ss is usually conceived to be due to the functioning of the
brain; so life is conceived to be due to the functioning of the body;
but just as mind can be shown to exist apart from brain, and merely
manifest _through_ it, in the same way, M. Bergson suggests, life may
exist apart from matter, and merely animate it in its passage through
it. It is all a question of interpretation.[14]

Is the interpretation correct? As Hamlet said: "That is the question!"
To use the words of the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour (_Hibbert Journal_,
October 1911, p. 18):

"M. Bergson regards matter as the dam which keeps back the rush of
life. Organize it a little (as in the protozoa)--i.e. slightly
raise the sluice--and a little life will squeeze through. Organize
it elaborately (as in man)--i.e. raise the sluice a good deal--and
much life will squeeze through. Now this may be a very plausible
opinion if the flood of life be really there, beating against
matter till it force an entry through the narrow slit of
undifferentiated protoplasm. But is it there? Science, modesty
professing ignorance, can stumble along without it, and I question
whether philosophy, with only scientific data to work upon, can
establish its reality."

It would seem to me that the only way to settle this question one way or
the other is to bring forward certain _facts_ which can be accounted for
more fully and rationally on one theory than on the other. If facts
could be produced which one theory could not account for at all, the
alternative theory might be said to stand proved. Do such facts exist
which tell in favour of M. Bergson's theory as against the other? I
believe they do. Before coming to them, however, I must draw attention
to certain weaknesses in the generally held theory of life, which are,
it seems to me, also shared by M. Bergson's theory. Until these are
disposed of, I do not believe that any definite forward step will be
taken towards proof either in one direction or in the other. So long as
certain fundamental tenets are held, it seems improbable that any one
theory of life will be proved more than any other theory. M. Bergson has
gone part of the way, in his demonstration, but he has stopped there
instead of carrying his train of argument to its logical conclusion. At
least so it appears to me; for I think it obvious that the chain of
argument which M. Bergson adopts can be carried much further than