vn MECHANISM AND HOLISM 153 



appropriate concepts and categories of structure and func- 

 tion. When we reach the human stage in its full develop- 

 ment in personality, we pass beyond the limits of all 

 possible mechanistic concepts and categories and we find 

 ourselves in the domain of Holism. Mechanism is thus a 

 matter of degree. 



In the second place, Holism is also a matter of degree. It 

 begins, as we have seen, as structure; and in its earlier 

 phases as structure it is scarcely different from Mechanism. 

 Indeed we may look upon Mechanism as incipient Holism, 

 as a crude early phase of Holism. In proportion as Holism 

 realises its inwardness more fully and clearly in the develop- 

 ment of any structure; in proportion as its inward unity and 

 synthesis replace the separateness and externality of the 

 parts. Mechanism makes way for Holism in the fuller sense. 

 But its realisation is a matter of degree, and there will 

 probably always remain some residuary feature of Mecha- 

 nism, which will to some small extent justify the resort to 

 mechanistic concepts and categories, even where the most 

 developed and refined Holism is concerned. 



It follows from the above that science is not at fault when 

 for heuristic purposes it applies mechanistic methods and 

 concepts to either the inorganic or the biological sciences. 

 Up to a certain point the resort to such methods and con- 

 cepts is fully justified, and their clearness and narrowing of 

 issues are especially useful for purposes of analysis and 

 research. It is only when the larger holistic considerations 

 behind the mechanisms are ignored, or when mechanistic 

 concepts are pressed too far in their application to essentially 

 holistic structures and functions, that the process becomes 

 harmful and misleading. 



It will be noticed that in the synthetic grading-up of the 

 Mechanistic-Holistic process of Evolution, the lower unit 

 always becomes the basis of the next higher unit, becomes as 

 it were the stepping-stone to the next stage. Thus the 

 earlier simpler structure of the atom becomes the unit for 

 the molecule; the molecule for the crystal; the complex 

 of molecules for the cell; the complex of cells for the higher 



