quite apart from our
criticism of the Bergsonian "spirit" and "matter" on the ground of
their being unreal conceptions illegitimately abstracted from real
personality we are compelled to note a second vivid difference
between our point of view and his in regard to this matter of
opposites and their contradiction. Bergson's monism, as we have
seen, resolves itself into a duality which may be defined as
conscious activity confronted by unconscious inertness.

Our duality, on the contrary, which has behind it, not monism, but
pluralism, may be denned as conscious creation, or conscious love,
confronted by conscious resistance to creation, or conscious inert
malice. Thus while Bergson finds his ultimate axiomatic "data" in
philosophical abstractions, we find our ultimate axiomatic "data"
in the realities of human experiences. Bergson seeks to interpret
human life in terms of the universe. We seek to interpret the
universe in terms of human life. And we contend that we are
justified in doing this since what we call "the universe," as soon as
it is submitted to analysis, turns out to be nothing but an act of
faith according to which an immense plurality of separate personal
universes find a single universe of inspiration and hope in the
vision of the immortal gods.

The ultimate duality revealed by the complex vision is a
duality on both sides of which we have unfathomable abysses of
consciousness. On the one side this consciousness is eternally
creative. On the other side this consciousness is eternally
malicious, in its deliberate inert resistance to creation. It is
natural enough, therefore, that while Bergson's "creative evolution"
resolves itself into a series of forward-movements which are as
easy and organic as the growth of leaves on a tree, our advance
toward the real future which is also a return to the ideal past,
resolves itself in a series of supremely difficult rhythms, wherein
eternally conscious "good" overcomes eternally conscious "evil."

Our philosophy, therefore, may, in the strictest sense, be called
a "human" philosophy in contra-distinction to a "cosmic"
philosophy; or, if you please, it may be called a "dramatic"
philosophy in contra-distinction to a "lyric" philosophy. From all
this it will be clearly seen that it would be impossible for us to
hypostasize a super-moral or sub-moral universe in complete
disregard of the primordial conscience of the human soul. It will
be equally clearly seen that