GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THE ETHICS OF SOCRATES AND PLATO 53
draw attention to the obvious fact that a picture is more
than the sum-total of the chemically analysable canvas
and paints which are used in its production; that a
movement of a sonata is more than the sum-total of the
vibrations in the atmosphere which are set going by the
impact of the hammers upon the wires of the piano; and
that a living organism is more than the sum-total of
the various organs and functions which constitute its
body, and which physiologists describe. The picture, the
movement, and the living organism are all of them brought
into being by the assemblage of their "parts", but they
are in a very real sense more than that assemblage.
I have said that they are brought into being by the
assemblage of their "parts", yet there are some wholes
which seem actually to precede their "parts". If I may
be permitted to quote an illustration, which is given in
my Guide to Philosophy, let us take as an example the policy
of a Socialist Government.
A Socialist Government committed to a scheme of
Socialist reconstruction is, we will suppose, elected to
power. It proceeds to take over the banks, to nationalise
coal, transport, and cotton, to establish a National Investment
Board. All these measures may, from one point of
view, be considered as separate, although related, governmental
acts. From another and more fruitful point of view,
they are the expressions of an underlying policy. Here, we
of the Socialist
may say, is the fundamental ground plan
conception of society pervading and determining the character
of all that
immanent in all
the Government docs. It is, therefore,
that the Government does. If we were
ignorant of the ground plan, we should, perhaps, be
unable to understand the interrelation between the various
measures undertaken by the Government. It is only when
they are regarded as items in the execution of a policy
which is prior to, is immanent in, and yet transcends
them, that tjieir mutual relevance can be grasped. Never-
theless, though ignorant of the ground plan, we might, if
we were sufficiently expert politically or endowed with