A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson Part 1

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson.

by Edouard le Roy.

Preface

This little book is due to two articles published under the same t.i.tle 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 a.n.a.logies, and specifying ingredients. An original philosophy is not meant to be studied as a mosaic which takes to pieces, a compound which a.n.a.lyses, 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 a.s.sist 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.

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 p.r.o.nounce 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 antic.i.p.ated it in some mysterious twilight at the back of consciousness.

Afterwards, no doubt, in certain cases, incert.i.tude 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 pa.s.s 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 a.n.a.lysis; 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, pa.s.sing 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 subst.i.tute 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 ident.i.ty 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 a.s.similation 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 s.p.a.ce, and whether, if we did away with the vulgar ill.u.s.trations 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 a.n.a.lytic 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, const.i.tuting the best preface to the reading of the books themselves. We may say in pa.s.sing, 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 att.i.tude, 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 pa.s.s un.o.bserved. 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.