VIII DARWINISM AND HOLISM 209 



when we come to consider the question, already so diffi- 

 cult, of the selection of a small variation in respect of such 

 a horn, we are confronted with the still more hopeless diffi- 

 culty of having at the same time to account for many other 

 minor correlated variations, each of which has to be selected. 

 Besides this, there is their joint and associated use or 

 functioning which has also to be accounted for as a factor 

 in their selection. We are obviously throwing a weight on 

 the principle of Natural Selection which is more than it 

 can bear. It is being arbitrarily and artificially applied 

 far beyond the area of its natural and proper application. 

 And here it is where Natural Selection breaks down com- 

 pletely. The whole body is a system of co-ordinated struc- 

 tures and functions, and its origin and development can 

 be represented only as a complex movement forward in 

 time of a mass of associated variations which have resulted 

 in the most marvellous co-adaptation of structures and co- 

 ordinated functions. Before the problem of this complex 

 yet orderly evolution, Natural Selection stands baffled. It 

 can deal with individuals and markedly formed and de- 

 veloped characters, but not with their delicately adjusted 

 and associated infinitesimals. 



The fault, however, lies not so much with Natural Selec- 

 tion, as with our fundamental organic conceptions. Our 

 crude uncritical mechanistic conceptions are the real source 

 of the difficulty, and Holism appears to me to be the way 

 out. The root of the error lies in our disregard of the indi- 

 vidual organism as a living whole, and in our attempt to iso- 

 late characters from this whole and study them separately, 

 as if they were mere mechanical components of this whole. 

 The fatal mistake involved in this procedure has already 

 been fully exposed in previous chapters. The whole is not a 

 mechanical aggregate indifferent to and without influence 

 on its parts. It is itself an active factor in controlling and 

 shaping the functions of its parts. The parts bear the 

 impress of its directive influence, without and apart from 

 which it is vain to speculate on their characters and their 

 activities. Whereas mechanical action is isolable and ad- 



