THE BREATH OF LIFE 



our myth-making aptitudes. It gives a dramatic 

 interest to the question. With Bergson we see life 

 struggling with matter, seeking to overcome its 

 obduracy, compromising with it, taking a half-loaf 

 when it cannot get a whole one; we see evolution 

 as the unfolding of a vast drama acted upon the 

 stage of geologic time. Creation becomes a per- 

 petual process, the creative energy an ever-present 

 and familiar fact. Bergson's book is a wonderful 

 addition to the literature of science and of philoso- 

 phy. The poet, the dreamer, the mystic, in each 

 of us takes heart at Bergson's beautiful philosophy; 

 it seems like a part of life; it goes so well with living 

 things. As James said, it is like the light of the 

 morning and the singing of birds; we glory in seeing 

 the intellect humbled as he humbles it. The con- 

 cepts of science try our mettle. They do not appeal 

 to our humanity, or to our myth-making tendencies; 

 they appeal to the purely intellectual, impersonal 

 force within us. Though all our gods totter and fall, 

 science goes its way; though our hearts are chilled 

 and our lives are orphaned, science cannot turn 

 aside, or veil its light. It does not temper the wind 

 to the shorn lamb. 



Hence the scientific conception of the universe 

 repels many people. They are not equal to it. To 

 think of life as involved in the very constitution of 

 matter itself is a much harder proposition than to 

 conceive of it as Bergson and Sir Oliver Lodge do, 

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