vn MECHANISM AND HOLISM 163 



activities; it has to confine itself to these and implicitly 

 to reject all others. Anticipating later stages of develop- 

 ment, one may say that its choice is limited; in other 

 words, selective action is essential for it. What is perfectly 

 clear at later, more mature phases of Evolution already 

 exists in undeveloped immature form in the most primitive 

 organisms. There is a primitive stage of organic function- 

 ing when concepts like will, choice or purpose are clearly 

 not yet applicable, but their root already exists in a sort 

 of organic selectivity or power of self-direction and self- 

 orientation. This primitive organic power of selection is 

 probably not far removed from the inorganic property 

 which I have called by the same name. Apparently the 

 conflict has not yet arisen here. 



Let us next consider the most universal generalisations 

 or laws of matter and energy. I refer to the two laws of 

 Thermodynamics, the first of which affirms the universal 

 principle of conservation or constancy of the amount of 

 energy in a closed physical system; while the second affirms 

 the universal principle of the dissipation or degradation of 

 energy. It is these two supreme generalisations which 

 seem to come into irreconcilable conflict with the principles 

 and properties of life and mind, and therefore call for a 

 careful analysis. Now when bodies and souls (including 

 life and mind) are taken as separate entities in interaction 

 with each other, the simplest way of expressing the observed 

 facts is to say that life or mind has a directive power over 

 the body. It was Descartes who first suggested that life 

 or mind might have the power (to use the language of later 

 scientific developments) of directing the energies in a body 

 without affecting their amount, and therefore without a 

 breach of the first law of Thermodynamics. According to 

 this view life or mind in an organism would direct the 

 energies of the body without either creating or destroying 

 any of these energies. We have already seen that this 

 power of self-direction is characteristic of life; and the 

 suggestion was that the exercise of this power, whfle not 

 interfering with the laws of matter, would explain the 



