XII THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE 341 



There is a much more subtle and far-reaching influence 

 within the special or local fields of Nature than is commonly- 

 recognised or suspected. Sensitivity to appropriate fields 

 is not confined to humans, but is shared by animals and 

 plants throughout organic Nature. 



There is a second point which emerges from the fore- 

 going chapters and leads up to the issue now under 

 discussion. 



In Chapter VII we have spoken of a general common 

 trend of Evolution, of Evolution as not tacking and veering 

 about, but as moving in one general direction, as keeping 

 a general course and direction through all the endless ages 

 of her voyaging. How is this to be explained? Here 

 again the expedient of personification is often resorted to 

 for the purpose of finding an explanation. It is said that 

 Evolution discloses a grand inner Purpose, that Nature or 

 the universe is purposive or teleological, and that no other 

 category will do justice to the great fact of Evolution as we 

 see it. But if there is purpose there must be a Mind behind 

 that purpose. And thus Mind comes to be personified in 

 Nature as the source of the great evolutionary purpose which 

 the world discloses. Cosmic Teleology spells a correspond- 1 

 ing transcendent Personality. Do the facts warrant or neces- 5 

 sitate such tremendous assumptions? Would it not rather 

 seem that the whole basis of this reasoning is unsound and 

 false? In all the previous cases of wholes we have nowhere 

 been able to argue from the parts to the whole. Compared 

 to its parts, the whole constituted by them is something 

 quite different, something creatively new, as we have seen. 

 Creative Evolution synthesises from the parts a new entity 

 not only different from them but quite transcending them. 

 That is the essence of a whole. It is always transcendent 

 to its parts, and its character cannot be inferred from the 

 characters of its parts. Now the above reasoning, by which 

 a supra-mundane ^ Mind or Personality is reached, ignores 

 this fact. Such a " Personality " would be creatively new 

 and unlike the wholes which we know and which would 

 constitute its parts. It would be as different at least from 



