264 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



chisedek of the universe, without any genetic connections 

 or contacts with the rest of the universe. We approach it 

 as one of a series, as the culminating phase of a graduated 

 movement of which the earlier steps have been already 

 explored. It thus takes its proper place in the great com- 

 pany of the universe, and is no longer to be viewed as a 

 secluded and unapproachable singularity. 



Let us first look at the constituents of Personality. 

 Human Personality takes up into itself all that has gone 

 before in the cosmic evolution of Holism. It is not only 

 mental or spiritual but also organic and material. It is a 

 new whole of the prior wholes; the structures of matter, 

 life and mind are inseparably blended in it, and it is more 

 than any or all of them. What that more is we shall con- 

 sider just now; in the meantime let us look at its constituents 

 and their relations in the Personality. 



The most characteristic and certainly the most important 

 constituent of Personality is Mind. Without conscious 

 mind on the human level Personality could not be. And 

 Personality had to await the arrival of Mind, the develop- 

 ment of the organ of Mind, before it could start on its 

 unique career. Mind has been the wing on which the 

 human Personality has risen into the empyrean. 



The vast and almost overshadowing importance of the 

 mental or spiritual factor must, however, not blind us to 

 the significance of the other factors, which constitute the 

 body or the physical organism of the human person. These 

 physical organic factors are not only essential, but they also 

 contribute most important features to the human Person- 

 ality. The human Personality as disembodied spirit and 

 devoid of its physical organism would indeed be some- 

 thing utterly different from what it is. Flesh and blood 

 may not be as important as the soul in the total human 

 make-up, but they are essential and they bring something 

 into the pool which is most vital and precious. So much 

 so that the expression ''flesh and blood'^ has become 

 almost synonymous with humanity. What the Greek poet 

 has called ''dear flesh" is not only essential to human 



