278 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



idealisms. To Bergson time is of supreme signifi- 

 cance. In it are duration and change, the present 

 ever eating into the future, the past persisting into 

 the present. Creative evolution is reality ; the vital 

 principle presses into new and ever new forms, failing 

 here and coming to a stop there, but ever pressing 

 onward, as far from teleology as from mechanical de- 

 terminism, with " no goal," according to Mr Balfour, 

 " more definite than that of acquiring an ever fuller 

 volume of free creative energy." 



Life uses matter as its vehicle ; calls on the stored 

 energy of plant life to support the vital output of the 

 animal ; fires the explosive material by a touch of 

 the trigger, and directs the forces thus set at liberty ; 

 or times the action of the mechanism to take 

 advantage of the chance accumulations of molecular 

 energy in the manner of Maxwell's daemon. As 

 Lodge has pointed out, such action is in full accord 

 with the physical principle of the conservation of 

 energy. No work need be done in the processes of 

 timing and direction. 



To Bergson, reason is chiefly concerned not with life 

 and freedom, but with the determinate mechanism 

 only introduced into the circle of life by its entangle- 

 ment with matter. Thus it is that reason is most 

 at home with material and mechanical conceptions. 

 It has been evolved to enable us to deal with matter, 

 the waste product of creation. Hence, in some ways, 

 instinct is nearer reality than reason. Man touches 

 reality in those rare moments of crisis when emotion 

 and insight are fused with intuitive judgment, and his 

 whole being is alive with the will to act. Then he 

 knows true freedom, " then he consciously sweeps 



