''Creative Evolution'' () is a 1907 book by French philosopher

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; ; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the S ...

. Its English translation appeared in 1911. The book proposed a version of

orthogenesis Orthogenesis, also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is an Superseded theories in science, obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolution, evolve ...

in place of Darwin's mechanism of

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

, suggesting that

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

is motivated by the

élan vital ''Élan vital'' () is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book '' Creative Evolution'', in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manne ...

, a "vital impetus" that can also be understood as humanity's natural creative impulse. The book was very popular in the early decades of the twentieth century. The book also developed concepts of time (offered in Bergson's earlier work) which significantly influenced

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

writers and thinkers such as

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...

and

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

. For example, Bergson's term "duration" refers to a more individual, subjective experience of time, as opposed to mathematical, objectively measurable "clock time." In ''Creative Evolution'', Bergson suggests that the experience of time as "duration" can best be understood through

intuition Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning or needing an explanation. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledg ...

. According to the translator's note, Harvard philosopher

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, he is considered to be one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th c ...

intended to write the introduction to the book's English translation, but died in 1910 prior to the completion of the English edition in 1911.

Editions

*Henri Bergson, ''Creative Evolution'' (1911) tr. Arthur Mitchell, Henry Holt and Company *1944, Modern Library, Random House
1998, Dover Publications
*2005, Cosimo Classics,

External links

Discussion of ''Creative Evolution''
(from th
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
. * 1911 edition online.
Bergson, Henri, ''Creative Evolution''. Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1911
a digitized copy at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

. * 1907 non-fiction books Books about evolution Works by Henri Bergson {{philo-book-stub

Editions

See also

External links