On the greater part of its surface, at different heights, the current is converted by matter into a vortex. Life as a whole, from the initial impulsion that thrust it into the world, will appear as a wave which rises, and which is opposed by the descending movement of matter. But it will then no longer have to do with definite living beings. When a strong instinct assures the probability of personal survival, they are right not to close their ears to its voice but if there exist “souls” capable of an independent life, whence do they come? When, how and why do they enter into this body which we see arise, quite naturally, from a mixed cell derived from the bodies of its two parents? All these questions will remain unanswered, a philosophy of intuition will be a negation of science, will be sooner or later swept away by science, if it does not resolve to see the life of the body just where it really is, on the road that leads to the life of the spirit. They are right to attribute to man a privileged place in nature, to hold that the distance is infinite between the animal and man but the history of life is there, which makes us witness the genesis of species by gradual transformation, and seems thus to reintegrate man in animality. They are right to believe in the absolute reality of the person and in his independence toward matter but science is there, which shows the interdependence of conscious life and cerebral activity. The great error of the doctrines on the spirit has been the idea that by isolating the spiritual life from all the rest, by suspending it in space as high as possible above the earth, they were placing it beyond attack, as if they were not thereby simply exposing it to be taken as an effect of mirage! Certainly they are right to listen to conscience when conscience affirms human freedom but the intellect is there, which says that the cause determines its effect, that like conditions like, that all is repeated and that all is given. And it shows us at the same time the relation of the life of the spirit to that of the body. Philosophy introduces us thus into the spiritual life. The Cinematographical Mechanism of Thought and The Mechanistic Illusion – A Glance at The History of Systems – Real Becoming and False Evolutionism On The Meaning of Life – The Order of Nature and The Form of Intelligence The Divergent Directions of The Evolution of Life.

The Evolution of Life – Mechanism And Teleology

Creative evolution by henri bergson