VII MECHANISM AND HOLISM 147 



more selectiveness, more direction, more control. But the new is 

 a creative continuation of the old and not a denial of or going back 

 on it. Holism as an active creative process means the movement 

 of the universe towards ever more and deeper wholeness. This is 

 the essential process, and all organic and psychic activities and re- 

 lations have to be understood as elements and forms of this 

 process. No explanation is possible which ignores this active 

 creative inner whole at the heart of all organic or psychic struc- 

 tures; in the light of this whole all apparent contradictions dis- 

 appear. This point is further considered in Chapter X. 



The fact of Evolution shows that Holism determines the course 

 and the character of the advance. Thus Holism is pulling all the 

 evolving structures faintly but perceptibly in the direction of 

 greater creative synthetic fullness of characters and meanings, in 

 other words, towards more wholeness. The inner trend of the 

 universe, registered in its very constitution, is directed away from 

 the merely mechanical towards the holistic type as its immanent 

 ideal. 



How Holism operates in organic Evolution will appear from the 

 next chapter. 



At various points in the preceding chapters I have ap- 

 peared to contrast Holism with Mechanism and to treat 

 them as opposed processes and points of view. We shall 

 now have to consider their relations more closely, as a 

 proper understanding of these relations will be found to 

 underlie some of the greatest problems both of science and 

 of thought. We shall see that Mechanism and Holism are 

 not necessarily opposed; that both ideas have their proper 

 scope and sphere of usefulness, but that Holism is the more 

 fundamental concept and in its most far-reaching reactions 

 transforms, transcends and absorbs the concept of Mechan- 

 ism. A proper view of their interactions and inter-relations 

 and of the leading and more fundamental role of Holism 

 in comparison with Mechanism is in my opinion important 

 for science no less than for philosophy. 



Let me, even at the risk of reiteration, return to what 

 has repeatedly been said before. For me the great problem 

 of knowledge, indeed the great mystery of reality, is just 

 this: how do elements or factors a and b come together, 

 combine and coalesce to form a new unity or entity x differ- 

 ent from both of them? To my mind this simple formula of 



