, but also  concepts of a complex character, feelings and desires in respect  of the end desired, and volitions in respect of the act in-  tended ; and all these elements are fused and blended into  one unique purpose, which is then put into action or execu-  tion. Purpose is thus probably the highest, most complex  manifestation of the free, creative, holistic activity of Mind. 
Purpose is the door through which Mind finally escapes  from the house of bondage and enters the free realm of its  own sovereignty. The purposive teleological order is the  domain of the free creative spirit, in which the ethical,  spiritual, ideal nature of Mind has free scope for expansion  and development. The realm of Ends, as Kant has called it,  the realm of the great Values and Ideals is the destined home  of Mind. And Holism it is that has guided the faltering foot-  steps of Mind from its early organic responses and strivings  and automatisms through the most amazing adventures and  developments until at last it enters into its own.

Let me conclude with a few further remarks on the holistic  aspect of mental activity.

In Chapters VI, VII and VIII I endeavoured to show, I  trust not quite in vain, how Holism as a concept and an  active factor can be made fruitful in biology, and can give  us a method of dealing with the problems of life which  may largely facilitate the proper solutions. The problems  of Mechanism, of Body and Mind, of Evolution, and  many others, all wear a different and more tractable  form when viewed from the standpoint of Holism. I think 
I may fairly claim that the concept and function of Holism  will prove even more valuable in the study of Mind, its  activities and problems. Mind as a higher, more evolved  organ of Holism will naturally exemplify the holistic stand-  point more fully than life does. And the holistic concep-  tion of mental activity appears to me to be specially helpful  and to steer clear of most of the errors and misconceptions  which have beset that difficult subject. The holistic con-  ception of mental functioning explains at once why all the  psychological activities from attention to judgment, and  not only in intelligence but also in volition, action and emotion  are synthetic in character, and result in associations,  syntheses, groups, things, events, bodies and wholes. It was  the unique service of Kant to psychology to discover the  presence of the synthetic judgment at work already in the  earliest forms of sensation and intuition ; and he signalised  his discovery by applying to the subject in experience the  truly Olympian name of the " synthetic unity of appercep- 
ix MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 269 
tion." The view of Mind as Holism leads straight to the  same result, and quite simply and without the necessity to  resort to any cumbrous psychological or metaphysical  apparatus. The activity of Mind at all stages and in all  forms is holistic, structural and synthetic, and its products  show the same characters. The discriminative, selective,  ordering, synthetic character which mental activity shows  in all its higher operations is already fully present in its early  beginnings, and flows indeed from its very nature as Holism. 
The various mental functions as dealt with in psychology,  therefore, are simply so many examples of holistic activity  on the mental plane. Analysis and discrimination may  appear to be unholistic, but even they are but means to an  end in the synthetic process ; the analysed and discrimin-  ated elements being but a stepping-stone to more effective  selective syntheses and groupings. It would be both interest-  ing and useful to run through the various psychological  activities and to show how they all exemplify and indeed  flow from the nature and concept of Holism. The task would  be easy, but it must be left to others. A good deal of  interesting work in this direction has already been done by  advocates of the " Gestalt " or Configuration psychology. 
In this sketch of the subject of Holism I can but confine  myself to tracing the larger outlines, and leave particular  clues to be followed up by others who may feel interested  in the subject.

Equally fruitful, in my opinion, will the application of 
Holism prove to the problems of metaphysics and the other  higher disciplines of Mind. There is not a problem of Meta-  physics, of Ethics, of Art and even of Religion which will not  benefit enormously from contact with the concept of Holism. 
Indeed the concept and standpoint of Holism may transform  many of their fundamental concepts and render obsolete  many of the somewhat barren analytical speculations which  are still current in philosophy. In this place I must be con-  tent with this reference to the possibilities which lie along the  path of holistic argument and research. These applications of  the concept of Holism lie beyond the scope of the present work.

CHAPTER X

PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE

Summary. Personality is the latest and supreme whole which  has arisen in the holistic series of Evolution. It is a new structure  built on the prior structures of matter, life and mind. The tendency  has been to look upon it as a unique and isolated phenomenon,  without any genetic relations with the rest of the universe. Our  treatment, however, shows it to be one of a series, to be the culmin-  ating phase of the great holistic movement in the universe.

Mind is its most important and conspicuous constituent. But  the body is also very important and gives the intimate flavour of  humanity to Personality. The view which degrades the body as  unworthy of the Soul or Spirit is unnatural and owes its origin to  morbid religious sentiments. Science has come to the rescue of  the body and thereby rendered magnificent service to human  welfare. The ideal Personality only arises where Mind irradiates 
Body and Body nourishes Mind, and the two are one in their mutual  transfigurement.

The difficult question of the Body-and-Mind relation, already  referred to in Chapter VII, arises once more in connection with 
Personality. As there pointed out, the root of the difficulty lies  in the separation of the elements of Body and Mind and their hypo-  stasis into independent entities. They are not independent reals;  disembodied Mind and disminded Body are both impossible con-  cepts, as either has only meaning and function in relation to the  other. The popular view of their relation as one of mutual " inter-  action " is not correct, as Mind does not so much act on Body as  penetrate it, and thus act through or inside it. " Peraction " or 
" intro-action " would be preferable to " interaction " as a descrip-  tion of the relation of Mind to Body. The extreme difficulty  of conceiving how two such disparate entities as Mind and Body  can influence each other has led to various theories of their inter-  relation, such as that God is the medium and agent between  them (Berkeley and Geulincx) ; that their separate action is inwardly  brought into accord by a Pre-established Harmony (Leibniz) ; that  they are but two modes of action of the one underlying Substance 
(Spinoza). The fact is that all these theories have an element of  truth ; the real explanation being that Mind and Body are elements

270

CHAP, x PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 271 
in the whole of Personality ; and that this whole is an inner creative,  recreative and transformative activity, which accounts for all that  happens in Personality as between its component elements. No  explanation will hold water which ignores the most important  factor of all in the situation, and that is the holistic Personality  itself. Holism is the real creative agent, and not the entities  suggested by the above philosophers.

We see this same creative Holism in Personality when we come  to consider our inheritance from our parents and ancestors, which  consists of a definite animal body slightly differing from theirs,  and a mental structure somewhat resembling theirs. My Person-  ality itself, however, is indisputably mine, and is not inherited  from them. It may in some respects resemble theirs, but its very  essence is its unique individuality. The fact here too is that Person-  ality is a unique creative novelty in every human being, and that  no explanation which ignores this creative Holism can even pretend  to account for Personality.

For psychology and epistemology the individual Subject is the  centre of orientation in all experience and reality; it is the Subject  of experience to which all the rest is the Object of Experience. 
The appearance of Personality, therefore, marks a new and funda-  mental departure in the evolution of the universe. These disciplines  concentrate on the Subject as the centre of reference for experience  without, however, paying sufficient attention to the nature of 
Personality in other respects. Ignoring the individual unique-  ness of the Personality in each case, psychology deals with the  average or generalised individual; and then only from the purely  mental point of view, which is but one aspect of Personality. The  result is that psychology does not materially assist us in the study  of Personality. Personality is, in fact, largely an unexplored subject  and requires a discipline to itself as a real factor in the universe. 
" Characterology " has been suggested as a name for the new discipline,  but there are objections to it, and Personology is suggested as a  better name. The " Person " is a concept of the Roman law, not  of Greek philosophy, and the hybrid is therefore justified.

Personology should begin by studying the biographies of human  personalities as living wholes and unities in the successive phases  of their development; in other words, synthetically, rather than  analytically in the manner of psychology. Through such scientific  studies of Personality we shall obtain the materials for formulating  the laws of personal evolution and thus lay the foundations for a  real science of Biography. We shall thus also obtain the basis of  a sound theory of Personality and a proper science of Personology,  which, as the synthetic science of human nature, will form the  crown of all the sciences and become the basis for a new Ethic and 
Metaphysic and a truer spiritual outlook.

2
To begin with, the lives for such holistic study should be care-  fully selected, and suggestions are made on this point. The dis-  cipline of Personology may thus lead to the solution of some of  the oldest and hardest questions that have troubled the heart as  well as the head of man.

WE may begin this chapter by defining human Personality  roughly in the language which we have adopted throughout  the preceding discussion. Personality then is a new whole,  is the highest and completest of all wholes, is the most  recent conspicuous mutation in the evolution of Holism,  is a creative synthesis in which the earlier series of material,  organic and psychical wholes are incorporated with a fresh  accession or emergence of Holism, and thus a new unique  whole of a higher order than any of its predecessors arises. 
In Personality we reach the latest and highest phase of Holism  and therefore the culminating problem, which all the pre-  ceding discussion has led up to. Personality is the supreme  embodiment of Holism both in its individual and its universal  tendencies. It is the final synthesis of all the operative  factors in the universe into unitary wholes, and both in its  unity and its complexity it constitutes the great riddle of  the universe. Best known of all subjects of knowledge  and experience, nearest to us in all kinships and relation-  ships, our very foundation and constitution, self of our  very selves, it is yet the great mystery, the most elusive  phantom in the whole range of knowledge. No wonder  that some go the length even of denying its existence, and  look upon it as a veritable phantasm of the mind. And  yet it is the most real of all reals, the latest and fullest  expression of the supreme reality, which gives reality to  all other reals. Its uniqueness and its incomparability  make it very difficult of approach by the usual methods of  scientific procedure, and hence it has been avoided by  science completely, and by psychology and philosophy to  a very large extent. Perhaps our way of approach to it  is a more hopeful one. At any rate our procedure will  remove the impression that it is a unique and isolated  phenomenon, something alone and by itself, a sort of 
x PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 273

Melchisedek of the universe, without any genetic connections  or contacts with the rest of the universe. We approach it  as one of a series, as the culminating phase of a graduated  movement of which the earlier steps have been already  explored. It thus takes its proper place in the great com-  pany of the universe, and is no longer to be viewed as a  secluded and unapproachable singularity.

Let us first look at the constituents of Personality. 
Human Personality takes up into itself all that has gone  before in the cosmic evolution of Holism. It is not only  mental or spiritual but also organic and material. It is a  new whole of the prior wholes; the structures of matter,  life and mind are inseparably blended in it, and it is more  than any or all of them. What that more is we shall con-  sider just now ; in the meantime let us look at its constituents  and their relations in the Personality.

The most characteristic and certainly the most important  constituent of Personality is Mind. Without conscious  mind on the human level Personality could not be. And 
Personality had to await the arrival of Mind, the develop-  ment of the organ of Mind, before it could start on its  unique career. Mind has been the wing on which the  human Personality has risen into the empyrean.

The vast and almost overshadowing importance of the  mental or spiritual factor must, however, not blind us to  the significance of the other factors, which constitute the  body or the physical organism of the human person. These  physical organic factors are not only essential, but they also  contribute most important features to the human Person-  ality. The human Personality as disembodied spirit and  devoid of its physical organism would indeed be some-  thing utterly different from what it is. Flesh and blood  may not be as important as the soul in the total human  make-up, but they are essential and they bring something  into the pool which is most vital and precious. So much  so that the expression " flesh and blood " has become  almost synonymous with humanity. What the Greek poet  has called " dear flesh " is not only essential to human 
T  nature but gives it a quite peculiar and intimate flavour  of humanity. Body is not alien and opaque but indeed  transparent to spirit. And the body as transfigured by  spirit in man is worthy to be the foundation of the most  noble and exalted human Personality. The contempt for the  body, the traditional degradation of the body, do not spring  from a true view of human nature. The natural and proper  tendency is to look upon the body as clean and wholesome,  to rejoice in it as something good and beautiful, to make  it twin-sister of the spirit and the embodiment of joyous-  ness and wholesome pleasure. That view of the body finds  characteristic expression in Greek literature. It may be a  pagan view, but in reality it is the human and true view. 
It led to respect and reverence for the body, and the culture  of the body as a worthy companion of the spirit. This  natural and wholesome attitude towards the body was  poisoned by the morbid, diseased, religious spirit of a later  time which heaped contempt and degradation on the body. 
Degraded religions from the East, born amid the filth and  squalor, the moral and social decay of the Oriental world,  invaded the Roman Empire and found a congenial soil in  the moral and religious confusion which had set in among 
Roman society. The decline of the Empire, the ruin which  followed the barbaric invasions, the slow but sure decay of 
Roman civilisation, and the growing spirit of dejection and  despair which was inevitable under these calamities made  men turn a ready ear to the base superstitions of the East,  which outraged the human spirit and degraded the human  body into an instrument of evil. Even the pure spirit of 
Christianity succumbed to some extent to this perversion,  and instead of the body being regarded as " the Temple of  the Holy Spirit " it came to be looked upon as a fitter  tabernacle for the devil. Mediaeval civilisation succumbed to  and accentuated this horror of the flesh ; the monastic system  with its ideal of celibacy for the educated and spiritual elite  bears eloquent testimony to the great fall of the body. 
The flesh became synonymous with sin. And it was not  till the revolution in the human standpoint brought about 
x PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 275 
by the Renaissance that the body came to be in part re-  habilitated and once more to be looked upon with some-  thing of the old pagan favour. The full rehabilitation is,  however, coming only now at the hands of science. Science  is building up a new world-attitude, a new attitude towards 
Nature and all things natural, which is totally at variance  with this morbid and unnatural condemnation of the flesh. 
The scientific attitude is impartial and objective and leads  to the view of Nature as clean, wholesome and worthy of  the respect which is due to all natural facts. Thus a new  spirit of respect and reverence for natural things and pro-  cesses is arising, and not least for the human body a spirit  which is far deeper and better founded than the old happy-  go-lucky, naive, pagan attitude of the Greek world. It is  not a nai've sentimental, but an objective scientific attitude. 
It means justice and fair-play for the body, as against all  theological prejudices and theories based on erroneous views  of human nature. And it completely justifies the normal  attitude which regards the body as inseparable from the  spirit, and as the source of much that is most dear and  precious and beautiful and intimate in human existence. 
Natural relations and affinities, instead of being condemned,  receive the sanction of science, and under the powerful  patronage and protection of science the simple human can  once more hold up its head and without shame or regret  give expression to the spirit of glad wholesome enjoyment  which naturally wells up from its inner depths. The  rehabilitation of the body is not the least of the magnificent  services which science has rendered to human welfare. 
The body is no worse than the spirit, and can be abused  just as the spirit can be perverted. Holism is the cure  and remedy alike for the abuse and perversion. It is the  severance of body and spirit which makes the ignoble use  of either possible. Together and in that unity which  constitutes the whole they mutually support, enrich and  ennoble each other. It is the division in their ranks which  leads to their defeat in detail. And hence it is that Holism  is not only a theory but should also be a practice. What  theory points out as true becomes here an ideal for life. 
When spirit irradiates body and body gives massive nourish-  ment to spirit, the ideal of the creative whole as the antithesis  of evil is realised in Personality.

The language we have just used seems to imply some form  of active inter-relation between the elements in Personality. 
We seem to assume that body and mind must mutually  influence each other in the whole which constitutes Person-  ality. The most difficult and important question, therefore,  arises how such mutual influence has to be understood. 
Do body and mind interact with each other, and how can  such interaction be conceived in view of the considerations  which were set out in Chapter VII ? The difficulties of  thought, serious as they are, are here no doubt largely  increased by the defects of language. As soon as the 
" whole " of Personality is analysed into its constituent  elements, the elements by the defects of thought and  language alike come to be treated as different things, which  thereafter can only be brought back again into relation  with each other by way of an assumed mutual interaction. 
Thus arise the division and separation of body and mind  which form the very source of the evils we are trying to counter  and combat. Thus again, on the basis of this division, the  separated elements come to be hypostatised into separate  entities or substances, which are supposed to interact with  each other. Our perfectly fair and justifiable attempt at  analysing Personality into mind and body has landed us in  an inextricable confusion, which has vexed the soul of  philosophy for hundreds of years. In Chapter VII, I pointed  out that it was this substantiation or hypos tasis, as indi-  vidual reals, of elements which have meaning and reality  only as elements in a whole, that is the source of the result-  ing conundrums. The holistic view of Personality, of 
Personality as an integral whole, and not as a compound  of independently real substances, is the only solvent for  these difficulties and misunderstandings.

It may, however, be objected that this holistic view with  its implied suppression or merger of body and mind and 
x PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 277 
the disappearance of both in the Personality is not a fair  and honest way of meeting these difficulties. Surely, it  will be urged, body is a real, a substance on its own merits,  and not a mere abstract element in human Personality. 
It will be pointed out that at an earlier stage I have treated  organism as a real whole, as a holistic structure ; that the  human body is nothing but an organism and that it is not  fair in its human connection to condemn organism as  having no reality of its own apart from the Person to whom  it belongs. I have stated the objection because it opens  the way to the explanation I wish to suggest. A living  independent organism is in a different position from the  human body. The human body is organic, but cannot be  considered an independent organism, living in a sort of  symbiosis with another substance called mind. Let any-  body try to form an idea of a human body divorced from  all mental attributes and activities and supporting an  independent existence of its own, merely as an organism. 
It would not be the human body, whose every organ and  activity has a mind-ward aspect and implies mental function-  ing. Subtract mind, and the residue of body must shrink  and shrivel into an unimaginable scrap-heap of organic  activities. Similarly it is impossible to conceive mind as  abstracted from the body. The disembodied soul is just  as impossible a concept as the disminded body. Thus it is  that the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection has pro-  vided the risen soul with a " spiritual body/* 1 the linea-  ments of which can only, however, be discerned by the eye  of faith.

Assuming then that body and mind are not independent  reals and have meaning and reality only as elements in the  one real substantive whole of Personality, the question  arises how we have to conceive or understand their mutual  relations as elements in that whole. How does mind  influence body and vice versa in human Personality? All  language implies such influence ; all experience implies and  assumes that mind has an influence on body, and body on

1 i Cor. xv. 44.  mind. In Chapter VII I have tried to show that such  influence does not imply a violation of the laws of physical  energy on the one hand, and does not necessitate the inter-  vention of a deus ex machina like Entelechy on the other. 
The situation is entirely holistic, and Holism here as else-  where gives the basis of the required explanation. Let us  first consider the alternative views which have been held  on the subject.

(a) The popular and, I believe, still the common view  among philosophers is that of " interaction "; that is to  say, that body and mind mutually and directly act on  each other. This view, if rightly understood, does not, as 
I have said, come into conflict with natural laws. But it  is open to another very formidable objection. How can  direct action of the physical or material on the mental or  spiritual and vice versa be conceived ? The two supposed  interacting factors are not of the same order at all; in  what way the one can " act " on the other seems not only  unintelligible but absolutely inconceivable.

(b) In view of this very grave objection, as well as  other objections, many thinkers have simply adopted the  view that the physical and the mental are two parallel  series, which do not act on each other but run parallel  to each other, without any attempt to explain the ground  of this psycho-physical parallelism. The objection to this  is that one series does seem to influence the other, and  not merely to run parallel to it. Our consciousness in  voluntary action, for instance, does seem to reveal most  clearly that our mental state can influence external actions  in a particular direction.

(c) Others, again, while admitting the difficulty of con-  ceiving how the physical and the mental can act on each  other, have introduced a mediating concept or agency to  help the difficulty out. Thus, just as the difficulty of  conceiving action at a distance has been mediated by the  conception of the ether of space as a medium for such  action, so a supernatural medium has been assumed to  render possible the interaction of such incommensurables 
x PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 279 
as mind and body. Leibniz has assumed a pre-established 
Harmony as existing between them and in other respects in  the universe; Berkeley and some of the Cartesians have  assumed that all interaction takes place in God, the divine  medium and cause of all happening in the universe.

(d) Finally, there is the view, of which Spinoza's may be  taken as the type, that the universe is but one Substance,  of which both the physical and mental series are particular  and related modes of activity; the causality which con-  nects them may therefore be supposed to reside in the  underlying Substance which unites them both. This view  is not entirely unlike the immediately preceding one; for  the God of Berkeley and others may be taken to corres-  pond to the divine Substance of Spinoza's universe.

These are the main types of views which have been held on  this, perhaps the most difficult subject in all philosophy; and  to me all of them seem to contain some elements of truth  and value. The holistic conception will not only assist us  to regard this subject from a new point of view, but it will  do justice to the efforts of those who have laboured at this  problem before.

In the first place, then, I may point out that the term 
" interaction " does not seem well-chosen to describe the  relations of two such disparate entities as the physical  and the mental. Interaction seems to assume a common  platform of action, action on more or less the same level. 
But we have seen that the structures of matter, life and  mind are on quite different levels of organisation and  inwardness. The one acts inside the other and through  the other. To use a metaphor, the mesh of the one is  much finer than that of the other ; the lower is transparent  to the higher structure, which therefore penetrates it and  represents an inner activity which was not there before. 
Action through or inside, " peraction " or " intro-action,"  would therefore be nearer the mark than " interaction "  in describing the action of elements in wholes with respect  to each other. Mind in "volition" is an inner self-  direction of the structure of Body, as I explained in 
a
Chapter VII. Body, again, in giving rise to mental 
" sensation," is simply performing that mutation or crea-  tive leap, which we have found at every other stage of 
Evolution.

In the second place, and what is even more important,  the whole is an active mediating factor in whatever action  takes place among its elements. We have referred in  previous chapters to the metabolic transformative activity  of organic wholes in respect of all stimuli or materials  which affect them from the outside. The organic whole  itself acts creatively, and subtly changes all alien stimuli  or material into its own form and structure. It is the  very nature of the whole in each particular case to display  this inner creative, recreative and transformative activity. 
We see it not only in the organism but even more con-  spicuously in psychic wholes. Thus sensations arise from  bodily states or affections. Now in all that happens  between the elements in a whole this subtle, creative,  holistic factor intervenes. Mind and body as elements in  the human Personality influence each other because of  their co-presence in this creative whole of Personality. 
The real actor is the Holism in and of which they are  but parts and elements. It is this subtle inner meta-  boliser or creator which makes all the difference. It  is not so much a case of mind and body interacting;  rather is it a case of holistic Personality dominating  the scene where both of them but humbly serve or  subserve. It is the Holism in which they both " live,  move and have their being " that is the real explanation  of whatever happens or appears to happen between  them. It is the Third, which is greater than both of  them, that really counts in the action or peraction. To  me this, or something like this, is the last word in the  relations of mind and body, of the spiritual and the physical. 
It may sound strange and mystic ; but it is the simple fact  that the whole, in this case Personality, makes all the  difference. Just as Kant at last gave the explanation of  mental activity by pointing to the central " synthetic unity 
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of apperception," in other words, to the holistic Subject as  the pervading dominating factor, so here all action of  whatever kind, which happens between mind and body in  human Personality, is to be traced to and ultimately  accounted for by the holistic Personality itself, and its  creative shaping of all that happens to or in it. Any  explanation which ignores the Personality itself must  necessarily miss the mark.

We now see what is the real explanation of Berkeley  and Geulincx's appeal to God, of Leibniz's appeal to Pre-  established Harmony, and of Spinoza's appeal to Substance,  as the mediator of action between the mind and the body  in man, between the spiritual and the physical orders in  the universe. The whole in each case is the explanation;  the whole as Personality in the human case, the whole as  organism in the situation of life and energy. All such  action is synthetic and holistic in its very essence, and no  explanation which ignores the whole and its creative  metabolism in such action can be considered satisfactory.

It may be objected that this " explanation " involves  an even greater mystery than that which was to be explained. 
No doubt we are here moving in a world of mystery, but at  any rate the mystery is now rightly placed. We have  traced it to its source in the Holism which makes and  guides the universe and all its unit structures great and small ;  and particularly to Personality as a form of Holism. Beyond  that final source no explanation can be traced. Personality  is a mystery, but at any rate we can attempt to locate it in  the order and evolution of the universe. In the relations  of mind and body Personality is no mere indifferent spectator  or passive tertium quid, and the explanation of those relations  must in the last resort be sought in the creative activity of  the Personality itself. When we analyse material structure  into its elements, we can practically afford to ignore every-  thing else besides those elements themselves, because the  traces of Holism in such a structure are so faint as to be  almost imperceptible. When, however, we go on to analyse  an organic whole into its elements, we notice at once that  there must be something more besides those elements,  something commonly called life which holds all those  elements together in a living unity. This " something  more " we have identified as Holism, and we have explained  it as not something additional quantitatively, but as a  more refined and intimate structural relation of the elements  themselves. When, proceeding yet higher or deeper, we  reach psychic wholes, we become even more keenly aware  of the presence and unmistakable function, the free creative  activity of this holistic something. And when, finally, we  reach the level of personal wholes which include all these  earlier less complex holistic types, we find all explanations  of action, relation and interaction among the elements  futile and hopeless which ignore this deeper relation, this  holistic setting, this active creative Holism which unites  all the elements into unique wholes. I believe that previous  attempts to state the relations of body and mind in the  human Personality have largely failed because the holistic  character of the Personality itself as the dominating factor  in the situation has been tacitly ignored. It is, however,  unnecessary to labour the point further in this connection,  as the whole trend of our argument in this work goes to  emphasise the importance of the holistic factor in all reality,  and a fortiori in the highest reality of which we are directly  conscious, viz. in our Personality. Any explanation which  leaves the Personality out of account in these matters is simply  like the play of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

Let us now approach the same point from another angle. 
What is the relation of this Personality to our inheritance  from our ancestors? The general principles of organic  descent were discussed in Chapter VIII, and an attempt  was there made to show the intimate activity of the holistic  factor in all organic Evolution. In the last chapter, again,  it was shown how psychic Evolution differed from organic 
Evolution in general; and it was pointed out that the  difference was principally this, that while in organic Evolu-  tion more or less definite specific modes of reaction to  stimuli were inherited, in psychic Evolution, on the other 
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hand, a general plasticity of reaction was inherited, an  indefinite range of acquiring experience, a vast capacity of  learning in the individual life how to react to any particular  stimulus which might happen to come along. The animal,  therefore, appears with its very limited range of faculties  ready made, so to say, and in its individual life learns very  little beyond this definite endowment for specific activities. 
The human person, on the contrary, has in addition to its  organic animal inheritance a psychic inheritance which  endows it with the capacity for educability, with a capacity  for acquiring new experience and learning new ways of  acting and reacting, which raises it infinitely above the  merely animal phase. The free, creative, holistic activity of  mind appears conspicuously in its hereditary transmission,  so that our human inheritance does not fetter us, but by  its very nature confers plasticity, freedom and creativeness  upon us. What we inherit is not a ready-made affair but  a wide possibility and potency of moulding ourselves in  our lives. In other words, what above all is inherited is  freedom, and the capacity of free and self-determined  action and development in our individual lives. In our  psychic nature we are thus raised above the bondage of  organic inheritance.

Now what does this imply? Surely this, that there is  something more in us over and above this inherited endow-  ment. The freedom must belong to an agent ; the plasticity  implies a creative moulder. I inherit various capacities,  but my own Personality itself is not inherited, but is uniquely  and originally mine. I inherit a definite animal body,  slightly different from those of my parents and ancestors; 
I likewise inherit a mental structure, somewhat resembling  theirs, but much less so than my body resembles theirs. 
But over and above this organic and psychic inheritance  there is an individuality, an individual personality, which  makes of this double inheritance a uniquely different blend  and composition. The flavour of each human person is  uniquely and absolutely individual. However similar the  inheritance may be, yet I am a new person, a new  self -consciousness, a personal centre absolutely distinguished  from those who gave birth to me and transmitted their  qualities to me. The unique whole, called Personality,  is not inherited, however much its constituent qualities and  elements have been inherited. And the very character of  the inheritance implies a new conscious centre to which they  belong, a centre which will organise them freely and creatively  into a new unity. Freedom and plasticity belong not to  the experience but to the experiencer. It is the personal  self-conscious centre that is free and plastic and creative,  just as the artist is free and creative, and not the pigments  with which he works.

This line of reasoning leads to somewhat curious results. 
It will be asked whether there is then a fresh creation of 
Personality at each generation ; whether human Personality  is original and underived in the sense that it is newly created  with each human being. On the holistic theory here put  forward there seems no denying this " creationism," as it  has been called. And it is best to recognise at once that  with human Personality we enter a domain of creationism,  a domain where, far more than elsewhere in nature, creation  is at work. We have called Evolution creative; we have  seen how creative newness enters at every stage of the  evolutionary advance. As the process advances this crea-  tiveness increases and intensifies, until in the origin of the  highest known structures, that is to say in human Person-  alities, the creativeness rises to a maximum in relation to the  inherited materials used in the new structures. Our very  conception of Personality is that it is a unique creative  novelty in every human being.

From this it must, however, not be inferred that the  phenomenon of Personality should be a most uncertain and  wildly fluctuating one ; that having no roots in the past and  being a creative novelty on each separate occasion, it might  be expected to rise and fall with quite incalculable uncer-  tainty. Like all the other holistic structures of Evolution, 
Personality shows a fair average constancy and probably a  tendency to rise slowly throughout the generations. And this 
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is only natural considering the general constancy of the in-  herited materials which go towards its composition, as well  as the constancy of the general environment in any nation or  people. But it does show much more individual fluctuation  than any other structures in the whole range of Evolution. 
There is evidently no hereditary character in Personality  as such; great Personalities arise from generations of the  commonplace; and, again, the great Personality may be  followed by generations of the undistinguished. There is  utter uncertainty in detail, which goes to prove that with 
Personality we are in the region of contingency and unpre-  dictability, and that it is not possible to formulate for 
Personality a law of sequence in the generations. In fact 
Personality may be compared to biological sports. We  know that a species which has its origin in some great sport  or mutation often shows a markedly fluctuating character  and continues to sport and to show great variability among  its individuals in many directions. This is true in a super-  lative degree of Personality, whose sportive freedom is  perhaps its most marked general feature. Still even so  there is on an average a fair amount of regularity and con-  stancy, with probably a slow tendency to rise in the scale  in the passage of the generations. Even this great spiritual  sport (as we may call it) may find its law in the end. But at  present it is still utterly individual and incalculable. It  is, however, not a mere passing accident or freak of Evo-  lution. It is in line with the whole trend of Evolution ; it  is a crowning phase of all that has gone before, and if to-day  it is still vastly variable and fluctuating, that is so because  of its youth, because it has had no time yet to develop firm  and constant characters ; because it is a whole in the making  rather than a whole completely achieved. But its imma-  turity does not detract either from its merits or its claims. 
It is a youthful God destined to complete mastery over the  old regular Routine, and to achieve Freedom, Creativeness  and Value on a scale undreamt of by us of to-day.

From the foregoing it will be seen that the theory of 
Personality as a real factor is necessary not only to explain  the synthetic relations of the constituent elements in the  complex human being, but also to explain the peculiar  character of heredity on the human level. Without Person-  ality the Body-and-Mind relation in man appears inex-  plicable; without Personality, again, man's independence  of his hereditary bonds and fixtures would be equally  inexplicable. In both respects a far-reaching holistic  factor in the nature of Personality is at work, which cannot  be ignored without making the entire human situation an  insoluble puzzle.

There is a third point of view which lays a strong emphasis  on the individual holistic factor which underlies Personality. 
That is the point of view of Psychology and Epistemology  generally. Both these great disciplines erect the human 
Subject into a new centre of orientation for all experience  of reality. From the purely biological point of view 
Personality is merely the highest term of a rising series;  but it is not a new and unique point of departure in the  universe. Psychology and Epistemology, however, regard 
Personality from this radical point of view. To them it is  the Subject of experience to which all the rest is the Object  of experience. The Personality as the subject in experience  marches right to the centre of the world-picture ; it becomes  the key and the measure of all things; to it all things  become relative in experience. In the new universe of  experience, in the world of Spirit, the conscious self or the 
Personality becomes the new point of universal reference;  the co-ordinates of reference are its co-ordinates, as we saw  in the last chapter; and without this personal orientation  all experience becomes inexplicable and all reality unintelli-  gible. We may indeed say that as soon as Personality  appears on the scene, the whole universe becomes reorganised,  transformed and almost recreated round it as the new centre ;  the universe is no longer the same as it was before Personality  but undergoes a radical change in the subtle process of  human experience. Just as Personality is essentially a new  creation, so the world which is its Object in experience is like-  wise in a sense a new creation out of the old materials. The 
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appearance of Personality, therefore, marks a new departure. 
It is not merely an addition to the universe but involves  in some respects an organic transformation of it. On this  lofty pedestal psychology and philosophy alike place the  personal self or Personality; and surely in this apparent  anthropomorphism they are right.

But it is perhaps doubtful whether they have fully  appreciated the implications of their action. Neither  psychology nor philosophy has made much of the Person-  ality except to look upon it as a peg on which to hang the  universe. The Personality as a point of reference, the 
Personality as a great Signpost in the universe appears to  them all-important. But in itself, in what it is, in what  its uniqueness consists, they have not taken any very  profound interest. Now in this they seem to me to have  missed the real point, and in consequence they have  failed to appreciate the real, as distinct from the merely  formal importance of the factor of Personality in the  universe.

The treatment that psychology has given to Personality  is another instance of this failure to appreciate its real and  unique significance. Psychology as a scientific discipline  deals with the human mind, not in its individual uniqueness,  but in its general character as distinguishing all human  beings. The individual within the purview of psychology  is the generalised individual, the average individual, not the  real individual, but the individual which is the creature of  an intellectual abstraction. In its treatment psychology  is, of course, only following the general procedure of science,  which is not concerned with the individual as such, but with  the common characters of individuals, with the specific  type more than the actual individual. Thus if Science deals  with a plant or an animal it may be any individual of the  particular species under consideration. The individual differ-  ences are generally considered negligible, and one individual  is for purposes of scientific treatment as a rule the same as  any other individual. Science is a generalising scheme and  must necessarily ignore individual differences.

2
Now with human personalities, the individual differences,  so far from being negligible, are all-important. Each human  individual is a unique personality; not only is personality  in general a unique phenomenon in the world, but each  human personality is unique in itself, and the attempt at 
" averaging " and generalising and reaching the common  type on the approved scientific lines eliminates what is the  very essence of Personality, namely, its unique individual  character in each case. The scientific procedure of  psychology, inevitable as it is for psychology as a scientific  discipline, is not very suitable in respect of a subject so  specially individual as Personality. But that is not all. 
Psychology does not even purport to deal specially with 
Personality. Its subject is more especially mind, mental  activity in its wider sense, the genesis and development of  the mental functions in the average human individual. 
But, as we have seen, mind is merely one particular aspect  of Personality. The contribution towards Personality which  comes from the organic side is in important respects ignored  by psychology. But this contribution of the body is most  important ; we know from practical experience in our  personal lives how important bodily functions and our  general physiological state are in the total make-up of the 
Personality. Our nervous system, our digestive system,  above all our reproductive system have the most far-reaching  reactions on our Personality as a whole. A little more iodine  in the thyroid gland, for instance, may make the greatest  difference, not only for the general co-ordination of physio-  logical functions and bodily development as a whole, but  for the mind itself, and may even mean all the difference  between normal and deficient mentality, between normal  and stunted Personality. All this physiological side of 
Personality, important as it is in its effects, simply falls  outside the scope of psychology and is assigned to other  branches of science.

The result of this limitation of the province of psychology  is that even the mental side of Personality fails to be properly  explored and understood. The subconscious Mind is still 
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largely an unexplored territory, and but for the recent  pioneering work of the psycho-analysts would have been  almost entirely unknown. And yet it will be generally  admitted that this province of the subconscious is most  important, not only for mental science itself, but more  especially for the knowledge of the Personality in any  particular case. For most minds, perhaps for all minds,  the conscious area is small compared with the subconscious  area; and beyond the subconscious area is the probably  still larger organic or physiological area of the nervous,  digestive, endocrine and reproductive systems, which all  concern the Personality most vitally and closely. It is  evident that the present demarcation of areas between the  various sciences makes it difficult if not impossible to deal  adequately with so large and embracive a subject as Person-  ality. Personality is deserving of having a discipline to itself  which will not leave it merely in the position of having to  be dealt with in a haphazard and incidental way by a  number of other distinct disciplines. Hitherto, so far from  having a field of its own and being a study by itself, it has  been a sort of nondescript annex of psychology. But, as  we have seen, the province of psychology is much too narrow  and limited for the purpose of Personality; and both its  method and procedure as a scientific discipline fail to do  justice to the uniquely individual character of the Personality. 
It has a third and no less serious drawback as a basis for  a discipline of the Personality. The procedure of psychology  is largely analytical; it involves an analysis of mental  functions and activities, and a detailed study of their several  lines of development ; and in exceptional cases a perfunctory  effort is finally made to view mind or character as a whole. 
But mostly the last part is either avoided altogether or  attempted in such a half-hearted manner as to be of com-  paratively slight value. Take, for instance, Professor 
James Ward's Psychological Principles, which is not only a  standard work but embodies and expands what has become  the great classic in psychology in the English language. It  consists of eighteen chapters, the first four of which are  u 
a devoted to a general analysis and description of mental  functions, while the main body of the work, consisting of  twelve chapters, contains a detailed discussion of the various  forms of mental activity, such as sensation, perception,  imagination, memory, feeling, emotion, and action, intellec-  tion, forms of synthesis in the judgment, intuition, and the  categories, belief, and the elements of conduct. The last  two chapters only are devoted to the concrete individual  and characterology, and form merely a distant approach to  the subject of Personality. No one will deny that from a  purely psychological point of view the method and procedure  of Professor Ward are both proper and unexceptionable. 
But the necessarily analytical character of psychology  largely disqualifies it from being a real foundation for a  doctrine of Personality. Psychology has, in fact, a different  scope and aim from that which would be natural and proper  for a subject like Personality. It is but one of several  preparatory studies leading up to the subject of Personality  without actually grappling with it.

The result has been that from a psychological or any other  practical point of view very little attention has been devoted  to the study of Personality. Personality has been the  concern of no particular branch of study, and it still awaits  a proper treatment of its own as a distinct discipline among  other scientific and philosophical disciplines. Its province  falls within the large debatable territory between science  and philosophy, between theory and practice, which has  been very little explored and is still terra incognita to all  intents and purposes. Its difficulties are immense; from  that wide and wild No Man's Land between science and  philosophy it rises like some forbidding mountain peak into  the heavens ; and no daring mountaineer has yet ventured  to approach it, let alone to scale its dizzy heights. But  beyond a doubt it is going to occupy a foremost place in  the attention of inquirers in future. And the time may  come when the science of Personality may be the very  keystone of the arch, and serve to complete the full growing  circle of organised human knowledge. That time is not yet ; 
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but I may venture to hope that the assignment of a proper  place to Personality in the structural Evolution of the  universe, such as has been attempted in this study, will help  to direct attention to what is undoubtedly one of the greatest  and most important outstanding problems of knowledge.

Professor Ward has suggested that that branch of psycho-  logy which deals with concrete individuals, with individuals  as persons endowed with character, should be called 
" Characterology." l I am not clear that Characterology  in this sense would be the same as the Science of Personality  which I am discussing. The term " character " seems to me  narrower than Personality, and to refer to the external  indicia rather than the inward reality which the term 
Personality here points to. And in any case Characterology  does not seem suitable as a name for the science of Person-  ality. For these and other reasons, and if a name is really  necessary, I would suggest Personology as the name for the 
Science of Personality, which will not be a mere subdivision  of psychology but an independent science or discipline of  its own, with its roots not only in psychology but also in all  the sciences which deal with the human mind and the human  body. As I have just pointed out, it is a border subject be-  tween the provinces of Science and Philosophy and will sho'v  the influence of both these great subdivisions of knowledge.

Prima facie Personology seems a more suitable name for  the science or doctrine of Personality than the cacophonous  mouthful " Characterology/' But it may be objected that 
Personology is a Grseco-Latin hybrid and unacceptable as  such. It may, however, be pointed out that there is a  peculiar reason for a term which is not purely Greek but calls  in the resources of the Latin language also. For it is a  curious fact that Greek philosophy, in spite of its brilliant  achievements and its inspired mintage of most of the current  coin of philosophy, never rose to a clear grasp of the idea of 
Personality. Thus it is that there is no term in Greek to  express the notion of Personality. Persona is a Latin term  and a Roman idea evolved, like so many other juristic ideas,

1 Psychological Principles, p. 431.  by the legal genius of the Romans, which was in its way as  remarkable as the philosophical genius of the Greeks. 
Persona in the Roman law denoted the legal status of the  individual who was by law clothed with rights and duties  in his own right ; the individual as the carrier of rights and  duties in his own right was a persona ; from a mere individual  nonentity he became in law a persona and acquired a legal  personality Thus in the classical Roman law a slave,  being without legal rights, was a human without persona. 
The developed Roman law came to extend the concept of  personality beyond natural individuals to non-corporeal  companies and societies which had by law a legal entity  and could have rights and duties. Personality thus was  a matter of legal status, and denoted the legal dignity  and importance of the individual or the group. The clear  juristic concept of persona was a very good basis for the  superstructure of the psychic ethical Personality which has  been built upon it.

To the evolution of the modern idea of Personality, 
Christianity made the most notable contribution in investing  the human being as such with a character of sacredness, of  spiritual dignity and importance, which implied a far-  reaching revolution in ethical ideas. The Roman legal  concept thus became blended with the moral sacredness and  inalienable rights of human beings as children of God ; and  philosophy raised the enriched term to the dignity and status  of a high philosophical conception. It has been my endea-  vour to go a step farther and to trace the concept of Person-  ality to its real relationships in the order of the universe,  to show it as not merely a juristic or religious or philosophical  concept, but as a real factor which forms the culminating  phase in the synthetic creative Evolution of the universe. 
The Roman traced persona to the authority of the law. 
The Christian traced Personality to the fatherhood of God  which conferred it on all human beings as a sacred birthright. 
The Philosopher has translated this religious idea into the  universal language of the ethical Reason. Here Personality  becomes the last term in the holistic series, a reality in line 
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with the other realities which mark the creative forward  march of Holism.

Personality has thus been explained above as personal 
Holism, as the whole in its human fullness of development. 
Human personal development thus means the creative  synthetic whole in control of all special functions and  activities, of all organs and their functions. The activities  of the body and the mind do not embrace the whole of  personal development. There is more in the central syn-  thetic Personality than an analysis of psychological and  physiological functions can explain. Just as in the specialised  organs of sense, the underlying basis of sensitivity, the  original sensus communis, develops pari passu with the  special senses and co-ordinates and supplements their  activities in the sensuous wholes of intuition, so also the  central holistic Personality develops pari passu with all the  specialised mental and bodily functions, and produces out  of their deliverances those syntheses and unities which are  distinctive of personal experience. All experience, all  intuitions, judgments, actions, beliefs and other mental acts  are holistic products of Personality. There is no internal  chemistry which binds these products together into unities  other than Personality itself. In Personality, even more  than in the earlier structures of Evolution, the whole is in  charge, and all development and activity can only be properly  understood when viewed as being of a holistic character,  instead of being the separate activities of special organs,  or the separate products of special mental functions. 
Synthesis and unity are of the whole, and not of the parts. 
Holism is in all personal activity, and is the only basis on  which such activity can be properly understood.

What should be the procedure of the new discipline of 
Personology ? It should, of course, take cognisance of the  special analytical contributions of psychology and physiology,  and of all the other human sciences, individual and social,  theoretical and practical. But it should do more. Following  the course above indicated, that the Personality is uniquely  individual and that this special individual character should  not be ignored, it should study the biography of noted  personalities as expressions of the developing Personality  in each case. Such a study of personal biographies will  not only have the advantage of bringing out the individual  differences among personalities, instead of blurring all differ-  ences in a generalised composite picture of Personality. It  will have the further and quite priceless advantage of study-  ing personalities synthetically as living unities and wholes  rather than in the analytical manner of psychology and the  other human sciences. In biography we have to follow the  development of a person as a whole, as a living biological  psychical entity, and we are therefore in a position to correct  the one-sided abstract generalised results of the analytical  procedure of these sciences. The study of biographies as  examples of personal Holism, as examples of the develop-  ment of Personality, will lead to very interesting and  important results.

In the first place, we shall thus get the materials for  formulating the laws of personal evolution. In the second  place, these laws will form the foundation for a new science of 
Biography which will take the place of the empirical unsatis-  factory patchwork affair which biography now mostly is. In  the third place, the gradual accumulation of biographical facts  and data bearing on personal evolution will not only lead to the  formulation of the laws of this evolution, but will give the  basis for a sound theory of Personality and a proper science of 
Personology. Personology as the science of Personality, as  the synthetic science of Human Nature, will form the crown  of all the sciences and in turn become the basis of a new 
Ethic, a new Metaphysic, and of a truer spiritual outlook  than we can possibly have in the ignorance and confusions  of our present state of knowledge. To my mind the basis  for all these great developments can only be laid in a new bio-  graphical aim and method, which will give us the facts which  are vitally necessary for any sound scientific constructions.

The lives for this scientific study as examples of personal  holistic evolution will have to be carefully selected, if effort  is not to be largely wasted. There are many types of 
x PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 295 
personality which would not be specially suitable for studying  personal evolution. There is, for instance, the type which  does not seem to possess an inner evolution. Many dis-  tinguished persons appear to be full grown in early manhood  and thereafter to undergo no further growth. Their develop-  ment reaches maturity early in life, and thereafter appears  to be arrested. I may mention Carlyle as an instance ; his  first great work, Sartor Resartus, was a complete and final  exposition of his inner self, and no further development of  his inner life seems to have taken place thereafter. This  phenomenon of early maturity and arrest of further develop-  ment is by no means unusual. We meet it in the case of  many persons in our circle of acquaintances who somehow  don't seem to grow, but to stand still after arriving at a  certain comparatively early age. We meet it again in the  tragic case of those authors who write a famous book early  in life and thereafter can do no more than repeat themselves  with less and less freshness and ever-waning originality. All  these instances simply point to arrested development, to the  absence of a capacity for inner growth. As Personality is  best studied in its genetic development, as its plastic inward-  ness is best seen in the successive phases it assumes in a  continuously growing, expanding human being, it follows  that the exceptional stationary or early maturing person-  alities afford less favourable material for the study of  human Personality as a whole.

There is another class of persons unsuitable for our pur-  pose, consisting of those who do not seem to have much of  an inner self at all, whose activities and interests are all of  an external character, who live not the inner life of the  spirit but the external life of affairs. We often notice this  feature in the lives and characters of public men, men of  affairs, administrators, business men and others, whose  whole mind seems to be absorbed by the practical interest  of their work. In them the capacity for the inner life seems  to have shrivelled and atrophied under the pressure of  external duties and activities. They may be able, com-  petent, conscientious men, they may even be brilliant men  of affairs, with great gifts of leadership. They may be  striking and impressive personalities and seem to be specially  endowed with that indefinable attribute of Personality for  which we are searching. And yet they are lacking in that  inwardness, that inner spiritual life which is the most favour-  able medium for the study of Personality. Their lives are  generally an affair of externals, of incidents and achieve-  ments, sometimes of pomp and glory, but largely devoid of  real deep personal interest. Their biographies are usually  dull and uninspiring, and the record and recital of activities,  successes and failures soon pall on the reader. The fact is  that the real indefinable quality of true Personality is inward  and is not reflected in the life of unrelieved externality which  such people live. They usually carry on the affairs of the  world with great competence; but they are too much of  the world. What is worse, they often consciously suppress  the life of the spirit ; the still small voice is no asset to them  in the prosecution of their worldly affairs. And they are  far too cautious and reserved to give their inner selves away  and to afford the outside world glimpses into the world of  real motives influencing and guiding them. For them any  self-revelation would be something to be shy of, would  be like wearing their hearts on their sleeves. The result is  that the inner fires are securely banked, and the flame of the  spirit can only fitfully smoulder under the ashes. Even if  there is a strong personal life in such cases there is usually  no record of it, it remains entirely private and personal,  and often unknown even to the inner family circle, let alone  the scientific student who is dependent on written records,  constituting a continuous revelation of the spirit, for the  reliability of his conclusions. They may be and often are  people of outstanding personality, but the absence of the  inner life and of records of personal development make them  unsuitable material for the study of the problems of Person-  ality in its more significant aspects.

These remarks will serve to explain what sort of lives could  be studied to best advantage in the exploration of the secret  of Personality. We should, at any rate to begin with, select 
x PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 297 
the biographies of people who had real inner histories, lives  of the spirit, as well as a fair capacity of continuous develop-  ment during their lifetime. And among these the most help-  ful cases would be those where the written record is fairly  full in the form of writings and diaries, and where there was  no undue restraint in the process of self-revelation and faithful  portrayal of the inner life and history. On the whole, the lives  of poets, artists, writers, thinkers, religious and social innova-  tors will be found the most suitable for purposes of holistic  study. They are often people with inner lives and interest-  ing personalities, with an inner history of continuous develop-  ment ; and wherever their experiences have been more or less  faithfully recorded, the materials for fruitful study are  present. Sometimes the personal record is missing, and in  such cases the study of the Personality through the works of  the author becomes too much a matter of inference to be  really useful, at any rate in the earlier stage of the inquiry  into Personality. Such a case, for instance, is that of 
Shakespeare. His plays reveal behind them a wonderful 
Personality endowed with the highest genius, and moving  forward in a continuous grand crescendo of self-development  as an artist from beginning to end. But while the develop-  ment is there, the Personality itself is too much hidden  behind the dramatic mask, and therefore too much a matter  of inference in the absence of proper personal records. In  other cases, again, the personal record is well and fully known,  but the written works are not sufficiently illuminating as a  true index of the growing Personality. For a man often  reveals himself more profoundly in his master products than  in his diaries or correspondence or other incidental com-  munications. Milton's great dictum holds for all time: 
" A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit,  embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond  life." There is nothing trivial in Personality, and the  greatest, most serious work is usually the most faithful  index to the Personality behind. Both are, in fact, required  the work as well as the personal record for a full under^  standing of any particular Personality.

298 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION CHAP, x

From a series of biographical studies, such as I propose, it  will, I imagine, become clear that Personalities follow their  own laws of inner growth and development, which will,  while conforming to a general plan, show very considerable  diversity in detail. It will be found that each Personality  is a psychic biological organism, an individual personal  whole, with its own curve of development, and its own  series of phases of growth. A person will thus be found to  be very different at different stages of his development, but  all the stages and phases will be bound together by and be  the outcome of the identical inner Personality. A com-  parison of such studies of individual Personalities will then  give the curve or the law of Personality, and reduce to  rational order a phenomenon which is to-day still within  the region of mystery.

As the key to all the highest interests of the human race 
Personality seems to be quite the most important and fruitful  problem to which the thinkers of the coming generation could  direct their attention. In Personality will probably be  found the answer to some of the hardest and oldest questions  that have troubled the heart as well as the head of man. 
The problem of Personality seems as hard as it is important. 
Not without reason have thinkers throughout the ages shied  off from it. But it holds precious secrets for those who will  seriously devote themselves to the new science or discipline  of Personology.

CHAPTER XI

SOME FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS OF PERSONALITY

Summary. The central conception of Personality is that of a  whole ; it is the most holistic entity in the universe, hence no other  category will do justice to it, and certainly not mechanism. Psycho-  logy is too much of an abstract science to give an adequate view of 
Personality, though even psychology is dependent on the theory of  a central synthetic activity for the correct construction and inter-  pretation of mental experience, and ignores that theory at its peril. 
The suggestion of a new science or discipline of Personology has  therefore been made which will study Personality more synthetically  and concretely than is possible for psychology. 
/As an active living whole, Personality is fundamentally an organ  of self-realisation; the end of a whole is more wholeness, in other  words, more of its creative self, more self-realisation. This means  that the will or active voluntary nature of Personality is its predomi-  nant element, and the intelligence or rational activity is subordinate  and instrumental it has to discover and co-ordinate means to the  end of self-realisation. Feeling is likewise subordinate, its function  being to give strength and impetus to the will. The Personality is  thus a more or less balanced whole or structure of various tendencies  and activities maintained in progressive harmony by the holistic  unity of the Personality itself. In fact Personality resembles an  organised society or state with its central executive and legislative  authority wielding sway over its individual members in the interest  of the whole. Kant has rightly called man a legislative being. Part  of this control in Personality is conscious, most of it is, however,  subconscious. This control is still largely imperfect and immature  owing to the extreme youth of Personality in the history of Evolu-  tion. But it is growing. More holistic control in the Personality  means greater strength of mind and character, better co-ordination  of all impulses and tendencies; less internal friction and wear and  tear in the soul, more peace of mind, and finally that spiritual purity,  integrity and wholeness which is the ideal of Personality. The 
Personality has the same self-healing power which we saw already  in the case of the mutilated organism ; and in case of moral or other  aberration it usually has the power to right and recover itself and  often creatively to gather strength from its own weakness or errors.

299

3
J Personality is not only a self-restorer; it is a supreme spiritual  tnetaboliser ; it absorbs for its growth a vast variety of experience  which it creatively transmutes and assimilates for its own spiritual  nourishment. As metabolism and assimilation are fundamental  functions of all organic wholes, the Personality takes in and assimi-  lates all the social and other influences which surround it, and makes  them all contribute towards its holistic self-realisation. Personal-  ities vary greatly in their capacity for holistic assimilation, some easily  suffering from spiritual indigestion, while great minds and characters  can absorb a vast experience which only serves to fructify and  enrich them without any detriment to their spiritual wholeness and  integrity. Where a Personality takes in alien experience which it  cannot assimilate into its own spiritual substance, such experience  becomes an impurity to it; " purity " in reference to Personality  meaning the absence of all elements alien, heterogeneous and dis-  harmonious to the Personality.

The holistic categories sketched in Chapter VI are specially charac-  teristic of Personality as a whole par excellence : these are Creative-  ness, Freedom and Wholeness or Purity. Its creativeness refers to  the ideal Values, rational, ethical, artistic and religious, which it  creates for its own spiritual environment and inner guidance and  illumination. As these, however, fall outside the scope of this work,  the category of Creativeness as applying to Personality will not be  further considered here. But something must be said about Free-  dom and Wholeness or Purity.

The essence of Personality is creative freedom in respect of its own  conditions of experience and development ; as an initiator, metaboliser  and assimilator it has practical self-determination. Again, as a  selector and co-ordinator of the elements in the situations that con-  front it, it also has practical freedom. Its very nature as a whole  confers freedom upon it. This freedom is not a negation of the  physical order of causality but arises inside that order ; holistic free-  dom is a continuous organic or psychic miracle which happens  between cause and effect, so to say, as we saw in Chapter VI. Free-  dom is thus a fact in the universe, and is not a mere capricious power  peculiar to the will; it pertains tc^ Personality as a whole. (Freedom  jagansholistic je^deterrmngjiaa^^nd as such it becomes one of the  greatldeals of ^rs^nalityTwhose self-realisation is dependent on its  inner holistic freedom.

As regards Wholeness or Purity, it is essentially identical with 
Freedom. Purity means the elimination of disharmonious elements  from the Personality. It means the harmonious co-ordination of the  higher and lower elements in human nature, the sublimation of the  lower into the higher, and thus the enrichment of the higher through  the lower. From this it follows that moral discipline is an essential  part in the culture of Personality. Personality is a spiritual gymnast, 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 301 
whose object is the freedom and harmony of the inner life through the  refinement and sublimation of the cruder features in the Personality  and their subordination and co-ordination in the growing whole of 
Personality. If this object is secured by the Personality, all the rest  will be added unto it : peace, joy, blessedness, goodness and all the  great prizes of life. \Wholeness as free and harmonious self-realisa-  tion thus sums up the summum bonum of Holism. \

IN the preceding chapter we have viewed the Personality  as a whole, as a form, and indeed the highest form of Holism ;  and we have also considered some of the difficulties and  problems which arise from this view of Personality as a  real whole. In this chapter we shall consider Personality  in action, in its operation as a whole, as an active shaping  factor in the life of the human individual. Let me,  however, first briefly resume what was said about the holistic  character of Personality, especially in its psychological  aspect.

In Chapter VII I tried to reconcile the conflicting claims  of Mechanism and Vitalism in the larger setting of Holism. 
In considering the behaviour of organisms and organic  control generally, it may still be a question whether the 
Mechanistic or the Vitalistic aspect of Holism is predominant ;  when, however, we come to the conscious human Personality  the question loses all its force and meaning. For there can  be no reasonable doubt that the mechanistic conception is  not competent to explain or even describe the facts of  human Personality. Psychology itself is unintelligible  except on the assumption that in Mind we have a central  synthetic power which marshals and controls, and largely  determines all the facts and functions of mental life, such as  sensations, perceptions, conceptions, conations and emotions. 
Our developed consciousness directly reveals an identical  and persistent Self which refers all its experiences to itself ;  and, as we have seen, but for such a personal centre and  unity of reference, mental life and experience would be  impossible and unintelligible. This personal Self underlies,  upholds, directs and controls all our experience as in-  dividuals. In this Self we behold, not only what is deepest  and most central in ourselves as human beings, but also that  power of Holism which operates blindly as life and organic  control in organisms ; nay, more, in it we behold the cul-  mination of that fundamental holistic motive power of the  universe, the beginnings of which lie far back, impersonal  and embedded in the inorganic order of Nature, but which  gradually disentangles and frees itself, until in the Self of  the human Personality it attains its highest measure of  freedom. The synthetic organising power of Holism,  starting from the darkest and feeblest beginnings and blindly  battling with all sorts of refractory situations in the course  of cosmic Evolution, gradually evolves and wins through,  until at last it emerges in the Self with luminous and radiant  self-consciousness. Through the Self, which possesses the  power of conscious reflection and retrospection, Holism can  look back to its own early beginnings and review its own  progress throughout the course of organic and inorganic 
Evolution. As Nature finally learns to read herself with the  human eyes which are her own, so through the human Self  which is the highest and best it has yet come to, Holism may  gaze back to its beginnings and scrutinise what would other-  wise be dark and unintelligible for ever. And thus it is that  the worm of Personality comes to turn to the light of the 
Whole, and presumes to view and discuss the Whole, of which  it forms itself but a part.

As was pointed out in the last chapter, the procedure of  psychology is largely and necessarily analytical and cannot  therefore do justice to Personality in its unique wholeness. 
For this a new discipline is required, which we have called 
Personology, and whose task it would be to study Personality  as a whole and to trace the laws and phases of its develop-  ment in the individual life. Such a study would be of the  greatest interest from every point of view, as it would envisage 
Personality in its unique wholeness and unity, rather than,  in the way of psychology, as a series of separate abstracted  activities. Personology would study the Personality not  as an abstraction or bundle of psychological abstractions,  but rather as a vital organism, as the organic psychic whole 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 303 
which par excellence it is ; and such a study should lead to  the formulation of the laws of the growth of this unique  whole, which would not only be of profound theoretical  importance, but also of the greatest practical value. One  cannot read the lives of the great Personalities without  feeling that a vast field for first-class scientific and philo-  sophic research remains still unexplored, and that discoveries  of the highest importance await the student of Personology. 
Here I shall confine myself to a few indications of the  general activity of Personality as a whole.

As a whole, as the individualising power and activity of 
Holism, the Personality is fundamentally an organ of self-  realisation. As in the case of the growing or mutilated  organism the whole manifests itself by bearing through all  obstructions and overcoming all obstacles in its efforts to  realise and complete itself or its type in each individual case,  so too the Personality has, as its central end, the straightening  out of all difficulties and the elimination of all elements which  militate against the attainment of its own immanent ideal. 
In essence the task is the same in both cases. But there is  this material difference in objective, that whereas in the case  of organism the end towards which the whole is moving is  the completion of the material structure and its functions,  in the case of Personality, on the other hand, the end and  object of the inner whole is the realisation of an invisible  spiritual structure or character. The organism is still  mainly material, while the Personality is essentially an  inward ideal; but in both cases the shaping power of the  inner whole strives to realise its end, to eliminate what is  alien and adventitious, to conserve and develop what is  pure and relevant to its ideal, and so to reach perfection, of  visible outward structure and function in the one case, of  inward spiritual grace and unity in the other.

From this it will be seen that apart from our bodies the  basis of that complex whole which we call the Personality  is our voluntary activity or the will; it is the active,  self-maintaining, self-realising power of the Personality  in us which underlies and directs and to a large extent  conditions all other activities. The Intelligence has been  evolved largely though not entirely as an instrument of  the will; in its endeavour to realise its conscious or  unconscious ends the Personality qua will has developed  the intellectual or thinking power as a subsidiary activity  which prescribes the means by which that realisation has  to be effected. The power of Holism in us moves at  first unconsciously and blindly, as in other organisms, and  later on consciously and purposively to certain ends which  increase in complexity and difficulty as the capacity for  abstract thinking and rational co-ordination progresses. 
This fundamental movement is the will, whose activity is  dependent not only on the primary forms of feeling, which  make the movement slow or rapid according to the strength  and volume of the feelings, but also on the growth of intelli-  gence which adjusts means to ends. The active movement  to satisfy the appetite or craving of hunger, for instance,  depends largely on the strength of the promptings of hunger ;  and the intelligence of the hungry animal is developed and  sharpened in order to devise ways and means by which the  pangs of that craving may be alleviated and removed. And  similarly the complex impulse which makes a great thinker,  artist or statesman endeavour through long years to execute  some great and far-reaching plan, while fundamentally a  movement of his active voluntary nature, depends for its  strength on his emotions, and for the correctness of execution  on the power of thought and judgment and insight which  have been matured in the personal life. The conception of 
Personality, as an active movement of the whole in each  individual, seems, therefore, necessarily to lead to the  primacy of the will or active nature of the mind, and to  the instrumental character of the intellectual or thinking  power. Personality is thus a balanced whole or structure  of various tendencies and capacities which are maintained  in mutual and reciprocal harmony by the holistic nature  of the Personality itself. As the whole is the essence  of Personality, so wholeness in self-realisation and self-  expression is its essential aim and object. 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 305

The great practical problem before the Personality is  thus to effectuate and preserve its wholeness through the  harmonising of its several activities, and the prevention  among them of any random discord or sedition, whereby one  or other might be enabled to assume ascendancy over the rest  and so prepare the way for the disintegration and destruction  of the whole. In the Personality there is superadded to the  unconscious organic control a whole complex machinery of  conscious purposive action which is intended more effectively  to maintain and increase this highly organised harmony in  the developing individual. The machinery of conscious pur-  posive control becomes highly elaborate and almost artificial.

In fact the nature of the Personality is distinguished by  its departure from the processes of organic nature and an  approximation to the forms of action which are characteristic  of society. Just as in a well-organised society or state there  is a central legislative and executive authority which is for  certain purposes supreme over all individuals composing  that society or state, and controls their activities in certain  definite directions deemed necessary for the welfare of the  state, so the human Personality is distinguished by an even  more rigorous inner control and direction of the personal  actions to certain defined or definable ends. This is the  reason why Kant has called man a legislative being. He is  an inward kingdom or sovereignty, whose powers and  actions are directed, not by some external agency, but by  an inner agency which is none other than the activity of the  personal whole itself. Much of this control and direction is  conscious will, but far more is unconscious and operates in  the subconscious field of the personal life, and it is only on  great occasions or crises that light comes suddenly to be  thrown on this inner leading in the personal life, and the  individual becomes conscious that he has been guided or led  along paths which were apparently not of his choosing, but  which nevertheless were the outcome of the mysterious inner  self-direction which distinguishes the Personality. The  ideal personality is he in whom this inner control is sufficiently  powerful, whether exercised by conscious will or some  x  unconscious activity, to harmonise all the discordant elements  and tendencies of the personal character into one harmonious  whole, and to restrain all wayward, random activities which  are in conflict with that harmony. This ideal is far from  being realised universally in practice. Personality is still a  growing factor in the universe, and is merely in its infancy. 
Its history is marked by the thousands of years, whereas that  of organic nature is marked by millions. Personality is as  yet but an inchoate activity of the whole, but nevertheless its  character is already distinct and well-marked ; and its future  evolution is the largest ray of hope in human, if not terrestrial,  destiny. Its incomplete imperfect character is largely re-  sponsible for the interminable disputes and differences among  philosophers and theologians about the human soul and  human destiny. For so long as the true nature of Personality,  which in one form or another, and whether consciously or  unconsciously, forms the ultimate subject matter of all their  dogmas and speculations, is still indefinite and undetermined,  it is not to be expected that they will be agreed as to the funda-  mental postulates, or the proper methods to be followed, or  the correct inferences to be drawn from the apparent facts. 
The scientist has the advantage that in matter and organism  he deals with older well-marked manifestations of reality  about whose definition and principal characteristics there can  be little dispute. But philosophers, whose subject matter is  still in process of growth and inward definition, find them-  selves unable to agree about fundamentals largely because 
Nature herself is not yet certain about these fundamentals. 
However, even admittedly inchoate and infantile as Person-  ality is, it is already sufficiently developed and distinct to  enable us to consider its fundamental characteristics and their  bearings on the interpretation not only of human conduct  but of our conception of the universe in general. And its  fundamental character is just this wholeness which justifies  us in saying that Personality is a special activity or form of  the Whole. For consider for a moment what distinguishes  the formed and developed personality from the unformed  and incomplete personality ; the strong character from the 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 307 
weak ; the master of his fate from him who is blown about  by every wave of impulse or opinion. In the latter case  the case of the weak, or flabby, or irresolute person you  have usually the same elements of character as in that of the  strong man. But the difference is that while in the case of  the strong man or personality all these elements are unified  into one central whole which shapes and directs their  separate activities, in the case of the weak man these ele-  ments of thought, emotion, will and passion have never been  harmonised or fused into one whole ; the sovereign legislative  and executive authority in the personality has never been  properly constituted or exerted, or is so weak as to be  regularly disobeyed and defied ; the unorganised and unco-  ordinated factions in the character fight for their own hand  and keep up a constant state of inner warfare in the person-  ality, with the result that the stronger passions or impulses  carry the day and ruin the character, which depends on a  harmonious subordination of all the various elements of  character under one supreme ethical authority. The inner  discord may even proceed the length of apparent dissocia-  tion of the personality and lead to the singular phenomenon  of multiple personality in the same individual.

In proportion as a personality really becomes such, it  acquires more of the character of wholeness ; body and mind,  intellect and heart, will and emotions, while not separately  repressed but on the contrary fostered and developed, are  yet all collectively harmonised and blended into one  integral whole; the character becomes more massive, the  entire man becomes more of a piece ; and the will or con-  scious rational direction, which is not a separate agency  hostile to these individual factors, but the very root and  expression of their joint and harmonious action, becomes  more silently and smoothly powerful; the wear and tear  of internal struggle disappears ; the friction and waste which  accompany the warfare in the soul are replaced by peace and  unity and strength ; till at last the Personality stands forth  in its ideal purity, integrity and wholeness. And through all  this transformation from the disorganised atomic state to the

3  full realisation of unity in the personal character, the Person-  ality as the activity of Holism in the human individual is itself  the creative shaping agency which directs the movement ;  it is the Personality which not only develops all the separate  faculties of mind and soul, but which concentrates and finally  unifies their activities; the various mental elements it  organises and fuses into one luminous personal whole, which  in time exercises a restraining and overshadowing power  over all tendencies and impulses harmful to the whole, and  directs the entire current of being, thinking and feeling to  the realisation of the highest ethical and spiritual ends.

We have seen in earlier chapters how in case of mutilation  of an organism some central control often avails to restore or  repair the mutilated organ. In the same way the Personality,  as an activity of Holism in the individual, repairs any breach  in the personal character and restores the balance disturbed  by any impairment of character. The Personality appears  as the self-healer, which through all obstacles and impedi-  ments endeavours to preserve and realise its own type or  ideal, and often even from defeat and disaster itself to wrest  the accomplishment of the ethical ideal at which it is con-  sciously or unconsciously aiming. Not seldom, of course,  the Personality finds it impossible to overcome the defeats  it has sustained and goes under ; for it is as yet weak and  inchoate as a function of Holism, and in some cases it is  weaker than in others. But the level of its power and  activity is gradually rising; more and more it is gathering  the unorganised centrifugal tendencies of the individual  into an effective central control, and often it wins even in the  most discouraging circumstances those moral victories  which form the great landmarks of personal and human  progress. From the depths of moral and spiritual aberration  it guides the weak steps of the wanderer to conscious man-  hood and moral self-control. As the organism heals itself  after a mutilation, so the Personality through identically  the same functioning of Holism saves and purifies the  personal character often even by means of the sins and  excesses of which it has been guilty. Thus the Personality 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 309 
realises itself by producing unity and wholeness in the  personal character; and when through its own weakness  the character is degraded and a course of conduct embarked  on which constitutes a denial of that fundamental tendency  and aspiration towards wholeness, the force of the Personality  in the individual is often strong enough to rescue the  individual and sometimes even through a more or less violent  crisis to convert him to sanity, self-respect and moral whole-  ness. The moral and spiritual bearings of this fact lie  beyond the scope of this work.

The aberrations of the individual from the ethical standard  are due not only to the inner weakness of the personal  character but also to the influence of the environment. 
From the consideration of the internal we therefore pass on  to discuss the external relations of Personality. And here  the first point to note is that in so far as the individual is at  the mercy of external circumstances and forces, the situation  is largely of a mechanical character. We have seen in  earlier chapters how such a mechanical situation is con-  verted into an organic one. The organism does not merely  passively receive the force, pressure or influence of the  environment ; it appears not as a mere passive sufferer, but  as an active agent in the drama of existence. And it is  considered an organism only to the extent to which it  exercises this active function of assimilation or metabolism  of the material which it receives from the environment. So  far from being a mere channel or conduit pipe for transmit-  ting the inorganic forces and energies of Nature, it disin-  tegrates all the materials supplied to it, and transmutes them  into forms which are serviceable for its own organic purposes,  and then builds these materials so transmuted into the stately  type which it is its immanent end to realise. The power  of assimilation is essential to the organism; without this  power it would simply be flooded with its surroundings, and  instead of conquering the environment and victoriously  adjusting itself to its surroundings, it would be overcome and  disappear as an organism. Metabolism and assimilation  are indeed the fundamental activities of organic wholes.

3
Now all this is, mutatis mutandis, even truer in relation to  the Personality. Any element of a foreign, alien or hostile  character introduced into the Personality creates internal  friction, clogs its working and may even end in completely  disorganising and disintegrating it. The Personality, like  the organism, is dependent for its continuance on a supply  of material, intellectual, social and such-like, from the  environment. But this foreign material, unless properly  metabolised and assimilated by the Personality, may injure  it and even prove fatal to it. Just as organic assimilation  is essential to animal growth, so intellectual, moral and social  assimilation on the part of the Personality becomes the central  fact in its development and self-realisation. The capacity  for this assimilation varies greatly in individual cases. A 
Goethe could absorb and assimilate all science and art and  literature and in addition take part in much of the practical  administration of his little state and other work of all kinds  without finding himself oppressed by a load which must have  killed a lesser man ; he could, as he has described in the  character of Faust, gather up into himself not only all the  knowledge of his day, but all the richness and variety of  experience which makes his life one of the most interesting  records in the history of the world ; he could drink of the  deepest fountains of passion and arise to the loftiest heights of  ideal aspiration he could do all this and not only preserve  his spiritual manhood unimpaired, but actually deepen and  broaden and enrich it in every direction. He could  assimilate this vast mass of experience, could make it all his  own, and make it all contribute to that splendour and  magnificence of self-realisation which has made him one of  the greatest among men. A lesser Personality would have  gone under ; could either not have acquired so much know-  ledge and experience, or could not have assimilated it, and  in the end would have become depersonalised, a mere  mechanical acquirer and hoarder at the cost of essential  unity and integrity. As soon as a person acquires either  knowledge or experience or falls under social or other in-  fluences in a mechanical manner without assimilating them, 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 311 
he injures his Personality; he overburdens and disorganises  himself; he surrenders to the environment that in him  which is and should ever remain a pure unconstrained self-  activity. There are many forms which this enslavement of  the Personality takes. Looking upon the Personality as  merely a natural activity and not yet in an ethical or religious  light, we find that it is sometimes overloaded and gorged  with knowledge which it cannot assimilate and digest, and  the person degenerates into a mere gatherer of knowledge,  a sort of intellectual hoarder. In other cases, again, it  accepts the social influences and conventions without  mastering and assimilating them and develops into a purely  conventional character in which the spontaneity of the inner  life is deadened under a mass of social conventions. In other  cases it acquires power which it is beyond its capacity to use  wisely and well, and it develops a proud, cruel, overbearing  or tyrannical character, and that too under circumstances  which would have built up a strong and noble Personality  in a case where the assimilative, controlling, co-ordinating  power was greater. Too often, alas ! it simply surrenders  itself weakly and self-indulgently to outside influences or  temptations, and becomes weak, vicious and contemptible. 
In all these cases the Personality succumbs to the environ-  ment, to external influences which bear on it, but which it  cannot resist or master and make its own ; in fact, to the  introduction of foreign or hostile material into its pure inner  self-activity. The ideal Personality is a whole; it is a  whole in the sense that it should not have in it anything  which is not of a piece with itself, which is alien or external  to itself. Any such extraneous or adventitious element in it  which does not really harmonise with it prevents it to that  extent from being a whole. Now as the Personality is a  self-realising holistic activity in us, it follows that its  immanent end and ideal is to realise and develop itself as a  whole, to establish and secure its wholeness, and to render  itself proof against invasion and injury from all extraneous  and hostile influences. It cannot do this by cutting itself off  from the environment on which it is dependent for the  material which it requires for its sustenance and self-realisa-  tion. It can only do this by, on the one hand, developing  and strengthening its power of assimilating and making an  integral part of itself all the materials which are necessary  for its requirements, and, on the other, rejecting all un-  assimilated extraneous materials which come to it without  being incorporated into it as a whole. In other words, it  aims at efficiency and purity the assimilation or making its  own of whatever is required for its self -development, and the  rejection of all influences or materials which are extraneous to  its wholeness, which would be alien and impure to that  wholeness.

The term " purity " is here used in the same sense in  which the German " Reinheit " is often used, to indicate  the absence of matters or influences which are alien or non-  homogeneous or extraneous to the thing in question. A  thing is called pure when it is free from such alien or ex-  traneous or adventitious elements as are considered destruc-  tive of its integrity and simple transparency or homogeneity. 
This seems to be the fundamental meaning of the term 
" purity/' Its moral meaning as freedom from vice, or  hygienic application as cleanliness or freedom from dirt, are  essentially derivative. If an object is itself and nothing  but itself, without the adherence of any adventitious matter  foreign to it, it will be pure or clean in the fundamental  sense. If a person keeps out of his nature any warring or  jarring elements or complications, keeps himself free of all  moral or spiritual entanglements, and is nothing but himself  whole, simple, integral and sincere he will also be pure  in the vital holistic sense. The food which enters the  organism as alien material is destroyed as such in the process  of metabolism and is assimilated as blood and other sub-  stances and goes to feed the organic system and to form an  essential part of it. And similarly the Personality through  perception, intuition, conception, emotion, etc., assimilates  the influences of its environment and works them up into its  own substance its inner world of thought and will and  emotion. And the more thoroughly this mental or personal 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 313 
assimilation is carried out, the richer and more distinctive  the Personality is. The wider the range of its acquisitions,  the more powerful and thorough the intellectual and  emotional assimilation, the more complex and the grander is  the Personality.

Here then we reach the central idea and function of the 
Personality. Like organism, only in a far more complex  and developed form, it is a whole, with an interior conscious  self-direction of all its component functions ; with a power  of acquisition from its environment which is not mechanical,  but really transforms all the acquired material into trans-  parent unity with its own nature. It is a whole which in its  unique synthetic processes continuously performs that  greatest of all miracles, the creative transmutation of the  lower into the higher in the holistic series.

And, in order to maintain the right perspective, let us not  forget that Personality is but a specialised form of Holism,  this Personality in all its uniqueness is still but a function of 
Nature in the wider sense; that in it we see matter itself  become somehow aglow and luminous with its own unsus-  pected immanent fire; that as Personality transforms the  material into the spiritual, so regressively a deeper view  discloses Personality as itself but a more interior function  of that Holism which has been slowly evolving since the  beginning of the universe.

In fact Personality in its fundamental activities illustrates  all those functions which in Chapter VI we have ascribed to  wholes. As a whole it is creative, it is free, and it is unified  in the highest sense. In that chapter the groundwork of the  holistic categories was laid down, and those categories  themselves were derived from the concept and nature of  wholes. Personality is the highest type of whole which we  have knowledge of, and we should therefore expect to find  that the holistic categories of Creativeness, Freedom and 
Wholeness will apply in a pre-eminent degree to the functions  and activities of Personality. I shall conclude this chapter  with a brief statement of Freedom and Wholeness or Purity,  as illustrated by Personality. The category of Creativeness  in its full application to Personality is best illustrated by the  appearance of the great artistic, ethical and spiritual Values  or Ideals, which are the creations of Holism on the personal  plane. These Values and the higher order of the human  spirit which they constitute fall beyond the scope of the  present work, which is concerned more with the laying of the  foundations of the holistic concept than with the erection of  the superstructure. The creative Ideals of Holism in their  human aspects, although they give better illustrations of 
Holism than anything we have discussed in this work, will  not be dealt with at this preliminary stage. I therefore  proceed to discuss Freedom and Purity in their application  to Personality.

The creative power by which both organism and Person-  ality metabolise and assimilate extraneous materials raises  the issue of Freedom in an obvious and natural way, and we  may briefly resume here what has been said before as to the  rival claims of Freedom and Mechanical Necessity in their  application to organic and personal wholes. In Chapter 
VII I have explained in what sense and to what extent the  categories of Mechanism and Necessity apply to such wholes. 
That to a certain extent they are mechanisms falling within  the physical laws of Necessity is clear ; but only to a certain  extent. Beyond that Holism appears as a real active factor  in each such whole, controlling and directing its physico-  chemical energies towards definite ends.

The free activity of Holism in the organism and in the  personality, considered merely as an organism, does not  affect the mechanical chain of natural causation. In aft  organism the same combination of physical causes produces  the same total of physical effects as in any other system. 
As we saw in Chapter VII, the law of the conservation of  energy holds exactly in the same way as in any other natural  system. Holism does not break the causal chain ; it does  not override the laws of physical causation. The laws of  physics and chemistry are the same, whether they are studied  in the growth of a crystal or in the development of a plant or  animal. To that extent and in that sense Necessity reigns 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 315 
in the plant or animal no less than in the crystal. But that  does not exhaust the matter. On the basis of these natural  conditions and factors Holism proceeds to bring about  results which are impossible in the case of mere mechanisms. 
Holism does not annihilate its form of space when it proceeds  on its road of inward development, but within the limits and  limitations of the spatial external form it proceeds to the  creation of a new inner world. In the same way Holism  accepts its own well-known natural conditions and principles  of action when it comes to develop inward organic or personal  wholes, but it evokes meanings and values and results from  those conditions which would have been impossible on the  plane of the merely spatial or mechanical. Holism, while in  no sense overriding natural factors which are but an earlier  phase of its own activities, develops inside and through  those factors the individual wholes of organism and 
Personality. Similar causes produce similar effects under  similar conditions : that is a statement of natural law. But  the miracle of Holism is performed in that infinitely small  or timeless, spaceless interval which elapses between cause  and effect. Hence whereas on the physico-chemical plane  cause A is followed by effect B, in the case of an organism  the operation of Holism is seen in that cause A is followed  not only by effect B, but also by a new non-mechanical  element X of a holistic character in the shape of what is  ordinarily called life or sensation, organic or mental activity. 
Organism as a whole is not merely a link in the chain of  natural causation, but is itself an absorber, assimilator and  transformer of causes on the way to their effects. And this  active free power of absorption, assimilation and transforma-  tion is evidenced not only in the creative appearance of the  new vital or mental element X, but also in the natural sense  of freedom which accompanies this activity in personal  consciousness. A causal stimulus applied externally to an  organism does not merely result in some mechanical move-  ment, but between the stimulus and the resulting movement  a whole new world intervenes, which transforms the stimulus  into the state of the organism, and makes the resulting  movement, not the mere mechanical effect of that cause,  but the free action of the organism. The organism absorbs  the cause as mere material, and emits the movement as  the resulting action of itself as the real cause. This trans-  formation is not only seen to happen in the case of the lower  organisms, but is revealed and interpreted in human con-  sciousness as what actually does take place. Consciousness  interpolates the self between all causal stimulus and all  resulting response, and reveals the self as the free creator or  prompter of the response after it has absorbed the stimulus. 
Accordingly, as we saw in Chapter VI, freedom arises  creatively inside the process of natural causation.

The spontaneous self-activity of the organism in the  assimilation of material necessary for its nutrition and  development shows that it is free as an organic whole ; while  the assimilation and transformation of that material and the  reference of any resulting movements or responses to the  organism as their originating and determining cause show  that freedom or self-determination from another point of  view. There is no such spontaneity nor such power of  creative assimilation in any mere mechanical aggregate ; in  so far as an organism is a whole, it is also a free self -determin-  ing agent in the activity which dissolves and assimilates  extraneous influences or materials and substitutes freedom  for causal necessity.

We thus see that Freedom has its roots deep down in the  foundations and constitution of the universe. It is a pro-  found mistake to look for Freedom only in the human will. 
The correct and fruitful view discloses Freedom, not as an  exceptional development in the universe, as an attribute  merely of the human will, but as itself in one degree or  another the grand rule of the universe, as the free self-  determined activity of Holism in its universal process of  self-realisation in Evolution, and as the fundamental prin-  ciple of each individual whole set free in the course of  this Evolution. As Holism in its individuating activity  evolves and sets free smaller wholes, these wholes are them-  selves in ever-increasing measure set free from external 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 317 
determination and acquire an ever greater measure of self-  determination and freedom in their activities and develop-  ment. Holism not only means the development of the  universe on holistic lines, the realisation of ever more  perfect wholes, and the assimilation, transformation and  absorption of non-holistic material or relations. It means  also the ever-widening reign of Freedom, the realisation  of the Ideal of Freedom in the gradual breaking down  of all external fetters, and the gradually increasing  inward self-determination of the universe through the pro-  gressive evolution of ever higher holistic entities in the  universe. This free holistic activity is not only the source  of the idea of causation in human consciousness; it is  ultimately the only source of efficient action or causation in  the universe. The free activity of Holism or a whole is the  type and source of all efficient causation. The concept of  necessity, which arises in connection with that of causation,  is not grounded in the reality of things, but is (as Kant  showed) a mere mental expedient for joining up or recon-  necting parts of the whole which have become dissociated or  severed in the course of thought or experience. The synthetic  activity of mind, in producing the category of necessity, is  simply intended to recover or reconstitute intellectually  that whole which has been shattered into fragments in  experience and thought; and as mind is itself but part  of the larger whole of Personality, this intention can only  be carried out imperfectly. In the whole Freedom and 
Causation, or rather efficient action, are not utterly  different; their antagonism arises only in the application  of consciousness to the atomic aspects of our empirical  experiences. Determinism is in the last resort based on  free holistic self-determination. We may sum up by  saying that Holism is free, and in so far as Holism has  realised itself in the universe, in so far as the universe is  of a holistic character and consists of holistic entities, to  that extent the universe and these entities are themselves free. 
But Personality is the highest type of such holistic entities. 
We may therefore say that Personality as a whole is free ;

3 the more completely it realises the character of a whole, the  more perfect also will be its freedom as such. The freedom  of the Personality is simply its character of pure self-activity,  untrammelled by external influences, its character of  spontaneous or conscious self-determination by virtue of  which all its actions flow from the pure source of self and are  not pressed or forced on it by unassimilated external con-  ditions or causes alien to itself, and which have not been  transformed into unity with itself. Sincere self-expression  in men and in nations thus becomes the true ideal of  human development and culture.

Freedom is thus not a mere abstract formal concept, but  a real activity ; it is the limits within which Holism moulds  and develops the individual Personality. In proportion as  the Personality is holistic, it is rich in the characters of self-  direction and self-determination ; in other words, it is free. 
Moral Freedom is thus a form of the holistic activity of 
Personality.

It will be seen that we predicate Freedom, not of the Will,  but of the Personality itself. However important and  indeed fundamental an aspect of Personality the will is, yet  it is merely an aspect and not the whole of Personality. 
Freedom is wider than the will ; the spontaneity of conscious-  ness itself, and of the mind in its various constructive or  creative activities, shows that Freedom is not limited to the  will, but characterises also other forms of personal activity. 
In fact Freedom is not an attribute of mere parts or aspects  but of the whole, and therefore of Personality considered as a  whole.

Most important of all, we have to point out that Freedom,  like Personality itself, admits of degrees in its personal  manifestations. We saw earlier in this chapter that 
Personality, at the present stage of its history, is not yet fully  developed ; that it is imperfect as a whole even in the highest  individuals, and that it varies in degree and intensity in all  individuals. The power of perfect self-direction, assimila-  tion and self-orientation which would distinguish a perfect  personal whole is only imperfectly realised in individual 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 319

% 
cases; and in the same way there is a corresponding  failure to realise the perfect ideal of Freedom.

Now in proportion as the Personality fails to achieve the  character of a perfect whole, in the same proportion it is  merely mechanical in its action, and therefore in the same  proportion it becomes externally determined or un-free in  its actions. The result is that the Personality is partly (so  far as it is a whole) free, and partly bound or externally  determined that is to say, in so far as it is or behaves like a  mechanism. Thus the fuller and more complete a Person-  ality is the greater its power of central self-control, or the  fuller its freedom. Weak characters have much less  freedom than strong characters.

Temptation to the strong Personality finds itself enmeshed  in and defeated by the transforming power of a great system  of central control which will actually turn it into a stimulus to  the higher life ; while the same temptation operating on a weak 
Personality finds little to withstand its force, and the resultant  moral lapse is almost a mechanical equivalent of the tempta-  tion. Freedom is characteristic of the Whole just as Necessity  is characteristic of Mechanism ; and this is as true in regard  to the moral action of the human agent as in abstract  theory.

In what sense is the human agent free ? In the everlasting  controversy as to the freedom of the will, it has never been  really denied that the will determines actions; that I can  will to do this or that and do it accordingly. But Necessi-  tarians and Determinists have contended that this will is  itself not free, but determined by motives and conditions  like all other natural events ; that it is itself a mere link in  the causal mechanical chain ; and that the consciousness of  freedom is really an illusion. Supporters of the Free Will  theory have, on the other hand, contended that volitions are  free, that the will in deciding on any course of conduct may  act irrespective of motives or external conditions operating  in it ; and that this indeterminism is borne out by our con-  sciousness of freedom of choice between various alternatives. 
Against this view there is not only the scientific evidence, but  also the feeling that Freedom in this sense of unmotivated  decision would be an exceptional capricious element in  the orderly procedure of the universe. Capricious individual  behaviour seems unworthy of such a world, and would  certainly not accord with Holism such as we see it in the  course of cosmic Evolution. In trying to arrive at the correct  view, we must on the one hand discard mere physical deter-  minism as being purely mechanical and in conflict with Holism  in its organic and personal forms ; and on the other we must  recognise the universal orderly character of Holism, which  does not admit of particular or individual caprice. And in  this way we arrive at the idea of holistic, as distinguished  from physical or mechanical, determinism. The Whole,  and Personality in so far as it is a whole expressive of the  individuating activity of Holism, are not and cannot be  mechanically determined ; they are self-determined in their  characters as wholes. In other words, theirs is holistic as  distinguished from mechanical determination. Freedom,  not in the sense of individual caprice of choice, but in the  sense of self-determination of a whole, or holistic determin-  ism, is an inherent character of Personality, and flows from  the very nature of Holism. In so far, however, as any  human being is deficient in Personality his actions also tend  to be a mechanical reflex of impulses and external con-  ditions, and to that extent to lose the character of true  freedom.

It is clear from the foregoing that Freedom is not  merely a concept but becomes an ethical and personal  ideal. Freedom is the full measure of self-realisation  which each human being by its nature aspires to. It  is not yet a firm possession of Personality. No doubt  all Personality has it in some degree, just as every organism  has it in a lower, more primitive form. But the free-  dom of a Personality is the measure of its development  and self-realisation. It is the active power which secures  the imperial legislative authority of the Personality, not  only over its own rebellious impulses and tendencies, but  even over the fleeting evanescent forms of thought and 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 321 
experience. In the ideal Personality Libertas and Imperium  are identical. It is, in fact, the supreme prize to be con-  tended for in the striving of each human being; and the  extent of its inward realisation denotes the measure of  the victory attained. To be a free Personality represents the  highest achievement of which any human being is capable. 
The Whole is free ; and to realise wholeness or freedom (they  are correlative expressions) in the smaller whole of individual  life represents not only the highest of which the individual  is capable, but expresses also what is at once the deepest  and the highest in the universal movement of Holism.

So much in regard to Freedom as the form and measure of  personal development.

The problem of Purity is at bottom identical with that of 
Freedom; they are both but aspects of Wholeness. But  while Freedom concerns the power of the Personality and  means strength as against weakness, Purity means the  harmony of the Personality through the elimination of alien  elements and the co-ordination of all the personal tendencies  in one harmonious whole of the spirit. A pure, free, homo-  geneous spirit is the ideal of Personality.

So long as disharmonies exist in the Personality and  conflicts arise between different tendencies in it, so long the 
Personality will fall below its ideal of a pure homogeneous 
Whole. That ideal will only be attained when in the  progress of personal development harmony and internal  peace have been secured. It must not be supposed that the  only manner in which this peace is possible is by the  elimination or absorption of all the lower or earlier phases  of personal evolution and the survival of the later higher  phases. The Ideal Man will not be devoid of those passions  and emotions which ordinarily war against the higher  tendencies and aspirations of the Personality. But in the 
Ideal Man they will not cause conflict by contending for a  dominating position in the Personality; they will be  relegated to the subordinate position to which their more  primitive crude character entitles them. In the Ideal 
Man the discords of ethical life will be composed, because 
Y  there will be a harmonious correlation of higher and lower ;  the harmony will be the richer in proportion to the variety  of elements which have been conserved and will thus com-  bine to produce it. It takes all sorts to make the little world  of Personality. The unity of character which the holistic  movement aims at does not involve the destruction of the  lower by the higher ethical factors, but the clear undisputed  hegemony of the latter over the former, and the reduction of  the former to a subordinate or servile position in the whole. 
It is this combination, in a harmonious form, of all grades  of ethical evolution in the ideal Personality which will make  it truly human, while at the same time it will be expressive  of the universal order. To secure that harmony ought to be  the supreme aim of the ethical individual.

From these remarks it will be clear how important a part  moral discipline plays in the furtherance of the evolutionary  holistic scheme. The life of the moral individual does not  drift smoothly on like that of the happy gods, but is a  constant gymnastic effort to strengthen the higher and to  secure its dominance over the lower tendencies. The  spiritual sublimation of the lower into the higher becomes the  constant unremitting effort. The mechanical operation of 
Natural Selection is supplemented on the ethical plane by  the conscious co-operation of those powers and agencies  which have been evolved in the higher evolutionary pro-  cesses. The contest is no longer left to be carried on by the  blind activity of natural forces and animal instincts; but  reason and conscience take a deliberate hand in the great  issue of Holism. The progress of Holism involves that  mere Naturalism shall be superseded or at least subli-  mated at the higher stages of evolutionary progress into  the deeper holistic factors which have appeared on the  scene in Personality. And the object of this conscious  moral discipline should not be the ascetic suppression of  primitive healthy human instincts, but their refinement  and sublimation, their subordination and co-ordination in  the growing whole of the Personality under the hegemony  of the later and higher ethical factors. 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 323

% While moral discipline thus plays an important part in  personal evolution, it must not, however, be supposed that 
Personality should go on for ever oppressed by an overpower-  ing sense of Duty, and should hear for ever the thundering  reverberations of the Categorical Imperative. No doubt  when the person at his moral awakening or some other  moral crisis in his life first hears the trumpet-call of Duty,  the effect is tremendous. But the thunder should die away  into the still small voice of the inner life; the apparently  alien forbidding aspect of Duty should be assimilated into  the quiet normal impulses of the Personality; moral  discipline should so thoroughly become second nature to the  ethical warrior that its effects will be there without its  operation being felt. The Personality should reach such a  standard of purity and homogeneity that there will be no  alien stuff in it to offer resistance to the promptings of 
Conscience or Duty or to cause friction or disquietude in the  soul. The highly developed and disciplined Personality,  pure and homogeneous in itself, and in harmony with  universal Holism, and thus finely responsive to all things  true and good and fair in the universe, will not only embody  the ancient Greek ideal of oaxfrpoovvrj, or moderation and  self-control, but will also come to realise both the Stoic and  the Epicurean ideal of drapa/oc, or tranquillity of soul, and  finally to know that peace of God, passing all understanding,  which is the supreme promise of the Buddhist no less than  of the Christian religion.

The ethical message of Holism to man is summed up in  two words : Freedom and Purity. And from what we have  just seen it is clear that these two grand ethical ideals are  at bottom identical. The function of the ideal of Freedom  is to secure the inward self-determination of the Personality,  its riddance of all alien obstructive elements, and thus its  perfection as a pure, radiant, transparent, homogeneous  self-activity. In other words, the function of Freedom is to  attain Purity in the Personality. And similarly the function  of the ideal of Purity is to afford free play to the inward  self-determination and self-activity of the Personality by  removing all external impediments, all stains and impurities,  all vice, cowardice, intemperance and injustice, all evil and  ugliness ; in short, all elements alien to the nature of the 
Personality, and thus to realise the Ideal of Freedom in the 
Personality.

This statement differs considerably from the usual ways  of formulating the Summum Bonum or Ethical End. The 
Pleasure of the Hedonist, the Good of the Intuitionist, and  all the other abstract formulations of the Ethical End  appear partial and one-sided from the holistic point of view. 
The end of Personality does not lie outside it but is given  inwardly. As Goethe has so well said of Life : " Der Zweck  des Lebens ist das Leben selbst/' Even more truly one may  say that the Whole knows no end beyond or outside itself. 
The object of the holistic movement is simply the Whole,  the Self-realisation and perfection of the Whole. And the  same is true of Personality in so far as it is a whole. Its  object is to achieve self-realisation, to realise its wholeness,  to attain freedom not in a selfish, egoistic sense but in the  universal holistic order. Holistic self-realisation is no  doubt pleasurable to the individual; but the pleasure is a  mere side issue and by-product, so to say, of the striving  towards wholeness in the individual life and character. 
And the same may be said in regard to all the other particular  ends and aims usually considered worthy of our serious  endeavour. Learn to be yourself with perfect honesty,  integrity and sincerity; let universal Holism realise its  highest in you as a free whole of Personality; and all the  rest will be added unto you peace, joy, blessedness, happi-  ness, goodness and all the other prizes of life. Nay, more :  the great evils of life pain, and suffering, and sorrow will  only in the end serve to accelerate the holistic progress of  the Personality, will be assimilated and transformed in the  spiritual alchemy of the Personality and will feed the flame  of the pure and free soul.

It would be a mistake to look upon the ideal of personal  holistic self-realisation as merely egoistic. No doubt in some  cases the subjective selfish features may predominate; but 
xi FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 325 
earnest men will always find that to gain their life they must  lose it ; that not in self but in the whole (including the self)  lies the only upward road to the sunlit summits. We  mostly move in the channels worn by social usage or con-  vention and are influenced by personal and social impulses  such as ambition, patriotism, love of money or power. But 
Holism is deeper than any of these. The inner call of Holism  is to none of these things in themselves and for their own  sake, but to its own victory in the personal life; to unity,  freedom and free plastic power for the Personality; to  active moral efficiency and the suppression of harmful  elements in the personal life : in a word, to the wholeness  and perfection of the Personality. The response to that  call in the personal life constitutes the great inner drama,  the warfare in the Soul, which issues either in the attain-  ment of Wholeness and Freedom and membership in the  immortal Order of the Whole, or otherwise in defeat,  enslavement and death.

CHAPTER XII

THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE

Summary.- The fundamental, seminal character of the concept  of Holism is bound to affect our general views of the nature of the  universe, our Weltanschauung, and this chapter deals with this wider  aspect of Holism.

Holism has been presented in the foregoing chapters as the ulti-  mate synthetic, ordering, organising, regulative activity in the  universe which accounts for all the structural groupings and syntheses  in it, from the atom and the physico-chemical structures, through  the cell and organisms, through Mind in animals, to Personality in  man. The all-pervading and ever-increasing character of synthetic  unity or wholeness in these structures leads to the concept of Holism  as the fundamental activity underlying and co-ordinating all others,  and to the view of the universe as a Holistic Universe.

On a strict and narrow view Science may consider the concept of 
Holism as extra-scientific, as giving a metaphysical and not a  scientific explanation of things. But this would be a mistake for  three reasons. In the first place, the conclusion to which Science is  pointing, namely, that the whole universe, inorganic as well as  organic, is the expression of cosmic Evolution, necessitates a ground-  plan which will formulate and explain this vast scientific scheme  of things. Mere preoccupation with detailed mechanisms will no  longer suit the immensely enlarged scope of present-day Science. 
In the second place, Science has already had to assume such ultra-  scientific entities as, for instance, the ether of space, as necessary to  give a coherent explanation even of purely physical phenomena. 
And the correlation of the physical and organic and psychical in  one vast scheme of Evolution similarly necessitates much more widely  operative factors than have been hitherto recognised. Holism is far  more necessary for cosmic Evolution than was the ether for light  transmission. In the third place, Holism is essentially no more  ultra-scientific than are life and mind ; it is simply a wider concept  than either and is the genus of which they are the species. And it  enables all the evolutionary phenomena of Nature to be co-ordinated  under and traced to the same operative factor.

The New Physics has traced the physical universe to Action;  and Relativity has led to the concept of Space-Time as the

326

CHAP, xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 327 
medium for this Action. Space-Time means structure in the  widest sense, and thus the universe as we know it starts as structural 
Action ; Action which is, however, not confined to its structures, but  continually overflows into their " fields " and becomes the basis for  the active dynamic Evolution which creatively shapes the universe. 
The " creativeness " of evolutionary Holism, and its procedure by  way of small increments or instalments of " creation," are its most  fundamental characters, from which all the particular forms and  characteristics of the universe flow.

The ignorance or neglect of these two fundamental characters  accounts for the elements of error involved in certain widely held  world-conceptions, such as Naturalism, Idealism, Monadism and 
Spiritual Pluralism or Panpsychism. Naturalism is wrong where it  fails to recognise that there is creative Evolution, and that real  new entities have arisen in the universe, in addition to the physical  conditions of the beginning. Idealism is wrong where it fails to  recognise that the Spirit or Psyche, although now a real factor, did  not exist either explicitly or implicitly at the beginning, and has  arisen creatively in the course of organic Evolution. The Monadism  of Leibniz and his modern sympathisers, while a great advance in  that it recognises the inward holistic element in things and persons,  yet goes wrong when it attributes an element of Mind or Spirit to  physical things like atoms or chemical structures. While things are  wholes they are not yet souls; and the view of the universe as a 
Society of Spirits ignores the fact that spirit is a more recent creative  arrival in the universe and cannot be retrospectively antedated to  the earlier material phase. Spiritual Pluralism is a modern refine-  ment of Monadism and similarly subject to the criticism that it fails  to recognise the really creative character of Evolution.

This is a universe of whole-making, not of soul-making merely. 
The view of the universe as purely spiritual, as transparent to the 
Spirit, fails to account for its dark opaque character ethically and  rationally ; for its accidental and contradictory features, its elements  of error, sin and suffering, which will not be conjured away by an  essentially poetic world-view. Holism explains both the realism  and the idealism at the heart of things, and is therefore a more  accurate description of reality than any of these more or less partial  and one-sided world-views.

Nature or the Universe is sometimes metaphorically spoken of as  a Whole or The Whole. Sometimes it is even personified, and the  trend of Evolution then becomes the Purpose of some transcendent 
Mind. All this is, however, unwarranted by the facts and un-  necessary as an explanation of Evolution. [Holism as an inner evolv-  ing principle of direction and control in all Evolution is enough; it  underlies the variations which arise and survive in the right direction,  and it creates in the " field " of Nature a general environment of  internal and external control. The " wholeness " or holisfic  character of Nature appears mostly in this field or environment of 
Nature, with its friendly intimate influences, and its subtle appeal  to all the wholes in Nature, and especially to the spiritual in us. The  fact is that the Holism in Nature is very close to us and a real support  in all our striving towards betterment. \ Qu^aspiraiiojnL_is_its in-  spiration, and it is thus the inner guarantee of eventual victory in  pfte of all set-backs and defeats. I

THIS is not a treatise on Philosophy; not even on the  philosophy of Nature; not even on the philosophy of 
Evolution. It is an exploration of one idea, an attempt to  sketch in large and mostly vague, tentative outline the  meaning and the consequences of one particular idea. But  that is a seminal idea ; indeed it is here presented as more  than an idea, as a fundamental principle operative in the  universe. As such it is bound to affect our general view of  the nature of the universe. I therefore come in this con-  cluding chapter to consider what Holism means for our  general world-view, our Weltanschauung, and as briefly as  possible to sum up the bearing which the argument of the  preceding chapters must have on such a general conception  of the universe.

Holism has been our theme Holism as an operative  factor in the universe, the basic concept and categories of  action of which can be more or less definitely formulated. 
I have in the broadest outline sketched the progress of 
Holism from its simple mechanical inorganic beginnings to  its culmination in the human Personality. All through we  have seen it at work as the fundamental synthetic, ordering,  organising, regulating activity in the universe, operating  according to categories which, while essentially the same  everywhere, assume ever more closely unified and syn-  thetic forms in the progressive course of its operation. 
Appearing at first as the chemical affinities, attractions  and repulsions, and selective groupings which lie at the  base of all material aggregations, it has accounted for  the constitution of the atom, and for the structural  organising of atoms and molecules in the constitution 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 329 
of matter. Next, after some gaps which are being ener-  getically explored by biology and bio-chemistry, and still  operating es a fundamental synthetic selective activity,  it has emerged on a much higher level of organisation  in the cell of life, and has again been responsible for the  ordered grouping of cells in the life-structures of organisms,  both of the plant and the animal type, and in the progressive  complexifying of these structures in the course of organic 
Evolution. The synthetic activity in these organic structures  has been so far-reaching that the independent existence of  the original unit cells has sometimes been questioned, and the  organism has been taken as the synthetic unit, of which the  cell is but a defined portion of nucleated protoplasm. 1 In other  words, theorganic synthesis of cells has been such as practically  to lead to the suppression of the individual cells as such. 
Next, in the higher animals and especially in man, Holism  has emerged in the new mutation or series of mutations of 
Mind, in which its synthetic co-ordinating activity has risen  to an unheard-of level, has turned in upon itself and become  experience, and has achieved virtual independence in the form  of consciousness. Finally, it has organised all its previous  structures, including mind, in a supreme structural unity in 
Human Personality, which has assumed a dominating  position over all the other structures and strata of existence,  and has in a sense become a new centre and arbiter of  reality. Thus the four great series in reality matter, life,  mind and Personality apparently so far removed from each  other, are seen to be but steps in the progressive evolution of  one and the same fundamental factor, whose pathway is  the universe within us and around us. Holism constitutes  them all, connects them all and, so far as explanations are at  all possible, explains and accounts for them all. Holism is  matter and energy at one stage ; it is organism and life at  another stage ; and it is mind and Personality at its latest  stage. And all its protean forms can in a measure be  explained in terms of its fundamental characters and  activities, as I have tried to show. All the problems of the 
1 Doncaster: Introduction to Study of Cytology, pp. 3-4.  universe, not only those of matter and life, but also and  especially those of mind and personality, which determine  human nature and destiny, can in the last resort only be  resolved in so far as they are at all humanly soluble by  reference to the fundamental concept of Holism. For this  reason I have called our universe " the Holistic universe/'  as Holism is basic to its constitution, its multitudinous forms  and its processes, its history in the past, and its promise and  potency for the future. 1

The scientist, viewing my claims for Holism in the dry  light of Science, might perhaps feel tempted to demur to  them. He might object that Holism is a mere assumption  which may have a philosophical or metaphysical value, but  that it has no scientific importance, as it cannot be brought  to the test of actual facts and experiments. Holism as here  presented, he will say, is not a matter for Science ; it is an

1 Professor Lloyd Morgan has made the creative or emergent  character of Evolution the theme of his book on Emergent Evolu-  tion and it has been suggested to me that I should explain my  relation to it. The fact is that my views had a different origin  from his, and that they had been matured and the whole of this  book written before I saw his interesting and suggestive volume. 
The result is that, in spite of many surprising similarities of thought,  there remains an essential diversity in our themes as well as in our  emphasis even on those matters on which we apparently agree. 
To him emergence of the new in the evolution of the universe is the  essential fact; to me there is something more fundamental the  character of wholeness, the tendency to wholes, ever more intensive  and effective wholes, which is basic to the universe, and of which  emergence or creativeness is but one feature, however important  it is in other respects. Hence he lays all the emphasis on the feature  of emergence, while I stress wholes or Holism as the real factor,  from which emergence and all the rest follow. To me the holistic  aspect of the universe as fundamental, and appears to be the key  position both for the science and the philosophy of the future.

Besides, Professor Lloyd Morgan makes the psychical factor  the correlate at all stages of the physical factor, thus in effect getting  back to the Spinozist position that all bodies, even inorganic matter,  are animata in their several degrees. This view seems to be a rever-  sion to the pre formation type of Evolution and to be destructive  of all real effective " emergence." In any case it is wholly different  from the view of creative advance consistently put forward in this  book. As he makes life and mind as primordial in the order of the  universe as matter, there is a special appropriateness in his adoption  of the term "emergent " in preference to "creative " as the character  of Evolution. 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 331 
ultra-scientific entity or concept. It falls outside the scope of 
Science, and the explanation of things which it purports to give  is not a scientific explanation. Even assuming that there is  such an activity as Holism at work in the universe, it would  have no value for Science. To be of interest to Science, it  must make a difference to actual facts and therefore be  capable of experimental verification. But clearly Holism,  owing to its pervasiveness and universality, cannot be  so tested. As its presence would not be revealed by an  examination of the particular facts, mechanisms and pheno-  mena with which Science deals, it is unnecessary for Science  to take any further interest in it.

I hope I have fairly summarised the attitude which 
Science might perhaps feel impelled to adopt towards the  claims I have put forward on behalf of Holism. And I would  reply by pointing out what seems to me to be the weakness  or rather the one-sidedness and partialness in this strictly  scientific attitude. Science seems to me to take too narrow  a view of her sphere and functions when she confines herself  merely to details, to the investigation and description of the  detailed mechanisms and processes in regard to matters  falling within her province. A description of analytical  details, however true so far as it goes, is not yet a full and  proper account of the thing or matter to be described. It  is not enough; the details must be supplemented by a  description which will take us back to the whole embracing  those details. The anatomy and physiology of a plant would  surely not be sufficient as a description of the plant itself. No  description of the parts is a complete description of the whole  object ; it is only a partial descripton, and falls short of a  true and full account in proportion as the object partakes of  the character of a whole; where the object, for instance, is  what I have called a biological or psychical whole. We may  say generally that wherever an object shows structure or  organisation (as every object does) a full description of it  would involve at the very least an account of this structure  or organisation as a whole, in addition to its detailed  mechanisms and functions. And where many objects show  similar or related structures, a proper description would in-  volve an account of the ground-plan of organisation affecting  them all. Thus in regard to organic and inorganic Evolution,  where the whole world of matter and life and mind can be  grouped into progressive series of structures from the begin-  ning to the end, a scientific account of the universe would  necessarily involve the working out of the universal ground-  plan which expresses this Evolution. And it can but add to  the value of such a ground-plan that it is not merely descriptive  but also attempts to be self-explanatory. A plan or scheme  is by its very nature not properly stated unless it is not merely  described but also explained and accounted for as far as  possible. Now I ask, what else is Holism but such an  attempted ground-plan of the universe, which is of a self-  explanatory character, a ground-plan which makes the  whole scheme the progressive operation and effect of a given  cause ? It may be objected that ultimate causes lie beyond  the purview of Science. But even so the descriptive ground-  plan of Holism would remain and would challenge serious  consideration on scientific grounds. To me the issue seems  quite simple. So long as Science eschewed all wider view-  points (as she modestly did in her earlier years) and confined  her attention to particular areas of facts, such as are em-  braced by the separate sciences, she was quite entitled to  look upon a general explanatory ground-plan of Evolution  as too ambitious for her and as falling outside her proper  sphere. But once she abandons this sectional standpoint  and comes to look upon the entire universe as evolutionary 
(as she now does), she is bound to examine a scheme such as  is here put forward on its merits as falling within her universal  province.

Science has been compelled in other instances to complete  and support her account of detailed processes by the  assumption of factors which lie beyond the area of observa-  tion, but without which the detailed processes become un-  intelligible. Thus the assumption of the ether of space was  resorted to as the basis of the undulatory theory for the  transmission of radiant energy. Although ether admittedly  lies beyond the area of scientific observation and experi-  ment, and no test however delicate has ever revealed its 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 333 
actual existence, it was long accepted as one of the con-  ceptual entities which were necessary to complete the  coherent system of Science, and indeed as a real physical  element in the universe. It is true that ether seems to have  fallen on evil days and that its existence or conceptual  necessity is being more and more questioned by various  groups of physicists. But it has admirably served its  purpose as a scientific hypothesis, and the legitimacy of  such a hypothesis was never questioned by even the most  rigid school of scientists. And I would submit that the case  for Holism is much stronger than that for ether ever was, as  ether was meant to account only for one particular group  of phenomena in physics, while Holism in the main phases  of its development is necessary to account for the facts and  phenomena of Evolution, both organic and inorganic. The  plain fact is that, as our intellectual outlook widens and the  intellectual horizons recede more and more, the domain of 
Science is undergoing an ever greater expansion, and there-  fore the formulation of new principles and new concepts  embodying them becomes necessary for the support and  the coherence of the whole vast scheme of Science. Science  is thus for ever encroaching on the domain of philosophy and  the other great disciplines of the Reason or the Spirit, and  it becomes ever more difficult to confine her activities within  the old orthodox limits. Holism no doubt breaks new ground ;  it is here intended as the basis of a new Weltanschauung  within the general framework of Science ; it is meant to be  the foundation of a new system of unity and inward character  in our outlook upon the universe as a whole. But it does not  fall outside the province of Science in the larger sense. And  it does not introduce strange, alien concepts into the sphere  of Science.

I would also point out that the scientific objection to 
Holism as above formulated would, in fact, be identical with  the objection which mechanistic Science has taken to life  and mind as operative factors in the universe an objection  which Science is feeling herself ever more strongly compelled  to overrule. The difficulty to verify Holism in the detailed  mechanisms and functions would be the same as the  difficulty to verify life and mind as operative factors in  organic and human structures. Holism is really no more  than an attempt to extend the system of life and mind, with  the necessary modifications and qualifications, to inorganic 
Evolution, and to show the underlying identity of this  system at all the stages of Evolution. In life the character  of the system becomes clear, in mind still more so. 
That is no reason to look upon it as non-existent in the case  of matter. The facts submitted in the foregoing chapters  disclose a more or less connected, graduated, evolutionary  series covering the phenomena of matter no less than of life  and mind. Holism is a concept and a factor which formulates  and accounts for the fundamental ground-plan of this series. 
It is therefore very much of the same order of ideas as life  and mind, and stands or falls very much by the same lines  of reasoning as they.

The graduated serial character of the universe has led to  the theory of Evolution. But it is clear that that serial  character opens up still greater questions of sources and  origins. A connected graduated system of facts implies  not only a particular method of their becoming, such as the  theory of Evolution formulates, but also a common origin  and a common propelling force or activity behind the  system. In life and still more in mind we get clear indica-  tions of this origin and this activity. All that remains is to  take a wider view and to bring all the facts and pheno-  mena of the universe within the scope of this common  method and origin. We then reach the concept of Holism  as embracing life and mind, but covering a much wider area  and forming, in fact, the genus of which they are the species. 
All Evolution then becomes the manifestation of a specific  fundamental, universal activity.

Having thus attempted to vindicate Holism as a proper  scientific concept in the wider sense, let us now proceed to  sketch the main distinguishing features of the Holistic  universe, in other words, of the conception of the universe  which results from the principles discussed in the foregoing  chapters. The final net result is that this is a whole-  making universe, that it is the fundamental character of 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 335 
tMs universe to be active in the production of wholes, of  ever more complete and advanced wholes, and that the 
Evolution of the universe, inorganic and organic, is nothing  but the record of this whole-making activity in its progressive  development. Let me briefly summarise the main points  in the preceding argument which lead up to this result.

We have seen that this is an essentially and wholly active  universe ; that its apparent passiveness as matter is nothing  but massed energy, and that activity is therefore its funda-  mental character. Indeed, energy itself is too narrow and  metrical a term to do justice to this character of the physical  universe as concrete activity. Activity in time, energy mul-  tiplied by time, Action as it is technically called in physics,  is the physical basis of the universe as a whole, and nothing  besides. The universe is a flowing stream in Space-Time,  and its reality is not intelligible apart from this concept of  activity. So much the new Relativity has made us realise ;  and to this conclusion the profoundest reflections on the  nature of the universe also tend. For us, constituted as we  are, the universe starts and takes its origin in Action. With  deeper meaning than ever before we realise that " Im Anfang  war die That/' It is, of course, conceivable that much lies  beyond and back of this beginning as it appears to us. It  may be that the universe of Action has itself evolved out of  a prior order which lies beyond human ken ; that there is an  infinite regress of celestial Evolution into time past; and  that the physical universe as it now appears to or is  conceived by us is the evolved result of inconceivable  prior developments. We do not know, and speculation  would be barren and futile.

The physical stuff of the universe is therefore really and  truly Action and nothing else. But when we say that, when  vve make activity instead of matter the stuff or material of  the universe, a new view-point is subtly introduced. For the  associations of matter are different from those of Action, and  the dethronement of matter in our fundamental physical  conception of the universe and its replacement by Action  must profoundly modify our general outlook and view-  points. The New Physics may prove a solvent for some of  the most ancient and hardest concepts of traditional humn  experience and has brought a rapprochement and recon-  ciliation between the material and organic or psychical  orders within measurable distance. I must refer to the  concluding portion of the third chapter for a statement of  this far-reaching advance which has been made by Science  within this century. That is the contribution of the New 
Physics to the new outlook.

Action in Space-Time is necessarily structural; indeed 
Space-Time supplies the co-ordinates, the framework of  the Activity which is the ultimate stuff of the world. Space- 
Time is the structure ; hence Action in Space-Time, in the  first phase of Holism, is purely structural and mechanistic,  as we saw in Chapter VII. The recognition of the funda-  mental structural character not only of matter but of the  whole universe is the contribution of the Relativity theory  to the new outlook. The physical world thus becomes at  bottom structural Action, Activity structuralised in bodies,  things, events. Thus arises the apparent material universe  which surrounds us and in our bodies forms part of us.

What is the next step ? Action does not come to a stop  in its structures, it remains Action, it remains in action. 
In other words, there is more in bodies, things and events  than is contained in their structures or material forms. 
All things overflow their own structural limits, the inner 
Action transcends the outer structure, and there is thus a  trend in things beyond themselves. This inner trend in  things springs from their very essence as localised, imprisoned 
Action. From this follow two important conclusions. The  first is the concept of things as more than their apparent  structures, and their " fields " as complementary to their  full operation and understanding. A thing does not come  to a stop at its boundaries or bounding surfaces. It is over-  flowing Action, it passes beyond its bounds, and its surround-  ing " field " is therefore essential not only to its correct  appreciation as a thing, but also to a correct understanding  of things in general, and especially of the ways in which they  affect each other. I have tried, at various points in the fore-  going discussion, to emphasise the great importance of this 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 337 
concept of " fields " not only for physics but also for biology  and philosophy.

The second and more important conclusion is the great  fact and concept of Evolution. The inner character of  the universe as Action expresses itself in actuality as a  passage, a process, a passing beyond existing forms and  structures, and thus the way is opened up for Evolution. 
The actual character of Evolution can, of course, only be  concluded and known from the facts, and is not a matter of  logical inference deducible from the nature of the universe  as Action. But if activity is the essence of the universe we  see more easily why the universe is evolutionary and  historical rather than static and unchangeable. There is a  passage, a process, a progress, but its characters can only  be determined by a study of the facts of the passage. It  may turn out to be merely a movement of combinations and  groupings ; or it may turn out to be an unfolding, explica-  tion and filling out, an evolutio in the stricter sense; or it  may turn out to be a real creative Evolution such as we have  seen it to be. Real Evolution requires other concepts  besides those of Action and structure ; and these concepts can  only be derived from experience. Thus the actual creative-  ness of Evolution is a conclusion not so much from theory  as from the empirical facts. And the exact nature of this  creativeness is unknown in some respects and remains a prob-  lem for the future to solve. 1 A still wider survey and closer  scrutiny of the facts lead to the conception of Holism which  accounts not only for the structural combinations of bodies,  things and events, but for all the progressive series of unities  and syntheses which have arisen in the cosmic process.

Assuming that Holism and the nature of wholes in the  universe have been sufficiently explained in the foregoing  chapters, I now proceed to compare the world- view to which 
Holism leads with those which resemble or touch it at various  points and yet are essentially different from it.

The Holistic view agrees with the Naturalistic con-  ception of physical science in giving the fullest importance  to the physical aspect of the universe. It does full justice

1 See pp. 136-8.  z  to the structural and mechanistic characters of Nature, and  indeed it considers Mechanism simply an earlier phase of 
Holism, and therefore perfectly legitimate up to a point. 
It affirms the validity of the fundamental laws and principles  of physics not only for inorganic bodies but also for  organisms, in so far as they are material. It represents  the organic order as arising from and inside the inorganic  or physical order without in any way derogating from  it. If in the end it erects on the physical a super-  structure which is more and more ideal and spiritual, that  does not mean a denial of the physical. The idealism of 
Holism does not deny matter, but affirms and welcomes  and affectionately embraces it. If Holism begins as real-  ism and ends as idealism, it does not spurn or deny its  own past; in Holism both realism and idealism have  their proper place and function and indeed find their justi-  fication and reconciliation. It breaks with Naturalism only  at the point where Naturalism becomes purely materialistic,  and in effect denies the creative plasticity of Nature, presents 
Nature as an anatomical museum, as a collection of dead and  dried disjecta membra, instead of the interwoven body of  living, creative, progressive unities and syntheses which she  essentially is. Naturalism represents the universe as a vast  reservoir of energy, unalterable in amount but steadily  deteriorating in character, subject to immutable laws and  fixed equations which prevent anything essentially new from  ever arising or having arisen. It thus negatives the concept  of creative Evolution except as a mere figure of speech. 
It presents life and mind as mere wandering insubstantial  shadows on the shores of this ocean of energy; the great 
Mirage of Evolution broods over the waters; and Man  himself, so far from being a creative factor in reality as a  whole, becomes an impotent spectator of this melancholy  scene, wrapped up in the illusions of his own self-con-  sciousness. Such a view of the universe seems to me hope-  lessly one-sided and distorted, and comes into direct conflict  with large and important bodies of facts of experience which  cannot be denied or reasoned away. To me the rock on  which Naturalism must split is the fact of creative Evolution. 
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Jn the first chapter I pointed out that the old materialistic 
Naturalism is inconsistent with a clear and frank recognition  of the great fact of Evolution, and in the body of this work 
I have tried to drive the point further home.

Creativeness is the key-word and the key-position, not  only so far as Naturalism is concerned, but also as regards  those other world-conceptions which are most hostile to 
Naturalism, such as the various modern forms of Spiritual 
Idealism. Naturalism imposes the past on the present and  the future; Idealism, again, imposes the present and the  future on the past. Both implicitly deny that creative 
Evolution which shows the universe historically as a gradual  transformation, as a real creative process moving from the  real structures of the past to the real structures of the  future; and therefore as a system which in its historical  development embraces and gives justification to both con-  trasted points of view. To view the ideal or spiritual  element in the universe as the dominant factor is to ignore  the fact that the universe was before ever the ideal or  spiritual had appeared on the horizon; that the ideal or  spiritual is a new and indeed recent creation in the order of  the universe, that it was not implicit in the beginnings and  has not been reached by a process of unfolding; but that  from a real pre-existing order of things it has been creatively  evolved as a new factor; and that its importance 4 o-day  should not be retrospectively antedated to a time when the  world existed without it. Where was the Spirit when  the warm Silurian seas covered the face of the earth, and the  lower types of fishes and marine creatures still formed the  crest of the evolutionary wave? Or going still further  back, where was the Spirit when in the Pre-Cambrian  system of the globe the first convulsive movements threw  up the early mountains which have now entirely dis-  appeared from the face of the earth, and when the living  forms, if any, were of so low a type that none have been de-  ciphered yet in the geological record ? Where was the Spirit  when the Solar System itself was still a diffuse fiery nebula ? 
The evolutionary facts of Science are beyond dispute, and  they support the view of the earth as existing millions of years  before ever the psychical or spiritual order had arisen ; and  what is true of the earth may be similarly true of the universe  as a whole. The fact that we have to grasp firmly in connec-  tion with creative Evolution is that, while the spiritual or  psychical factor is a real element in the universe, it is a com-  paratively recent arrival in the evolutionary order of things ;  that the universe existed untold millions of years before its  arrival ; and that it is just as wrong for Idealism to deny the  world before the appearance of Spirit, as it is for Naturalism  to deny Spirit when eventually it did appear in the world.

Creative Evolution seems to move forward by small steps  or instalments or increments of creativeness. Why there  should be this discontinuity rather than a smooth con-  tinuous advance we cannot say ; we can but note the fact,  which seems to be a universal phenomenon. Not only does  matter in its atomic and elemental structure show this  minute discontinuity, but the electric elements in the atom,  and in the electric current generally, and the quanta of heat  and radiant energy show the same remarkable feature. 
Thus the unit character of Action and Structure is repro-  duced in the unit character of Evolution and of nuclear  change in the cell. There is real creation as distinct from  mere combinations of pre-existing units or mere unfolding  of implicit elements ; but this creation is not consummated  in one supreme creative Act ; nor is it evenly and uniformly  distributed throughout all time. Its distribution is un-  evenly spread in minute parcels over the whole almost  infinite range of Evolution. Evolution thus becomes a  long-drawn-out process of creation, in which the new for  ever arises by slow and minute increments from the old, or  rather by way of the old, as it is not known how the new  actually arises from the old. As I have explained in Chapter 
VII, Holism is the presiding genius of this advance. It deter-  mines the direction of the advance, and it incorporates the  new element of advance synthetically with the pre-existing  structure. It thus harmonises the old and the new in its  own unity; it sy nth esises Variation and Heredity; and by  slow degrees and over enormous periods of time carries  forward the creative process from the most simple, primitive, 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 341 
inorganic beginnings to the most exalted spiritual creations. 
From the atom to the Soul, from matter to Personality is a  long way, marked by innumerable steps, each of which  involved a real creative advance and added something  essentially new to what had gone before. Such seems to be  the nature of Evolution, and it appears to be fatal alike to  the retrospective interpretation of the universe according  to Idealism, and the prospective interpretation according to 
Naturalism. Mind or Spirit did not exist at the beginning,  either implicitly or explicitly; but it does most certainly  exist now as a real factor.

Another world-conception which may be considered as  having considerable affinities with the Holistic view is  that of Leibniz's Monadology. The resemblance is, how-  ever, confined to certain aspects of the respective central  ideas; beyond those aspects the two views are totally and  essentially different. There is a close resemblance between  the central ideas of wholes and monads; that is all. The  unities and units which exist in Nature seemed to Leibniz to  be of the greatest importance for the interpretation of the  universe; not the One but the Many and their intimate  nature seemed to him to supply the key to the great riddle. 
I have in the foregoing reached the concept of wholes by a  different process of reasoning from that followed by Loibniz,  but the result looks very much like that arrived at by him  along different lines. And the convergence of the two views  from totally different standpoints would appear to suggest  that there is a substantial element of truth and value in the  concept of wholes, as there undoubtedly is in the Leibnizian  theory of Monads. They agree in having an innerness, in  being little worlds of their own, with their own inner laws  of development and with a certain measure of inner self-  direction or self-conservation which makes them partial  mirrors or expressions of the greater reality. But the  monads according to Leibniz are essentially spiritual entities  or selves, conceived on the analogy of the human mind, and  their activities are of a purely psychical character such as  perception. They are, moreover, absolutely closed, isolated,  self-contained units, each with its own immutable inner

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* 
system, uninfluenced by any other monad; and all main-  tained in harmony with each other by some divine pre-  established order outside of them. The greater and lesser  selves of the universe lead their own inner self-existences,  without any contact between one another, and only the  divine interposition maintains a Pre-established Harmony  between them. There is a scale of these monads, from the  lowest most simple, such as atoms or molecules, whose con-  fused perceptions produce the world of matter, to the highest  most complex in the universe, such as human minds, whose  clear and distinct perceptions produce the world of spirit. 
God Himself is but the Supreme Monad of monads on this  view. It will be seen how different this monadic conception  is from that of wholes developed in this work. In the first  place, wholes are not all spiritual entities, and the world is not  a hierarchy of spirits exclusively, as Leibniz conceived it. 
Spiritual wholes are merely the apex and crowning feature of  the universe, while non-spiritual (material or organic) wholes  compose its earlier phases. In the second place, wholes are  not closed, isolated systems externally ; they have their fields  in which they intermingle and influence each other. The 
Holistic universe is a profoundly reticulated system of inter-  actions and inter-connections rising into a real society in its  later phases. In the third place, genetic relationships con-  nect the entire Holistic universe. Wholes from the lowest to  the highest are akin and form one great family, and are  derived from one another in the process called Evolution. 
In the fourth place, it is the ascertainable character of this  evolutionary process which holds all the wholes together in  one vast network of adaptations and harmonious co-ordina-  tions, and not some mystic assumed Pre-established 
Harmony. Leibniz, while he correctly guessed the real  secret in his idea of Monads, missed yet the true explanation  through not having any knowledge of creative Evolution,  such as the deeper science of our day has revealed to us. 
To him Evolution was a mere unfolding of an implicit con-  tent ; he adhered to the traditional preformation views of  his day as well as to the current belief in the fixity of  species. He could not, therefore, realise the idea that 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 343 
monads were genetically related and evolved ; and that the  order which underlay the series of monads from the lowest  to the highest was of a creative character. In the absence  of genetic relationships and creative Evolution, he had to  make shift with the notions of isolated inner selves and a  pre-established harmony. We may therefore say that just  as both Naturalism and Idealism are shattered on the rock  of creative Evolution, so likewise the Monadology, however  valuable and suggestive in other respects, founders on that  same rock, which was, however, still secret and undisclosed  to the science of Leibniz's time. But for that ignorance  who knows whether Leibniz might not have elaborated a far  more adequate and suggestive Holistic conception than  that contained in this poor effort !

The astonishing thing is that thinkers of our own time,  who are not only conversant with the idea of creative 
Evolution but convinced adherents of it, fail to adjust their  view-points to it. Thus the late Professor James Ward,  who advocated the view of Evolution as epigenesis or creative  synthesis, and whose Pluralism has close affinities to the 
Monadology, seems yet to have failed to realise that his view  of Evolution as creative was in conflict with his spiritual 
Pluralism or Panpsychism. His Pluralistic universe also  consists entirely of spiritual monads or entities, and this  implies the possession of spiritual or psychical characters  not only on the part of the higher monads, like persons, but  also on the part of the most rudimentary monads, such as  atoms and chemical compounds. Spinoza, who otherwise  differed widely from Leibniz, had also assumed that all  things were in their several degrees animata, but he had  the excuse of being, like Leibniz, ignorant of the idea  of creative Evolution. But Ward, in spite of his fuller  knowledge, calmly follows Leibniz and Spinoza in their  error. The plain fact, of course, is that psychism or  spiritualism can by no stretch of language be ascribed to  mere bits of matter or energy or physical entities like atoms  or chemical compounds without the gravest confusion. 
The very idea of creative Evolution or epigenesis is that  both life and mind are later arrivals in the evolutionary  series, and cannot possibly be antedated to the mere physical  level of Evolution. There is not a great Society of Spirits  in the universe, of which Persons and Things, Souls and Atoms,  alike are members on the same spiritual footing. When the  term " Spiritual " is stretched that far and spread that thin, it  loses all real value and becomes a mere empty figure of speech. 
There is indeed no such spiritual Society of the whole universe,  but there is the Holistic order, which is something far greater,  and stretches from the beginning to the end, and through all  grades and degrees of holistic self-fulfilment. Holism, not 
Spiritualism, is the key to the interpretation of the universe. 
Mind is not at the beginning but at the end, but Holism is  everywhere and all in all. If the universe were a great spirit-  ual Society of lower and higher souls or spirits, Evolution as  creative would become meaningless ; it would be merely a  process of explication of the implicit spirituality (if any)  inherent in the universe. The Holistic view thus not merely  negatives the far-reaching spiritual assumptions of the 
Monadology, or Panpsychism, but it is also in firm agreement  with the teachings of science and experience. Nor does it, in  fact, detract from the value or importance of the universe. 
It but impresses on us the necessity of that great lesson of  humility which is the ethical message of Evolution. It  shows that values should not be confused with origins, and  that from origins the most lowly may be raised values the  most exalted and spiritual in the order of the universe. The 
Great Society of the universe leaves a place for the most  humble inanimate inorganic structure no less than for the  crowning glory of the great soul. To conceive the universe  otherwise is to indulge in anthropomorphism, which may be  pleasing to our vanity, but in reality detracts from the rich-  ness and variety of the universe. The Holistic universe  embraces all the real structures from the lowest to the highest  in their own right and as they are, without decking them in  spiritual habiliments which are alien to their true nature. 
This world, in the noble language of Keats, is indeed the  valley of soul-making ; but it could not be that if the valley  itself consisted of nothing but souls. To those who have the  deepest experience of life, this world is not only the upward 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 345 
path for the soul, but a very hard and flinty one. To attempt  to pave that rugged way with the roses of the spiritual order  would be a profound mistake from every point of view.

To say this is not to assume that there is anything alien  or antagonistic between the human soul and the natural  environment in which it finds itself in this world. There is  not only poetic value but profound truth in the spiritual  interpretation of Nature to which Wordsworth and other  great poets of Nature have accustomed us. And that truth  is not merely due to the creative part which mind plays in  the shaping and fashioning of Nature. It is not merely  that we invest Nature with our own emotional attributes. 
It is, in fact, to be traced to far deeper sources in our human  origins. For we are indeed one with Nature; her genetic  fibres run through all our being ; our physical organs connect  us with millions of years of her history ; our minds are full  of immemorial paths of pre-human experience. Our ear  for music, our eye for art, carry us back to the early begin-  nings of animal life on this globe. Press but a button in our  brain, and the gaunt spectres of the dim forgotten past rise  once more before us; the ghostly dreaded forms of the  primeval Fear loom before us and we tremble all over with  inexplicable fright. And then again some distant sound,  some call of bird or smell of wild plants, or some sunrise or  sunset glow in the distant clouds, some mixture of light and  shade on the mountains, may suddenly throw an unearthly  spell over the spirit, lead it forth from the deep chambers,  and set it panting and wondering with inexpressible emo-  tions. For the overwrought mind there is no peace like 
Nature's, for the wounded spirit there is no healing like  hers. There are indeed times when human companionship  becomes unbearable, and we fly to Nature for that silent  sympathy and communion which she alone can give. Some  of the deepest emotional experiences of my life have come  to me on the many nights I have spent under the open 
African sky ; and I am sure my case has not been singular  in this respect. The intimate rapport with Nature is one  of the most precious things in life. Nature is indeed  very close to us; sometimes perhaps closer than hands  and feet, of which in truth she is but the extension. 
The emotional appeal of Nature is tremendous, some-  times almost more than one can bear. But to explain  it we need not make the unwarrantable assumption of  a universal animism or animatism, and invest inanimate  things with souls kindred to our own. Evolution, with the  genetic relationships and fundamental kinship it implies,  accounts for all this intimate emotional appeal. The idea  of the universe as a spiritual Society of Souls is a poetical  idealised picture, and not in accord with the sober realistic,  scientific view of the facts. This is a universe of whole-  making, not merely of soul-making, which is only its climax  phase. The universe is not a pure transparency of Reason  or Spirit. It contains unreason and contradiction, it con-  tains error and evil, sin and suffering. There are grades  and gaps, there are clashes and disharmonies between the  grades. It is not the embodiment of some simple homo-  geneous human Ideal. It is profoundly complex and replete  with unsearchable diversity and variety. It is the ex-  pression of a creative process which is for ever revealing  new riches and supplying new unpredictable surprises. 
But the creative process is not, on that account, issuing  in chaos and hopeless irreconcilable conflict. It is for  ever mitigating the conflict through a higher system of  controls. It is for ever evolving new and higher wholes  as the organs of a greater harmony. Through the steadily  rising series of wholes it is producing ever more highly  organised centres whose inner freedom and creative  metabolism transform the fetters of fate and the contin-  gencies of circumstance into the freedom and harmony of  a more profoundly co-operative universe. But though the  crest of the spiritual wave is no doubt steadily rising, the  ocean which supports it contains much more besides the 
Spirit. Enough for us to know that the lower is not in  hopeless enmity to the higher, but its basis and support, a  feeder to it, a source whence it mysteriously draws its  creative strength for further effort, and hence the necessary  pre-condition for all further advance. Thus beneath all  logical or ethical disharmonies there exists the deeper creative, 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 347 
genetic harmony between the lower and the higher grades  in the Holistic series.

Reference must be made to one more question or set of  questions before we conclude. I have said before that the  scope of this work is limited, and that it is not intended to  deal exhaustively with the entire subject of Holism. But  within the limits of the introductory task which I have  set myself here, one problem remains to be mentioned. It  is the problem of The Whole, the great whole itself as dis-  tinguished from the lesser wholes which we have found as  the texture of Evolution. In other words, is there a Whole,  a Supreme Whole, of which all lesser wholes are but parts or  organs ? And if there is such a Whole of wholes, how is it  to be conceived ? Is it to be conceived on the analogy of  an organism, as Nature? Or is it to be conceived on the  analogy of Mind and Personality as a Supreme divine 
Personality ? Or are both these conceptions inadmissible,  and is there some other way of conceiving the system of  wholes in their actual or possible synthesis? These are  very difficult and thorny questions, but it is clear that we  cannot leave the consideration of wholes at the present stage  of our argument. For that argument implies clearly some-  thing more to complete it, even in the preliminary way which  is all that is intended in this work.

Two points arise from the preceding discussion which  naturally carry us forward to the consideration of these  larger questions. In the first place, where do we fix  the limits of a lesser whole? In a whole we have in-  cluded its field; but how far does this field extend? 
What limits are there to the field of an inorganic body,  or an organism, or a Personality? Leibniz represented  each monad as containing or mirroring the whole universe in  its own way and from its own particular angle; lower  monads, of course, more imperfectly than higher monads;  but each in its own degree is a sort of microcosm or minia-  ture universe. In other words, each tiniest least monad is  in a sense cosmic and universal. This description would not  apply to a field. As we have seen, a field is of the same  character as the inner area of the whole, only more attenuated  in its force and influence, and the farther it recedes from  that area the greater the attenuation ; so that the field,  though theoretically indefinite in extent, is in effect quite  limited in practical operation. When we come to consider  a group of wholes we see that, while the wholes may be  mutually exclusive, their fields overlap and penetrate and  reinforce each other, and thus create an entirely new situation. 
Thus we speak of the atmosphere of ideas, the spirit of a class,  or the soul of a people. The social individuals as such remain  unaltered, but the social environment or field undergoes a  complete change. There is a multiplication of force in the  society or group owing to this mutual penetration of the  conjoint fields, which creates the appearance and much of  the reality of a new organism. Hence we speak of social or  group or national organisms. But as a matter of fact there  is no new organism ; the society or group is organic without  being an organism; holistic without being a whole. The  mentality of a crowd as distinct from the number of in-  dividuals composing it is a good illustration of the changed  and reinforced mental field which results from the meeting  of many individuals and the fusion and heightening of their  conjoint fields. And the more psychic they are, the more  they are under the influence of strong passions or carried  away by some contagious idea, the more overpowering the  common field becomes. The force of the group field is  generally out of all proportion to the strength of the idea  or the passions in the individual units composing the group. 
The group field is so to say the multiplication of all the  individual fields. The subject falls under the study of  social psychology and is referred to here only for the pur-  pose of illustration. We have in such cases an organic  situation but not an organism. Groups, families, churches,  societies, nations are organic but not organisms.

Taking all the wholes in the world and viewing them  together in Nature, we see a similar interpenetration and  enrichment of the common field. When we speak of Nature  we do not mean a collection of unconnected items, we mean  wholes with their interlocking fields; we mean a creative  situation which is far more than the mere gathering of 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 349 
individuals and their separate fields. This union of fields is  creative of a new and indefinable spirit or atmosphere ; the  external mechanical situation is transformed into an in-  ward synthetic, " organic " situation or atmosphere. This 
" organic " Nature seems in certain situations to be alive to  us, to stir strange unsuspected depths in us, to make an  appeal to our emotional nature which often " lies too deep for  tears/' Thus we come to consider Nature as an organism;  we personify her, we even deify and worship her. But the  sober fact is that there is no new whole or organism of Nature ;  there is only Nature become organic through the intensi-  fication of her total field. In other words, Nature is holistic  without being a real whole.

Nor is it merely we humans, with our intense psychic  sensitivity, who feel this appeal of organic or holistic Nature. 
All organic creatures feel it too. The new science of Ecology  is simply a recognition of the fact that all organisms feel  the force and moulding effect of their environment as a  whole. There is much more in Ecology than merely the  striking down of the unfit by way of Natural Selection. 
There is a much more subtle and far-reaching influence within  the special or local fields of Nature than is commonly  recognised or suspected. Sensitivity to appropriate fields  is not confined to humans, but is shared by animals and  plants throughout organic Nature.

There is a second point which emerges from the foregoing  chapters and leads up to the issue now under discussion.

In Chapter VII we have spoken of a general common  trend of Evolution, of Evolution as not tacking and veering  about, but as moving in one general direction, as keeping  a general course and direction through all the endless ages  of her voyaging. How is this to be explained? Here  again the expedient of personification is often resorted to  for the purpose of finding an explanation. It is said that 
Evolution discloses a grand inner Purpose, that Nature or  the universe is purposive or teleological, and that no other  category will do justice to the great fact of Evolution as we  see it. But if there is purpose there must be a Mind behind  that purpose. And thus Mind comes to be personified in

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Nature as the source of the great evolutionary purpose wkich  the world discloses. Cosmic Teleology spells a corresponding  transcendent Personality. Do the facts warrant or necessi-  tate such tremendous assumptions? Would it not rather  seem that the whole basis of this reasoning is unsound and  false ? In all the previous cases of wholes we have nowhere  been able to argue from the parts to the whole. Compared  to its parts, the whole constituted by them is something  quite different, something creatively new, as we have seen. 
Creative Evolution synthesises from the parts a new entity  not only different from them but quite transcending them. 
That is the essence of a whole. It is always transcendent  to its parts, and its character cannot be inferred from the  characters of its parts. Now the above reasoning, by which  a supra-mundane Mind or Personality is reached, ignores  this fact. Such a " Personality " would be creatively new  and unlike the wholes which we know and which would  constitute its parts. It would be as different at least from  human Personality as this again is from mere organism. To  call such a new Transcendent Whole by the same name as  human Personality is to abuse language and violate thought  alike. There is universal agreement with the well-known  argument of Kant, that from the facts of Nature no inference  of God is justified. The belief in the Divine Being rests,  and necessarily must rest, on quite different grounds, as a 
God whose concept is deduced from natural process is  not a being whom the human soul can worship. From  the facts of Evolution no inference to a transcendent Mind  is justified, as that would make the whole still of the same  character and order as its parts; which would be absurd,  as Euclid says. From the facts neither an organism nor a 
Mind of Nature can strictly be inferred ; still less a Person-  ality constituted by both. It may be that the universe is  a whole in the making. That has been suggested as a  possible view. But as yet no such whole can be discerned  or inferred, either in its lower organic or its higher  personal form. The World-Soul is a poetic metaphor  and probably no more.

Nor is it necessary to make these far-reaching assumptions. 
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Th<ve is indeed a great trend in Evolution, but it would be  wrong and a misnomer to call that trend a purpose, and  worse to invent a Mind to which to refer that purpose. 
There is something organic and holistic in Nature which  shapes her ends and directs her courses. Without forming  an organism or a mind the totality of wholes which compose 
Nature develops an organic field which is sufficient to control  her creative movement. As a physical field has its lines of  force, so the organic field of Nature, which results from the  creative interpenetration of all fields of wholes composing  her, has its own structural curves of progress. In human  society we see how the social field or atmosphere becomes a  system of control, a moulding influence to which all incom-  ing members are subject. The individual in society is born  into a vast network of controls, and from birth to death  he never escapes its subtle toils. The holistic organic  field of Nature exercises a similar subtle moulding, controlling  influence in respect of the general trend of organic advance. 
That trend is not random or accidental or free to move in all  directions; it is controlled, it has the general character of  uniform direction under the influence of the organic or  holistic field of Nature.

And there is more. Behind the evolutionary movement  and the holistic field of Nature is the inner shaping, directive  activity of Holism itself, working through the wholes and in  the variations which creatively arise from them. We have  seen in Chapter VIII that these variations are not accidental  or haphazard, but the controlled, regulated expression of  the inner holistic development of organisms as wholes. 
There is Selection, and thus direction and control, right  through the entire forward movement, not only in the origin  of variations but also at the various subsequent stages of  their " selection/ 1 internal and external. This organic  holistic control of direction, this inner trend of the evolu-  tionary process, is really all that is meant by the metaphor  of Purpose or Teleology as applied to Nature or Evolution. 
To infer more is in effect to make the mistake of spiritual 
Idealism and to apply later human categories to the earlier  phases of the evolutionary process.

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Thus it is that when we speak of Nature or the Univers^ as  a Whole or The Whole, we merely mean Nature or the 
Universe considered as organic, or in its organic or holistic  aspects. We do not mean that either is a real whole in the  sense defined in this work. We have seen that the creative  intensified Field of Nature, consisting of all physical organic  and personal wholes in their close interactions and mutual  influences, is itself of an organic or holistic character. That 
Field is the source of the grand Ecology of the universe. 
It is the environment, the Society vital, friendly, edu-  cative, creative of all wholes and all souls. It is not  a mere figure of speech or figment of the imagination,  but a reality with profound influences of its own on all  wholes and their destiny. It is the oZ/co, the Home of  all the family of the universe, with something profoundly  intimate and friendly in its atmosphere. In this Home  of Wholes and Souls the creative tasks of Holism are  carried forward. Without idealising it unduly we yet feel  that it is very near and dear to us, and in spite of all  antagonisms and troubles we come in the end to feel  that this is a friendly universe. Its deepest tendencies are  helpful to what is best in us, and our highest aspirations  are but its inspiration. Thus behind our striving towards  betterment are in the last resort the entire weight and  momentum and the inmost nature and trend of the universe.

I have now reached the end of my argument. The re-  flections embodied in this work lie far removed from the  busy and exciting scenes in which most of my life has been  spent ; and yet both of them tend toward the same general  conclusions. It has been my lot to have passed many of  the years of my life amid the conflicts of men, in their wars  and their council chambers. Everywhere I have seen men  search and struggle for the Good with grim determination  and earnestness, and with a sincerity of purpose which added  to the poignancy of the fratricidal strife. But we are still  far, very far, from the goal to which Holism points. The 
Great War with its infinite loss and suffering, its toll of  untold lives, the shattering of great States and almost  of civilisation, the fearful waste of goodwill and sincere 
xii THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 353 
hifcnan ideals which followed the close of that vast tragedy  has been proof enough for our day and generation that  we* are yet far off the attainment of the ideal of a really 
Holistic universe. But everywhere too I have seen that it was  at bottom a struggle for the Good, a wild striving towards  human betterment; that blindly, and through blinding  mists of passions and illusions, men are yet sincerely,  earnestly groping towards the light, towards the ideal of a  better, more secure life for themselves and for their fellows. 
Thus the League of Nations, the chief constructive outcome  of the Great War, is but the expression of the deeply-felt  aspiration towards a more stable holistic human society. 
And the faith has been strengthened in me that what has here  been called Holism is at work even in the conflicts and con-  fusions of men ; that in spite of all appearances to the  contrary, eventual victory is serenely and securely waiting,  and that the immeasurable sacrifices have not been in vain. 
The groaning and travailing of the universe is never aimless  or resultless. Its profound labours mean new creation, the  slow, painful birth of wholes, of new and higher wholes, and  the slow but steady realisation of the Good which all  the wholes of the universe in their various grades dimly  yearn and strive for. It is the nature of the universe to  strive for and slowly, but in ever-increasing measure, to  attain wholeness, fullness, blessedness. The real defeat for  men as for other grades of the universe would be to ease the  pain by a cessation of effort, to cease from striving towards  the Good. The holistic nisus which rises like a living  fountain from the very depths of the universe is the guarantee  that failure does not await us, that the ideals of Well-being,  of Truth, Beauty and Goodness are firmly grounded in the  nature of things, and will not eventually be endangered or  lost. Wholeness, healing, holiness all expressions and ideas  springing from the same root in language as in experience  lie on the rugged upward path of the universe, and are secure  of attainment in part here and now, and eventually more  fully and truly. The rise and self-perfection of wholes in  the Whole is the slow but unerring process and goal of  this Holistic universe, 
AA

INDEX

ABSOLUTE Values as wholes, 109 
Absolutists and " the whole/' 102,

104-5, 113; their sterile monism, 
in 
Abstraction, the error of , 15, 20-1,

22 n, 29, 121, 122, 1 86 
Acceleration and gravitation, 
equivalent expressions, 29-30, 31 
Acquired characters, inheritance of,

202, 209-10 
Acquired experience, inheritance of,

214 n. 
Action, the physical basis of the 
universe, 33, 42, 45, 52-3, 57, 335,

33i 337 1 its structural character,

42-3, .45. 336 
Adsorption, 47 
Alchemists, their guesses not far 
from the truth, 43-4 
Alga and fern, possible bridge 
between, 76

Algonkian mountains, age of, 43 n. 
Alternation of generations, basis of,

75.

Aquinas, St. Thomas, holistic doc-  trine of, 1 06 n.

Analysis, the error of, 20, 21, 29

Anaxagoras, 238

Aniline dyes, 58

Animals : the psychical develop-  ment manifested in Sexual Selec-  tion, 13-14 ; plants and, their simi-  larities and divergences, 71, 72, 
74-5; co-ordination and self-  regulation in, 78, 79, 84, 108, 109, 
239, 240; power of self-healing  in, 82-3 ; regarded as wholes, 
83-4, 108, 109; Whitehead's doc-  trine of organic mechanism, 122;  animals and humans, heredity  and educability, 261, 283

Aristotelianism of St. Thomas 
Aquinas, and Holism, 106 n.

Armstrong, Dr. E. F., 48

Artistic creations as wholes, 100- 
101, 108

Associative memory of white mice,  experiments on, 214 n.

Atom, the, 38, 41, 62, 72, 85, 
100, 1 80; importance of placing  and spacing of atoms, 38-9;  not static but active in the 
Space-Time continuum, 39; the  conquests of the New Physics, 
39-40 ; theory of Rutherford and 
Bohr, 40-42 ; nucleus, electrons,  and quanta of radiation, 40-41, 
42, 50; its planetary structure,

40, 41, 46, 49, 85; the proton,

41, 42; as a potential source of  energy, 43 ; the artificial break-  ing up of matter and the trans-  mutation of metals, 43-4; ex-  ternal properties dependent on  internal structure, 44-5 ; the  basis of the hypothesis of its  structure, 49-5 1 ; not an organ-  ism, 124; a creation of Holism, 
136, 160, 237, 238, 328-9; dis-  continuity in its structure, 340

Atomic numbers, 41-2 
Attention, development of power  of, 245, 246, 249, 250

Baly, Professor, 70

Beauty, its holistic basis, 230, 231

Becquerel, 24, 39

Bergson : his philosophy of Evolu-  tion summarised and examined, 
94-7; the principle of Duration, 
94-5, 96, 97, 102, 118; the Intel-  lect, 95-A 97> II 4

Berkeley, 279, 281

Bio-chemical mechanisms, 158

Bio-chemical wholes, 158-9, 161, 
I 75 1 7&, 177. See Organisms.

Bio-chemistry, recent advances in,

73 
Biographies as aids to the science 
of Personology, 293-8, 303 
Biological wholes, 102, 103, 106-7 
Biology : and a new concept of life, 3, 
5; Mechanism and, 4, 5, u, 112, 
116-17, 128; latest advances in, 
5,7; new syntheses more impor-  tant than specialisation, 5, 7,

354

INDEX

355 
iV Sexual Selection in Organic 
Evolution, 14 ; its study of Evolu-  tion and the cell, 62 ; value of  the concept of the whole to, 
113, 230, 268; value of the con-  cept of "fields" to, 116-19; 
Vitalism and, 167; the germ-  cell theory of Variation, 198, 206-  ii ; Mendelism, 202, 203-4; 
Personality compared to bio-  logical sports, 285

Body, the : needless confusion over  interaction of mind and, 164, 165 ;  early Christian controversy on  immortality, 165 ; Descartes and  the relation of mind and, 168, 
171, 177; the laws of thermo-  dynamics and the principles of  mind and, 170-78; Holism on  the action of " life "on, 180-89;  the Subject-Object relation of  mind and, 248 ; in relation to 
Personality, 273-6, 288, 289;  relations of spirit and, 273, 275-6 ;  conventionally degraded by mor-  bid religious spirit, 274; re-  habilitated by modern science, 
275 ; relation of mind and, in 
Personality, 276-80, 286, 288

Body-cells differentiated from germ-  cells, 207, 209-10; possible reci-  procal influence of body-cells and  germ-cells, 211, 212, 213-14, 228

Bohr, Professor Niels, 40

Bower, Professor F. p., 216 n.

Brain, the : its holistic functions, 
150; mind and, 253, 262

Breathing, physiology of, 148

Brown, Robert, 63

Cage, closed, Einstein's illustration,

29-3

Carbon dioxide, its transformation  in the plant, 69, 78

Carlyle, arrested development of  his inner self, 295

Catalysis, use of colloids in, 47, 69

Causation, rigid concept of, in 
19th-century science, 9, 16-17, 
162, 163; and the idea of 
" fields," 17-19; Holism and,

134-5* 142-3. M4. 145-6, 3*4. 3 J 5- 
16, 317; freedom creative within  the process of, 145-7, 315-16 
Cell, the, 62, 64, 65, 84, 85, 99, 100, 
161, 230, 237, 238, 239; colloidal  system of plant cell, 47-8, 66;  enzyme action in, 47-8, 69-70;  the chromosomes, 54, 63, 72, 74,

200, 228, 229 n.; history of study  of cells, 63-4 ; structure and func-  tions of cells, 63, 64-70, 119; the  cell wall, 63, 66; cell-divisions, 
63. 64, 71-2, 74-5, 77; attempt  to explain physical mechanism of  heredity from, 64; some central  control of its functions implied, 
67, 68-9, 78, 79-85, 199; its  origin possibly electrical, 71- 
6; reproduction by reduction  division, 74-5, 77; single-content  and double-contents cells, 75;  differentiation in cells, and diver-  gence of plant and animal forms, 
76-8, 8 1 ; the co-operation and co-  ordination of cells towards a whole, 
79-86, 99, 199, 223, 239, 329;  the power of restitution of  damaged cells, 82 ; body-cells  differentiated from germ cells, 
207, 209-10; possible reciprocal  influence of body-cells and germ-  cells, 211, > 12, 213-14, 228 ; germ-  cell theory of Variation, 196, 198, 
199, 202, 203-14, 2^8-9 
Cell-division, process of, 64, 712, 
74-5, 77 ; its electrical character,

72-3

Chance, the idea of, a fallacy, 185-6

Characterology, 291

Chemical affinity, accounted for, 
39, 44-5 ; the selectiveness of  matter in its colloid state possibly  related to, 58; Holism and, 328

Chemical changes in environment  and hereditary variations, 212 n.

Chemical compounds, holistic char-  acter of, 106, 108, 109, 130, 136, 
140-41, 1 80; Mechanism and  chemical combination, 157

Chemistry, 55 ; the analysis of the  constitution of matter, 38 ; the  importance of " structure," 38, 
39 ; two types of chemical change, 
48-9

Chlorophyll, its part in plant life, 
4?, 59. 69, 72, 78

Christianity and the evolution of  the idea of Personality, 292

Chromosomes, 63; differences in,  and organic variations, 54 ;  their behaviour in cell-division, 
72, 74 ; hereditary characters  carried by, 208, 228, 229 n.

Clerk-Maxwell, 173-5, 177, 179, 180

Colloid state of matter, 46-8, 58-9, 
69, 161, 169; distinctive of all  life-forms, 47 ; colloidal system of

356

INDEX 
plant eel], 47-8, 66; distinctive  properties of colloids, 47-8, 69- 
70 ; enzyme action, 47-8, 69-70 ;  anticipates processes and activities  of life, 58-9, 108

Compounds, unstable equilibrium  and formation of, 45

Conation, development of capacity  of, 246-7, 249, 251

Concepts and their " fields," 17-19;  holistic unity of conceptual sys-  tem, 247, 253, 255, 256

Configuration psychology, 269

Consciousness : the closed system  of physical science denied by, 
162-4, 172, 177; the develop-  ment of, 245, 246-7, 248, 249, 250, 
259, 329; the Subject and the 
Object in, 247-9, 301, 316;  and the "field" of mind, 262;  its freedom and spontaneity, 315, 
3*6. 3 1 ?, 3i8, 329

Conservation of energy, law of,  and the systems of life and mind, 
170, 171-2, 173-7. 3*4

Co-operation and co-ordination,  holistic, 78-85, 108, 223-4, 229, 
239-41 ; in the cells, 79-85, 99, 
199, 223, 239, 329; in variations, 
217-18, 219, 229; mental pro-  cesses crude in comparison, 240

Creation : two views of the creation  of the universe, 90-92, 137 ; an  unintelligible sense of the word  creation, 135, 138; holistic  creation, 136, 144-5. $ ee Crea-  tive Evolution.

Creative Evolution, 91-8, 135, 144- 
5, 148-9, 178, 225-6, 284, 337;  modern belief in, and its implica-  tions, 9-1 1 ; science and philo-  sophy brought together by, 92- 
4 ; as structure plus principle, 
93, 94; Bergson's system sum-  marised and examined, 94-7;  its holistic character, 100, 101-2, 
104-5, 136-9, 145, 148-50, 151, 
220, 221-4, 225-6, 330 n,, 332, 334, 
33734-4 I > 344. 35*; fundamen-  tal issues raised by, 139-47; the  lower unit always the basis of  the next higher, 160-61, 177, 182, 
185, 1 86, 340; beyond the scope  of Mendelism, 204 ; the germ-cell  theory of Variation, 196, 198, 
199, 202, 203-14, 228-9; nega-  tive aspect of, 224-5 ; Naturalism  irreconcilable with, 338-9, 341, 
343 ; Spiritualism irreconcilable  with, 339-40. 341. 342, 343-4; 
discontinuity of its progress, 
340-41 ; Monadology and, 341-3; 
Pluralism and, 343-5 ; ano^ the  idea of a Supreme Whole, 350-52

Creative Evolution (Bergson), 95, 
96, 98

Creativeness : of mind, 34, 92, 255, 
259-61, 345; of matter, 54-9, 91- 
2, 98, 136; of thought, 92; of 
Holism, 103, no-ii, 136-43, 149- 
51, 186, 189, 230, 231, 282, 313, 
314 ; fundamental issues raised by  concept of, 139-47; reaches its  maximum in Personality, 284 ; of 
Personality, 313-14

Crowd mind, the, 348

Crystal structure, 39, 46; the  lattice pattern, 46 ; the unit body, 
46; process of its growth, 68

Curves, the pathways of all events  in the Space-Time universe, 31,

3 2 
Cytology, present study of, 64.

See Cell. 
Cytoplasm, 66

Darwin, 6, n, 24, 193-4, J 95 
Darwinism : a new view-point in  respect of existing knowledge, 
6; the theory of Descent and 
Natural and Sexual Selection not  mechanical but psychical, 11-16; 
Holism and, 190-232; the Dar-  winian theory summarised, 194- 
6, 200-203; Variation, 194, 195, 
196, 198, 200-203, 226-7; Natural 
Selection, 194, 195-8, 200, 201, 
226-7, 228; the Neo-Darwinians, 
198-201, 202-1 1, 227, 229; co-  ordination and co-adaptation of  organs and characters not ex-  plained by orthodox Darwinism, 
217-18; Holistic Selection and 
Natural Selection, 218-19, 220-28 
De Vries, 54, 64, 197, 202, 205 
Descartes, on the relations of mind 
and body, 168, 171, 177 
Descent : Darwin's theory of, 1 i- 
16, 194, 195 (See Darwinism) ;  the operation of Radioactivity  compared to that of Organic 
Descent, 53-4, 55 ; creative 
Evolution and, 137, 139 
Determinism, holistic, 317, 319, 320 
Development and Purpose (Hob-  house), 256

Diploid cells, generation of, 75 
Dissipation of energy, law of, and  the relations of life and mind, 
170, 171, 172-7

INDEX

357

Doryaster : Introduction to Study 
of Cytology, 329 n. 
Double- contents cell, generation of,

75* 
Driesch, Professor Hans, 179

Ductless glands, holistic organs,

150, 213 
Duration, Bergson's principle of,

94~5> 96, 97, 102, 118 
Durkhen, experiments of, 2i6w. 
Duty, Personality and, 323

Ecological modifications leading to  variations, 216, 217, 219, 227, 
228, 247

Ecology, science of, 227, 349, 352. 
See Environment.

Einstein, 6, 7, 248-9; the new  view-point of Relativity, 6 ; pub-  lishes General Theory of Relativity, 
24 ; the theory capable of being  put simply and intelligibly, 25-6 ;  its mathematical origin, 23, 26-8 ;  the Ten Equations, 26, 193;  the old mechanics and the new, 
2^-33; motion never absolute, 
26-8 : the Special Theory of 
Relativity, 28 ; his application  of the concept of the Space-Time  continuum, 29-33, 34~5 > the  illustration of the closed cage, 
29-30 ; the idea of the inertia of  matter destroyed, 52; the sub-  jective and objective in the 
, Space-Time synthesis, 34, 35

Elan vital, 102

Electro-magnetism, an instance of  the selectiveness of matter, 169

Electrons, 40, 41, 50, 122; and the  nucleus, 40 ; combinations of  protons and, 41 ; external pro-  perties of the atom decided by  number and grouping of, 44

Elements, the, 42, 53; their nuclei, 
41; atomic numbers, 41-2; the 
Periodic Table, 42, 43, 53~4;  their spontaneous breaking up  in Radioactivity, 43, 53, 54 ; arti-  ficial destruction and transmuta-  tion of, 43-4, 53, 54; external  properties the expression of in-  ternal structure, 44-5

Elimination of the unfit, 11-12, 13. 
See Natural Selection.

Embryo : formation of, by cell-  division, 63 ; phylogeny repeated  in ontogeny, 75, 118

Emergent Evolution (Morgan), 330 n.

Ends, the realm of, 268

Energy : the " field " of an object,

17-18, 19, 115, 336-7; matter  simply a form of, 32, 33, 42, 45, 
5 2 -3> 57. 335. 336, 337; intimate  relation between structure and, 
4 2 -3. 45. 52, 56, 57. 336; potenti-  ally available by artificial break-  ing up of matter, 43 ; first func-  tional in the cell, 65, 66, 68 ;  holistic use and control of, 108, 
109, no; laws of, and principles  of life and mind, 162, 170-78, 314 
Entelechy, theory of, 179-80, 184,

278

Environment : a confused complex  concept, 116; the organism in  relation to, 119, 123, 144, 145, 
39, 349; Variation and, 212 n., 
216, 217, 219, 227-8; conscious-  ness increases influence of, 247;  mind as creator of, 260; social  inheritance borne by, 260-61 ; 
Personality and, 309, 310-13 
Enzymes, action of, 47-8, 69-70 
Epistemology, Personality and, 286 
Equilibrium : of the atom, and its  external properties, 44-5 ; in-  stability and readjustment of  fundamental structures of Nature, 
81, 181, 182; the same rhythm in  the structure of life, 182, 183-4, 
185, 225, 244; persistent over-  balance caused by Holism, 186-7, 
223, 243 ; tension and selective  compensation as the source of  mind, 2445

Ether, hypothesis of, 17, 278, 332-3 
Ethics : individualism arid ethical  problems, 250, 255 ; ethical char-  acter of Personality, 303, 304, 307, 
308-9, 3I3-M. 320/321, 322, 
323-5

Euclidean geometry and the theory  of Relativity, 26, 31 ; suitable to  the Newtonian and Kantian con-  ception of Space and Time, 33, 34 
Evolution, 2-3, 8-10, 22, 90-92, 148- 
9, 178, 225-6, 332, 334, 337, 340- 
41; Darwinism, 6, 11-16, 194-8, 
200-203, 226, 227; the 19th-cen-  tury battle over, 89 ; the modern  belief in Creative Evolution, and  its implications, 9-11, 24, 91-2, 
136-43, 145 (See Creative Evolu-  tion) ; mechanistic conceptions  strengthened by Darwinism, n- 
16, 197-8; its tendency to  hark back to simpler types, 55 ;  the idea applicable to matter, 
57-8, 91-2; the position of the  cell in, 65-6, 85; cell different!-

358

INDEX 
ation and the divergence of  plant and animal forms, 76-8, 81 ;  creative Holism the motive force  behind Evolution, 100, 101, 105, 
107-8, iio-n, 136-43, 145-7. 
149-51, 1 86, 225, 229-32, 239, 282,

329. 330 . 332, 334. 335. 337;  theory of organic mechanism and, 
122-4 ; the lower unit the basis of  the next higher unit, 160-61, 177, 
182, 185, 186, 340; life and mind  the two great saltus in, 161, 280;  its persistent trend not accidental, 
185, 186, 187, 349, 351; Neo- 
Darwinian theories, 196, 198-200, 
202-212; the Germ-cell theory, 
196, 198, 202, 206-214; Mendel-  ism, 202, 203-4; the Mutation  theory, 202, 204-5; experimental 
Evolution and its limitations, 202, 
203-4, 208, 225-6; hybridisation  and, 206 n. ; Holistic Selection in, 
220-24, 229; its negative aspect, 
224-5, 230-31; interaction of  internal and external factors in, 
227-9 ; the place of mind in, 15-16, 
235, 237, 238-44, 257-8, 260 ; the  psychic and the organic in, 239- 
41, 243, 244-7, 249-50, 252-3, 
258-62, 282-3; *t s advance  towards individuality and Per-  sonality, 241-2, 284, 285, 291, 
329; Naturalism and, 338-9; 
Monadology and, 341-3," Plural-  ism and, 343-4 ; purposive view  of, justifies no inference of a 
Supreme Mind, 350-51

Evolution in the Light of Modern 
Knowledge (Bower), 216 n.

Experience : interaction of matter,  life, and mind confirmed by, 2, 3, 
162-3, l6 4; its plasticity and the  rigidity of our concepts, 17-18, 21, 
24; the Space Time continuum  of events in, 28-9, 34, 35 ; the 
Subject-Object relation in, 34-5, 
97, 247, 248, 285 ; Bergson on, 
94-5 ; the duality of the mind  and, 247, 248, 249, 254, 255-60;  scientific interpretation of, 256-7, 
259; influence of past on present, 
263; Personality as the Subject  of, 286, 301

Females, emotional sensitiveness of,  implied by the principle of Sexual 
Selection, 13, 14, 231-2

Ferments, action of, in protoplasm,

48, 69 
Ferns, gametophytes of, 75, 76; 
modifications and variations* in, 
216 n. 
Fibro-vascular system of plants, 77,

79

Fields, value of the concept of, 17, 
18, 113, 114-17, 336-7. 347- 8 ;  applied to concepts, 17-19 ; things  and their fields, 17-19, 22 n., 115, 
116-17, I2I-2, 336-7; the Space- 
Time continuum the field of the  material universe, 32-3, 35, 117, 
336; the field and structure, 45, 
115-19, 199; colloidal surfaces as  fields, 48 ; wholes and their fields, 
113, 115-120, 344, 347-8, 349;  organisms and their fields, 115- 
120, 199; the field of the germ-cell, 
199, 212, 213, 215-17, 228; the  field of mind, 237, 262-8; the  field of Nature, 349, 35 1 * 352;  group fields, 347-8

Fitzgerald, experiments of, 27

Force, doubtful validity of concept  of, 167 ; laws of, and the prin-  ciples of mind and body, 170-78

Freedom : of the organic whole, 
145-7, 28 3, 3i3. 314, 3i5. 3i6, 
318; of the Personality, 146, 283, 
284, 285, 313, 314, 3*8-21, 323, 
324 ; of the mind, 259, 267-8 ; the  rule of the universe, 316-17; not  limited to the will, 316, 318, 319

Function and structure, their rela-  tion in wholes, 81, 106-7, 108, 109,  no, 115, 118-19, 129-31, 170

Future, the, an operative factor in  the activity of the mind, 267-8

Galileo, 26

Gametes, the, 74, 75

Gametophyte generation, the, 75-6

Gases, result of internal equilibrium  in the atoms and molecules, 45, 46

General Theory of Relativity (Ein-  stein), 24, 25

Generalisation, the error of, 15, 20-21

Genes, 54, 208, 229; struggle for  existence assumed among, 210; 
"gene' 1 theory of Variation  criticised, 229 .

Genetics, 54, 64 ; theories of Varia-  tion, 54, 202-214, 229

Geological age measured by Radio-  activity, 43

Germ-cell theory of Variation, 196, 
198, 199, 202, 205-214, 229; the  field of the germ-cell, 199, 212, 
215-17, 228; possible reciprocal  influence of body-cells and germ-  cells, 211, 212, 213-14, 228

INDEX

359

"Gestalt" psychology, 269

Glfctathione, 73

God : as the medium of the inter-  action of body and mind, 279, 281

Gold, transmutation of Mercury  into, 43-4

Gravitation : Relativity and, 26, 29- 
32, 193; Einstein's closed cage  illustration, 29-30 ; acceleration  and, equivalent expressions, 29-30, 
31; as the curved structure of  the real Space-Time world, 32-3 ; 
Newton's Law of, 192-3

Grew : study of plant cells, 63

Guelincx, 281

Habit and hereditary modifications  leading to variations, 211, 212- 
13, 214-17

Haemoglobin, 59

Haldane, Professor, 148, 185

Haploid cells, generation of, 75

Harrison, Dr. J. W. H., 212 n.

Hegel, 90

Helium atom, the, 41, 43; Helium  nuclei, 41 , 43 ; emission of Helium  used as a geological clock, 43 ;  transmutation of elements by ex-  pulsion of Helium atoms, 43-4, 54

Heredity, 64; the organism and  its field, 115-20; Variation  infinitesimal compared to, 149;  inheritance of acquired characters, 
202, 209-10; inheritance of modi-  fications, 202, 209, 2io-i i ; inherit-  ance of mutations, 202, 205-6, 215 ; 
Mendelism, 203-4 ; the germ-cell  theory and, 207-8, 209 ; chemical  changes in environment and, 
212 w., 228; inheritance of ac-  quired experience, 214^.; educa-  bility and, in the human, 261, 283 ;  the hereditary past in Personality, 
264, 282, 283; Holism and, 264, 
282, 283, 340

Hobhouse, Professor L. T., 256

Holism, loo-ioi, no, 12021, 124, 
155, 187-8; co-operation and co-  ordination in cell activities, 79-86, 
99, 199, 223, 239, 329; the funda-  mental whole-making tendency of  the universe, 83, 85-6, 100-101, 
102, no, in, 150-51, 186, 188-9, 
316-17, 328-30, 334-5, 33 8 . 344. 
346, 353; its progressive phases, 
99-100, 107-110, 187-8,344; ideal  wholes, 100, 108, 109, no, 151, 
231, 250, 252, 268, 303, 314, 320, 
321, 322, 3 2 3-5. 33#> 353; the  motive power of creative Evolu- 
tion, 100, 101, 105, 107-8, no ii,  i3-43. M5-7. M9-5I. 186, 225, 
229-32, 282, 329, 330 ., 332, 334, 
335. 337; a similar doctrine in St. 
Thomas Aquinas, 106 n. ; the  source of all Values, 109, 151, 230, 
250, 252, 268, 314, 344, 353 ; crea-  tiveness of, no, 135-43, 149-51, 
186-7, 188-9, 230, 231, 282, 313, 
314 ; value of the concept of, 1 10- 
T 3 I 55. 268, 269 ; bridges the gaps  between matter, life, and mind,  in-i2, 128, 165, 182-5, 186, 187, 
329-30; Science and, 112-13, 121,

150, 155. 230, 257, 330-34; sug-  gested substitution of notion of 
Holism for that of life, 112, 168;  as a concept, a factor, and a  theory, 120-21, 165; doctrine of 
Organic Mechanism and, 121-4;  functions and categories of, 127- 
5 1 ; and the idea of causality,

J 34-5. !4 2 -3 M4. 145-6. 3 r 4. 
315-16, 317; Freedom and, 145-

7. 283, 313, 314, 315, 3 i6, 3 r 7 -

23 ; inner co-ordination and self-  regulation by, 78-85, 108, 148-50,

151, 223-4, 229, 239-41, 242, 243, 
249, 251, 328-9; structural charac-  ter of, 150-51, 160, 182-3, J 88; 
Mechanism and, 154-89, 30 [, 338 ; 
Personality the supreme ex-  pression of, 158-9, 160, 225, 272-3, 
276, 282, 292, 293, 301, 302, 304,

3.13. 317. 325- 329, 338; and  life and its action on the body, 
18087; overbalance of equili-  brium in all structures towards, 
185-7, 223; Darwinism aud, 192- 
232; Variation as explained by, 
199-200, 215, 218-24, 34. 35 1 ; 
Holistic Selection, 220-24, 
229; repressive aspect of, 224- 
5; spiritual aims of, 225, 231, 
346. 353 i mind as an organ  and expression of, 231, 235-69, 
273, 301, 329, 334; individu-  ality and universality, two ten-  dencies of, 241, 242-4, 247, 249- 
50, 251, 252, 254-5, 328; develop-  ment of attention and conscious-  ness, 246 ; the Subject-Object  relation in, 247, 248, 249, 302, 
304; holistic aspects of sub-  conscious mind, 263-4, 2 &6, 288- 
9; the senses and, 264-5, 293;  purpose and, 267-8; body and  spirit reunited in, 275-6; and  body-and-mind relation in Per-  sonality, 276-82, 286, 288; itself

360

INDEX 
the real actor in Personality, 280- 
85, 292, 308; self-realisation the  aim of, 303, 323-5; will and, 
304; the ideal of Purity and, 312- 
13, 321, 323-4; moral discipline  in scheme of, 322, 323; the  holistic universe, 328-53 ; un-  verifiable, 330-31, 333-4; Spirit-  ualism and, 339-40, 341-2, 343-5 ; 
Monadology and, 3413, 344; 
Pluralism and, 343, 344 ; the 
Supreme Whole in, 347, 349-50,

351, 352

Holistic Selection, 220-24, 229 
Hooke, Robert, 63 
Hormones, functions of, 213-14 
Hybridisation, 226 ; Evolution and,

206 n. 
Hydrogen atom, the, 41, 42-3

Ideal Man, the, 321-2

Idealism, a denial of creative Evolu-  tion, 339-4* 34 !> 343> 34^, 35 1

Ideals, Holistic, 100, 108-9, IIO 
123, 151, 231, 250, 268, 303, 314, 
320, 321, 322, 323-5. 338, 353

Immortality, early Christian con-  troversy on, 165

Individual, the, and the race,  differentiation of development of, 
207-8, 209-10, 212

Individuality : fundamental in 
Nature, 84 ; mind and the holistic  process of individuation, 147, 
241-3, 247-9; consummated in  the human Personality, 242, 250, 
254-5, 283-4, 285, 286, 287-8, 
293-4, 2 9** ; in its higher develop-  ments, 249-55; the individual  and his social environment, 254, 
260, 261, 348, 351 ; the individual-  ist mind and the universal mind, 
254-5 ; memory as the basic  bond of individuality, 263 ; the  study of the individual Person-  ality in biography, 293-8

Inert elements, and internal equili-  brium of the atom, 44, 45

Inorganic, the : vanishing fixity of  inorganic elements, 24-5 ; its  conversion into organic at col-  loidal surfaces, 48, 59; chemical  combination and structure in  inorganic chemistry, 48-9; the  cell the real distinction between  organic and, 65

Instinct : in Bergson's philosophy, 
96 ; and the development of  mind, 246

Intellect, the : in Bergson's philo- 
sophy, 95-6, 97, 114; effect f of  its selectiveness, 1 14-15 ; develop-  ment of, 303-4

" Intro-action " of body and mind, 
279

Intuition, in Bergson's philosophy, 
96

Inverse Square, Newton's law of 
Gravitation, 193

Iodine, its effect on the thyroid  gland, 288

Isomerism, 39

Judgment, synthetic, 268

Kammerer, 216 n.

Kant : his conception of Space and 
Time, 33-4, 96; on the creative  action of the mind, 34; and  the Newtonian system, 193 ;  his realm of Ends, 268 ; his " syn-  thetic unity of apperception," 
268-9, 280 ; man a legislative  being, 305 ; the concept of Neces-  sity, 317; no inference of God  justified from the facts of Nature,

35<>

Keats, 344 
Kolbe, Mgr. F. C., 106 n.

Lamarck, reaction towards, 196 
Language, a social instrument, 254,

260

League of Nations, the, 353 
Leibniz, 22 w. ; pre-established har-  mony of, 35, 91, 279, 281, 342,343;  his reply to Descartes, 171, 175; 
Holism and the Monadology of,

34!~3, 347~ 8

Life : apparent separateness of life,  mind, and matter not founded  in fact, 2, 3, 22, 51 ; new concept  of, needed, 3, 4, 5 ; mechanistic  view of , 4, 12, 112, 113, 162, 187- 
8; thought and, 4, 164; vague-  ness of present concept of, 5, 16, 
IH-T2, 127, 165-6; its develop-  ment from matter, 7-8, lo-n, 
182-4; life an d mind true opera-  tive factors in Evolution, 16, 333- 
4, 341 ; chemical structure of its  mechanism, 49; in the cell, on  its way to mind, 67, 78 ; electrical  energy of sun and the origin of, 
72, 73 ; character of wholeness in, 
78-86, 100; overflow of life, mind,  and matter into each other's  domain, 89, 99-100, in, 236, 237, 
279 ; the gaps between life, mind,  and matter bridged by Holism,

INDEX

|ii-i2, 128, 165, 182-5, *86, 187, 
329-30 ; the concept of the whole  preferable to that of, 112-13, 
168 ; degrees of Freedom in, 146- 
7; the laws of thermodynamics  and the principles of life and mind, 
162, 170-78; development of  mind from, 158-9, 161, 185, 186, 
187, 240-43, 244-7; life and mind  not independent entities, 164-6, 
177-8; the Vitalistic hypothesis  criticised, 166-8, 179-80, 184;  power of selection and self-direc-  tion in, 66, 169-71, 172, 174-5, 
178-9, 184-5, 245, 246, 258 ; unity  and interaction of life and mind, 
177-8; the theory of Entelechy  and, 179-80, 184; life and its  action on the body, Holism and, 
180-87 ; a new structure based on  those of the physico-chemical  order, 182-4, 186, 187, 188, 239, 
343 ; the rhythmic equilibrium in, 
182, 183-7; Goethe on its pur-  pose, 324; Naturalism and, 338

Light : its velocity, and the principle  of Relativity, 28; the curvation  of, 31 ; accounted for by quanta  of radiation released by electrons, 
40-41 ; light effects as basis of  theory of atomic structure, 50-51

Liquids : and internal equilibrium  of the molecule, 45-6 ; molecular  structure of, 46, 65

Lorentz, experiments of, 27

Lotsy, Prof. J. P., 206 n.

Males, the operation of Sexual 
Selection limited to, 13

Malpighi, 62

Man : a psycho-physical whole, 
159; his mind and his environ-  ment, 260-61 ; the role of struc-  ture not very prominent in, 
261-2; hereditary past in mind  of, 264, 283; heredity and  educability in, 283; "a legis-  lative being," 305; the Ideal 
Man, 321-3; Naturalistic view  of, 338

Materialism, its unjustified infer-  ences, 8, 10, 15, 122 ; its struggle  with Spiritualism over Evolution, 
8-9, ii

Matter : apparent separateness of  matter, life and mind, not founded  in fact, 2, 3, 22, 51 ; new concept  of, needed, 3, 4-5, 10, n, 16, 51- 
3> 57> 5 8 02 9 8 > thought and, 
4 ; development of life and mind 
from, 7-8, lo-n, 52, 53, 54-5, 
56, 58, 59, 182-4; 19th-century  materialism, 8, 9; Evolution  and the new concept of, 10-11, 
24 ; its field the structure of the 
Space-Time universe, 32-3, 35, 
45. IJ 7 336; a form of Energy or 
Action, 32, 33, 42, 45, 52-3, 57, 335, 
33 6 > 337; recent advances in the  knowledge of its constitution, 38- 
51, 97, 170; structural character  of, 38, 39. 45-6, 52, 56, 57, 97, 169, 
1 80-8 1, 239, 240, 340; the proton  possibly the fundamental form  of, 42; artificial breaking up of,  greatest potential source of energy, 
43 ; internal structure and external  properties of, 45-6, 115; its  behaviour in the colloid state, 
46-8, 58-9, 169; selectiveness of, 
48, 58, 169-70, 244; creativeness  of, 56-9, 91-2,98-9, 135-6; in the  cell, 64, 65 ; overflow of matter,  mind, and life into each other's do-  main, 87,99-100, 111,236,237,279 ; 
Holism and the disappearance of  the gulf between life, mind, and  matter, 111-12, 128, 165, 182-4, 
185-7; life a complex structure  of, 182-4, l8 . 187, 239, 343 ; spirit  and, Spinozist position, 330 ., 343

Mechanical system, holistic system  distinguished from, 106, 132-3, 
134-5, 140, 148, 314

Mechanics, 26; the new system of 
Relativity, 26-35

Mechanism, 156, 159-60; invades  the domain of life, 4, 5, 12, 112;  biology and, 4, 5, n, 102-3, 112, 
11617, 128; the system shaken  by the concept of creative Evolu-  tion, lo-ii, 140-42; strengthened  by a misconception of Darwinism, 
11-16, 197, 198; its recent  domination of science, 91, 102-3, 
105, 106, 331, 333-4; wholes not  mechanical systems, 106, 133, 
134-5. I4L I4 8 3M: organic,  doctrine of, 121-4; Holism and, 
123-4, 154-89; the concept of 
Holism transforms and transcends  the mechanistic system, 123-4, 
154, 155-9, 187-9; man and, 159;  an early phase of Holism, 160,  l8 7. 338 I inadequate for modern  physiology, 185; its view of 
Variation arbitrary and mislead-  ing, 198-200, 218, 223-4, 229-30;  unable to cope with Personality, 
301

362

INDEX

Melanism in moths, 212 n.

Memory, 263; associative, 214 . ;  hereditary, 264

Mendel, Abbot, 203

Mendelism, 64 ; its theory of Vari-  ation, 202, 203-4, 212 n.

Mercury, its possible transmutation  into Gold, 43-4

Metabolism, the process of, 68, 79, 
103, 136, 173, 199, 309; the  same power necessary to the 
Personality, 310-13

Metaphysics, Holism and, 269

Mice, associative memory in, 214 n.

Michelson-Morley experiments, 28

Milton, 297

Mind: apparent separateness of  mind, life, and matter not founded  in fact, 2, 3, 22, 51 ; new concept  of, needed, 4-5, 10, u, 16; general  acceptance of physical basis of, 
7-8, lo-n; life and mind, true  operative factors in Evolution, 
15-16, 235, 237, 238-44, 257-8, 
260, 333-4, 341 ; mind and the 
Space-Time universe, 34, 263; 
Kant on, 33-4 ; creativeness of, 
34> 92, 255, 259-61, 345; life  in the cell on its way to, 67, 
78; its development in animals, 
78; the overflow of mind, life,  and matter into each other's  domain, 89, 99-100, in, 236, 237, 
279; structure and, 96, 97, 261, 
262 ; gaps between mind, life,  and matter bridged by Holism,  iu-12, 128, 165, 182-5, 186, 187, 
329-30; in doctrine of organic  mechanism, 122 ; its development  from life, 158-9, 161, 185, 186, 187, 
240-43, 244-7 * ne closed system  of physical science and, 162, 163, 
1 68 ; life and mind not indepen-  dent entities, 164-6, 177-8; the  laws of thermodynamics and the  principles of life and mind, 162, 
1 70-78 ; power of self -direction  in, 169, 170-72, 174-5, 176, 178, 
259-61, 279; unity and inter-  action of life and mind, 177-8;  the theory of Entelechy and, 
179-80, 184; psychology and, 
236, 2 37; tne fi 6 ^ of, 237, 262-8; 
Personality and, 238, 242, 244, 
273. 276-82, 286, 288; crude as  compared with organic co-ordina-  tion and self -regulation, 240;  lines of advance of its evolution, 
240-44; as an organ and ex-  pression of Holism, 231, 235-69,

2 73. 3 OI 329, 334; individuatifm  and, 147, 242, 243-4, 250, 253-5, 
257; organisation and central con-  trol of, 242, 243, 257, 259, 301 ;  development of attention and  consciousness, 245, 246, 249, 250;  duality of, the Subject-Object re-  lation, 247-9 ; mind and body not  independent, 248, 276-82, 286, 
288 ; as a rebel against univers-  ality, 250, 253, 255, 257; Reason  and, 252, 253, 256-7; the Self  conquered by, 253-5 Science  the proudest achievement of, 
2567, 258, 259; its enrichment  of the universe, 257-60; and its  environment, 260; the sub-con-  scious mind, 263-4, 266, 288-9;  influence of the past on, 263-4, 
266, 345 ; the senses and, 264-6 ;  telepathy and, 266 ; influence  of the future on, 267-8 ; purpose  the highest manifestation of its  activity, 267-8 ; body and mind  in Personality, 276-80, 286, 288 ; 
Naturalistic view of, 338 ; the  assumption of a Supreme Mind,

349-51

Minkowski, 28, 29 
Misplaced concreteness, fallacy of,

22W., 121

Modifications: in theory of organic  mechanism, 122-3 ; Darwin's the-  ory of, 200, 201 ; inheritance of,  negatived by Weismann, 202, 209, 
210-11; possibly the conditions  precedent to Variation, 211, 212- 
14, 215, 216, 221, 228

Mohl, von, 63

Molecule, the, 38, 160; importance  of the placing and spacing of its  atoms, 38 ; combination of atoms  into molecules rests on unstable  internal equilibrium, 44, 45 ; mole-  cular structure of liquids, 46, 65 ;  lattice pattern in crystal structure, 
46 ; in the colloid state, 47 ; in  theory of organic mechanism, 
122

Monadology, 22 n. ; Holism and,

341-3. 344 
Monistic conception of the universe 
furthered by Holism, 1 1 1 
Moral character and the influence 
of Holism, 308-9, 322, 323 
Morgan, Professor Lloyd, 330 n. 
Morgan, T. H., 206 n., 229 n. 
Morley and Michelson, experiments 
of, 28 
Motion : Newton's laws, 26 ; the

INDEX

363

^Einstein theory, 26-35 ; never  absolute, 26, 28; stationariness  an illusion, 27-8 ; the co- variation 
*of Space and Time, 27-31; the 
Space-Time continuum applied  to, 29-31, 32

Multicellular organisms : reproduc-  tion by cell fusion, 74, 75 ; repro-  duction by reduction division, 
74-5, 76 ; formation of the earliest,

Mutations : De Vries' theory of, 
54, 202, 205, 206; of matter to  life, 58 ; Darwin's theory of, 200, 
201; exceptional, 205, 227; of  body to mind, 279-80

Natural Science reunited with  psychology, 249

Natural Selection : erroneous  mechanical view of, 11-12, 14- 
I5 19* 197, 198; fundamentally  psychical, 14-15, 231-2, 322; 
Darwin's theory of, 194, 195-6, 
197-8, 200, 201-2, 215, 228; co-  operation between Variation and, 
200-202, 219-25; operative  within the germ-cell, 210 ;  of small variations, 214-17, 219- 
23; Holistic Selection and, 215, 
218-25; its limitations, 223-4;  co-operative and helpful rather  than murderous, 227, 229

Naturalism : and the principles  of life and mind, 161-2, 163, 164-

5, 176-7, 179; Holism and, 337- 
8, 339, 340; irreconcilable with  creative Evolution, 338-9, 341,

343

Nature : errors in the observation  of, 1921 ; new view of, 245, 
275; her high-speed internal  energies, 52; the concept of 
Holism and the explanation of, 
97-9, 100, in, 138-43. 231, 35i"2 ;  mind and, 98, 99, 163, 238, 345, 
350, 351 ; wholes as the real units  of, 101, 102, 104, 113; value of the 
Space-Time integration to the  understanding of, 114, 129, 181;  fields in, 114, 115-16, 348-9;  the concept of creativeness and, 
138-9, 140, 140-42; the closed  system of physical science, 162- 
3 ; life a new structure of her  holistic physico-chemical struc-  tures, 182-4, l86 l8 7 l88 2 39. 
343 ; warfare not the rule in, 227, 
229 ; the emotional appeal of, 345-

6, 349, 352 ; holistic, not a whole,

349* 35 1 , 352 ; teleological view of, 
349-51 ; the holistic Field of, 351, 
352 ; the inference of a Supreme 
Mind behind, 349-51, 332

Necessity : in the closed system of  physical science, 162 ; the limi-  tations of its power over wholes, 
314-15; the concept not grounded  in reality, 317

Neo-Darwinians and the theory of 
Variation, 198-200, 202-214

Newton, 7, 26, 33, 171, 193, 194;  his First JLaw and the inertia  of matter, 3}, 52; his conception  of Space and Time, 33, 34, 35 ; his 
Law of Gravitation, 192-3

Nitrogen atom split up by Ruther-  ford, 44

Nomenclature, reforms needed in  scientific and philosophical, 6

Nucleus, the : of the atom, 40, 41, 
4 2 > 43' 5 spontaneous breaking  up in Radioactivity, 43 ; of  cell, 63, 66; its part in heredity, 
64; in cell-division, 71-2, 74

Object, relation of Subject and, 
247-9

Objects : their fields, 17, 18-19, 
22 ;/., 115, 116-17, I2I-2, 336-7;  regarded as events in Space-Time, 
113-14; misinterpreted by our  intellect and senses, 114-15

Ontogeny repeats phylogeny, 75, 
118

Organic and inorganic : vanished  fixity of, 25 ; the colloidal surface  as the bridge between, 48, 59 ;  different structure of organic and  inorganic compounds, 489, 65 ;  the cell the real distinction  between, 65-6

Organic Descent : its operation  compared to that of Radio-  activity, 53-4, 55. See Descent.

Organic Mechanibin, doctrine of,  and Holism, 121-4

Organisms : power of regeneration  possessed by, 81-2, 308 ; as typical  wholes, 84-6, 99, 100, 103, 106-7, 
112-13, 122-4, I2 9~32, 135, 218, 
222-4, 277, 280; relations of the  parts and the whole in, 83-5, 99- 
100, 103, 106-7, I0 9 I 3 I - 2 > 1 34~5> 
149, 218-19; inner co-ordination  and self -regulation of, 99, 100, 
109, 147-51, 166, 169-70,185, 218, 
219, 223-4, 225, 229, 239-41, 243;  their fields, 115-20, 199; time  factor in development and explan-

364

INDEX 
ation of, 117-18, 219; transform-  ation of a stimulus into free action  by 135, 143,315-16; creativeness  of wholes as seen in, 136-9, 140- 
43, 144-5 ; and their environment, 
119, 123, 144, 145, 219, 247, 309, 
349 ; Vitalism and, 166-8; selec-  tiveness the fundamental property  of, 169, 170; the freedom of, 170, 
314,315,316; the laws of thermo-  dynamics and the principles of  life and mind in, 170-78; varia-  tions in, 217-18, 219-20 (See 
Variation) ; holistic repression of  variations in, 224-5; individu-  ality of, 241, 242, 251; develop-  ment of mind in, 244-7 material  objective of, 303 ; treated as  synthetic units, 329; organic  situations distinguished from, 349

Organs, holistic, 150

Origin of Species (Darwin), 24,

194-5

Osmosis, 66, 69, 78 
Oxygen in the vital processes, 73

Pangenesis, Darwin's theory of, 196 
Panpsychism and creative Evolu-  tion, 343-4 
Past, the, in the activities of mind,

263-4, 266, 345 
Pavlov, Professor, 214 n. 
" Peraction," suggested term for 
body-and-mind relation, 279 
Periodic Law, the, 39 
Periodic Table, the, 42, 44, 55, 56 
Persona in Roman law, 291-2 
Personality, the, 22, 123, 124; the  supreme embodiment of Holism, 
108, 109, 147, 159, 160, 242, 255, 
272-3, 285, 286, 292, 301, 302, 
3 r 3 3 X 7> 3 2 9; repressive activity  of Holism and, 224-5 ; mind and  the development of, 238, 242, 244, 
273, 276-82, 286, 288 ; Purpose a  function of, 244, 249, 250, 268, 
305 ; an apparent deviation from  the main plan of Holism, 250;  its present imperfection, 250, 
255, 36, 308, 318-19; its basis  universal, 254-5, 272-3; the  hereditary past and, 264, 282, 
283, 284, 285; as a whole, 272- 
98; the body and, 273-5, 288, 
289; body and spirit in, 273-6;  body and mind in, 276-80, 281, 
282, 286; its own creative  holistic activity, 280-82, 293, 301, 
308, 313; its individuality, 283- 
4, 287-8, 293-4; constant and 
progressive, 284-5; as the Sub-  ject of experience, 286-7 ; psycho-  logy and, 286, 287, 288-91, 302;  the subconscious mind and, 28$'- 
89, 305-6; the need for a science  of, 290-91, 293-8,302-3; evolu-  tion of the idea of, 291-2 ; value  of biography to the study of, 
293-8, 303 ; functions and ideals  of, 301-25; an organ of selt-  realisation, 302, 303, 304, 324-5 ;  ethical ideals of, 303, 304, 307, 
38-9, 3 12 , 3 J 4> 320, 321, 322, 
323-5; the will and, 303, 304, 
307* 318; the intelligence and, 
33~4I inner control and direc-  tion of, 305-8, 309, 319; self-  healing power of, 308-9; en-  vironment and, 309, 310-13;  purity or wholeness of, 312-13, 
314, 321-4; freedom of, 313, 
318-21, 324, 325; and the idea  of a Supreme Whole, 350

Personology, the science of Per-  sonality, 291, 293-8, 302-3

Phado (Plato), 104

Philosophy, 92, 93, 306; its co-  operation with science ensured  by acceptance of creative Evolu-  tion, 92-4; the idea of the whole  neglected by, 102-3, I2 8; " the  whole " in absolutism, 102, 104-5 ;  the concept of the whole more pre-  cise than that of life in, 112-13; 
Holism and the old concepts of, 
155; and the relations of body  and mind, 163, 278; Personality  in, 286, 287

Photo-synthesis in plants, 69, 70,

72, 77- 78

Phylogeny repeated in ontogeny, 
75, 118

Physical mixtures and chemical  compounds, analogies from, 130- 
31, 134, 136, 140-41, 142

Physical science : new concept of  matter in, 3, 5, 52; recent  progress in, 5, 7; the general  acceptance of Evolution and, 1 1 ;  and the relations of life and mind, 
16, 161-2, 163, 164, 170-78; the  error of abstraction in, 20-21 ; the  doubtful validity of the concept  of force in, 167; Holism and the 
Naturalism of, 337-40

Physico-chemical mechanisms, 157, 
164, 180-81; Vitalistic hypothesis  of, 166-7; structural equilibrium  in, 180-82, 183-4; inner holistic-  character of, 182; the material

INDEX

365

^of the new structure of life, 
'* 182-4

Physics, the New, 38, 336; dis-  coveries as to the constitution of  matter, 38, 39-42, 335-6; assimi-  lates chemical categories to  physical, 48-9, 157; associates  energy and mass, 171-2 
Physiology: and Mechanism, 159;  new categories demanded by, 
185 ; and Personality, 288 
Planck, Max, 40

Plants: the plant cell, 63, 66-70;  the origin of the cell, 71-7; the  process of reproduction similar  to that of animals, 71, 72, 74;  common origin of animals and, 76- 
7; causes of divergence of plant  and animal forms, 77-8 ; holistic  co-operation and co-ordination  in, 79-80, 83-4, 108, 109, 239, 
240; regenerative power of, 81, 
82 ; ecological modifications and 
Variation in, 216 
Plato, 104

Pleurococcus, cell aggregation in, 77 
Potentiality and organic creative-  ness, 139 
Pre-established harmony, 35, 91,

229, 279, 281, 342, 343 
Proton, the, 41, 42 
Protoplasm, 47, 55, 63, 66, 114;  enzyme action in, 47, 48, 69 ; its  movement in the cell, 66; always  in a process of creative change, 
67-8 ; its formation of new proto-  plasm, 68 ; metabolism of, 68, 69 ;  possible origin of its primitive  forms, 73 
Psychical nature of Natural and

Sexual Selection, 13-14, 231-2 
Psychological Principles (Ward),

289-90, 291

Psychology, 121, 248,253,287; its  methods, 236, 237, 287-9; the  standpoint of Relativity essential  to, 248, 249; natural science  reunited with, 249; and the  syntheses of Reason, 253; the  services of Holism to, 268-9;  and the Personality, 286, 287, 
288-91, 302

Psycho-physical wholes, 161, 175, 
176-7; the theory of Entelechy  and, 179-80 
Purity, an ideal of the Personality,

312-13, 314, 321-4 
Purpose : purposiveness distinctive  of wholes, 147; a function of 
Personality, 244, 249, 250, 267-8,

305; the highest manifestation  of mind, 267-8; the purposive  view of Evolution, 349-50, 351

Quantum, the, 40, 42, 124; quanta  of radiation released by electrons, 
40-41, 50; discontinuity of the  quanta, 41, 340; supremacy of  the quantum law, 52-3

Racial and individual development,  differentiation of, 2078, 20911, 
213

Radioactivity, 24, 38, 39; a spon-  taneous breaking up of matter, 
43 ; and the transmutation of  elements, 43-4, 53, 54 ; its  operation compared to that of 
Organic Descent, 53-4, 55

Radium converted into Lead, 43

Reality, 4 ; its nature obscured by  the analytical character of  thought, 15, 19-20, 114; the sen-  sible order and the conceptual  order, 50-51, 94, 113-14; the old  static view of, 90, 91; creative 
Evolution and, 91, 94, 121, 122, 
139-40; not explained by Berg-  son's Duration, 94, 95, 96 ; Holism  and the evolution of, 109, 1 10-1 1, 
120, 123, 149-51, 230; Relativity  and, 113-14, 117, 129, 335; form-  ula for its fundamental problems, 
154, 156; individuation and, 
248, 249, 251, 255; Reason and, 
252; our sense of, and a sixth  holistic sense, 265 ; Personality  and, 272, 282, 286

Reason, 252-3; creative of values, 
92, 252

Reflexes and the development of  mind, 246, 258

Regeneration, organic, 81-2

Relativity, theory of, 6, 24. 25-6;  its mathematical origin, 26-8 ;  gravitation in, 26, 29-30, 31-33, 
193 ; the Space-Tim^ universe, 
29-33. 34-5. 335. 336; its subjec-  tive and objective aspects, 34-5 ;  value of the Space-Time inte-  gration to our understanding  of Nature, 113-14, 117, 129, 335;  psychology and, 248

Reproduction, the process of :  similar in plants and animals, 71, 
72-5; cell-division, 71-2, 73-4;  cell fusion, 74 ; reduction division,  earlier than the separation of  plant and animal forms, 74-5, 
76-7 ; its holistic nature, 83 ; and

366

INDEX 
the germ-cell theory of Variation,

206-7, 209 
Rock-formations, measurement of 
age of, 43 
Roman law, concept of personality 
in, 291-2 
Rontgen, 40 
Roux, Wilhelm, 197 
Rutherford, Sir Ernest, 40, 44

Saltus, creative leaps in Evolution, 
161, 205, 280

Sartor Resartus (Carlyle), 295

Scheiden, 63

Schwann, 63

Science, 122, 256, 287; rigidity of its  former concepts, 9, 16-17 ; linked  with philosophy by creative 
Evolution, 92-4, 155 ; mechan-  istic outlook of, 93, 102, 103, 105, 
122, 1 60, 331, 333; its neglect of  the idea of the whole, 102, 103, 
121, 331 ; Holism in relation to, 
112-13, 150, 155, 167-8, 230, 257, 
330-34 ; its mistaken view of life  and mind as separate entities from  the body, 162, 163, 164-5, 168, 
333-4 ; the system of Science the  greatest achievement of mind, 
256-7, 258, 259; the body re-  habilitated by, 275

Science and the Modern Woyld 
(Whitchead), 22 >i., 121 n.

Selectiveness : of matter, 48, 58-9, 
169, 244; of life, 66, 80, 169-71, 
173, 174-5. 178-9, 184-5, 244, 246. 
258; of intellect, in Bergson's  philosophy, 95-6, 114-15; in-  herently holistic, 170, 351; the  tap-root of will, 169, 170; of  mind, 174, 175, 178

Self, the, 301 ; as the centre of  experience, 247, 249, 252, 254-5, 
301-2 ; an apparent rebel against  the universal order, 250, 253, 255 ;  as the centre of the higher order  of Holism, 252, 302; largely a  social construction, 253-4, 2 55- 
See Personality.

Self-determination, the true ideal  of human development, 318, 320

Self-direction in life and mind, 170, 
171-2, 174-5, 178, 184-5, 259-61, 
269

Senses, the : their limitations and  defects, 114-15; holistic char-  acter of, 264-5, 2 93J mind and, 
265-6

Sexual Selection : Darwinian theory  of, 12-13; its operation limited 
to males, 13 ; emotional sensitive-  ness of females implied by, 13-13, 
231-2; psychical nature of, ift 
14, 231-2

Shakespeare, his hidden Personality, 
297

Simple location, error of, 22 n., 121

Single-content cell, generation of, 
75-6

Society: holistic, 109, 353; crea-  tion of, by mind, 260, 261 ; Per-  sonality and, 305 ; group fields  and, 348-9, 351

Socrates, 238

Solids, internal structure of, 46

Soul, the : 19th-century material-  ism and, 8, 9; as a whole, 104;  mistaken physical analogies of, 
165; relations of body and, 168, 
273, 274-6; Personality and, 
273, 274-6, 307; and the ideals  of Holism, 321, 323, 324, 325, 
344-5, 346-7; the universe not  a Society of Souls, 344-5, 346, 
350 ; environment and, 345-6

Space : in the theory of Relativity, 
278, 2933, 34~5 '> as conceived  by Newton and Kant, 335, 96

Space-Time universe, the, 28-33, 
39, 42, 122, 181, 335, 336; things  as events in Space Time, 22 n., 
113-14, 121 ; value of the concept  to our understanding of Nature, 
114, 117, 122, 129, 181

Special '1 keory of Relativity (Ein-  stein), 27-8

Spectrum analysis, 40, 41

Spencer, Herbert, 196, 211

Spinoza, 121, 269, 281, 330 n., 343

Spirit, the : spiritual ideals of 
Holism, 101, 109, no, 151,

J 59. 2 3 r > 2 49. 2 5 2 5 X 2 5 2  spiritual structure of man, 159;  materialist misconceptions of the  spiritual, 165; the trend of 
Evolution towards, 185-6; rela-  tions of body and, 273, 275-6; 
Personality best studied in  spiritual life, 295-7; spiritual  objective of Personality, 303, 308,

3*4

Spiritual idealism (Spiritualism) :  its battle with materialism over 
Evolution, 8-9 ; life and mind in, 
176, 177; irreconcilable with  creative Evolution, 339-40, 341, 
342-5, 346, 352

Sporophyte generation, the, 75, 76 
Sports, biological, and Personality,

INDEX

367

State, the, a super-individual whole,

M>O, 109

Stricture: structural character of  me universe, 25, 32-3, 35, 38, 45, 
239332,336; of matter, 38-43, 
44-5, 52, 56, 57, 97, 169, 180-81, 
239, 240, 340 ; relations of energy  and, 42, 45, 52, 56, 57, 336; in-  ternal structure and external  properties, 44-6, 115, 181, 183-4;  dynamic self-controlled equilib-  rium of, 44-6, 81, 1 80-8 T, 183-7, 
244; organic, 65, 116, 117, 177, 
185; modern science and the  study of, 92-3 ; and the process  of creative Evolution, 93, 94, 137- 
8, 141-3, 151, 176-7, 185-7, 239, 
332; mind and, 96, 97, 261, 262 ;  intellect and experience and, 97;  functions and structure in wholes, 
106-7, IQ 8, I( >9, 11, 115, 118- 
19, 129-31, 160-61, 170; holistic  character of, 107, 108, 109, no,  in, 129, 130-31, 134, 160, 182, 
183, 185-7, 241; the field and, 
115-19, 199; life a new structure  based on the physico-chemical  structures of Nature, 182-4, I ^6, 
187, 1 88, 239, 343 ; mind as a new  departure in, 186, 188, 238, 240, 
244-5, 262 ; distinction between 
Mechanism and, 187-8; heredi-  tary, less important in the human  than the animal, 261, 262; unit  character of, 340

Struggle for existence, the, 11-12, 
13, 14-15, 194. 195-6, J 97> 214,

. 215; the exception, not the rule, 
227, 229

Subconscious mind, the, 262-4; in  the Personality, 288-9, 305

Subject-Object relation, the, 247-9

Substance, divine, Spinoza's, 121, 
279, 281

Sunlight and its action upon chloro-  phyll, 48, 59, 69, 72, 78

Survival of the fittest, law of, 11-12,

13, I5> i94> 195-6, 197 
Synthetic unity of wholes, the, 131-2,

133. 134-5, 136, 137, 138

Teleological view of the universe, 
349-50, 351. See Purpose.

Telepathy, 266

Thermodynamics, laws of, 162; and  the principles of life and mind,  i 70-78

Things and their fields, 17-19, 22 ., 
115, 116-17, 121-2, 336-7J as  events in Space-Time, 22 #., 113-

14, 121 ; misinterpreted by the  senses, 114-15; Professor White-  head on, 22 n., 121-2.

Thomson, Sir J. J., 40

Thorium, its conversion into 
Radium, 43

Thought : baffled by misconcep-  tions of life, mind, and matter, 
2, 3, 4, 164, 165-6; value of the  idea of fields, 1719, 32; errors  due to analytical character of, 
20, 29 ; creativeness of, 92 ;  deductive and inductive, 136;  structural character of, 188;  a social instrument, 254; tele-  pathy and, 266

Time : in the theory of Relativity, 
27, 28, 29-33, 34. 35; as con-  ceived by Newton and Kant, 33- 
5,96; and Bergson's principle of 
Duration, 95 ; the Time factor in  the field of mind, 263. See Space - 
Time universe.

Transmutation of elements, 43-4,

53> 54

Treviranus, 63 
Tropisms, 245, 246, 258

Unicellular organisms, reproduction  of, 71-72, 74, 76-7

Unity : of structure and functions in  the whole, 86, 129-33, J 34~5. 
150, 170; Holism the tendency  towards, 22, 186, 189, 229, 24.1

Universality and individuation, two  tendencies of Holism, 247, 249, 
250, 251; Reason the organ of  universality, 252-3

Universe, the : its structural char-  acter, 25, 32-3, 35, 38, 45, 239, 332, 
336 ; stationariness in, an illusion, 
27-8, 32 ; the Space-Time uni-  verse, 28-33, 39, 42, 113, 117, 129, 
J 8i, 335. 336; Action its inmost  nature, 33, 42, 45, 52-3, 57, 335, 
336, 337 ; its creativeness, 56-8, 
91, 140; Holism fundamental in, 
83, 85-6, 100-101, 102, no, in, 
122, 124, 150-51, 186, 188-9, 3 IO ~

17. 328-30. 334-5. 338, 344. 34 6 , 
353 ; two contrasted explanations  of, 9092 ; mechanistic view of, 
91, 102-3, 105. 1 06, 331, 333-4: 
Bergson on Duration as its crea-  tive principle, 94-5; absolutist  view of, 102, 104-5; its friendli-  ness, 227, 229, 352; the value of  mind to, 257-60; transformed by 
Personality, 286-7, 329; Freedom  the rule of, 316-17; Naturalistic

INDEX 
view of, 338-9; Idealist view of, 
339-40, 346; monadic view of, 
342, 347 ; Ideological view of, 349, 
^5. 35 1 35 2 ; the assumption  ol 9. Supreme Mind in, 349-51;  possibly a whole in the making,

350 
Uranium, 42; its conversion into

Radium, 43 
Use and routine, and modifications 
and variations, 211, 213, 215-17,

221, 228

Values, or creative Ideals of Holism, 
100, 108-9, *i 123, 124, 151, 
23*, 250, 268, 303, 314, 320, 321, 
322, 323-5, 338, 353

Variation, 149, 200-201 ; Darwinian  theory of, 194, 195, 196, 197, 
200-202,214-15; Neo-Darwinian  theories of, 198-200, 202-14 ; the  germ-cell theory of, 196, 198, 199, 
202, 205-14, 229; mechanistic  view of, arbitrary and misleading, 
198-200, 218, 223-4, 229-30;  the principle of Holism and, 199- 
200, 215, 218-24, 229 n., 340, 351 ; 
Mutation theory of , 54, 202 , 205-6 ; 
Mendelism, 202, 203-4; possible  influence of modifications on the  germ-cell, 212-14, 215, 216-17, 
221, 228; the natural selection of  small variations, 213-17; environ-  ment and, 212 w., 216, 217, 219, 
227-8; Holistic Selection and, 
220-24, 229; Holism and the  repression of variations, 224-5 ; 
"gene" theory criticised, 229 w.

Vitalism, the hypothesis of, criti-  cised, 1 66-8 ; the theory of 
Entelechy in, 179-80, 184, 278

Wallace, A. R., 13

War, the Great, 352-3

Ward, Professor James, 289-90, 291,

343

Weismann, 14; his germ-cell theory  of Variation, 198, 199, 202, 205- 
14; his doctrine of germinal  isolation, 207, 209-10, 211, 227, 
229

Whitehead, Rrof. A. N., and the  fallacy of simple location, 22 n. t 
121 ; his doctrine of organic  mechanism, 121-4

Whole, the : the reciprocal influence  of the whole and its parts, 79-86,

105, 106, 107, 109-10, 129-35, 
145-6, 218-19, 222-3, 280, 28^-2, 
350 ; fundamental tendency o./the  universe towards wholes, 83, j)^*-6, 
100-101, 102, no, in, 150-5^, 
1 86, 188-9, 316-17. 328-30, 334- 
5, 338, 344, 34 6 , 353; the charac-  ter of wholes, 100, 101, 103-4, 
105-7, 109-10, in, 128, 12931, 
350; ideal wholes, 100, 108-9,  no, 151, 231, 250, 252, 268, 303, 
3M, 320, 321, 322, 323-5, 338, 
353 ; the whole in absolutist philo-  sophy, 1 02, 104-5, 113; creative-  ness of wholes, 103, 105, 107, 
136-40, 141-3, I49-5L 230, 231. 
280, 282, 313 ; relation of function  and structure in wholes, 106-7, 
108, 109, nor 115, 118-19, 129- 
31, 1 60-6 1, 170; progressive scale  of wholes, 107-9 ; the concept of  life and that of the whole, 112-13, 
1 68; wholes and their fields, 113, 
115-20, I2I-2, 344, 347~8, 349;  stimulus transformed into free  action by, 135, 143, 145,315-16;  the whole and the idea of cause, 
134-5, 142-3, *44 145-6; freedom  of wholes, 145-7, 315, 316, 318;  individuality of wholes, 147, 
241-3, 247-9; co-ordination and  co-adaptation in wholes, 147-9, 
217-18, 223-4, 229, 342-3; selec-  tivity of wholes, 170, 351; the  trend towards a greater Whole, 
185, 186-7, 252, 302, 324, 325; 
Personality as the highest whole, 
272, 273, 276, 281, 282, 284, 30^,

303, 304, 3, 3n, 313, 3i8, 319;  psychic wholes,28o, 282 ; monads  and wholes, 341-3, 344 ; the nature  of the Supreme Whole, 347, 350 ; 
Nature as a society of wholes,

348-9, 35* 352

Wholeness : in life, 79-86, 100 ; the  aim of Personality, 304-5, 306, 
307, 309, 311-13, 318, 321-2, 
323-4, 325

Will, the, 162, 259; selectivity  and, 169, 170; development of, 
249, 252; the basis of Person-  ality, 303, 304, 305, 307; freedom  and, 316, 318, 319

Wordsworth, 345

X-rays and the investigation of  atomic structure, 40, 114

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