UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



Bergson's principle of creative evolution. How mat- 

 ter came to have this power, Tyndall says he never 

 ventm*es to inquire. Elsewhere he speaks of the 

 primeval union between spirit and matter. The sci- 

 entific mind, like Tyndall's, so conversant, with the 

 protean forms hidden in matter, and so moulded by 

 the method of verification, hesitates to take the step 

 which the more philosophical and imaginative mind, 

 like Bergson's, takes readily and boldly. But 

 whether we conceive of the final mystery of life as 

 hidden in the molecular mechanics of Tyndall and 

 Huxley, or in the entelechy of Driesch, or in the 

 elan vital of Bergson, it seems to me makes little dif- 

 ference. Life is a species of activity set up by some- 

 thing in inert substance, as unique and individual as 

 that set up by heat or electricity, or chemical affin- 

 ity, and far less amenable to our analysis. As so 

 many of its phenomena, such as metabolism, repro- 

 duction, assimilation, adaptation, elude all interpre- 

 tation in terms of exact science, we can only appeal 

 to philosophy or to teleology — to the light that 

 never was on sea or land — for an explanation. And 

 when we invoke the light that never was on sea or 

 land, positive science turns its back and will have 

 none of it. Things not on sea or land have no place 

 in its categories. But Bergson is full of this light, it 

 radiates from nearly every page, and this is one 

 great source of his charm, and of his power to 

 quicken the spirit. It is his art, his vision, the witch- 



£20 



