2 58 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



The most significant element, however, in the " field " 

 of Mind concerns the future, and makes the future an 

 operative factor in the present mental activity. Mind does 

 this through purpose; purpose is the function of Mind by 

 which it contemplates some future desired end and makes the 

 idea of this end exert its full force in the present. Thus I 

 form a purpose to go on a hunting expedition for my next 

 holiday, and this purpose forms a complex synthesis and 

 sets going a whole series of plans and actions all intended 

 to give effect to the purpose. Thus in purpose the future 

 as an object in my mind becomes operative in the present 

 and sets going and controls a long train of acts leading up 

 to the execution of the purpose. The conscious purpose, 

 the end as deliberately envisaged and intended, falls, of 

 course, within the conscious inner area of Mind; but numer- 

 ous subsidiary elements in the plan would operate sub- 

 consciously and thus affect only the field of Mind. 



It will be noticed that purpose or purposive activity 

 involves much more than merely the influence of the future 

 on the present. Purpose is the most complete proof of the 

 freedom and creative power of the mind in respect of its 

 material and other conditions, of its power to create its own 

 conditions and to bring about its own situations for its own 

 free activities. My purposive action is action which I have 

 myself planned, which is not impressed on me or dictated 

 to me by external necessity, and for the performance of 

 which I take my own self-chosen measures. Through pur- 

 pose the mind becomes at last master in its own house, with 

 the power to carry out its own wishes and shape its own 

 course, uninfluenced by the conditions of the environment. 



Again, purposive activity is peculiarly holistic. Elements 

 both of the actual past and of anticipated future experience 

 are fused with the present experience into one individual 

 act, which as a conscious object of the mind dominates the 

 entire situation within the purview of the purpose or plan. 

 It involves not only sensations and perceptions, but also 

 concepts oi a complex character, feelings and desires in re- 

 spect of the end desired, and volitions in respect of the act in- 

 tended; and all these elements are fused and blended into 



