In La Conscience et la Vie [Footnote:  L’Energie spirituelle, p. 27 (Mind-Energy).] Bergson indicates slightly his views on social evolution—­c’est a la vie sociale que l’evolution aboutit, comme si le besoin s’en etait fait sentir des le debut, ou plutot comme si quelque aspiration originelle et essentielle de la vie ne pouvait trouver que dans la societe sa pleine satisfaction.  He seems inclined to turn his attention to the unity of life, not simply as due to an identity of original impulse but to a common aspiration.  There is involved a process of subordination and initiative on the part of the individual.  The existence of society necessitates a certain subordination, while its progress depends on the free initiative of the individual.  It is extremely dangerous for any society, whether it be an International League, a State, either Communistic or Capitalistic, a Trade Union, or a Church, to suppress individual liberty in the interests of greater social efficiency or of increased production or rigid uniformity of doctrine.  With the sacrifice of individual initiative will go the loss of all “soul,” and the result will be degeneration to a mechanical type of existence, a merely stagnant institution expressing nothing of man’s spirit.  This personal power of initiative Bergson appeals to each one to maintain.  In an important passage of his little work on Laughter he makes a personal moral appeal.

“What life and society require of each of us is a constantly alert attention, that discerns the outlines of the present situation, together with a certain elasticity of mind and body to enable us to adapt ourselves in consequence."[Footnote:  Laughter, p. 18 (Fr. p. 18).] The lack of tension and elasticity gives rise to mental deficiency and to grave inadaptability which produces misery and crime.  Society demands not only that we live but that we live well.  This means that we must be truly alive; for Bergson, the moral ideal is to keep spiritually alert.  We must be our real, living selves, and not hide behind the social self of hypocrisy and habit.  We must avoid being the victims of mechanism or automatism.  We must avoid at all costs “getting into a rut” morally or spiritually.  Change and vision are both necessary to our welfare.  Where there is no vision, no undying fire of idealism, the people perish.

Resistance to change is the sin against the Holy Spirit.  Bergson is opposed to the conventional view of morality as equivalent to rigidity, and grasps the important truth that if morality is to be of worth at all it must lie not in a fixed set of rules, habits, or conventions, but in a spirit of living.  This is of very great ethical importance indeed, as it means that we must revise many of our standards of character.  For example, how often do we hear of one who, holding an obviously false view long and obstinately, is praised as consistent, whereas a mind which moves and develops with the times, attempting always to adjust itself