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Henri Bergson

E >> Edouard le Roy >> Henri Bergson



A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

by

Edouard le Roy


Translated from the French by

Vincent Benson




Preface

This little book is due to two articles published under the same title in
the "Revue des Deux Mondes", 1st and 15th February 1912.

Their object was to present Mr Bergson's philosophy to the public at large,
giving as short a sketch as possible, and describing, without too minute
details, the general trend of his movement. These articles I have here
reprinted intact. But I have added, in the form of continuous notes, some
additional explanations on points which did not come within the scope of
investigation in the original sketch.

I need hardly add that my work, though thus far complete, does not in any
way claim to be a profound critical study. Indeed, such a study, dealing
with a thinker who has not yet said his last word, would today be
premature. I have simply aimed at writing an introduction which will make
it easier to read and understand Mr Bergson's works, and serve as a
preliminary guide to those who desire initiation in the new philosophy.

I have therefore firmly waived all the paraphernalia of technical
discussions, and have made no comparisons, learned or otherwise, between Mr
Bergson's teaching and that of older philosophies.

I can conceive no better method of misunderstanding the point at issue, I
mean the simple unity of productive intuition, than that of pigeon-holing
names of systems, collecting instances of resemblance, making up analogies,
and specifying ingredients. An original philosophy is not meant to be
studied as a mosaic which takes to pieces, a compound which analyses, or a
body which dissects. On the contrary, it is by considering it as a living
act, not as a rather clever discourse, by examining the peculiar excellence
of its soul rather than the formation of its body, that the inquirer will
succeed in understanding it. Properly speaking, I have only applied to Mr
Bergson the method which he himself justifiably prescribes in a recent
article ("Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale", November 1911), the only
method, in fact, which is in all senses of the word fully "exact." I shall
none the less be glad if these brief pages can be of any interest to
professional philosophers, and have endeavoured, as far as possible, to
allow them to trace, under the concise formulae employed, the scheme which
I have refused to develop.

It has become evident to me that even today the interpretation of Mr
Bergson's position is in many cases full of faults, which it would
undoubtedly be worth while to assist in removing. I may or may not have
succeeded in my attempt, but such, at any rate, is the precise end I had in
view.

In conclusion, I may say that I have not had the honour of being Mr
Bergson's pupil; and, at the time when I became acquainted with his
outlook, my own direct reflection on science and life had already produced
in me similar trains of thought. I found in his work the striking
realisation of a presentiment and a desire. This "correspondence," which I
have not exaggerated, proved at once a help and a hindrance to me in
entering into the exact comprehension of so profoundly original a doctrine.
The reader will thus understand that I think it in place to quote my
authority to him in the following lines which Mr Bergson kindly wrote me
after the publication of the articles reproduced in this volume:
"Underneath and beyond the method you have caught the intention and the
spirit...Your study could not be more conscientious or true to the
original. As it advances, condensation increases in a marked degree: the
reader becomes aware that the explanation is undergoing a progressive
involution similar to the involution by which we determine the reality of
Time. To produce this feeling, much more has been necessary than a close
study of my works: it has required deep sympathy of thought, the power, in
fact, of rethinking the subject in a personal and original manner. Nowhere
is this sympathy more in evidence than in your concluding pages, where in a
few words you point out the possibilities of further developments of the
doctrine. In this direction I should myself say exactly what you have
said."

Paris, 28th March 1912.


CONTENTS

Preface


GENERAL VIEW


I. Method.

Scope of Henri Bergson's Philosophy. Material and Authorities.
Investigation of Common-sense. Value of Science. Perception Discussed.
Practical Life and Reality. Concepts and Symbolism. Intuition and
Analysis. Use of Metaphor. The Philosopher's Task.


II. Teaching.

The Ego. Space and Number. Parallelism. Henri Bergson's View of Mind and
Matter. Qualitative Continuity. Memory. Real Duration Heterogeneous.
Liberty and Determinism. Meaning of Reality. Evolution and Automatism.
Triumph of Man. The Vital Impulse. Objections Refuted. Place of Religion
in the New Philosophy.



ADDITIONAL EXPLANATIONS


I. Henri Bergson's Work and the General Directions of Contemporary
Thought.

Mathematics and Philosophy. The Inert and the Living. Realism and
Positivism. Henri Bergson and the Intuition of Duration.


II. Immediacy.

Necessity of Criticism. Utilitarianism of Common-sense. Perception of
Immediacy.


III. Theory of Perception.

Pure and Ordinary Perception. Kant's Position. Relation of Perception to
Matter. Complete Experience.


IV. Critique of Language.

Dynamic Schemes. Dangers of Language. The Eleatic Dialectic. Scientific
Thought and the Task of Intuition. Discussion of Change.


V. The Problem of Consciousness: Duration and Liberty.

States as Phases in Duration. The Scientific View of Time. Duration and
Freedom. Liberty and Determinism in the Light of Henri Bergson's
Philosophy.


VI. The Problem of Evolution: Life and Matter.

Evolution and Creation. Laws of Conservation and Degradation. Quantity
and Quality. Secondary Value of Matter.


VII. The Problem of Knowledge: Analysis and Intuition.

Difficulties of Kant's Position. Insufficiency of Intelligence. Henri
Bergson and the Problem of Reason. Geometric and Vital Types of Order.


VIII. Conclusion.

Moral and Religious Problems. Henri Bergson's Position.


A NEW PHILOSOPHY

GENERAL VIEW


I. Method.

There is a thinker whose name is today on everybody's lips, who is deemed
by acknowledged philosophers worthy of comparison with the greatest, and
who, with his pen as well as his brain, has overleapt all technical
obstacles, and won himself a reading both outside and inside the schools.
Beyond any doubt, and by common consent, Mr Henri Bergson's work will
appear to future eyes among the most characteristic, fertile, and glorious
of our era. It marks a never-to-be-forgotten date in history; it opens up
a phase of metaphysical thought; it lays down a principle of development
the limits of which are indeterminable; and it is after cool consideration,
with full consciousness of the exact value of words, that we are able to
pronounce the revolution which it effects equal in importance to that
effected by Kant, or even by Socrates.

Everybody, indeed, has become aware of this more or less clearly. Else how
are we to explain, except through such recognition, the sudden striking
spread of this new philosophy which, by its learned rigorism, precluded the
likelihood of so rapid a triumph?

Twenty years have sufficed to make its results felt far beyond traditional
limits: and now its influence is alive and working from one pole of
thought to the other; and the active leaven contained in it can be seen
already extending to the most varied and distant spheres: in social and
political spheres, where from opposite points, and not without certain
abuses, an attempt is already being made to wrench it in contrary
directions; in the sphere of religious speculation, where it has been more
legitimately summoned to a distinguished, illuminative, and beneficent
career; in the sphere of pure science, where, despite old separatist
prejudices, the ideas sown are pushing up here and there; and lastly, in
the sphere of art, where there are indications that it is likely to help
certain presentiments, which have till now remained obscure, to become
conscious of themselves. The moment is favourable to a study of Mr
Bergson's philosophy; but in the face of so many attempted methods of
employment, some of them a trifle premature, the point of paramount
importance, applying Mr Bergson's own method to himself, is to study his
philosophy in itself, for itself, in its profound trend and its
authenticated action, without claiming to enlist it in the ranks of any
cause whatsoever.


I.

Mr Bergson's readers will undergo at almost every page they read an intense
and singular experience. The curtain drawn between ourselves and reality,
enveloping everything including ourselves in its illusive folds, seems of a
sudden to fall, dissipated by enchantment, and display to the mind depths
of light till then undreamt, in which reality itself, contemplated face to
face for the first time, stands fully revealed. The revelation is
overpowering, and once vouchsafed will never afterwards be forgotten.

Nothing can convey to the reader the effects of this direct and intimate
mental vision. Everything which he thought he knew already finds new birth
and vigour in the clear light of morning: on all hands, in the glow of
dawn, new intuitions spring up and open out; we feel them big with infinite
consequences, heavy and saturated with life. Each of them is no sooner
blown than it appears fertile for ever. And yet there is nothing
paradoxical or disturbing in the novelty. It is a reply to our
expectation, an answer to some dim hope. So vivid is the impression of
truth, that afterwards we are even ready to believe we recognise the
revelation as if we had always darkly anticipated it in some mysterious
twilight at the back of consciousness.

Afterwards, no doubt, in certain cases, incertitude reappears, sometimes
even decided objections. The reader, who at first was under a magic spell,
corrects his thought, or at least hesitates. What he has seen is still at
bottom so new, so unexpected, so far removed from familiar conceptions.
For this surging wave of thought our mind contains none of those ready-cut
channels which render comprehension easy. But whether, in the long run, we
each of us give or refuse complete or partial adhesion, all of us, at
least, have received a regenerating shock, an internal upheaval not readily
silenced: the network of our intellectual habits is broken; henceforth a
new leaven works and ferments in us; we shall no longer think as we used to
think; and be we pupils or critics, we cannot mistake the fact that we have
here a principle of integral renewal for ancient philosophy and its old and
timeworn problems.

It is obviously impossible to sketch in brief all the aspects and all the
wealth of so original a work. Still less shall I be able to answer here
the many questions which arise. I must decide to pass rapidly over the
technical detail of clear, closely-argued, and penetrating discussions;
over the scope and exactness of the evidence borrowed from the most diverse
positive sciences; over the marvellous dexterity of the psychological
analysis; over the magic of a style which can call up what words cannot
express. The solidity of the construction will not be evidenced in these
pages, nor its austere and subtle beauty. But what I do at all costs wish
to bring out, in shorter form, in this new philosophy, is its directing
idea and general movement.

In such an undertaking, where the end is to understand rather than to
judge, criticism ought to take second place. It is more profitable to
attempt to feel oneself into the heart of the teaching, to relive its
genesis, to perceive the principle of organic unity, to come at the
mainspring. Let our reading be a course of meditation which we live. The
only true homage we can render to the masters of thought consists in
ourselves thinking, as far as we can do so, in their train, under their
inspiration, and along the paths which they have opened up.

In the case before us this road is landmarked by several books which it
will be sufficient to study one after the other, and take successively as
the text of our reflections.

In 1889 Mr Bergson made his appearance with an "Essay on the Immediate Data
of Consciousness".

This was his doctor's thesis. Taking up his position inside the human
personality, in its inmost mind, he endeavoured to lay hold of the depths
of life and free action in their commonly overlooked and fugitive
originality.

Some years later, in 1896, passing this time to the externals of
consciousness, the contact surface between things and the ego, he published
"Matter and Memory", a masterly study of perception and recollection, which
he himself put forward as an inquiry into the relation between body and
mind. In 1907 he followed with "Creative Evolution", in which the new
metaphysic was outlined in its full breadth, and developed with a wealth of
suggestion and perspective opening upon the distances of infinity;
universal evolution, the meaning of life, the nature of mind and matter, of
intelligence and instinct, were the great problems here treated, ending in
a general critique of knowledge and a completely original definition of
philosophy.

These will be our guides which we shall carefully follow, step by step. It
is not, I must confess, without some apprehension that I undertake the task
of summing up so much research, and of condensing into a few pages so many
and such new conclusions.

Mr Bergson excels, even on points of least significance, in producing the
feeling of unfathomed depths and infinite levels. Never has anyone better
understood how to fulfil the philosopher's first task, in pointing out the
hidden mystery in everything. With him we see all at once the concrete
thickness and inexhaustible extension of the most familiar reality, which
has always been before our eyes, where before we were aware only of the
external film.

Do not imagine that this is simply a poetical delusion. We must be
grateful if the philosopher uses exquisite language and writes in a style
which abounds in living images. These are rare qualities. But let us
avoid being duped by a show of printed matter: these unannotated pages are
supported by positive science submitted to the most minute inspection. One
day, in 1901, at the French Philosophical Society, Mr Bergson related the
genesis of "Matter and Memory".

"Twelve years or so before its appearance, I had set myself the following
problem: 'What would be the teaching of the physiology and pathology of
today upon the ancient question of the connection between physical and
moral to an unprejudiced mind, determined to forget all speculation in
which it has indulged on this point, determined also to neglect, in the
enunciations of philosophers, all that is not pure and simple statement of
fact?' I set myself to solve the problem, and I very soon perceived that
the question was susceptible of a provisional solution, and even of precise
formulation, only if restricted to the problem of memory. In memory itself
I was forced to determine bounds which I had afterwards to narrow
considerably. After confining myself to the recollection of words I saw
that the problem, as stated, was still too broad, and that, to put the
question in its most precise and interesting form, I should have to
substitute the recollection of the sound of words. The literature on
aphasia is enormous. I took five years to sift it. And I arrived at this
conclusion, that between the psychological fact and its corresponding basis
in the brain there must be a relation which answers to none of the ready-
made concepts furnished us by philosophy."

Certain characteristics of Mr Bergson's manner will be remarked throughout:
his provisional effort of forgetfulness to recreate a new and untrammelled
mind; his mixture of positive inquiry and bold invention; his stupendous
reading; his vast pioneer work carried on with indefatigable patience; his
constant correction by criticism, informed of the minutest details and
swift to follow up each of them at every turn. With a problem which would
at first have seemed secondary and incomplete, but which reappears as the
subject deepens and is thereby metamorphosed, he connects his entire
philosophy; and so well does he blend the whole and breathe upon it the
breath of life that the final statement leaves the reader with an
impression of sovereign ease.

Examples will be necessary to enable us, even to a feeble extent, to
understand this proceeding better. But before we come to examples, a
preliminary question requires examination. In the preface to his first
"Essay" Mr Bergson defined the principle of a method which was afterwards
to reappear in its identity throughout his various works; and we must
recall the terms he employed.

"We are forced to express ourselves in words, and we think, most often, in
space. To put it another way, language compels us to establish between our
ideas the same clear and precise distinctions, and the same break in
continuity, as between material objects. This assimilation is useful in
practical life and necessary in most sciences. But we are right in asking
whether the insuperable difficulties of certain philosophical problems do
not arise from the fact that we persist in placing non-spatial phenomena
next one another in space, and whether, if we did away with the vulgar
illustrations round which we dispute, we should not sometimes put an end to
the dispute."

That is to say, it is stated to be the philosopher's duty from the outset
to renounce the usual forms of analytic and synthetic thought, and to
achieve a direct intuitional effort which shall put him in immediate
contact with reality. Without doubt it is this question of method which
demands our first attention. It is the leading question. Mr Bergson
himself presents his works as "essays" which do not aim at "solving the
greatest problems all at once," but seek merely "to define the method and
disclose the possibility of applying it on some essential points."
(Preface to "Creative Evolution".) It is also a delicate question, for it
dominates all the rest, and decides whether we shall fully understand what
is to follow.

We must therefore pause here a moment. To direct us in this preliminary
study we have an admirable "Introduction to Metaphysis", which appeared as
an article in the "Metaphysical and Moral Review" (January 1903): a short
but marvellously suggestive memoire, constituting the best preface to the
reading of the books themselves. We may say in passing, that we should be
grateful to Mr Bergson if he would have it bound in volume form, along with
some other articles which are scarcely to be had at all today.


II.

Every philosophy, prior to taking shape in a group of co-ordinated theses,
presents itself, in its initial stage, as an attitude, a frame of mind, a
method. Nothing can be more important than to study this starting-point,
this elementary act of direction and movement, if we wish afterwards to
arrive at the precise shade of meaning of the subsequent teaching. Here is
really the fountain-head of thought; it is here that the form of the future
system is determined, and here that contact with reality takes effect.

The last point, particularly, is vital. To return to the direct view of
things beyond all figurative symbols, to descend into the inmost depths of
being, to watch the throbbing life in its pure state, and listen to the
secret rhythm of its inmost breath, to measure it, at least so far as
measurement is possible, has always been the philosopher's ambition; and
the new philosophy has not departed from this ideal. But in what light
does it regard its task? That is the first point to clear up. For the
problem is complex, and the goal distant.

"We are made as much, and more, for action than for thought," says Mr
Bergson; "or rather, when we follow our natural impulse, it is to act that
we think." ("L'Evolution Creatrice", page 321.) And again, "What we
ordinarily call a fact is not reality such as it would appear to an
immediate intuition, but an adaptation of reality to practical interests
and the demands of social life." ("Matiere et Memoire", page 201.) Hence
the question which takes precedence of all others is: to distinguish in
our common representation of the world, the fact in its true sense from the
combinations which we have introduced in view of action and language.

Now, to rediscover nature in her fresh springs of reality, it is not
sufficient to abandon the images and conceptions invented by human
initiative; still less is it sufficient to fling ourselves into the torrent
of brute sensations. By so doing we are in danger of dissolving our
thought in dream or quenching it in night.

Above all, we are in danger of committal to a path which it is impossible
to follow. The philosopher is not free to begin the work of knowledge
again upon other planes, with a mind which would be adequate to the new and
virgin issue of a simple writ of oblivion.

At the time when critical reflection begins, we have already been long
engaged in action and science, by the training of individual life, as by
hereditary and racial experience, our faculties of perception and
conception, our senses and our understanding, have contracted habits, which
are by this time unconscious and instinctive; we are haunted by all kinds
of ideas and principles, so familiar today that they even pass unobserved.
But what is it all worth?

Does it, in its present state, help us to know the nature of a
disinterested intuition?

Nothing but a methodical examination of consciousness can tell us that; and
it will take more than a renunciation of explicit knowledge to recreate in
us a new mind, capable of grasping the bare fact exactly as it is: what we
require is perhaps a penetrating reform, a kind of conversion.

The rational and perceptive function we term our intelligence emerges from
darkness through a slowly lifting dawn. During this twilight period it has
lived, worked, acted, fashioned and informed itself. On the threshold of
philosophical speculation it is full of more or less concealed beliefs,
which are literally prejudices, and branded with a secret mark influencing
its every movement. Here is an actual situation. Exemption from it is
beyond anyone's province. Whether we will or no, we are from the beginning
of our inquiry immersed in a doctrine which disguises nature to us, and
already at bottom constitutes a complete metaphysic. This we term common-
sense, and positive science is itself only an extension and refinement of
it. What is the value of this work performed without clear consciousness
or critical attention? Does it bring us into true relation with things,
into relation with pure consciousness?

This is our first and inevitable doubt, which requires solution.

But it would be a quixotic proceeding first to make a void in our mind, and
afterwards to admit into it, one by one, after investigation, such and such
a concept, or such and such a principle. The illusion of the clean sweep
and total reconstruction can never be too vigorously condemned.

Is it from the void that we set out to think? Do we think in void, and
with nothing? Common ideas of necessity form the groundwork for the
broidery of our advanced thought. Further, even if we succeeded in our
impossible task, should we, in so doing, have corrected the causes of error
which are today graven upon the very structure of our intelligence, such as
our past life has made it? These errors would not cease to act
imperceptibly upon the work of revision intended to apply the remedy.

It is from within, by an effort of immanent purgation, that the necessary
reform must be brought about. And philosophy's first task is to institute
critical reflection upon the obscure beginnings of thought, with a view to
shedding light upon its spontaneous virgin condition, but without any vain
claim to lift it out of the current in which it is actually plunged.

One conclusion is already plain: the groundwork of common-sense is sure,
but the form is suspicious.

In common-sense is contained, at any rate virtually and in embryo, all that
can ever be attained of reality, for reality is verification, not
construction.

Everything has its starting-point in construction and verification. Thus
philosophical research can only be a conscious and deliberate return to the
facts of primal intuition. But common-sense, being prepossessed in a
practical direction, has doubtless subjected these facts to a process of
interested alteration, which is artificial in proportion to the labour
bestowed. Such is Mr Bergson's fundamental hypothesis, and it is far-
reaching. "Many metaphysical difficulties probably arise from our habit of
confounding speculation and practice; or of pushing an idea in the
direction of utility, when we think we fathom it in theory; or, lastly, of
employing in thought the forms of action." (Preface to "Matter and
Memory". First edition.)

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