202 Spiritual Evolution of Society 



system." This is no more true than many of Bergson's 

 statements which meet with such strong disapproval 

 on the part of the mechanists. Some naturalists would 

 deny that the animal of widest range and necessarily 

 of longest existence — the primary unicellular proto- 

 plasmic organism the Amceba — had any nervous 

 system at all ; and yet it has perpetuated its species 

 through all the sons of the past by continual division 

 of its own organism. No doubt there must be a 

 stimulus, and of necessity the action is appropriate as 

 the only means of perpetuating the species, but there 

 is no demonstration of such a stimulus. Like the 

 Darwinian theory, it is inferred ; such a process of 

 thought is not allowed to the metaphysician ; he must 

 not infer anything : he is tied down to gross material 

 fact. This being so, what right has the mechanist to 

 assume an abstract metaphysical postulate of this 

 kind ? He is hoist with his own petard. Again we ask, 

 Has the Amceba a nervous system ? If not, how does 

 it react ? Here is instinct which he cannot define, and 

 of which Professor Bergson certainly knows more than 

 the mechanist, and his theory of vital impulse as the 

 chief agent of creative evolution appeals directly to 

 man's reason, and particularly to his logical faculty. 

 Descartes is quoted to the effect that " animals were 

 mere machines or automata actuated solely by physical 

 and chemical forces, and devoid of any subjective 

 correlate." " It can never be formally proved that he 

 was wrong " is Mr. Elliot's comment. One would only 

 like to ask for an explanation of the case of the dog 

 which dies on its master's grave, refusing food and 

 shelter. Is this explainable by purely physical and 

 chemical forces, by " the automaton theory " ? Is this 

 the act of an automaton ? The mechanists know it 

 is not. Therefore we deny that it cannot be proved 

 that Descartes was wrong. 



