Creative EvolutionCosimo, Inc., 2005 M01 1 - 472 pages While intelligence treats everything mechanically, instinct proceeds, so to speak, organically. If...we could ask and it could reply, it would give up to us the most intimate secrets of life. -from Chapter II Anticipating not only modern scientific theories of psychology but also those of cosmology, this astonishing book sets out a impressive goal for itself: to reconcile human biology with a theory of consciousness. First published in France in 1907, and translated into English in 1911, this work of wonder was esteemed at the time in scientific circles and in the popular culture alike for its profound explorations of perception and memory and its surprising conclusions about the nature and value of art. Contending that intuition is deeper than intellect and that the real consequence of evolution is a mental freedom to grow, to change, to seek and create novelty, Bergson reinvigorated the theory of evolution by refusing to see it as merely mechanistic. His expansion on Darwin remains one of the most original and important philosophical arguments for a scientific inquiry still under fire today. French philosopher HENRI BERGSON (1859-1941) was born in Paris. Among his works are Matter and Memory (1896), An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903), and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 19 | |
The quest of a criterionExamination of the various theories | 87 |
CHAPTER II | 109 |
ON THE MEANING OF LIFE THE ORDER OF NATURE | 204 |
Simultaneous genesis of matter and intelligenceGeometry | 218 |
Sketch of a theory of knowledge based on the analysis of the idea | 240 |
Creation and evolutionIdeal genesis of matterThe origin | 258 |
The philosophy of Forms and its conception of BecomingPlato | 330 |
two views of Time | 357 |
Descartes | 374 |
The Criticism of Kant | 387 |
The evolutionism of Spencer | 395 |
INDEX 493 | 403 |
62 | 404 |
8ཚ | 416 |
CHAPTER IV | 296 |
Form and Becoming | 324 |
The relation of the animal to the plantGeneral tendency | 432 |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute action affirmation ancient ancient philosophy animal annihilation Aristotle becoming body cause cinematographical complete concepts consciousness continuity contrary created creation Descartes direction duration effect elements energy essential everything evolution evolutionism existence experience express external eyes fact faculty finality function geometry human hymenoptera hypothesis idea imagine individual inert matter instinct intel intellect intelligence intuition Kant knowledge laws laws of Kepler Leibniz less living longer material mathematical means mecha mechanism ment metaphysics mind mobility mollusk monads movement nature negation nervous nought object once organism ourselves pass perceive perception philosophy physical Plato Plotinus point of view positive positive science possible precisely present principle protoplasm psychical pure reality regard relation represent sciousness sense simple solar system space speak species Spinoza supposed tendency theory things thought tion true tween unity variations vegetable vertebrates vital void whole words
Popular passages
Page 18 - ... the present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.
Page 195 - For—we cannot top often repeat it- — intelligence and instinct are turned in opposite directions, the former toward inert matter, the latter toward life. Intelligence, by means of science, which is its work, will deliver up to us more and more completely the secret of physical operations; of life it brings us, and moreover only claims to bring us, a translation in terms of inertia.
Page 273 - In reality, life is a movement, materiality is the inverse movement, and each of these two movements is simple, the matter which forms a world being an undivided flux, and undivided also the life that runs through it, cutting out in it living beings all along the track. Of these two currents, the second runs counter to the first, but the first obtains, all the same, something from the second.
Page 112 - Each of us, glancing back over his history, will find that his childpersonality, though indivisible, united in itself divers persons which could remain blended just because they were in their nascent state: this indecision, so charged with promise, is one of the greatest charms of childhood. But these interwoven personalities become incompatible in course of growth, and, as each of us can live but one life, a choice must perforce be made. We choose in reality without ceasing; without ceasing, also,...
Page 111 - Life seems to have succeeded in this by dint of humility, by making itself very small and very insinuating, bending to physical and chemical forces, consenting even to go a part of the way with them, like the switch that adopts for a while the direction of the rail it is endeavoring to leave.
Page 45 - If this be true, it is no less certain that the existing world lay potentially in the cosmic vapour, and that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of the molecules of that vapour, have predicted, say the state of the fauna of Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the vapour of the breath on a cold winter's day .... The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not, necessarily, mutually exclusive.
Page 111 - Life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided.
Page 65 - The struggle for life and natural selection can be of no use to us in solving this part of the problem, for we are not concerned here with what has perished, we have to do only with what has survived. Now, we see that identical structures have been formed on independent lines of evolution by a gradual accumulation of effects. How can accidental causes, occurring in an accidental order, be supposed to have repeatedly come to the same result, the causes being infinitely numerous and the effect infinitely...