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Evolution, Bergson argues, is characterized by the progressive development of freedom, which culminates in human consciousness and the capacity for choice about how interaction with the environment will occur. Bergson's second theme is that the impulse that underlies evolution's movement toward freedom is energy. All life is energy. Energy is activity and mobility. Energy is the push behind how that activity will occur. Energy and freedom come together. Energy matches up with instinct and intelligence that are the twin poles of how life organizes its movement. But these are not pure states, and intelligence as consciousness exists in some limited degree within instinctive beings. Bergson writes that the humblest organism is conscious to the degree that it has the power to choose how it will move. This choice is freedom. Consciousness holds the capacity and power for choice, which reaches its most expansive expression in humans.

Evolution's march toward freedom is evolution's creativity. Bergson's stance here stands in contrast to the mechanistic (deterministic) themes then emerging in Darwinian thinking, but it also stands in contrast to predestined ends that others hold for human kind. Evolution is not the realization of a plan, Bergson says. In contrast to both, Bergson believes that this development of freedom resulted from life forms attempting to find new ways to survive in a demanding or hostile world. In this way, Bergson's theory is not different than the essence of Darwinian theory.

Bergson's own creative contribution to evolutionary theory is his emphasis on "becoming." Life is never a static state, but is continually changing. Static states are but moments in time that have been isolated by thought. Here he takes on Greek thought that would relegate ceaseless motion to an illusory material world that is secondary to the world of eternal forms. Uncomfortable with change, predominant Greek philosophy (Plato and after) addressed their dilemma with their own sleight of hand by positing logical truths as eternal forms as there can be no dispute that, for example, "A equals A." But Bergson says in reality there is no such Form. Bergson is equally critical of modern scientific theory that isolates as it analyzes, looking at parts as opposed to parts of wholes that transform through time. Science misses the whole that provides a simple unity of function, despite its dependence on a multiplicity of parts (sub-actions). In his emphasis on wholes and transformation, Bergson is notably similar to the structuralist thought of Jean Piaget who was to write later in the century.

In our free choices, Bergson says we create ourselves and this, along with innate character, makes us individual. But this self is not a thing. It is continually re-made, yet variability here is premised on deeper reality to our soul. What is the permanent core to our life is our impulsive force, which is ourselves as self-organizing entities. The self, in effect, goes through life not as solid matter, but as a wave. In this way, Bergson's theory seems to back into modern quantum theory about the ultimate nature of reality, suggesting that perhaps there is more similarity between organic and non-organic matter than once supposed.

Yet, there is a difference and this constitutes Bergson's essential underlying focus. Bergson traces his theory back to the beginning of life itself, to that transition point between life and non-life where the former draws energy from the latter and converts inert matter into life. The role of life is to place indeterminacy into matter. Life is a current of energy sent through matter, he writes, and draws from it whatever it can. In this way, life "spiritualizes matter." Heredity transmits more than character and physical traits. It transmits vitality, a single, powerful unity of impulse, a genetic energy that fights against disorder. This life force takes solar energy, stores it, and then uses it ("explosively") to survive. As the embodiment of this energy, we are a unity that then converts energy into a multiplicity of actions that enable our bodies, and ourselves, to survive.

Taking some liberty with Bergson, this unity - this self-organizing capacity directed toward survival - is our core Self, as it is the continuous entity that survives throughout all of its transformations. It is this life force that constitutes our essence and innermost soul. As with Schopenhauer's Will, Bergson's "elan vital" may be dismissed as overly obscure or mystical by many, but this is the terminology that captures the essence of life's drive to survive, to seek its well-being, and to reproduce itself. What this life force might be in more specific terms continues to be illusive to this day, and Bergson should not be faulted for not providing greater definition.

As a final comment, and as a criticism, humans have freedom of choice. This is not in doubt. But Bergson does not make it clear that such freedom is not pure. Humans are free to choose, but to do what? To what ends do they direct their (free) choice? Ultimately, action is directed toward evolution's twin goals, which are really the same thing: survival and reproduction. These goals are the fixed essences of life itself. In this sense we are not so free after all (even though we can commit suicide). As with all life forms, we seek to be free to achieve our life-given natures (ends) and to preserve ourselves as self-organizing entities, fighting to maintain order amid the pressures of disorder. The capacity to do this with maximum flexibility manifests itself in the free will of humans, but this capacity - remarkable as it is - is nevertheless directed toward the same ends we share with all life forms. Like them, we seek to be free to survive, to achieve well being, and to achieve evolution's "purpose," which is to reproduce ourselves. In this way, we share the same essence as all of life.