INTRODUCTION Xlll 



lower. Biology is found to be not simply biochemistry and biophysics? 

 but a science in its own right. Mechanism is inadequate to life. The 

 notion that, from a knowledge of masses and motions, the future course 

 of organic evolution might be predicted is ridiculous. 



The basis of the emergent conception of evolution is found in the 

 empirical fact that an organized whole — such as a living creature — has 

 characteristics which are qualitatively different from those of the elements 

 which enter into it. The properties of electrons give no clue to the 

 properties of the atoms which they form. The properties of atoms are 

 not found in the chemical compounds which they form. Add ten carbon 

 atoms together and they have the same properties which one atom has. 

 Add hydrogen atoms together and their properties remain the same. 

 But when carbon atoms are combined chemically with hydrogen atoms, 

 the hydrocarbons formed have entirely new properties. It seems increas- 

 ingly clear that "an organized whole is more and other than the additive 

 sum of its parts." For the appearance of such new properties science has 

 today no explanation to offer. Indeed, the concept of causation does not 

 seem to apply to such phenomena since cause and effect in the mechanical 

 sense involves a transfer of energy from the cause to the effect. Spaulding 

 has well called this process of formation of new characteristics through the 

 organization of parts into wholes "creative synthesis," since the properties 

 of the whole, or at least some of them, are new. 



"From separate organic compounds to organized living protoplasm," 

 says G. H. Parker, "we pass from one plane of organization to another 

 and consequently from one set of properties to another. The essential 

 properties of living protoplasm are at present no more to be understood 

 from its constituent compounds than are the properties of water from 

 those of hydrogen and oxygen. The properties of living protoplasm are 

 too manifold for description. They are those properties whereby living 

 protoplasm acts otherwise than its chemical constituents do." 



Nineteenth century mechanism failed because it failed to consider 

 the factor of organization. But, as L. J. Henderson says, "there is that 

 which organizes matter in time and space." Consequently, if we are to 

 understand how new properties and capacities arise in nature, we must 

 add to the categories of matter and energy (which were considered suffi- 

 cient in the nineteenth century) a third category of organization. In a 

 strict sense this organizing factor is not "mechanistic." Certainly, 

 organization has up to the present not been recognized as a mechanistic 

 factor by physicists or chemists. But the evidence of such a factor in life 

 is indisputable. Without it, the evolutionary process is incomprehensible. 



As mechanical evolution is a contradiction in terms, so emergent 

 evolution is a redundant expression. If there is no emergence there is no 

 evolution. The facts speak loudly in favor of emergent evolution. 



