THE NEXT DEVELOPMENT IN MAN
by
Lancelot Law Whyte
THE
Next Development
in Man
By the same author
ARCHIMEDES, OR THE FUTURE OF PHYSICS
(1927)
CRITIQUE OF PHYSICS
(1931)
THE
Next Development
in Man
LANCELOT LAW WHYTE
NEW YORK: HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Copyright © 1948, by Lancelot Law Whyte
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing
To the memory of
LOTTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
My thanks are due to E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. for permission to
quote on page 213 from the translation by John Veitch of Descartes'
"Discourse on Method and Meditation on the First Philosophy" and on page
228 from the translation by John Oxenford of Eckermann's "Conversations
with Goethe," both published in the United States in the Everyman Library.
L. L. W.
Preface to U. S. Edition
In the foreword written in May 1943 I undertook to make it known if I
ever came to doubt the argument of this book or discovered errors in
its development.
I wish therefore to confirm that these years have strengthened my
conviction that if civilization is not to decline during the coming
decades it can be only through the development of a universal method
of thought providing the basis for a unified humane science and for a
world society. A humane science is one which would show man the right
way to think in order to understand nature and life, including himself,
and would thus further the development of a world community. Today only
such a science can speak with universal authority.
I believe that what is needed is a 'language of process" supported
by the authority of science, and that the conception of process as the
development of form outlined in Chapter 2, or similar ideas, will acquire
this sanction during the coming years by leading to a unification of
sciences of matter, life, and mind.
In this book I have suggested that the deepest troubles of western
civilization can be regarded as due to the fact that it had relied on a
language of permanence, in which, following Plato, only the unchanging
is real. For two centuries the West has been struggling to create a
valid language of process -- witness Hegel, Marx, Bergson, and Whitehead,
amongst others. But this task cannot be completed without the aid of exact
science, which has only recently begun to question the permanence of its
fundamental particles, and to search for an adequate concept of process.
As physics was not ready to speak the authoritative word, I wrote this
book as an exercise in a new language of process. It is thus an attempt
to develop a method of thought based on a new concept of process,
and at the same time to interpret the failure of the West as due to
its lack of this method and its use of concepts of permanence which
led to spurious dualisms. My next work applies the same unintellectual
method to outline a theory of organism, for it is in living processes
that the development of form is clearest. The results appear to me to
establish the scientific value of the method, though this view awaits
the confirmation of specialists.
Thus what was an unsupported intuition when in 1937 I began to think
out the argument of this book has now in 1947 become for me a tested
conviction. On this central issue I have therefore nothing to withdraw. I
remain vividly aware of the oversimplification of some historical
passages, and of the inadequacy of my scholarship to so comprehensive
a theme. I also regret that I was not able to include a discussion of
the work of Bergson, Jung, and Whitehead, to whom I owe much. But these
blemishes have not prevented a response which shows that I am one of
many who share the same general view.
There is however one topic on which I would express myself differently
today. I think it is wrong to suggest that Russia has gone furthest
towards a unitary society, even if following a path appropriate only
to her. World order implies a unity tolerant of diversity; truth,
justice, and the welfare of man depend on individuals with the courage
and opportunity to express their varied opinions. It was the freedom
of the West which nourished Marx and Lenin, and so made possible the
transformation which created Soviet Russia. The fate of mankind in the
coming decades may be profoundly influenced by thinkers in the West using
their freedom to find means of overcoming the doctrinal conflicts which
have so aggravated the ancient isolation of Russia from the West. This
can only be done by discovering a universal method of thought appropriate
to the present stage in the development of man. I here make an attempt in
this direction; may there be many more, until a unitary science compels
attention of the race to a way of thinking which can unite mankind.
L.L.W.
London, July 1947.
Contents
Preface vii
Foreword xi
I Introduction 1
II Development 25
III The Characteristics of Man 47
IV European Man 73
V The European Tradition 100
VI Europe after 1600 128
VII The Twentieth Century 166
VIII Nine Thinkers:
Heraclitus, Plato, Paul, Kepler, Descartes 190
IX Nine Thinkers (continued):
Spinoza, Goethe, Marx, Freud 216
X Unitary Man 246
XI The World Trend 278
Postscript 306
Appendix: Glossary of Unitary Thought 312
Index 317
Foreword
To be alive is to undergo ceaseless change. Man fears change and
seeks to deny it by imposing on it a principle of permanence. That may
offer the illusion of escape, but it cannot bring understanding. To
understand nature, and himself, man must accept change and identify
the universal form of process which underlies the variety of particular
processes. Understanding means the recognition of the simple form common
to all change. Man does not know nature or himself until he has discovered
this underlying unity.
I have long been convinced that the clue to the unity of nature lies
in a principle of development. Countless processes of the inorganic
and organic worlds, of social history and the individual life, display
development of various kinds. But this conviction sprang less from
particular examples than from a sense of the general form of process. It
seemed to me that change consisted in the development of form. Before I
had any direct contact with the thought of Heraclitus, Goethe, Hegel, or
Marx I had begun to develop this sense of the form of process by applying
it unconsciously in daily life. Thus I gradually formed a unitary outlook,
seeking the unity beneath diversity in a universal form of process. This
attitude developed with the slow continuity of a plant growth.
Then, as the outlook began to acquire definite shape, I found to my
delight that others had already followed a similar path, and I hoped
that the assurance so gained would bear fruit in the application of the
method to special scientific problems. But I was not able to convert
the intuitive conviction into a scientific method suited to the physical
problems with which I was then concerned. There seemed to be no adequate
bridge between the vague conception of a universal process of development
and the system of exact science, so powerfully justified by its unique
achievements. It appeared that an adequate basis for the unitary method
could only be established by undertaking the most comprehensive task
of all: the development of the general system of thought appropriate
to contemporary man, which can extend his understanding of nature and
therefore of himself. But this seemed to demand leisure and capacities
which were not available.
Yet as the years passed I realized that for good or ill I had my own
criterion of truth. I might distrust all else, but not this sense whose
origins seemed to lie outside me. I could not deny the sense that in
my thought a general truth was finding expression. Time and scholarship
were less necessary if all I had to do was to trust this criterion and
allow it to use me as its editor and scribe.
As I watched the world drifting towards renewed disaster my scepticism
lost its force. Events seemed to be catching up on me; the general need
for a reorganization of life and thought would soon be widely recognized;
I had no reason to hesitate if the world was in so grave a plight. My
conviction grew deeper and rooted itself in a developing interpretation of
science and of history. The method which I was maturing was in accordance
with the historical trend. The first task was to use the method to show
why it is now appropriate. A unitary interpretation of the process that
has brought man to his present situation must precede the development
of a unitary science.
Man's chief asset is his ability to discover a form of truth on
which others may build. If what follows cannot contribute to
science, let it perish unremembered. Yet the expression of a
positive view must be dogmatic. The structure of language itself
involves dogmatism, more dangerous because concealed. Here I
make one explicit assertion, and show that it leads, not of logical
necessity but by its own proper development, to an interpretation
of the present disorganization of man and of his thought. If at
any time I come to doubt the assertion, or discover errors in its
development, I undertake to make this known.
L.L.W.
London. May, 1943
xiii
CRATYLUS: However, I assure you, Socrates, that I have already
considered the matter, and after toilsome consideration I
think the doctrine of Heraclitus is much more likely to be true.
SOCRATES: Some other time, then, my friend, you will teach me,
when you come back.
IIntroduction
Thought is born of failure. When action satisfies there is no residue to hold the attention; to think is to confess a lack of adjustment which we must stop to consider. Only when the human organism fails to achieve an adequate response to its situation is there material for the processes of thought, and the greater the failure the more searching they become.
At critical moments in the life of an individual the task of thought is to form a novel response which may permit further development. Similar moments occur in the history of communities when the failure of an old order provides unique material for thought. The new social forms which are in course of development may then suddenly become definite as ideas in the minds of individuals.
Confucius is the first clear example of a man in this situation. Concerned at the disintegration of primitive Chinese civilization, he sought to restore order by relying on the power of ideas to organize behavior. He was aware of what he was trying to do: society was to be set right by calling everything by its right name, or as he put it, by the "rectification of names." In Greece a century later Socrates and Plato found themselves in a similar situation, and made the same attempt. Pagan civilization was disappearing. Under the growing complexity of social conditions the unthinking acceptance of traditional forms had given place to scepticism and conflict. It seemed that men could only be guided to right living by the clarification of their ideas.
Beneath the similarity of these parallel attempts lay the contrast of East and West. The vast continental uniformity of Asia did not provide the stimulus of variety and permitted a static mode of life challenged only by the hopeless recurrence of drought and famine. In consequence the system of Confucius was traditional, dogmatic, and fatalistic. But along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean, and later on the small, sea-girt continent of Europe, a diversity of conditions stimulated attention to differences and encouraged the improvement of thought by comparison and practical test. Confucius sought to restore the true way of life, Socrates to discover it.
The fact that these men are still remembered today means less that their efforts influenced the general course of history than that the general course influenced them. Whatever is arbitrary or merely personal in the thought of any individual has a negligible influence on others. Ideas are only effective in so far as they are appropriate to particular phases of man's development; they dominate the mental processes and behavior of men so long as they facilitate that development. The influence of Confucius has persisted because his emphasis on traditional forms was for long appropriate to the slowly changing structure of Chinese life. The Platonic system has so far dominated Europe and the West because, as we shall see, the use of static concepts abstracted from the world of process provided, until recently, an adequate stimulus to the continued development of European and western civilization.
But today the human community throughout the globe is once more in the course of a far-reaching transformation. The material conditions of society have changed in parallel with the advance of knowledge and the premises of ancient thought are no longer appropriate. Though it may be felt more in the West, the need for a new form of thought is universal. Whether or not the present degree of disorganization and conflict is greater than at similar moments in the past, there is now a more extensive awareness of it. This sense of frustration through disorganization can only be overcome by the development of the particular form of thought which is appropriate to this stage in the social development of man. If the present phase is to issue in a successful reorganization, the development of the new forms of community life must be facilitated by their symbolization in this new form of thought.
This means that individuals may now again be led to direct their thought to the clarification of general ideas. Such reorganization of thought is a continuous process, and new formulations are a regular feature of every civilization. Yet we shall see that in certain respects the present phase is comparable only with the centuries from 600 to 400 B.C. when a particular form of self-consciousness first became widespread and influenced the social tradition. Now, as then, the species is passing through a transformation of such wide implications that it eludes ordinary sociological interpretation and can only be understood as a biological process. The ideas appropriate to such moments of reorganization are of universal significance. They appear as the result of the influence of the general situation on the individuals who happen to conceive them, and once formulated they become part of the universal human tradition. In so far as such ideas are universal their source is also universal, though the limitations of any particular formulation may reflect the limitations of the individual who gives them expression.
Yet however compelling may be the influence of the present situation on a suitably placed individual, a new system of thought cannot appear through an arbitrary act of creation. Just as a new social system cannot replace an earlier without systematic preparation, so an individual cannot undertake the task of a general reorganization of thought unless he is guided by a rational method based on past experience. Though the processes determining the development of thought are not yet understood, there is always a point at which reason can be applied to assist this development. The continuity of the development of thought is such that even when all established methods are recognized to be invalid and a general reorganization is seen to be necessary, there nevertheless exists a rational method of stepping from the old to the new. The selection of the new method may not he a rational or conscious process, but a rational transition must be possible if the continuity of the social tradition is to be preserved.
A form of thought is required which can throw light on the present state of man and facilitate his further development. This new method must be reached by a rational development of ideas from some existing field of knowledge offering an analog to man's present situation. The contemporary situation is beyond the scope of historical analogy. Local civilizations have often displayed cycles of development and decay and the example of one may therefore aid the interpretation of another. But the cumulative influence of exact science and the enhanced interdependence of all communities have given western civilization a special status in the secular history of the species. Western life and thought is not a passing episode in a cycle of only local relevance; it is a phase in the general development of man. A diagnosis of the present state of western civilization cannot rest on historical analogy, but must arise from an interpretation of the general trend of human history.
Many will view with distrust the demand for another universal doctrine. However important Christianity, humanism, and Marxism have been for the welfare of man, their continued failure to achieve any semblance of the unity of man is warning enough to those who would at one stroke resolve the conflicts of centuries. There are few to whom the complete truth is palatable and the search for an interpretation of history may cover a wish to forget unpleasant facts under the spell of a facile generalization. But the desire to see order in apparent chaos and to discover the continuity in human history does not only arise from negative motives. The tendency to organize thought is healthy; where order is lacking man inevitably experiences the need for it. To be content to live without understanding the nature of man is evidence, not of intellectual honesty, but of low vitality. The desire for a reliable interpretation of the historical process which has led to the present situation is not unreasonable; many equally remarkable achievements already stand to the credit of human thought. But the interpretation must be austere and embracing in its scope; it must display without prejudice the formative genius and the sadistic bestiality of contemporary man.
We must therefore look outside human history for an analogy suggesting that the prevalent human disorganization, with its consequent frustration and conflict, is not an arbitrary or irreducible phenomenon, but constitutes a problem to which a solution may be found. The analogy must indicate that the prevalent degree of social and individual disharmony is not an isolated fact, but one which can be related to other facts which may be better understood. Moreover if such argument by analogy is to be reliable it must rest on a continuity between these other facts and man. Organic nature is the only field of knowledge which is in this sense continuous with man, and it is here that the rational transition to a new form of thought is to be found. The frustration which arises from the disorganization of thought can be overcome and the road cleared to a new form of thought by concentrating all available resources on this one question: If man is an organic species, what is the biological significance of human disharmony?
The reorganization of thought which is now necessary is so far-reaching that the rational bridge from the old to the new can only be found by treating this change in methods of thought as one aspect of a general biological transformation in man. In other words the intellectual continuity between current systems of thought and the new system cannot be expressed in the language of any of the older and more developed branches of knowledge but only in the terms of human biology. The latter is possible because biology in general, and the biology of man in particular, has not yet been fully systematized, for the very reason that it requires the new methods rather than the old. The development of biological thought has been arrested, just as the development of man himself has been, for lack of the new method which is now appropriate. But biological ideas have developed far enough to provide, after one radical adjustment, the continuity which can allow a novel world of ideas to emerge from the old.
In organisms which have proved their fitness to survive there is normally a baianced co-ordination of specialized structures and functions tending to maintain the form of life characteristic of the species. This co-ordination is the meaning of biological health. If it is absent the chances of survival are poor; though in individual members it may be upset by an unfavorable environment, it is the normal condition in surviving species. It would therefore be natural to expect to find in man, apparently the best equipped for survival of all species, the same balanced development of characteristic form as is displayed in the unfolding beauty of plants and in the grace and efficiency of animals. Yet civilized man appears to have lost the harmonious balance shown by all well-adapted species. He retains a relatively efficient co-ordination of the organs which he shares with other neighboring species: the nervous, glandular, and muscular systems are still in many respects capable of the integration which marks all efficient animal species. But superimposed on this animal harmony is a civilized system of control, which, for some reason as yet undisclosed, has led to an unbalanced development and a failure in general co-ordination. This constitutes a problem to which biological science must sooner or later provide an authoritative answer. If man is an organic species, is this partial failure of integration more serious than it has been in other species which have survived? Does its origin lie in the characteristics of homo sapiens, or only of civilized man, or of European and western man? Is this failure of co-ordination due to the hereditary characteristics of a particular type of man or to the distorting influence of a particular social tradition, and is it temporary or permanent?
The contemporary situation has this advantage: no doubt is possible regarding the symptoms. Western man displays a lack of co-ordination combined with high efficiency in an unbalanced technique. To the biologist or anthropologist the disproportionate development of mechanical techniques represents an unbalanced differentiation of certain specialized modes of thought and behavior. Such unbalance is in itself evidence of a failure of co-ordination. But in addition there is a more than normal degree of frustration and conflict, both in the community and the individual. The failure of the organizing principles of tradition, religion, and humanism; the frenzied development of technology; the prevalence of conflict; -- these are to the biologist symptoms of one basic condition: a failure of co-ordination. The traditional and religious ideals which facilitated the organization of less developed communities have lost their efficacy in face of the advance of technical knowledge and the consequent modification of the physical environment and of society, and man is left without adequate integration. Contemporary civilized man has lost the co-ordination which is one of the normal conditions of biological survival.
This study is addressed to those who feel the need for an interpretation of these symptoms. During the constructive periods of history the dominance of one general tendency ensured the spontaneous co-operation of countless individuals, most of whom were unaware of the broader significance of their actions. They unquestioningly accepted their part in the expansion of empire, the spreading of religion, or the development of science and industry. Such unity of general tendency may perhaps be found now in the peoples of the East, but the inhabitants of Europe and its scattered descendants, who constitute one third of the species, lack either a clear understanding or an unconscious acceptance of their role in history. Today when awareness of the historical trend is indispensable for effective co-ordination the West has no general convictions capable of organizing thought and action. Yet in the past the formulation of an idea has often occurred either prior to, or at the same time as the corresponding social transformation. The fact that the new formulation has not yet appeared suggests that the present changes penetrate so deep that the mind will not discard its anachronistic habits until compelled to do so by a far-going disruption of society, and that this breakdown will continue until man gives in and accepts the new form of thought that is now appropriate.
By regarding man as an organic species we bring to our aid an intellectual discipline which, provided it can properly be applied to the problem, guarantees that we shall not desert the facts and lose ourselves in fantasy. One aspect of our task is the biological diagnosis of contemporary man as influenced by western civilization. More precisely, it is the biological interpretation of the effect on the human hereditary constitution of maturing within a community whose tradition is based on Jewish, Greek, Roman, Christian, and scientific components. It does not represent a new departure for the community to turn to science in broadening its conception of man. As we shall see, the subjective humanist conception of man has for long been supplemented by elements of an objective view drawn from scientific thought. But hitherto this has been done half-heartedly, since European man could not obtain the full benefit of an objective picture of himself without discarding just those cherished illusions which constituted his distinguishing characteristics. The point has now been reached when the continuity of the developing human tradition can only be saved by the establishment of a mode of thought and life more comprehensive than the European and integral with science.
This does not mean that biological science in its present form is to become the arbiter of human development, the community accepting this new authority merely because anything is preferable to uncertainty. Even if biology were ready with answers to the main questions -- which it is not -- the community as a whole would still remain supreme, selecting, often unconsciously, only those ideas which facilitate its own tendencies at any particular time. But if the principles formulated by biological science at any moment are appropriate to man at that particular stage, then sooner or later they will be recognized as valid and be accepted by the community. Many contemporary conflicts which cannot be solved by the subjective approach of religion or of humanist ethics can be transformed into legitimate scientific problems, as has been shown by Marx, Freud, and cognate schools of thought. It might therefore be thought that what is required is to apply the established methods of science, and particularly of biological science, in an attempt to diagnose the state of man regarded as an organic species. This is the superficial doctrine which recognizes the limitations of "economic man," and seeks to substitute "organic man." But mankind will not accept the picture of itself as "organic man," since it does not recognize and therefore cannot facilitate the dominant tendency in human nature.
A scientific conception of man adequate to his present condition can only be established as part of a unified science and this implies a corresponding re-orientation of biological thought. "Organic man" can only provide a complete representation of man if it is assumed that "organism" is a fundamental concept, "life" a system of processes always tending to maintain itself, and "biology" a self-contained science. Otherwise "organic man" is an incomplete conception which must be supplemented with elements drawn from elsewhere. But these assumptions are incorrect. "Organism," as currently understood, means a self-regulating system of processes tending to maintain themselves, i.e. to maintain the life of the individual or species. But the processes of the organism do not of themselves maintain life; without the continuous influence of the environment the internal organic processes cannot sustain life for more than a moment, their tendency being to break down organic material towards more stable states. The concept of organism requires adjustment within some wider conception, just as the concept of life refers to an indefinite range of the continuous series of processes from those of elementary materials to those of the fully developed forms of life. Biology is a study which must call to its aid the techniques of every science and, lacking its own fundamental concepts, must draw these from a universal science.
Normally the organic processes, in their environmental situation, are of a form which tends to maintain life. But this is not their universal and general form; it is only the special form which they acquire in favorable circumstances. The supreme principle or general form displayed in all organic processes cannot be the maintenance of life, any more than the supreme human tendency is the pursuit of happiness. Whatever that supreme principle is, it is such that, while under favorable conditions it leads to the maintenance of life, under other conditions it leads to other and even to opposite results. The single fact of suicide would alone render suspect the narrow concept of "organic man," but this is merely the extreme case of a wide range of types of behavior -- ascetic, idealistic, self-sacrificing, sadistic and masochistic -- which do not promote the maintenance of life. Behind the service of life and behind the pursuit of happiness, lies some more general tendency which alone can provide the clue to man's nature.
The main purpose of this work is to indicate what that tendency is. For the moment I shall assume that the organism is more than organic in the narrower sense, that living processes do not always tend to maintain themselves, and that biological science can only find its proper formulation as a component of the whole of knowledge. Biological processes do not constitute a unique phenomenon, but represent one form of a universal process. This means that man has to be interpreted in the light, not of the science of life, but of a unitary science. The biological diagnosis of contemporary man, which is to serve as the bridge to a new form of thought, thus implies a unitary reorganization of science. Contemporary man can only understand himself by reorganizing his knowledge of nature so that he may recognize himself as part of the system of nature. The process of diagnosing his own condition implies a parallel change in himself and in the organization of his thought. He can only recognize his disease by overcoming it.
Contemporary man is to use science to interpret his own condition and yet to reorganize science in the process of doing so! In so complete a transformation what remains to preserve the integrity and continuity of scientific thought? Science is knowledge in course of organized development. There is no bar to the self-development of science or to its progress into every field while it preserves its single aim: the search for unity in diversity and for continuity in change. Science is the elimination of the arbitrary. An assembly of facts becomes scientific when it is organized as the expression of a single order. Subjective views grow from a single center, and hence they tend to over-simplify and neglect detail; the scientific attitude recognizes the diversity of detail and yet seeks to find a single ordering principle. So long as this balance is maintained science can reorganize itself, enter every field, use material from every source, and apply every available method. There is no distinction between objective and subjective data, or between measurement and classification, which can restrict the scope of scientific method provided that it aims always at the extension of order within the diversity of fact. For example, scientific method can be applied to the question: if there is continuity in organic nature, what has happened to western man and to his thought?
We therefore set out on our task guided by the intellectual search for unity in diversity and continuity in change. Unity and diversity are necessary aspects of any intelligible order. Each term implies the other; unity without diversity is identity, and diversity without unity is chaos. Continuity in change is implied in the idea of process; change is reduced to order when the form of process is recognized. The intellectual search is therefore for unity in diversity and for the form of process. Now the unity of nature may be either in static forms, or in forms of process. We shall see that during its earlier phase the developing intellect was more at home with static forms, and that Plato made this choice definitive for Europe. The form of thought to be developed here treats process as primary, and assumes that the unity of nature lies in the existence of one universal tendency or form of process. The diversity of nature is ascribed to the varied histories and structures of the individual systems in which that universal process is displayed. Nature is a unity of process in a diversity of structures. A system of thought based on this assumption is well adapted to recognize unity without neglect of variety, in nature, in the individual, and in society. It permits all men to be treated as examples of one universal process and thereby as one with the whole of nature, while recognizing each as unique in the form of his long-developed individual structure.
Our task has now become the analysis of the partial failure of organic integration in contemporary man treated as a unique system, subject nevertheless to one universal process. He is continuous with nature, and in particular with organic nature and the neighboring animal species, and yet unique in his own structure. We have to ask: what unique features in his history and therefore in his present adult structure have led to the relative failure of integration in western man? It will also be necessary to consider whether the failure lies in the individual or in the community, if this distinction has any meaning.
What we have called the failure of integration is evidenced in disorganization, frustration, and conflict. But these general terms do not indicate the nature of integration. The integration of an organism consists in the spacing of its structures (cells, tissues, and organs) and the timing of their functions so that a characteristic organic form is maintained and developed. A characteristic organic form is a complex system of processes (including behavior), together with the corresponding organic structures, marking a particular species. The organic form characteristic of man is a complex system of organic processes culminating in the social relations which are maintained and developed by speech and script. This pattern of human processes and behavior implies also a characteristic structure, the human body. The integration of a community consists similarly in the timing of behavior so that the form characteristic of the community, its whole culture, is maintained and developed.
We can neglect the structural or anatomical aspect of integration. For our purpose integration means proper timing, i.e. timing so that characteristic form is maintained and developed. Complete integration is perfect timing. Frustration, conflict, and violence are consequences of bad timing.. From this point of view a par ticular form of behavior is never in itself either good or bad, but only appears so in a given setting. Every process, function, and form of behavior has its time; particular occasions may or may not be appropriate. Every animal movement depends on the correct timing of a complex system of neuro-muscular processes. The physiological processes which inhibit other instinctive tendencies while one instinct is dominant achieve the co-ordination of behavior by maintaining a time-schedule appropriate to the changing situation. Similarly the organizing principles of the human tradition, whether derived from custom, religion, or ethics, are rules of timing which, by operating an orchestra of processes of facilitation and inhibition, authorize the executive organs to do various things at the appropriate times. The efficacy of such principles is measured by the degree of individual and social harmony which they produce, such harmony being evidenced in the maintenance and development of a social form characteristic of the community. The subject of this work is the disorganization, or lack of timing, which has resulted in the failure of European and western society to continue to develop its characteristic form.
We are now confronted with a peculiar difficulty. We have formulated a problem of organic integration, but there is no recognized method with which it can be attacked. There does not as yet exist any intellectual method or system of thought for treating the integration of organic systems. Experimental biology has insufficient evidence of the way in which organic processes are co-ordinated and theoretical biology has no method appropriate to the problem. For more than two thousand years thought has mainly relied on methods of thought which assume that the apparent confusion of natural processes must be reduced to order by analyzing from every process component parts which are permanent and unchanging. From long habit thought tends to beg the question, and to assume the necessity of this demand for static parts as the ultimate elements of structure. The structure of an organism has then to be regarded as an assembly of such parts, and the fact of integration, being denied at the start, becomes an insoluble problem. This difficulty must sooner or later be resolved by a more general scientific method reconciling two sets of facts: those which have been successfully described in terms of independent and relatively static atoms, tissues, or organs, and their changing relations, and those other facts connected with the development of organic form which are covered by the term integration. But we cannot wait for that authoritative reconciliation, and must proceed without it.
There is a method by which the most stubborn problem can be overcome, if one is ready to pay the price. Goethe expressed it by saying that "the greatest art in theoretical and practical life consists in changing the problem into a postulate; that way one succeeds." The art lies in seeing the problem to have been the result of an unsuitable approach and in transforming the system 0f thought so that new vistas are opened up and new facts brought within its scope. Our problem is the description, in terms of component parts, of the fact of integration. This problem is insoluble within the frame of contemporary scientific thought. The fact of integration, i.e. the development of organic form, is certain. It is equally certain that this fact can never be explained by a system of thought which is based on the assumption that the ultimate elements of structure are permanent, static, independent parts. Only one possibility remains: since the analytical method cannot account for the fact of integration, a new method must be tried which starts from this fact and uses it to explain the apparent existence of static parts. The problem of integration is converted into the postulate of integration. But the development of organic form must be treated as a special case of the development of form in general, including inorganic form. The postulate of the new form of thought is therefore:
Process consists in the development of form, when circumstances
permit. This fact must be represented in the general form of natural
law and does not require explanation.
I shall call this the unitary postulate and method, thereby distinguishing it from what I call the analytical method, which assumes the existence of static, permanent, component parts. Unitary thought is a special form of monism, which discovers the unity of nature in one universal process. The unitary postulate asserts that thought has to proceed by recognizing the general form of process, and using it to account for details of structure, in contrast to the analytical method which implicitly assumes the reality of permanent particles of substance or the like and then seeks to explain the existence and development of form. On the unitary view the development of form is the primary characteristic of all natural processes and must be represented in the general form of all thought. The development of form is not postulated as an arbitrary choice by unitary thought, but is implicit in the form of its basic concepts. But this system of thought has then to be applied to account for the frequent failure of integration and destruction of form, and for the cumulative success of the analytical method.
The concept of substance has failed to account for form; a concept of the development of form has now to account for the partial success of the concept of substance.
For certain purposes the two methods may be regarded as complementary methods of research appropriate to the representation of complementary aspects of nature. The analytical method studies permanence and conservation, the unitary method development. But this dualism can only be provisional; the two methods are mutually exclusive, and nothing is gained from the unitary method if at the outset it discards the demand for unity. I assert the truth of the unitary postulate. The analytical method has to its credit the cumulative achievements of more than two thousand years of thought and experiment, yet it cannot account for the development of form. It was developed first because, as we shall see, it corresponded to the structure of thought during one stage of the development of the mind. But the unitary method is logically the more general and as yet almost untried. It is possible that the unitary method can, owing to its greater generality, account for the success of the analytical method, while the reverse is not possible. Moreover I assert, though I cannot justify it here, that the unitary postulate represents the minimum that is presupposed in the use of reason; it is the irreducible assumption necessary to make the real rational.
The unitary postulate is the appropriate expression today of the unending search for unity in diversity. It seeks to go to the root of all confusions, and by bringing logic into conformity with experienced fact to form a cosmos from chaos. It provides the basis of a complete system of thought, not of static categories abstracted from nature, but in conformity with the system of natural processes of which thought itself is part. Moreover, as we shall see, it is adapted, as was the analytical method, for use by a particular kind of man living a particular mode of life. The unitary postulate is not one of several possible methods of equal status. It is the only method which is now appropriate; it is as necessary to contemporary man as the assumption of the quantitative space-time frame was to Cartesian man.
The postulate undercuts assumptions implicit in much of the thought of recent centuries. If the universal form of process displays the asymmetry between earlier and later states which is implied in the development of form, then all philosophical and scientific terms have to be reconsidered. None of the philosophical arguments which assume static concepts can challenge the unitary postulate on its own ground. If such conceptions as causality, teleology, perception, knowledge, and truth are to be retained in unitary thought, their meanings must undergo modification.
It might be thought that so general a postulate could have little bearing on the problems of the contemporary world. The moments are rare when speculative generalizations can throw light on the complex processes of society. This is only possible when new forms in process of development which impose themselves on the thought of individuals are so far in advance of the recognized methods of thought that they appear to be mere speculation. If the unitary postulate appears to be arbitrary speculation then this is one of those rare moments. On similar occasions in the past a new religious, political, or economic conception gave man a novel view of himself which facilitated his further development. Today a postulate concerning nature as a whole can provide man with a conception of himself as part of nature and hence also with an interpretation of his present condition. The present confusion in knowledge and behavior is closely related to the deep-lying errors of analytical thought. Ideas are never the sole cause of social changes, but thought is part of the social process and may facilitate or inhibit its development. Analytical thought was appropriate to a stage of development which is now over, or will be as soon as the unitary method is adequately formulated and applied. That, at least, is my argument. I can see no alternative to the unitary postulate which can rival either its potential power or its timeliness. The proper formulation and general application of unitary thought may prove to be one of the necessary conditions for the reorganization of knowledge and of society which must follow the failure of the West.
So long as integration remains merely an unsolved problem of analytical thought it is impossible to discover the reason for the partial failure of integration in civilized man. But if the tendency of systems to develop their characteristic forms is treated as the expression of a normal property of natural processes, then it may be possible to find the reason for its failure in particular cases. Our approach to the diagnosis of contemporary man therefore takes the following shape: we assume that the tendency to develop form is universal, that organic integration is an expression of this general tendency, that the development of society is a process continuous with organic nature and the animal world, and that the partial failure of integration in contemporary civilized man is a process requiring special explanation.
There are many dangers in the use of a unitary system of thought based on a conception of development. Systems which deny ultimate dualism tend to neglect the complexity of fact. Dualistic modes of thought have the advantage of automatically providing means for expressing the subtle antitheses and polarities which refute every crude simplification. A unitary system can only be safeguarded against over-simplification, and can only provide a reliable approach to human nature, if its central principle is one which invites caution, always stimulates consideration of the complementary thesis, and denies the ultimate validity of all sharp categories. We shall see that these conditions are satisfied by the unitary method.
But a more serious danger awaiting any general philosophy of development is the opportunity it offers for facile misinterpretation as an optimistic doctrine of moral progress. It may seem improbable, as these words are being written, that any such optimism could arise. It may even appear daring to offer a general postulate of development at the moment of Europe's greatest agony. But the more cruel the world, the greater the temptation to escape it in thought, and it is disquieting to consider the intensity of optimism which, failing the proper catharsis of constructive action, may shortly be necessary to deaden the pains that are now scarring the memory of the race. More probable, perhaps, than the rejection of a principle of development is its acclamation as a guarantee of what each individual, chooses to understand by progress. But a concept of development which denies permanence and permits no flattery of the individual as conscious subject is too austere to encourage runaway optimism in those who understand it. The ideas with which we are concerned have no direct relation either to "moral progress," or to any particular system of moral standards. The processes of history cannot be seen in their true shape if approached with moral ideas or ideals. The moments of greatness in the history of a people, as in the life of an individual, are those in which all its processes are fused in a whole-natured action by which it transforms its own situation and outgrows its ideals.
Unitary thought must accompany such a transformation and thereby achieve a vantage point from which it is possible to look back on the history of Europe with greater objectivity and understanding so that a reliable diagnosis of the present becomes possible. This implies an unhesitating step into a new world of thought and a transvaluation of values in which the conception of value is itself transformed. The unitary method demands a price. In denying separation and permanence it robs the rich of the illusion that power can be accumulated and preserved, the adherents of the Christian religion of their assurance of personal survival, and the humanists of their over-emphasis on the subjective aspects of personality. The unitary method helps us to understand Europe because its application implies the appearance of a new type of man who has emancipated himself from the characteristically European prejudices and illusions.
The story of Europe and the West has been richer than that of any other civilization, as is fitting since it is a phase not of a local cycle but of the general development of man. In Europe we see the spirit of man living in this world and yet aspiring; striving to escape the sordid and restricted into the open, free, and generous life; opening its eyes to facts and yet saying yea to life; refusing imprisonment either in the world as it is or in dreams of another world; living and dying for illusions, but achieving greatness; separating the ideal and the real and so impelled to perpetual creation in its desire to recombine them; and finally frustrated because its pride blinded it to the changes proceeding within itself. The European soul was dual, and perpetually aspired to bring together again the ideal and the real which it had separated. This quality of aspiration is as valid a component in the story of Europe as is the setting of sordid frustration from which it sprang, and here again the dualism is inherent in the European psyche. Aspiration and frustration are the complementary facets of the unique quality of Europe. Asia aspired less and therefore experienced less frustration; the New World was less frustrated and therefore aspired less. The impulse to develop which reveals itself in this dual experience of yearning and frustration is Europe's special contribution to the species, the result, we must believe, of its unique geography. My subject is the past and the immediate future of this unique type of man which has left all others behind in the differentiation of his faculties and in the development of knowledge and power. It may be regarded as a study of the development of European man and unitary man, these being both potentially complete types of men, while western man, who represents the transition from one to the other, is a creature of disorganization and unbalance, lacking characteristic integrity.
Though it is not my intention to enter here into the metaphysics or aesthetics of social development, there is one issue which must be faced if we are to approach the story of Europe unhampered by nostalgic regret. The reader who does not love Europe will not understand me; nor will the European who clings to the burden of his sense of loss. The only true European today is one who recognizes that the old values are no longer valid and is occupied in transmuting them within himself so that Europe may find herself again within a new and universal community. Whoever weeps for the old world justifies the gangster who asserts that the spirit of man is effete and the game open to revenge and hate.
When a great ideal has ceased to illuminate the human understanding and has therefore lost its power, man has no choice but to search afresh for some element in the processes of the real world with which he can identify himself. At such a moment men may believe that they have lost something beyond price, for a grand vision has faded into despair and self-assurance given place to the humiliation of man's inability to understand himself. Yet the loss of what has been found to be only a beautiful illusion may leave the way clear for the discovery of a new course of development. There is no persistence in complete despair; when the guiding theme of any field of activity has gone beyond hope, the formative processes immediately begin to shape the new course. The change may have been long prepared, but dominance is single and until the old has gone the new cannot take its place. The change cannot come until neither loyalty to the old nor fear of the new can longer delay it.
Such a transformation is all the more difficult because it seems to require the greater to be exchanged for the less. Each real advance is paid for by aiming at less in order to achieve more. The crucial step cannot be taken until men are ready to choose the less which can be realized in place of the more which had remained a dream. But this apparent narrowing of the aim is illusory and expresses merely a failure of the language of idealism. Aims and ideals represent the demand of man for fixed directions within the course of his development. It may seem that a proud ideal has to be replaced by a humbler, when in fact man may be learning to live without any ideal other than readiness to follow the course proper to his condition. To seek better ideals for the future is to try to measure the new in terms of the old and to prejudice what is still undeveloped. Later stages in the development of man cannot be interpreted through the ideas of earlier times, but thought as it matures can look back and achieve an increasing understanding of the past. In doing so we shall find that the grandeur of Europe sprang from a source that is not yet exhausted. European civilization embraced man's greatest achievements and his ugliest conflicts; its richness and scope were unique. But the tradition has lost its power, and its disorganization has infected the world. This process cannot be understood either as progress or as reaction; better and worse are terms which apply to details within the changing structure and cannot describe the development of the whole.
This book is neither an argument to convince, nor an exhortation to action; as an argument it is far from complete, and unitary action is not furthered by exhortation. It is the assertion of a personal conviction, the manifesto of an irresponsible and self-justifying adventure. But I believe it to be well timed. I have more confidence that these ideas, in so far as I have been able to express them, have been molded by a universal situation than I have in any personal ability to influence men or events. Change is inevitable, and the proper result of an improved understanding of the world is to facilitate those changes which are proper to man's nature. If the unitary method is now appropriate, this formulation, however faulty, will help to do that. In any case I honor Europe's long struggle for the right of the individual to develop his own form of life and thought, and I can help to preserve that right by using it. The expression of a personal conviction is no less proper because every formulation must eventually prove inadequate. What I assert is not the transcendental truth of what follows, but that it is a component of the developing truth, what I can discern of the form of truth which is appropriate to the present condition of man.
The main theme of the book is the conviction that nature is a system of formative processes, that the static concepts and dualisms of other systems of thought represent aspects of nature which are secondary to this basic form, and that this principle can be applied to the diagnosis of the condition of a society which is suffering from its failure to recognize it.
The unitary system of thought has three main characteristics which distinguish it from many other systems: it deals with the form of systems rather than with their component parts; it recognizes a process of development as prior to the apparently static aspects of nature; and it is unitary, emphasizing one general form beneath all apparent dualisms.
In this introduction I have endeavored to give the reader a conception of the scope and method of the book. Its form is peculiar since in one work I have attempted both to outline a new method of thought and to apply it to the interpretation of certain aspects of European history. This was necessary because only a historical analysis, using the method, could explain why thought had developed so long without it and why it is appropriate today. But it means that an outline of the method must be given before the historical interpretation can be undertaken. Since we have to avoid the pitfalls and dualisms of the idealistic and materialistic views, it is necessary to build up what is in effect a new language free from alien implications. Chapter II therefore introduces the reader to this language by examining certain aspects of development in inorganic and organic systems. (The evolution of species is excluded, as a process of a different type.) This provides both an exercise in the method and a description of certain general tendencies which run through the sequence of the increasingly complex systems of the organic world to find their most developed expression in man. Though this chapter deals primarily with systems which are less complex than man, all the ideas treated are relevant to the understanding of nature, and therefore of man.
Chapter III applies the conceptions of unitary thought developed in the previous chapter to the definition of the features which distinguish homo sapiens from other organic species. The unitary conception of man which is thus obtained at once facilitates his development and sets limits to it. Two types of man are discussed: integrated man in general, and civilized man suffering from the disharmony which I call the European dissociation.
Up to this point we have been concerned with a general descriptive approach to nature and to man. Chapters IV and V apply these ideas to the interpretation of the historical development of European man. While the hereditary constitution remains relatively constant, the developing social tradition impresses a corresponding form of mental organization on the individuals of each generation, and the changing form of this organization is traced in outline from primitive and ancient man to the establishment of European man. This provides a biological and historical interpretation of the development of the European dissociation.
Chapter VI continues the story from A.D. 1600 when the discovery of the principle of quantity as a method of research opened the modern age and set in motion the changes which led finally to the collapse of the European tradition. The exploitation of the quantitative method, the development of objective elements in man's conception of himself, the decline of subjective humanism and rationalism, the recent dominance of action and experience over thought and understanding, and the disintegration of the old Europe under a bestial tyranny -- these processes are interpreted as inseparable aspects of one general transformation in progress in European and western man.
Chapter VII treats the history of the twentieth century in greater detail, in order to permit a close estimate of the stage now reached in the forties. This analysis leads to the conclusion that the past history and present state of society permit the recognition of a continuous process leading on through an immediate reorganization of the social tradition to the further maturing of potentialities still latent in man's hereditary constitution. There is no evidence of regression or of any inherent lack in the human stock which might prevent further social development.
No study even of the most general aspects of the European story could be adequate which neglected to emphasize the role of special individuals within the social process. Chapters VIII and IX attempt an epitome of the changing mental organization of European man, in the form of a series of thumb-nail sketches of representative thinkers. Nine figures are selected, from Heraclitus to Freud, to illustrate the continuous development of the structure of European thought, and where appropriate a suggestion is given of the personal response of each to the role which he found was his.
Implicit in the argument up to this point has been the conception of a new type of man following on European and western man and using the unitary system of thought. Chapter X outlines the main characteristics of this unitary man, using unitary thought to describe unitary man's conception of himself. This chapter is general and descriptive rather than historical.
But it is a characteristic of unitary man that he seeks to identify the forms in development around him. The picture of unitary man is incomplete without a description of the societies which he recognizes in development in the different continents. In Chapter XI an attempt is therefore made to describe what unitary man of the middle 1940s can recognize of the world trend of the coming decades, both in thought and in social organization. To the European and western mind this chapter is prophetic; to the unitary mind it is the extension into the immediate future of the secular continuity of development which he recognizes in world history. This degree of rational anticipation is normal to unitary man, for without it he cannot act so as to facilitate the proper development of society.
The form of the book, as an exercise in the method of thought which it asserts is now appropriate, has an important advantage. The reader who follows the argument as far as Chapter X will already have experienced something of the mental attitude of unitary man. Moreover the reader who accepts the picture of unitary man as potentially valid for himself will inevitably play his role in facilitating the development of unitary society.
The book closes with a postscript on the scope and limitations of the social development which lies ahead and the different attitudes which the individual may adopt towards it.
II
Development
A unitary method of thought is indispensable to the interpretation of European history. The pervasive dualisms which distort the thought of western man are an element in his general condition, which therefore must be diagnosed in a language which does not take these dualisms for granted. No interpretation of European man in traditional European terms can bring the truth to light, any more than the color-blind can know their own deficiency. A language is needed that does not beg all the questions on which the European mind has long been made up. This language must express a form of reasoning based on unitary premises. A new and more general concept of man, capable of throwing light on the peculiarities of European and western man, can only spring from a new concept of nature.
The intellectual system introduced in this chapter may be regarded as a special development of the English language, a general method of thought, a philosophy, or the anticipation of a new kind of law of nature. The languages which contemporary western communities have inherited carry implicit assumptions regarding the general form of nature, and one of the main tasks of unitary thought is to bring these out and to show where they are invalid. This demonstration would be of small importance if it were an arbitrary or isolated intellectual analysis. If dualistic thought were still appropriate, the formulation of unitary thought would achieve little. But if the further development of man can only be guided by unitary thought, then one of those rare moments has arrived when an intellectual system may appear to have the power to influence men's habits. For the change from dualistic to unitary thought can only be accepted by a community which is already in course of a corresponding but more general transformation.
Unitary thought claims to offer a way of thinking which, when developed, will facilitate correct inference about everything. If the method is applied with understanding and without prejudice it will eventually lead to correct inference. Moreover if nature has the general form postulated in unitary thought, then certain conclusions follow at once regarding the human species, the history of man and the state of contemporary man. Unitary thought is a guide to correct thought because it organizes knowledge in conformity with the forms of nature. Knowledge is already vast, and more than ample for the solution of many pressing problems. Unitary thought provides that minor but all-important re-orientation which eliminates the prejudice that has hitherto obscured our vision of the facts. A slight change of position and the interrelations of everything are transformed so that a simple order is revealed.
My purpose here is to apply that re-orientation to the interpretation of certain aspects of the history of Europe and the West. I must therefore develop the language of unitary thought before coming to grips with the main task. All readers may not welcome so radical an approach, and a more superficial interpretation may be obtained by passing directly to Chapter III or Chapter IV. On the other hand anyone who wishes to convince himself of the self-consistency of unitary thought can use the Appendix as a supplement to the present chapter. There he will find a glossary of the primary concepts of unitary thought arranged in logical sequence.
We are now to look below the traditional frame of thought. An ancient prejudice has been discarded and nature guides the forms of our thought so that her own forms may be seen as they are. There is no finality in the development of thought, but here is the vision appropriate to our desperate need. We open our minds to a new vista of forms. Regions that have seemed to be separated by a metaphysical abyss are now rediscovered in their true unity. The complete view of nature revealed by these symbols must wait. First we must understand ourselves and our fall from organic harmony and undivided thought.
Here an old tradition has developed into a new form, more universal and, though unitary, more generous to diversity. The old tradition had control of the reader's mind during the many years of his immaturity; it may have left him with some of the conflicts and confusions that arise from its prejudiced and dualistic approach. If he gives as many hours to the restoring influence of unitary thought, I believe that those difficulties will begin to disappear. None of us can escape the desire for unity; a unitary mode of thought can facilitate its development.
It is for the sake of this emancipation that man's deep preference for the static must be overcome. Heraclitus, Goethe, Hegel, and Marx have shown the way, but the world they saw was not ours. Each age must meet its challenge alone. The old gods are dead, and men like those that created them are no longer to be found. But decay has renewed the soil and we now enter on fresh ground, the world of unitary man.
OUTLINE OF UNITARY THOUGHT
Change is universal. Permanent elements may appear to challenge it, but they have no lasting substance. Yet change is not arbitrary. The future unfolds continuously out of the present. Earlier and later states do not confront each other as the senseless juxtaposition of one chaos beside another, but are linked by similarities which pervade change. This meaningful order underlying change is realized as a continuity in the sequence of change. In so far as change reveals this continuity and is not arbitrary, it is called 'process.' *
* Each of the main concepts of unitary thought is printed in italics
when the argument reaches it. A sequence of definitions is given in
the Appendix.
Moreover this continuity is universal and constitutes the unifying order which can be recognized throughout the diversity of all particular changes. This comprehensive unity is called 'nature.' Nature is continuity in change, and unity in diversity, But nature can only be recognized in particular processes and the characteristic of any particular process by which its continuity is reognized is called its 'form.' Form is the recognizable continuity of any process. In the limiting case when change vanishes, only approached towards the absolute zero of temperature, the form of the process becomes the perfect symmetry of a static pattern. Some forms may appear to be static, but they none the less partake in the processes of the whole. A process is fully identified when its form is recognized. The interpretation of human history, for example, consists in the identification of the continuity, or form, of the process, either in general outline or in detail.
Any process which displays one general form of continuity is called 'unitary,' whereas a process which appears to display two incompatible forms is called 'dualistic.' "Unitary" means of one general form, and "dualistic" of two mutually exclusive forms.
A unitary system of thought is a universal system based on a single concept of the form of process, and is the form of thought which is now appropriate. Unitary thought is not a completed organization of established fact. It is the continuing activity of recognizing one universal form within the diversity of particular processes.
But a unitary system of thought was not possible during the first phase of the systematization of thought. We shall see that man was then bound to seek continuity in the form not of process but of permanence, and that in doing so he separated himself as subject from the rest of nature as object and so divided the continuity of process into two incompatible forms: conscious purpose and material necessity. The source of this dualism did not lie in any general characteristic of nature, but in the temporary conditions which caused man to seek a static permanence, both in his individual life and in the words used to express his thought. We shall see that these conditions played a special role in the development, dominance, and final disintegration of European man. Moreover it is the passing of these conditions which now makes it possible to recognize the unitary form lying behind the dualism of purpose and necessity.
But man can no longer maintain his separation as subject from the objective nature which is now the field of such intensive study. The recognition of a single form underlying purpose and necessity will make possible the reconciliation of subjective experience and objective knowledge. During the dualistic period which we are about to study, thought tended to display either a subjective or an objective bias. On the one hand, believing that conscious purpose directed his own life, man could discover purpose at work in the rest of nature. This view led to an emphasis on one dominant tendency, and hence to over-simplification and neglect of detail. On the other hand, where man's attention was drawn to the diversity of the detail of natural processes he tended to emphasize the material permanence of the atomic mechanisms by which that diversity could be explained. The first view stresses the unity of process leading, apparently, to a preconceived end, and the second the atoms of permanent substance of which it seemed that the diversity of nature was composed. Both views were mistaken, though appropriate at the time. There is no uni- vesal preconceived end, and there are no permanent material parts with constant identity. These conceptions no longer provide an adequate clue to the form of the continuity of process. Static aims and static particles, however subtle their interplay, cannot represent the more general form of process which man can now identify. The need for a comprehensive conception of process has been recognized for two centuries in historical and biological thought. But only now, with the passing of the conditions which created European man, has its formulation become possible in a unitary system of thought capable of providing the basis of a unitary science.
Process consists in the 'development' of form by the decrease of asymmetry. Development is decrease of asymmetry. In simple processes development is unmistakable as the separation, persistence, and extension of symmetrical form.
This process of development is universal; it is the form of the order of nature. But it has to be discovered within processes which appear to display conservation, decay, or confusion, rather than development. The task of unitary thought is to discover the decrease of asymmetry in nature. Where contrary processes appear to be at work, this illusion is due to the faulty separation of a particular process from the wider processes to which it belongs.
>> cf. asymmetry <--> entropy
The decrease of asymmetry can already he recognized in four different types of process which may be called molecular development, mechanical development, statistical development, and organic development. Two of these do not concern us here: mechanical development, in which separate objects move towards a symmetrical equilibrium state (of minimum potential energy), as in the pendulum; and statistical development, where the individual forms cannot be traced but there is a general process of evening out in which each part displays increasing conformity with the whole (increasing entropy), as in the conduction or radiation of heat or electricity. Each of these forms of development may be locally reversed in the development of a wider process. The increasing conformity of statistical processes often overrides the local development of form.
The other two types of development are more relevant to the general characteristics of man. Molecular development, though apparently unrelated to social history, is important because it illustrates certain general characteristics of the unitary process which are essential to the understanding of man. Organic development provides the main subject of this chapter, because it covers the special case of the social development of man, including the history of European and western man.
Molecular and organic development present a fundamental contrast. Molecular development is the separation, persistence, and extension of symmetrical forms, such as molecules and crystals, which can change no further and are therefore relatively static, and, within limits, stable. Organic development, in the individual organism, is a complex process which never reaches complete and static symmetry, but continues as the development of process forms. Within the system of the organism no complete separation of symmetrical form is possible, and the extension of existing structures by the orientation of new molecules always remains subject to the pattern of the whole organism. Inanimate molecular processes lead to static symmetrical patterns, but organic processes never get so far and continue to develop as the processes of the living body, until the life-sustaining conditions fail and the processes lose their organic character and culminate in the static symmetry of inanimate forms.
The source of this contrast lies in the different degree of complexity of the two types of process. Process is always the decrease of asymmetry. Where this comes about by the separating out of a simple static form, the process has the unmistakable character of the development of symmetry. In such molecular development, process is in a limited sense teleological, for it leads to a relatively isolated, definite form. But where such separation cannot occur, the process of development consists in the mutual adjustments of the parts of a complex system, as, for example, an organism and its environment. Here no static equilibrium is reached, but there is a developing process equilibrium within the system as a whole. The processes of the organism and of the environment are in equilibrium, and life is stable, within limits. But in this process of organic development there is no close approach to complete symmetry. Form is developed, in the symmetry not of static form but of processes in equilibrium. Organic development is not teleological, but is a process of continuing adjustment.
In the simpler case of molecular systems, simple static forms separate themselves out, and in doing so tend to perfect their symmetry, to become stable, and to persist. The molecules of the growing crystal separate out from the solution and settle into their stable pattern on the crystal face. If conditions permit, the process is repeated and the form grows. In this case development consists in the separation, persistence, and extension of static forms. This process is seen not only in crystallization and the formation of inorganic molecules, but also in the reproduction of molecular units of organic origin (polymerization; protein synthesis; the multiplication of genes, and possibly of viruses and enzymes; and the growth of the cellulose walls of plants).
These examples of the tendency for asymmetrical forms to become more symmetrical illustrate the universal form of process. Asymmetry tends to decrease and may therefore be regarded as the source of process. "C'est la dyssym�trie qui cr�e le ph�nom�ne." (Curie.) In simple situations process is the separation, persistence, and extension of form. But separation is never complete, form is never perfect, process is universal, and the development of any particular system may be reversed in the course of the development of a larger system.
Unitary thought uses the term 'formative' to describe the character of a process of development, "developmental" being reserved for organic formative processes. Whatever displays development, whether in process, arrested, or completed, is called a system. The process of the development of a system, which occurs if it is compatible with the processes of the larger systems of which the system is a part, is called its 'tendency.' Every system displays a formative tendency, which is realized if it is consistent with the tendencies of all the larger systems of which it is a part. Unitary thought remains speculative until it can determine which tendencies are realized where the tendencies of two or more systems are incompatible.
The method rests on one idea, the conception of a universal process of development in which asymmetry decreases. We have now to see how the basic concepts of a general system of thought can be developed from this one fundamental conception by applying it to special situations.
When any simple molecular system (such as a crystal) separates out from its matrix, and approaches complete symmetry, no further change occurs, and the system is stable. Such an internally developed, symmetrical system is called a 'structure.' All crystals and stable molecules are structures. But such structures are still part of the system from which they separated out, and if conditions permit, the asymmetry between the structure and its matrix will decrease through the further growth of the structure. Thus structures tend to develop externally, i.e. to extend their form, by a repetition of the process by which they were originally formed. A crystal tends to grow by a repetition of the process of crystallization by which it was formed; in doing so, the asymmetry of the larger system is lessened. A structure is thus a system which is internally developed, is stable, and tends to develop externally. But separation is never complete, structure is never static, and the concept of structure is valid only where the process of the whole can be neglected. There are no categories in unitary thought which can challenge the universality of process. There is no sharp division between structure and process, because structure is a limiting case of process.
We have now reached a conception which is of importance for the understanding of all organization, such as is displayed, for example, in the human body or in human society. Though this conception arises first in the simpler processes of inanimate systems, it finds its ultimate application in the processes of human thought. We have seen that the presence of a crystal nucleus in a solution promotes the process of crystallization, or, more generally, that the presence of a structure furthers the repetition of the process by which it was formed. This phenomenon may be regarded either as the external extension of an existing symmetrical form, or as an internal decrease of asymmetry in the wider system of the structure plus its environment. The external development of a smaller system is here identical with the internal development of a larger system. But the larger and smaller systems are not on a par. The crystal, or structure, is an already stabilized structure of a given pattern, and the presence of this established pattern is often decisive in determining the development of the larger system.
This situation is of great importance and is called 'facilitation.' Facilitation is the tendency of structures to extend their form by repetition of the process by which they were formed. A structure is said to facilitate a process, if the tendency of the structure to develop externally implies the recurrence of that process. Thus all structures facilitate the processes which develop them, though this tendency will not always be realized. Crystals facilitate their own growth; molecular units, such as genes, facilitate the process of their own multiplication; cellulose plant walls facilitate their own growth; organic tissues and organs (though they are not fully developed static structures) facilitate the repetition of processes which develop them. The records of memory and the verbal symbols of conceptual thought (though not isolable as separate structures) behave as structures in facilitating the repetition of the mental processes by which they were formed. Ideas facilitate the patterns of behavior to which they correspond. In general, the formative process tends to develop structures which facilitate further development. Process has a self-developing tendency; it facilitates its own development.
It is convenient sometimes to emphasize the fact that every structure provides evidence of the form of the process by which it was formed, by calling it a 'record.' Every crystal constitutes a record of the fact that sometime in the past a formative process of a given type took place. But the term will be extended to include the organic tissues, organs, memory patterns, and words which, though they are not developed static structures, constitute records of the past processes by which they were formed, and facilitate their repetition. A record is thus a process or structure which preserves the form of, and facilitates the repetition of the process by which it was formed. Crystals, genes, organs, and words are all records which facilitate the recurrence of the past processes which they record.
The fact of facilitation underlies all order in nature and all organization in organic nature. If systems did not facilitate their own development there would be chaos. The concept of facilitation asserts that the universe is a cosmos in which there is the degree of ordered unity which is implied in the existence not only of discrete physical systems with definite characteristics, but of organisms and of thinking organisms. Without the fact of facilitation there would be no reason for anything to happen here rather than there. But as things are, if there is a crystal here, then at its surface there is a tendency for a particular process to occur, and, if conditions are favorable, the process of crystallization will continue, not in a haphazard manner, but just where the structure of the nucleus facilitates it. But the existence of this tendency does not imply the presence of some special cause such as a physical field of force, but merely that this is how things do in fact happen. "Physical causes" in general, and "fields of force" in particular, are provisional methods of thought which lose any claim to independent reality once the way things happen can be described in a unitary manner.
Facilitation contains an important asymmetry. The record of the past tends to determine the present; the already formed crystal nucleus influences the present process of crystallization. This asymmetrical relation is called 'dominance.' Dominance is the relation of a structure (or a record) to the process which it facilitates. It has no ethical or moral implications. A system of processes connected by relations of dominance is called a 'hierarchy.' A complete hierarchy of processes is a hierarchy in which one process is dominant to all others, and this is the simplest form of organization. Biological and social organization is largely hierarchical. The recognition of a hierarchy does not imply a relative valuation of its elements.
In the concept of hierarchy we have reached the point where this outline of unitary thought passes from general situations to those only found in the organic world. The terms: development, formative, system, tendency, structure, facilitation, record, and dominance, apply to the formative process in all its forms. A hierarchy is a system of processes of a kind hitherto only identified in organisms and groups of organisms. The following development of unitary thought is concerned mainly with organisms in their environments, the extension of unitary thought to cover the properties of inorganic systems being reserved for consideration elsewhere, as is also the process of the selective evolution of species.
The system 'organism-environment' is marked by an oscillating equilibrium between two sets of processes: the processes of a hierarchical system (the organism) and those of the wider system (organism and environment) of which it is part. The result of this oscillating equilibrium is the development of an organic process form characteristic of the organism. The internal tendencies of every organism, if isolated, lead to its disintegration. But the processes of the wider system sustain and modify those internal tendencies by "nourishing" them and gradually increasing the mutual conformity of organism and environment. This increasing mutual conformity of organism and environment is called "adaptation" to, or "mastery" of the environment by the organism. "Life" is the formative tendency in the system organism-environment which maintains the organism and heightens its conformity to the environment through the processes of nourishment and adaptation. But this life-maintaining formative tendency is in conflict with the inner tendencies of the organism, which, if isolated, will in a few moments develop some parts of the organic system into the static patterns of the inanimate.+ To maintain life is to anrrest the development of each component process in the organism by sustaining it within the complex hierarchy of the whole, which in turn is sustained by the processes of the environment. Isolation is death; life is the developing conformity of the whole.