In his last major work, "Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion" (1932), Bergson outlines an ethics and philosophy of religion based on his central concept of élan vital, examining the internal forces of change within the cultural phenomena of morality and religion. Bergson distinguishes between a "closed morality," which significantly contributes to the self-preservation of a society and largely determines our everyday behavior, and an "open morality," which is based on freedom, humanity, and love. This "higher" morality, which requires an open attitude of the soul, relates to the "lower" morality of the closed society as movement relates to rest, dynamics to statics, and freedom to law, representing the creative principle that enables and brings about social change. These two moral principles correspond to...