324 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



ment, and no test however delicate has ever revealed its 

 actual existence, it was long accepted as one of the con- 

 ceptual entities which were necessary to complete the 

 coherent system of Science, and indeed as a real physical 

 element in the universe. It is true that ether seems to have 

 fallen on evil days and that its existence or conceptual neces- 

 sity is being more and more questioned by various groups 

 of physicists. But it has admirably served its purpose 

 as a scientific hypothesis, and the legitimacy of such 

 a hypothesis was never questioned by even the most 

 rigid school of scientists. And I would submit that the case 

 for Holism is much stronger than that for ether ever was, as 

 ether was meant to account only for one particular group 

 of phenomena in physics, while Holism in the main phases 

 of its development is necessary to account for the facts and 

 phenomena of Evolution, both organic and inorganic. The 

 plain fact is that, as our intellectual outlook widens and the 

 intellectual horizons recede more and more, the domain of 

 Science is undergoing an ever greater expansion, and there- 

 fore the formulation of new principles and new concepts 

 embodying them becomes necessary for the support and 

 the coherence of the whole vast scheme of Science. Science 

 is thus for ever encroaching on the domain of philosophy and 

 the other great disciplines of the Reason or the Spirit, and 

 it becomes ever more difficult to confine her activities within 

 the old orthodox limits. Holism no doubt breaks new 

 ground; it is here intended as the basis of a new Weltan- 

 schauung within the general framework of Science; it is 

 meant to be the foundation of a new system of unity and 

 inward character in our outlook upon the universe as a 

 whole. But it does not fall outside the province of Science 

 in the larger sense. And it does not introduce strange, alien 

 concepts into the sphere of Science. 



I would also point out that the scientific objection to 

 Holism as above formulated would, in fact, be identical with 

 the objection which mechanistic Science has taken to life 

 and mind as operative factors in the universe — an objection 

 which Science is feeling herself ever more strongly compelled 



