L'Évolution créatrice cover

L'Évolution créatrice

by Henri Bergson

French philosopher Henri Bergson's Creative Evolution was published in 1907 and translated into English in 1911. Very popular at the time, it gives an alternate mechanism for evolution - that it is motivated by an "elan vital" a vital impetus, also graspable as our natural creative urge. It also looks at Bergson's conception of time, a subjective "duration" (rather than the quantifiable time of a clock) that is best understood not through the intellect but through our creative intuition, an idea that influenced Marcel Proust and other modernist thinkers.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?