154 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



organism; while the still more complex groups of cells 

 become the units for the higher psychic or personal struc- 

 tures. Thus stated the process seems to be merely a regular 

 mechanical, rhythmic series based on the mixture of previous 

 elements. But such a conclusion would be most misleading. 

 The process is not mechanical but essentially creative; at 

 each stage something new arises from the mixture, inter- 

 action and fusion of the component elements. But while 

 this newness, this creative novelty arises everywhere, it is 

 at two stages in particular that something utterly new and 

 wholly different in kind and nature arises from the union of 

 the pre-existing elements; those are the stages where so- 

 called life and mind appear; the stages where bio-chemical 

 and psycho-physical wholes make their appearance. These 

 are the two great saltus or mutations in Evolution ; and it is 

 in connection with them that the great problems of life and 

 mind arise. They are the structures in Nature which do not 

 exemplify pure Mechanism on the one hand or pure Holism 

 on the other; they are double structures apparently exempli- 

 fying both at the same time and, what is worse, in a some- 

 what disharmonious manner. The attempt to harmonise 

 them, to smooth away their discrepancies and to reconcile 

 the contradictory results to which they lead, has taxed 

 the resources of our science and philosophy to the utmost; 

 nor can it be said that the results hitherto attained are in 

 any sense satisfactory. But that should never discourage 

 us from renewing the search for solutions which is given by 

 the very nature of the human spirit. 



Now it seems to me that it can be shown that the problems, 

 difficulties and contradictions which arise in connection 

 with these bro-chemical and psycho-physical wholes are due 

 to fundamental misconceptions, and that the application of 

 the category of Holism to living bodies and human per- 

 sonalities will transform the situation and help towards a 

 solution of the apparent contradictions. Let us broadly 

 state the problem as it presents itself from the point of view 

 of physical science and of human psychology respectively. 



Now science looks upon the physico-chemical order, upon 



