v EVOLUTION AND TELEOLOGY 333 



in something else, and ultimately in the nature of the whole 

 as a whole. Reason may indeed be defined as the impulse 

 to take things as parts of a whole (cf. p. 276). 



Now we have seen above that the attempt to conceive 

 Reality as a whole encounters all the difficulties derived 

 from the idea of the Infinite. But let us, for the sake of 

 argument, suppose it possible to overcome these difficulties, 

 and to represent Reality as an intelligible whole. What 

 we have to observe is that, in such a whole, for every part 

 the reason given may be something that lies wholly or 

 partly outside of it. One element is explicable by its rela- 

 tion to another, but of the Whole as a whole no such 

 explanation can be given. Assuming that reason could 

 achieve its ideal and form things into a whole, it could give 

 no further account of the whole that it has formed. At 

 first sight this alone appears as self-contradiction or self- 

 defeat in the work of Reason. Everything needs a reason 

 to account for it, but of the whole of things no rational 

 account can be given. But this is going too fast. It may 

 be replied that as ex vi termini a whole differs from a part, 

 the rational account of a whole is something different from 

 the rational account of a part. The only reason that can 

 be sought for the whole of things must be an inherent 

 reason. The part may, and in a measure must, have its 

 reason outside itself. The whole of things cannot have 

 anything outside of it. Its reason is something in its own 

 nature. 



Now the only inherent reason for a thing of which we 

 have any knowledge is its value. Mechanical causation 

 as such points us beyond the effect to be explained. The 

 value of a thing is inherent in the thing, and if we ask for 

 any other explanation of the existence of valuable things it 

 is not because they are valuable, but because value is not 

 produced unconditionally. The whole then, we infer on 

 these lines, has a reason for its existence in its value, but the 

 value, the good of the whole, is in turn conditioned, 

 just as something valuable to us is conditioned. It is 

 conditioned by the structure of Reality, without which it 

 could not be achieved. But here arises a formidable 

 difficulty. If everything real is implicated in the structure 



