FUNCTION AND ENVIRONMENT 205 



is sometliing 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 prolonged 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 un- 

 ceasing creation .f^" 



Bergson answers this question by an em- 

 phatic affirmative. The spontaneity of life 

 is manifested by a continual creation of new 

 forms. "A hereditary change in a definite 

 direction, which continues to accumulate 

 and add to itself so as to build up a more 

 and more complex machine, must certainly 

 be related to some sort of effort, but to an 

 effort of far greater depth than the individual 

 effort, far more independent of circumstances, 

 an effort common to most representatives 

 of the same species, inherent in the germs 

 they bear rather than in their substance 

 alone, an effort thereby assured of being 

 passed on to their descendants. There is an 

 original creative impetus in life, which passes 

 from generation to generation of germs, is 

 sustained right along the lines of evolution 

 among which it gets divided, and is the 



