Note 430 — Chapter IX · PRAGMATISM AND IDEALISM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON386

We must remember that nowhere in his writings does Bergson claim any great originality for his many illuminative points of view. He is at once far too much of a catholic scholar (in the matter of the history of philosophy, say), and far too much of a scientist (a man in living touch with the realities and the theories of the science of the day) for this. His findings about life and mind are the outcome of a broad study of the considerations of science and of history and of criticism. By way, for example, of a quotation from a scientific work upon biology that seems to me to reveal some apparent basis in fact (as seen by naturalists) for the “creative evolution” upon which Bergson bases his philosophy, I append the following: “We have gone far enough to see that the development of an organism from an egg is a truly wonderful process. We need but go back again and look at the marvellous simplicity of the egg to be convinced of it. Not only do cells differentiate, but cell-groups act together like well-drilled battalions, cleaving apart here, fusing together there, forming protective coverings or communicating channels, apparently creating out of nothing, a whole set of nutritive and reproductive organs, all in orderly and progressive sequence, producing in the end that orderly disposed cell aggregate, that individual life unit which we know as an earthworm. Although the forces involved are beyond our ken, the grosser processes are evident” (Needham, General Biology, p. 175; italics mine). Of course it is evident from his books that Bergson does not take much account of such difficult facts and topics as the mistakes of instinct, etc. And I have just spoken of his optimistic avoidance of some of the deeper problems of the moral and spiritual life of man.