2 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



to get back to the fluid plastic facts of nature. The elimination of 

 their "fields" in which things and concepts alike meet and inter- 

 mingle creatively made all understanding of real connections and 

 inter-actions impossible. The double mistake of abstraction and 

 generalisation has thus led to a departure in thought from the 

 fluid procedure of nature. This narrowing of concepts and 

 processes into hard and rigid outlines, and their rounding off into 

 definite scientific contours temporarily simplified the problems 

 of science and thought, but we have outlived the utility of this 

 procedure, 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 

 fundamental 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 



