262 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



an inner creative, recreative and transformative activity, which ac- 

 counts for all that happens in Personality as between its com- 

 ponent elements. No explanation will hold water which ignores 

 the most important factor of all in the situation, and that is the 

 holistic Personality itself. Holism is the real creative agent, and 

 not the entities suggested by the above philosophers. 



We see this same creative Holism in Personality when we come 

 to consider our inheritance from our parents and ancestors, which 

 consists of a definite animal body slightly differing from theirs, 

 and a mental structure somewhat resembling theirs. My Person- 

 ality itself, however, is indisputably mine, and is not inherited 

 from them. It may in some respects resemble theirs but its very 

 essence is its unique individuality. The fact here too is that Per- 

 sonality is a unique creative novelty in every human being, and 

 that no explanation which ignores this creative Holism can even 

 pretend to account for Personality. 



For psychology and epistomology the individual Subject is the 

 centre of orientation in all experience and reality; it is the Subject 

 of Experience to which all the rest is the Object of Experience. 

 The appearance of Personality, therefore, marks a new and funda- 

 mental departure in the evolution of the universe. These dis- 

 ciplines concentrate on the Subject as the centre of reference 

 for experience without, however, paying sufficient attention to the 

 nature of Personality in other respects. Ignoring the individual 

 uniqueness of the Personality in each case, psychology deals with 

 the average or generalised individual; and then only from the 

 purely mental point of view, which is but one aspect of Person- 

 ality. The result is that psychology does not materially assist us 

 in the study of Personality. Personality is, in fact, largely an 

 unexplored subject and requires a discipline to itself as a real 

 factor in the universe. "Characterology" has been suggested as a 

 name for the new discipline, but there are objections to it, and 

 Personology is suggested as a better name. The "Person" is a 

 concept of the Roman law, not of Greek philosophy, and the 

 hybrid is therefore justified. 



Personology should begin by studying the biographies of human 

 personalities as living wholes and unities in the successive phases 

 of their development; in other words, synthetically, rather than 

 analytically in the manner of psychology. Through such scientific 

 studies of Personality we shall obtain the materials for formulating 

 the laws of personal evolution and thus lay the foundations for a 

 real science of Biography. We shall thus also obtain the basis 

 of a sound theory of Personality and a proper science of Person- 

 ology, which, as the synthetic science of human nature, will form 

 the crown of all the sciences and become the basis for a new Ethic 

 and Metaphysic and a truer spiritual outlook. 



