GENERAL SMUTS.

A New Philosophy.

General Smuts has taken advantage of his release from the cares of Government to elaborate and publish a new philosophy set forth in a work entitled "Holism and Evolution" (Macmillan). He is not (remarks the London "Daily Telegraph") the only statesman of the Empire who has also been a philosopher, but he has the distinction of being the only one who has been statesman, philosopher, and soldier combined. This presentment of his attitude towards the scheme of things is in many ways extraordinarily interesting. Even those who disagree with his conclusions will find his exposition of them very stimulating, and in the course of reading his volume they will learn a great deal probably new to them about the recent theories of science in many departments. One of the great troubles of Science when it attempts to explain itself philosophically is the apparent conflict between fundamental physical laws and the fact of progress. We have always been taught, for example, that the total of any result is just the sum of the causes contributing to it. But this, General Smuts argues, like others before him, is to make of Nature a closed system. If nothing new appears, if the workings of the universe are just a series of in finitely complicated equations, in which one set of symbols is eternally equivalent, to another, how does the universe evolve, as we see it evolving in our own and past experience? To make evolution possible we must leave a place for this something new. That place General Smuts sees in the constant tendency, manifest throughout all Nature, to organise itself into wholes. He calls this tendency Holism, from the Greek word "holos," a whole. It is an ugly word, but it may serve as well as another.

A World of Wholes.

The characteristic of a Whole is that it is not merely the turn of its parts. It is a union, a synthesis, a new structural transformation in which the parts, while retaining their original qualities, join to form something quite different from themselves. The highest manifestation of this is seen in personality, where matter, life, and mind are joined in the production of a whole which is something of a different order from the mere sum of their qualities. But similar wholes are found all through the universe, in biology, chemistry, and physics. The universe is, in short, a continuous and ascending system of wholes; it is eternally organising itself into structures which have a different kind of activity from that of the parts composing, them, while still retaining the original activities of these parts. This is the some thing new which makes evolution possible.
This principle of Holism, General Smuts claims, introduces into natural processes the conception of freedom, which the mechanistic view of Nature banishes entirely.
"When," he says, "an external cause acts on a whole, the resultant effect is not merely traceable to the cause, but has be come transformed in the process. The whole seems to absorb and metabolise the external stimulus, and to assimilate it into its own activity; and the resultant response is no longer the passive effect of the stimulus or cause, but appears as the activity of the whole. .... The whole appears as the real cause of the response, and not the external stimulus, which seems to play the quite minor role of a mere excitant or condition. ... From this it is clear how the concept of freedom is footed in that of the whole, organic or other. For the external causation is absorbed and transformed by the subtle metabolism of the whole into something of itself. . . .Necessity or external determination is transformed into self-determination or freedom. And as the series of wholes progresses, the element of freedom increases in the universe, until finally, at the human stage, freedom takes conscious control of itself and begins to create the free, ethical world of the spirit."

The Holistic Universe.

Holism, it will be seen, is presented, to us as the active principle in Nature; it is also the regulative principle in evolution. As an example of how the author regards it on its regulative side, we may take his application of it to the doctrine of natural selection. In organisms, he claims, the whole regulates the variations constantly occurring, and shelters those congruous with its own constitution until they have reached the stage of usefulness to the type. There is, in fact, a stage of holistic selection prior to that of so-called natural selection. That is why, amid all her variations, Nature remains so conservative, and types, on the broad view, so stable. On the usefulness of the holistic theory in such departments as this, as an aid to our understanding of the operative methods of evolution, we shall not presume to pronounce judgment. That is for the experts in the several sciences to do. But when General Smuts goes on to advance holism as a substitute for purpose in the universe, he seems to confuse himself as to the real nature of his own generalisation, and to reach conclusions which are not founded upon his own reasonings or analogies. The picture of the universe which he paints is that of a world proceeding along definitely structural lines, engaged in the constant evolution of wholes, moving steadily from lower to higher wholes, manifesting everywhere "a persistent trend" which has endured from the beginning of time as we know it. This, he says, "cannot possibly be the mere result of accident." On that point he is quite certain. No upholder of orthodox Theism could be more assured. But what is the alternative ? A universe which manifests purpose of design? By no means; on this point he is equally emphatic. "There is, indeed," he says, "a great trend in evolution, but it would be wrong; and a misnomer to call that trend a purpose, and worse to invent a Mind to which to refer that purpose." But how then, are we to account for the inherent progressive orderliness of things—for that is really what holism comes to—the "great trend?" The answer given is that "there is something organic and holistic in nature which shapes her ends and directs her courses." and the author goes on to talk about the interactions of the "fields," or spheres of influence, of the wholes, and the way in which they modify and limit one another, and impress a kind of general character on the sum total.

The Great Paradox.

This explanation of the existence of holism is not quite so illogical as it looks, for General Smuts regards holism as some thing ultimate, which does not require explanation. And mere logical points seem irrelevant in the presence of so gigantic a paradox as the existence in the universe of something which finds its highest achievement in the creation of purposive beings, while yet entirely lacking purpose itself— nay, further, of something which creates spiritual values without having any element of spirit in itself; for, according to General Smuts, the so-called "absolute values"—the ideals of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness—are themselves wholes and the effects of the workings of his "something holistic" in the universe. No wonder he remarks that "it may be objected that this explanation involves an even greater mystery than that which was to be explained." Assuredly it will be so objected. How ever this twentieth century of ours is the true Age of Faith. Ideas are not rejected in it because they are incredible.
It seems to us that General Smuts's philosophy ends in something like a non-sequitur; for the conceptions to which his reasoning appears naturally to lead up is that of Holism as the agent by which Purpose realises itself in the universe, a conception which offers far fewer difficulties to the intelligence than that which he advances. He has not chosen to draw this conclusion. But it is pretty certain that the anti-Theists will recognise that it is there, and we can confidently predict that he will find his keenest and most uncompromising critics among their ranks. A creative Principle that is even half-way to a Purpose is a very dangerous creature in that menagerie.

The Advertiser 27 November 1926,