A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson by Edouard Louis Emmanuel Julien Le Roy
page 67 of 162 (41%)
page 67 of 162 (41%)
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presents to immediate observation. Whether spiritual activity
unconsciously presides over biological evolution, or whether it simply prolongs it, we always find here and there the essential features of duration. But I spoke just now of "individuality." Is it really one of the distinctive marks of life? We know how difficult it is to define it accurately. Nowhere, not even in man, is it fully realised; and there are beings in existence in which it seems a complete illusion, though every part of them reproduces their complete unity. True, but we are now dealing with biology, in which geometrical precision is inadmissible, where reality is defined not so much by the possession of certain characteristics as by its tendency to accentuate them. It is as a tendency that individuality is more particularly manifested; and if we look at it in this light, no one can deny that it does constitute one of the fundamental tendencies of life. Only the truth is that the tendency to individuality remains always and everywhere counterbalanced, and therefore limited, by an opposing tendency, the tendency to association, and above all to reproduction. This necessitates a correction in our analysis. Nature, in many respects, seems to take no interest in individuals. "Life appears to be a current passing from one germ to another through the medium of a developed organism." ("Creative Evolution", page 29.) It seems as if the organism played the part of a thoroughfare. What is important is rather the continuity of progress of which the individuals are only transitory phases. Between these phases again there are no sharp severances; each phase resolves and melts imperceptibly into that which follows. Is not the real problem of heredity to know how, and up to what point, a new individual breaks away from the individuals which produced it? |
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