146 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



the physical realm as a closed system dependent only on physical 

 laws, which leave no opening anywhere for the active intervention 

 of non-material entities like life and mind. On this view the ac- 

 tivity and causality of life and mind are therefore at bottom essen- 

 tially illusory. On the other hand, if we have to be guided by 

 our clear and unequivocal experience and consciousness, nothing 

 can be more certain than that our human volition issues in active 

 movements and external actions. Besides, if life and mind were 

 merely ineffective illusions, how could they have arisen and grown 

 in the struggle of existence? While science denies reality to life 

 and mind, the other side retorts by erecting them into vital and 

 mental forces with a substantiality of their own. Thus arises the 

 counter-hypothesis of Vitalism. Both views as a matter of fact 

 are one-sided and misleading; the mechanistic view by ignoring 

 the essentially holistic element in organic or psychical wholes ; the 

 vitalistic view by misconceiving the vital or psychic element in 

 such wholes. The fundamental mistake is the severance of essen- 

 tial elements in a whole and their hypostasis into independent 

 interacting entities or substances. Thus body and mind wrongly 

 come to be considered as two separate interacting substances. 



In reply to mechanistic Science it can be shown that the holistic 

 factors of life and mind do not interfere with the closed physical 

 system, and that a proper understanding of the laws of Thermo- 

 dynamics permits of the immanent activity of a factor of Selec- 

 tiveness and Self-direction, such as life or mind, without any 

 derogation from those laws. 



Again, in reply to the Vitalists, who invent Entelechy or some 

 other substantive entity for the system of life and mind, it can be 

 shown that no such deus ex machina is necessary ; that the funda- 

 mental concept of Holism suffices to explain the creative, directive, 

 controlling activity of organic and psychic wholes; and that the 

 attributes of life and mind are inherent in the concept of wholes, 

 and in organisms and humans as wholes. We thus get rid of the 

 notion of separate interacting entities and view organisms and 

 humans as wholes, which involve both the earlier mechanistic and 

 the later holistic phases of Holism. As we have seen Mechanism 

 to be but an earlier, cruder phase of Holism, the problem essen- 

 tially disappears. A thorough grasp of the concept of wholes and 

 its consistent application to organisms and humans are thus a 

 solvent for the perennial Body-and-Mind problem. We thus en- 

 visage the physico-chemical structures of Nature as the begin- 

 nings or earlier phases of Holism, and "life" as a more developed 

 phase of the same inner activity. Life is not a new agent, with the 

 mission of interfering with the structures of matter ; it involves no 

 disturbance of the prior structures on which it is based. Holism 

 has advanced only one step further; there is a deeper structure, 



