Professor Henri Bergson’s Biology. 91 
fixed, but the phenomena are extraordinarily similar as well as very different, 
and our point is simply that too much must not be made of the quality of 
“inertness ” in non-living material. 
May it not be that an aspect of reality continuous with the clear 
consciousness in the higher reaches of life has always been present, though it 
is negligible for the practical purposes of science until the confines of the 
inorganic are passed? May it not be allowing us glimpses of its presence 
in the architecture of the crystal, in the hidden “life” of jewels, and in 
radio-activity ? May it not be expressing itself in the tendency that matter 
has to complexify—passing from atom to molecule, from simple molecule to 
complex molecule, and from molecule to colloid masses? May it not lie 
behind the inorganic evolution which we are beginning to discover? May 
it not have been resident in the original nebula of our solar system and 
have in the atom its eternal home ? 
MECHANISM AND VITALISM. 
Who can help wondering that there should be so much oscillation of 
opinion in regard to the nature of life? The pendulum swings age after age 
between mechanistic and vitalistic theories, and we seem to make little 
progress towards the real truth about the living creature. Now it is a 
machine and again it is a spirit; now it is a free agent and again it is only 
an automaton; now it is an engine and again we discover that it has an 
entelechy. 
There are several reasons for this continual see-saw, the chief one being 
that there is truth on both sides. For the purposes of chemistry and the 
physics the organism may be adequately considered as a material system; 
for the purposes of biology another aspect of its reality has to be recognised. 
But another reason is given by Bergson in his theory of the limitation 
of our intellect. “The intellect, so skilful in dealing with the inert, is 
awkward the moment it touches the living.” “It is characterised by a 
natural inability to comprehend life” “Created by life, in definite 
circumstances, to act on definite things, how can it embrace life, of which 
it is only an emanation or an aspect? Deposited by the evolutionary 
movement, in the course of its way, how can it be applied to the evolu- 
tionary movement itself?” “In vain we force the living into this or that 
one of our intellectual moulds. All the moulds crack.” 
THE SECRET OF LIFE. 
What then can be done? Some would say, “Nothing! Let us cultivate 
our garden.” Bergson’s suggestion is, that our method of pure intellectualism 
