V GENERAL CONCEPT OF HOLISM 113 



pose of describing physical effects. The essential point is that 

 the physical field is an extension of the active energy system 

 of the thing beyond its sensible outlines, an extension which 

 shows the same properties and has the same effects on other 

 things within that field as the thing itself, though with ever- 

 diminishing force or strength as the field recedes from the 

 thing. I have already explained how this concept of the 

 field renders intelligible the phenomena of physical action 

 at a distance as well as of physical causation. So far a 

 body acts or is acted upon by external bodies this process 

 takes place in its field and nowhere else. In their fields 

 bodies interpenetrate each other and thus secure that con- 

 tinuity between them which supplies the bridge for the pas- 

 sage of change between them. 



So much for purely physical fields. In the consideration 

 of organisms as wholes the question of the field becomes 

 much more important than in the case of physical bodies. 

 What is the field of an organism? Many will be tempted to 

 reply offhand that it is its environment. That answer will, 

 however, be too wide and may be seriously misleading. The 

 environment is a confused complex concept, and there is 

 much more in it than belongs to the field of a particular 

 organism. The field of an organism is its extension beyond' 

 its sensible limits, it is the more there is in the organism 

 beyond these limits. To get to the field of an organism 

 we have to answer this question: In order fully to under- 

 stand the nature, functions and activities of an organism, 

 what more is necessary to its concept beyond its sensible 

 data? An organism appears a mystery because the sensible 

 data are insufficient to account for its character and proper- 

 ties. Biologists dissect and ransack its sensible structure 

 to find there the physical basis and explanation of its activi- 

 ties; but in doing so they put a weight upon that struc- 

 ture which is often more than it can bear. For the fact 

 is that the sensible structure is not the whole structure, and 

 is too narrow a base for the superstructure of organic 

 activities which seem to grow from out of the sensible 

 structure. For the full explanation of these activities we 



