FUNCTION AND ENVIRONMENT 205 



experience. We change without ceasing; the 

 organism is in a state of ceaseless flux 

 which we call metabolism. Both have the 

 mysterious quality of " duree " but duration 

 in more than the merely physical and 

 chronological sense; for what he means by 

 it is " the continuous progress of the past 

 which gnaws into the future and which 

 swells as it advances." " Our personality 

 shoots, grows and ripens without ceasing. 

 Each of its moments is something new added to 

 what was before. We are creating ourselves 

 continually." So of an organism it may be 

 said that " its past, in its entirety, is pro- 

 longed into its present, and abides there, 

 actual and acting." " Continuity of change, 

 preservation of the past in the present, real 

 duration the living being seems, then, to 

 share these attributes with consciousness. 

 Can we go farther and say that life, like 

 conscious activity, is unceasing creation ? " 



Bergson answers this question by an 

 emphatic affirmative. The spontaneity of 

 life is manifested by a continual creation of 

 new forms. " A hereditary change in a 

 definite direction, which continues to ac- 

 cumulate and add to itself so as to build up 

 a more and more complex machine, must 

 certainly be related to some sort of effort, 



