CHAP. VI FUNCTIONS AND CATEGORIES 119 



and acts through the parts, but the parts in their new relation of 

 intimate synthesis which gives them their unified action. 



The whole, therefore, completely transforms the concept of 

 Causality. When an external cause acts on a whole, the resultant 

 effect is not merely traceable to the cause, but has become trans- 

 formed in the process. The whole seems to absorb and metabolise j 

 the external stimulus and to assimilate it into its own activity; and j 

 the resultant response is no longer the passive effect of the stim- ) 

 ulus or cause, but appears as the activity of the whole. This) 

 holistic transformation of causality takes place in all organic 

 stimuli and responses. The cause or stimulus applied does not 

 issue in its own passive effect, but in an active response which 

 seems more clearly traceable to the organism or whole itself. In 

 fact the physical category of ''cause" undergoes a far-reaching 

 change in its application to organisms or wholes generally. The 

 whole appears as the real cause of the response, and not the ex- 

 ternal stimulus, which seems to play the quite minor role of a 

 mere excitant or condition. 



The most important result of the idea of the whole is, however, 

 the appearance of the concept of Creativeness. It is the synthesis 

 involved in the concept of the whole which is the source of crea- 

 tiveness in Nature. Nature is creative. Evolution is creative, just 

 in proportion as it consists of wholes which bring about new struc- 

 tural groupings and syntheses. The whole involves these new 

 structural groupings out of the old materials; and thus arises the 

 "creativeness" of Evolution, as well as the novelty and initiative 

 which we see in organic Nature. The concept of creativeness 

 which flows from that of the whole has the most far-reaching 

 effects in its application to Nature. Once we grasp firmly the 

 fact that Nature and Evolution are really creative, we are out of 

 the bonds of the old crude mechanical ideas, and we enter an 

 altogether new zone of ideas and categories. But the important 

 point for our purpose is that "creativeness" is simply a deduction 

 from the concept of the whole and is characteristic of the order 

 of wholes in the universe. It is wholes and wholes only that are 

 creative. The formula omne vivume vivo could therefore be 

 generalised and applied to wholes generally. This creativeness 

 issues not only in the origin of new organic species, but also in 

 the great Values which are the creations of the whole on the 

 spiritual level. 



From this it is clear how also the concept of Freedom is rooted 

 in that of the whole, organic or other. For the external causation 

 is absorbed and transformed by the subtle metabolism of the 

 whole into something of itself; otherness becomes selfness; the 

 pressure of the external is transformed into the action of itself. 

 Necessity or external determination is transformed into self-deter- 



K 



