CONTINUITY OF BERGSON S THOUGHT 171 



But duration is the one thing we are truly sure of as our innermost 

 selves, and this proves that radical mechanism deals only with the 

 surface of things. 



But teleology is no better: it equally assumes that all is given: it 

 leaves no room for free creation, invention, originality: all must 

 happen according to a rigid plan. Of course finalism is very smooth 

 and plastic, and in one sense even Bergson accepts the truth of it. 

 The idea of a harmonious design of course is absurd : nature is ravenous 

 and quarrelsome, and pessimists make out as good a case for the 

 doctrine of universal opposition and conflict. The vitalistic theories 

 have a use, but so far as they support a harmonizing principle in the 

 individual life, they have to explain rebellious cells, such as the 

 phagocytes, as well as to explain how a being which is simply made of 

 a couple of cells (of the parents) can really be called an individual. 



Both mechanism and teleology have put too much stress on intel- 

 lect, which is after all only a strand in the rope of life. We must enter 

 into all aspects of life to explain life: the animals and plants and 

 other orders of being that we have overcome and passed in the race 

 of development are also parts of the whole of life, and we shall never 

 explain evolution without examining these and assigning them a 

 place. These aspects of teleology are distasteful, but there is one 

 thing we may accept: the whole creation does show a certain harmony 

 on one side. All the species and forms of life are bound together in a 

 way, and progress side by side like straws in a sheaf. Of course we 

 are the largest and finest straws. Each species, however, works for 

 itself, and much conflict arises from this. But there is a common 

 impetus, and as we go on the conflicting species seem to be in a sense 

 interdependent and complementary. The harmony is behind rather 

 than before us: just as a wind drives down the street all as one, but 

 is dispersed when it strikes a corner. 



We cannot speak of a common aspiration. "It would be futile to 

 try to assign an end to life in the human sense." The road is created 

 by the act of traveling. Man is in the making. No, no, all this is 

 futile; but the common impulse is behind and accounts for resem- 

 blances in species which could hardly be accounted for otherwise. 



