ll's
philosophy of discontinuity. From Wundt and Fouillee Ardigo differs in
conceiving psychical evolution not as an immediate revelation of the
innermost nature of existence, but only as a single, though the most
accessible example, of evolution.

III. To the French philosophers Boutroux and Bergson, evolution proper
is continuous and qualitative, while outer experience and physical
science give us fragments only, sporadic processes and mechanical
combinations. To Bergson, in his recent work _L'Evolution Creatrice_,
evolution consists in an _elan de vie_ which to our fragmentary
observation and analytic reflexion appears as broken into a manifold
of elements and processes. The concept of matter in its scientific
form is the result of this breaking asunder, essential for all
scientific reflexion. In these conceptions the strongest opposition
between inner and outer conditions of evolution is expressed: in the
domain of internal conditions spontaneous development of qualitative
forms--in the domain of external conditions discontinuity and
mechanical combination.

We see, then, that the theory of evolution has influenced philosophy
in a variety of forms. It has made idealistic thinkers revise their
relation to the real world; it has led positivistic thinkers to find a
closer connection between the facts on which they based their views;
it has made us all open our eyes for new possibilities to arise
through the _prima facie_ inexplicable "spontaneous" variations which
are the condition of all evolution. This last point is one of peculiar
interest. Deeper than speculative philosophy and mechanical science
saw in the days of their triumph, we catch sight of new streams, whose
sources and laws we have still to discover. Most sharply does this
appear in the theory of mutation, which is only a stronger
accentuation of a main point in Darwinism. It is interesting to see
that an analogous problem comes into the foreground in physics through
the discovery of radioactive phenomena, and in psychology through the
assumption of psychical new formations (as held by Boutroux, William
James and Bergson). From this side, Darwin's ideas, as well as the
analogous ideas in other domains, incite us to renewed examination of
our first principles, their rationality and their value. On the other
hand, his theory of the struggle for existence challenges us to
examine the conditions and discuss the outlook as to the persistence
of human life an