334 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



evolutionary process which holds all the wholes together in 

 one vast network of adaptations and harmonious co-ordina- 

 tions, and not some mystic assumed Pre-established 

 Harmony. Leibniz, while he correctly guessed the real 

 secret in his idea of Monads, missed yet the true explanation 

 through not having any knowledge of creative Evolution, 

 such as the deeper science of our day has revealed to us. 

 To him Evolution was a mere unfolding of an implicit con- 

 tent; he adhered to the traditional preformation views of 

 his day as well as to the current belief in the fixity of 

 species. He could not, therefore, realise the idea that 

 monads were genetically related and evolved; and that the 

 order which underlay the series of monads from the lowest 

 to the highest was of a creative character. In the absence 

 of genetic relationships and creative Evolution, he had to 

 make shift with the notions of isolated inner selves and a 

 pre-established harmony. We may therefore say that just 

 as both Naturalism and Idealism are shattered on the rock 

 of creative Evolution, so likewise the Monadology, however 

 valuable and suggestive in other respects, founders on that 

 same rock, which was, however, still secret and undisclosed 

 to the science of Leibniz's time. But for that ignorance 

 who knows 'whether Leibniz might not have elaborated a far 

 more adequate and suggestive Holistic conception than 

 that contained in this poor effort ! 



The astonishing thing is that thinkers of our own time, 

 who are not only conversant with the idea of creative 

 Evolution but convinced adherents of it, fail to adjust their 

 view-points to it. Thus the late Professor James Ward, 

 who advocated the view of Evolution as epigenesis or creative 

 synthesis, and whose Pluralism has close affinities to the 

 Monadology, seems yet to have failed to realise that his view 

 of Evolution as creative was in conflict with his spiritual 

 Pluralism or Panpsychism. His Pluralistic universe also 

 consisted entirely of spiritual monads or entities, and this 

 implied the possession of spiritual or psychical characters 

 not only on the part of the higher monads, like persons, but 

 also on the part of the most rudimentary monads, such as 



