UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
Bergson’s principle of creative evolution. How mat- 
ter came to have this power, Tyndall says he never 
ventures to inquire. Elsewhere he speaks of the 
primeval union between spirit and matter. The sci- 
entific mind, like Tyndall’s, so conversant, with the 
protean forms hidden in matter, and so moulded by 
the method of verification, hesitates to take the step 
which the more philosophical and imaginative mind, 
like Bergson’s, takes readily and boldly. But 
whether we conceive of the final mystery of life as 
hidden in the molecular mechanics of Tyndall and 
Huxley, or in the entelechy of Driesch, or in the 
élan vital of Bergson, it seems to me makes little dif- 
ference. Life is a species of activity set up by some- 
thing in inert substance, as unique and individual as 
that set up by heat or electricity, or chemical affin- 
ity, and far less amenable to our analysis. As so 
many of its phenomena, such as metabolism, repro- 
duction, assimilation, adaptation, elude all interpre- 
tation in terms of exact science, we can only appeal 
to philosophy or to teleology — to the light that 
never was on sea or land — for an explanation. And 
when we invoke the light that never was on sea or 
land, positive science turns its back and will have 
none of it. Things not on sea or land have no place 
in its categories. But Bergson is full of this light, it 
radiates from nearly every page, and this is one 
great source of his charm, and of his power to 
quicken the spirit. It is his art, his vision, the witch- 
220 
