80 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
There is no use pretending that we can skim off the biological cream 
from M. Bergson’s works, or give as it were a bowdlerised version of 
LP’ Evolution Creatrice with all the philosophy left out. It is not possible to 
pass even the necessary illustrative quotations through a vacuum chamber 
to get rid of the philosophical atmosphere with which they are inter- 
penetrated. All that we can do, with doubts if it is quite fair, is to try to 
focus attention on the biological part of Bergson’s picture, leaving out of 
account, as far as one can, the background metaphysics. And just as one 
may disagree considerably with Herbert Spencer’s philosophy, and yet be 
grateful for the way in which he vertebrated Biology, so we may disagree 
considerably with Henri Bergson’s philosophy and yet admire his vivid 
apprehension and statement of biological facts. 
Let us ask then how Bergson regards the living organism in its everyday 
activity, the fact of variability, the general ascent of life, the relation between 
instinct and intelligence, the factors in evolution, and the urge or impetus of 
evolution. 
THE LIVING ORGANISM IN ITS EVERYDAY ACTIVITY. 
The living organism in its everyday life—what are the essential facts 
about it,—the bee at the flower, the snail on the thorn, the eagle in the 
air? We try to get at its secret from below, but it eludes our grasp. 
Chemistry and physics do not and cannot give us more than an analysis of 
the chemico-physical changes that go on. They show us how to feed and 
drug the organism, but not how to understand it. Bergson would illumine 
it by light from above. 
What we recognise in the heart of our own conscious life is ceaseless 
change and yet stable persistence, continual incorporation of the lessons of 
experience and yet a shooting on to something new. “Our duration is the 
continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which 
swells as it advances.” ‘“ What is our character, if not the condensation of 
the history that we have lived from our birth—nay, even before our birth ?” 
On the other hand, our life is always something new, something unforesee- 
able. No one, not even the artist, can foresee the picture. “Even so with 
regard to the moments of our life, of which we are the artisans,”’—perhaps 
the artists—“ each of them is a kind of creation.” Now should not something 
the same be said about the everyday activity of an organism? Is it not 
also at once an historic and a creative life ? 
This is Bergson’s view, and is it not quite sound biology, for it is agreed 
by all that the active organism is in ceaseless, constant metabolism, always 
burning away and yet not consumed—at least not for a day or for many 
