vn MECHANISM AND HOLISM 173 



out that we are in a region of speculation, where no theories 

 can be brought to the test of decisive experiment or proof. 

 All that we can hope to achieve is to render intelligible 

 what is in itself a great mystery to thought; to supply 

 some possible explanation even if it is not the real one; 

 to suggest a scheme of a possible modus operandi which 

 the imagination can visualise to itself. More than a possible 

 explanation I do not pretend to give. 



Science has made clear, as we have seen in previous 

 chapters, that the physico-chemical system is a structure, 

 a structure composed of elements in more or less of equili- 

 brium. Such is the atom of matter, such the molecule and 

 all chemical compounds which form the substance of living 

 bodies. The equilibrium of the structure is also only 

 approximate; were it complete, little room would be left 

 for change; the physical world would be a stereotyped 

 system of fixed stable forms, and little or no room would 

 be left for those changes and developments which make 

 Nature a great system of events, a great history moving 

 onward through Space-Time. The fundamental structures 

 of Nature are thus in somewhat unstable equilibrium. 

 A change in equilibrium does not mean an alteration 

 in the position and activity of one element of the structure 

 only; there is a redistribution which affects all the elements. 

 It is the very nature of the structure in changing its equili- 

 brium to distribute the change over all its component 

 elements. No demon is at work among these elements to 

 transpose them, to rearrange them, and to vary their 

 functions slightly so as to produce the new balance or 

 equilibrium of the whole. It is an inherent character of 

 the physico-chemical structure as such, and is explicable 

 on purely physical and chemical principles which do not 

 call for the intervention of an extraordinary agent. Another 

 peculiar feature about the change in equilibrium in a 

 physico-chemical structure is that it is never such as to 

 produce a perfect new equilibrium; the new is merely 

 approximate just as the old equilibrium was. We may 

 say that the change is from too little to too much. A 



