SELF 209 



pragmatism is in accordance with the theory of this 

 book, that is, it is materialistic to that extent. 



Sir J. J. Thompson says: "Water vapor will refuse 

 to condense into rain, unless there are particles of dust 

 to form nuclei ; so an idea before taking shape seems 

 to require a nucleus of solid fact round which it can 

 condense." He was speaking of the origin of some of 

 the most comprehensive ideas of science. This is 

 illustrative of the difference between the mental tenden- 

 cies of himself, and Henri Bergson. It is the difference 

 between intellect, and what the latter defines as intui- 

 tion. Intellect seizes hold of matter, only after its 

 evolution into certain forms, as the reservoir of facts 

 important to the welfare, and knowledge of man. The 

 forms of matter; the stable forms we are in the habit 

 of calling them, although they are in reality the entirely 

 unstable; are always becoming, they are in the making, 

 but never made. But intuition, which transcends ex- 

 perience, or is just beyond that consciousness which 

 represents past and present experience, just as the 

 X-rays of light are beyond the sight of the natural eye ; 

 this is represented by the author of the new "Creative 

 Evolution" as that which penetrates beyond the de- 

 graded static forms, to the flow of becoming, and plucks 

 from it such facts as "duration," "vital impetus," and 

 the "universal consciousness." Who can object? If 

 any scientist is possessed of such intuition, which is an 

 extension of intellect, or has grown out of it, or out of 

 the experience of the human senses, or has obtained it 

 in any real way, and with it, can give us knowledge 

 of noumenon, or thing-in-itself, or the flux of the 

 universal becoming, now beyond the reach of intellect, 

 and of use to life forms, in their noetic limitations, he 

 is a person entitled to the highest honor. Heretofore, 



