20 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



tain that in every case of analysis and reconstitution of a 

 situation something escapes, which makes the artificial situ- 

 ation 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 analytical elements thus become the real operative 

 entities, while the situation or phenomenon to be explained 

 becomes their product or resultant. As a matter of fact, 

 just the opposite is the case. We started in nature with the 

 complex situation or sensible phenomenon as the reality to 

 be explained. The analytical elements or factors were 

 merely the result of analysis, and might even be merely ab- 

 stractions. 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 

 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. 



Our object in studying and interpreting Nature is to be 



