328 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



flowing Action, it passes beyond its bounds, and its surround- 

 ing " field " is therefore essential not only to its correct 

 appreciation as a thing, but also to a correct understanding 

 of things in general, and especially of the ways in which they 

 affect each other. I have tried, at various points in the fore- 

 going discussion, to emphasise the great importance of this 

 concept of " fields " not only for physics but also for biology 

 and philosophy. 



The second and more important conclusion is the great 

 fact and concept of Evolution. The inner character of 

 the universe as Action expresses itself in actuality as a 

 passage, a process, a passing beyond existing forms and 

 structures, and thus the way is opened up for Evolution. 

 The actual character of Evolution can, of course, be con- 

 cluded and known only from the facts, and is not a matter of 

 logical inference deducible from the nature of the universe 

 as Action. But if activity is the essence of the universe we 

 see more easily why the universe is evolutionary and 

 historical rather than static and unchangeable. There is a 

 passage, a process, a progress, but its characters can only 

 be determined by a study of the facts of the passage. It 

 may turn out to be merely a movement of combinations and 

 groupings; or it may turn out to be an unfolding, explica- 

 tion and filling out, an evolutio in the stricter sense; or it 

 may turn out to be a real creative Evolution such as we have 

 seen it to be. Real Evolution requires other concepts 

 besides those of Action and structure; and these concepts 

 can only be derived from experience. Thus the creative- 

 ness of Evolution is a conclusion not so much from theory 

 as from the empirical facts. And the exact nature of this 

 creativeness is unknown in some respects and remains a 

 problem for the future to solve. A still wider survey and 

 closer scrutiny of the facts lead to the conception of Holism 

 which accounts not only for the structural combinations of 

 bodies, things and events, but for all the progressive series of 

 unities and syntheses which have arisen in the cosmic process. 



Assuming that Holism and the nature of wholes in the 

 universe have been sufficiently explained in the foregoing 



