tion, only one perspective of existence. And if disconnections and
abrupt leaps are visible in the economy of the past--from matter to
life, from the animal to man--we have no authority again for claiming
that we cannot observe today something analogous in the very essence of
human life, that the point of view of the flesh, and the point of view
of the spirit, the point of view of reason, and the point of view of
charity are a homogeneous extension of it. And apart from that, taking
life in its first tendency, and in the general direction of its current,
it is ascent, growth, upward effort, and a work of spiritualising and
emancipating creation: by that we might define Good, for Good is a path
rather than a thing.

But life may fail, halt, or travel downwards. "Life in general is
mobility itself; the particular manifestations of life accept this
mobility only with regret, and constantly fall behind. While it is
always going forward, they would be glad to mark time. Evolution in
general would take place as far as possible in a straight line; special
evolution is a circular advance. Like dust-eddies raised by the passing
wind, living bodies are self-pivoted and hung in the full breeze of
life." ("Creative Evolution", page 139.) Each species, each individual,
each function tends to take itself as its end; mechanism, habit, body,
and letter, which are, strictly speaking, pure instruments, actually
become principles of death. Thus it comes about that life is exhausted
in efforts towards self-preservation, allows itself to be converted
by matter into captive eddies, sometimes even abandons itself to the
inertia of the weight which it ought to raise, and surrenders to the
downward current which constitutes the essence of materiality: it is
thus that Evil would be defined, as the direction of travel opposed
to Good. Now, with man, thought, reflection, and clear consciousness
appear. At the same time also properly moral qualifications appear: good
becomes duty, evil becomes sin. At this precise moment, a new problem
begins, demanding the soundings of a new intuition, yet connected at
clear and visible points with previous problems.

This is the philosophy which some are pleased to say is closed by nature
to all problems of a certain order, problems of reason or problems of
morality. There is no doctrine, on the contrary, which is more open, and
none which, in actual fact, lends itself better to further extension.

It is not my