a new philosophy_ henri bergson(新哲学)

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A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

A New Philosophy:

Henri Bergson

By Edouard le Roy

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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.

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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.

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;

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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

A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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.

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ANewPhilosophy:HenriBergson1ANewPhilosophy:HenriBergsonByEdouardleRoyANewPhilosophy:HenriBergson2PrefaceThislittlebookisduetotwoarticlespublishedunderthesametitleinthe"RevuedesDeuxMondes",1stand15thFebruary1912.TheirobjectwastopresentMrBergson'sphilosophytothepublicatlarge,givingasshortasketchasposs...

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a new philosophy_ henri bergson(新哲学)

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