178 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



equilibrium and of inner self-control which equally character- 

 ises inorganic structures. 



I have to make one more assumption in regard to the 

 character of the new structures of life and their change of 

 equilibrium. Evolution is a fact of observation and experi- 

 ence; and it shows a persistent trend. From matter to 

 life, from life to more life and to higher life; from higher 

 life to mind, from mind to more and higher mind, and to 

 spirit in its highest creative manifestations. There is a 

 process with a persistent trend, which cannot possibly be 

 the mere result of accident. If it were all a matter of 

 chance and contingency, the odds would be infinitely more 

 in favour of chaos than of this persistent trend of intensi- 

 fying structure and order. The creative process of Holism 

 consists in the intensification of structures, in small elements 

 of newness appearing in existing structures until the basis 

 is thereby laid for a new departure in structure; but still 

 on the basis of the pre-existing structures, and so to say in 

 line with the pre-existing structures. Matter and energy 

 were probably such departures in structure from pre- 

 existing structures which have now passed away and are 

 unknown to us. Similarly life is a new departure in struc- 

 ture, but still in harmony and more or less in line with 

 matter, whose laws are only in appearance and not in 

 reality opposed to the processes of life. Life, again, repre- 

 sents a rising scale of structure until the foundations have 

 been prepared for a new departure in structure in the form 

 of Psychism or mind; and mind is on the whole in harmony 

 with life and in line with it. There is thus a persistent 

 trend in the evolution of structures and of the forms and 

 types of existence: how is this to be accounted for on 

 our theory of the dynamic self-controlled equilibrium of 

 structures? 



I can answer this question only by the assumption of a 

 persistent overbalance of the equilibria of existence in a more 

 or less definite inner direction or with a more or less definite 

 orientation. In other words, the rhythm of change in 

 equilibrium is not perfectly reciprocal, but the oscillation 



