6 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



importance of a new 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 of all experience, thought, and speculation. 

 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 overlaid by deep incrustations 

 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 dis- 

 tinctions. 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. Such a reform 

 I am going to advocate and suggest 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 a revolution in the acquisition of new knowl- 

 edge, but 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- 



