VII MECHANISM AND HOLISM 169 



The laws of life and mind are not in conflict with the laws 

 of energy. An organism is more than a physical structure; 

 but in so far as it is a physical structure it obeys the laws 

 of energy just as if it were nothing but a physical structure. 

 The result is important, because it does justice to both 

 the physical and the non-physical aspects of bio-chemical 

 and psycho-physical wholes. Ordinarily in the grand tug- 

 of-war between the two aspects in these mixed systems, 

 the palm of victory is awarded to one or the other, accord- 

 ing to the naturalistic or spiritualistic leanings of the 

 judges. According to those who adopt the standpoint of 

 physical science, the laws of energy apply to the mixed 

 system, even to the extent of reducing life and mind to 

 the role of impotent semblances or mere empty simulacra 

 on the scene of existence. Again, according to the spiritualist 

 view, the factors of life and mind are real and operative, 

 not only on their own proper level and in their own domain, 

 but to the extent of qualifying and modifying ^ even the 

 mechanical relations of the bodily or physical structure, 

 and thus affecting the application of the laws of energy to 

 it. The first conclusion (Naturalism) is contradicted by 

 our direct consciousness, the second (Spiritualism) by the 

 experimental results of observations on living bodies. The 

 reasoning we have followed so far on the suggestion of one 

 of the greatest masters of physical science, has indicated 

 to us how life and mind may discharge their essential 

 functions without impinging on the universal laws of 

 energy, which are the very foundation of the whole system 

 of science. The higher structures of life and mind do not 

 mean the annihilation of the lower structures of energy. 

 Here again, as we have seen before in the general process of 

 creative Evolution, the lower becomes the unit for the next 

 higher; there is a grading of the advance without a destruc- 

 tion of the steps or grades constituting the advance. The 

 higher structure is based on the lower structure without 

 the absorption and disappearance of the latter in the pro- 

 cess. Thus mind structures presuppose life structures, and 



* Hobhouse: Development and Purpose, pp. 326, 329. 



