UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
for the sake of man; we struggle like the other spe- 
cies, we have struggled against other species; more- 
over, if the evolution of life had encountered other 
accidents in its course, if thereby the current of life 
had been otherwise divided, we should have been 
physically and morally far different from what we 
are. 
We aim to look upon a problem of science or 
mathematics understandingly; we try to regard a 
work of art — a novel, poem, painting, symphony 
— appreciatively, to enter into its spirit, to become 
one with it, to possess ourselves of its point of view, 
in short, to have an emotional experience with it. 
The understanding is less concerned than our taste, 
our esthetic perceptions, our sympathy with beau- 
tiful forms, and our plasticity of mind. We do not 
know a work of art in the same way in which we 
know a work of science, or any product of analytical 
reasoning; we know it as we know those we love 
and are in sympathy with; it does not define itself 
to our intellect, it melts into our souls. Descriptive 
science is powerless to portray for me the bird or the 
flower or the friend I love; only art and literature 
can do that. Science deals with fixed concepts, art 
with fluid concepts. 
This is Bergson’s position as I understand it. 
Living nature is like a work of art, and our descrip- 
tive science fails to render its true meaning, or grasp 
the nature of the evolutionary movement. The feel- 
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