in REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 55 



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 discloses 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 

 outside 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. 

 We have to interpret matter from the inside, from a point of 

 view which is that of matter and not remote from and indif- 

 ferent 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 



