196 Spiritual Evolution of Society- 

 is beginning to collapse and to cease to retain the 

 allegiance of men of science themselves. We can only 

 hope for less " cocksureness " in the future, and we have 

 every reason to expect it, when we recollect that some 

 of the most intellectual men of science have declared 

 their allegiance to a belief in the eternal and the im- 

 mortality of the soul. Our mechanists in this instance 

 appear to be hit with the recoil of their own guns : they 

 demand that Bergson shall produce " time," " con- 

 sciousness," " the vital impulse," and when they have 

 demonstration of their existence as gross material 

 facts, they will recognise them as within the domain 

 of science ; at the same moment they assert their 

 absolute faith in the Darwinian creed, discredited by 

 two of the leading biologists of the day, and condemned 

 by the best minds of our era. 



So confident is Mr. Elliot in his mechanistic theory 

 that he makes the following statement : " The nebula 

 which preceded the solar system developed — under the 

 ordinary laws of matter and motion — to the state in 

 which we now see it ; in such wise that a physicist, 

 who was supplied with exact data concerning the 

 original distribution of matter and energy in the nebula, 

 and armed with an all-powerful mathematic, could have 

 deduced the exact condition of the Universe in any 

 required subsequent era." No doubt Mr. Elliot believes 

 this, as all through the book he supports with all his 

 energy and powers the mechanist position. Following 

 his method of argument with Professor Bergson, we 

 are entitled to believe that the evolution of the 

 Universe and its method are things of which he 

 has absolutely no consciousness, except by means 

 of a metaphysical process such as he scorns in people 

 who do not think as he does. Moreover, neither 

 he nor anyone else can account for the origin of 

 life by physical processes. " Chemical synthesis has 



