IX MIND AS AN ORGAN OF WHOLES 259 



one unique purpose, which is then put into action or execu- 

 tion. Purpose is thus probably the highest, most complex 

 manifestation of the free, creative, holistic activity of Mind. 

 Purpose is the door through which Mind finally escapes 

 from the house of bondage and enters the free realm of its 

 own sovereignty. The purposive teleological order is the 

 domain of the free creative spirit, in which the ethical, 

 spiritual, ideal nature of Mind has free scope for expansion 

 and development. The realm of Ends, as Kant has called it, 

 the realm of the great Values and Ideals is the destined home 

 of Mind. And Holism it is that has guided the faltering foot- 

 steps of Mind from its early organic responses and strivings 

 and automatisms through the most amazing adventures and 

 developments until at last it enters into its own. 



Let me conclude with a few further remarks on the holistic 

 aspect of mental activity. 



In Chapters VI, VII and VIII I endeavoured to show, I 

 trust not quite in vain, how Holism as a concept and an 

 active factor can be made fruitful in biology, and can give 

 us a standpoint and method of dealing with the problems of 

 life which very much facilitates the proper solutions. The 

 problems of Mechanism, of Body and Mind, of Evolution, 

 and many others, all wear a different and more tractable 

 form when viewed from the standpoint of Holism. I think 

 I may fairly claim that the concept and function of Holism 

 will prove even more valuable in the study of Mind, its 

 activities and problems. Mind as a higher, more evolved 

 organ of Holism will naturally exemplify the holistic stand- 

 point more fully than life does. And the holistic concep- 

 tion of mental activity appears to me to be specially helpful 

 and to steer clear of most of the errors and misconceptions 

 which have beset that difficult subject. The holistic con- 

 ception of mental functioning explains at once why all the 

 psychological activities — from attention to judgment, and 

 not only in intelligence but also in volition, action and 

 emotion — are synthetic in character, and result in associa- 

 tions, syntheses, groups, things, bodies and wholes. It was 

 the unique service of Kant to psychology to discover the 

 presence of the synthetic judgment at work already in the 



