Bergson and His Philosophy Part 4

"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., a.s.sociationism. 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 a.s.sociationist 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 "a.s.sociation of ideas" Bergson would not think of denying. What he does deny however, very emphatically, is the a.s.sociationist statement that this relation which explains the transition is the cause of it. Even when admitting a certain truth in the a.s.sociationist 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 a.s.sociationist 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 s.p.a.ce. If, on the contrary, he takes these psychical states with the particular colouring which they a.s.sume 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 a.s.sociate 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 a.s.sociationist psychology alike would bind us. Freedom, then, is a fact, and among the facts which we observe, a.s.serts 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 a.s.signed, 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 pa.s.s 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 a.n.a.logy to it. The astronomer regards time from the point of view of mathematics. He is concerned with points placed in a h.o.m.ogeneous 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.

Upon exactly parallel lines lie the references to causality in the controversy. In the physical realm events may recur, but in the mental realm the same thing can never happen again because we are living in real, flowing time, or la duree, and our conscious states are changing. Admitting that there is that in experience which warrants the application of the principle of causality, taking that principle as the statement that physical phenomena once perceived can recur, and that a given phenomenon, happening only after certain conditions, will recur when those precise conditions are repeated, [Footnote: See the brief paper Notre croyance a la loi de causalite, Revue de metaphysique et de morale, 1900.] still it remains open whether such a regularity of succession is ever possible in the human consciousness, and so the a.s.sertion of the principle of causality proves nothing against Freedom.

We may admit that the principle is based on experience--but what kind of experience? Consideration of this question leads us to a.s.sert that the principle of causality only tends to accentuate the difference between objects in a realm wherein regular succession may be observed and predicted and a realm where it may not be observed or predicted, the realm of the self. Just because I endure and change I do not necessarily act to-day as I acted yesterday, when under like conditions. We do expect, however, that this will not be the case in the physical realm; for example, we expect that a flame applied to dry paper will always set it alight. Indeed, the more we realize the causal relation as one of necessary determination, we come to see that things do not exist as we do ourselves, and distinction between physical and psychical events becomes clear. We perceive that we, in ourselves, are centres of indetermination enjoying Freedom, and capable of creative activity.

We must, however, be careful to observe that such Freedom as we have is not absolute at all and that it admits of degrees. All our acts are by no means free. Indeed, Free Will is exceptional, and many live and die without having known true Freedom. Our everyday life consists in the performance of actions which are largely habitual or, indeed, automatic, being determined not by Free Will, but by custom and convention. Our Freedom is the exception and not the rule. Through sluggishness or indolence, we jog on in the even tenor of a way towards which habit has directed us. Even at times when our whole personality ought to vibrate, finding itself at the cross-roads, it fails to rise to the occasion.

But, says Bergson, "it is at the great and solemn crises, decisive of our reputation with others, and yet more with ourselves, that we choose in defiance of what is conventionally called a motive, and this absence of any tangible reason, is the more striking the deeper our Freedom goes." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 170 (Fr. p. 130).] At such times the self feels itself free and says so, for it feels itself to be creative. "All determinism will thus be refuted by experience, but every attempt to define Freedom will open the way to determinism." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 330 (Fr. p. 177).]

It has been urged that, although Bergson is a stanch upholder of Freedom, it is Freedom of such a kind that it must be distinguished from Free Will, that is, from the liberty of choice which indeterminists have a.s.serted and which determinists have denied; and that the Freedom for which he holds the brief is not the feeling of liberty that we have when confronted with alternative courses of action, or the feeling we have when we look back upon a choice made and an action accomplished, that we need not have acted as we did, and that we could have acted differently.

Such Freedom it has been further maintained, is of little importance to us, for it is merely a free, creative activity which is the essence of life, which we share with all that lives and so cannot be styled "human"

Freedom. Now, although many of Bergson's expressions, in regard to free, creative activity in general, lead to a connexion of this with the problem of "human" Freedom, such an identification would seem to be unfair. This seems specially so when we read over carefully his remarks about the coup d'etat of the fundamental self in times of grave crisis.

We cannot equate this with a purely biological freedom or vitality, or spontaneity. But in the light of the criticism which has been made, it will be well to consider, in concluding this chapter, the statements made by Bergson in his article on Liberty in the work in connexion with the Vocabulaire philosophique for the Societe francaise de philosophie: [Footnote: Quoted by Le Roy in his Une nouvelle philosophie: Henri Bergson, English Translation (Benson), Williams and Norgate, p. 192.]

"The word Liberty has for me a sense intermediate between those which we a.s.sign, as a rule, to the two terms 'Liberty' and 'Free Will.' On one hand I believe that 'Liberty' consists in being entirely oneself, in acting in conformity with oneself; it is then to a certain degree the 'moral liberty' of philosophers, the independence of the person with regard to everything other than itself. But that is not quite this Liberty, since the independence I am describing has not always a moral character. Further, it does not consist in depending on oneself as an effect depends on the cause which, of necessity, determines it. In this, I should come back to the sense of 'Free Will.'" And yet, he continues, "I do not accept this sense either, since Free Will, in the usual meaning of the term, implies the equal possibility of two contraries, and, on my theory, we cannot formulate or even conceive, in this case, the thesis of the equal possibility of the two contraries, without falling into grave error about the nature of Time. The object of my thesis has been precisely to find a position intermediate between 'moral Liberty' and 'Free Will.' Liberty, such as I understand it, is situated between these two terms, but not at equal distances from both; if I were obliged to blend it with one of the two, I should select 'Free-Will.'"

Nor is Liberty to be reduced to spontaneity. "At most, this would be the case in the animal world where the psychological life is princ.i.p.ally that of the affections. But in the case of a man, a thinking being, the free act can be called a synthesis of feelings and ideas, and the evolution which leads to it, a reasonable evolution." [Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 243 (Fr. p. 205).] "In a word, if it is agreed to call every act free, which springs from the self, and from the self alone, the act which bears the mark of our personality is truly free, for our self alone will lay claim to its paternity." [Footnote: Time and Free Will, p. 172 (Fr. p. 132). It is interesting to compare with this the remark by Nietzsche in Also sprach Zarathustra, Thus Spake Zarathustra,--"Let your Ego be in relation to your acts that which the mother is in relation to the child."] The secret of the solution lies surely here, and in the words given above: "Liberty consists in being entirely oneself." If we act rightly we shall act freely, and yet be determined. Yet here there will be no contradiction, for we shall be self-determined. It is only the man who is self-determined that can in any sense be said to know the meaning of "human" Freedom. "We call free," said Spinoza, "that which exists in virtue of the necessities of its own nature, and which is determined by itself alone." Liberty is not absolute, for then we ourselves would be at the beck and call of every external excitation, desire, pa.s.sion, or temptation. Our salvation consists in self-determination, so we shall avoid licence but preserve Freedom. We can only repeat the Socratic maxim--"Know thyself"--and resolve to take to heart the appeal of our own Shakespeare:

"To thine own self be true!"

CHAPTER VIII

EVOLUTION

Work of Darwin and Spencer--Bergson's L'Evolution creatrice--Life--L'elan vital--Evolution not progress in a straight line--Adaptation an insufficient explanation--Falsity of mechanistic view--Finalist conception of reality as fulfilling a plan false--Success along certain lines only--Torpor, Instinct, and Intelligence--Genesis of matter--Humanity the crown of evolution--Contingency and Freedom--The Future is being created.

Since the publication of Darwin's famous work on The Origin of Species in 1859, the conception of Evolution has become familiar and has won general acceptance in all thinking minds. Evolution is now a household word, but the actual study of evolutionary process has been the work of comparatively few. Science nowadays has become such a highly specialized affair, that few men cover a large enough field of study to enable them to deal effectively with this tremendous subject. What is more, those who shouted so loudly about Evolution as explaining all things have come to see that, in a sense, Evolution explains nothing by itself. Mere description of facts undoubtedly does serve a very useful purpose and may help to demolish some of the stanchly conservative theories still held in some quarters by those who prefer to take Hebrew conceptions as a basis of their cosmology however irreconcilable with fact these may prove to be. Mere description, however, is not ultimate, some philosophy of Evolution must be forthcoming. "Nowadays," remarks Hoffding, "every philosopher has to take up a position with respect to the concept of Evolution. It has now achieved its place among the categories or essential forms of thought by the fact of its providing indications whence new problems proceed. We must ask regarding every event, and every phenomenon, by what stages it has pa.s.sed into its actual state.

It is a special form of the general concept of cause. A philosophy is essentially characterized by the position which it accords to this concept and by the way in which it applies it." [Footnote: The Philosophy of Evolution--lecture IV, of Lectures on Bergson, in Modern Philosophers, Translated by Mason (MacMillan), p. 270.]

No one has done more to make familiar to English minds the notion of Evolution than Herbert Spencer. His Synthetic Philosophy had a grand aim, but it was manifestly unsatisfactory. The high hopes it had raised were followed by mingled disappointment and distrust. The secret of the unsatisfactoriness of Spencer is to be found in his method, which is an elaborate and plausible attempt to explain the evolution of the universe by referring the complex to the simple, the more highly organized to the less organized. His principle of Evolution never freed itself from bondage to mechanical conceptions.

Bergson's Creative Evolution, his largest and best known work, appeared in 1907. It has been regarded not only as a magnificent book, but as a date in the history of thought. Two of the leading students of evolutionary process in England, Professors Geddes and Thomson, refer to the book as "one of the most profound and original contributions to the philosophical consideration of the theory of Evolution." [Footnote: In the Bibliography in their volume Evolution.]

For some time there had been growing a need for an expression of evolutionary theory in terms other than those of Spencer, or of Haeckel--the German monistic philosopher. The advance in the study of biology and the rise of Neo-Vitalism, occasioned by an appreciation of the inadequacy of any explanation of life in terms purely physical and chemical, made the demand for a new statement, in greater harmony with these views, imperative. To satisfy this demand is the task to which Bergson has applied himself. He sounds the note of departure from the older conceptions right at the commencement by his very t.i.tle, 'Creative' Evolution. For this, his views on Change, on Time, and on Freedom, have in some degree prepared us. We have seen set forth the fact of Freedom, the recognition of human beings as centres of indetermination, not mere units in a machine, "a block universe" where all is "given," but creatures capable of creative activity. Then by a consideration of Time, as la duree, we found that the history of an individual can never repeat itself; "For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. Should the same be said," Bergson asks, "of existence in general?" [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 8 (Fr. p. 8).]

So he proceeds to portray with a wealth of a.n.a.logy and brilliance of style, more akin to the language of a poet than a philosopher, the stupendous drama of Evolution, the mystery of being, the wonders of life. He makes the great fact of life his starting point. Is life susceptible to definition? We feel that, by the very nature of the case, it is not. A definition is an intellectual operation, while life is wider, richer, more fundamental than intellect. Indeed Bergson shows us that intellect is only one of the manifestations or adaptations of life in its progress. To define life, being strictly impossible, Bergson attempts to describe it. He would have us picture it as a great current emerging from some central point, radiating in all directions, but diverted into eddies and backwaters. Life is an original impetus, une poussee formidable, not the mere heading affixed to a cla.s.s of objects which live. We must not speak any longer of life in general as an abstraction or a category in which we may place all living beings. Life, or the vital impulse, consists in a demand for creation, we might almost say "a will to create." It appears to be a current pa.s.sing from one germ to another through the medium of a developed organism, "an internal push that has carried life by more and more complex forms, to higher and higher destinies." It is a dynamic continuity, a continuity of qualitative progress, a duration which leaves its bite on things.

[Footnote: For these descriptions of life, see Creative Evolution, pp. 27-29 and 93-94 (Fr. pp. 28-30 and 95-96).] We shall be absolutely wrong, however, if we attempt to view the evolutionary process as progressive in a straight line. The facts contradict such a facile and shallow view. Some of the stock phrases of the earlier writers on Evolution were: "adaptation to environment," "selection" and "variation," and a grave problem was presented by this last. How are we to account for the variations of living beings, together with the persistence of their type? Herein lies the problem of the origin of species. Three different solutions have been put forward. There is the "Neo-Darwinian" view which attributes variation to the differences inherent in the germ borne by the individual, and not to the experience or behaviour of the individual in the course of his existence. Then there is the theory known as "Orthogenesis" which maintains that there is a continual changing in a definite direction from generation to generation. Thirdly, there is the "Neo-Lamarckian" theory which attributes the cause of variation to the conscious effort of the individual, an effort pa.s.sed on to descendants. [Footnote: Concerning Lamarck (1744-1829) Bergson remarks in La Philosophie (1915) that without diminis.h.i.+ng Darwin's merit Lamarck is to be regarded as the founder of evolutionary biology.] Now each one of these theories explains a certain group of facts, of a limited kind, but two difficulties confront them. We find that on quite distinct and widely separated lines of Evolution, exactly similar organs have been developed. Bergson points out to us, in this connexion, the Pecten genus of molluscs, which have an eye identical in structure with that of the eye of vertebrates. [Footnote: The common edible scallop (Pecten maximus) has several eyes of brilliant blue and of very complex structure.] It is obvious, however, that the eye of this mollusc and the eye of the vertebrate must have developed quite independently, ages after each had been separated from the parent stock. Again, we find that in all organic evolution, infinite complexity of structure accompanies the utmost simplicity of function. The variation of an organ so highly complex as the eye must involve the simultaneous occurrence of an infinite number of variations all co-ordinated to the simple end of vision. Such facts as these are incapable of explanation by reference to any or all of the three theories of adaptation and variation mentioned.

Indeed they seem capable of explanation only by reference to a single original impetus retaining its direction in courses far removed from the common origin. "That adaptation to environment is the necessary condition of Evolution we do not question for a moment. It is quite evident that a species would disappear, should it fail to bend to the conditions of existence which are imposed on it. But it is one thing to recognize that outer circ.u.mstances are forces Evolution must reckon with, another to claim that they are the directing causes of Evolution."

[Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 107 (Fr. p. 111).]

"The truth is that adaptation explains the sinuosities of the movement of Evolution, but not the general directions of the movement, still less the movement itself. The road which leads to the town is obliged to follow the ups and downs of the hills; it adapts itself to the accidents of the ground, but the accidents of the ground are not the cause of the road nor have they given it its direction." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 108 (Fr. p. 112).] The evolution of life cannot be explained as merely a series of adaptations to accidental circ.u.mstances.

Moreover, the mechanistic view, where all is "given," is quite inadequate to explain the facts. The finalist or teleological conception is not any more tenable, for Evolution is not simply the realization of a plan. "A plan is given in advance. It is represented or at least representable, before its realization. The complete execution of it may be put off to a distant future or even indefinitely, but the idea is none the less formulable at the present time, in terms actually given.

If, on the contrary, Evolution is a creation unceasingly renewed, it creates as it goes on, not only the forms of life but the ideas that enable the intellect to understand it. Its future overflows its present and cannot be sketched out therein, in an idea. There is the first error of finalism. It involves another yet more serious. If life realizes a plan it ought to manifest a greater harmony the further it advances, just as the house shows better and better the idea of the architect as stone is set upon stone." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 108 (Fr. p.

112).] Such finalism is really reversed mechanism. If, on the contrary, the unity of life is to be found solely in the impetus (poussee formidable) that pushes it along the road of Time, the harmony is not in front but behind. The unity is derived from a vis a tergo: it is given at the start as an impulsion, not placed at the end as an attraction, as a kind of

"... far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves."

"In communicating itself the impetus splits up more and more. Life, in proportion to its progress, is scattered in manifestations which undoubtedly owe to their common origin the fact that they are complementary to each other in certain aspects, but which are none the less mutually incompatible and antagonistic. So that the discord between species will go on increasing." "There are species which are arrested, there are some that retrogress. Evolution is not only a movement forward; in many cases we observe a marking-time, and still more often a deviation or turning back. Thence results an increasing disorder. No doubt there is progress, if progress means a continual advance in the general direction determined by a first impulsion; but this progress is accomplished only on the two or three great lines of Evolution on which forms ever more and more complex, ever more and more high, appear; between these lines run a crowd of minor paths in which deviations, arrests, and set-backs are multiplied." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, pp. 107-110 (Fr. pp. 111-114).] Evolution would be a very simple and easy process to understand if it followed one straight path. To describe it, Bergson uses, in one place, this metaphor: "We are here dealing with a sh.e.l.l which has immediately burst into fragments, which, being themselves species of sh.e.l.ls, have again burst into fragments, destined to burst again, and so on." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 103 (Fr.

p. 107).]

A study of the facts shows us three very marked tendencies which may be denoted by the terms "Torpor," "Instinct," and "Intelligence." These are, in a sense "terminal points" in the evolutionary process. Hence arises the distinction of plant and animal, one showing a tendency to unconscious torpor, the other manifesting a tendency towards movement and consciousness. Then again arises another divergence which gives rise to two paths or tendencies, one along the line of the arthropods, at the end of which come the ants and the bees with their instincts, and the other along the line of the vertebrates, at the end of which is man with his intelligence. These three, Torpor, Instinct, and Intelligence, must not, however, be looked upon as three successive stages in the linear development of one tendency, but as three diverging directions of a common activity, which split up as it went on its way. Instinct and Intelligence are the two important terminal points in Evolution. They are not two stages of which one is higher than the other, they are at the end of two different roads. The wonders of Instinct are a commonplace to students of animal and insect life. [Footnote: See the interesting books by the French writer, Henri Fabre.] Men, with their intellect, make tools, while Instinct is tied to its tool. There is a wondrous immediacy, however, about Instinct, in the way it achieves ends, and its operations are often quite unconsciously performed. The insect or animal could not possibly "know" all that was involved in its action. Instinct, then, is one form of adaptation, while Intellect is quite another. In man--the grown man--Intellect is seen at its best. Yet we are not without Instincts; by them we are bound to the race and to the whole animal creation. But in ants and bees and such like creatures, Instinct is the sole guide of life, and it is often a highly organized life. The following example clearly shows the contrast between Instinct and Intelligence. A cat knows how to manage her new-born kittens, how to bring them up and teach them; a human mother does not know how to manage her baby unless she is trained either directly or by her own quick observation of other mothers. A cat performs her simple duties by Instinct, a human mother has to make use of her Intelligence in order to fulfil her very complex duties. We must observe, however, the relative value of Instinct and Intelligence. Each is a psychical activity, but while Instinct is far more perfect, far more complete in its insight, it is confined within narrow limits. Intelligence, while far less perfect in accomplis.h.i.+ng its work, less complete in insight, is not limited in such a way. But while Intellect is external, looking on reality as different from life, Instinct is an inner sympathy with reality; it is deeper than any intellectual bond which binds the conscious creature to reality, for it is a vital bond.

Bergson now turns to a consideration of Life and Matter in the evolutionary process, and their precise relation to one another. Life is free, spontaneous, incalculable, not out of relation to Matter, but its direction is not entirely determined by Matter nor has its initial impulse Matter as its source. Although Bergson denies that Will and Consciousness, as we know them, are mere functions of the material organism, yet they do depend upon it as a workman depends upon his tool.

We are fond of insinuating that a bad workman always blames his tools.

A good workman, however, cannot be expected to do the best work with bad tools. The tool, although he uses it, at the same time limits him. So it is with the material organism at our disposal, our body, and so, too, with spirit and matter in general. Spirit and Matter are not to be regarded as independent or as ranged against one another from all eternity. Matter is a product of Spirit or Consciousness, the underlying psychic force. "For want of a better word," says Bergson, "we have called it Consciousness. But we do not mean the narrowed consciousness that functions in each of us." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 250 (Fr. p. 258).] It is rather super-Consciousness than a consciousness like ours. Matter is a flux rather than a thing, but its flow is in the opposite direction to that of Spirit. The flow of Spirit shows itself in the creativeness of the evolutionary process; Matter is the inverse movement towards stability. Bergson adheres to the view of Spirit as fundamental, while Matter, he says, is due to a lessening of the tension of the spiritual force which is the initial elan. Now, of course, Matter and Spirit have come to be two opposing forces, for one is determined and the other free. Yet Bergson has to make out that there must have been some indetermination in Matter, however small, to give Spirit an opening to "insinuate itself" into Matter and thus use it for its own ends. It always seems, however, as if Spirit were trying to free itself from material limitations. It evolved the Intellect to cope with Matter.

This is why Reason is at home, not in life and freedom, but in solid Matter, in mechanical and spatial distinctions. There is thus an eternal conflict in progress between Spirit and Matter. The latter is always tending to automatism, to the sacrifice of the Spirit with its creative power. In his little book on The Meaning of the War Bergson claims that here we have an instance of Life and Matter in conflict--Germany representing a mechanical and materialistic force. In quite another way he ill.u.s.trates the same truth, in his book on Laughter, where he shows us that "rigidity, automatism, absent-mindedness, and unsociability, are all inextricably entwined, and all serve as ingredients to the making up of the comic in character," [Footnote: Laughter, p. 147 (Fr. p. 151).]

for "the comic is that side of a person which reveals his likeness to a thing, that aspect of human events which, through its peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression of pure mechanism, of automatism, of movement without life." [Footnote: Laughter, p. 87 (Fr. p. 89).]

Finally, in reviewing the evolutionary process as a whole, Bergson a.s.serts that it manifests a radical contingency. The forms of life created, also the proportion of Intuition to Intelligence, in man, and the physique and morality of man, are all of them contingent. Life might have stored up energy in a different way through plants selecting different chemical elements. The whole of organic chemistry would then have been different. Then, too, it is probable that Life manifests itself in other planets, in other solar systems also, in forms of which we have no idea. He points out that between the perfect humanity and ours one may conceive many possible intermediaries, corresponding to all the degrees imaginable of Intelligence and Intuition. Another solution might have issued in a humanity either more intelligent or more intuitive. Man has warred like the other species, he has warred against the other species. If the evolution of life had been opposed by different accidents en route, if the current of life had been divided otherwise, we should have been, in physique and in morality, very different from what we are. [Footnote: Creative Evolution, pp. 280-282 (Fr. p. 288-290).] We cannot regard humanity as prefigured in the evolutionary process, nor look on man as the ultimate outcome of the whole of Evolution. The rest of Nature does not exist simply for the sake of man. Certainly man stands highest, for only in man has consciousness succeeded, but man has, as it were, lost much in coming to this position. The whole process of Evolution "IS AS IF A VAGUE AND FORMLESS BEING, WHOM WE MAY CALL, AS WE WILL, man OR super-man, HAD SOUGHT TO REALIZE HIMSELF AND HAD SUCCEEDED ONLY BY ABANDONING A PART OF HIMSELF ON THE WAY." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 281 (Fr. p. 289).

(Italics are Bergson's.)]

In the lectures on The Nature of the Soul, Bergson referred to the "Pathway of the evolutionary process" as being a "Way to Personality."

For on the line which leads to man liberation has been accomplished and thus personalities have been able to const.i.tute themselves. If we could view this line of evolution it would appear to resemble a telegraph wire on which has travelled a dispatch sent off as long ago as the first beginnings of life, a message which was then confused, of which a part has been lost on the way, but which has at last found in the human race the appropriate instrument.

Humanity is one; we are members one of another. Bergson insists on this solidarity of man, and, indeed, of all living creatures. "As the smallest grain of dust is bound up with our entire solar system, drawn along with it in that undivided movement of descent which is materiality itself, so all organized beings, from the humblest to the highest, from the first origins of life to the time in which we are, and in all places as in all times, do but evidence a single impulsion, the inverse of the movement of matter, and in itself indivisible. All the living hold together and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity, in s.p.a.ce and in time, is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us, in an overwhelming charge, able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, pp. 285-286 (Fr. pp. 293-294).]

CHAPTER IX

THE GOSPEL OF INTUITION

Intelligence and Intuition not opposed--Intellectual sympathy--Synthesis and a.n.a.lysis. "Understanding as one loves"--Concepts--Intellect not final--Man's spirit and intuitions--Joy, creative power and art--Value of Intuitive Philosophy.

We now approach the grand climax of Bergson's philosophy, his doctrine of Intuition, which he preaches with all the vigour of an evangelist.

Our study of his treatment of Change, of Perception, of la duree, and of Instinct, has prepared us for an investigation of what he means by Intuition, for in dealing with these subjects he has been laying the foundations of his doctrine of Intuition. He pointed out to us that Life is Change, but that our intellect does not really grasp the reality of Change, for it is adapted to solids and to concepts, it resembles the cinematograph film. Then he has tried to show us that in Perception there is really much more than we think, for our intellect carves out what is of practical interest, while the penumbra or vague fringes of perceptions which have no bearing on action are neglected. By his advocacy of a real psychological Time, in opposition to the physical abstraction which bears the name, he again brought out the inadequacy of intellect to grasp Life in its flow and has put before us the soul's own appreciation of Time, which is a valuation rather than a magnitude, an intuition of our consciousness. Then, in examining the Evolution of Instinct and Intelligence, we found that Instinct, however blind intellectually, contained a wonderful and unique element of immediacy or direct insight. These are just preparatory indications of the direction of Bergson's thought all the time.

It is admittedly difficult to determine with very great definiteness what Bergson's view of Intuition really is, for he has made many statements regarding it which appear at first sight irreconcilable and, in his earlier writings, has not been sufficiently careful when speaking of the distinction between Intelligence and Intuition. Some of his early statements are reactionary and crude and give the impression of a purely anti-intellectualist position involving the condemnation of Intellect and all its work. [Footnote: E.g., the statement "To philosophize is to invert the habitual direction of the work of thought"--Introduction to Metaphysics p. 59.] In his later work, however, Bergson has made it more clear that he does not mean to throw Intellect overboard; it has its place, but is not final, nor is it the supreme human faculty which most philosophers have thought it to be. It must be lamented, however, that Bergson's language was ever so ill defined as to encourage the many varied and conflicting views which are held regarding his doctrine of Intuition. Around this the greatest controversy has raged. Little is to be gained by heeding the shouts of either those who acclaim Bergson as a revolutionary against all use of the Intellect, or of those who regard him as no purely anti-intellectualist at all. We must turn to Bergson himself and study carefully what he has said and written, reserving our judgment until we have examined his own statements.

What is this "Intuition"? In what is now a locus cla.s.sicus [Footnote: Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 7.] he says, "By Intuition is meant the kind of INTELLECTUAL SYMPATHY by which one places oneself within an object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible. a.n.a.lysis is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known, that is, to elements common to it and other objects. To a.n.a.lyse, therefore, is to express a thing as a function of something other than itself. All a.n.a.lysis is thus a translation, a development into symbols, a representation taken from successive points of view from which we note as many resemblances as possible between the new object which we are studying and others which we believe we know already. In its eternally unsatisfied desire to embrace the object around which it is compelled to turn, a.n.a.lysis multiplies without end the number of its points of view in order to complete its always incomplete representation, and ceaselessly varies its symbols that it may perfect the always imperfect translation. It goes on therefore to infinity. But Intuition, if Intuition be possible, is a simple act. It is an act directly opposed to a.n.a.lysis, for it is a viewing in totality, as an absolute; it is a synthesis, not an a.n.a.lysis, not an intellectual act, for it is an immediate, emotional synthesis."

Two ill.u.s.trations, taken from the same essay, may serve to make this point clearer. A visitor in Paris, of an artistic temperament, makes some sketches of the city, writing underneath them, by way of memento, the word "Paris." As he has actually seen Paris he is able, with the help of the original Intuition he has had of that unique whole which is Paris itself, to place his sketches therein, and synthesize them. But there is no way of performing the inverse operation. It is impossible, even with thousands of sketches, to achieve the Intuition, to give oneself the impression of what Paris is like, if one has never been there. Or again, as a second ill.u.s.tration, "Consider a character whose adventures are related to me in a novel. The author may multiply the traits of his hero's character, may make him speak and act as much as he pleases, but all this can never be equivalent to the simple and indivisible feeling which I should experience if I were able, for an instant, to identify myself with the person of the hero himself. Out of that indivisible feeling, as from a spring, all the words, gestures, and actions of the man would appear to me to flow naturally. They would no longer be accidents which, added to the idea I had already formed of the character, continually enriched that idea without ever completing it.

The character would be given to me all at once, in its entirety, and the thousand incidents which manifest it, instead of adding themselves to the idea and so enriching it, would seem to me, on the contrary, to detach themselves from it, without, however, exhausting it or impoveris.h.i.+ng its essence. All the things I am told about the man provide me with so many points of view from which I can observe him. All the traits which describe him and which can make him known to me, only by so many comparisons with persons or things I know already, are signs by which he is expressed more or less symbolically. Symbols and points of view, therefore, place me outside him; they give me only what he has in common with others, and not what belongs to him, and to him alone.

But that which is properly 'himself,' that which const.i.tutes his essence, cannot be perceived from without, being internal by definition, nor be expressed by symbols, being incommensurable with everything else. Description, history, and a.n.a.lysis leave me here in the relative.