An Introduction to a Biology 



sopher that he must take into account the essential facts of 

 life, and especially the phenomenon of the growth of life 

 from its birth on this planet — the phenomenon, namely, of 

 evolution. But M. Bergson does more than this : he is the 

 first philosopher to insist that the philosopher must take 

 into consideration that mass of theory and fact which we 

 call Science. 



Kant, it is true, insisted on the absolute necessity of a 

 familiarity with Science to the philosopher. But Science to 

 Kant meant only mathematical science. From Kant's time 

 to the present day Science in all its branches has advanced 

 with such rapidity that it has become more and more diffi- 

 cult for the philosopher to keep pace with it and to assimi- 

 late it. The result has been that the gulf between science 

 and philosophy has become ever wider, and the philosopher 

 has become more and more concerned with the theory of 

 knowledge and less and less with things known. 



So complete had this unnatural estrangement become 

 that when in 1859 Charles Darwin finally, after a century 

 of unsuccessful efforts by Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and 

 Lamarck, succeeded in persuading mankind to swallow the 

 pill of evolution by gilding that pill with the materialistic 

 theory of Natural Selection — so complete, I say, had the 

 estrangement between philosophy and science become that 

 when the most far-reaching of biological generalisations 

 was formulated and accepted — I mean the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion — philosophy paid no heed.^ Not until the publication 

 of M. Bergson's " Evolution Creatrice " was the doctrine 

 of evolution admitted into the circle of philosophy. Nor 

 was the admission of this new-comer a mere formal and 

 belated honour to a distinguished foreigner. M. Bergson 

 incorporated evolution into the very fabric of his philo- 

 sophy. It might almost be said that he made evolution 

 the foundation of his philosophy. The stone which the 



* The Author did not forget Herbert Spencer when he wrote these 

 words, though he may have forgotten Hegel. — Ed. 



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