"A PROPHET OF THE SOUL" 



symbols, and as working in different ways, but It is 

 finally, in both cases, the same energy. Whether 

 living beings are evolved as the result of laws im- 

 pressed upon matter at the first, or whether they 

 arise by the ceaseless activity of a psychic principle 

 launched into matter, at a definite time and place, 

 as Bergson teaches, is mainly a difference in the use 

 of terms. Both theories start from the same centre; 

 they diverge only as they are worked out toward the 

 periphery. Darwin conceives of primary and sec- 

 ondary causes, Bergson conceives of an original 

 creative spirit, ceaselessly struggling to evolve living 

 forms out of inert matter. Creation as a special 

 event is a past history with Darwin; it is an ever- 

 present event with Bergson. New species are acci- 

 dental with Darwin, they are contingent and unfore- 

 seeable with Bergson; the creative impulse, like the 

 genius of the creative artist, does not know the form 

 it is looking for till it has foimd it; on other planets, 

 amid other conditions, evolution may result in quite 

 other forms. 



When I try to conceive of Darwin's laws im- 

 pressed upon matter, I can see only the creative 

 energy immanent in matter. I see the elan vital of 

 Bergson framed in another concept. When I recall 

 the famous utterance of Tyndall in his Belfast ad- 

 dress of over thirty years ago, — namely, that in 

 matter itself he saw the promise and the potency 

 of all terrestrial life, — I see, in another guise, 

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