THE PURPOSE OF LIFE 169 



stitutes knowledge. We assume that the subject is 

 intelligible, though it may well be that we shall not 

 reach to a full understanding in any finite time. 



So with the greatest inquiry of all, the tremendous 

 problem of the significance and destiny of life. If we 

 are to make any headway, if we are to scratch the sur- 

 face of the mountain of our ignorance, we must assume 

 that there is some intelligible meaning in it all. 



We see creative impulse at work all around. Follow- 

 ing their natural processes, plants and animals reproduce 

 themselves up to the limit of their means of subsistence. 

 The impression conveyed is that of a thronging, 

 tumultuous, ever-present life, struggling into existence 

 wherever it can find a point of attack on the inanimate 

 matter which constitutes its vehicle and means of being. 

 The power of reproduction and the power of variation 

 seem infinite. External conditions alone set a limit to 

 the expression of the creative impulse with which all 

 Nature is instinct. Individuals are poured out in a 

 never-flagging stream. Some, unsuited to the environ- 

 ment, fail to hand on their qualities ; but Nature turns 

 undaunted to those that succeed, and through them 

 works her will of a continually increasing and always 

 varying store of life impregnating dead matter. 



What is the meaning of it all ? What hypothesis 

 can we frame to suit the facts, and to guide our future 

 inquiries ? Is life itself the object life anywhere, life of 

 any kind, life in distinction to a dead world of inanimate 

 matter ? Or can we trace a preference for any one kind 

 of life, and, if so, what are its characteristics ? 



Now, as M. Bergson has pointed out, evolution 

 seems to have proceeded on three divergent tracks, 



