I FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS ii 



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- 

 E volution 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 



