114 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



i have to search another part of the structure which is not 

 I sensible and has on that account been ignored hitherto; I 

 I refer to the field. Biologists have tried to find in the or- 

 ganic structure physical elements or mechanisms to account 

 for all the properties and functions of the organism. But 

 there are literally not sufficient sensible elements to go 

 ^ round; the infinity of variations which take place in organic 

 ' life vastly transcend the apparent structural organisation. 

 i A minute speck of protoplasm is supposed to carry in its 

 structure, on a sort of point to point correspondence, the 

 hereditary experience of the race for untold millions of years, 

 and this structure is in addition required to account for much 

 more besides in the individual life. The industry and in- 

 genuity which have been displayed in this search for the 

 inner mechanisms are above praise, but beyond a certain 

 point the search is certain to be vain; results become mere 

 guess-work, and the very existence of the structures and 

 mechanisms sought for is more than problematic. The 

 concept of the field overcomes this difficulty. According 

 to this view the sensible structure is a narrow concentrated 

 sensible focus beyond which is indefinitely extended an in- 

 sensible structural field as the carrier of organic properties. 

 And the question arises how we have to conceive this field 

 and what there is in it. What has been said of the Time 

 factor in the physical field applies with tenfold more force 

 here. The organism much more than the physical body is 

 an historic event, a focus of happening, a gateway through 

 which the infinite stream of change flows ceaselessly. The 

 sensible organism is only a point, a sort of transit station 

 which stands for an infinite past of development, for the 

 history and experience of untold millions of ancestors, and in 

 a vague indefinite way for the future which will include 

 an indefinite number of descendants. The past, the pres- 

 ent, the future all meet in that little structural centre, that 

 little wayside station on the infinite trail of life. But they 

 only meet there, without its being able to contain them 

 all. From that centre radiates off a field of ever-decreas- 

 ing intensity of structure or force, which represents what 



