Post 23539
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This conception of the nature and genesis of life is bound to be challenged by modern physical science, which, for the most part, sees in biology only a phase of physics; but the philosophic mind and the trained literary mind will find in “Creative Evolution” a treasure-house of inspiring ideas, and engaging forms of original artistic expression. As Mr. Balfour says, “M. Bergson’s ‘Evolution Créatrice’ is not merely a philosophical treatise, it has all the charm and all the audacities of a work of art, and as such defies adequate reproduction.”
It delivers us from the hard mechanical conception of determinism, or of a closed universe which, like a huge manufacturing plant, grinds out vegetables and animals, minds and spirits, as it grinds out rocks and soils, gases and fluids, and the inorganic compounds.
With M. Bergson, life is the flowing metamorphosis of the poets,–an unceasing becoming,–and evolution is a wave of creative energy overflowing through matter “upon which each visible organism rides during the short interval of time given it to live.” In his view, matter is held in the iron grip of necessity, but life is freedom itself. “Before the evolution of life … the portals of the future remain wide open. It is a creation that goes on forever in virtue of an initial movement. This movement constitutes the unity of the organized world–a prolific unity, of an infinite richness, superior to any that the intellect could dream of, for the intellect is only one of its aspects or products.”