VIII DARWINISM AND HOLISM 191 



to them, and that many of their errors are directly traceable 

 to its disturbing and distorting influence. In the first 

 chapter I tried to show how erroneous the conception of 

 Natural Selection as a purely mechanical factor in Evolu- 

 tion was. In this chapter I shall endeavour to show that 

 the purely mechanistic conception of Variation is just as 

 arbitrary and misleading. 



The root of Weismann's difficulties lies in his mechanistic 

 conception of the germ-cell. The cell, as we saw in Chapter 

 IV, in its metabolism already shows many of the functions 

 and activities which we associate with the complete indi- 

 vidual organism. It is itself a holistic individual, with the 

 most marvellous selective and regulative powers, reminding 

 us (on a much lower plane) of what at a later stage of 

 Evolution appears as the psychical factor. This applies to 

 the germ-cell even more than to the ordinary body-cells. 

 The germ-cell has its 'Afield," and the field of the germ-cell 

 is much more important than is ordinarily thought. Experi- 

 mental Evolutionists seek more in the actual structure of 

 the germ-cell than is there. There is much more in the 

 inheritance of the germ-cell than can be identified by an 

 analysis of its structure. And this more is in its field, which 

 represents that part of the germ-cell which has not yet been 

 crystallised and hardened into sensible structure. Much of 

 its past and its future is in its field; in its field the creative 

 adjustments are begun which are ultimately translated and 

 incorporated into its structure. Here as elsewhere the field 

 is the area of becoming, of creativeness, the growing sur- 

 face of the structure. To confine our view of the germ- 

 cell to its apparent structure is simply to atomise our con- 

 ceptions on chemical analogies, and to narrow them unduly 

 to the neglect of very important features in the functions 

 and activities of the germ-cell, and to compel us in the end 

 to adopt that mechanical view which is the negation of its 

 inmost nature as a living holistic individual unity. In this 

 chapter I shall endeavour to show how the concept of 

 Holism acts as a solvent for the difficulties created by the 

 mechanistic conception of Variation. 



