Tine Higher Usefulness of Science 57 



the origin of the world have always held the most vital 

 relation to religion and ethics, ought to give the prob- 

 lems involved a keener, more personal interest than they 

 otherwise would have, and so make tolerable phases of 

 their discussion which but for such interest might seem 

 too recondite and severe to be worth while. 



The problem before us may be characterized as one 

 which will be a search after the truth and also the error 

 there is in such a conception as that of the "creative 

 evolution" of Bergson. Being a little more explicit, 

 the problem is to show that there is in nature an urge, 

 a potency of much such operative character as that 

 assumed by Bergson, but that it is not something out- 

 side of or behind or above or antecedent to matter, but 

 is a coincident and essential part of the system of na- 

 ture as this actually presents itself to our senses and 

 our intellects. 



Or, stating the problem from a somewhat different 

 angle, it is to find both the truth and the error corre- 

 sponding to the Bergsonian doctrine, to the end that 

 we may benefit by the appeal an idea like that of Crea- 

 tive Evolution makes to great numbers of persons, but 

 may avoid the inadequacy and unsatisfactoriness of 

 such a theory as that of Bergson's elcm vital, or as 

 that of his peculiar kind of intuitionalism. No such 

 vast and splendid body of natural knowledge as we 

 actually have would ever be built up, I am quite sure, 

 under the stimulus and guidance of such conceptions 

 of nature and of scientific knowledge. 



