The sheep and the grass were only
things by the way and scaffolding for our precious humanity. But would
it not be better if some being should arise nobler than man, not
requiring abstract intellect nor artificial weapons, but endowed with
instinct and intuition and, let us say, the power of killing by
radiating electricity? And might not men then turn out to have been
mere explosives, in which energy was stored for convenient digestion
by that superior creature? A shocking thought, no doubt, like the
thought of death, and more distressing to our vital feelings than is
the pleasing assimilation of grass and mutton in our bellies. Yet I
can see no ground, except a desire to flatter oneself, for not
crediting the _elan vital_ with some such digestive intention. M.
Bergson's system would hardly be more speculative if it entertained
this possibility, and it would seem more honest.
[Footnote 6: This argument against mechanism is a good instance of the
difficulties which mythological habits of mind import unnecessarily
into science. An equilibrium would not displace itself! But an
equilibrium is a natural result, not a magical entity. It is
continually displaced, as its constituents are modified by internal
movements or external agencies; and while many a time the equilibrium
is thereby destroyed altogether, sometimes it is replaced by a more
elaborate and perilous equilibrium; as glaciers carry many rocks down,
but leave some, here and there, piled in the most unlikely pinnacles
and pagodas.
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