120 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



mination or Freedom. And as the series of wholes progresses the 

 element of Freedom increases in the universe, until finally at the 

 human stage Freedom takes conscious control of itself and begins 

 to create the free ethical world of the spirit. Holism thus becomes 

 basic to the entire universe of organic progress and free creative 

 advance, to the Values and Ideals which ultimately give life all 

 of worth it has, and to the Freedom which is the condition of 

 all spiritual as well as organic progress. 



But Holism is seen not only in the advance, in the changes and 

 variations for ever going forward. It is seen just as much in the 

 stability of the great Types. The new always arrives in the bosom 

 of the pre-existing structure, and at its prompting and largely 

 in harmony with it. Its novelty is small compared to its essential 

 conservatism. Variation is infinitesimal compared to Heredity. 

 It is this fundamental unity or unitariness and wholeness in or- 

 ganisms and organic Evolution generally which seems to explain 

 their essential stability as well as the regulation and co-ordination 

 of the whole process, — its conservative self-control — if one may 

 use a metaphor. 



The chapter concludes with a summary of the functions which 

 Holism exercises in the shaping of Evolution. 



In the last chapter the ideas of the whole and Holism 

 were sketched in a general and preliminary way. Before 

 we proceed to test the working value of the new ideas it 

 will be necessary to explore somewhat more deeply into 

 them. It is the vagueness of the concept of Life which 

 makes it unsatisfactory for scientific purposes, and we 

 should make certain that the concept of the whole, which 

 is intended to make it definite for scientific purposes, be 

 made as clear as possible. 



Let me here say a word about the method we are pur- 

 suing. Hitherto we have as closely as possible followed 

 the results of science; we have studied the fundamental 

 structures of physical and biological science in the atom 

 and the cell, and endeavoured to frame a concept of the 

 whole on the basis of those structures. I propose to con- 

 tinue to pursue this course, and to explore and build up 

 the concept of the whole from the results of the analysis 

 of Nature. We shall try to understand what is involved 

 and implied in the processes of the small centres of unity 

 in Nature, and derive as much aid and illumination from 



