Bergson and His Philosophy Part 6

We have seen that Bergson holds no special brief for science, for, as has been shown, he opposes many of the hypotheses to which science clings. Consequently, some persons possessing only a superficial acquaintance with Bergson, and having minds which still think in the exclusive and opposing terms of the conflict of science and religion of a generation past, have enthusiastically hailed him as an ally of their religion. We must examine carefully how far this is justifiable. It is perfectly natural and just that many people, unable to devote time or energy to the study of his works, want to know, in regard to Bergson, as about every other great thinker, what is the bearing of his thought on their practical theory of life, upon their ideals of existence, upon the courage, faith, and hope which enable them to work and live, feeling that life is worth while. We must, however, guard against misuse of Bergson, particularly such misuse of him as that made in another sphere, by the Syndicalists. We find that in France he has been welcomed by the Modernists of the Roman Catholic Church as an ally, and by not a few liberal and progressive Christian theologians in this country.

At the outset, we must note that Bergson avoids theological forms of expression, because he is well aware that these--especially in a philosophical treatise--may give rise to misconceptions. He does not, like Kant, attack any specific or traditional argument for Theism; he does not enter into theological controversy. He has not formulated, with any strictness, his conception of G.o.d; for he has recognized that an examination of Theism would be of little or no value, which was not prefaced by a refutation of mechanism and materialism, and by the a.s.sertion of some spiritual value in the universe. It is to such a labour that Bergson has applied himself; it is only incidentally that we find him making remarks on religious or theological conceptions.

His whole philosophy, however, involves some very important religious conceptions and theological standpoints. In France, Bergson has had a considerable amount of discussion on the theological implications of his philosophy with the Jesuit Fathers, notably Father de Tonquedec. These arise particularly from his views concerning Change, Time, Freedom, Evolution and Intuition.

Bergson has been cited as a "Mystic" because he preaches a doctrine of Intuition. But his metaphysical Intuition bears no relation to the mysticism of the saint or of the fervid religious mind. He expressly says, "The doctrine I hold is a protest against mysticism since it professes to reconstruct the bridge (broken since Kant) between metaphysics and science." Yet, if by mysticism one means a certain appeal to the inner and profound life, then his philosophy is mystical--but so is all philosophy. We must beware of any attempts to run Bergson's thought into moulds for which it was never intended, and guard against its being strained and falsely interpreted in the interests of some special form of religious belief. Intuition is not what the religious mind means by Faith, in the accepted sense of belief in a doctrine or a deity, which is to be neither criticized nor reasoned about. Religion demands "what pa.s.seth knowledge." Furthermore, it seeks a reality that abides above the world of Change, "The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," to which it appeals. The religious consciousness finds itself most reluctant to admit the reality of Change, and this, we must remember, is the fundamental principle of Bergson's thought. Faber, one of the n.o.blest hymn writers, well expresses this att.i.tude:

"O, Lord, my heart is sick, Sick of this everlasting change, And Life runs tediously quick Through its unresting race and varied range.

Change finds no likeness of itself in Thee, And makes no echo in Thy mute eternity."

For Bergson, G.o.d reveals Himself in the world of Time, in the very principle of Change. He is not "a Father of lights in Whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning."

It has been said that the Idea of G.o.d is one of the objects of philosophy, and this is true, if, by G.o.d, we agree to mean the principle of the universe, or the Absolute. Unity is essential to the Idea of G.o.d. For the religious consciousness, of course, G.o.d's existence is a necessary one, not merely contingent. It views Him as eternal and unchangeable. But if we accept the Bergsonian philosophy, G.o.d cannot be regarded as "timeless," or as "perfect" in the sense of being "eternal"

and "complete." He is, so to speak, realizing Himself in the universe, and is not merely a unity which sums up the multiplicity of time existence. Further, He must be a G.o.d who acts freely and creatively and who is in time. Trouble has arisen in the past over the relation of "temporal" and "eternal"--the former being regarded as appearance. For Bergson, this difficulty does not arise; there is, for him, no such dualism. His G.o.d is not exempt from Change, He is not to be conceived as existing apart from and independent of the world. Indeed, for him, G.o.d would seem to be merely a focus imaginarius of Life and Spirit, a "hypostatization" of la duree. He cannot be regarded as the loving Father of the human race whom He has begotten or created in order that intelligent beings "may glorify Him and enjoy Him for ever." Bergson does not offer us a G.o.d, personal, loving, and redemptive, as the Christian religious consciousness demands or imagines. He does not, and can not, affirm Christian Theism, for he considers that the facts do not warrant the positing of a self-conscious and personal Individual in the only sense in which we, from our experience, can understand these words.

G.o.d is pure, creative activity, a flowing rather than a fountain head; a continuity of emanation, not a centre from which things emanate.

For Bergson, G.o.d is anthropomorphic--as He must necessarily be for us all--but Bergson's is anthropomorphism of a subtle kind. His G.o.d is the duree of our own conscious life, raised to a higher power. Dieu se fait in the evolutionary process. He is absolutely unfinished, not complete or perfect. He is incessant life, action, freedom, and creativeness, and in so far as we ourselves manifest these (seen, above all, in the creative joy of the inventor, poet, artist, and mother) each of us has the "divine" at work within. For Bergson, G.o.d is a Being immanent in the universe, but He is ignorant of the direction in which Evolution is progressing. This is not the G.o.d of the ordinary religious consciousness, nor is it a conception of G.o.d which satisfies the limited notion which our own imagination both creates and craves to find real.

G.o.d, it would seem, must be greater than His works, and He must know what He is doing. It has been objected that a force, even if a divine force (one can hardly call it "G.o.d" in the ordinary meaning of that vague word) which urges on Matter without knowing in what direction or to what end, is no G.o.d at all, for it is merely personified chance.

This is due to what Hegel calls "the error of viewing G.o.d as free."

[Footnote: Logic, Wallace's translation, first edition, p. 213.]

In reply to certain criticisms of his book L'Evolution creatrice made by Father de Tonquedec, Bergson wrote in 1912: "I speak of G.o.d as the source whence issue successively, by an effort of his freedom, the currents or impulses each of which will make a world; he therefore remains distinct from them, and it is not of him that we can say that 'most often it turns aside' or is 'at the mercy of the materiality that it has been bound to adopt.' Finally, the reasoning whereby I establish the impossibility of 'nothing' is in no way directed against the existence of a transcendent cause of the world; I have, on the contrary, explained that this reasoning has in view the Spinozist conception of Being. It issues in what is merely a demonstration that 'something' has always existed. As to the nature of this 'something' it is true that nothing in the way of a positive conclusion is conveyed. But neither is it stated in any fashion that what has always existed is the world itself, and the rest of the book explicitly affirms the contrary."

[Footnote: Tonquedec: Dieu dans l'Evolution creatrice (Beauchesne), and Annales de philosophie chretienne, 1912.] "Now the considerations set forth in my Essai sur les donnees immediates result in bringing to light the fact of freedom, those of Matiere et Memoire point directly, I hope, to the reality of Spirit, those of L'Evolution creatrice exhibit creation as a fact. From all this emerges clearly the idea of a G.o.d, creator and free, the generator of both Matter and Life, whose work of creation is continued on the side of Life by the evolution of species and the building up of human personalities. From all this emerges a refutation of monism and of pantheism." [Footnote: Tonquedec: Dieu dans l'Evolution creatrice (Beauchesne), and also Etudes des Peres de Jesus, Vol. Cx.x.x, 1912.] To this it was replied that, for Catholic theology, G.o.d is not merely the source from which the river springs, G.o.d does not develop Himself to a world but He causes it to appear by a kind of creation quite different from that of Bergson. Bergson's G.o.d is not the G.o.d of pantheism, because, for him, the Deity is immanent in nature, not identifiable with it. A true account of the Absolute would, for him, take the form of history. Human history has a vital meaning for him.

G.o.d is not omnipotent; He is a fighter who takes sides. He is not a "potter-G.o.d" with a clay world. The world involves a limiting of G.o.d, and theology has always found this its most difficult problem, for the evils or defects against which the Creator is waging war are evils and defects in a world of His own creating. Speaking in 1914, at the Edinburgh Philosophical Society, Bergson remarked that G.o.d might be looked upon as "a Creator of creators." Such a view, more explicitly worked out, might bring him into line with the religious attempt to reconcile the divine action with our own work and freedom. Our wills are ours, but in some mystic way religion believes they may become His also, and that we may be "fellow-labourers together with G.o.d." The religious view of the perfection of the Divine, its omniscience and omnipotence, has always been hard to reconcile with free will. Christian theology, when based on the perfection of the Divine nature, has always tended to be determinist. Indeed, free will has been advocated rather as an explanation of the presence of evil (our waywardness as in opposition to the will of G.o.d) than as the privilege and necessary endowment of a spiritual being, and so the really orthodox religious mind has been forced to seek salvation in self-surrender and has found consolation in reliance on the "grace" or "active good will" of G.o.d. Thus many theologians in an attempt to reconcile this with human freedom speak mystically, nevertheless confidently, of "the interaction of Grace and Free-Will."

The acceptance of Creative Evolution involves the acceptance of a G.o.d who expresses Himself in creative action called forth by changing situations. It cannot regard Evolution as merely the unrolling in time of the eternally complete, as in the view of monistic idealism. We find in Bergson, however, two hints which suggest that some vague idealistic conception has been present to his mind. For instance, in speaking of Time in relation to G.o.d, we find him suggesting that "the whole of history might be contained in a very short time for a consciousness at a higher degree of tension than our own, which should watch the development of humanity while contracting it, so to speak, into the great phases of its evolution." [Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 275 (Fr. p. 231).] This remark seems an echo of the words of the old Hebrew poet:

"For a thousand years in Thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night."

Again, in L'Evolution creatrice we find him suggesting that in maternity and love may lie the secret of the universe.

The important point however, in considering Bergson in relation to Religion and Theology, is his marked objection to teleology. It is this which has led many to style his philosophy pessimistic. Religion does not live readily in a pessimistic atmosphere. Then religion regards Life and the Universe as valuable, not because they yield to some single impulsion, but because, at every step, they manifest a meaning and significance interpreted by our conceptions of value. Bergson's view only favours religion as ordinarily comprehended, in so far as it breaks away from a materialistic mechanism, and a.s.serts freedom and gives Spirit some superiority over Matter. At first sight, the term "creative"

seemed very promising, but can we stop where Bergson has left us? Why should he banish teleology? His super-consciousness is so indeterminate that it is not allowed to hamper itself with any purpose more definite than that of self-augmentation. The course and goal of Evolution are to it unknown and unknowable. Creation, freedom, and will are great things, as Mr. Balfour remarks, but we cannot lastingly admire them unless we know their drift. It is too haphazard a universe which Bergson displays.

Joy does not seem to fit in with what is so aimless. It would be better to invoke G.o.d with a purpose than a supra-consciousness with none.

[Footnote: Creative Evolution and Philosophic Doubt, Hibbert Journal, Oct., 1911, pp. 1-23.]

In response to an international inquiry, conducted by Frederic Charpin, for the Mercure de France, formulated in the question, a.s.sistons-nous a une dissolution ou a une evolution de l'idee religieuse et du sentiment religieux? Bergson wrote: "I feel quite unable to foretell what the external manifestation of the religious sense may be in time to come.

I can only say that it does not seem to me likely to be disintegrated.

Only that which is made up of parts can be disintegrated. Now, I am willing to admit that the religious sense has been gradually enriched and complicated by very diverse elements; none the less it is in essence a simple thing, sui generis; and resembles no other emotion of the soul.

It may, perhaps be urged that a simple element, although it cannot be decomposed, may yet disappear, and that the religious sense will inevitably vanish when it has no object to which it can attach itself.

But this would be to forget that the object of the religious sense is, in part at least, prior to that sense itself; that this object is felt even more than it is thought and that the idea is, in this case, the effect of the feeling quite as much as its cause. The progressive deepening of the idea may therefore make the religious sense clearer and ever clearer; it cannot modify that which is essential in it, still less effect its disappearance." [Footnote: Charpin: La Question religieuse, 1908, Paris.]

We find Bergson reported as believing that the individual cannot be guided solely by considerations of a purely moral character. Morality, even social ethics, is not enough in view of the longing for religious experience, the yearning for at least a feeling of definite relationship between the individual human personality and the great spiritual source of life. This is a feeling which he believes will grow. [Footnote: New York Times, Feb. 22, 1914.]

Bergson's philosophy has aroused a new interest in many theological questions. The dogmas of theology, philosophy holds itself free to criticize; they are for it problems. The teleological arguments of the older theologians have had to be left behind. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made," no doubt, but not perfectly, and the arguments in favour of an intelligent contriver (cf. The Bridgewater Treatises) which showed the greatest plausibility, were made meaningless by Darwin's work. Further, Evoluton knows no break. We cannot believe in the doctrines of the "fall" or in "original sin," for Evolution means a progress from lower to higher forms. Thus we see that many of the older forms of theological statement call for revision. Bergson has done much to stimulate a keener and fresher theological spirit which will express G.o.d in a less static and less isolated form, so that we shall not have the question asked, either by children or older folks, "What does G.o.d do?"

It should be noted before closing this section that the religious consciousness is tempted to take Bergson's views on Soul and Body to imply more than they really do. The belief in Immortality which Western religion upholds is not a mere swooning into the being of G.o.d, but a perfect realization of our own personalities. It is only this that is an immortality worthy of the name. To regard souls as Bergson does, as merely "rivulets" into which the great stream of Life has divided, does not do sufficient justice to human individuality. A "Nirvana," after death, is not immortality in the sense of personal survival and in the sense demanded by the religious consciousness.

The influence of Bergson's thought upon religion and theology may be put finally as follows: We must reject the notion of a G.o.d for whom all is already made, to whom all is given, and uphold the conception of a G.o.d who acts freely in an open universe. The acceptance of Bergson's philosophy involves the recognition of a G.o.d who is the enduring creative impulse of all Life, more akin perhaps to a Mother-Deity than a Father-Deity. This divine vital impetus manifests itself in continual new creation. We are each part of this great Divine Life, and are both the products and the instruments of its activity. We may thus come to view the Divine Life as self-given to humanity, emptying itself into mankind as a veritable incarnation, not, however, restricted to one time and place, but manifest throughout the whole progress of humanity. Our conception will be that of a Deity, not external and far-off, but one whose own future is bound up in humanity, rejoicing in its joy, but suffering, by a kind of perpetual crucifixion, through man's errors and his failures to be loyal to the higher things of the spirit. Thus we shall see that, in a sense, men's n.o.ble actions promote G.o.d's fuller being. A Norwegian novelist has recently emphasized this point by his story of the man who went out and sowed corn in his late enemy's field THAT G.o.d MIGHT EXIST! [Footnote: The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer.]

But it is important to remember that in so far as we allow ourselves to become victims of habit, living only a materialistic and static type of existence, we r.e.t.a.r.d the divine operations. On the other hand, in so far as our spirit finds joy in creative activity and in the furtherance of spiritual values, to this extent we may be regarded as fellow-labourers together with G.o.d. We cannot, by intellectual searching find out G.o.d, yet we may realize and express quite consistently with Bergson's philosophy the truth that "in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

CHAPTER XII

REFLECTIONS

Bergson not systematic--His style--Difficult to cla.s.sify--Empirical and spiritual--Value of his ideas on Change, the nature of Mind, of Freedom--Difficulties in his evolutionary theory--Ethical lack--Need for supplement-Emphasis on Will, Creativeness, Human Progress and Possibilities.

In concluding this study of Bergson's philosophy, it remains to sum up and to review its general merits and deficiencies. We must remember, in fairness to Bergson, that he does not profess to offer us A SYSTEM of philosophy. In fact, if he were to do so, he would involve himself in a grave inconsistency, for his thought is not of the systematic type. He is opposed to the work of those individual thinkers who have offered "systems" to the world, rounded and professedly complete constructions, labelled, one might almost say, "the last word in Philosophy." Bergson does not claim that his thought is final. His ideal, of which he speaks in his lectures on La Perception du Changement--that excellent summary of his thought--is a progressive philosophy to which each thinker shall contribute. If we feel disappointed that Bergson has not gone further or done more by attempting a solution of some of the fundamental problems of our human experience, upon which he has not touched, then we must recollect his own view of the philosophy he is seeking to expound. All thinking minds must contribute their quota. A philosophy such as he wishes to promote by establishing a method by his own works will not be made in a day. "Unlike the philosophical systems properly so called, each of which was the individual work of a man of genius, and sprang up as a whole to be taken or left, it will only be built up by the collective and progressive effort of many thinkers, of many observers also, completing, correcting, and improving one another." [Footnote: Introduction to Creative Evolution, p. xiv. (Fr. p. vii).] Both science and the older kind of metaphysics have kept aloof from the vital problems of our lives. In one of his curious but brilliant metaphors Bergson likens Life to a river over which the scientists have constructed an elaborate bridge, while the laborious metaphysicians have toiled to build a tunnel underneath. Neither group of workers has attempted to plunge into the flowing tide itself. In the most brilliant of his short papers: L'Intuition philosophique, he makes an energetic appeal that philosophy should approach more closely to practical life.

His thought aims at setting forth, not any system of knowledge, but rather a method of philosophizing; in a phrase, this method amounts to the a.s.sertion that Life is more than Logic, or, as Byron put it, "The tree of Knowledge is not the tree of Life."

It is because Bergson has much to say that is novel and opposed to older conceptions that a certain lack of proportion occasionally mars his thought; for he--naturally enough--frequently lays little emphasis on important points which he considers are sufficiently familiar, in order to give prominent place and emphasis to some more novel point. Herein lies, it would now appear, the explanation of the seeming disharmony between Intuition and Intellect which was gravely distressing to many in his earlier writing on the subject. Later works, however, make a point of restoring this harmony, but, as William James has remarked: "We are so subject to the philosophical tradition which treats logos, or discursive thought generally, as the sole avenue to truth, that to fall back on raw, unverbalized life, as more of a revealer, and to think of concepts as the merely practical things which Bergson calls them, comes very hard. It is putting off our proud maturity of mind and becoming again as foolish little children in the eyes of reason. But, difficult as such a revolution is, there is no other way, I believe, to the possession of reality." [Footnote: Lecture on Bergson and his anti-intellectualism, in A Pluralistic Universe. It may be remarked here that, although James hailed Bergson as an ally, Bergson cannot be cla.s.sed as a pragmatist. His great a.s.sertion is that just because intellect is pragmatic it does not help us to get a vision of reality.

Cf. the interesting work on William James and Henri Bergson, by W. H.

Kallen.]

Bergson's style of writing merits high praise. He is no "dry"

philosopher; he is highly imaginative and picturesque; many of his pa.s.sages might be styled, like those of Macaulay, "purple," for at times he rises to a high pitch of feeling and oratory. Yet this has been urged against him by some critics. The ironic remark has been repeated, in regard to Bergson, which was originally made of William James, by Dr.

Schiller, that his work was "so lacking in the familiar philosophic catch-words, that it may be doubted whether any professor has quite understood it." There is in his works a beauty of style and a comparative absence of technical terms which have contributed much to his popularity. The criticism directed against his poetic style, accuses him of hypnotizing us by his fine language, of employing metaphors where we expect facts, and of subst.i.tuting ill.u.s.trations for proof. Sir Ray Lankester says: "He has exceeded the limits of fantastic speculation which it is customary to tolerate on the stage of metaphysics, and has carried his methods into the arena of sober science." [Footnote: In the preface to Elliot's volume, Modern Science and the Illusions of Bergson, p. xvii.] Another critic remarks that "as far as Creative Evolution is concerned, his writing is neither philosophy nor science." [Footnote: McCabe: Principles of Evolution, p. 254.] Certainly his language is charming; it called forth from William James the remark that it resembled fine silk underwear, clinging to the shape of the body, so well did it fit his thought. But it does not seem a fair criticism to allege that he subst.i.tutes metaphor for proof, for we find, on examination of his numerous and striking metaphors, that they are employed in order to give relief from continuous abstract statements. He does not submit a.n.a.logies as proof, but in ill.u.s.tration of his points.

For example, when he likens the elan vital to a stream, he does not suggest that because the stream manifests certain characteristics, therefore the life force does so too. Certainly that would be a highly illegitimate proceeding. But he simply puts forward this to help us to grasp by our imaginative faculty what he is striving to make clear. Some critics are apt to forget the tense striving which must be involved in any highly philosophical mind dealing with deep problems, to achieve expression, to obtain a suitable vehicle for the thought--what wrestling of soul may be involved in attempting to make intuitions communicable.

Metaphor is undoubtedly a help and those of Bergson are always striking and unconventional. Had Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, given more ill.u.s.trations, many of his readers would have been more enlightened.

Bergson's thought, although in many respects it is strikingly original and novel, is, nevertheless, the continuation, if not the culmination, of a movement in French philosophy which we can trace back through Boutroux, Guyau, Lachelier and Ravaisson to Maine de Biran, who died in 1824. Qui sait, wrote this last thinker, [Footnote: In his Pensees, p.

213.] tout ce que peut la reflection concentree et s'il n'y a pas un nouveau monde interieur qui pourra etre decouvert un jour par quelque Colomb metaphysicien.

Many of the ideas contained in Bergson's work find parallels in the philosophy of Schopenhauer, as given in his work The World as Will and Idea (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung), particularly his Voluntarism and his Intuitionism. The German thinker regarded all great scientific discoveries as an immediate intuition, a flash of insight, not simply the result of a process of abstract reasoning. Sch.e.l.ling also maintained a doctrine of intuition as supra-rational.

Ravaisson, [Footnote: Ravaisson (1813-1900) wrote De l'habitude, 1832; La metaphysique d'Aristote, 1837; and his Rapport sur la philosophie en France au xix siecle, 1867. See Bergson's Memoir, 1904.] to whom Bergson is indebted for much inspiration, attended the lectures of Sch.e.l.ling at Munich in 1835. This French thinker, Ravaisson, has had an important influence on the general development of thought in France during the latter half of the last century, and much of his work foreshadows Bergson's thought. He upheld a spiritual activity, manifesting itself most clearly in love and art, while he allowed to matter, to mathematics and logic only an imperfect reality. He extolled synthetic views of reality rather than a.n.a.lytic ones. We are prevented, he said, from realizing our true selves because of our slavery to habit. To the ultimate reality, or G.o.d, we can attain because of our kinship with that reality, and by an effort of loving sympathy enter into union with it by an intuition which lies beyond and above the power of intellectual searching. As Maine de Biran foretold the coming of a metaphysical Columbus, so Ravaisson, in his famous Rapport sur la philosophic en France au xix siecle, published in 1867, prophesied as follows: "Many signs permit us to foresee in the near future a philosophical epoch of which the general character will be the predominance of what may be called spiritualistic realism or positivism, having as generating principle the consciousness which the mind has of itself of an existence recognized as being the source and support of every other existence, being none other than its action."

Lachelier, a disciple of Ravaisson, brought out--as has been already remarked [Footnote: Page 3.]--the significance of the operations of vital forces and of liberty. Guyau, whose brief life ended in 1888 and whose posthumous work La Genese de I'Idee de Temps was reviewed by Bergson two years after the publication of his own Time and Free Will, laid great stress on the intensification and expansion of life.

Boutroux, in his work, has insisted upon the fact of contingency.

These forecasts of Bergson's thought made by men to whom he owes much and for whom he personally has the greatest admiration are interesting, but we are not yet able to look upon his work through the medium of historical perspective. We can however see it as the culmination of various tendencies in modern French philosophy; first, the effort to bring philosophy into the open air of human nature, into immediate contact with life and with problems vital to humanity; secondly, the upholding of contingency in all things, thus ensuring human freedom; thirdly, a disparagement of purely intellectual constructions as true interpretations of human life and all existence, coupled with an insistence on an insight that transcends logical formulation.

As a thinker, Bergson is very difficult to cla.s.sify. "All cla.s.sification of philosophies is effected, as a rule, either by their methods or by their results, 'empirical' and 'a priori' is a cla.s.sification by methods; 'realist' and 'idealist' is a cla.s.sification by results. An attempt to cla.s.sify Bergson's philosophy, in either of these ways, is hardly likely to be successful, since it cuts across all the recognized divisions." [Footnote: Mr. Bertrand Russell's remark at the opening of his Lecture on The Philosophy of Bergson, before The Heretics, Trinity College, Cambridge, March 11, 1912.] We find that Bergson cannot be put in any of the old cla.s.ses or schools, or identified with any of the innumerable isms. He brings together, without being eclectic, action and reflection, free will and determinism, motion and rest, intellect and intuition, subjectivity and externality, idealism and realism, in a most unconventional way. His whole philosophy is destructive of a large amount of the "vested interests" of philosophy. "We are watching the rise of a new agnosticism," remarked Dr. Bosanquet. A similar remark came from one of Bergson's own countrymen, Alfred Fouillee, who, in his work Le Mouvement idealist et la reaction contre la science positive, expressed the opinion that Bergson's philosophy could but issue in le scepticisme et le nihilisme (p. 206). Bergson runs counter to so many established views that his thought has raised very wide and animated discussions. The list of English and American articles in the Bibliography appended to the present work shows this at a glance. In his preface to the volume on Gabriel Tarde, his predecessor in the chair of Modern Philosophy at the College de France, written in 1909, we find Bergson remarking: On mesure la portee d'une doctrine philosophique a la variete des idees ou elle s'epanouit et a la symplicite du principe ou elle se rama.s.se. This remark may serve us as a criterion in surveying his own work. The preceding exposition of his thought is a sufficient indication of the wealth of ideas expressed. Bergson is most suggestive.

Moreover, no philosopher has been so steeped in the knowledge of both Mind and Matter, no thinker has been at once so "empirical" and so "spiritual." His thought ranges from subtle psychological a.n.a.lyses and minute biological facts to the work of artists and poets, all-embracing in its attempt to portray Life and make manifest to us the reality of Time and of Change. His insistence on Change is directed to showing that it is the supreme reality, and on Time to demonstrating that it is the stuff of which things are made. He is right in attacking the false conception of Time, and putting before us la duree as more real; right, too, in attacking the notion of empty eternity. But although Change and Development may be the fundamental feature of reality, Bergson does not convincingly show that it is literally THE Reality, nor do we think that this can be shown. He does not admit that there is any THING that changes or endures; he is the modern Herac.l.i.tus; all teaching which savours of the Parmenidean "one" he opposes. Yet it would seem that these two old conceptions may be capable of a reconciliation and that if all reality is change, there is a complementary principle that Change implies something permanent.

Then, again, we feel Bergson is right in exposing the errors which the "idea of the line," the trespa.s.sing of s.p.a.ce, causes; but he comes very near to denying, in his statements regarding duree pure, any knowledge of the past as past; he overlooks the decisive difference between the "no more" and the "not yet" feeling of the child's consciousness, which is the germ of our clear knowledge of the past as past, and distinct from the future.

To take another of his "pure" distinctions, we cannot see any necessity for his formulation of what he terms "Pure Perception." Not only does it obscure the relation of Sensation to Perception, but it seems to be quite unknown and unknowable and unnecessary as an hypothesis. As to his "Pure" Memory, there is more to be said. It stands on a different plane and seems to be the statement of a very profound truth which sheds light on many difficult problems attaching to personality and consciousness, for it is the conservation of memories which is the central point in individuality. His distinction between the habit of repeating and the "pure" memory is a very good and very necessary one. In his study of the relation of Soul and Body, we find some of his most meritorious work--his insistence on the uniqueness of Mind and the futility of attempts to reduce it to material terms. His treatment of this question is parallel to that of William James in the first part of his Ingersoll Lecture at Harvard in 1898, when he called attention to "permissive"

or "transmissive" function of the brain. Bergson's criticisms of Parallelism are very valuable.

No less so are his refutations of both physical and psychological Determinism. Men were growing impatient of a science claiming so much and yet admittedly unable to explain the really vital factors of existence, of which the free action of men is one of the most important.

The value placed on human freedom, on the creative power of human beings to mould the future, links Bergson again with James, and it is this humanism which is the supremely valuable factor in the philosophies of both thinkers. This has been pointed out in the consideration of the ethical and political implications of Bergson's Philosophy.

Nevertheless, although his insistence on Freedom and Creative Evolution implies that we are to realize that by our choices and our free acts we may make or mar the issue, and that through us and by us that issue may be turned to good, the good of ourselves and of our fellows, there is an ethical lack in Bergson's philosophy which is disappointing. Then, as has been remarked in the chapter on Religion, there is the lack of teleology in his conception of the Universe; his denial of ANY purpose hardly seems to be in harmony with his use of the phrase "the meaning of life."