"Life appears in its entirety as an immense wave which, starting from a centre, speeds outwards, and which on almost the whole of its circumference is stopped"--that is, as he explains, by matter--"and converted into oscillation; at one point the obstacle has been forced, the impulsion has poured freely. It is this freedom that the human form registers. Everywhere but in man consciousness has had to come to a stand; in man alone it has kept on its way. Man continues the vital movement indefinitely, although he does not draw along with him all that life carries in itself. On other {86} lines of evolution there have travelled other tendencies which life implied"--the reference is more especially to powers of instinct as distinguished from those of intelligence--"and of which, since everything interpenetrates, man has doubtless kept something, but of which he has kept only a little."[17] Perhaps the most astonishing thing about M. Bergson's philosophy is his unreadiness to allow that the consciousness, which he says is everywhere at work, has any deliberate purpose in its working. Mr. Balfour has called attention to the unsatisfactoriness of what he described as "too hesitating and uncertain a treatment."[18] But, in spite of so serious an omission, we may be glad to believe, with our acute statesman-critic, that "there is permanent value in his theories." If they indicate at all the direction in which scientific thinking is to move, we shall soon have travelled a very long distance from the days in which it was imagined that all vital phenomena might be accounted for on merely materialistic and mechanical lines. [1] "To this 'meteorite' theory the apparently fatal objection was raised that it would take some sixty million years for a meteorite to travel from the nearest stellar system to our earth, and it is inconceivable that any kind of life could be maintained during such a period."--Schaefer. [2] Presidential Address to British Association, at Edinburgh (1912). [3] _Man and the Universe_, p. 24. [4] Prof. Wager. [5] Dr. J. S. Haldane. [6] Dr. A. R. Wallace. Article in _Everyman_, October 18th, 1912. [7] Sir William Tilden. Letter to _The Times_, September 9th,1912. [8] _Life and Matter_, p. 106. [9] Pp. 132, f. [10] P. 158. [11] P. 160. [12] Pp. 164, f. [13] P. 166. [14] P. 160. [15] P. 198. [16] Lecture at Birmingham, May, 1911. [17] _Creative Evolution_, p. 280. [18] _Hibbert Journal_, October, 1911. {87} CHAPTER IX LATER SCIENCE (_continued_)