XII THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 331 



system of the globe the first convulsive movements threw 

 up the early mountains which have now entirely disappeared 

 from the face of the earth, and when the living forms, if 

 any, were of so low a type that none have been deciphered 

 yet in the geological record? Where was the Spirit when the 

 Solar System itself was still a diffuse fiery nebula? The 

 evolutionary facts of Science are beyond dispute, and they 

 support the view of the earth as existing millions of years be- 

 fore ever the psychical or spiritual order had arisen; and 

 what is true of the earth may be similarly true of the universe 

 as a whole. The fact that we have to grasp firmly in connec- 

 tion with creative Evolution is that, while the spiritual or 

 psychical factor is a real element in the universe, it is a com- 

 paratively recent arrival in the evolutionary order of things; 

 that the universe existed untold millions of years before its 

 arrival; and that it is just as wrong for Idealism to deny the 

 world before the appearance of Spirit, as it is for Naturalism 

 to deny Spirit when eventually it did appear in the world. 



Creative Evolution seems to move forward by small steps 

 or instalments or increments of creativeness. Why there 

 should be this discontinuity rather than a smooth con- 

 tinuous advance we cannot say; we can but note the fact, 

 which seems to be a universal phenomenon. Not only does 

 matter in its atomic and elemental structure show this 

 minute discontinuity, but the electric elements in the atom, 

 and in the electric current generally, and the quanta of heat 

 and radiant energy show the same remarkable feature. 

 Thus the unit character of Action and Structure is repro- 

 duced in the unit character of Evolution and of nuclear 

 change in the cell. There is real, creation as distinct from 

 mere combinations of pre-existing units or mere unfolding 

 of implicit elements; but this creation is not consummated 

 in one supreme creative Act; nor is it evenly and uniformly 

 distributed throughout all time. Its distribution is un- 

 evenly spread in minute parcels over the whole almost 

 infinite range of Evolution. Evolution thus becomes a 

 long-drawn-out process of creation, in which the new for 

 ever arises by slow and minute increments from the old, or 



