henri bergson the philosophy of change - forgotten books

HENRI BERGSON

PHILOSOPHY OF CHANGE

HENRI BERGSON

HENRI BERGSONTHE PHILOSO

PHY OF CHANGE

BY vb

€VILDON CARR

L O N D O N : T . C . E . C. JA C K

67 LONG ACRE,W. C . ,

AND EDINBURGH

NEW YORK : DODGE PUBLISHING co.

PREFAC E

MONSIEUR HENRI BERGSON,the philosopher whose

teaching I have tried to present in brief in thislittle manual

,is still in the full vigour of his life

and thought. He is a philosopher who combinesprofound and original thinking with a wonderfultalent for clear exposition. He is a Professor at theCollege of France , and a Member of the Institute.

Although his writing and teaching is in the language

in him so far as there is any nationality in philosophy. It is very largely by the direct study of theclassical English philosophers that the particulardirection of his thought has been determined . Theinfluence of Herbert Spencer and of John StuartMill , and also of the older English philosophers ,Locke , Berkeley, and Hume , is clearly manifest inhis writings. It is particularly shown in his attitudetoward phys ical science. His philosophy is not anattempt to depreciate science or to throw doubt onscientific method

,but

, on the contrary, its whole aimis to enhance the value of science by showing its trueplace and function in the greater reality of life.The purpose that I have kept in view in the follow

ing pages is to give the reader not a complete epitomeof the philosophy so

muchiias a general survey of its

scope and method. If the reader is interested anddesires to become a student there is only one advicethat I can give him ,

and that is to read MonsieurBergson

’

s books. If the problems they deal withinterest him , he will find no difficulty in understanding them , for the author

’s style is amodel of lucidity.

During this present year (1911) Monsieur Bergsonhas become personally known to large circles of

philosophical students in England. In May he delivered two lectures before the University of Oxfordon The Perception of Change. (La Perception da

Changement. Oxford , The Clarendon Press. ) Hedelivered the Huxley Lecture at the University of

Birm ingham on Life and Consciousness ," pub

lished in the Hibbert Journal, October 1911. Healso delivered four lectures before the Universityof London on The Nature of the Soul." Thesehave not yet been published. "uite recently alsohis Essay Le Rim

,written in 1901, has been trans

lated into English. (Laughter, an Essay on the

I am alone responsible for the plan and methodthat I have chosen in presenting this philosophybutMonsieur Bergson has very kindly read the proofs,and the title I have given to it, The Philosophy ofChange, was suggested by him.

H. WILDON CARE.

BURY, Sussnx,

December 1911.

C ONTENTS

PORTRAIT OF BERGSONPAGE

PREFACE

II . INTELLECT AND MATTER

V . FREEDOM

MIND AND BODY

HENRI BERGSON

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHANGE

CHAPTER I

PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE

THE philosophy of Bergson is contained in threeprincipal works

,produced at considerable intervals

of time and independently of one another. All threeare now available for English readers , having beenrecently translated under the supervis ion of theauthor. The first of these

,Time and Freewill, ap

peared in 1888 , the original title being The ImmediateData of Consciousness the second , Matter and

Memory , appeared in 1896 ; and the last and bestknown , Creative Evolution,

in 1907. The distinctiveprinciple of Bergson

’

s philosophy was clearly setforth in the earliest of these books ; the later oneshave not modified nor developed it , but rather maybe said to have applied it with increasing confidenceand success . To expound that principle and explainits application to the various problems that havebeen brought to light in the long history Of philosophy is the aim of this volume . The philosophy of

Bergson is not a system . It is not an account of theultimate nature of the universe , which claims to bea complete representation

lin knowledge of all reality,

12 THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHANGE

and which appeals to us for acceptance on the groundof its consistency and harmony. We shall see thatone of its most important conclus ions is that theuniverse is not a completed system of reality, of

which it is only our knowledge that is imperfect,but that the universe is itself becoming. Conse

quently the value of the philosophy and the con

viction that it will bring to the mind will be seen todepend ultimately not on the irrefutability of itslogic , but on the reality and signifi cance of the simplefacts of consciousness to which it directs our

attention.

Great scientific discoveries are often so simple intheir origin that the greatest wonder about them isthat humanity has had to wait so long for them.

They seem to lie in the sudden consciousness of thesignificance of some familiar fact, a significance neversuspected because the fact is so familiar. Newtonand the falling apple

,Watt and the steaming kettle ,

will occur at once as illustrations of a principle thatseems to apply to many discoveries that have hadfar-reaching results in practice . The same thing isno less remarkable in philosophy ; the discoveriesthat have determined its direction have been mostoften due to attention to facts so simple , so commonand of such everyday occurrence , that their verysimplicity and familiarity has screened them fromobservation. N0 better illustration of this could befound than is offered in the philosophy of Berkeley.

The famous theory esse is percipz’

, to be is to beperceived

,rests on an observation so ordinary that

its very simplicity was the only reason that had

PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE

made it possible to ignore it. When Berkeley saidthat reality was perception , he was calling attentionto the fact that we all mean by reality what weperceive , and not something or other which we neverdo and never can perceive , which is by its definitionunperceivable. Another illustration is the wellknown case of the philosopher Kant

,to whom it

occurred that the laws of nature might be explainedas the forms which the mind itself imposes on our

knowledge , a conception which threw a new light onphilosophical problems comparable to the revolutionin astronomy that followed the Copernican theorythat the earth instead of being , as was supposed , thefixed centre of the universe, was itself a planetrevolving round the sun.

Now the fac t to which Bergson has called our

attention , which forms the foundation of his theoryand has given a new direction to philosophy

,is a

fact of this extremely simple nature. If it besignificant, if it has the significance which Bergsonclaims for it

,it is due entirely to its extreme simplicity

and familiarity that it has till now escaped our

notice . It is the Observation of the simple fact thatdeeper than any intellectual bond which binds a

conscious creature to the reality in which it livesand which it may come to know, there is a vitalbond. Our knowledge rests on an intuition whichis not, at least which is never purely, intellectual .This intuition is of the very essence Of life , and theintellect is formed from it by life , or is one of theforms that life has given to it in order to direct


beings that are endowed with it. The fundamentalcharacter of Bergson

’

s philosophy is therefore to

emphasise the primary importance of the conceptionof life as giving the key to the nature of knowledge .

To understand knowledge we must first grasp the

It is this that distinguishes the philosophy of

Bergson from all the systems ancient and modernthat have preceded it , and also from contemporaneous theories , intellectualis t and pragmatist. Theintellect has been formed to serve the purposes of

the activity which we call life. Knowledge is forlife

,and not life for knowledge. The key to the

explanation of the problem of reality and knowledgedoes not lie within us in the mind , as the idealistcontends , nor without us in the world of things inspace

,as the realist contends , but in life . Bergson

’

s

philosophy is not a theory Of life ; such a descriptionwould be quite inadequate to it. It is founded on

the simple fact, to which he has called our attention ,but which is simple and Obvious directly it is pointedout, that life is the reality for which knowledge isand for which nature receives the order that knowledge discovers . The main task of philosophy is todo what science cannot do , comprehend life . Theimpetus Of life

,the springing forward , pushing , in

sinuating , incessantly changing movem ent of lifehas evolved the intellect to know the inert world of

matter , and has given to matter the appearance of asolid

,timeless existence spread out in space . Reality

is not solid matter, nor thinking mind , but living,creative evolution.

PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE

It seems as if a great movement were in progress ,sweeping us along in its course . To exist is to bealive

, to be borne along in the living stream , as itwere on the breast of a wave . The actual presentnow in which all existence is gathered up is thismovement accomplishing itself. The past is gatheredinto it, exists in it, is carried along in it , as it pressesforward into the future , which is continually and without intermission becoming actual . This reality islife. It is an unceasing becoming , which preservesthe past and creates the future . The solid thingswhich seem to abide and endure , which seem to resistthis flowing , which seem more real than the flowing ,are periods , cuts across the flowing , views that ourmind takes of the living reality of which it is a part ,in which it lives and moves , views of the realityprescribed and limited by the needs of its particularactivity. This is the image of reality that is presented to us in Bergson

’

s philosophy.

There is one difficulty that wi ll at once presentitself in the very attempt to understand an imageof this kind . How can there be a pure movement

,

a pure change , a pure becoming ? There must besome object

,some thing which moves , changes or

becomes , and this thing must be supposed to beresting when it is not moving , to remain the samewhen it is not changing or becoming something else .

This thing must be more real than its movement,which is only its change of place , or than its becoming , which is only its change of form . How is itpossible to imagine that movement and becoming arealone reality, that they can subsist by themselves ,


and that the things that move and change are notprior to but productions of the movement or change ‘

1

It is a difficulty that goes to the very heart Of theproblem of philosophy. It is not the ordinarydifficulty of realism and idealism

,it is not the ques

tion of the nature of real existence whether it isphysical or mental. It applies with equal forcewhatever we conceive the nature of a thing to be ,whether thoughts are things or only about things

,

whether things exist only in the mind , or whetherthey exist independently and impress the mind .

Whatever they are , it is things that move and

change and become , and the movement and changeand becoming presuppose that there are things .So natural to us does this view of the reality of

things seem , so consistent is it with our ordinaryexperience and with the teachings of science , that weare not usually aware that there is any difliculty inthinking of reality in this way. But there is a difliculty, which as soon as we understand it is moreformidable and startling even than the seemingparadox that reality is a flowing. This is that ourordinary idea that the reality of things consists intheir being solid Objects in space , the idea thatunderlies the whole of physical science , involves theconception of an unreal time . Time as science conceives it does not form part of the reality ofmaterial things. When we perceive any ordinaryunorganised material thing—water, air, a crystal , ametal—we do not think that time has anything todo with its reality

,because whatever happens to it,

it remains substantially the same. If water is

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duration , a duration that is absolute . There is,it

is true , for living creatures a time duration that ismeasured by the same relative standards by whichwe measure the succession of the states of materialthings . It is this unreal time that we have in mindwhen we speak of our fleeting existence and thinkof the things that outlast us ; it gives meaning tosuch expressions as eternal youth . Life seems madeup of definite states—infancy , childhood , adolescence,

maturity,old age—which we pass through , and which

we imagine have a period of stability and thenchange . But the change is continuous throughouteach state

,and the states are a merely external view

of life . It is our body which enables us to takethis view. Our body is an object in space , and weconsequently regard it in this external way. Butlife itself

,when we view it from within , from the

privileged position that we occupy towards it byreason of our identity with it , is not indiflerent totime . Our life as actual experience , as the inmostreality of which we are most sure

,which we know

as it exists , is time itself . Life is a flowing, a realbecoming , a change that is a continuous undividedmovement . A thing that lives is a thing thatendures not by remaining the same

,but by changing

unceasingly. All consciousness is time existence , anda conscious state is not a state that endures withoutchanging , it is a change without ceasing ; whenchange ceases it ceases , it is itself nothing butchange .There are therefore two ways in which we maythink of time, one in which it makes no difierence

PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE

to reality, and the other in which it is the reality.

Just as we think that things lie outside one anotherin space , so we think that their states succeed one

another in time . Time in this meaning takes theform of space ; it can only be represented by us asa line

,and a line is a figure in space . Without the

idea of space we should be unable to represent thesuccession of states of things . When we think of

these successive states we imagine them spread out

in a continuous line , precisely as we imagine realthings to be at any moment all spread out in space.But this is not true duration . Our life is trueduration . It is a time flow that is not measured bysome standard in relation to which it may be fasteror slower. It is itself absolute , a flowing that neverceases

,never repeats itself , an always present,

changing , becoming , now.

The distinction between a time that is a symbol ofspace and a time that is a true duration is thereforefundamental . We may mean either of two differentthings when we ask , what is reality ? We maymean what is it that endures without changing ?Or we may mean , what is it that endures bychanging The difference between the two meaningsis the difference between a material thing and a

living thing ; to the one time does nothing and therefore is nothing

, to the other time is everything .

And so the question arises , is the reality that isbehind all appearances like a material thing thatdoes not change Or is it like a living thing whosewhole existence is time ? The answer that philo80t must give is that time is real , the stuffofwhich


things are made . Physical science is a view of thisreality, a view, and the positive proof of itis that it cannot comprehend life. Life is not a

thing nor the state of a thing. It is this limitationof physical science

,its inability to understand life ,

that reveals to us the true sphere and the specialtask of philosophy. Physical science deals with thestable and unchanging , philosophy deals with life.

CHAPTER II

INTELLEc'r AND MATTER

I HAVE said that the philosophy of Bergson rests onthe Observation of a very simple fact . This simplefact is that true duration is known to us by a directinner perceiving

,an intuition

,and not by an intel

lectual act such as that by which we perceive theObjec ts around us and the laws of their successivestates . And the tru e duration which we know whenwe have this intuition is life . There is thereforepossible to us a direct answer to the question , toanswer which is the problem of philosophy. Whatis reality We can answer

,reality is life . And the

answer is final,because we are not appealing to a

concept of the understanding that demands furtherexplanation . Life is not a thing nor the state of athing . It is true that we can only express it inthe form of a judgment. But what we aflirm inthat judgment is not a that of which we are stilldriven to ask what, it is not a content that we distinguish from existence , and therefore does not leadto the endless inquiry that baffles the intellectualistattempt to solve the problem . Life is not known assomething presented to the mind

,but immediately

in the living consciousness of living.

Intuition in the sensemin which this philosophy


aflirms it has nothing either mystical or evenmysterious about it. It is not the special endowment of certain highly-gifted minds , enabling them to

see what is hidden from ordinary intelligence . It isa power of knowledge that we may imagine to existin everything that lives , even in plants , for it issimple consciousness of life . I do not of coursemean that there is any ground to suppose that itexists actually in this wide extension, or indeed thatit necessarily exists anywhere , but I do mean thatit is so identical with life itself , that wherever thereis life there might also be that consciousness of livingthat is intuition . But simple as this principle is ,and universal as its potentiality may seem to be , itis in fact only at rare moments and by very con

centrated attention that we may become able topossess this knowledge which is in very truth identical

What then is the intellect It is to the mind whatthe eye or the ear is to the body. Just as in thecourse Of evolution the body has become endowedwith certain special sense organs which enable it toreceive the revelation of the reality without , and at

the same time limit the extent and the form of thatrevelation , so the intellect is a special adaptation of

the m ind which enables the being endowed with itto view the reat outside it , but which at the sametime limits both the extent and the character of theview the mind takes . When we consider a specialorgan like the eye

,we can see that its usefulness to

the creature it serves depends quite as much onwhat itexcludes as on what it admits . If the eye could take

in the whole of visible reality it would be useless .It is because it limits the amount of light it admits ,and narrows the range of visible things, that itserves the life purpose . The intellect appears tohave been formed by the evolution of life in thesame way and for a like purpose . It has beenformed by a narrowing , a shrinking , a condensationof consciousness . It reveals its origin in the fringewhich still surrounds it as a kind of nebulosity

purpose that the intellect serves It gives us viewsof reality. It cuts out in the flow the lines alongwhich our activity moves. It delimits reality. Ittraces the lines of our interest. It selects . Just asthe events which the historian chronicles are markedout by the guiding influence of some special interest, so the intellect follows the lines of interest ofthe activity it serves . Things , solid inert unchanging matter

,constant laws by which things act and

react on one another , are views of reality that theintellect is formed to take , limitations which by

serves the living purpose which has evolved it, andfor which knowledge exists . The intellect views thereality as solid things because that view serves ourends . It is a real world that the intellect revealsto us , a reality that is not relative to our understanding

,nor produced by our understanding ; it is

reality itself , but it is limited . The outlines Ofthings , the grouping and arrangement of phenomena ,are the modes of our apprehension

,the lines that

our interest traces . There is no formless reality,


but also no form of reality is absolute . With otherinterests we should trace other lines , and we mighthave other modes of apprehension .

The intellect is cinematographical . This des cription is perhaps the happiest of any of the imagesthat Bergson has used to illustrate his theory. Thecinematograph takes views of a moving scene ; eachview represents a fixed position , and when the viewsare arranged side by side on the film and passedacross the screen in rapid success ion they present tous a moving picture . The views as they lie beforeus on the ribbon , as we look at them in passing fromone to the next , do not give us this picture ; to havethe picture we must restore the movement

,and this

the cinematograph does . The fixed things that seemto us to lie side by side of one another at everymoment in space are views that the intellect takes .

These views seem to us to form the movement bytheir succession , the replacement of one by anotherseems to be the change , but the reality is the movement ; it is a continuous change , not a succession ofstates

,and the fixed things are views of it . These

views are the physical objects that science dealswith

,and the method of science is cinematographical ;

change for it is nothing but the su ccession of fixedstates . But a movement is indivisible , a change isindivisible

,the divisions that we make in it, the

immobilities that seem to compose it , are notdivisions , but views of it. Nothing is immobile.Immobility is purely an appearance .This perception that a movement is indivisible isthe key to the solution Of many problems insoluble


take the tortoise , because while his first step bringshim to the place where the torto ise is , the tortoisehas moved on, and while he makes the new step toreach the new place , the tortoise has again movedon, so that Achilles for ever finds that he has still astep to take. The problem is quite insoluble if amovement is divisible as a line is , but the difficultyvanishes with the perception that a movement isindivisible. The steps Of Achilles and the steps ofthe tortoise are each indivisible , each a simple continuity from beginning to end , and there is conse

quently no contradiction in supposing that the stepsof Achilles bring him past the tortoise . The contradiction lies altogether in regarding a step as madeup of parts like the separate views on the cinem atograph film , in thinking that the parts existindependently in the step

,and that the combination

of the parts produces the step , and in failing to see

that the step is an indivisible movement, that theparts into which we seem able to divide it are onlyviews that we take of it. Another of the paradoxesof "eno illustrates in an even more striking mannerthe contradiction which follows the attempt to conceive movement by representing it as a spatialfigure . It is the argument known as the Stadium.

It is not so familiar as the others , because the paradoxis not so immediately self-evident as in the illustration of the arrow and of Achilles and the tortoise.

Two processions Of figures moving round the stadiumin opposite directions pass in mid course a row of

similar figures at res t . The speed of the movingfigures , said "eno , is twice that which it is , for

INTELLECT AND MATTER

when the three rows of figures are in line with one

another, that is , at the moment when each procession is passing the other procession and the intervening row,

the space occupied by each of the threerows is exactly equal , yet the velocity of each movingrow is to one another twice what it is to the intervening row. And the two velocities are not relative ,they are absolute

,because space does not move. We

have therefore to adm it that a body moves at twovelocities at the same time , one of which is twicethat of the other. It may seem that this is a transparent and very simple fallacy. It may even bedenied that there is the appearance of contradiction ,for if we have two reverse movements at equalvelocities , the velocity of each to the other is thesum of the two and double what each is by itself .Very true, but why Because when we make thisanswer , which seems so Obvious , we are comparingmovement with movement, treating it as indivisible,just as we found we had to do with the steps of

Achilles and the tortoise. Make the movementcorrespond with the space traversed , and you findthat the same movement measured by two exactlyequal spaces has passed at two different velocitiesyou find that you are making the contradictoryassertion that every movement is faster than it is .The solution is plain and self-evident enough whenyou perceive that movement is not divisib le , thatyou cannot decompose it into small movementsstrung together , or joined together, as you candecompose a line into smaller lengths . Divide aline into as many lengths as you will

,the sum of


those lengths is the line,but to divide a movement

is impossible ; its divi sions are not points , but stops.We may suppose an infinity of points in a line

,but

to suppose even one stop in a movement is contradictory ; a stop is not part of a movement , but thenegation of movement.We have seen that

,like the cinematograph , the

intellect takes views across a moving scene,and

these views are the things that present themselvesto us as solid objects spread out in space , space thatis unmovable , the reality in which things move.To grasp the reality, we have said , it is necessary torestore the movement as the cinematograph does .The mo ant is life . What , then , is matter Whatis that Inert something which is essentially opposedto life , and which seems necessary to the existenceof life When we say of our own existence that itis essentially our life

,we are distinguishing life from

the material body which appears to serve as itssubstratum or medium . And when we say of theall-inclusive reality of which our individual lives arebut a partial manifestation , when we say of theuniverse itself that it lives , it seems that we mustdistinguish within the universe the life Of it from theinert

,lifeless material , the dead matter in which that

life is supported and manifested . What is this deadmatter

,and how does it come to exist Reality is a

flowing. This does not mean that everything moves ,changes

,and becomes ; science and common experi

ence tell us that. It means that movement , change ,becoming is everything that there is , there is nothingelse . There are no things that move and change and

INTELLECT AND MATTER

become ; everything is movement, is change , is becoming . You have not grasped the central idea ofthis philosophy , you have not perceived true duration , you have not got the true idea of change andbecoming until you perceive duration , change , movement , becoming , to be reality , the whole and onlyreality . Inert matter filling space , Space that underlies matter as a pure immobility , do not exist. Movement exists , immobility does not . Now evenphysical science , bound as it seems to be to theassertion of a fixed material reality, is being drivento the same conclusion . In the new theory Of matterthe old conception of an elemental solid base for theatom has entirely disappeared

,and the am is now

held to be composed of magnetic forces , ions andcorpuscles

,in incessant movement

,a balance of

actions and reactions no longer considered indestructible. In fact, if the movement ceases the atomno longer exists

,there is nothing left. Again , the

most instantaneous flash of light that we can beaware of contains , so science tells us , millions ofmillions Of tether waves . Light is nothing but

movement. In fact for science all things are inmovement. And also there is something that isabsolute in time duration even for physical science ,for though time does not enter into the reality of

things as science conceives them,yet a certain

length of time duration is a necessary condition Ofevery change in the state of things . A lump ofsugar does not instantaneously dissolve in a glassof water ; when all other actual conditions of dis


Still for sc ience matter is the reality,time is only a

condition . What then for philosophy which perceives that time is reality, the stuff out of whichmatter is formed , is this matter What is thisinert something that seems to resist the pushing

,

forward moving life , which seems to fall back , toobstruct the living movement , which even when itserves life seems essentially opposed to it ? Inertmatter, immobility , is purely an appearance , it iscomposed of two movements. It is the relation of

our movement to other movements . When we are

in a train the lands cape seems to stream past us,

the nearer objects at a greater speed than the moredistant . When we pass another train going in thesame direction but at a slower speed , it seems to usto be moving in the reverse direction . If the speedis the same as ours , it seems not to be moving at all.And if it is travelling in the reverse direction , it seem sto be moving at twice the speed that it is reallymoving at . Imagine , then , life as a vast movementin being ; if our particular interest draws us to attendto the direction in which part of the movement isadvancing

,it may seem to us that the rest of the

movement is retarding the advance or even streamingbackwards . So we , alive in this great living , bornealong as part of this true life , view the movementaround us and see it as dead matter opposed to thevery movement of which it is itself only an indi

GHAPTER III

IF the theory of the intellect sketched in the lastchapter is true , we shall expect to find that theintellect is not the only means by which it is poss ibleto apprehend reality. It seems as we look back on

the past from our own human standpoint , and tryto read by the light of biological and geologicalscience the long history of the evolution of life , andparticularly of the human race , that this wonderfulintellectual power that we possess

,and that gives us

such command in our world , has been a very slowlyperfected acquisition . Our whole bodily organisation has been moulded to use it, and it has beenmutually adapted to our organism , to serve its needsand to direct its activity. It is the very essence ofour life, all that life means or can mean to us , butit is essentially an adaptation of life . The intellectis what gives to the world the aspect it bears to us .It gives us views of reality

,views that are limitations

of our apprehension,and that we mistake for limita

tions of reality. We have said that we have thepower Of apprehending reality without the limitations that the intellect imposes , that in the intuitionOf life we see reality as it is . This intuiti on is theconsciousness of life that

sl

we have in living . It is


not another and different power, it is not an endowment Of the mind or a faculty . Intuition is not akind of mental organ as the eye or the ear is a bodilyorgan

,something that we posses s side by side with

the intellect. It exists for us because consciousnessis w ider than intellect, becau se consciousness isidentical with life. In knowing life we are living ,and in living we know life. In the widest signification of the terms , life and consciousness are identical .It is this wider consciousness that has become for usnarrowed and specialised in the intellect

,but the

intellect reveals its origin by the wider sense Of

consciousness which surrounds it like a penumbra.

It is this wider consciousness that enables us tohave the direct V ision that we have called the intuition of life. But it is only life that this intuitionreveals

,and that because life and consciousness are

one. We have not therefore two faculties , one intellectual and one intuitional , side by side ; there isnot

,that is to say , both an intellectual and an

intuitional view of reality ; all our views of realityare intellectual , but the intellect is formed out of

the consciousness that is identical with life,and in

living we do directly know life . This is the simplefact that

,as I have endeavoured to show, is neither

mystical nor mysterious .But if the intellect is a special adaptation of thecons ciousness which is life , we shall naturally conclude that it might have been other than it is , andthat it is possible that with other directions of theevolutionary activity other adaptations with other


supreme , instinct is practically lost as a guiding and

directing activity. We find traces of it in the

behaviour of infants and children and in naturaldispositions , but the very word instinctive has cometo denote the opposite of rational action and notthe basis of it. On the other hand

,in the insect

communities of bees and ants instinct is so perfectand so supreme as the guiding principle of theiractivity , that intelligence , if they possess it , mustlie on a lower plane

, or be manifested only in emer

gencies where ins tinct fails .The actions that we call instinctive in man are

those that we seem to carry out by a natural disposition without reflection , without interposing theperception of the relations or of the meaning of theactions , without the presentation to the mind of anend to be attained . They are not simple reactionsto a stimulus

,such as the vital functions of respira

tion , circulation , and the like ; they are actions thatimply awareness and conscious purpose

, but they aredirect spontaneous actions evoked by the presence ofphys ical objects or of emotions . Such actions asthe raising of the arm to ward off a blow, as flight whenwe feel the emotion of fear , the actions that areprompted by the emotions of love , pity, indignation ,and the like

,we call instincts . Instinct as prompting

to these actions is knowledge that we seem to possessnaturally

,and without needing to be taught by

experience . Many actions that are in their originintelligent we call instinctive by analogy when theyhave become habitual . It is in the observation ofthe actions of infants and children that we dis

INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE 35

tinguish most clearly the knowledge we call instinctive from that which we call intelligent . Theinfant’s first cry is purely reflex

,the vital action of

drawing the air into the lungs sucking , at least inits earl iest exercise , probably is so too ; but themovements towards the mother’s breast

,the attrae

tion to certain objects and repulsion from others wecall instinctive , because these are evidence of anatural knowledge , a knowledge not acquired byexperience

,of a distinct and separate object. The

child’s first efforts to stand and walk are instincts ,but the almost equally universal struggle of the childthat can walk to get out of the perambulator andpush it is intelligent, it is the result of observationand attention and desire to imitate . From infancyonwards the whole of our mental life is so predom inantly intelligent that it is with the greatest difficulty that we are able to distinguish and recogniseinstincts. In man instinct does not develop but

gives way to intelligence , as though the two modeswere incompatible and intelligence to exist must

It is when we observe the actions of insects , particularly the actions of the higher insects , that wesee the most perfect examples of ins tinct , and become aware that it is a mental activity totallydifferent from intelligence . It is tru e that the beesand ants among which we find this activity in itsmost marvellous manifestation present to us a typeof bodily organisation so entirely different from ourown

, that comparison seems almost fantastic . Thementality of a dog or a horse , or even that of a bird


or a reptile or a fish, seem s possible to understand,

because the bodily organisation of these animals andthe anatomical structure of the centralised nervoussystem that serves their organism are constru ctedon an exactly similar plan to our own . But howwidely different the whole plan of the invertebrateanatomy " Is there any basis on which we cancompare the mentality of such unlike creatures withour own ? Is it not mere picture thinking to tryto interpret their actions by our knowledge of ourown mental processes ? And it seems to manystudents of animal psychology that to attempt tounderstand instinct as a mental reality by theobservation of insect life is entirely vain . But wideas the difference is between these small creaturesand ourselves

,we are in the presence of distinct

self-centred individuals as vitally interested in pursuing their purposes as we are ourselves . They areorganised to apprehend reality by special senses

,and

they have a nervous system of the same type as ourown, the type that biologists call sensori-motor.Clearly they feel , whether or not their feelings havethe same quality as ours , and their feelings lead tomovements .When now we study the life activities of these

creatures , what do we find If we watch a swarm ofbees in an observation hive we may see the perfectins ects emerging from the cells in which they havebeen formed . We may neglect the early stages oftheir life, the egg and the pupa, as we are not nowconcerned with biology but only with psychology.

From the very moment of their birth they know


perfectly the work they have to do . They do notbegin with vain efforts and with experience gainconfidence and skill . They are not taught by olderbees . They do not seem to be recognised by theirfellows nor to recognise them ,

but immediately joinin the common work

,giving their service just where

it is required , gathering honey and pollen , storing itin cells

,tending brood

,ventilating the hive or guard

ing the queen . They do this work , and they discernthe special work required of them ,

as well on theirfirst emergence into the community as when theyare old and worn-out members of it. It may of

course be that the actual bonds of unity are notperceived by u s

,that the true individual is the hive

and not the separate insects that compose it, thatthe relation of the individu al bees to the hive is moreof the nature of the relation of the separate cells ofthe body to the organism than that of the relationof persons in a community. But whether that beso or not

,we have before us individual creatures who

lead individual lives,and who possess a knowledge

which , unlike ours , is perfect from the first, and not ,like ours

,dependent on experience . Innumerable

cases of instinct will also occur to every one in whicha highly complicated action is performed once andonce only in the insect’s life

,in which the ’

creature

cannot be aware of the effect or purpose of the actionit performs judged by the result as we know it .The Yucca moth

,for example

,lays its eggs on the

ovules of the Yucca flower,and then carefully

fertilises the pistil with pollen,the result being that

the seeds form the food of the larva , but the eggs are


laid on fewer ovu les than are fertilised,so that pro

vision is thereby made that all the seeds shall notbe destroyed by the larva . The Yucca plant isdependent on this moth for the fertilisation of itsflowers , and the single performance of this act practically accomplishes the life purpose of the moth.

The insect acts as though it knew that its larvawould require ripe seed of the Yucca

,as though it

knew that this could only be obtained by fertilisation,

as though it knew that ripe seed is also necessary forthe continuance of the existence of Yucca plants

,and

therefore for the activity of Yucca moths ; and yetit is manifestly impossible that it can possess thisknowledge , much less acquire it in any intelligiblesense of the word knowledge . Why, then , do wecall instinct knowledge ? What is there in a caseof this kind more than an unusually interestingexample of a biological fact of mutual adaptation ,to be explained by a biological theory such as thatof natural selection The moth no more knows allthese things to which its

'

action is directed than theivy knows that it is clinging to a wall , or the hopplant that it must wind round a pole. Do we notmean by instinct a vital force of adaptation that isnot knowledge at all in any usual sense of the term ‘

2

Do we not , in fact , speak of the instincts of plantsAre not instincts the natural affinities of organismsmutually dependent on one another, and the actionsthat mutual dependence involves Undoubtedly,but there is also a problem of knowledge , a problemthat is psychological and philosophical , distinct fromevery physical and biological fact. These creatures ,


whose structure is so unlike our own,whose life

activity is so different in its direction,nevertheless

possess some kind of mentality. They are consciousof a world in which their activity is exercised . Theyreceive revelations of reality through, special senseorgans just as we do, and they guide their activityby the revelations so received . Sense impressionsmake them aware

,awareness produces movements ,

and we judge of the nature of the awareness by themovements . These actions prove to us that instinctis a psychical activity, different in its mode of workingand in the nature of its mentality from intelligence ,and that there is an essential difference in the kindof knowledge that is accessible to it.There is one very marked difference between in

stinctive and intelligent action in the consciousnessor unconsciousness with which it is performed . Weuse the word consciousness in this connection in avery special sense . In its widest and most generalmeaning consciousness is almost synonymous withlife . Everything that has the vital power of re

sponding to a stimulu s we call conscious as distinctfrom inert dead material which has no such power.In this sense consciousness means the possibility of

any awareness whatever. But we also use the wordsconscious and unconscious in a special sense. Wesay that a man is unconscious when he is asleep , orunder an anaesthetic ; a man walking in his sleep maybe carrying out very complicated actions , actionsthat show that he is in some sense aware of thesurroundings in which he is moving, but we say thathe is unconscious of what he is doing. In this sense


of the word we do not mean by unconsciousness acomplete absence of consciousness

,as when we say

that a stone is unconscious ; we mean that the consciousness which is present is blocked or hinderedfrom being effective . Rouse a man from his sleep ,startle the sleep-walker in what he is doing

,remove

the anaesthetic that is being administered to thesuffering patient, and consciousness returns . Manyof our habitual actions

,in fact by far the greater

number of them,are unconsciously performed . Con

sciousness means an active attention to the workthat is being performed

,and this active attention

seems to be a necessary condition of intelligence.Now instinct seems to us to be entirely unconscious .Bees constru cting their cells seem to us to be following an impulse that is a natural disposition , and tobe altogether unconscious of the design they arefollowing or of the purpose or plan of the work theyare doing . Men building a house , on the other hand,seem to be necessarily conscious of the plan theyhave to follow and of the purpose that their workhas to fulfil . And this seems to us the main

,if not

the only,difference between instinct and intelli

gence . It seems to us that bees are really intelligent,that their instincts have ari sen in an active attentionto an intelligent purpose , but that their actionshave become by long-continued habit and inheritedcharacteristics automatic and unconscious . Whatseems to us extraordinary is that with such perfected natural knowledge they do not now use theintelligence which we think must have been at theorigin of this knowledge . Perhaps we account for


of the action as an act carried out. It is the presenceof thi s picture , the comparison of the various coursesof action represented in idea before the action isstarted , that constitutes intelligence . The intellectgives us the power to choose

,a power dependent on

the ideal representation of the action before it isacted. When , therefore , in nearly all ins tinctiveaction , and in intelligent action that has becomehabitual , or when for any cause the action takesplace without the intervention of representation

,the

action is unconscious . The very expressions we use,

such as,to act without thinking

, to act instinctively,imply that the action blocks out or hinders therepresentation . Ins tinct is immediate knowledge,knowledge such as intuition gives us

,and being

continued in the action, is therefore unconscious ; intelligence represents the action in idea before it acts ,hesitates and deliberates

,and is therefore conscious .

This brings us to the real ly essential distinctionbetween instinct and intelligence , the actual distinction in the kind of knowledge that each is fittedto give us . Intelligence is the knowledge of therelations of things . We may know a thing byinstinct more perfectly than we can ever know it byintelligence

,but it is inte lligence alone that gives us

the knowledge of relations,and it is this knowledge

that gives us command over the wide field of activitythat we possess . Intelligence is the power of askingquestions . The number of things of vital oonss

quence to it that a human child actually knows isvery small compared with the knowledge the youngof many of the lower animals have , but the child


has a power that no lower animal has in anythinglike the same degree , the power of understandingthe relation of a predicate to a subject , the power ofus ing verbs. It can deduce conclusions and makeinferences

,and in this its intelligence lies . But that

which chiefly marks the high intellectual attainm entof man , that which is the most simple and concretemanifestation of his superiority, is the ability tomake and use tools. It is here that we see the widerange of intelligence and the nature of the knowledgethat it gives , as compared with the narrow range ofinstinct

,perfect as its knowledge is . The tool that

an insect uses is part of its bodi ly structure ; it is farmore perfect for its purpose than any human tool ,and with it is always the special instinct that promptsthe animal to use it. It has perfect skill , but re

stricted to a very narrow range. The tool that aman uses is made of any material ; it is very imperfectcompared to the natural tool

,but it is capable of

infinite variation and adaptability. The sharpenedflint, the stone tied to a stick to make a hammer,such are the simple primitive indications of pureintelligence , and the progress of the human race ismarked by the enormous extension of this simplepower of using dead material to fashion more andmore perfect tools . The detachability and adaptability of the material we us e is derived from thispower we have to know relations . It is furtherillustrated in our language

,which more than any

thing else is recognised as a mark of intelligence andwhich serves the intelligence that it is the sign of.

Language is communication by signs,signs that are


entirely detached from and different from the thingsignified. Insects and lower animals doubtless com fm unicate with their fellows , but we cannot imaginethat they use a language consisting of signs arbitrarilyattached to things , unless we also attribute to themour power of discursive thought.When , then , from this point of view we comparetogether instinct and intelligence , we see that eachis a mode of psychical activity,

and that while theone, instinct , is far more perfect than the other inits accomplishment of its purpose

,far more complete

in its insight,it is nevertheless confined to a very

limited range ; the other , far less perfect in aecom

plishing any purpose , far less complete in the insightit gives of reality

,yet opens to our activity a practi

cally unlimited range . They are also distinguishedby their attitude . Ins tinct is sympathy. It is thefeeling of the intimate bond that binds the individualto the reality. Intelligence is essentially external ; itmakes us regard reality as something other thanour life , as something hostile that we may overcome.

CHAPTER IV

INTUITION

ALTHOUGH the two modes ofmental activity, instinctand inte lligence , in their perfect manifestation areso sharply di stingui shed from one another

,yet they

exist together in our cons ciousness in a very c loseand intimate union . For instinct is akin to thatpower of direct insight that we have called intui tion .

It is this power which in our view philosophy mustmake use of to seiz e again the simpl icity of thereality that is in a manner distorted in the intelligentview of things . Intu ition is that sympathetic attitude to the reality without us that makes us seem to

enter into it,to be one with it , to live it. It is in

contrast to the defiant attitude that we seem to assumewhen in science we treat facts and things as outside ,external

,discrete existences

,which we range before

u s,analyse , discriminate , break up and re-combine .

Intu ition is not a new sense revealing to us unsus

pected things or qualities of things . It is an aspectof conscious existence recognised in every philosophy.

All that is new in Bergson’

s theory is the emphasislaid on intu ition

,and the suggestion that in it lies

the possibility of the solution of the intellectualpuz z le . What is new is not the recognition that


the basis of or is the substance of discursive thought,

and accompanies it. What is new is the exhortation not to turn our backs on this immediacy in orderto follow the method of science in the hepe andexpectation of finding a profounder and richer realityin the concepts of the understanding

,the frames

into which our intellect fits the reality , but to use

the intuition to seiz e the reality itself,to make of

intuition a philosophical instrument, to find in it a

philosophical method. By so doing , and only by sodoing , can we have a real metaphysic , a knowledgeof things in themselves

,a science that is beyond

,or

rather before , or perhaps we should say both beforeand beyond , the sciences . No one saw this needmore clearly than did the philosopher Kant, towhom the problem of philosophy presented itself ina practically identical form to that in which Bergsonpresents it. Is a metaphysic possible Is it possible to know things in themselves

,things as they

are,without the space and time form in which our

sens es apprehend them , without the concepts inwhich our understanding frames them ? Kantthought it was not possible . There is no knowledge ,he said

, of things in themselves . The philosophy of

Kant became , therefore , a theory of knowledge , buta theory of knowledge that involved the denial ofknowledge . Theory of knowledge cannot standalone . If all knowledge is relative , there is noknowledge. The immediate followers of Kant saw

this ,and sought the absolute—Fichte in the ego ,

Hegel in the logical idea itself , Schopenhauer inunconscious will . Bergson has perceived that there

INTUITION

cannot be a theory of knowledge without a theoryof life , that the two are inseparable , because it is forlife that knowledge exists . Life is not known as anexternal thing , apprehended by the senses under aspace form and a time form

,fitted into the frames

or shaped in the moulds that the intellect uses , butis directly known . The intu ition of life is knowledgeof reality itself, reality as it is in itself. But , on theother hand , we cannot have a theory of life that isnot accompanied by a criticism of knowledge . Itis theory of knowledge which enables us to see howthe concepts of the understanding have been constructed , how they serve as a convenient and useessary symbolism for our positive science

,how we may

enlarge or go beyond them , and what is their trueplace in the evolution of life.When I begin to lear n a new language it appears

to me as a vocabulary of words that I must committo memory , with the rules for their use , the declensions and conjugations , the genders and cases , theconstru ction of sentences , the idioms , the syntax ,the spelling and the pronunciation . The task seemsappalling . If I had to learn the language by committing to memory every word and every rule , Imight by severe application get perhaps considerableknowledge of it , but it would be of a halting andpractically useless kind . But what happens ? As

soon as I begin to use the language,either by speak

ing or reading it,though I may only have acquired

a few words and a slight knowledge of construction ,I seem to enter into it, and it seems to form itselfround me. It ceases to appear to me as arbitrary


sounds and rules ; it becomes a mode of expressionwhich continually , and as a whole , progresses to moreand more perfect expression

,and not by the mere

addition to memory of words and rules. And on theother hand my own language which I learnt in earlychildh ood without difficulty , because it formed itselfround me and grow wi th my growth , this language ,which forms so natural a part of my life that Icannot even in thought divest myself of it

,for it

is the vehicle of my thought,I can

,when I will ,

set before myself and see it fall apart into sounds ,combinations and rules . It is in the same way thatintuition and intellect are blended in our life .This applies to everything whatever that we know.

There is a difference in the knowledge we have of

anything that consists in the attitude towards it .When you are reading you hardly notice the sentences ,words

,letters

,and the spaces dividing them , that

compose the page and convey to you the author’

s

meaning . You certainly do not notice that all youhave before you is black marks on a white ground.

Yet if you will you can present to yourself these , andthese only

,as the things you perceive . This very

philosophy may appear to you as a set of verydebateable propositions

,none of which separately

would bring conviction , and all of which in theaggregate would seem to lack cohesion , or you mayenter sympathetically into it

,find yourself at its

point of view,find that it becomes the expression of

your own attitude , and that it throws light for youon the whole problem of thought and existence . One

thing is certain , that if you are convinced by this


consist in the skill with which the performers manipulate the instruments that produce the vibrations .The work is an individual

,indivisible whole which

the composer has created and the performers apprehend , and not the aggregate of discrete sounds intowhich it can at any time be decomposed. It isknown directly in one intuition . Intuition is theentering into it as distinct from the standing overagainst it and watching its successive parts or selec ting points of view of it .What purpose , then , does the intellect serve ?

Why do we distort,or at least transform

,reality ?

Or— ii this seems,as indeed it is

,an extreme way of

stating it—why does the intellect involve us in theillusion that the continuous is discrete, that themoving and changing is at rest ? What is theadvantage that intellectual frames give us Bergsonin his answer to these questions has shown us bothwhy and how these things can be . His answer isentirely original . The problems are old enough , butthe solution now offered in this philosophy has notbeen propounded before . It is the theory of lifethat offers the solution of the problem of knowledge .Clearly if the whole end and purpose of our beingwere knowledge , if knowledge were an end and notmerely the means to an end ,

these frames wouldnot only be useless

,but a positive hindrance . If the

end of knowledge were the contemplation of eternaltruth , it is intuition alone that would serve thatend

,the intellect would be a stumb ling-block , But

our theory of life shows us knowing as a means notan end

,it is for the sake of acting . How, then ,

INTUITION

does knowledge serve action , and in what specialway does intellectual knowledge serve action betterthan intuitional knowledge ? The illustrations wehave already given may indicate the answer. Theintellect gives us the same advantage over intuitionthat the material tool gives to us as compared withthe organical tool that the insect possesses . Itopens a practically unlimited range to our activity.

It supplies us with a symbolism ,a language , a

system of detached and detachable signs whichenables us to use our experience to gu ide our presentaction . It gives us the sciences . The sciences arethe organisation of experience into systems of realitythat serve the mind as tools serve the body. Weare continually confronted w ith the need of action ;while we live there is this unceasing demand to act .There seem to be only two ways in which we maybe qualified to meet this demand ; one is by a directintuition which drives us to act in one path and one

only,the other is by the intellect which ranges

before us our experience and enables us to choosefrom many possible courses the one that offers besthope of success . How cou ld this be unless our

actions , accomplished and contemplated, could bepresented before us as individual unities , and thesphere of our activity as ends and motives ? Thisthe intellect does . It articulates the living flow,

makes the past appear as successive events , thepresent as simultaneous positions or situations of

definite things , and so enables us to search in thepast for identical situations to gu ide us

,to recognise

similarities in the present , and to anticipate in the


future the results of our activity as actions aecom

plished . And the articulations that the intellectmakes in the livin g flow are natural articulationsbecause they fo llow the practical needs of our nature,but they are not absolute , for with other needs therewould be other divisions . There is no absolutelyformless reality ; the presence of one form is theabsence of another, but the lines and divisions arethe necessities that human activity demands .Without intellect our life would lack all that orderwhich appears to us in the form of successive events

,

all the divisions and lines that seem to us the actualarticulations of the inert material world , but lifewould exist. Life , the concrete reality , itself is not aformless chaos

,not a manifold without order nor a

unity without form , but an absolute that holds initself the possibility of all form . We cannot represent it or imagine it without form ,

and for the powerto represent and imagine at all we are dependenton the intellect

,but we can distinguish the form

that the intellect gives it , and see in the purposethat the intellect serves the reason of that form .

And also we can know life w ithout intellectual form ,

for consciousness of living is the intuition of life .

But if reality is life,and if the solid things and

their relations are the order that the intellect discerns in this reality

,what is the nothing that stands

opposed to this reality,what is the disorder that is

the alternative to this order ? It seems to us thatwhen we think that something exists we can

,equally

think that it does not exist, and when we think ofany arrangement or order we can equally think of

INTUITION

the absence of order. The opposite of reality isnothing , the opposite of order is disorder, and so weseem to have positive ideas of nothing and of disorder. And so we ask questions that seem to touchthe very depth of the problem of existence. Why isthere any reality at all Why does something existrather than nothing Why is there order in realityrather than disorder When we characterise realityas life , the question seems so much more pressing ,for the subject of it seems so much fuller of contentthan when we set over against one another bareabstract categories

,like the being and the nothing

that Hegel declared to be identical . It seems easyto imagine that life might cease and then nothingwould remain . In this way we come to picture toourselves a nought spread out beneath reality, areality that has come to be and that might cease tobe , and then again there would be nought. This ideaof an absolute nothing is a false idea , arising froman illusion of the understanding. Absolute nothingis unthinkable . The problems that arise out of theidea we seem to have of it are unmeaning . It isvery important to understand this point if we wouldgrasp the full meaning of the theory of knowledge .

Behind the reality which we know there is no nonbeing that we can think of as actually taking itsplace , and also there is no actual chaos or confusionor disorder which we can think of as taking theplace of the order which we know

,and which would

be the condition of reality without that order.Bergson is not the first who has discovered that wecannot have an idea of nothing, but no one has


exposed so forcibly and so clearly the misapprehension that rests on this false idea . It is very easy tosee that it must be a false idea . Every idea is anidea of something , every feeling is a feeling of something , nothing is not something , and therefore tothink of absolute nothing is not to think ,

to feelnothing is not to feel . But we think we are thinkingof something when we think of an actual nothing ;what is it that we think of It is the absence of

something . We can think that any particular thingthat exis ts might not exist ; what we are then thinking of is the general reality with this particularthing absent. We can extend this thought to in

clude the non-existence of all that is,but what then

We find that we are thinking of all reality as absentand ourself looking on at the void which weimagine . It is not a positive nothing that is in ourthought ; the present reality is in our thought , andwithou t its presence we could not picture a void .

Absolute nought is unimaginable and inconceivable .

Now try and realise the importance of this for ourtheory . Reality is not a thing in itself which exists ,we know not why

,and which might equally well

not exist. The living reality which intuition revealsto u s is absolute , its non-existence cannot be imaginedor conceived . So also w ith the order that we perceive in it ; it is the direction of our interest as individuals of the human species

,the articulation which

serves our activi ty ; but the absence of this orderwould be the presence of some other order, there isno positive disorder on which order is imposed .

When we see clearly that the idea of the nought and

INTUITION

the idea of disorder are fals e ideas , we can dismissas entirely without meaning problems that havefilled a large place in philosophy and that are persistent in ordinary thought. Was creation out ofnothing

, or has something existed from eternity ?Was there an original formless matter on whichorder has been imposed Such questions arise infalse ideas

,and have no answer because they have

no meaning .

The perception that reality is that which we cannoteven in thought imagine non-existent

,that the only

alternative to the order that we recognise in thisreality is not a positive disorder but some otherorder

,alters profoundly the whole problem of philo

sophy as it has hitherto been presented. We haveno longer to explain a dualism . The intuition of

reality that we have in the consciousness of our ownlife is not the apprehension of a kind of realityaltogether different from that other reality which weknow when we perceive external things . Space isnot one reality and time another. It is one identicalreality that we know by intuition in life

,by under

standing in physical science. The point of view atwhich matter and mind appear to be two realitiesdifferent in their nature

,impossible to reduce to an

identity , and yet in some mysterious way in closerelation , this view which has been the starting-pointof philosophy since Descartes

,and which has in one

form or another given its problem to philosophyever since

,is simply superseded . The philosophy of

Bergson is not a reconciliation of this old problemof dualism ; what it does is to offer us a point of

PHILOSOPHY OF CHANGE

view from which the problem does not and cannotHence its peculiar significance and immense

importance . It is in very truth a new departure .

It is not a new light on old problems ; it is a newprinciple of interpretation

,suggested and made pos

sible by the enormous advance of the biologicalsciences in modern times.


argument that appeals with full force to both parties,that freew ill is impossible— it is no use , it is likeproving that Achilles cannot overtake the tortoise ;there rises up against the argument a feeling thatclaims all the authority of fact

,and seems to turn

the reasoning to foolishness . Is it possible to explain the persistence oi this everlasting problem ?

May it be that there is a confusion in the meaningof the terms

,a contradiction in the very heart of

the problem May it be that there is an illusion inour common way of thinking of things , and thatthis illusion once removed

,this and other problems

w ill lose their meaning and disappearThe problem of freewill or determinism is gener

ally stated in such a way that the case for freewillis made impossible by the very form of the question .

We ask , can we choose indifferently between twoalternatives , or must the strongest motive prevailBut such a question is unreal

,for there is no other

test of the strongest motive but the fact that wechoose it. The freewill supposed in a choice that isindifferent to motives is also absurd in its ethicalaspect

,for the moral respons ibility of the agent

which it is supposed to establish is clearly destroyed .

What we really mean when we ask,Are we free

is,whether when we act we really create

,or whether

creation is impossible ; not whether any action isundetermined , but whether every action can be predicted beforehand as certainly as its conditions aredetermined once it is carried out. The view of thisphilosophy is that life is creation , and that thereality of the universe is incessant creation. This

FREEDOM 59

idea is Bergson's central conception towards which

all his arguments converge .The iilusion that gives rise to the problem of free

will is the mental picture that we form of time .

The time that we ordinarily think about is not realtime , but a picture of space . In ordinary thoughtand language we represent space and time as each ahomogeneous medium

,that is to say, as two realities

in which all the parts are of exactly the same kindas one another , in which there are no actual differences nor divisions between one part and anotherpart . Differences and divisions all belong to theobjects and events that fill them , not to space andtime themselves . In space , material objects lie outside one another

,and in time , conscious states succeed

one another. Now the time which we imagine asa medium in which events happen , or, as we say

(using a spatial image) take place , is only a symbolicalrepresentation of space . When we think of statessucceeding one another , we are not thinking of timeat all , but of space. Real time

,the true duration

,

is entirely different ; it is not a succession , but , likelife or consciousness

,an existence in which all reality

is the actually present,moving , changing , now. In

consciousness states do not lie outside one anotherbut interpenetrate , and the whole undivided consciousness changes without ceasing . Now wheneverwe think of change as the succession of fixed stateswe think of these states as lying beside one another

,

and change as the passing from one to the other.This is not real change . It is only in space that onething is outside another thing, and when we repre


sent states as separate things , whether we im aginethem to exist side by side or to follow one another,we are using a spatial symbol

,and the succession

of states is only a picture of ourself passing fromone thing to another thing in space . In real changethere are no states at all ; everything is a living ,moving present. Existence in time is life . It isvery important to grasp this point clearly ; it is sofundamental , that unless it is understood and accepted ,it is little likely that the subsequent arguments willcarry conviction . And it is not an easy doctrine toexplain or to understand , for the very language inwhich alone we can express it is steeped in spatialsymbolism . Language seems to require us to makethe same sharp distinction between our ideas thatwe make between material objects . It is when wegrasp the true nature of our experience of time , anddistinguish it from the spatial representation of it,that is indeed both useful in practice and necessaryin science

,that the real nature of freewill appears .

It is this spatial time that makes us think of our

selves as made up of elements that can be measuredand counted like material objects , and of our actionsas the play of these elements . When we see thatlife and consciousness are not measurable at all,that it is always something else that we are measuringwhen we think that we are comparing or countingconscious states , that they are not quantities butpure qualities , not outside of and distinct from oneanother

,but interpenetrating and permeating the

living individual who progresses and develops , theold problem of determinism disappears , and freewill

FREEDOM 61

is seen to be the creative power of the individual whois one and indivisible .Freewill , as this philosophy affirms it , is creative

action . All the actions that we perform , all theactions that

,taken together , make up our individual

lives,are not free actions . Our free actions are very

rare,and for the vast mass of mankind may even

not exist at all . And , moreover, it is not possibleto pick out of our lives certain actions and say of

them , these are, what the rest are not , free . Whenwe regard our individual actions and analyse theminto means and ends and purposes

,the determinist

argument is inevitable . Wh ether we regard onlythe physical causation that is involved in . everyaction , or whether we think of the psychical causation involved in the motives and ends and purposesthat constitute the alternatives from which we choose ,there is no way of resisting the determinist con

elusion that all our actions can only be explainedby their conditions

,and these conditions leave no

place for freew ill , as determinists and indeterministsalike have defined it. But what is true of the partsviewed as parts is not necessarily true of the whole .And so it may be that when we regard our actionas a chain of complementary parts linked together ,each action so viewed is rigidly conditioned

,yet

when we regard our whole life as one and indivisible ,it may be free . So also with the life which we holdto be the rea lity of the universe ; when we view itin its detail as the intellect presents it to us ,

itappears as an order of real conditioning

,each sepa

rate state having its ground in an antecedent state,


yet as a whole , as the living impulse , it is free andcreative . We are free when our acts spring fromour whole personality when they express thatpersonality. These acts are not unconditioned , butthe conditions are not external

,but in our character ,

which is ourself.Freewill , this power of free creative action , is notthe liberty of choice that indeterminists have assertedand determinists have denied . It is not the feelingof liberty that we have when we are set face to facewith alternative courses from which to choose , noris it the feeling we have when our choice has beenmade and we look back on the action accomplished

,

the feeling that we need not have acted as we did andcould have acted differently. Freewill is the verynature of our lives as individual wholes

,the expres

sion of the individuality of life . Our actions ,even

our free creative actions , follow from and dependupon our character , and our character is formed bycircumstances , but it is not external to us , it isourself . But it is only at times that free action iscalled for. Our ordinary life is made up of actionsthat are largely automatic , of habits and convemtions that form a crust around our free expression ; itis only at moments of crisis or when we are touchedwith deep emotion that we seem to burst throughthis crust and our whole self decides our action . But

further, as this philosophy shows , there is that inthe nature of life and consciousness which is itselfessentially freewill . Causality is a scientific conception,

and science is an intellectual view. Physicalscience is the order that the intellect imposes on the

FREEDOM 63

flowing. The intellect finds resemblances , binds liketo like

,organises experience into systems in which

recognised antecedents have recognised consequents ,and so makes prediction possible . And it extendsthis view to the living world and to the consciousworld of thought and will . But life itself , as we knowit in intuition

,is not like this intellectual view of it ;

it is a becoming in which there is no repetition , inwhich , therefore , prediction is impossible , for it iscontinual new creation .

Freewill is only possible,therefore

,if the intellectual

view is not absolute . There is no place for it in theworld as physical science presents it. And consoquently to prove that the will is free is to provethat we have a spiritual as distinct from a materialnature , that we are not merely mechanical arrangements of parts in a block universe , but living up

holders of a universe that is Open to our creative

But even so , is this liberty so very important ?Do we not share it with everything that lives Ifwe have acquired an advantage which has made uslords of the surface of this planet

,it is but a little

difference that parts us from the lower and lesssuccessful forms . If the reality is the life that hasevolved us

,and this life imparts to us a portion of

its own essential freedom,is it not imparted for a

purely practical reason,and does not everything

that lives share it in some degree ? Are not thelimitations so overwhelming that the consciousnessof this rare freedom hardly counts agains t theobstacles that block its exercise Is not the superi


ority that seems to raise us above all other livingbeings merely our point of view due to the narrowness of our outlook ? It may be so , but there isalso reason to think that our human life is somethingmore than the success of a species by natural selection in the struggle for existence . Humanity maybe in a special sense the trium ph of the life impulseitself . I will give this idea in Bergson

’

s own wordsFrom our point of view, life appears in its entiretyas an immense wave which , starting from a centre.spreads outwards , and which on almost the wholeof its circumference is stopped and converted intooscillation ; at one single point the obstacle hasbeen forced , the impulsion has passed freely. It isthis freedom that the human form registers . Everywhere but in man consciousness has had to cometo a stand ; in man alone it has kept on its way.

Man, then , continues the vital movement indefinitely,although he does not draw along with him all thatlife carries in itself . On other lines of evolutionthere have travelled other tendencies which life implied , and of which , since everything interpenetrates ,man has , doubtless , kept something , but of whichhe has kept only very little . It is as if a vagueand formless being

,whom we may call , as we will,

man or superman,had sought to realise himself,

and had succeeded only by abandoning a part ofhim self on the way.

"(CreativeEvolution, p .

66 THE PHE OSOPHY OF CHANGE

explain how a perception formed in the mind,or it

may be in the brain, can agree with a real objectthat is entirely independent of the mind and thebrain . He is led to propound theories of whichthat known as the epiphenomenon may be quotedas an example , in which it is supposed that thevibrations transmitted through the molecules of thebrain-cells produce a kind of phosphorescence orluminous trail , which is the perception of things .Now idealism and realism alike rest on the view thatthe brain is in some sort of way a manufactory inwhich perceptions are produced

,notwithstanding

that the idealist is bound to regard the brain and the"movements in the brain as themselves perceptions ,and the realist is bound to regard the brain as onlyone among other objects

,and can give no reasonwhy

it should , or how it can , have the power or functionp freproducing or representing all other objects . Bothidealists

fl

and realistsregard memories as a kind of

perception,and consider one of the functions of the

brain is to store the perceptions it has given rise to,

and reproduce them as recollections on occasion .

In Bergson’

s view this whole conception of thefunction of the brain is false . The brain is not amanufactory of ideas nor a storehouse of memories .It is a kind of telephonic exchange . The body isorganised for action , the impressions which pass intothe body are already perceptions

,they are incen

tives to action , and the function of the brain is torespond to them by setting going the appropriateaction .

I will now try and explain as simply and concisely

MIND AND BODY 67

as I can what,for this philosophy, perception is and

what memory is,what the body is and what the

mind is , what is matter and what is spirit, and whatis the function that the body performs .When we are conscious we perceive and we rocol

lect . We never perceive anything without at thesame time remembering , but though perception andmemory always exist together in conscious experi

ence , they are different in kind from one another ,and must be dissociated to be understood . A

memory is not a weaker kind of perception , and aperception is not an intenser memory . A pure perception is the immediate and instantaneous vision ofmatter that I might imagine myself to have if Iwere living entirely in the present without anymemory. If I disregard all philosophical theories

,

and try to represent the universe as it appears to me,it will seem to consist of a great variety of objects ,one of which is my body. My body differs from theother objects in this , that while the other objectsact and react on one another according to constantlaws which I call laws of nature , my body seems tohave the power of performing new and originalactions . My body is a centre of action . It receivesmovements from the objects round me and givesback movement to them . This is performed bymeans of the nervous system

,at the centre of which

is a highly complex structure,the brain . All move

ments do not pass through the brain ; some go to theSpinal cord

,and are immediately and automatically

converted into actions ; those that pass through thebrain are perceived before they are converted into


actions . And so it seems to me that the brainmust produce perceptions. But the function of thebrain is simply to transmit movement

,and its great

complexity is to give me choice of movement. Inorder to choose , consciousness must perceive , butperceptions would not serve action if they weremanufactured in the brain . To be of use to meperceptions must come to me from the objects roundme and among which my action is to take place . Iperceive in the world around me not the whole of

reality , but that part of it which interests me on

account of my possible action , the action that mybody

,having received the stimulus , will eventually

perform . Perceptions are the movements from theobjects outside my body, and my brain acts as adark screen , which throws up the image and illum inates it for consciousness . The function of my bodyis to select. Those movements that do not interestme with regard to possible action are reflected back

,

those that concern me pass in and are conscious lyperceived . This is why perceptions vary with themovements of my body, although they are not inthe body

,but outside me in the objects that I per

ceive. If the nerves that transmit the movementsto the brain are divided my perceptions are destroyed , for the movements cannot reach the brain ,and the brain cannot therefore set my body in motion.

Perception is my actual present contact with theworld in which my actions are taking place . Inconscious experience there is no perception withoutmemory . However instantaneous perception mayseem it has some duration , and all duration is the

MIND AND BODY

existence of the past in the present. Pure perception , which exists in theory only, is what the presentwould be if it retained nothing of the past. Itsreality is its activity. The past is idea, the presentis movement . In perception we touch and penetrateand live the reality of things . When we perceive wedo not, as the idealist supposes , construct or reconstruct things , nor do we, as the realist supposes ,only represent them .

As pure perception is wholly in the present, so purememory is wholly in the past . The past is thatwhich has ceased to act , it has not ceased to exist.The whole of our past perceptions survive theiractive living present and exist

,in the order and

wi th the circumstances of their occurrence , in theform of unconscious psychical states . The mindplays in regard to this time existence an exactlysimilar part to that which the body plays in regardto the perception of present images in space . Itenables us to forget . It shuts out from consciousness all past recollections which do not interest thepresent action , and it brings into consciousness thoserecollections which serve the purpose of presentactivity . These blend with and interpret and becomeone with the present action

,and therefore it is that

in actual experience neither present perception normemory is ever pure . There is no past perceptionwhich may not be , under some necessity , broughtby the mind into present consciousness , but becausewe are not conscious of a recollection until it is present ,we think that it is only when we are conscious ofit that it exists . We think therefore that it is a


new and di fferent existence,and not something that

already existed in the unconscious .This theory of pure memory is an essential doctrine

in Bergson’

s philosophy , and it is the most revolutionary compared with hitherto accepted psychological theory . The very affirmation of the existenceof unconscious psychical states seems to involve acontradiction in terms

,for consciousness is generally

held to be an essential property of psychical states .But, according to Bergson , this is due to our regarding consciousness as a function that is only accidentally practical

,and that is really intended to

give us pure knowledge,and therefore we think that

there can be nothing real in consciousness that isnot actual . But the uncons cious plays in perceptionan exactly similar part to that which it plays inmemory. When I perceive any object , I am uncon

scious of all but a very small part of the existencewhich I perceive . All these things that I am un

conscious of form part of the present existence thatI perceive . So also when I recollect any past event,I am unconscious of all but a very small part of theexistence which seems to be spread out behind mein the past .It is this refusal to recognise the existence of un

conscious psychical states , to recognise the reality ofwhat Bergson names spirit

,that compels us to sup

pose that memories are preserved in the matter ofthe brain , either by being stored up in cells , or bybeing the molecular paths that perception has traced .

A large part of M atter and M emory is devoted toan examination and criticism of the various forms

MIND AND BODY

of this theory , and also to an account of recentactual experimental research which seems to provethat the theory in any form must be wrong even onstrictly scientific grounds .Pure memory

,therefore , afi‘irms the existence of

mind or Spirit , an existence that cannot be reducedwaif explained by matter. But there are two formsof memory ; only one of them is pure memory.

When I have learnt a poem or a musical composition by heart I say that I remember it

,but memory

in this case refers to the present and the future andnot to the past ; that which I remember has becomea whole for me that I retain and can repeat when Iwill. It is true that I have had to learn it, andthose efforts are past, but the memory is a presentpossession . Each of these efforts , however, is apersonal memory, a picture image with its particularoutline , colour , and place in time , individual andunique , and not to be repeated . These two forms ofmemory always exist together in our experience , butthey are radically different from one another ; theone is a formed motor habit , a mechanism , a habitinterpreted by memory ; the other is true memory ,an existence in time .

Perception affirms the reality of matter,memory

affirms the reality of spirit . Are we not then confronted with the problem s and difficulties that havealways seemed inseparable from dualism No

, be

cause both perception and memory serve a practicalpurpose ; they prepare us for and direct our actions ,they unite in the reality of the movement that islife . We have not, on the one hand , a series of


mechanical movements,and

,on the other, a series

of psychical states with no common measure betweenthem . We have not

,as in idealist and realist

theories , two realities , the only function of one of

which is to know the other. "uite different is theview that Bergson gives of the function of the bodyin the life of the spirit.Our body is the exact actual present point at which

our action is taking place , the point at which perception marks out our possible actions , and memorybrings the weight

,as it were , of the past to push us

forward as we advance into the future . The bodyis our instrument of action , it is the sharp edge ofthe knife which cuts into the future . At everymoment it may be said to perish and to be bornagain . It is the moving point pressing forward

,the

present moment in which consciousness makes thatinstantaneous section across the universal becomingwhich takes for us the form of solid matter spreadout in space . This is why we experience it in twoways , by external sensations which present it as anobject among other objects , and by internal feelings ,pleasure and pain , which make it for us a privilegedobject known from within .

What,then , is the reality that we perceive The

reality is movement. Movements are indivisible andoccupy duration . Our life is an indivisible movement

,and the universal becoming is composed of

movements . To perceive is to form these movements into objects and things , just as in the consciousness of a flash of light billions of successive vibrationsare condensed into one sensation . Our body is at


uses to be made of things , the practical advantageto be drawn from them .

What, then , is spirit It is the progress , theevolution , the prolonging of the past into the present.It is a pure time existence . It unites with matterin the act of perception , but the union can only beexpressed in terms of time and not in terms of space .

It is the memory which holds the past and unites itwith the present in the living reality.

CHAPTER VII

CREATIV E EV OLUTION

IN the latter half of last century,and following the

formu lation of the great scientific generalisation ofthe evolution of living species

,the philosophy of

Herbert Spencer seemed to promise to found on theprinciple of evolution a new synthesis of knowledge .Whatever our V iew of the permanent value ofHerbert Spencer’s work

,it cannot be denied that the

wonderful promise that it seemed to contain was notfulfilled , and the hope and enthusiasm that it inspired was followed by disappointment. And nowagain evolution is the principle of a new construotion , and the basis of a philosophy. But thisphilosophy is not a mere classification and generalisation of the results of the sciences

,it explains the

sciences by showing the genesis of matter in thereality of life . What is the difference between thetwo methods It may be summed up in the wordcreative . In this is revealed the true nature ofevolution . Spencer recognised the fact that theworld and the living forms it contained were theresult of evolution , and he thought it was sufficientto break up and di ssociate into simpler elements theworld that had been evolved in order to show itsevolution . His method

gas to cut up the present


evolved reality into little bits , though the little bitsmust themselves have been evolved , and then re

compose the reality with the fragments . In so

doing he did not see that he was positing in advanceeverything that there was to be explained. Thetrue evolution must explain the genesis of natureand of mind . Herbert Spencer’s principle of evolution never freed itself from the vice of mechanicalexplanation . The future and the past could all becalculated from the present. All is given . Timedoes nothing

,and therefore is nothing. This is

essentially the scientific method of explanation . And

the attempt to interpret it by adding the idea of

purpose or final cause does not alter its character.It introduces a psychological element , but it remainsessentially a mechanical explanation , except that theconditions of present existence are placed partly inthe future instead of wholly in the past.True evolution is creative . We have seen that

life and cons ciousness have no meaning unless timeis real . The same is true of evolution . If time isa succession of real things and not itself a reality ,if the continued creation of the world means that itdies and is re-born at every instant , there is noevolution . Evolution implies a real persistence of

the past in the present , a duration which is not aninterval between two states , but which links themtogether. The principle then of this philosophy isthat reality is time , that it can only be expressed interms of time

, that there is no stuff more resistantnor more substantial than time , that it is the very

CREATIVE EVOLUTION

Evolution is creative ; in organic evolution as inconsciousness the past presses against the presentand causes the upspringing of a new form incom

mensurable with its antecedents . In the primitiveimpulse must be sought the solution of the problemof organic evolution .

The problem is to account for the variations ofliving beings together with the persistence of theirtype , the origin , in a word , of species . There are

three present forms of evolutionist theory—the neoDarwinian , according to which the essential causesof variation are the differences inherent in the germborne by the individual

,and not the experience or

behaviour of the individual in the course of his

career ; the theory known as Orthogenesis , according to which there is a continual changing in adefinite direction from generation to generation andthe neo-Lamarckian theory, according to which thecause of variation is the conscious effort of the individual , an effort passed on to descendants . Eachof these theories may be true to the extent that itexplains certain facts , but there are two difficultiesthat no one of the theories nor all together cansurmount. One of these is the fact that the development of exactly similar organs is found on quitedistinct and widely separated lines of evolution .

There is a striking example of this in the Pecten,the

common mollusc that we call the scollop,which

has eyes the structure of which is identical with thevertebrate eye in its minutest details

,yet the eye of

the mollusc and the eye of the vertebrate must havebeen developed quite independently of one another

,


and ages after each had left the parent stock . Theother difficulty is that in all organic evolution aninfinite complexity of structure is combined withan absolute simplicity of function . Thus the vari ation of an organ like the eye cannot be a singlevariation , but must involve the simultaneous occurrence of an infinite number of variations all 0 0

ordinated to the single purpose of vision , which is asimple function . These are facts that can only beexplained by the hypothesis of an original impetusretaining its direction in channels far removed anddivided from their common source.Life is an original impetus . It is not the mere

heading of a class of things that live . We maypicture it as a visible current , taking its rise at acertain moment , in a certain point of space , passingfrom generation to generation , dividing and diverging ,losing nothing of its force , but intens ifying in proportion to its advance . If now we continue thissim ile , and try to picture the course of evolution on

the surface of this planet,it seems to us that it must

have commenced with a very humble effort, lifestooping , as it were , to insinuate itself into theinterstices of resisting matter

,for the earliest forms

of life appear to have been very lowly . Yet fromthe first life had within it that tremendous pushwhich was destined to carry it to the highest forms .Its progress seem s to have been always by dissociation , by dividing , by diverging , by parting withsome of its powers in order to emphasise others ,but always retaining something of the whole in everypart . So we see" the first great subdivision into the

CREATIVE EVOLUTION

vegetable and the animal,each distinguished not

so much by positive characteristics as by divergenttendencies , the one a tendency towards immobilityand unconscious torpor

,the other towards mobility

and consciousness,and both at the same time

complementary as well as opposed to one another.In the development of animal life we see this samecontinual divergence . On many lines the progresshas been arrested or even turned back , but alongtwo main lines it has found free way, the line of thevertebrates at the end of which we ourselves stand ,and the line of the arthropods that has found itshighest expression in the ants and the bees . Inthese two lines of evolution we find the perfectingof two modes of activity

,instinct and intelligence .

In the vital impulsion that from the first earlysimple form of a living cell has developed the multitude of forms that have been and now are existingon our planet we may distinguish three elements

,

elements that coincided in the common impetus buthave been dissociated by the very fact of theirgrowth . These are the unconscious sleep of thevegetable and the instinct and intelligence of theanimal . They are not , as the common opinion hasbeen , three successive degrees of the development ofone tendency, but three divergent directions of anactivity that has split up as it grew.

From this standpoint of the ordinary observationof life we see that these modes of the vital activityare not things that life has produced for their ownsake , not the final realisations of a purpose . Theyare not things nor ends , but tendencies . They are


an intimate part of the vital activity,the means by

which it pushes on its ceaseless movement. Intelligence and instinct are not separated by sharplydrawn distinctions. They are different tendencies

,

entirely different in the mode of their activity,but

they exist together , commingled and interpenetrating.

Neither one nor the other exists for the sake of purespeculative knowledge . Each gives a knowledgethat is subservient to life , and that knowledge isdirected to giving the living creature command overthe matter that seems to resis t and oppose his progress . Such in brief is the conclusion which wereach when we study the evolution of life as it appearsto ordinary observation and to science . It suggestsa certain conception of knowledge , and this againimplies a metaphysics , and thus we are brought to

Ordinary observation therefore without any philosophical presuppositions shows us that there is acurrent of life that from lowly beginnings has pushedon its course

,creating ever new forms in its passage

from generation to generation , and this currentseems to have had to meet and overcome a resistingcurrent

,which to our view seems immense in com

parison and overwhelming,a universe of solid

matter spread out in a boundless space. And inthis current of life we may distinguish in particulartwo modes of conscious activity , ins tinct and intelligence, which stand out as different directions of

activity from a background of consciousness ingeneral . What we call in distinction tomatter, mind,is larger than intellect, larger also than instinct.


of our action on matter , and the detail of matteris ruled by the requirements of our action . Hencethere is a reciprocal adaptation , both intellect andmatter are derived from a higher and wider existence .But here an initial difficulty has probably alreadyoccurred to the reader. How is it possible for theintellect to discover the genesis of the intellect ?Does it not involve us in a vicious circle Even ifthere be a wider consciousness , I cannot divestmyself of my intellectual apprehension in order toview my intellect from some other standpoint. Thevicious circle is only in appearance however ; it isnot real

,because the intellect is not different from

the wider consciousness . It is a nucleus , a condensation

,a focussing

,and the wider consciousness which

surrounds it is of the same nature as itself. Buton the other hand the vicious circle is real for everymethod in philosophy that regards the intellect asabsolute and as given . For all such there is

,as Kant

most clearly proved , no metaphysic possible , that isto say

,no grasp of a reality that is wider than the

intellect. This is of such fundamental importancefor the appreciation of Bergson

’

s method that Imust try to illustrate it. In the evolutionist philosophy of Herbert Spencer we are shown matterobeying laws , objects and fac ts connected by constant relations

,and consciousness receiving the im

print of these laws and relations , and so shapingitself into intellect . But clearly the intellect whichis supposed to arise in this way is already presupposed in the matter we speak of as objects andacts . What are objects and facts but our concepts

CREATIVE EVOLUTION

of matter ? Instead of showing how intelligencearises , we assume it in the very conception of thenature from which we seek to derive it. The sameholds true of those philosophies that start with consciousness and construct nature out of the categoriesof thought . All suppose that the faculty of knowingis co-extensive with the whole of experience , and theymust therefore explain away matter or explain awaynd or accept a dualism of two substances . This

philosophy,on the contrary , can accept the reality

of both matter and mind , and it shows how intellectand matter arise by mutual adaptation , each presupposing the other.The evolution of life suggests to us

,then , a certain

conception of knowledge and also a certain metaphysic

,which imply each other. The conception of

knowledge is that the intellect is a Special functionof the mind , that its essence is to comprehendmatter , that matter does not determine the form ofthe intellect , nor does the intellect impose its formon matter

,nor is there any kind of pre-established

harmony between them , but that intellect and matterhave adapted themselves to one another. And themetaphysical theory is that the intellectuality of themind and the materiality of things are not due toseparate substances , mind and matter , nor

‘

are theyeven distinct movements

,but two processes in one

movement . Each is an opposite direction of theidentical movement that is the other.Let us first try and see what exactly matter is indirect experience . When we concentrate our attention on our innermost experience

,we perceive the


reality of our life as a pure duration in which thepast as memory exists in the present and pressesforward with the whole ac tivi ty of our will into thefuture . There is one point , one sharp point , in our

existence which marks the actually present moment.If we try to concentrate our being on that point , tothink away all memory and all will , we can neverquite succeed , but in the effort we may catch aglimpse of that pure present reality into which allactuality is gathered. It will appear

,when no

memory links it to the past , no-will impels it to thefuture , as a momentary existence which dies and isre-born endlessly. It is at that point that matterexists as fixed , external , timeless states . If we couldsee that momentary existence , it is pure materialitythat we should see . Life materialises at the pointat which it is acting . At that point the changingflow assumes the form of solid external states , andthe essential function of the intellect , the functionfor which it is peculiarly adapted , is to apprehendthe reality in that form .

Our intellect then is the faculty of knowing matterin the form of extension in space . Science is thework of the intellect . In geometry its success ismost complete,

for geometry deals with pure space .The Operations of the intellect tend to geometry ,

they are a kind of natural geometry. We see thiseven in logic

,which is the pure science of thought

itself. An ordered world of fixed states and constantlaws is essential to the special form of our activity .

The intellect shows us this ord er by apprehendingreality in concepts which are the frames or moulds

CREATIVE EVOLUTION 85

in which it fixes the flowing. It classifies anddivides , cuts out systems in which causes are followedby effects

,and in which the same effects are the

result of the same causes . With unorganised matterit is completely successful , and we only perceive itslimitations when we deal with the sciences of life .

The positive sciences when they treat unorganisedmatter are in touch with actual reality. The orderthat the intellect shows us in nature is a real order ,not a subjectively imposed order that exists only inour mind. It is an order that it finds , not merelyan order that it gives , by saying which we affirmthat the adaptation is mutual . The reality is botha material order and an intellectual order. Thedifficulty we find in accepting this important conelusion is due to an illusion of thought. We persistin thinking that order is something imposed on

reality , and that wi thout an imposed order therewould be a disorder. The idea of disorder is purelyrelative to our interest} it is the absence of theorder that we are seeking. The absence of an orderwe expect to find is the presence of a different

I will now try to make clear in a few words themost difficult, but at the same time the most important, idea in this philosophy, the idea that takesus to the very depth of the metaphysical problem.

How can the ultimate reality be one movementHow can one movement give rise to infinite diversity How can dead matter be the same movement as life I can only indicate the nature of theargument, and try to give a picture of the way in


which the ultimate reality is conceived . The argument is that the inversion of a movement may bebrought about by simple interruption of the movement , and that if a movement , such as the creativeact of wi ll , a movement concentrated on a purpose ,be conceived as a tension

,its interruption in what

ever way brought about is a detension . The worddetension

,the meaning of which is clearly expressed

in its form , is employed because we have no exactword in ordinary use equivalent to it. It is meantto express that extension is really the de-tension of

a tension. Matter , extension in space , is the interruption which is an inversion of the movementwhich in life is a pure duration in time. An illustration may show what is meant. If I am listeningto a poet reciting his poem , my attitude of attentionenables me to enter into the poet’s meaning , his realcreation . Let me , however , only relax my attention ; all that I then have is the form ofhis expression ,

which may become for me words or sounds or eventhe pictures of the letters that compose the words .Or again , if I am bent on some purpose , my wholeself seems gathered up into one point ; let me relaxa moment, and my self is scattered into memories ,dreams , wandering thoughts . And more than this ,the very dispersion may act as an opposing movement thwarting my purpose . It is in this way thatthe genesis of matter may be said to be involved inthe very nature of the movement of life . It is indeedin this way that science tends to represent matter.It is a descending movement, a dispersion , a degradation of energy , and life in contrast is an

CREATIVE EVOLUTION

ascending or at least arresting or retarding movement. Vital activity is a reality making itself in areality which is unmaking itself.Creation is not a mystery , for we experience it inourselves. We are confined to a very limited out

look ; our actual experience of life is narrowed to

the view we may obtain of what it is and what ithas effected on the surface of this small planet.But just as all that we know of other planets andother solar systems seems to lead us to the conclusionthat they do not differ essentially from our own , sowe may conclude that the principle of reality iseverywhere the same . This principle is life or consciousness which is manifested in a need of creation .

If we would call that ultimate reality , the universalprinciple underlying worlds and systems of worlds ,God , then we must say that God is unceasing life ,action , freedom . And creation is a simple process ,an action that is making itself across an actionthat is unmaking itself

,like the fiery path of a rocket

through the black cinders of spent rockets that arefalling dead .

Can we say then what evolution means ‘

2 Does itreveal to us the purpose and destiny of humanityOnly so far as this

,it shows us that in one very

special sense we are the end and purpose of evolution . Not that we existed beforehand as its purposeor final cause

,for there is no pre-existent plan ; the

impetus lies behind us,not before . Not that we are

the successful outcome of the impetus,the end of

its striving , for we are only the result of one divergenttendency, and doubtless many accidents have helped


to determine the position in which we stand . But

whereas everywhere else the current of life has beenturned back by weight of the dead matter thatconfronted it, in man it has won free way. If wepicture this impetus of life as a need of creation ,an effort to achieve freedom , met by matter whichis the opposite direction of its own movement, andwhich stands to it as necessity to freedom , if we seein the struggle the striving of life to introduce intomatter the largest possible amount of freedom ,

thenit is in man alone, capable of free creative action ,that success has been attained. But the successhas not been attained without sacrifice , and thesuccess is very limited. It is only one form of con

scious activity that has reached in us a full developm ent. We are pre-eminently intellectual. A

different evolution might have led to a more intuitiveconsciousness , or even to a full development of

intellect and intuition in a more perfect humanity.

In us intuition is almost completely sacrificed tointellect

,but it is this intuition that philosophy

seizes in order to reveal to us the unity of the spirituallife , the life that is wider than the intellect and themateriality to which

,it binds us . Philosophy shows

us the life of the body on the road to the life of thespirit. Life as a whole, from the initial impulsionthat thrusts it into the world , appears as a wavewhich rises , and which is opposed by the descendingmovement of matter. On the greater part of itssurface

,at different heights , the current is con

verted by matter into a vortex. At one point aloneit passes freely, dragging with it the obstacle which


otherwise , for even in the universe that sciencereveals worlds are being born .

Why is it then that the appearance is so differentto the reality ? Why is this view of the ceaselessli ving , the continual becoming, the free creatingactivity so difficult to realise

,so counter to all our

habits of thought , so contrary to what daily experi

ence seems to teach Why, if this philosophy

reveals simple truth , is it only at rare moments andby difficult abstraction that we are able to realise it,and then only in passing glimpses Why at ordinary times does it seem so certain that it is materialthings that endure , and that time is a mechanicalplay of things that themselves do not change ? Itis due to two illusions of the human mind. Theyare fundamental illusions , for they bring to us soessential an advantage in the practical direction of

our activity that without them we should be differentbeings from what we are . In our practical life weonly observe in movement the thing that moves

,in

becoming the different states , in duration the succeeding instants ; and this is necessary for our

action ; but it leads to an illusion when we try tothink what real movement , real becoming , and realduration are

,for it leads us to suppose that we are

thinking of movement when we are in fact thinkingof states which neither move nor change . This isthe first illusion , that we can think the moving bymeans of the immobile. The second illusion is thatwe think that there is a real unreality . In all ouraction we aim at getting something we feel we want

,

at creating something that does not exist, and so

CREATIVE EVOLUTION

we represent this need as a void,this not yet exist

ing something as an absence , an unreality, nothing.

There is no unreality, no nothing. It is an illusion

to imagine that we can pass out of reality. Un

reality, nothing , means not the absolute non-existence of everything, but the absence of the realitywe want by reason of the presence of a reality thatdoes not interest us .Philosophy reveals to us a reality that is con

sistent with the satisfaction of our highest ideals .

It discloses the life of the spirit. It may give usneither God nor immortality in the old theologicalmeaning of those terms , and it does not show us

human life and individual conduct as the chief end ,

purpose , and centre of interest of the universe . Butthe reality of life is essentially freedom . Philosophydelivers us from the crushing feeling of necessitythat the scientific conception of a closed mechanicaluniverse has imposed on modern thought . Life is afree activity in an open universe . We may be of

little account in the great whole . Humanity itselfand the planet on which it has won its success m ay

be an infinitesimal part of the universal life , but itis one and identical with that life , and our struggleand striving is the impetus of life . And this above allour spiritual life means to us

,the past has not perished,

the future is being made.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Time and Freewill : An Essa"y on the I'm"mediateData ofConsciousness. Swan Sonnenschein Cc ., 1910.

The trans lation by F. L. Pogson of the Essa"i

sur les donne’

esWmefdiates de la conscience. Paris,

1888.

Matter and Memory Swan Sonnenschein Co.

)1911.

The trans lation by N. M . Pau l and W. S.

Palmer ofMatiere etMe’

moire,Essai snr la relation

da corps avec l’

esprit. Paris,1896.

CreativeEvolution. Macmillan Co. 1911.

The translation by Arthur Mitchell of L’Evo

lution cre'atrice. Paris

,1907.

Laughter : An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Mac

mil lan Co. 1911.

The translation by O. Brereton and F . Rothwell of Le Rire, Essai swr la signification da

com ique. Paris, 1901,

La Perception da Changement: Conferences faites a l’Uni

versite'd’Oxford les 26 et 27 Mai , 1911. Oxford :

The C larendon Press.

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON 69° 00 .

at Paul's Work, Ed inburgh

THE PEOPLE’

S BOOKS

General Editor—H. C . O’NEILL

A w onderful enterprise, admirably p lanned, and deserving the highestsuccess. —T"zeNa tzon.

NOW READY (September 1913)

THE FIRST EIGHTY—FOUR VOLUMES

The Foundat ions of Science By WS.

C D t thamrM .A

F.REmbryology—The Beginnings of Life By Prof. Gerald Leighton , M.D.2

3. B iology By Prof. W D . Henderson,M .A

4. "oology : The S tudy of Animal Life BY 1ggSE W M acBndeo M A

5. Botany ; The Modern Study of P l ants By gn' S topes ’ D’ SC" Ph'D"

7 The S tructure of the Earth By Prof. T. G . Bouncy , F.R .S .

8 . Evolut1on By E . S . Goodrich , M .A . , F.R . S .

10 . Hered ity By". A. S . Watson , B . S c.

11. Inorgam c Chem istry By Prof. E .

B.C C. Bal , F

C

R S.

12 . Orgam c Chem 1stry By Prof. L B. Cohen , , .F R . S.

13. The PrinC lpleS of Electnmty By Norman R. Campbbel l ,0

M.A .

14. Rad iat iond

I) . SI? R A S f hy nun er

, , o t e15° The Sc ience Of the S tars Royal Observa tory, Greenwich.16. The Science of L ight By P . Ph1llrps , D. Sc .

17 . Weather Sc ience By R . G . K. Lempfert, M .A.

18. Hypnot1sm and Sel f-Educat ion By A . M . Hutch1son, M .D .

19. TheMB

o

a

iii: A Mother’s B ook by a

By a Univers1ty Woman.2 0 . Youth and S ex—Dangers and Safe ByMary Scharlieb ,

M .D M . S . , andguards for Boys and Girls F. Arthur S ibly , M .A .,LL.D.

2 1. Marn age and Motherhood . A W ife’s By H . S . Dav1dson, M .E. ,

H andbook .

2 2 . Lord Kelvm M.I .E E.

2 3. H11l

By Professor G . Le1ghton M .D .

2 4. S ir illiam Huggins and Spectro By E .W. Maunder, F.R .A. S ,of thes colé

lc Astronomy Roya l Observa tory, Greenwich.

26. HenriCh

z

an

e

gre

g son The Philosophy of By H . WildenCarr.

2 7 P5 chology I y H.

2 8 thicsBy Canon I

f

ashdall,NI?

.Litt

l'I

BB

l

A

lA . D . d .A . l'

29 . Kant s Philosophy yColleget

n

Oiz

igrd.

0 a 10

32 . Roman Cathol ic ism By lili %cgggg

n' Preface, Mgr. R ‘

33. The Oxford Movement By W il frid Ward .By W. H . Bennet t , M .A D D ,

34. The B ible and Crit ic ism Li t t.D. and W. F. Adeney,M A . ,

D .D .

36. The Grow th of Freedom By H . W. Nevinson .38. O

Mliver Cromw ell By H1lda Johns tone, M .A .

39 .

Mead} "ueen of S cots By E. O

'Ne1l l , M .A .

4o. C John Rhodes,1853

-190 3 By Ian D . Colvm .

41. JuhuEs

mgzzgr .

‘

S q ld1e

r, S tatesman ,’ } By Hilary Hard inge.

THE PEOPLE’S BOOKS—(continued)

‘2 . England in the Mak ing {By Piang

oJo C. Hem 3haw, M .A..

43. Engl and in the M iddle Ages By E . O'Neill

,M .A.

44. The M onarch and the People By W. T. Waugh , M .A.

47 . Women's S u rage By M . G . Fawcet t, LL.D .

51. Shakespeare By Prof. C H . Herford , Litt.D.

52 . Word sw orth By Rosal ine Masson .53. Pure

sglzl

gtzA

.

Ch03Ce Of L¥rlcs and

} By H C O'Neill

54. Franc is B acon By Prof. A . R . Skemp, M .A.55. The B rontes By Flora Masson56. Carlyle By L. MacLeanWat t .57 . Dante B y A . G. Ferrers Howel l.60 . A Dictionary of Synonyms . By Aus t in K. Gray , B A.61 Home Ru le By L. G . Redmond Howard. Pre

face by Robert Harcourt, M .P .

62 . Pract ica l Astronomy By H . Macpherson , r. ,

63. Aviation 0 {By S y

l

dne

i.F. alker, RoNo .

64 . Navigat ion By W i l l iam Hal l , R N B.A.

65. Pond L ife By E . C. Ash , M .R A .C .

66. Dieteti cs By A lex. B cc , M .D D .P.H67 . Aristot le By Prof. A. F.B A.

68. Friedrich N ietz sche By M . A. M i‘

igge,69. B uckeu : A Ph i losoph of L ife By A . J. Jones , M .A . , B . Sc .

,Ph.D.

70 . TheBEa

J

Bperimental

.

sy chology of By C. W. V alen tine, M A .

71. The Prob lem Of Truth : By H . Wilden Carr.

7 2 . The Church of England By Rev. Canon Mas terman.74. The

CI-

t

l

lapghea

s

nd M iss ion of the Free

} By Rev. Edward Shil l i to, M .A.

75. Judaism By Ephraim Levine, M .A.

76. Theosophy By Ann ie Besan t .7 8. W el l ington and Waterloo By Ma 0 1G . W. Redway.

79. Med iaeval Soc iali sm By e Jarret t , O P M A.

80 . s yridlcahsm o o o o BY?0 Ho Harley, M .A.

82 . Co-operat ion By{3.

5

tClayton.

83. In surance as a Means of Iiivestinent By Robertson,F F.A.

85. A History of Engl ish L iterature . {By fit go

ompton'R'Ckeu ’ M ‘A"

87 . Charles Lamb . By Flora Masson.88. Goethe By Prof. C H . Herford, Litt.D.

92 0 Thefigill

gifllg 0?the"

Ch ild : A ParentsBy G Spi l ler

93. Tenn son By Aaron Wa tson.94. The ature of Mathemat ics By P . E. B . Jourdain , M A96 Gardening By A. Cec1l Bart let t98 . Atlas of the Worl d By10 3. Turkey and the Eastern "uest ion By10 5 Trade Un ions By106 . Everyday Law By10 8. S helle By M .A.

110 . Britis B irds By111. Sp irituali sm By J . Arthur H i l l .112. Kindergarten Teaching at Home Of the Na t iona l114. The Stock Exchange By J . F. Wheeler.115. Coleridge . By S . L Bensusan.

116. The Crusades By M . M . C. Ca l throp.

LONDON AND ED INBURGH : T. C . E. C. JACKNEW YORK : DODGE PUBLISHING CO.

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