XII THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 321 



a measure be explained in terms of its fundamental char- 

 acters and activities, as I have tried to show. All the prob- 

 lems of the universe, not only those of matter and life, but 

 also and especially those of mind and personality, which de- 

 termine human nature and destiny, can in the last resort only 

 be resolved — in so far as they are at all humanly soluble — 

 by reference to the fundamental concept of Holism. For this 

 reason I have called our universe ^'the Holistic universe," 

 as Holism is basic to its constitution, its multitudinous forms 

 and its processes, its history in the past, and its promise and 

 potency for the future.^ 



The scientist, viewing my claims for Holism in the dryV 

 light of Science, might perhaps feel tempted to demur to 

 them. He might object that Holism is a mere assumption 

 which may have a philosophical or metaphysical value, but 

 that it has no scientific importance, as it cannot be brought 

 to the test of actual facts and experiments. Holism as here 

 presented, he will say, is not a matter for Science; it is an 

 ultra-scientific entity or concept. It falls outside the scope 



* Professor Lloyd Morgan has made the creative or emergent 

 character of Evolution the theme of his book on "Emergent Evolu- 

 tion," and it has been suggested to me that I should explain my 

 relation to it. The fact is that my views had a different origin 

 from his, and that they had been matured and the whole of this 

 book written before I saw his interesting and suggestive volume. 

 The result is that, in spite of many surprising similarities of thought, 

 there remains an essential diversity in our themes as well as in our 

 emphasis even on those matters on which we apparently agree. 

 To him emergence of the new in the evolution of the universe is the| 

 essential fact; to me there is something more fundamental — the char- 

 acter of the wholeness, the tendency to wholes, ever more intensive 

 and effective wholes, which is basic to the universe, and of which 

 emergence or creativeness is but one feature, however important it is 

 in other respects. Hence he lays all the emphasis on the feature oil 

 emergence, while I stress wholes or Holism as the real factor/ 

 from which emergence and all the rest follow. To me the holistic 

 aspect of the universe is fundamental, and appears to be the key position 

 both for the science and for the philosophy of the future. 



Besides, Professor Lloyd Morgan makes the psychical factor the 

 correlate at all stages of the physical factor, thus in effect getting 

 back to the Spinozist position that all bodies, even inorganic matter, 

 are animata in their several degrees. This view seems to be a rever- 

 sion to the preformation type of Evolution and to be destructive of 

 all real effective "emergence." In any case it is wholly different from 

 the view of creative advance consistently put forward in this 

 book. 



