XI FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 309 



a holistic character and consists of holistic entities, to that 

 extent the universe and these entities are themselves free. 



But Personality is the highest type of such holistic entities. 

 We may therefore say that Personality as a whole is free; 

 the more completely it realises the character of a whole, the 

 more perfect also will be its freedom as such. The freedom 

 of the Personality is simply its character of pure self-activity, 

 untrammelled by external influences, its character of spon- 

 taneous or conscious self-determination by virtue of which 

 all its actions flow from the pure source of self and are not 

 pressed or forced on it by unassimilated external conditions 

 or causes alien to itself, and which have not been trans- 

 formed into unity with itself. Sincere self-expression in 

 men and in nations thus becomes the true ideal of human 

 development and culture. 



Freedom is thus not a mere abstract formal concept, but 

 a real activity; it is the limits within which Holism moulds 

 and develops the individual Personality. In proportion as 

 the Personality is holistic, it is rich in the characters of self- 

 direction and self-determination; in other words, it is free. 

 Moral Freedom is thus a form of the holistic activity of 

 Personality. 



It will be seen that we predicate Freedom, not of the Will, 

 but of the Personality itself. However important and in- 

 deed fundamental an aspect of Personality the will is, yet 

 it is merely an aspect and not the whole of Personality. 

 Freedom is wider than the will; the spontaneity of con- 

 sciousness itself, and of the mind in its various constructive 

 or creative activities, shows that Freedom is not limited to 

 the will, but characterises also other forms of personal activ- 

 ity. In fact Freedom is not an attribute of mere parts or 

 aspects but of the whole, and therefore of Personality con- 

 sidered as a whole. 



Most important of all, we have to point out that Freedom, 

 like Personality itself, admits of degrees in its personal 

 manifestations. We saw earlier in this chapter that Per- 

 sonality, at the present stage of its history, is not yet fully 

 developed; that it is imperfect as a whole even in the highest 



