INORGANIC EVOLUTION 17 



theory. If others thought kindly toward materialism, 

 they did not make it public. In another volume, the 

 writer, expressed the opinion that Spencer, in the posi- 

 tion lie took in the first part of "First Principles," re- 

 garding an "Unknowable Absolute" made a mistake, and 

 weakened the argument of the "Synthetic Philosophy." 

 He practically acknowledged as much in his "Autobiog- 

 raphy. ' ' But Bergson thinks that ' ' First Part, ' ' the best 

 of Spencer's work. Of course when Spencer came to 

 the real work of writing his philosophy, by beginning it 

 with an exposition of biology, along the lines of evolu- 

 tion, he found it impossible to retain the conception of 

 an "Absolute." His intellect could, or would see noth- 

 ing, but matter and motion, integrating and disintegrat- 

 ing. There is nothing else to the intellect. Intellect of 

 course only cuts into matter. Therefore man must 

 summon more than intellect to aid him if he desires to 

 cut into the real movement of becoming; he must work 

 from the center as nature does. Intuition, the "aurora 

 around the core of intellect" and growing out of it 

 Bergson thinks must be the proper instrument for a new 

 philosophy of creative evolution. He acknowledges, 

 however, that he is unable, as yet, to give more than an 

 intimation of it. Materialists will grimly wait for fur- 

 ther developments. The finalists long before the time of 

 Bergson had a theory that intellect is not usable in a 

 system of philosophy. But Bergson also repudiates them, 

 not because they have started wrong, but because they 

 have gone too far, and that they are too anthropomorphic. 

 He is compelled to acknowledge, however, that evolution 

 is the true theory of the cosmic movement. But the 

 intellect of Darwin, the materialist, had already demon- 

 strated this, not the intuition of an idealist. The theory 

 of Bergson, is that in the flux of life, forms are merely 



