“A PROPHET OF THE SOUL” 
in the idea of creation if we think of things that are 
created, and athing that creates.” Such views are 
the work of our practical intellect. When we see a 
house we think of the builder, when we see a watch 
we infer the maker, and this attribute of mind is 
necessary to our successful dealing with concrete 
things; but in organic nature the house and the 
watch are always being made, and every day is a 
day of creation; the forms of life are like the clouds 
in the summer sky, ever and never the same; the 
vital currents flow forever, and we rise to the surface 
like changing, iridescent bubbles that dance and 
play for a moment, and are succeeded by others, and 
ever others. The vital impulse absorbs Bergson’s 
attention, “not things made, but things in the mak- 
ing; not self-maintaining states, but only changing 
states. Rest is never more than apparent, or, rather, 
relative.’ This is the way Bergson gets rid of the 
old conception of design and finalism in nature. He 
thinks of the creative impulse or tendency in terms 
of the mobile, the incalculable, the ever-changing. 
Life hovers forever between the stable and the 
unstable. We cannot describe it in terms of the 
fixed, the geometric. Motion is not in place, it is 
in transition — neither here nor there, but forever 
between the two. Our bodies are like the clouds, 
ever and never the same. Hence our conception of 
life seems a contradiction, or two contraries united, 
which seems one absurdity; an ascending and a 
Q15 
