Deity, not external and far-off, but one whose own future is bound up in humanity, rejoicing in its joy, but suffering, by a kind of perpetual crucifixion, through man’s errors and his failures to be loyal to the higher things of the spirit.  Thus we shall see that, in a sense, men’s noble actions promote God’s fuller being.  A Norwegian novelist has recently emphasized this point by his story of the man who went out and sowed corn in his late enemy’s field that god might exist! [Footnote:  The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer.] But it is important to remember that in so far as we allow ourselves to become victims of habit, living only a materialistic and static type of existence, we retard the divine operations.  On the other hand, in so far as our spirit finds joy in creative activity and in the furtherance of spiritual values, to this extent we may be regarded as fellow-labourers together with God.  We cannot, by intellectual searching find out God, yet we may realize and express quite consistently with Bergson’s philosophy the truth that “in Him we live, and move, and have our being.”

CHAPTER XII

REFLECTIONS

Bergson not systematic—­His style—­Difficult to classify—­Empirical and spiritual—­Value of his ideas on Change, the nature of Mind, of Freedom--Difficulties in his evolutionary theory—­Ethical lack—­Need for supplement-Emphasis on Will, Creativeness, Human Progress and Possibilities.

In concluding this study of Bergson’s philosophy, it remains to sum up and to review its general merits and deficiencies.  We must remember, in fairness to Bergson, that he does not profess to offer us A system of philosophy.  In fact, if he were to do so, he would involve himself in a grave inconsistency, for his thought is not of the systematic type.  He is opposed to the work of those individual thinkers who have offered “systems” to the world, rounded and professedly complete constructions, labelled, one might almost say, “the last word in Philosophy.”  Bergson does not claim that his thought is final.  His ideal, of which he speaks in his lectures on La Perception du Changement—­that excellent summary of his thought—­is a progressive philosophy to which each thinker shall contribute.  If we feel disappointed that Bergson has not gone further or done more by attempting a solution of some of the fundamental problems of our human experience, upon which he has not touched, then we must recollect his own view of the philosophy he is seeking to expound.  All thinking minds must contribute their quota.  A philosophy such as he wishes to promote by establishing a method by his own works will not be made in a day.  “Unlike the philosophical systems properly so called, each of which was the individual work of a man of genius, and sprang up as a whole to be taken or left, it will only be built up by the collective and progressive effort of many thinkers, of many observers