Creative Evolution
CONTENTS
Henri Bergson
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Translator's Note
Introduction
CHAPTER I
The Evolution of Life -- Mechanism and Teleology
- Of duration in general -- Unorganized bodies and abstract time -- Organized bodies and real duration -- Individuality and the process of growing old
- Of transformism and the different ways of interpreting it -- Radical mechanism and real duration: the relation of biology to physics and chemistry -- Radical finalism and real duration: the relation of biology to philosophy
- The quest of a criterion -- Examination of the various theories with regard to a particular example -- Darwin and insensible varion -- Devries and sudden variation -- Eimer and orthogenesis -- Neo-Lamarkism and the hereditability of acquired characters
- Results of the inquiry -- The vital impulse
CHAPTER II
The Divergent Directions of the Evolution of Life -- Torpor, Intelligence, Instinct
- General idea of the evolutionary process -- Growth -- Divergent and complementary tendencies -- The meaning of progress and of adaptation
- The relation of the animal to the plant -- General tendency of animal life -- The development of animal life
- The main directions of the evolution of life: torpor, intelligence, instinct
- The nature of the intellect
- The nature of instinct
- Life and consciousness -- The apparent place of man in nature
CHAPTER III
On the Meaning of Life -- The Order of Nature and the Form of Intelligence
- Relation of the problem of life to the problem of knowledge -- The method of philosophy -- Apparent vicious circle of the method proposed -- Real vicious circle of the opposite method
- Simultaneous genesis of matter and intelligence -- Geometry inherent in matter -- Geometrical tendency of the intellect -- Geometry and deduction -- Geometry and induction -- Physical laws
- Sketch of a theory of knowledge based on the analysis of the idea of Disorder -- Two opposed forms of order: the problem of genera and the problem of laws -- The idea of "disorder" an oscillation of the intellect between the two kinds of order
- Creation and evolution -- Ideal genesis of matter -- The origin and function of life -- The essential and the accidental in the vital process and in the evolutionary movement -- Mankind -- The life of the body and the life of the spirit
CHAPTER IV
The Cinematographical Mechanism of Thought and the Mechanistic Illusion -- A Glance at the
History of Systems -- Real Becoming and False Evolutionism
- Sketch of a criticism of philosophical systems, based on the analysis of the idea of Immutability and the idea of "Nothing" -- Relation of metaphysical problems to the idea of "Nothing" -- Real meaning of this idea
- Form and Becoming
- The philosophy of Forms and its conception of Becoming -- Plato and Aristotle -- The natural trend of the intellect
- Becoming in modern science: two views of Time.
- The metaphysical interpretation of modern science: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz
- The Criticism of Kant
- The evolutionism of Spencer
