86 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



two chapters give us a clue where to look for a beginning. Both 

 matter and life consist of unit structures whose ordered grouping 

 produces natural wholes which we call bodies or organisms. This 

 character of "wholeness" meets us everywhere and points to some- 

 thing fundamental in the universe. Holism (from oXos = whole) 

 is the term here coined for this fundamental factor operative to- 

 wards the creation of wholes in the universe. Its character is 

 both general and specific or concrete, and it satisfies our double 

 requirement for a natural evolutionary starting-point. 

 i Wholes are not mere artificial constructions of thought; they 

 \ point to something real in the universe, and Holism is a real oper- 

 I ative factor, a vera causa. There is behind Evolution no mere 

 ! vague creative impulse or Elan vital, but something quite definite 

 j and specific in its operation, and thus productive of the real con- 

 * Crete character of cosmic Evolution. 



The idea of wholes and wholeness should therefore not be con- 

 fined to the biological domain ; it covers both inorganic substances 

 and the highest manifestations of the human spirit. Taking a 

 plant or an animal as a type of a whole, we notice the fundamental 

 holistic characters as a unity of parts which is so close and intense 

 as to be more than the sum of its parts; which not only gives a 

 particular conformation or structure to the parts but so relates 

 and determines them in their synthesis that their functions are 

 altered ; the synthesis affects and determines the parts, so that they 

 function towards the "whole"; and the whole and the parts there- 

 fore reciprocally influence and determine each other, and appear 

 more or less to merge their individual characters: the whole is in 

 the parts and the parts are in the whole, and this synthesis of 

 whole and parts is reflected in the holistic character of the func- 

 tions of the parts as well as of the whole. 



There is a progressive grading of this holistic synthesis in Na- 

 ture, so that we pass from (a) mere physical mixtures, where the 

 structure is almost negligible, and the parts largely preserve their 

 separate characters and activities or functions, to (b) chemical 

 compounds, where the structure is more synthetic and the activi- 

 ties and functions of the parts are strongly influenced by the new 

 structure and can only with difficulty be traced to the individual 

 parts; and, again, to (c) organisms, where a still more intense 

 synthesis of elements has been effected, which impresses the parts 

 or organs far more intimately with a unified character, and a sys- 

 tem of central control, regulation and co-ordination of all the 

 parts and organs arises; and from organism, again on to (d) Minds 

 or psychical organs, where the Central Control acquires con- 

 sciousness and a freedom and creative power of the most far- 

 reaching character; and finally to (e) Personality, which is the 

 highest, most evolved whole among the structures of the universe, 



