272 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



of apperception," in other words, to the holistic Subject as 

 the pervading dominating factor, so here all action of 

 whatever kind, which happens between mind and body in 

 human Personality, is to be traced to and ultimately 

 accounted for by the holistic Personality itself, and its 

 creative shaping of all that happens to or in it. Any 

 explanation which ignores the Personality itself must 

 necessarily miss the mark. 



We now see what is the real explanation of Berkeley 

 and Geulincx's appeal to God, of Leibniz's appeal to Pre- 

 established Harmony, and of Spinoza's appeal to Substance, 

 as the mediator of action between the mind and the body 

 in man, between the spiritual and the physical orders in 

 the universe. The whole in each case is the explanation; 

 the whole as Personality in the human case, the whole as 

 organism in the situation of life and energy. All such 

 action is synthetic and holistic in its very essence, and no 

 explanation which ignores the whole and its creative 

 metabolism in such action can be considered satisfactory, 

 ^j It may be objected that this " explanation " involves 

 / an even greater mystery than that which was to be explained. 

 ! No doubt we are here moving in a world of mystery, but at 

 any rate the mystery is now rightly placed. We have 

 • traced it to its source in the Holism which makes and 

 I guides the universe and all its unit structures great and 

 j small; and particularly to Personality as a form of Holism. 

 Beyond that final source no explanation can be traced. Per- 

 sonality is a mystery, but at any rate we can attempt to 

 locate it in the order and evolution of the universe. In the 

 relations of mind and body Personality is no mere indiffer- 

 ent spectator or passive tertium quid, and the explanation of 

 those relations must in the last resort be sought in the crea- 

 tive activity of the Personality itself. When we analyse 

 material structure into its elements, we can practically afford 

 to ignore everything else besides those elements themselves, 

 because the traces of Holism in such a structure are so faint 

 as to be almost imperceptible. When, however, we go on to 

 analyse an organic whole into its elements, we notice at once 



