X PERSONALITY AS A WHOLE 269 



mind. In Chapter VII I have tried to show that such 

 influence does not imply a violation of the laws of physical 

 energy on the one hand, and does not necessitate the inter- 

 vention of a deus ex machina like Entelechy on the other. 

 The situation is entirely holistic, and Holism here as else- 

 where gives the basis of the required explanation. Let us 

 first consider the alternative views which have been held 

 on the subject. 



(fl) The popular and, I believe, still the common view 

 among philosophers is that of ''interaction"; that is to 

 say, that body and mind mutually and directly act on 

 each other. This view, if rightly understood, does not, as 

 I have said, come into conflict with natural laws. But it 

 is open to another very formidable objection. How can 

 direct action of the physical or material on the mental or 

 spiritual and vice versa be conceived? The two supposed 

 interacting factors are not of the same order at all; in 

 what way the one can ''act" on the other seems not only 

 unintelligible but absolutely inconceivable. 



{b) In view of this very grave objection, as well as 

 other objections, many thinkers have simply adopted the 

 view that the physical and the mental are two parallel 

 series, which do not act on each other but run parallel to 

 each other, without any attempt to explain the ground 

 of this psycho-physical parallelism. The objection to this 

 is that one series does seem to influence the other, and 

 not merely to run parallel to it. Our consciousness in 

 voluntary action, for instance, does seem to reveal most 

 clearly that our mental state can influence external actions 

 in a particular direction. 



(c) Others, again, while admitting the difficulty of con- 

 ceiving how the physical and the mental can act on each 

 other, have introduced a mediating concept or agency to 

 help the difficulty out. Thus, just as the difficulty of 

 conceiving action at a distance has been mediated by the 

 conception of the ether of space as a medium for such 

 action, so a supernatural medium has been assumed to 

 render possible the interaction of such incommensurables 



