“A PROPHET OF THE SOUL” 
a physical phenomenon as the lamp of the glow- 
worm, or the sound of a clock when it strikes; and 
the tremendous psychic effort which Bergson sees 
in organic evolution would probably have appeared 
to him and to others of the mechanistic school as 
only a poetic dream. 
It is a philosophy that goes well with living things. 
It is a living philosophy. In my own case it joins on 
to my interest in outdoor life, in bird, in flower, in 
tree. It is an interpretation of biology and natural 
history in terms of the ideal. In reading it I am in 
the concrete world of life, bathed in the light of the | 
highest heaven of thought. It exhilarates me like a 
bath in the stream, or a walk on the hills. 
Those who go to Bergson for strictly scientific 
conclusions will find bread where they were looking 
for a stone; but those who go to him in the spirit of 
life will find life — will see him work a change in 
scientific facts like that which life works in inorganic 
matter. His method is always that of the literary 
artist; and looking at the processes of organic evo- 
lution through his eyes is like looking into the men- 
tal and spiritual processes of a great creative artist. 
Mr. Balfour mildly objects that the vital impulse as 
Bergson reveals it has “no goal more definite than 
that of acquiring an ever fuller volume of free crea- 
tive activity.” Sir Oliver Lodge replies that that is a 
good enough goal. “Is it not the goal of every great 
artist?” 
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