UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



makes it of the order "willed"; the other dehuman- 

 izes it, and makes it of the order "automatic." 

 Both deal with mysteries, but one is a human or 

 spiritual mystery, the other a scientific mystery; one 

 puts a Creator behind nature, the other finds a cre- 

 ator in nature, but calls it molecular attraction and 

 repulsion. Tyndall pays homage to the mystery 

 that lies back of all, M. Bergson pays homage to the 

 freedom and plasticity, the creative activity of all. 

 A mechanical movement is translation, a vital 

 movement is transformation. In Bergson's scheme 

 every living thing is creating itself continually; this 

 creation of self by self for self is what separates liv- 

 ing matter from the non-living by a gulf. The life- 

 process is indivisible, it is whole every moment. It is 

 symbolized by the curve, which returns forever into 

 itself, and a curve is no more made up of straight 

 lines than life is made of physicochemical elements. 

 The intellect working through science can only ex- 

 plain the genesis of life in terms of physics and 

 chemistry. "Analysis will undoubtedly resolve the 

 process of organic creation into an ever-growing 

 number of physicochemical phenomena, and chem- 

 ists and physicists will have to do, of course, with 

 nothing but these. But it does not follow that chem- 

 istry and physics will ever give us the key of life." 

 To get a correct notion of life we must break with 

 scientific habits of thought, we must " go counter to 

 the natural bent of the intellect." 



2-22 



