96 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



It may be objected that in taking such a small section or 

 unit of Nature as our starting-point I am implicitly assuming 

 all that follows; that I am taking a small section of the 

 evolved in order to explain Evolution,^ and am therefore 

 begging the question, and that I shall be only finding here- 

 after what I have posited at the beginning. This, however, 

 is not so. The criticism would have force if Evolution 

 were merely explicative and not creative; and if my natural 

 unit would by mere unfolding produce all the rest in the 

 course of time. We have, however, seen that Evolution is 

 creative; the evolution of an assumed unit factor would 

 therefore by no means unfold the implicit contents of that 

 factor, but would proceed creatively, and would in the end 

 far transcend the elementary unit which was the starting- 

 point. Let us therefore proceed in the way I propose and try 

 to reach a concept of Nature and her progress which will 

 not be imposed on her from without, but which will keep as 

 close as possible to her own natural units, structures or 

 standards, so far as we have experience of them. 



At this stage we return to the difficult question which was 

 raised at the beginning of this chapter. We are trying to 

 dig down to the very roots of reality and to raise an issue the 

 solving of which will be no light task. The issue has indeed 

 become inevitable as the result of the preceding chapters. 



In Chapters II and III we found the physical properties 

 of matter were geometrically, that is in a sense mentally, 

 determinable. We found also that matter, instead of the 

 inertness, fixity and conservatism traditionally associated 

 with it, was in reality plastic, mobile and transmutable 

 in its types, and in a sense creative of its forms and 

 values. 



How have we to understand this? Is life or mind im- 

 plicit in matter, and are the characters just referred to an . 

 appeal of the human mind to the mind imprisoned in matter? 

 Has Science gone so far in her long search for truth that at 

 last mind greets mind in the inner nature of things? Have 



* Bergson's criticism of Herbert Spencer; see Creative Evolution, p. 

 xiv. 



