30 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



same we should have no other alternative than this. 

 But our analysis of consciousness and acting' shows that 

 intellect is itself only a part of the result of evolution, 

 Must we not conclude then that variability is something 

 given, and incapable of further description and that the 

 concept of causality does not apply to it? Then each 

 variation is something new and evolution is creative. 



Thus, by more than one way we approach a 

 conception of life which contains more than the working 

 concepts of physical science. We see that a theory of 

 knowledge is, as Bergson says, the same thing as a 

 theory of life. Biology itself shows that the evolution 

 of consciousness has proceeded along two lines, one 

 leading to intuitive knowledge of our environment — a 

 knowledge which we first of all feel simply, but which we 

 may attempt with more or less success to describe and 

 communicate ; and another which has led to intellect — a 

 knowledge of our environment which we attain by action, 

 but only after action : this is the knowledge that we 

 express and communicate by language. Whoever tries 

 to analyse the way in which he investigates will surely 

 see this — that discovery is the result of " guesses," that 

 hypothesis after hypothesis arises in his mind with all 

 the appearances of spontaneity, and that intellectuality 

 merely tests these speculations. It is easy, too, to see 

 that intellect is the product of action, that we know our 

 environment intellectually only after we have acted on 

 it, and that this kind of knowledge is that of the manner 

 in which we can produce change in that part of the 

 universe accessible to sense-impressions. It is almost a 

 commonplace way of expressing this to say that science 

 — that is intellectual knowledge — is essentially useful 

 knowledge ; that there is no positive scientific result 

 which is not of utility to man. The whole history of 

 science goes to prove this. 



