X PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 267 



theory points out as true becomes here an ideal for life. 

 When spirit irradiates body and body gives massive nourish- 

 ment to spirit, the ideal of the creative whole as the antithesis 

 of evil is realised in Personality. 



The language we have just used seems to imply some form 

 of active inter-relation between the elements in Personality. 

 We seem to assume that body and mind must mutually 

 influence each other in the whole which constitutes Person- 

 ality. The most difficult and important question, therefore, 

 arises how such mutual influence has to be understood. 

 Do body and mind interact with each other, and how can 

 such interaction be conceived in view of the considerations 

 which were set out in Chapter VII? The difficulties of 

 thought, serious as they are, are here no doubt largely 

 increased by the defects of language. As soon as the 

 "whole" of Personality is analysed into its constituent 

 elements, the elements by the defects of thought and 

 language alike come to be treated as different things, which 

 thereafter can be brought back again into relation with 

 each other only by way of an assumed mutual interaction. 

 Thus arise the division and separation of body and mind 

 which form the very source of the evils we are trying to 

 counter and combat. Thus again, on the basis of this divi- 

 sion, the separated elements come to be hypostatised into 

 separate entities or substances which are supposed to inter- 

 act with each other. Our perfectly fair and justifiable at- 

 tempt at analysing Personality into mind and body has 

 landed us in an inextricable confusion, which has vexed the 

 soul of philosophy for hundreds of years. In Chapter VII 

 I pointed out that it was this substantiation or hypostasis, as 

 individual reals, of elements which have meaning and reality 

 only as elements in a whole, that is the source of the result- 

 ing conundrums. The holistic view of Personality, of 

 Personality as an integral whole, and not as a compound 

 of independently real substances, is the only solvent for 

 these difficulties and misunderstandings. 



It may, however, be objected that this holistic view with 

 its implied suppression or squashing of body and mind and 



