Creative Evolution

work by Bergson

Also known as: “L’Evolution créatrice”

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June 25, 2026

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Creative Evolution is a philosophical theory developed by Henri Bergson in his 1907 work, Creative Evolution. It posits that evolution is not a deterministic process driven by external forces or predetermined goals, but rather a free emergence driven by an internal life force, the élan vital.12

Bergson distinguished this vital impulse from matter, suggesting that while matter's evolution is orderly, the élan vital introduces disorder and unpredictable creativity. Life is compared to a wave, constantly diverging and creating novelty. This contrasts with mechanistic or teleological hypotheses, emphasizing change and becoming over static values. Bergsonism, the philosophy stemming from this, suggests that true reality is grasped through intuition, not just scientific analysis.134

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continental philosophy
Dilthey and Bergson
As he remarked in Creative Evolution (1907): “Anticipated time is not mathematical time…. It coincides with duration, which is not subject to being prolonged or retracted at will. It is no longer something thought but something lived.” In France Bergson’s views made few inroads among more-traditional philosophers, in part…
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As he remarked in Creative Evolution (1907): “Anticipated time is not mathematical time…. It coincides with duration, which is not subject to being prolonged or retracted at will. It is no longer something thought but something lived.” In France Bergson’s views made few inroads among more-traditional philosophers, in part…
Read More

Henri Bergson
Philosophical triumphs
L’Évolution créatrice (1907; Creative Evolution), the greatest work of these years and Bergson’s most famous book, reveals him most clearly as a philosopher of process at the same time that it shows the influence of biology upon his thought. In examining the idea of life, Bergson accepted evolution…
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L’Évolution créatrice (1907; Creative Evolution), the greatest work of these years and Bergson’s most famous book, reveals him most clearly as a philosopher of process at the same time that it shows the influence of biology upon his thought. In examining the idea of life, Bergson accepted evolution…
Read More

Western philosophy
Bergson, Dewey, and Whitehead
… (1903) and in his masterpiece, Creative Evolution (1907), Bergson distinguished between two profoundly different ways of knowing: the method of analysis, which is characteristic of science, and the method of intuition, a kind of intellectual sympathy through which it is possible to enter into objects and other persons and identify…
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… (1903) and in his masterpiece, Creative Evolution (1907), Bergson distinguished between two profoundly different ways of knowing: the method of analysis, which is characteristic of science, and the method of intuition, a kind of intellectual sympathy through which it is possible to enter into objects and other persons and identify…
Read More