vm DARWINISM AND HOLISM 217 



wish to understand the details of organic Evolution in any- 

 particular case we should look for the repressions no less 

 than for the variations; it is the combination of the two 

 which constitutes Evolution. 



I shall no doubt be asked what experimental verification 

 there is for the holistic view of Evolution here set forth. 

 My answer is to repeat what I have already said: that 

 natural Evolution as distinguished from experimental Evolu- 

 tion is a process, not of the hour or the day, but of geo- 

 logical time, and that the results, matured and consolidated 

 through immemorial periods, cannot be repeated or re- 

 hearsed by short-dated laboratory experiments, conducted 

 too under conditions very different from those of Nature. 

 These experiments, however valuable and instructive in 

 affording subsidiary clues and hints of the natural process, 

 do not by any means exhaust or even seriously affect the 

 real problem of creative Evolution; and a correct view of 

 Evolution must have regard to this difference and be based 

 on an intelligent appreciation of the natural processes 

 rather than on the very limited data yielded by our labora- 

 tory experiments. There is no doubt that experimental 

 Evolution has, through its unavoidable limitations, greatly 

 blurred the great Darwinian vision of organic Evolution, 

 and instead of making us more fully realise its truth and 

 effectiveness and grandeur as a whole, has tended to deflect 

 our attention to particular problems which are special and 

 limited enough to be capable of laboratory treatment. The 

 special and exceptional cases of Mutation and Hybridisa- 

 tion come to be looked upon as covering the entire process 

 of organic Evolution. My endeavour in this chapter has 

 been, through a re-examination of the position thus created, 

 to explore and reconnoitre a way back to the broader and 

 wider view of Evolution. And in doing so I have sought 

 the assistance of a concept which we have found at work, 

 not only in organic Evolution, but in all organic structures 

 and processes and even, to a limited extent, in inorganic 

 Nature itself. I shall now briefly summarise the results 

 we have reached in this chapter in order thus to see how 



