THE LATEST STAGE 277 



But, as the century drew to a close, the change in 

 science was paralleled by a corresponding change 

 in philosophy. The critical examination by Arthur 

 Balfour of the basis of knowledge, the passing over 

 of the majority of academic metaphysicians to the 

 idealistic camp, the constructive pragmatism of William 

 James with its idea of value as the criterion of truth, 

 the " creative evolution " of Henri Bergson, are in 

 one aspect but steps in the same direction, though not 

 upon the same road. 



Bergson's philosophy of change, though unaccept- 

 able to most metaphysicians, corresponds closely to 

 the new vitalistic tendencies in biology. With his 

 wealth of illustration drawn from all our knowledge 

 of inorganic and organic nature, Bergson is far removed 

 from the purely a priori philosophers of the older 

 idealism, while his conclusions are even farther dis- 

 tant from those of the naturalistic philosophers who 

 took the typical science of the mid nineteenth century 

 as their source of inspiration. 



The autonomy of life, the purposefulness of the 

 organism, which, as we have seen, have so impressed 

 themselves on some contemporary biologists, are to 

 Bergson the corner-stone of his system. Behind such 

 phenomena must lie a super-consciousness, free, in- 

 determinate and incalculable. Breaking into matter, 

 which is perhaps only a by-product of the creative 

 impulse, as and where it can, it endows it with some 

 share of its life a share trammelled and enmeshed 

 in matter, but still preserving some of the attributes 

 of its free and unconfined source. 



This process of becoming, this exaltation of the act 

 of change, abolishes the timeless absolute of older 



