SCIENTIFIC VITALISM 



We should surely bring up again where we now stand, 



And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.' 



II 



Evolution is creative, whether it works in matter 

 as Bergson describes, or whether its path lies up 

 through electrons and atoms and molecules, as 

 Professor Moore describes. There is something 

 that creates and makes matter plastic to its will. 

 Whether we call matter "the living garment of 

 God," as Goethe did, or a reservoir of creative en- 

 ergy, as Tyndall and his school did, and as Pro- 

 fessor Moore still does, we are paying homage to a 

 power that is super-material. Life came to our 

 earth, says Professor Moore, through a "well-regu- 

 lated orderly development," and it "comes to every 

 mother earth of the universe in the maturity of her 

 creation when the conditions arrive within suitable 

 limits." That no intelligent beings appeared upon 

 the earth for millions upon millions of years, that 

 for whole geologic ages there was no creature with 

 more brains than a snail possesses, shows the almost 

 infinitely slow progress of development, and that 

 there has been no arbitrary or high-handed exercise 

 of creative power. The universe is not run on prin- 

 ciples of modern business efficiency, and man is at 

 the head of living forms, not by the fiat of some 

 omnipotent power, some superman, but as the re- 

 sult of the operation of forces that balk at no delay, 



111 



