Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
electrons and protons. It was on this account and in this sense that
we called matter creative. Creative, that is to say, of structures and
substances different from their constituent elements or parts. It is,
however, when we come to consider organisms that we see the cre-
ative whole in a full and proper sense.
” (HE pp. 140-141).
In these emergent phenomena, holists see a further principle
which has a fundamental place in their philosophy. They consider
that matter is active and not inert. In their opinion, as proof of this,
this creative activity, which can already be detected at the chemical
level, is manifested with overwhelming evidence in the living organism.
Again, as Smuts says:
“
An organism, like a plant or animal, is a natural whole. It is self-
acting and self-moving. Its principle of movement or action is not
external to itself but internal. It is not actuated or moved by some
external principle of force, like a machine or an artificial con-
struction. The source of its activity is internal and of a piece with
itself, is indeed itself. It consists of parts but its parts are not
merely put together. Their togetherness is not mechanical, but rests
on a different basis. The organism consists of parts, but it is more
than the sum of its parts, and if these parts are taken to pieces the
organism is destroyed and cannot be reconstituted by again putting
together the severed parts
” (HE p. 111).
All holistic philosophies and all the biological theories which are
derived from them share this principle of attributing creative activ-
ity to matter. They discern evolution in nature characterised by
successive emergences of totalities constituting qualitatively differ-
ent levels of organisation of increasing complexity. The emergence
of these levels from previously single elements is not reduced in this
conception to a simple cause and effect relationship, nor is the
whole compound the mechanical result of adding its elements
together. It is a creation of something radically new. Holists in gen-
eral distinguish three main levels emerging from this evolution. The
first comprises matter, itself organised into sub-levels (macromolecules,
