46 CREATIVE INVOLUTION 



said to be an invariant under the group. Bernard's 

 investigations in organic development show the per- 

 sistence of a group as thus defined by Algebra, pro- 

 vided we take for our set of operations all possible 

 entities resulting from the time-process. For such a 

 group, differentiation necessitates integration, and 

 vice versa, hence the life-rhythm is an unending one. 2 



n 



" FOR THESE THINGS TEND STILL UPWARD, PROGRESS 

 IS THE LAW OF LIFE, MAN IS NOT MAN AS YET." 



Along with the tendency to form different person- 

 alities, goes the tendency for these personalities to 

 form larger centres of action. The first, the differ- 

 entiating tendency, has been fully accounted for by 

 the theory of evolution; the second, the integrating 

 tendency, demands an inverse process which logically 

 must be called involution. 



A true individuality is to be acquired only through 

 certain unique inter-actions with the whole realm of 

 being. The environment is not uniform for even the 



2 The forms of life together constitute a progressive series, 

 a series which can reveal to us the evolution of the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms, a series which we have to learn to 

 read, for it is the history of life. It contains the secret of our 

 being, of our past and our future, and although, on its purely 

 physical side, it tells us only of the physical frame, psychical 

 existence will be found reflected in it as in a mirror. 

 H. M. BERNAKD: Some Neglected Factors in Evolution, 

 p. xi. 



