92 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
g \ y 
is wrong. The line of evolution that ends in human intelligence is not 
the only one. Other forms of consciousness, such as instinct, “express 
something that is immanent and essential in the evolutionary movement. 
Have we not powers complementary to the understanding by which we 
may get a vision—a fleeting vision—of what life essentially is?” We 
have a fringe of instinct. 
Some of the tough-minded, or we ourselves in tough-minded moods, 
are apt to depreciate that “fringe of vague intuition that surrounds our 
distinct—that is, intellectual—representation.” According to Bergson it 
is an invaluable organon. 
But let no one suppose that this interrogation of instinct—of intuition— 
is easy. Instinct is like an artist, who will not be questioned. It is nearer 
to life than intelligence is, but it is not its way to give an account of 
itself. Thus we are in a dilemma: “There are things that intelligence 
alone is able to seek, but which, by itself, it will never find. These things 
instinct alone could find; but it will never seek them.” ... “If instinct 
could be wound up into knowledge instead of being wound down into action, 
it would give up to us the most intimate secrets of life.’ Instinct is more 
continuous with the force of life than intelligence is. In instinct life fixes 
its attention on its own movement; in intelligence life fixes its attention 
on the matter it is passing through. 
In sympathy, in artistic and poetic feeling, we come near instinct. 
We speak of the intuitive insight of the “born doctor” and the 
divining sympathy of the mother. Bergson says that we do well 
so to speak. “Instinct is sympathy; if it could extend its object and 
also reflect upon itself, it would give us the key to vital operations—just as 
intelligence’ guides us into matter.” “By intuition,” he says, “I mean 
instinct that has become disinterested, self-conscious, capable of reflecting 
upon its object, and of enlarging it indefinitely.” It brings us sympathetically 
into life’s own domain, and makes us feel sure once more that Wordsworth, 
Emerson, Meredith, and other nature-poets are truest, because deepest, 
biologists of us all. 
(Issued separately, 19th November 1913.) 
