200 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



science as that of science has been from the direction of instinct. Philo- 

 sophical thought must be regarded as practically useless, except insofar 

 as it gives us a new and invigorating conception of our possibilities, and 

 of the reality of the soul as the one real and important consideration. 

 Matter and mechanism and the charting of the dead past are the 

 affair of science, and whatever these may contribute to the control 

 of matter and mechanism in the future. But philosophy has dis- 

 covered the soul and the creative and inventive powers of man, and 

 has as deep and real a grasp of the future and of man and society in 

 the making as science has of the useful and of the delineation of the 

 dead and the past. Faith and enterprise, sympathy and intuition, 

 adventure and genius, are the true subjects of intuitional philosophy, and 

 these are foreign and contrary to science and intellect. Not the timeless, 

 static ideas and concepts of the Greeks, not the pseudo-temporal 

 precision of Galileo and Newton, but the genuine durationism of the 

 living experiencing soul must be the theme of future thinkers in this depart- 

 ment. 



Reality is not the unfolding of the given, emanating from a fanciful, 

 conceptual, do-nothing Absolute, but the living, creative, inventive 

 genius of the vital force, which is obsessed by an infinite aspiration 

 for the free and great, without any definite plan or settled intention. 

 We must think like poets, not like scientists, if we would comprehend 

 life. 



Conclusion 



A common criticism of Bergson is that he gives courage to senti- 

 mentalism and fancy as opposed to solid attainments. It is true that 

 this danger may arise. But we must compare concrete cases on the 

 same levels. It is not fair to compare Aristotle, Newton and Darwin 

 with hysterical and sentimental types; but with Homer, Dante, 

 Shakespeare and Goethe. Intellectualism produces a residuum of 

 worthless and narrow pedants and fanatics, and truth may be per- 

 verted and obscured by sophistry and stupidity as well as by emo- 

 tional aberrations. 



We do not need less but more severe intellectual effort; and we 

 need all the material advancement that the finest brains can give; 



