An Introduction to a Biology 



the character of that organ be. So much then for the 

 bearing of Bergson 5 s conception of life on that most impor- 

 tant of biological problems, the determination of the causes 

 of the fixation of a character. 



Now there is another aspect of this view of life to which 

 I have already referred. It is that this stream, which is 

 the very essence of life, is a perpetually widening stream ; 

 that something new is being added to it all the time. An 

 essential feature of life according to Bergson is that in its 

 growth (or its flow) it is perpetually elaborating the abso- 

 lutely new. So essential a feature of life does Bergson 

 regard creation by life that he has embodied it in the appar- 

 ently paradoxical and brilliant title of the work in which 

 he deals especially with evolution " Evolution Creatrice." 

 The saying that there's nothing new under the sun expresses 

 that view of change which is perfectly true of non-living 

 matter, namely that change consists merely in the redis- 

 tribution of already existing elements ; a redistribution 

 which often, of course, produces an impenetrable illusion 

 of change and of the creation of something new. Never- 

 theless, it is an illusion ; and we are thus led to the follow- 

 ing conclusion with regard to change in unorganised, i.e. 

 non-living matter : that no more is got out in the effect 

 than was put in in the cause. You put pigs into the machine 

 at one end and you get sausages out at the other. Pigs 

 are not sausages, nor sausages pigs. You have the illusion 

 of change ; but, in reality, all that has happened has been 

 a redistribution of elements. When, however, we look at 

 change in the domain of life we are in the presence of the 

 continual creation of the absolutely new. More is got out 

 in the effect than was put in in the cause. More is got out 

 in the end than was put in in the beginning. So far as this 

 planet is concerned, therefore, we must relegate the saying 

 that there is nothing new under the sun to the limbo of 

 exploded doctrines. For this planet has produced that 

 wonderful thing called life ; and where life is, this saying is 



95 



