We find Bergson reported as believing that the individual cannot be guided solely by considerations of a purely moral character.  Morality, even social ethics, is not enough in view of the longing for religious experience, the yearning for at least a feeling of definite relationship between the individual human personality and the great spiritual source of life.  This is a feeling which he believes will grow. [Footnote:  New York Times, Feb. 22, 1914.]

Bergson’s philosophy has aroused a new interest in many theological questions.  The dogmas of theology, philosophy holds itself free to criticize; they are for it problems.  The teleological arguments of the older theologians have had to be left behind.  “We are fearfully and wonderfully made,” no doubt, but not perfectly, and the arguments in favour of an intelligent contriver (cf.  The Bridgewater Treatises) which showed the greatest plausibility, were made meaningless by Darwin’s work.  Further, Evoluton knows no break.  We cannot believe in the doctrines of the “fall” or in “original sin,” for Evolution means a progress from lower to higher forms.  Thus we see that many of the older forms of theological statement call for revision.  Bergson has done much to stimulate a keener and fresher theological spirit which will express God in a less static and less isolated form, so that we shall not have the question asked, either by children or older folks, “What does God do?”

It should be noted before closing this section that the religious consciousness is tempted to take Bergson’s views on Soul and Body to imply more than they really do.  The belief in Immortality which Western religion upholds is not a mere swooning into the being of God, but a perfect realization of our own personalities.  It is only this that is an immortality worthy of the name.  To regard souls as Bergson does, as merely “rivulets” into which the great stream of Life has divided, does not do sufficient justice to human individuality.  A “Nirvana,” after death, is not immortality in the sense of personal survival and in the sense demanded by the religious consciousness.

The influence of Bergson’s thought upon religion and theology may be put finally as follows:  We must reject the notion of a God for whom all is already made, to whom all is given, and uphold the conception of a God who acts freely in an open universe.  The acceptance of Bergson’s philosophy involves the recognition of a God who is the enduring creative impulse of all Life, more akin perhaps to a Mother-Deity than a Father-Deity.  This divine vital impetus manifests itself in continual new creation.  We are each part of this great Divine Life, and are both the products and the instruments of its activity.  We may thus come to view the Divine Life as self-given to humanity, emptying itself into mankind as a veritable incarnation, not, however, restricted to one time and place, but manifest throughout the whole progress of humanity.  Our conception will be that of a