344 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



ment are in the last resort the entire weight and momentum 

 and the inmost nature and trend of the universe. 



I have now reached the end of my argument. The re- 

 flections embodied in this work lie far removed from the 

 busy and exciting scenes in which most of my life has been 

 spent; and yet both of them tend toward the same general 

 conclusions. It has been my lot to have passed many of 

 the years of my life amid the conflicts of men, in their wars 

 and their Council Chambers. Everywhere I have seen men 

 search and struggle for the Good with grim determination 

 and earnestness, and with a sincerity of purpose which added 

 to the poignancy of the fratricidal strife. But we are still 

 far, very far, from the goal to which Holism points. The 

 Great War — with its infinite loss and suffering, its toll of 

 untold lives, the shattering of great States and almost of 

 civilisation, the fearful waste of goodwill and sincere human 

 ideals which followed the close of that vast tragedy — ^has 

 been proof enough for our day and generation that we are 

 yet far off the attainment of the ideal of a really Holistic 

 universe. But everywhere too I have seen that it was at 

 bottom a struggle for the Good, a wild striving towards 

 human betterment; that blindly, and through blinding 

 mists of passions and illusions, men are yet sincerely, 

 earnestly groping towards the light, towards the ideal of a 

 better, more secure life for themselves and for their fellows. 

 Thus the League of Nations, the chief constructive outcome 

 of the Great War, is but the expression of the deeply-felt 

 aspiration towards a more stable holistic human society. 

 And the faith has been strengthened in me that what has 

 here been called Holism is at work even in the conflicts and 

 confusions of men; that in spite of all appearances to the 

 contrary, eventual victory is serenely and securely waiting, 

 and that the immeasurable sacrifices have not been in vain. 

 The groaning and travailing of the universe is never aimless 

 or resultless. Its profound labours mean new creation, the 

 slow, painful birth of wholes, of new and higher wholes, and 

 the slow but steady realisation of the Good which all 

 the wholes of the universe in their various grades dimly 



