of mechanical inertia. So must the case be, by
analogy, with general evolution. We have there, as it were, a vision
of biological duration in miniature; expansion and relaxation of its
tension bring its homogeneity to notice, but at the same time, properly
speaking, evolution disappears.

And further, Mr Bergson establishes by direct and positive arguments
that life is genuine creation. A similar conclusion is presented as the
envelope of his whole doctrine.

It is imposed first of all by immediate evidence, for we cannot deny
that the history of life is revealed to us under the aspect of a
progress and an ascent. And this impulse implies initiative and choice,
constituting an effort which we are not authorised by the facts to
pronounce fatalistic: "A simple glance at the fossil species shows us
that life could have done without evolution, or could have evolved only
within very restricted limits, had it chosen the far easier path open to
it of becoming cramped in its primitive forms; certain Foraminifera have
not varied since the silurian period; the Lingulae, looking unmoved upon
the innumerable revolutions which have upheaved our planet, are today
what they were in the most distant times of the palaeozoic era."
("Creative Evolution", page 111.) Moreover, if, in us, life is
indisputably creation and liberty, how would it not, to some extent, be
so in universal nature? "Whatever be the inmost essence of what is and
what is being made, we are of it: ("Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale",
November 1911.) a conclusion by analogy is therefore legitimate. But
above all, this conclusion is verified by its aptitude for solving
problems of detail, and for taking account of observed facts, and in
this respect I regret that I can only refer the reader to the whole body
of admirable discussions and analyses drawn up by Mr Bergson with regard
to "the plant and the animal," or "the development of animal life.""
("Creative Evolution", chapter ii.)

As regards matter, two main laws stand out from the whole of our
science, relative to its nature and its phenomena: a law of conservation
and a law of degradation. On the one hand, we have mechanism,
repetition, inertia, constants, and invariants: the play of the material
world, from the point of view of quantity, offers us the aspect of
an immense transformation without gain or loss, a homogeneous
transformation tending to maintain in itself an exact equivalence
between the departure a