Moreover, we must recognize that the image is formed and perceived in the object, not in the brain, even although it would seem that rays of light coming from a point P are perceived along the path of the sensori- motor processes in the brain and are afterwards projected into P. There is not, however, an unextended image which forms itself in consciousness and then projects itself into the position P. Really, the point P, and the rays which it emits, together with the retina and nervous elements affected in the process of perception, all form a single whole. The point P is an indispensable factor in this whole and it is really in P and not anywhere else that the image of P is formed and perceived.[Footnote: Cf. Matter and Memory, p. 37 (Fr p. 31), also paper entitled Notre croyance a la loi de causalite in the Revue de metaphysique et de morale, 1900, p. 658.]

In the field of "pure" perception, that is to say, perception unadulterated by the addition of memory-images, there can arise no image without an object. "Sensation is essentially due to what is actually present."[Footnote: Le Souvenir du present et la fausse reconnaissance, p. 579 of Revue philosophique, Dec., 1908; also L'Energie spirituelle, p. 141 (Mind-Energy).] Exactly how external stimuli, such as rays of a certain speed and length, come to give us a certain image, e.g., the sensation "red" or the sound of "middle C," we shall never understand. "No trace of the movements themselves can be actually perceived in the sensation which translates them."[Footnote: Time and Free Will, pp. 34- 35 (Fr. p. 26).] We only make trouble by regarding sensations in an isolated manner and attempting to construct Perception from them. "Our sensations are to our perceptions, that which the real action of our body is to its possible or virtual action."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 58 (Fr. p. 48).] Thus, everything happens as if the external images were reflected by our body into surrounding space. This is why the surface of the body, which forms the common limit of the external and internal, is the only portion of space which is both perceived and felt. Just as external objects are perceived by me where they are, in themselves and not in me, so my affective states (e.g. pains—which are local, unavailing efforts) are experienced where they occur, in my body. Consider the system of images which we term the "external world." My body is one of them and around it is grouped the representation, i.e., its eventual influence on others. Within it occurs affection, i.e., its actual effort upon itself. It is because of this distinction between images and sensations that we affirm that the totality of perceived images subsists, even if our body disappears, whereas we cannot annihilate our body without destroying our sensations. In practice, our "pure" perception is adulterated with affection, as well as with memories. To understand Perception, however, we must—as previously insisted upon—study it with reference to action. It is false to suppose "that perception and sensation exist for their own sake; the philosopher ascribes to them an entirely speculative function,"[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 311 (Fr p. 261).] a proceeding which gives rise to the fallacies of Realism and Idealism.

It has been said that the choice of perceptions from among images in general is the effect of a "discernment" which foreshadows spirit. But to touch the reality of spirit, we must place ourselves at the point where an individual consciousness continues and retains the past in a present, enriched by it.[Footnote: See Chapter VI on la duree. Time— True and False.] Perception we never meet in its pure state; it is always mingled with memories. The rose has a different scent for you from that which it has for me, just because the scent of the rose bears with it all the memories of all the roses we have ever experienced, each of us individually.[Footnote: Time and Free Will, pp. 161-162 (Fr. p. 124).] Memory, however mingled with Perception, is nevertheless fundamentally different in character.[Footnote: Le Souvenir du present et la fausse reconnaissance, Revue philosophique, Dec., 1908, p. 580; also L'Effort intellectuel, Revue philosophique, Jan., 1902, p. 23; L'Energie spirituelle, pp. 141 and 197 (Mind-Energy).] "When we pass from 'pure' Perception to Memory, we definitely abandon matter for spirit."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 313 (Fr. p. 263).]



CHAPTER IV

MEMORY

Definition—Two forms—memorizing power related to habit; recalling power or "pure" memory. Is memory a function of the brain?—Pathological Phenomena. Memory something other than merely a function of the brain. The "Box" theory—Memory records everything—Dreams—The well-balanced mind—Memory a manifestation of spirit.

The importance of Memory is recognized by all persons—whether psychologists or not. At the present time there is a growing interest in systems of memory-training offered to the public, which aim at mental efficiency as a means to success in life. Indeed, from the tone of some advertisements seen in the press, one might be prompted to think that Memory itself was the sole factor determining success in either a professional or a business career. Yet, although we are likely to regard this as a somewhat exaggerated statement, nevertheless we cannot deny the very great importance of the power of Memory. How often, in everyday life, we hear people excuse themselves by remarking "My memory failed me" or "played me false" or, more bluntly, "I forgot all about that." Without doubt, Memory is a most vital factor, though not the only one in mental efficiency.[Footnote: The true ideal of mental efficiency must include power of Will as well as of Memory.] It is an element in mental life which puzzles both the specialist in psychology and the layman. "What is this wonderfully subtle power of mind?" "How do we remember?" Even the mind, untrained in psychological investigation, cannot help asking such questions in moments of reflection; but for the psychologist they are questions of very vital significance in his science. For Bergson, as psychologist, Memory is naturally, a subject of great importance. We must note, however, that for Bergson, as metaphysician, it plays an even more important role, since his study of Memory and conclusions as to its nature lead him on to a discussion of the relation of soul and body, spirit and matter. His second large work, which appeared in 1896, bears the title Matiere et Memoire. For him, Memory is a pivot on which turns a whole scheme of relationships—material and spiritual. He wrote in 1910 a new introduction for the English Translation of this work. He there says that "among all the facts capable of throwing light on the psycho-physiological relation, those which concern Memory, whether in the normal or the pathological state, hold a privileged position."[Footnote: Introduction to Matter and Memory, p. xii.] Let us then, prior to passing on to the consideration of the problem of the relation of soul and body, examine what Bergson has to say on the subject of Memory.

At the outset, we may define Memory as the return to consciousness of some experience, accompanied by the awareness that it has been present earlier at a definite time and place.[Footnote: The above is to be taken as a definition of the normal memory. In a subtle psychological analysis in the paper entitled Le Souvenir du present et la fausse reconnaissance in L'Energie spirituelle, pp. 117-161 (Mind-Energy), Bergson considers cases of an abnormal or fictitious memory, coinciding with perception in rather a strange manner. This does not, however, affect the validity of the above definition.] Bergson first of all draws attention to a distinction between two different forms of Memory, the nature of which will be best brought out by considering two examples. We are fond of giving to children or young persons at school selections from the plays of Shakespeare, "to be learned by heart," as we say. We praise the boy or girl who can repeat a long passage perfectly, and we regard that scholar as gifted with a good memory. To illustrate the second type of case, suppose a question to be put to that boy asking him what he saw on the last half-holiday when he took a ramble in the country. He may, or may not, be able to tell us much of his adventures on that occasion, for whatever he can recall is due to a mental operation of a different character from that which enabled him to learn his lesson. There is here no question of learning by rote, of memorizing, but of capacity to recall to mind a past experience. The boy who is clever at memorizing a passage from Shakespeare may not have a good memory at all for recalling past events. To understand why this is so we must examine these two forms of Memory more closely and refer to Bergson's own words: "I study a lesson, and in order to learn it by heart I read it a first time, accentuating every line; I then repeat it a certain number of times. At each repetition there is progress; the words are more and more linked together, and at last make a continuous whole. When that moment comes, it is said that I know my lesson by heart, that it is imprinted on my memory. I consider now how the lesson has been learnt and picture to myself the successive phases of the process. Each several reading then recurs to me with its own individuality. It is distinguished from those which preceded or followed it, by the place which it occupied in time; in short, each reading stands out before my mind as a definite event in my history. Again it will be said that these images are recollections, that they are imprinted on my Memory. The same words then are used in both cases. Do they mean the same thing? The memory of the lesson which is remembered, in the sense of learned by heart, has ALL the marks of a habit. Like a habit, it is acquired by the repetition of the same effort. Like every habitual bodily exercise, it is stored up in a mechanism which is set in motion as a whole by an initial impulse, in a closed system of automatic movements, which succeed each other in the same order and together take the same length of time. The memory of each several reading, on the contrary, has NONE of the marks of a habit, it is like an event in my life; it is a case of spontaneous recollection as distinct from mere learnt recollection. Now a learnt recollection passes out of time in the measure that the lesson is better known; it becomes more and more impersonal, more and more foreign to our past life."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, pp. 89-90 (Fr. pp. 75-76).] This quotation makes clear that of these two forms of Memory, it is the power of spontaneous recollection which is Memory par excellence and constitutes "real" Memory. The other, to which psychologists usually have devoted most of their attention in discussing the problem of Memory, is habit interpreted as Memory, rather than Memory itself. Having thus made clear this valuable and fundamental distinction—"one of the best things in Bergson"[Footnote: Bertrand Russell's remark in his Philosophy of Bergson, p. 7.]—and having shown that in practical life the automatic memory necessarily plays an important part, often inhibiting "pure" Memory, Bergson proceeds to examine and criticize certain views of Memory itself, and endeavours finally to demonstrate to us what he himself considers it to be.

He takes up the cudgels to attack the view which aims at blending Memory with Perception, as being of like kind. Memory, he argues, must be distinguished from Perception, however much we admit (and rightly) that memories enter into and colour all our perceptions. They are quite different in their nature. A remembrance is the representation of an absent object. We distinguish between hearing a faint tap at the door, and the faint memory of a loud one. We cannot admit the validity of the statement that there is only a difference of intensity between Perception and Recollection. "As our perception of a present object is something of that object itself, our representation of the absent object, as in Memory, must be a phenomenon of quite other order than Perception, since between presence and absence there are no degrees, no intermediate stages."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 315 (Fr. p. 264).] If we maintain that recollection is merely a weakened form of Perception we must note the consequences of such a thesis. "If recollection is only a weakened Perception, inversely, Perception must be something like an intenser Memory. Now, the germ of English Idealism is to be found here. This Idealism consists in finding only a difference of degree and not of kind, between the reality of the object perceived, and the ideality of the object conceived."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 318 (Fr. p. 267).] The maintenance of such a doctrine involves the further remarkable contention that "we construct matter from our own interior states and that perception is only a true hallucination."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p 318 (Fr. p. 267).] Such a theory will not harmonize with the experienced difference between Perceptions and Memories.[Footnote: Le Souvenir du present et la fausse reconnaissance, Revue philosophique, Dec., 1908, p. 568; also L'Energie spirituelle (Mind-Energy).] We do not mistake the perception of a slight sound for the recollection of a loud noise, as has already been remarked. The consciousness of a recollection "never occurs as a weak state which we try to relegate to the past so soon as we become aware of its weakness. How indeed, unless we already possess the representation of a past, previously lived, could we relegate to it the less intense psychical states, when it would be so simple to set them alongside of strong states as a present experience more confused, beside a present experience more distinct?"[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 319 (Fr. p. 268).] The truth is that Memory does not consist in a regression from the present into the past, but on the contrary, in a progress from the past to the present. Memory is radically distinct from Perception, in its character.

Bergson then passes on to discuss other views of Memory, and in particular, those which deal with the nature of Memory and its relation to the brain. It is stated dogmatically by some that Memory is a function of the brain. Others claim, in opposition to this, that Memory is something other than a function of the brain. Between two such statements as these, compromise or reconciliation is obviously impossible. It is then for experience to decide between these two conflicting views. This empirical appeal Bergson does not shirk. He has made a most comprehensive and intensive study of pathological phenomena relating to the mental malady known as aphasia. This particular type of disorder belongs to a whole class of mental diseases known as amnesia. Now amnesia (in Greek, "forgetfulness") is literally any loss or defect of the Memory. Aphasia (in Greek "absence of speech") is a total or partial loss of the power of speech, either in its spoken or written form. The term covers the loss of the power of expression by spoken words, but is often extended to include both word-deafness, i.e., the misunderstanding of what is said, and word-blindness—the inability to read words. An inability to execute the movements necessary to express oneself, either by gesture, writing, or speech, is styled "motor aphasia," to distinguish it from the inability to understand familiar gestures and written or spoken words, which is known as "sensory- aphasia." The commonest causes of this disease are lesions, affecting the special nerve centres, due to haemorrhage or the development of tumours, being in the one case rapid, in the other a gradual development. Of course any severe excitement, fright or illness, involving a disturbance of the normal circulation in the cerebral centres, may produce asphasia. During the war, it has been one of the afflictions of a large number of the victims of "shell-shock." But, whatever be the cause, the patient is reduced mentally to an elementary state, resembling that of a child, and needs re-educating in the elements of language.

Now, from his careful study of the pathological phenomena, manifested in these cases, Bergson draws some very important conclusions in regard to the nature of Memory and its relation to the brain. In 1896, when he brought out his work Matiere et Memoire, in Paris, the general view was against his conclusions and his opinions were ridiculed. By 1910, a marked change had come about and he was able to refer to this in the new introduction.[Footnote: See Bibliography, p. 158.] His view was no longer considered paradoxical. The conception of aphasia, once classical, universally admitted, believed to be unshakeable, had been considerably shaken in that period of fourteen years. Localization, and reference to centres would not, it was found, explain things sufficiently.[Footnote: The work of Pierre Janet was largely influential also in bringing about this change of view.] This involved a too rigid and mechanical conception of the brain as a mere "box," and Bergson attacks it very forcibly under the name of "the box theory." "All the arguments," he says, "from fact which may be invoked in favour of a probable accumulation of memories in the cortical substance, are drawn from local disorders of memory. But if recollections were really deposited in the brain, to definite gaps in memory characteristic lesions of the brain would correspond. Now in those forms of amnesia in which a whole period of our past existence, for example, is abruptly and entirely obliterated from memory, we do not observe any precise cerebral lesion; and on the contrary, in those disorders of memory where cerebral localization is distinct and certain, that is to say, in the different types of aphasia, and in the diseases of visual or auditory recognition, we do not find that certain definite recollections are, as it were, torn from their seat, but that it is the whole faculty of remembering that is more or less diminished in vitality, as if the subject had more or less difficulty in bringing his recollections into contact with the present situation."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 315 (Fr. pp. 264-265).] But as it is a fact that the past survives under two distinct forms, viz., "motor mechanisms" and "independent recollections," we find that this explains why "in all cases where a lesion of the brain attacks a certain category of recollections, the affected recollections do not resemble each other by all belonging to the same period, or by any logical relationship to one another, but simply in that they are all auditive or all visual or all motor. That which is damaged appears to be the various sensorial or motor areas, or more often still, those appendages which permit of their being set going from within the cortex rather than the recollections themselves."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 317 (Fr. p. 266).] Going even further than this, by the study of the recognition of words, and of sensory-aphasia, Bergson shows that "recognition is in no way affected by a mechanical awakening of memories that are asleep in the brain. It implies, on the contrary, a more or less high degree of tension in consciousness, which goes to fetch pure recollections in pure memory, in order to materialize them progressively, by contact with the present perception."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 317 (Fr. p. 266).]

In the face of all this mass of evidence and thoroughness of argument which Bergson brings forward, we are led to conclude that Memory is indeed something other than a function of the brain. Criticizing Wundt's view,[Footnote: As expressed in his Grundzuge der physiologische psychologie, vol. I., pp. 320-327. See Matter and Memory, p. 164 (Fr. p. 137).]Bergson contends that no trace of an image can remain in the substance of the brain and no centre of apperception can exist. "There is not in the brain a region in which memories congeal and accumulate. The alleged destruction of memories by an injury to the brain is but a break in the continuous progress by which they actualize themselves."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 160 (Fr. p. 134).] It is then futile to ask in what spot past memories are stored. To look for them in any place would be as meaningless as asking to see traces of the telephonic message upon the telephone wire.

"Memory," it has been said, "is a faculty which loses nothing and records everything."[Footnote: Ball, quoted by Rouillard, Les Amnesies, Paris, 1885, p. 25; Matter and Memory, p. 201 (Fr. p. 168).] This is only too true, although normally we do not recognize it. But we can never be sure that we have absolutely forgotten anything. Illness, producing delirium, may provoke us to speak of things we had thought were gone beyond recall and which perhaps we even wish were beyond recall. A somnambulistic state or even a dream may show us memory extending far further back than we could ordinarily imagine. The facing of death in battle, we know, recalls to many, with extreme vividness, scenes of early childhood which they had deemed long since forgotten. "There is nothing," says Bergson, "more instructive in this regard than what happens in cases of sudden suffocation—in men drowned or hanged. The man, when brought to life again, states that he saw in a very short time all the forgotten events of his life, passing before him with great rapidity, with their smallest circumstances, and in the very order in which they occurred."[Footnote: La Perception du Changement, pp. 30-31, and Matter and Memory, p 200 (Fr p 168).] Hence we can never be absolutely sure that we have forgotten anything although at any given time we may be unable to recall it to mind. There is an unconscious memory.[Footnote: Cf. Samuel Butler's Unconscious Memory.] Speaking of the profound and yet undeniable reality of the unconscious, Bergson says,[Footnote: Matter and Memory, pp 181-182 (Fr. pp. 152-153). See also Le Souvenir du present et la fausse reconnaissance, Revue philosophique, Dec., 1908, p. 592, and L'Energie spirituelle, pp. 159- 161 (Mind-Energy).] "Our unwillingness to conceive unconscious psychical states, is due, above all, to the fact that we hold consciousness to be the essential property of psychical states, so that a psychical state cannot, it seems, cease to be conscious without ceasing to exist. But if consciousness is but the characteristic note of the present, that is to say, of the actually lived, in short, of the active, then that which does not act may cease to belong to consciousness without therefore ceasing to exist in some manner. In other words, in the psychological domain, consciousness may not be the synonym of existence, but only of real action or of immediate efficacy; limiting thus the meaning of the term, we shall have less difficulty in representing to ourselves a psychical state which is unconscious, that is to say, ineffective. Whatever idea we may frame of consciousness in itself, such as it would be if it could work untrammelled, we cannot deny that in a being which has bodily functions, the chief office of consciousness is to preside over action and to enlighten choice. Therefore it throws light on the immediate antecedents of the decision and on those past recollections which can usefully combine with it; all else remains in shadow." But we have no more right to say that the past effaces itself as soon as perceived than to suppose that material objects cease to exist when we cease to perceive them. Memory, to use a geometrical illustration which Bergson himself employs, comes into action like the point of a cone pressing against a plane. The plane denotes the present need, particularly in relation to bodily action, while the cone stands for all our total past. Much of this past, indeed most of it, only endures as unconscious Memory, but it is always capable of coming to the apex of the cone, i.e., coming into consciousness. So we may say that there are different planes of Memory, conic sections, if we keep up the original metaphor, and the largest of these contains all our past. This may be well described as "the plane of dream."[Footnote: See Matter and Memory, p. 222 (Fr. p. 186) and the paper L'Effort intellectuel, Revue philosophique, Jan., 1902, pp. 2 and 25, L'Energie spirituelle, pp. 165 and 199 (Mind-Energy).]

This connexion of Memory with dreams is more fully brought out by Bergson in his lecture before the Institut psychologique international, five years after the publication of Matiere et Memoire, entitled Le Reve. [Footnote: Delivered March 26, 1901. See Bibliography, p. 153.] The following is a brief summary of the view there set forth. Memories, and only memories, weave the web of our dreams. They are "such stuff as dreams are made on." Often we do not recognize them. They may be very old memories, forgotten during waking hours, drawn from the most obscure depths of our past, or memories of objects we have perceived distractedly, almost unconsciously, while awake. They may be fragments of broken memories, composing an incoherent and unrecognizable whole. In a waking state our memories are closely connected with our present situation (unless we be given to day-dreams!). In an animal memory serves to recall to him the advantageous or injurious consequences which have formerly arisen in a like situation, and so aids his present action. In man, memory forms a solid whole, a pyramid whose point is inserted precisely into our present action. But behind the memories which are involved in our occupations, there are others, thousands of others, stored below the scene illuminated by consciousness. "Yes, I believe indeed," says Bergson, "that all our past life is there, preserved even to the most infinitesimal details, and that we forget nothing and that all that we have ever felt, perceived, thought, willed, from the first awakening of our consciousness, survives indestructibly." [Footnote: Dreams, p. 37. For this discussion in full, see pages 34-39, or see L'Energie spirituelle, pp. 100-103 (Mind-Energy).] Of course, in action I have something else to do than occupy myself with these. But suppose I become disinterested in present action—that I fall asleep— then the obstacle (my attention to action) removed, these memories try to raise the trap-door—they all want to get through. From the multitude which are called, which will be chosen? When I was awake, only those were admitted which bore on the present situation. Now, in sleep, more vague images occupy my vision, more indecisive sounds reach my ear, more indistinct touches come to my body, and more vague sensations come from my internal organs. Hence those memories which can assimilate themselves to some element in this vague mass of very indistinct sensations manage to get through. When such union is effected, between memory and sensation, we have a dream.

In order that a recollection should be brought to mind, it is necessary that it should descend from the height of pure memory to the precise point where action is taking place. Such a power is the mark of the well-balanced mind, pursuing a via media between impulsiveness on the one hand, and dreaminess on the other. "The characteristic of the man of action," says Bergson in this connexion, "is the promptitude with which he summons to the help of a given situation all the memories which have reference to it. To live only in the present, to respond to a stimulus by the immediate reaction which prolongs it, is the mark of the lower animals; the man who proceeds in this way is a man of impulse. But he who lives in the past, for the mere pleasure of living there, and in whom recollections emerge into the light of consciousness, without any advantage for the present situation, is hardly better fitted for action; here we have no man of impulse, but a dreamer. Between these two extremes lies the happy disposition of a memory docile enough to follow with precision all the outlines of the present situation, but energetic enough to resist all other appeal. Good sense or practical sense, is probably nothing but this."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 198 (Fr. pp. 166-167).]

In the paper L'Effort intellectuel, contributed in 1902 to the Revue philosophique, and now reprinted in L'Energie spirituelle,[Footnote: Pp. 163-202. See also Mind-Energy.]Bergson gives an analysis of what is involved in intellectual effort. There is at first, he shows, something conceived quite generally, an idea vague and abstract, a schema which has to be completed by distinct images. In thought there is a movement of the mind from the plane of the schema to the plane of the concrete image. Various images endeavour to fit themselves into the schema, or the schema may adapt itself to the reception of the images. These double efforts to secure adaptation and cooperation may both encounter resistance from the other, a situation which is known to us as hesitation, accompanied by the awareness of obstacles, thus involving intellectual effort.

Memory then, Bergson wishes us to realize, in response to his treatment of it, is no mere function of the brain; it is something infinitely more subtle, infinitely more elusive, and more wondrous. Our memories are not stored in the brain like letters in a filing cabinet, and all our past survives indestructibly as Memory, even though in the form of unconscious memory. We must recognize Memory to be a spiritual fact and so regard it as a pivot on which turn many discussions of vital importance when we come to investigate the problem of the relation of soul and body. For "Memory must be, in principle, a power absolutely independent of matter. If then, spirit is a reality, it is here, in the phenomenon of Memory that we may come into touch with it experimentally."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 81 (Fr. p. 68).] "Memory," he would remind us finally, "is just the intersection of mind and matter."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, Introduction, p. xii.] "A remembrance cannot be the result of a state of the brain. The state of the brain continues the remembrance; it gives it a hold on the present by the materiality which it confers upon it, but pure memory is a spiritual manifestation. With Memory, we are, in very truth, in the domain of spirit."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 320 (Fr. p. 268).]



CHAPTER V

THE RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY

The hypothesis of Psycho-physical Parallelism—Not to be accepted uncritically—Bergson opposes it, and shows the hypothesis to rest on a confusion of terms. Bergson against Epiphenomenalism—Soul-life unique and wider than the brain—Telepathy, subconscious action and psychical research—Souls and survival.

For philosophy in general, and for psychology in particular, the problem of the relation of soul and body has prime significance, and moreover, it is a problem with which each of us is acquainted intimately and practically, even if we know little or nothing of the academic discussions, or of the technical terms representing various views. It is very frequently the terminology which turns the plain man away from the consideration of philosophical problems; but he has some conception, however crude it may be, of his soul or his mind and of his body. These terms are familiar to him, but the sight of a phrase like "psycho- physical parallelism" rather daunts him. Really, it stands for quite a simple thing, and is just the official label used to designate the theory commonly held by scientific men of all kinds, to describe the relation of soul and body. Put more precisely, it is just the assertion that brain and consciousness work on parallel lines.

Bergson does not accept the hypothesis of psycho-physical parallelism. In the first of his four lectures on La Nature de l'Ame, given at London University in 1911, we find him criticizing the notion that consciousness has no independence of its own, that it merely expresses certain states of the brain, that the content of a fact of consciousness is to be found wholly in the corresponding cerebral state. It is true that we should not find many physiologists or philosophers who would tell us now that "the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile."[Footnote: Cabanis (1757-1808). Rapports du physique et du morale de l'homme, 1802. See quotation by William James in Human Immortality. Note (4) in his Appendix.] But there was an idea that, if we could see through the skull and observe what takes place in the brain, if we had an enormously powerful microscope which would permit us to follow the movements of the molecules, atoms, electrons, of the brain, and if we had the key to the correspondence between these phenomena and the mind, we should know all the thoughts and wishes of the person to whom the brain belonged—we should see what took place in his soul, as a telegraph operator could read by the oscillation of his needles the meaning of a message which was sent through his instrument. The notion of an equality or parallelism between conscious activity and cerebral activity, was commonly adopted by modern physiology, and it was adopted without discussion as a scientific notion by the majority of philosophers. Yet the experimental basis of this theory is extremely slight, indeed altogether insufficient, and in reality the theory is a metaphysical conception, resulting from the views of the seventeenth century thinkers who had hopes of "a universal mathematic." The idea had been accepted that all was capable of determination in the psychical as well as the physical world, inasmuch as the psychical was only a reflex of the physical. Parallelism was adopted by science because of its convenience.[Footnote: See The Times of Oct. 21, 1911.] Bergson, however, pointed out that philosophy ought not to accept it without criticism, and maintained, moreover, that it could not stand the criticism that might be brought against it. Relation of soul and body was undeniable, but that it was a parallel or equivalent relation he denied most emphatically. That criticism he had launched himself with great vigour in 1901 at a Meeting of the Societe francaise de philosophie,[Footnote: See Bibliography, p. 153.] and on a more memorable occasion, at the International Congress of Philosophy at Geneva in 1904.[Footnote: See Bibliography, p. 154.] Before the Philosophical Society he lectured on Le Parallelisme psycho-physique et la Metaphysique positive, and propounded the following propositions:

1. If psycho-physical parallelism is neither rigorous nor complete, if to every determined thought there does not correspond an absolutely determined state (si a toute pensee determinee ne correspond pas un etat cerebral determine absolument), it will be the business of experience to mark with increasing accuracy the precise points at which parallelism begins and ends.

2. If this empirical inquiry is possible, it will measure more and more exactly the separation between the thought and the physical conditions in which this thought is exercised. In other words, it will give us a progressive knowledge of the relation of man as a thinking being to man as a living being, and therefore of what may be termed "the meaning of Life."

3. If this meaning of Life can be empirically determined more and more exactly, and completely, a positive metaphysic is possible: that is to say, a metaphysic which cannot be contested and which will admit of a direct and indefinite progress; such a metaphysic would escape the objections urged against a transcendental metaphysic, and would be strictly scientific in form.

After having propounded these propositions, he defended them by recalling much of the data considered in his work Matiere et Memoire which he had published five years previously and which has been examined in the previous chapter. The onus of proof lay, said Bergson, with the upholders of parallelism. It is a purely metaphysical hypothesis unwarrantable in his opinion as a dogma. He distinguishes between correspondence—which he of course admits—and parallelism, to which he is opposed. We never think without a certain substratum of cerebral activity, but what the relation is precisely, between brain and consciousness, is one for long and patient research: it cannot be determined a priori and asserted dogmatically. Until such investigation has been carried out, it behoves us to be undogmatic and not to allege more than the facts absolutely warrant, that is to say, a relation of correspondence. Parallelism is far too simple an explanation to be a true one. Before the International Congress, Bergson launched another attack on parallelism which caused quite a little sensation among those present. Says M. E. Chartier, in his report: La lecture de ce memoire, lecture qui commandait l'attention a provoque chez presque tous les auditeurs un mouvement de surprise et d'inquietude. [Footnote: The paper Le Paralogisme psycho-physiologique is given in Revue de metaphysique et de morale, Nov., 1904, pp. 895-908. The Discussion in the Congress is given on pp. 1027-1037. This was reissued under the title Le Cerveau et la Pensee: une illusion philosophique in the collected volume of essays and lectures, published in 1919, L'Energie spirituelle, pp. 203-223 (Mind-Energy).] He there set out to show that Parallelism cannot be consistently stated from any point of view, for it rests on a fallacious argument—on a fundamental contradiction. To grasp Bergson's points in this argument, the reading of this paper in the original, as a whole, is necessary. It is difficult to condense it and keep its clearness of thought. Briefly, it amounts to this, that the formulation of the doctrine of Parallelism rests on an ambiguity in the terms employed in its statement, that it contains a subtle dialectical artifice by which we pass surreptitiously from one system of notation to another ignoring the substitution: logically, we ought to keep to one system of notation throughout. The two systems are: Idealism and Realism. Bergson attempts to show that neither of these separately can admit Parallelism, and that Parallelism cannot be formulated except by a confusion of the two—by a process of mental see-sawing as it were, which of course we are not entitled to perform, Idealism and Realism being two opposed and contradictory views of reality. For the Idealist, things external to the mind are images, and of these the brain is one. Yet the images are in the brain. This amounts to saying that the whole is contained in the part. We tend, however, to avoid this by passing to a pseudo-realistic position by saying that the brain is a thing and not an image. This is passing over to the other system of notation. For the Realist it is the essence of reality to suppose that there are things behind representations. Some Realists maintain that the brain actually creates the representation, which is the doctrine of Epiphenomenalism: while others hold the view of the Occasionalists, and others posit one reality underlying both. All however agree in upholding Parallelism. In the hands of the Realist, the theory is equivalent to asserting that a relation between two terms is equal to one of them. This involves contradiction and Realism then crosses over to the other system of notation. It cannot do without Idealism: science itself oscillates from the one system to the other. We cannot admit Parallelism as a dogma—as a metaphysical truth—however useful it may be as a working hypothesis.

Bergson then proceeds to state and to criticize some of the mischievous ideas which arise from Parallelism. There is the idea of a brain-soul, of a spot where the soul lives or where the brain thinks—which we have not quite abandoned since Descartes named the pineal gland as the seat of the soul. Then there is the false idea that all causality is mechanistic and that there is nothing in the universe which is not mathematically calculable. There is the confusion of representations and of things. There is the false notion that we may argue that if two wholes are bound together there must be an equivalent relation of the parts. Bergson points out in this connexion that the absence or the presence of a screw can stop a machine or keep it going, but the parts of the screw do not correspond to the parts of the machine. In his new introduction to Matiere et Memoire, he said, "There is a close connexion between a state of consciousness and the brain: this we do not dispute. But there is also a close connexion between a coat and the nail on which it hangs, for if the nail is pulled out the coat falls to the ground. Shall we say then that the shape of the nail gives us the shape of the coat or in any way corresponds to it? No more are we entitled to conclude because the psychical fact is hung on to a cerebral state that there is any parallelism between the two series psychical and physiological." [Footnote: There must be an awkward misprint "physical" for "psychical" in the English translation, p. xi.] Our observation and experience, and science itself, strictly speaking, do not allow us to assert more than that there exists a certain CORRESPONDENCE between brain and consciousness. The psychical and the physical are inter- dependent but not parallel.

Bergson however has more to assert than merely the inadequacy and falsity of Parallelism or Epiphenomenalism. This last theory merely adds consciousness to physical facts as a kind of phosphorescent gleam, resembling, in Bergson's words, a "streak of light following the movement of a match rubbed along a wall in the dark." [Footnote: L'Ame et le Corps, pp. 12-13, in Le Materialisme actuel, or pp. 35-36 of L'Energie spirituelle (Mind-Energy).] He maintains, as against all this, the irreducibility of the mental, our utter inability to interpret consciousness in terms of anything else, the life of the soul being unique. He further claims that this psychical life is wider and richer than we commonly suppose. The brain is the organ of attention to life. What was said in regard to memory and the brain is applicable to all our mental life. The mind or soul is wider than the brain in every direction, and the brain's activity corresponds to no more than an infinitesimal part of the activity of the mind. [Footnote: L'Ame et le Corps, Le Materialisme actuel, p. 45, L'Energie spirituelle, p. 61.] This is expressed more clearly in his Presidential Address to the British Society for Psychical Research at the Aeolian Hall, London, 1913, where he remarked, "The cerebral life is to the mental life what the movements of the baton of a conductor are to the symphony." [Footnote: The Times, May 29, 1913.] Such a remark contains fruitful suggestions to all engaged in Psychical Research, and to all persons interested in the fascinating study of telepathy. Bergson is of the opinion that we are far less definitely cut off from each other, soul from soul, than we are body from body. "It is space," he says, "which creates multiplicity and distinction. It is by their bodies that the different human personalities are radically distinct. But if it is demonstrated that human consciousness is partially independent of the human brain, since the cerebral life represents only a small part of the mental life, it is very possible that the separation between the various human consciousnesses or souls, may not be so radical as it seems to be." [Footnote: The Times, May 29, 1913.] There may be, he suggests, in the psychical world, a process analogous to what is known in the physical world as "endosmosis." Pleading for an impartial and frank investigation of telepathy, he pointed out that it was probable, or at least possible, that it was taking place constantly as a subtle and sub- conscious influence of soul on soul, but too feebly to be noticed by active consciousness, or it was neutralized by certain obstacles. We have no right to deny its possibility on the plea of its being supernatural, or against natural law, for our ignorance does not entitle us to say what may be natural or not. If telepathy does not square at all well with our preconceived notions, it may be more true that our preconceived notions are false than that telepathy is fictitious; especially will this be so if our notion of the relation of soul and body be based on Parallelism. We must overcome this prejudice and seek to make others set it aside. Telepathy and the sub-conscious mental life combine to make us realize the wonder of the soul. It is not spatial, it is spiritual. Bergson insists strongly on the unity of our conscious life. Merely associationist theories are vicious in this respect: they try to resolve the whole into parts, and then neglect the whole in their concentration on the parts. All psychological investigation incurs this risk of dealing with abstractions. "Psychology, in fact, proceeds like all the other sciences by analysis. It resolves the self which has been given to it at first in a simple intuition, into sensations, feelings, ideas, etc., which it studies separately. It substitutes then for the self a series of elements which form the facts of psychology. But are these elements really parts? That is the whole question, and it is because it has been evaded that the problem of human personality has so often been stated in insoluble terms." [Footnote: Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 21.] "Personality cannot be composed of psychical states even if there be added to them a kind of thread for the purpose of joining the states together." [Footnote: Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 25.] We shall never make the soul fit into a category or succeed in applying concepts to our inner life. The life of the soul is wider than the brain and wider than all intellectual constructions or moulds we may attempt to form. It is a creative force capable of producing novelty in the world: it creates actions and can, in addition, create itself.

Philosophy shows us "the life of the body just where it really is, on the road that leads to the life of the spirit"; our powers of sense impression and of intelligence are both instruments in the service of the will. With a little will one can do much if one places the will in the right direction. For this force of will which is the essence of the soul or personality has these exceptional characteristics, that its intensity depends on its direction, and that its quality may become the creator of quantity. [Footnote: See the lectures La Nature de l'Ame.] The brain and the body in general are instruments of the soul. The brain orients the mind toward action, it is the point of attachment between the spirit and its material environment. It is like the point of a knife to the blade—it enables it to penetrate into the realm of action or, to give another of Bergson's metaphors, it is like the prow of the ship, enabling the soul to penetrate the billows of reality. Yet, for all that, it limits and confines the life of the spirit; it narrows vision as do the blinkers which we put on horses. We must, however, abandon the notion of any rigid and determined parallelism between soul and body and accustom ourselves to the fact that the life of the mind is wider than the limits of cerebral activity. And further, there is this to consider- -"The more we become accustomed to this idea of a consciousness which overflows the organ we call the brain, then the more natural and probable we find the hypothesis that the soul survives the body. For were the mental exactly modelled on the cerebral, we might have to admit that consciousness must share the fate of the body and die with it." [Footnote: New York Times, Sept. 27, 1914.] "But the destiny of consciousness is not bound up with the destiny of cerebral matter." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 285 (Fr. p. 293).] "Although the data is not yet sufficient to warrant more than an affirmation of high probability," [Footnote: Louis Levine's interview with Bergson, New York Times, Feb. 22, 1914. Quoted by Miller, Bergson and Religion, p. 268.] yet it leaves the way open for a belief in a future life and creates a presumption in favour of a faith in immortality. "Humanity," as Bergson remarks, "may, in its evolution, overcome the most formidable of its obstacles, perhaps even death." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 286 (Fr. p. 294). In Life and Consciousness he says we may admit that in man at any rate "Consciousness pursues its path beyond this earthly life" Cf. also conclusion to La Conscience el la Vie in L'Energie spirituelle, p. 29, and to L'Ame et le Corps, in the same vol., p. 63.]

The great error of the spiritual philosophers has been the idea that by isolating the spiritual life from all the rest, by suspending it in space, as high as possible above the earth, they were placing it beyond attack; as if they were not, thereby, simply exposing it to be taken as an effect of mirage! Certainly they are right to believe in the absolute reality of the person and in his independence of matter: but science is there which shows the inter-dependence of conscious life and cerebral activity. When a strong instinct assures the probability of personal survival, they are right not to close their ears to its voice; but if there exist "souls" capable of an independent life, whence do they come? When, how, and why do they enter into this body which we see arise quite naturally from a mixed cell derived from the bodies of its two parents? [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 283 (Fr. p. 291).] At the close of the Lectures on La Nature de l'Ame, Bergson suggests, by referring to an allegory of Plotinus, in regard to the origin of souls, that in the beginning there was a general interpenetration of souls which was equivalent to the very principle of life, and that the history of the evolution of life on this planet shows this principle striving until man's consciousness has been developed, and thus personalities have been able to constitute themselves. "Souls are being created which, in a sense, pre-existed. They are nothing else but the little rills into which the great river of life divides itself, flowing through the great body of humanity." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 284 (Fr. p. 292).]



CHAPTER VI

TIME—TRUE AND FALSE

Our ordinary conception of Time false because it is spatial and homogeneous—Real Time (la duree) not spatial or homogeneous—Flow of consciousness a qualitative multiplicity—The real self and the external self. La duree and the life of the self—No repetition—Personality and the accumulation of experience-Change and la duree as vital elements in the universe.

For any proper understanding of Bergson's thought, it is necessary to grasp his views regarding Time, for they are fundamental factors in his philosophy and serve to distinguish it specially from that of previous thinkers. It is interesting to note however, in passing, that Dr. Ward, in his Realm of Ends, claims to have anticipated Bergson's view of Concrete Time. In discussing the relation of such Time to the conception of God, he says, "I think I may fairly claim to have anticipated him (Bergson) to some extent. In 1886 I had written a long paragraph on this topic." [Footnote: See The Realm of Ends' foot-note on pp. 306-7. Ward is referring to his famous article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition, Psychology, p. 577 (now revised and issued in book form as Psychological Principles).] Be this as it may, no philosopher has made so much of this view of Time as Bergson. One might say it is the corner-stone of his philosophy, for practically the whole of it is built upon his conception of Time. His first large work, Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience, or, to give it its better title, in English, Time and Free Will, appeared in 1889.

Our ordinary conception of Time, that which comes to us from the physical sciences, is, Bergson maintains, a false one. It is false because so far from being temporal in character, it is spatial. We look upon space as a homogeneous medium without boundaries; yet we look on Time too, as just such another medium, homogeneous and unlimited. Now here is an obvious difficulty, for since homogeneity consists in being without qualities, it is difficult to see how one homogeneity can be distinguished from another. This difficulty is usually avoided by the assertion that homogeneity takes two forms, one in which its contents co-exist, and another in which they follow one another. Space, then, we say, is that homogeneous medium in which we are aware of side-by- sideness, Time—that homogeneous medium in which we are aware of an element of succession. But this surely we are not entitled to maintain, for we are then distinguishing two supposed homogeneities by asserting a difference of quality in them. To do so is to take away homogeneity. We must think again and seek a way out of this difficulty. Let us admit space to be a homogeneous medium without bounds. Then every homogeneous medium without bounds must be space. What, then, becomes of Time?—for on this showing, Time becomes space. Yes, says Bergson, that is so, for our common view of Time is a false one, being really a hybrid conception, a spurious concept due to the illicit introduction of the idea of space, and to our application of the notion of space, which is applicable to physical objects, to states of consciousness, to which it is really inapplicable. Objects occupying space are marked out as external to one another, but this cannot be said of conscious states. Yet, in our ordinary speech and conventional view of things, we think of conscious states as separated from one another and as spread out like "things," in a fictitious, homogeneous medium to which we give the name Time. Bergson says, "At any rate, we cannot finally admit two forms of the homogeneous, Time and Space, without first seeking whether one of them cannot be reduced to the other. Now, externality is the distinguishing mark of things which occupy space, while states of consciousness are not essentially external to one another and become so only by being spread out in Time regarded as a homogeneous medium. If, then, one of these two supposed forms of the homogeneous, viz., Time and Space, is derived from the other, we can surmise a priori that the idea of space is the fundamental datum. Time, conceived under the form of an unbounded and homogeneous medium, is nothing but the ghost of space, haunting the reflective consciousness." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 98 (Fr. p. 75).] Bergson remarks that Kant's great mistake was to take Time as a homogeneous medium. [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 232 (Fr. p. 178).]

Having asserted the falsity of the view of Time ordinarily held, Bergson proceeds to make clear to us his view of what Real Time is—an undertaking by no means easy for him, endeavouring to lay before us the subtleties of this problem, nor for us who endeavour to interpret his language and grasp his meaning. We are indeed here face to face with what is one of the most difficult sections of his philosophy. An initial difficulty meets us in giving a definite name to the Time which Bergson regards as so real, as opposed to the spatial falsity, masquerading as Time, whose true colours he has revealed. In the original French text Bergson employs the term duree to convey his meaning. But for the translation of this into English there is no term which will suffice and which will adequately convey to the reader, without further exposition, the wealth of meaning intended to be conveyed. "Duration" is usually employed by translators as the nearest approach possible in English. The inadequacy of language is never more keenly felt than in dealing with fundamental problems of thought. Its chief mischief is its all-too- frequent ambiguity. In the following remarks the original French term la duree will be used in preference to the English word "Duration."

The distinction between the false Time and true Time may be regarded as a distinction between mathematical Time and living Time, or between abstract and concrete Time. This living, concrete Time is that true Time of which Bergson endeavours to give us a conception as la duree. He has criticized the abstract mathematical Time, his attack having been made to open up the way for a treatment of what he really considers Time to be. Now, from the arguments previously mentioned, it follows that Time, Real Time, which is radically different from space, cannot be any homogeneous medium. It is heterogeneous in character. We are aware of it in relation to ourselves, for it has reference not to the existence of a multiplicity of material objects in space, but to a multiplicity of a quite different nature, entirely non-spatial, viz., that of conscious states. Being non-spatial, such a multiplicity cannot be composed of elements which are external to one another as are the objects existing in space. States of consciousness are not in any way external to one another. Indeed, they interpenetrate to such a degree that even the use of the word "state" is apt to be misleading. As we saw in the chapter on The Reality of Change, there can be strictly no states of consciousness, for consciousness is not static but dynamic. Language and conventional figures of speech, of which the word "state" itself is a good example, serve to cut up consciousness artificially, but, in reality, it is, as William James termed it, "a stream" and herein lies the essence of Bergson's duree—the Real as opposed to the False Time. "Pure Duration" (la duree pure), he says, "is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our Ego lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states. For this purpose, it need not be entirely absorbed in the passing sensation or idea, for then, on the contrary, it would no longer 'endure.' Nor need it forget its former states; it is enough that in recalling these states, it does not set them alongside its actual state as one point alongside another, but forms both the past and the present states into an organic whole, as happens when we recall the notes of a tune, melting, so to speak, into one another. Might it not be said that even if these notes succeed one another, yet, we perceive them in one another, and that their totality may be compared to a living being whose parts, although distinct, permeate one another just because they are so closely connected?" [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 100 (Fr. p. 76).] Such a duration is Real Time. Unfortunately, we, obsessed by the idea of space, introduce it unwittingly and set our states of consciousness side by side in such a way as to perceive them alongside one another; in a word, we project them into space and we express duree in terms of extensity and succession thus takes the form of a continuous line or a chain—the parts of which touch without interpenetrating one another. [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 100 (Fr. p. 76).] Thus is brought to birth that mongrel form, that hybrid conception of False Time criticized above. Real Time, la duree, is not, however, susceptible like False Time to measurement, for it is, strictly speaking, not quantitative in character, but is rather a qualitative multiplicity. "Real Duration (la duree reele) is just what has always been called Time, but it is Time perceived as indivisible." [Footnote: La Perception du Changement, p. 26. Cf. the whole of the Second Lecture.] Certainly pure consciousness does not perceive Time as a sum of units of duration, for, left to itself, it has no means and even no reason to measure Time, but a feeling which lasted only half the number of days, for example, would no longer be the same feeling for it. It is true that when we give this feeling a certain name, when we treat it as a thing, we believe that we can diminish its duration by half, for example, and also halve the duration of all the rest of our history. It seems that it would still be the same life only on a reduced scale. But we forget that states of consciousness are processes and not things; that they are alive and therefore constantly changing, and that, in consequence, it is impossible to cut off a moment from them without making them poorer by the loss of some impression and thus altering their quality. [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 196 (Fr. p. 150).] La duree appears as a "wholly qualitative multiplicity, an absolute heterogeneity of elements which pass over into one another." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 229 (Fr. p. 176).] Such a time cannot be measured by clocks or dials but only by conscious beings, for "it is the very stuff of which life and consciousness are made." Intellect does not grasp Real Time—we can only have an intuition of it. "We do not think Real Time—but we live it because life transcends intellect."

In order to bring out the distinctly qualitative character of such a conception of Time, Bergson says, "When we hear a series of blows of a hammer, the sounds form an indivisible melody in so far as they are pure sensations, and here again give rise to a dynamic progress; but, knowing that the same objective cause is at work, we cut up this progress into phases which we then regard as identical; and this multiplicity of elements no longer being conceivable except by being set out in space— since they have now become identical—we are, necessarily, led to the idea of a homogeneous Time, the symbolical image of la duree." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 125 (Fr. pp. 94-95).] "Whilst I am writing these lines," he continues, "the hour strikes on a neighbouring clock, but my inattentive ear does not perceive it until several strokes have made themselves heard. Hence, I have not counted them and yet I only have to turn my attention backwards, to count up the four strokes which have already sounded, and add them to those which I hear. If, then, I question myself carefully on what has just taken place, I perceive that the first four sounds had struck my ear and even affected my consciousness, but that the sensations produced by each one of them, instead of being set side by side, had melted into one another in such a way as to give the whole a peculiar quality, to make a kind of musical phrase out of it. In order, then, to estimate retrospectively, the number of strokes sounded, I tried to reconstruct this phrase in thought; my imagination made one stroke, then two, then three, and as long as it did not reach the exact number, four, my feeling, when consulted, was qualitatively different. It had thus ascertained, in its own way, the succession of four strokes, but quite otherwise than by a process of addition and without bringing in the image of a juxtaposition of distinct terms. In a word, the number of strokes was perceived as a quality and not as a quantity; it is thus that la duree is presented to immediate consciousness and it retains this form so long as it does not give place to a symbolical representation, derived from extensity." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, pp. 127-8 (Fr. pp. 96-97).] In these words Bergson endeavours to drive home his contention that la duree is essentially qualitative. He is well aware of the results of "the breach between quality and quantity," between true duration and pure extensity. He sees its implications in regard to vital problems of the self, of causality and of freedom. Its specific bearing on the problems of freedom and causality we shall discuss in the following chapter. As regards the self, Bergson recognizes that we have much to gain by keeping up the illusion through which we make our conscious states share in the reciprocal externality of outer things, because this distinctness and solidification enables us to give them fixed names in spite of their instability, and distinct names in spite of their interpenetration. Above all it enables us to objectify them, to throw them out into the current of social life. But just for this very reason we are in danger of living our lives superficially and of covering up our real self. We are generally content with what is but a shadow of the real self, projected into space. Consciousness, goaded on by an insatiable desire to separate, substitutes the symbol for the reality or perceives the reality only through the symbol. As the self thus refracted and thereby broken in pieces, is much better adapted to the requirements of social life in general, and of language in particular, consciousness prefers it and gradually loses sight of the fundamental self which is a qualitative multiplicity of conscious states flowing, interpenetrating, melting into one another, and forming an organic whole, a living unity or personality. It is through a consideration of la duree and what it implies that Bergson is led on to the distinction of two selves in each of us.

Towards the close of his essay on Time and Free Will, he points out that there are finally two different selves, a fundamental self and a social self. We reach the former by deep introspection which leads us to grasp our inner states as living things, constantly becoming, never amenable to measure, which permeate one another and of which the succession in la duree has nothing in common with side-by-sideness. But the moments at which we thus grasp ourselves are rare; the greater part of our time we live outside ourselves, hardly perceiving anything of ourselves but our own ghost—a colourless shadow which is but the social representation of the real and largely concealed Ego. Hence our life unfolds in space rather than in time. We live for the external world rather than for ourselves, we speak rather than think, we are "acted" rather than "act" ourselves. To act freely, however, is to recover possession of one's real self and to get back into la duree reele. [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 232 (Fr. p. 178).]

Real Time, then, is a living reality, not discrete, not spatial in character—an utter contrast to that fictitious Time with which so many thinkers have busied themselves, setting up "as concrete reality the distinct moments of a Time which they have reduced to powder, while the unity which enables us to call the grains 'powder' they hold to be much more artificial. Others place themselves in the eternal. But as their eternity remains, notwithstanding, abstract since it is empty, being the eternity of a concept which by hypothesis excludes from itself the opposing concept, one does not see how this eternity would permit of an indefinite number of moments co-existing in it, an eternity of death, since it is nothing else than the movement emptied of the mobility which made its life." [Footnote: An Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 51-54.] The true view of Time, as la duree, would make us see it as a duration which expands, contracts, and intensifies itself more and more; at the limit would be eternity, no longer conceptual eternity, which is an eternity of death, but an eternity of life and change—a living, and therefore still moving, eternity in which our own particular duree would be included as the vibrations are in light, [Footnote: Speaking in Matter and Memory on the Tension of la duree, Bergson calls attention to the "trillions of vibrations" which give rise to our sensation of red light, p. 272 (Fr. p. 229) Cf. La Conscience et la Vie in L'Energie spirituelle, p. 16.] an eternity which would be the concentration of all duree. Altering the old classical phrase sub specie aeternitatis, to suit his special view of Time, Bergson urges us to strive to perceive all things sub specie durationis. [Footnote: La Perception du Changement, p. 36.]

Finally, Bergson reminds us that if our existence were composed of separate states, with an impassive Ego to unite them, for us there would be no duration, for an Ego which does not change, does not endure. La duree, however, is the foundation of our being and is, as we feel, the very substance of the world in which we live. Associating his view of Real Time with the reality of change, he points out that nothing is more resistant or more substantial than la duree, for our duree is not merely one instant replacing another—if it were there would never be anything but the present, no prolonging of the past into the actual, no growth of personality, and no evolution of the universe. La duree is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances, leaving on all things its bite, or the mark of its tooth. This being so, consciousness cannot go through the same state twice; history does never really repeat itself. Our personality is being built up each instant with its accumulated experience; it shoots, grows, and ripens without ceasing. We are reminded of George Eliot's lines:

"Our past still travels with us from afar And what we have been makes us what we are."

For our consciousness this is what we mean by the term "exist." "For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, and to go on creating oneself endlessly." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 8 (Fr. p. 8).] Real Time has, then, a very vital meaning for us as conscious beings, indeed for all that lives, for the organism which lives is a thing that "endures." "Wherever anything lives," says Bergson, "there is a register in which Time is being inscribed. This, it will be said, is only a metaphor. It is of the very essence of mechanism in fact, to consider as metaphorical every expression which attributes to Time an effective action and a reality of its own. In vain does immediate experience show us that the very basis of our conscious existence is Memory—that is to say, the prolongation of the past into the present, or in a word, duree, acting and irreversible." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 17 (Fr. pp. 17-18).] Time is falsely assumed to have just as much reality for a living being as for an hour-glass. But if Time does nothing, it is nothing. It is, however, in Bergson's view, vital to the whole of the universe. He expressly denies that la duree is merely subjective; the universe "endures" as a whole. In Time and Free Will it did not seem to matter whether we regarded our inner life as having duree or as actually being duree. In the first instance, if we have duree it is then only an aspect of reality, but if our personality itself is duree, then Time is reality itself. He develops this last point of view more explicitly in his later works, and la duree is identified not only with the reality of change, but with memory and with spirit. [Footnote: La Perception du Changement, Lecture 2.] In it he finds the substance of a universe whose reality is change. "God," said Plato, "being unable to make the world eternal, gave it Time—a moving image of reality." Bergson himself quotes this remark of Plato, and seems to have a vision like that of Rosetti's "Blessed Damozel," who ...... "saw Time like a pulse shake fierce Through all the worlds."

The more we study Time, the more we may grasp this vision ourselves, and then we shall comprehend that la duree implies invention, the creation of new forms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new—in short, an evolution which is creative.



CHAPTER VII

FREEDOM OF THE WILL

Spirit of man revolts from physical and psychological determinism— Former examined and rejected—The latter more subtle—Vice of "associationism"—Psychology without a self. Condemnation of psychological determinism—Room for freedom—The self in action— Astronomical forecasts—Foreseeableness of any human action impossible— Human wills centres of indetermination—Not all our acts free—True freedom, self-determination.

Before passing on to an examination of Bergson's treatment of Evolution, we must consider his discussion of the problem of Freedom of the Will. Few problems which have occupied the attention of philosophers have been more discussed or have given rise to more controversy than that of Freedom. This is, of course, natural as the question at issue is one of very great importance, not merely as speculative, but also in the realm of action. We ask ourselves: "Are we really free?" Can we will either of two or more possibilities which are put before us, or, on the other hand, is everything fixed, predestined in such a way that an all-knowing consciousness could foretell from our past what course our future action would take?

The study of the physical sciences has led to a general acceptance of a principle of causality which is of such a kind that there seems no place in the universe for human freedom. Further, there is a type of psychology which gives rise to the belief that even mental occurrences are as determined as those of the physical world, thus leaving no room for autonomy of the Will. But even when presented with the arguments which make up the case for physical or psychological determinism, the spirit of man revolts from it, refuses to accept it as final, and believes that, in some way or other, the case for Freedom may be maintained. It is at this point that Bergson offers us some help in the solution of the problem, by his Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience, better described by its English title Time and Free Will.

The arguments for physical determinism are based on the view that Freedom is incompatible with the fundamental properties of matter, and in particular, with the principle of the conservation of energy. This principle "has been assumed to admit of no exception; there is not an atom either in the nervous system or in the whole of the universe whose position is not determined by the sum of the mechanical actions which the other atoms exert upon it. And the mathematician who knew the position of the molecules or atoms of a human organism at a given moment, as well as the position and motion of all the atoms in the universe, capable of influencing it, could calculate with unfailing certainty the past, present, and future actions of the person to whom this organism belonged, just as one predicts an astronomical phenomenon." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 144 (Fr. p. 110).] Now, it follows that if we admit the universal applicability of such a theory as that of the conservation of energy, we are maintaining that the whole universe is capable of explanation on purely mechanical principles, inherent in the units of which the universe is composed. Hence, the relative position of all units at a given moment, whatever be their nature, strictly determines what their position will be in the succeeding moments, and this mechanistic succession goes on like a Juggernaut car with crushing unrelentlessness, giving rise to a rigid fatalism:

"The moving finger writes; and having writ Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy tears wash out a Word of it."

Is there no way out of this cramping circle? We feel vaguely, intuitively, that there is. Bergson points out to us a way. Even if we admit, he says, that the direction and the velocity of every atom of matter in the universe (including cerebral matter, i.e., the brain, which is a material thing) are strictly determined, it would not at all follow from the acceptance of this theorem that our mental life is subject to the same necessity. For that to be the case, we should have to show absolutely that a strictly determined psychical state corresponds to a definite cerebral state. This, as we have seen, has not been proved. It is admitted that to some psychical states of a limited kind certain cerebral states do correspond, but we have no warrant whatever for concluding that, because the physiological and the psychological series exhibit some corresponding terms, the two series are absolutely parallel. "To extend this parallelism to the series themselves, in their totality, is to settle a priori the problem of freedom." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 147 (Fr. pp. 112-113).] How far the two series do run parallel is a question—as we saw in the chapter on the relation of Soul and Body—for experience, observation, and experiment to decide. The cases which are parallel are limited, and involve facts which are independent of the power of the Will.

Bergson then proceeds to an examination of the more subtle and plausible case for psychological determinism. A very large number of our actions are due to some motive. There you have it, says the psychological determinist. Your so-called Freedom of the Will is a fiction; in reality it is merely the strongest motive which prevails and you imagine that you "freely willed it." But then we must ask him to define "strongest," and here is the fallacy of his argument, for there is no other test of which is the strongest motive, than that it has prevailed. Such statements do not help to solve the difficulty at all, for they avoid it and attempt to conceal it; they are due to a conception of mind which is both false and mischievous, viz., Associationism. This view regards the self as a collection of psychical states. The existing state of consciousness is regarded as necessitated by the preceding states. As, however, even the associationist is aware that these states differ from one another in quality, he cannot attempt to deduce any one of them a priori from its predecessors. He therefore endeavours to find a link connecting the two states. That there is such a link as the simple "association of ideas" Bergson would not think of denying. What he does deny however, very emphatically, is the associationist statement that this relation which explains the transition is the cause of it. Even when admitting a certain truth in the associationist view, it is difficult to maintain that an act is absolutely determined by its motive, and our conscious states by one another. The real mischief of this view lies, however, in the fact, that it misrepresents the self by making it merely a collection of psychical states. John Stuart Mill says, in his Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy: "I could have abstained from murder if my aversion to the crime and my dread of its consequences had been weaker than the temptation which impelled me to commit it." [Footnote: Quoted by Bergson, Time and Free Will, p. 159 (Fr. p. 122).] Here desire, aversion, fear, and temptation are regarded as clear cut phenomena, external to the self which experiences them, and this leads to a curious balancing of pain and pleasure on purely utilitarian lines, turning the mind into a calculating machine such as one might find in a shop or counting-house, and taking no account of the character of the self that "wills." There is, really, in such a system of psychology, no room for self-expression, indeed, no meaning left for the term "self." It is only an inaccurate psychology, misled by language, which tries to show us the soul determined by sympathy, aversion, or hate, as though by so many forces pressing upon it from without. These feelings, provided that they go deep enough, make up the whole soul; in them the character of the individual expresses itself, since the whole content of the personality or soul is reflected in each of them. Then my character is "me." "To say that the soul is determined under the influence of any one of these feelings, is thus to recognize that it is self-determined. The associationist reduces the self to an aggregate of conscious states, sensations, feelings, and ideas. But if he sees in these various states no more than is expressed in their name, if he retains only their impersonal aspect, he may set them side by side for ever without getting anything but a phantom self, the shadow of the Ego, projecting itself into space. If, on the contrary, he takes these psychical states with the particular colouring which they assume in the case of a definite person, and which comes to each of them by reflection from all the others, then there is no need to associate a number of conscious states in order to rebuild the person, for the whole personality is in a single one of them, provided that we know how to choose it. And the outward manifestation of this inner state will be just what is called a free act, since the self alone will have been the author of it and since it will express the whole of the self." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, pp. 165-166 (Fr. pp. 126-127).] There is then room in the universe for a Freedom of the human Will, a definite creative activity, delivering us from the bonds of grim necessity and fate in which the physical sciences and the associationist psychology alike would bind us. Freedom, then, is a fact, and among the facts which we observe, asserts Bergson, there is none clearer. [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 221 (Fr. p. 169).] There are, however, one or two things which bear vitally upon the question of Freedom and which tend to obscure the issue. Of these, the foremost is that once we have acted in a particular manner we look back upon our actions and try to explain them with particular reference to their immediate antecedents. Here is where the mischief which gives rise to the whole controversy has its origin. We make static what is essentially dynamic in character. We call a process a thing. There is no such "thing" as Freedom; it is a relation between the self and its action. Indeed, it is only characteristic of a self IN ACTION, and so is really indefinable. Viewed after the action, it presents a different aspect; it has then become historical, an event in the past, and so we try to explain it as being caused by former events or conditions. This casting of it on to a fixed, rigid plan, gives action the appearance of having characteristics related to space rather than to time, in the real sense. As already shown in the previous chapter, this is due entirely to our intellectual habit of thinking in terms of space, by mathematical time, rather than in terms of living time or la duree.

Another point which causes serious confusion in the controversy is the notion that because, when an act has been performed, its antecedents may be reckoned up and their value and relative importance or influence assigned, this is equivalent to saying the actor could not have acted in any other way than he did, and, further, that his final act could have been foretold from the events which led up to it. It is a fact that in the realm of physical science we can foretell the future with accuracy. The astronomer predicts the precise moment and place in which Halley's comet will become visible from our earth. It is also a fact that we say of men and women who are our intimate friends: "I knew he (or she) would do such and such a thing" or "It's just like him." We base our judgment on our intimate acquaintance with the character of our friend, but this, as Bergson points out, "is not so much to predict the future conduct of our friend as to pass a judgment on his present character—that is to say, on his past." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 184 (Fr. p. 140).] For, although our feelings and our ideas are constantly changing, yet we feel warranted in regarding our friend's character as stable, as reliable. But, as Mill remarked in his Logic: "There can be no science of human nature," because, although we trust in the reliability of our friend, although we have faith in his future actions, we do not, and can not, know them. "Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner." To say that, if we knew all the conditions, motives, fears, and temptations which led up to the actions of another, we could foretell what he would do, amounts to saying that, to do so, we should have actually to become that other person, and so arrive at the point where we act as he did because we are him. For Paul to foretell Peter's act, Paul would simply have to become Peter. [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 187 (Fr. p. 144).] The very reasons which render it possible to foretell an astronomical phenomenon are the very ones which prevent us from determining in advance an act which springs from our free activity. For the future of the material universe, although contemporaneous with the future of a conscious being, has no analogy to it. The astronomer regards time from the point of view of mathematics. He is concerned with points placed in a homogeneous time, points which mark the beginning or end of certain intervals. He does not concern himself with the interval in its actual duration. This is proved by the fact that, could all velocities in the universe be doubled, the astronomical formulae would remain unaffected, for the coincidences with which that science deals would still take place, but at intervals half as long. To the astronomer as such, this would make no difference, but we, in ourselves, would find that our day did not give us the full experience. Situations which arose as a result of the introduction of "summer time" serve to make this point clear. As then we find that time means two different things for the astronomer and the psychologist, the one being concerned with the points at the extremities of intervals, and the other with the enduring reality of the intervals themselves, we can see why astronomical phenomena are capable of prediction and see too that, for the same reason, events in the realm of human action cannot be so predicted and therefore the future is not predetermined but is being made.