bergson, an introduction to metaphysics

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n ntroduction toMetaphysics

. ..... .By : : : .:*. ..

Henri BergsonMember of the laatitute and-r;rofeeaor of the o U ~ g e deFranoeTranslated by T. E. Hulme

Authorized Bditioo, Revised by the Autbor withAdditiooal Material

G. P. Putnam s SonsNew York and Londonct e 'ltnfclletbocller ~ r s s

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oPnU HT0 r gdY

G. P PUTNAM S SONS

Third Printing


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TRANSLATOR S PREFACETms celebrated essay was first pub-lished in the Revue de Metapkyaiqueet d e Morale in January 1903. t ap-peared then after Time and Free Will andMatter and emory and before OreatitJ6Evolution and while containing ideas setforth in the first two of these works, itannounces some of those which were f t e ~wards developed in the last.

Though this book can in no sense beregarded as an epitome of the others, ityet forms the best introduction to them.:M Edouard Le Boy in his lately publishedbook on M Bergson's philosophy speaks ofthis marvelously suggestive study which

constitutes the beat preface to the booksthemselves.t has, however, more Importance th nsimple introduction would have, for in it

M Bergson 6J)lains, at greater length andin greater detail than in the other books,

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iv PrefaceeDCtiJ what he mean to conV8J by theword itHuitiota. The fntultiYe method istreated independently and not, as elsewhereln hi& wrltingB, incidentally, in ita appli-cations to particular problems. For thisreaBOD every writer who has attempted togive a complete exposition of M: Bergson aphilosophy has been obliged to quote thiseaaay at length; and it ia indispensabletherefore to the full understanding of itaauthor s position. Tl BilBlationa into Ger-man, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Swedish,and Bul lldan have lately appeared, but theFrellch original la at present out of print.This translation has had th& great ad-ftlltage of being revised in proof by theauthor. I have to thank him for manyalternative renderings, and alao for a fewBlight alterations n the text, which hethought would make hill meaning clearer.

Sr JoBX e Cowaall,CAMMDXm.

T. E HULME


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n ntroduction toMetaphysicsA COMPARISON of the definitions ofmetaphysics and the various concep-tions of the absolute leads to the discoverythat philosophers in spite of their apparentdivergencies agree in distinguishing twoprofoundly different ways of knowing athing. The first implies that we moveround the object; the second that we enterinto it The first depends on the point ofview at which we are placed and on thesymbols by which we express ourselves.The second neither depends on a point ofview nor relies on any symbol. The firstkind of knowledge may be said to stop atthe relative; the second in those caseswhere t is possible to attain the ab8olute

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An Introduction tOOJlBider for example the movement of

an object in space. My perception of themotion will vary wlth the point of viewmoving or stationary from which I obee eit. My expreBSion of it will vary with thesystems of axes or the points of referenceto which I relate i t that is with the sym-bols by which I translate it. For thisdouble reason I call such motion relatitHJin the one case as in the other I am plaeedoutside the object itself. But when I speakof an bsolute movement I am attributingto the moving object an interior and so tospeak atates of mind; I alao imply that Iam in sympathy with those states and thatI lnsert myself tn them by an effort ofimagination. Then according as the ob-ject is moving or stationary according uit adopta one movement or another whatI experience will vary. And what I experience will depend neltber on the pointof view I may take up 1n regard to theobject sinre 1 am tnstde the object itselfnor on the aymbol11 by whlch I may tr ua


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Metaphysics 3late the motion, since I have rejected alltranslations in order to possess the original.n short, I shall no longer grasp the mov -

ment from without, remaining where I am,but from where it is, from within, as it isin itself. I shall possess an absolute.

Consider, again, a character whose ad-Tentures are related to me in a novel. Theauthor may multiply the traits of his hero scharacter, may make him speak and act asmuch as he pleases, but all this can neverbe equivalent to the simple and indivisiblefeeling which I should experience if I wereable for an instant to identify mylil lf withthe person of the hero himself. Out of thatindivisible feeling, as from a spring, all thewords, gestures, and actions of the manwould appear to me to flow naturally.They would no longer be accidents which,added to tbe idea I had already formed ofthe character, continually enriched thatidea, without ever completing it. Thecharacter would be given to me all at once,in its entirety, and the thousand incidents


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4 An Introduction towhich manifest it instead of adding themaelves to the idea and so enriching it wouldseem to me on the contrary to detachthemselves from it without however exbaUBting i t or impoverishing its essence.All the things I am told about the manprovide me with so many points of viewfrom which I can observe him. All thetraits which describe him and which canmake him known to me only by so manycomparisons with pei Aons ot things kno11already re tdgns by which he i expressedmore or le R symbolically. Symbols andpoints of view therefore place me outsiclehim; they give me only what he has incommon with others ancl not what belongsto him and to him alone. But that which

properly h i m ~ e l f that which constituteshis euence cannot be perceived fromf\Vithout being internal by definition norbe expressed by aymbole being incom-meneurable with everything else. -scription hl1tory and analysis leave meb.ere m the relative. Coincidence witla


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Metaphysics 5the person himself would alone give methe absolute.

t is n this sense and in this sense o n l y ~that absolute is synonymous with perfec Vtion. Were all the photographs of a towntaken from all possible points of view togo on indefinitely completing one anotherthey would never be equivalent to the solidtown in which we walk about. Were allthe translations of a poem into all possiblelanguages to add together their variousshades of meaning and correcting eachother by a kind of mutual retouching togive a more and more faithful image ofthe poem they translate they would yetnever succeed in rendering the inner mean-ing of the original. A representation taken \from a certain point of view a translation jmade with certain symbols will alwaysremain imperfect in comparison with the /object of which a view has been taken or/\which the symbols seek to express. But the \absolute which is the object and not its {representation the original and not its


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6 An Introduction totranslation, is perfect, by being perfectlywhat it is.

t is doubtless for this reason that theabsolute has often been identified with the

\ infinite Suppose that I wished to com-municate to some one who did not knowGreek the extraordinarily simple impression that a passage in Homer makes uponme; I should first give a translation of thelines, I should then comment on my trans-lation, and then develop the commentary;in this way, by piling up explanation onexplanation, I might approach nearer andnearer to what I wanted to express; but Ishould never quite reach it. When youraise your arm, you accomplish a movementof which you have, from within, a simpleperception; but for me, watching it fromthe outside, your arm passes through onepoint, then through another, and betweenthese two there will be still other points;so that, i f I began to count, the operationwould go on for ever. Viewed from the

ins ide , then, an absolute u;a ~ i i ~ p l e thing;


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Metaphysics 7but looked at from the outside, that s to fIsay, relatively to other things, it becomes, 1in relation to these signs which express it lthe gold coin for which we never seem ableto finish giving small change. Now, thatwhich lends itself at the same time bothto an indivisible apprehension and to aninexhaustible enumeration is, by the very \definition of the word, an infinite.

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t follows from this that an absolutecould only be given in an intuition whilst \Ieverything else falls within the province ofanalysis. By intuition is meant the kind 1of in.tellectual sympathy by which one :places oneself within an object in order tocoincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible. Analysis, on the ,contrary is the operation which reduces the jobject to elements already known, that is,to elements common both to it and otherobjects. To analyze, therefore, is to ex- lpress a thing as a function of somethingother than itself. All analysis is thus atranslation a development into symbols, a

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8 An Introduction torepl'el leDtation taken from suceesBive pointso view from which we note as many re-semblances as p088ible between the newobject which we are studying and otherswhich we believe we know already. In itseternally unsatisfied desire to embrace theobject around which it is compelled toturn, analysis multiplies without end thenumber of its points of view in order tocomplete its always incomplete representation, and ceaselessly varies its symbols thatt may perfect the always imperfect trans-

lation. It goes on, therefore, to infinity.But intuition, i intuition is possible, is aBimple act.

Now it is easy to see that the ordinaryfunction of positive science is analysis.Poeltive science works, then, above all, withaymbola Even the moet concrete of the

~ t u r l sciences, those concerned with life,eonfiDe themselves to the visible form ofUnng belnp their organs and anatomicalelement& They make comparisons betweentheee forma, they reduce the more complex


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Metaphysicsto the more simple ; in short, they studythe workings of life in what is, so to speak,only its visual symbol. f there exists anymeans of possessing a reality absolutely instead of knowing it relatively, of placingoneself within it instead of looking at i tfrom outside pofnts of view, of having theintuition instead of making the analysis:in short, of seizing it without any expression, translation, or symbolic representation-metaphysics is that means. M e t a p h y s i c s ~Jh;n i s the s c i e n ~ e which c l a ~ ~ ~ - - t o d i ~ p e n s e ' j.tmth symbols. , . .

~ } ; , ~ : r e .is one reality, .at least, which we

all. seize from within, by intuition and not 1by-simple analysis. It is our own person- /ality in its flowing through time--our self /which endures. We may sympathize intellectually with nothing else, but wecertainly sympathize with our own selves.

When I direct my attention inward tocontemplate my own self supposed for t ~ e

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10 An Introduction tomoment to be inactive , I perceive at dl Bt,as a crust solidided on the surface, all theperceptions which come to it from thematerial world. These perceptions are clear.distinct, juxtaposed or juxtaposable onewith another; they tend to group themselves into objects. Next, I notice thememories which more or less adhere toth s perceptions and which serve to interpret them. These memories have beendetached, as it ~ e r e from the depth of mypersonality, drawn to the surface by theperceptions which resemble them ; they reston the surface of my mind without beingabsolutely myself. Lastly, I feel the stir oftendencles and motor habits a crowd ofvirtual actions, more or le drmly boundto these perceptions and memories. 1-All Jtbeae clearly deftned elements appear moredistinct from me, the more distinct theyare from each other. Badiating, as theydo, from within outwards, they form, collectively, the aurface of a sphere whichteptJs to grow larger and lotte itaelf in the


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Metaphysicsexterior world. But if I draw myself infrom the periphery towards the centre, if Isearch in the depth of my being that whichis most uniformly, most constantly, andmost enduringly myself, I find an altogether 1different thing.

There is, beneath these sharply cut crystals and this frozen surface, a continuousflux which is not comparable to any flux ~have ever seen. There is a succession ofstates, each of which announces that whichfollows and contains that which precedes it. They can, properly speaking, only esaid to form multiple states when I havealre J.dy passed them and turn back to -serve their track. Whilst I was experiencing them they were so solidly organized, soprofoundly animated with a common life,that I could not have said where any oneof them finished or where another commenced. In reality no one of them eginsor ends, but all extend into each other.

f This inner life may be compared to the ;unrolling of a coil, for there is no living


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2 An Introduction tobeing who does not feel himself cominggradually to the end of his rate; and tolive s to grow old. But it may just aRwell be compared to a continual rolling up,like that of a thread on a ball, for our pastfollows us, it swells incessantly with thepresent that it picks up on its way; andconsciousness means memory.

But actually it s neither an unrollingnor a rolling up, for these two similes evokethe idea of lines and surfaces whose partsare homogeneous and superposable on oneanother. Now, there are no two identicalmoments n the life of the same conl l('iousbeing. Take the simplest sensation, sup-pORe it constant, absorb in it the entirepereonality: the consciousness which willaccompany this sensation cannot remainidentical with itself for two consecutivemoments, because the second moment al-w ys contains, over and above the tiNt, thememory that the ftrst has bequeathed to it.A conaclousness which could experience twoidentical moments would be a consciousneu


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Metaphysics 13without memory. It would die and be bomagain continually. In what other waycould one represent unconsciousness?

It would be better, then, t use as a /comparison the myriad-tinted spectrum,with ita insensible gradations leading fromone shade to another. A current of feelingwhich passed along the spectrum, aMumingin turn the tint of each of its shades, wouldexperience a series of gradual changes, eachof which would announce the one to followand would sum up those which precededit. Yet even here the successive shades ofthe spectrum always remain external onet another. They are juxtaposed; theyoccupy space. But pure duration, on the .contrary, excludes all idea of juxtaposition, /reciprocal externality, and extension.

Let us, then, rather imagine an infinitelyamall elastic body, contracted, i it werepoalble to a mathematical point. Let thisbe drawn out gradnally in such a mannerthat from the point comes a constantlyleaplae lng 1iDe Let us ftx our attention


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14 An Introduction tonot on the line as a line but on theaction by which it is traced. Let us bearin mind that this action in spite of itsduration is indivisible if accomplished with-out stopping that if a stopping-point is in-serted we have two actions instead of onethat each of these separate actions is thenthe indivisible operation of which we speakand that it is not the moving action itselfwhich is divisible but rather the stationary line it leaves behind it as its track inspace. Finally let us free ourselves fromthe space which underlies the movement inorder to consider only the movement itselfthe act of tension or extension; in shortpure mobility. We shall have this time amore faithful image of the. development ofour self in duration.

However even this image is incompleteand indeed every comparison will be in- 1sufficient because the unrolling of our

/ duration resembles in some of its s p e c h ~\ . the unity of an advancing movement and

i n others the multiplicity of expanding


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Metaphysies ISstates; and, clearly, no metaphor can express one of these two aspects withoutsacrificing the other. f I use the comparison of the spectrum with its thousandshades, I have before me a thing alreadymade, whilst duration is continually in the>making. I f I think of an elastic which isbeing -stretched, or of a spring which isextended or relaxed, I forget the richness ofcolor, characteristic of duration that islived, to O J.ly the simple movement bywhich consciousness passes from one shadeto another. The inner life is all this at .... . . . . . .


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16 An Introduction toconstitutive duration of hia own beinKnothing will ever give it to him concepta

o more than images. Here the single aimof the philosopher should be to promote acertain effort which in most men is usuallyfettered by habits of mind more u ~ t u l tlite. Now the image h s at least this adantage that it keeps us in the concrete.No ~ g e can replace the intuition of dura-oV u t many diverse images borrowed

from very different orders of things may_by the convergence of their action direct_consciousness to the precise point wherethere is a certain intuition to be seizedBy choosing images as dissimilar as poa-Bible we shall prevent any one of themfrom usurping the place of the intuition i tis intended to call up since it would thenbe driven away at once by its rivals. Byproviding that in spite of their diflereneeaof aspect they all require from the mindthe same kind of attention and in somesort the same degree of tension we shallgradually accustom consciowmeB8 to a JN1 ro:


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Metaphysics 17ticular and clearly-defined dispoBitlon-thatprecisely which it must adopt in order toappear to itself as it really is without anyveil. But then consciousness must atleast consent to make the effort. For itwill have been shown nothing: it willsimply have been placed in the attitude itmust take up in order to make the de-sire effort and so come by itself to theintuition. Concepts on the contraryespecially if they are simple-have thediladvantage of being n reality symbolflsubstituted for the object they symboliseand demand no effort on our part. Examined closely each of them t would beseen retains only that part of the objectwhich is common to t and to others and

~ 2 _ r e B 8 e B z still more than the image doeea oompari1on between the object and othersw hieh resemble it. But as the comparisonu made manifest a resemblance as thele8emblance s a property of the object andu a property has every appearance of beinga p rl of the object which p088e88el it we


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8 An Introduction toeasily persuade ourselves that by settingconcept beside concept we are reconstructing the whole of the object with its partsthus obtaining, so to speak, its intellectuale q u i v a l e n t . f ~ this way we believe that wecan form a faithful representation of dura-

j tion by setting n line the concepts of\ unity, multiplicity, continuity, finite or in\ ~ finite divisibility, etc. There precisely is

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the illusion. There also is the danger.Just in so far as abstract ideas can renderservice to analysis, that is, to the scientificstudy of the object in its relations to otherobjects, so far are they incapable of replac-. ing intuition, that is, the metaphysical investigation of what is essential and uniquein the object. For on the one hand theseconcepts, laid side by side, never actuallygive us more than an artificial reconstruction of the object, of which they can onlysymbolize certain general, and, in a wayimpersonal aspects; it is therefore uselessto believe that with them we can seize areality of which they present to us the


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Metaphysics 19shadow alone. And on the other handbesides the illusion there is also a veryserious danger. For the concept generalizes at the same time as i t abstracts. Theconcept can only symbolize a particularproperty by making it common to an infinity of things. t therefore always moreor less deforms the property by the extension it gives to it. Replaced in the metaphysical object to which it belongs aproperty coincides with the object or at leastmoulds itself on it and adopts the sameoutline. Extracted from the metaphysicalobject and presented in a concept it growsindefinitely larger and goes beyond theobject itself since henceforth it has to contain it along with a number of other objects.Thus the different concepts that we form ofthe properties of a thing inscribe round itso many circles each much too large andnone of them fitting it exactly. And yetin the thing itself the properties coincidedwith the thing and coincided consequentlywith one another. So that if we are bent


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2 An Introduction toon recoD.Btructing the object with concepts,some artifice must be sought whereby thiscoincidence of the object and its propertiescan be brought about. For example, wemay choose one of the concepts and trystarting from it to get round to the others.But we shall then soon discover that according as we start from one concept oranother, the meeting and combination ofthe concepts will take place in an altogetherdifferent way. According as we start forexample, from unity or from multiplicity,we shall have to conceive differently themultiple unity of duration. Everythingwill depend on the weight we attribute tothis or that concept, and this weight willalways be arbitrary since the concept extracted from the object has no weight, beingonly the shadow of a body In this way,as many different syst ms will spring upas there are external points of view fromwhich the reality can e examined, or largercircles in which it can be enclosed. Simpltaoncepts have, then, not only the incon-


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Metaphysics 21venience of dividing the concrete unity ofthe object into so many symbolical expressions; they also divide philosophy into dis-tinct schools, each of which takes its seat,chooses its counters, and carries on withthe others a game that will never end.Either metaphjsic jl is only this play ofideas, or else, if ~ is a serious occupation .,........_of the mind, if it is a science and not simply \an exercise, it must transcend concepts in . \order to reach intuition. Certainly, con .:/cepts are necessary to it for all the othersciences work as a ru le ;ith concepts, andmetaphysics cannot dispense with the othersciences. But it is only truly itself whenit goes beyond the concept, or at least whenit frees itself from rigid and ready-madeconcepts in order to create a kind very different from those which we habitually use;I mean supple, mobile, and almost ftuidrepresentations, always ready to mouldthemselves on the fteeting forms of intuition. We shall return later to this important point. fLet it suffice us for the moment


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22 An Introduction to:to have shown that ~ duration can be. presented to us d i r e t ~ in an intuitionl hat it can be suggested to us indirectly

by images but that it can never-if weconfine the word concept to its propermeaning-be enclosed in a conceptual

f- representation.Let us try for an instant to consider ourduration as a multiplicity. t will then benecessary to add that the terms of thismultiplicity instead of ~ i n g distinct asthey are in any other multiplicity encroachon one another; and that while we can nodoubt by an effort of imagination solidifydmation once it has elapsed divide it intojuxtaposed portions and count all theseportions yet this operation is accomplishedon the frozen memory of the duration onthe stationary trace which the mobility ofduration leaves behind it and not on theduration itself. We must admit thereforethat if there is a multiplicity here it bearsno resemblance to any other multiplicitywe know. Shall we say then that dura

-


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MetaphysicS 3tion has unity? Doubtless, a continuity ofelements which prolong themselves into oneanother participates in unity as much asin multiplicity; but this moving, changing,colored, living unity has hardly anythingin common with the abRtract, motionless,and empty unity which the concept of pureunity circumscribes. Shall we concludefrom this that duration must be defined asunity and multiplicity at the same time?But singularly enough, however much Imanipulate the two concepts, portionthem out, combine them differently, practise on them the most subtle operationsof mental chemistry, I never obtain anything which resembles the simple intuition that I have of duration; while,on the contrary, when I replace myself in ,. ,duration by an effort of intuition, I immediately percQive how it is unity, multi- .plicity, and many other things besides./These different concepts, then, were only somany standpoints from which we couldconsider duration. Neither separated nor


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24 An Introduction toreunited have they made us penetrate intoit.

We do penetrate into it however, andthat can only be by an effort of intuition.In this sense, an inner, absolute knowledgeof the duration of the self y the self ispoasible. But if metaphysics here demandsand can obtain an intuition, science hasnone the less need of an analysis. Nowit is a confusion between the functionof analysis and that of intuition whichgives birth to the discussions betweenthe schools and the con licts betweensystemsPsychology, in fact, proceeds like all theother sciences by analysis. t resolves the

~ ~ ~ e l f which has been given to it at first ina simple intuition, into sensations, feelings,ideaa, etc., which it studies separately. tsubstitutes, then, for the self a series ofelements which form the facts of psy-chology. But are these eleme ts rea ypariB That is the whole question, and it8 because it has been evaded that the

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Metaphysicsproblem of human personality has so oftenbeen stated in insoluble terms.

t is incontestable that every psychical\,state, simply because i t belongs to a person, reflects the whole of a personality. 'Every feeling, however simple it may be,contains virtually within it the wholepast and present of the being experiencingit, and, consequently, can only be separatedand ,constituted into a state by an effortof abstraction or of analysis. But it is no .less incontestable that without this effortof abstraction or analysis there would be /no possible development of the science of 1psychology. What, then, exactly, is theoperation by which a _psychologit detachesa mental state in order to erect it into amore or less independent entity? He e .gins by neglecting that special coloringof the personality which cannot be expressed in known and common terms.Then he endeavors to isolate, in the personalready thus simplified, some aspect whichlends itself to an interesting inquiry. f


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26 An Introduction tohe is eonsfderfng inclination, for eD.IDple,he will neglect the inexpressible shadewhich colon it and which makes the in-ellnation mine and not yours; he will fixhis att'A ntion on the movement by whichour personality le ns tow rds a certainobject: he will isolate this attitude, and itis this special aspect of the personality, thfaBD8pahot of the mobility of the inner life,thfs diagram of concrete inclination,that he will erect into an independentfact. There fs in this something very litewhat an artist p ssing through Pari B doeswhen he makes, for example, a sketch of atower of Notre Dame. The tower is in11eparably united to the building, which iitself no less inseparably united to theground, to its surroundings, to the wholeof Paris, and so on. t Is ftl'St nece881lr)'to detach it from all these ; only one aspectof the whole is noted, that formed by the.tower of Notre Dame. Moreover, the ape -elal form of this tower is due to the group-m, of the atones of which it f composed ;


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Metaphysicsbut the artist does not concern himself withthese stones, he notes only the silhouette ofthe tower. For the real and internal organi-zation of the thing he substitutes, then, anexternal and schematic representation. Sothat, on the whole, his sketch correspondsto an observation of the object from a cer-tain point of view and to the choice of acertain means of representation. But ex-actly the same thing holds true of theoperation by which the psychologist ex-tracts a single mental state from the wholepersonality. This isolated psychical state-s hardly anything but a sketch, the com

mencement of an artificial reconstruction;i t is the whole considered under a certainelementary aspect in which we are speciallyinterested and which we have carefullynoted. t is not a part, but an element.t has not been obtained by a natural .dismemberment, but by analysis.

Now beneath all the sketches he has madeat Paris the visitor i l l probably, by wayof memento, write the word Paris. And


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28 An Introduction toas he has really seen Paris he will be able,with the help of the original intuition hehad of the whole, to place his sketchestherein, and so join them up together. Butthere is no way of performing the inveraeoperation; it is impossible, even with ninfinite number of accurate sketches, andeven with the word Paris which indi-cates that they must be combined together,to get back to an intuition that one hasnever bad, and to give oneself an impressionof what Paris is like i f one has never seenit. This is because we are not dealing herewith real parts but with mere notes of thetotal impression. To take a still morestriking example, where the notation illmore completely symbolic, suppose that Jam shown, mixed together at random, theletters which make up a poem I arnIgnorant of. f the letters were parts tthe poem, could attempt to reconstitutethe poem with them by trying the differentpossible arrangements, as a child dOf S withthe pieces of a Chinese puzzle. But I


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Metaphysics 9should never for a moment think of attempt-ing such a thing in this case because theletters are not component parts but onlypartial e ~ ~ : p r e s s i o n s which is quite a dif-ferent thing. That is why if I know thepoem I at once put each of the letters inits proper place and join them up withoutdifficulty by a continuous connectionwhilst the inverse operation is impossible.Even when I believe I am actually attempt-ing this inverse operation even when I putthe letters end to end I begin by thinkingof some plausible meaning. I thereby givemyself an intuition and from this intuitionI attempt to redescend to the elementarysymbols which would reconstitute its ex-pression. The very idea of reconstituting athing by operations practised on symbolicelements alone implies such an absurditythat it would never occur to any one i fthey recollected that they were not dealingwith fragments of the thing but only asit were with fragments of its symbol.

uch is however the undertaking of the

\ \i///


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30 An Introduction tophiloaophers who try to reconstruct per-sonality with psychical states, whether theyconfine themselves to those states alone, orwhether they add a kind of thread for thepurpoBe of joining the states together. Bothempiricists and rationalists are victims ofthe same fallacy. Both of them mistakeportial notations for real parts, thus confusing the point of view of analysis andof intuition, of science and of metaphysics.

The empiricists say quite rightly thatpsychological analysis discovers nothingmore in personality than psychical stateliJueh is, in fact, the function, and the verydefinition of analysis. The psychologist baanothing else to do but analyze personality,that is to note certain states; at the moathe may put the label ego on these stateeIn saying they are states of the ego juatas the artist writes the word Paris OJtea.eh of his sketches. On the level at whiekthe psychologist places himself, and onwhich he mWJt place himself, the ego laonly a sign by which the primitive, and


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Metaphysics 3moreover very confused, intuition whichhas furnished the psychologist with hissubject-matter is recalled; it is only a word,and the great error here lies in believingthat while remaining on the same level wecan find behind the word a thing. Suchhas been the error of those philosophers whohave not been able to resign themselves tobeing only psychologists in psychology,Taine and Stuart Mill, for example. .Psychologi. ,in the method they apply, theyhave remained metaphysicians in the objectthey set before themselves. They desire n ~

intuition, and by a strange inconsistencythey seek this intuition analysis, which;/is the very negation of i t : l They look folthe ego, and they claim tO find it in psychical states, though this diversity of stateshas itself only been obtained, and could onlybe obtained, by transporting oneself outsidethe ego altogether, so as to make a seriesof sketches, notes, and more or less symbolicand schematic diagrams. Thus, howevermuch they place the states side by side,


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32 n Introduction tomlJ}tiplying points of contact and explorJDathe intervals, the ego always escapes them,so that they finish by seeing in t nothingbut a vain phantom. We might as welldeny that the Iliad had a meaning, on theground that we had looked in vain for thatmeaning in the intervals between the letten~ ~ which it is composed.

Philosophical empiricism is born here.then, of a confusion between the point ofview of intuition and that of analyaiSeeking for the original in the translation,where naturally it cannot be, it deniee tMexistence of the original on the r o u n ~t is not found in the translation. It Jeada

of necessity to negations; but on examiniuathe matter closely, we perceive that t negations simply mean that analysis is O ~intuition, which is self-evident. rom t toriginal, and, one must add, very indistiDIntuition which gives positive science l rmaterial, science passes immediately toanalysis, which multiplies to infinity Itaobservations of this material from outsida


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Metaphysics 33points of view. It soon comes to believethat by putting together all these diagra\nst can reconstitute the object itself. No

wonder, then, that i t sees this object fty before it like a child that would like to makea solid plaything out of the shadows outllned along the wall

But rationalism is the dupe of the sameillusion. t starts out from the same confusion as empiricism, and remains equallypowerless t reach the inner self. Likeempiricism, it considers psychical states as10 many fragments detached from an egothat binds them together. Like empiricism,it tries to join these fragments together inOl'der to re-ereate the unity of the self.Like empiricism, finally, it sees this unityt the self, in the continually renewed eftort

lt mates to clasp it, steal away indefinitelylike a phantom. But w ilst empiricism,we ry of the struggle, ends by declarithat there is nothing elae but the multipUelty of psychical states, rationalism per b aftlrming the linity of the pereoa


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4 An Introduction tot is true that, seeking this unity on thelevel of the psychical states themselves, and

obliged, besides, to put down to the accountof these states all the qualities and deter-minations that it finds by analysis (sinceanalysis by its very definition leads alwaysto states , nothing is left to it, for the unityof personality, but something purely nega-tive, the absence of all determination. Thepsychical states having necessarily in thisanalysis taken and kept for themselveseverything that can serve as matter, the

; unity of the ego can never be more than'., a form without content. t will be abso-lutely indeterminate and absolutely void.

To these detached psychical states, tothese shadows of the ego, the sum of whichwas for the empiricists the equivalent ofthe self, rationalism, in order to reconstitutepersonality, adds something still more unreal, the void in which these shadows movea place for shadows, one might say. How

could this form, which is,..ifr truth formless, serve to characterize a living, active,


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Metaphysics 5concrete personality, or to distinguish Peterfrom Paul? Is it astonishing that thephilosophers who have isolated this form''of personality should, then, find it insufficient to characterize a definite person, andthat they should be gradually led to maketheir empty ego a kind of bottomless -ceptacle, which belongs no more to Peterthan to Paul, and in which there s room,according to our preference, for entire humanity, for God, or for existence in general?I see in this matter only one difference 'between empiriciRm and rationalism. The .former, seeking the unity of the ego inthe gaps, as it were, between the psychi-cal states, is led to fill the gaps withother states, and so on indefinitely, sothat the ego, compressed in a constantlynarrowing interval, tends towards zero, asanalysis is pushed farther and farther;whilst rationalism, making the ego the placewhere mental states are lodged, is confrontedwith an empty space which we have no reason to limit here rather than there, which


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36 An Introduction togoes beyond each of the succeB8ive boundaries that we try to assign to it, whichconstantly grows larger and which tendto lose itself no longer in zero but in the

./ inftnite.The distance then between a so-calledempiricism like that of Taine and themost transcendental speculations of cert:ain

German pantheists is very much less than lagenerally supposed. ~ h method is analogous in both cases; it consists in reasoning about the elementB of a translation u

/ if they were parts of the original But atrue empiricism is that which propoees toget as near to the original itself as poa

\

sible to search deeply into its life and soby a kind of intellectual auscultation. tofeel the throbbings of its soul; and thiltrue empiricism is the true metaphysics. tis true that the task is an extremely di11l

l

cult one for none of the ready-made conceptions which thought employs in its dailyoperations can be of any use. Nothing iamore easy than to say that the ego is multi


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Metaphysics 37plicity, or that it is unity, or that lt le thesynthesie of both. Unity and multiplicityare here representations that we have noneed to cut out on the model of the object;they are found ready-made, and have onlyto be chot en from a heap. They are stock- Isize clothes which do just as well for Peteru for Paul for they set off the form ofneither. But an empiricism worthy of thename, an empiricism which works only tomeasure, is obliged for each new object thatlt studies to make an absolutely fresh effort.t cuts out for the object a concept which

i appropriate to that object alone, a concept which can as yet hardly be called aconcept, since it applies to this one thing.t does not proceed by combining current

Ideas like unity and multiplicity; but i tleada llB on the contrary, to a simple,unique representation, which, however onceformed, enables us to understand easily howlt la that we can place it in the framesmdty, multiplicity, etc., all much largertll la lt elf. In short, philosophy thus. de-


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38 An Introduction tofined does not consist in the choice of certain concepts, and in taking sides with aschool, but in the search for a unique intuition from which we can descend with equalease to different concepts, because we areplaced above the divisions of the school

/ That personality has unity cannot be de-nied but such n afllrmation teaches onenothing about the extraordinary natnre ofthe particular unity presented by pel'80nality. That our self is multiple I alsoagree, but then it must be understood thatlt Is a multiplicity which has nothing incommon with any other multiplicity. Whatis really important for philosophy Is toknow exactly what unity, what multiplicity,and what reality superior both to abstractunity and multiplicity the multiple unityof the aelf actually is. Now philosophywill know th.i8 only when it recovers poele88lon of the simple intuition of the self


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Metaphysics 39plicity or at any one of the concepts bywhich we try to define the moving life ofthe self. ut no mingling of these concepts would give anything which at all /resembles the self that endures.

If we are shown a solid cone we see without any difficulty how it narrows towardsthe summit and tends to be lost in a mathe-matical point and also how it enlarges inthe direction of the base into an indefinitelyincreasing circle. ut neither the pointnor the circle nor the juxtaposition of thetwo on a plane would give us the leastidea of a cone. The same thing holds trueof the unity and multiplicity of mental lifeand of the zero and the infinite towards

which empiricism and rationalism conductpersonality.

Concepts as we shall show elsewhere , -.../

generally go together in couples and rep re /sent two contraries. There is hardly any \concrete reality which cannot be observed \from two opposing standpoints which can- \ot consequently be sulJsumed under two


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40 An Introduction tontagonistic concepts. Hence a thesis and

an antithesis which we endeavor in vainto reconcile logically, for the very simplereason that it is impossible, with conceptsand observations taken from outside pointsof view, to make a thing. But from theobject, seized by intuition,. we pass easilyin many cases to the two contrary concepts;and as in that way thesis and antithesis cane seen to spring from reality, we grasp at

the same time how it is that the two areopposed and how they are reconciled.

It is true that to accomplish this._it inecessary to proceed by a revet:g.Lolibeusual work of the intellect. hinking uauJi .ly consists in passing from concepts tothings, and not from things to conceptTo know a reality, in the usual sense of theword know, is to take ready-made coneepts, to portion them out and to mix t h ~ ~ ~together until a practical equivalent of thereality is obtained. But it must e r m ~bered that the normal work of the intelleetila far from eing disinterested. We do not'


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Metaphysics 41aim generally at P . e > . ~ l e q g e for the sake of 1 .knowledge but -ln order to take sides todraw profit in ~ ~ ~ ~ - ~ ~ ~ _ ~ s ~ y a ~ _ i n t e r ~est. We inquire up to what point theobjeet we seek to know is this or that towhat known class it belongs and what kindof action bearing or attitude it shouldsuggest to us. These different possibleactions and attitudes are so many conceptool directions of our thought determinedonce for all; it remains only to followthem : in that precisely consists the application of concepts to things. To try to fita concept on an object is simply to askwhat we can do with the object and whatit can do for us. To label an object witha certain concept is to mark in precise termsthe kind of action or attitude the objectshould suggest to us. All knowledge prop \..erly so called i s _ ~ o r i e n t e d in a certain \Jdirection or ~ ~ ~ - f . ' ~ ~ - ~ ~ r ~ ~ L . P . Q i J . t _ f .View. t is true that our interest is often/

omplex. This is why it happens that ourknowledge of the same object may face sev


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4 ~ An Introduction to ~ r n l M m : c ~ i v e directioDH and may be takenfrom varfouH points of view. t is thiswhlc:h f:unHtitut(., H, in the usual meaning ofHw U MnM, a broad " and " comprehensive "luwwlmlgt of tlu object; the object is thenbrought. not under one single concept, butmulcr MC Veral in which it is supposed to" purt.ldpate." How does it participate inall tiWMCl eoncepts at the same time?-- .ThisiM a. qm1Mt.ion which does ~ o t conce1n ourJrnthtn, since by a tacit agreenwnt 'Wt' 11tlmll ubstnin from philosophizing.Uut to l Rtry this modt13 pen111di into)\ltlltllltophy, to } \ 8 ~ hE n.> also fnlm conceptstn tht t h i n ~ to use- in ordE-r to obtain at U l ' l l n h , ~ t t ' \ l k l l l l ' W l t ' t i ~ of an objE"Ct (thatthlll c b u ~ ""'' i ~ i n - to grs...'qla.s it is in itself) U l ~ l ' tlf . U t l \ \ - ~ inspired by a dt"t(>rmint\ i a C ~ J \ $ t ~ ~ t i n by dt".tinirlon in an'


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Metaphysics 4 \externally-taken view of the object is togo against the end that we have chosen tocondemn philosophy to an eternal skirmishing between the schools and to install contradiction in the very heart of the objectand of the method. Either there is nophilosophy possible and all knowledge ofthings is a practical knowledge aimed at

\

the profit to be drawn from them or elsep ~ ~ s ~ p y consists in placing oneself with- . Iin the object itself by an effort of intuition./ .

But in order to understand the nature ofthis intuition in order to fix with precision ;where intuition ends and where analysis/begins it is necessary to return to what wassaid earlier about the flux of duration.

t will be noticed that an essential characteristic of the concepts and diagrams towhich analysis leads is that, while beingconsidered t h ~ ~ m i n stationary. I isolate from the totality of interior life thatpsychical entity which I call a simple sensation. So long as I study it, I suppose thatit remains constant. f I noticed any


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An Introduction tochange in it, I should say that t wu nota single sensation but several succe88iveeensations, and I should then transfer toeach of these successive sensations the mmutability that I fil 8t attributed to thetotal sensation. In any case I can, bypushing the analysis far enough, alwaysmanage to arrive at elements which I agreeto consider immutable. There, and thereonly, shall I find the solid basis of operations whirh science needs for its own properdevt>lopment.f But, then, I cannot escape the objec-tion that there is no state of mind, however simple, which does not change everymoment, since there is no conscioumewithout memory, and no continuation of astate without the addition, to the present

/ feeling, of the memory of past moments. ItIs this which constitutes duration. Innerduration is the continuous life of a memol Jwhich prolongs the past into the preBeDtthe present either containing within t na distinct form the ceaeeleaely growina


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Metaphysics 45image of the past, or, more probably, show- \ing by its continual change of quality the \heavier and still heavier load we drag behind us as we grow older. Without this \survival of the past into the present there \would be no duration but only instantaneity.

Probably if I am thus accused of takingthe mental state out of duration by the merefact that I analyze it I shall reply, Is noteach of these elementary psychical states, towhich my analysis leads, itself a state whichoccupies time? My analysis, I shall say, j

does indeed resolve the inner life intostates, each of which is homogeneous with 'itself; only, since the homogeneity extendsover a definite number of minutes or ofseconds, the elementary psychical state doesnot cease to endure, although it does notchange.

But in saying that I fail to see that thedefinite number of minutes and of seconds,which I am attributing here to the elementary psychical state, has simply the value ofa sign intended to remind me that the psy-

/


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46 An Introduction tochical state supposed homogeneoua, la bareality a st te which changes nd endune.The state, taken in itself, is a perpetualbecoming. I have extracted from thia be-coming a certain average of quality, whichI have supposed invariable; I have la tJd8way constituted a stable and conaequeatlyschematic state. I have, on the other lumd,extracted from it Becoming in general, i ._a becoming which is not the becoming ofny particular thing, nd this is wh t I

have called the tim the s t ~ occupiea.Were I to look t it closely, I should seeth t this abstract time is s immoblle folme s the st te which I localize in it, tbatit could 11ow only by a continual change ofquality, and th t i it is without quality,merely the theatre of the change, i t t l lubecomes n immobile medium. I should th t the construction of this homogeneoustime is simply designed to facilitate t aecomparison between the different concrete dnrations, to permit us to count Bimult neities, nd to measure one 11ux of dur tlo


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Metaphysics 7in relation to another. . . And lastly I shouldunderstand that in attaching the sign ofa definite number of minutes and of secondsto the representation of an elementary psychical state I am merely reminding myselfand others that the state has been detachedfrom an ego which endures and merelymarking out the place where it mustagain be set in movement in order to bringit back from the abstract schematic thingit has become to the concrete state it wasat first. But I ignore all that because ithas nothing to do with analysis.

This means that analysis operates alwayson the immobile;whilst intuition places it- _.self in mobility or what comes to the samething in duration. There lies the very distinct line of demarcation between intuitionand analysis. The real the experiencedand the concrete are recognized by the factthat they are variability itself the elementby the fact that it is invariable. And theelement is invariable by definition being adiagram a simplified reconstruction often


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4 8 An Introduction toa mere symbol n any case a motioDlelaview of the moving reality.Bu t the error consists n believing thatwe can reconstruct the real with these diagrams. As we have already said and mayas well repeat here-from intuition one canpass to a n a l ~ but not from analya tointuition.

Out of variability we can make as Dl8l1Jvariations qualities and modificatioJlll as weplease since these are so many static vieWBtaken by analysis of the mobility given tointuition. But t h ~ modifications put endto end will produce nothing which re-sembles variability since they are not partsof it but elements which s quite a ditferentthing.

Consi


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Metaphysics 49

with an infinite number of them, we shallnever make movement. They are not partsof the movement, they are so many snapshots of it; they are, one might say, onlysupposed stopping-places. The o v i n ~ ~ . i t t , { \ ...is never really n any of the pointsA he' ' .most we can say is that it passes through/them. But passage, which is movement, hasnothing in common with stoppage, whichis immobility. A movement cannot besuperposed on an immobility, or it wouldthen coincide with it, which would be acontradiction. The points are not n themovement, as parts, nor even beneath it,as positions occupied by the moving body.They are simply projected. by us under themovement, as so many places where a moving body, which by hypothesis does notstop, would be if it were to stop. They are

~ s t e r 1 o u s passage from one position to the next. As if the obscurity was not dueentirely to the fact that we have supposedimmobility to be clearer than mobility andrest anterior to movement As i f the

ystery did not follow entirely . from ourattempting to pass from stoppages tomovement by way of addition, which is impossible, when it is so easy to pass, by tsimple diminution, from movement to t vslackening of movement, and so to immobility I t is movement that we must a \ custom ourselves to look upon as simplestand c ~ ~ ~ t , ~ ~ ~ ~ b i i i t y being only the ex- /treme limit of the slowing down of move- .ment, a limit reached only, perhaps, in /pthought and never realized in nature. hat 'we have done is to seek for the meaning ofthe poem in the form of the letters of whichit is composed; we have believed that byconsidering an.increasing number of letterswe would grasp at last the ever-escapingmeaning, and in desperation, seeing that it


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52 An Introduction towas useleBB to seek for a part of the II DIIn each of the letters, we have auppoeedthat i t was between each letter and thenext that this long-sought fragment ofthe mysterious sense was lodged But theletters, it must be pointed out once againare not parts of the thing, but elements ofthe symbol Again, the positions of themoving body are not parts of the movement; they are points of the space whichs supposed to underlie the movement.

This empty and immobile space which smerely concf>ived never perceived, has thevalue of a symbol only. How could youever manufacture rea,lity by manipulatlnasymbols?

But the symbol in this case responds tothe most inveterate habits of our thought.We place ourselves as a rule n immobiUty,in which we find a point of support forpractical purposes, and with this illlJDOobility we try to reconstruct motion. We onlyobtain in this way a clumsy imitation, acounterfeit of real movement, but this lmita


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Metaphysics 5tion is much more useful in life than theintuition of the thing itself would be. Now

o ~ i n has an irresistible tendency tocomdder that idea clearest which is mostoften useful to it. That is why immobilityseems to it clearer than mobility and reatanterior to movement.The dimculties to which the problem ofmovement has given rise from the earliestantiquity have originated in this way. Theyresult always from the fact that we insiston passing from space to movement fromthe trajectory to the 1light from immobilepoeitions to mobility and on paBBing froiQone to the other by way of addition. uti t ia movement which is anterior to immobiHty and the relation between positionsand a displacement is not that of parts toa whole but that of the diversity of poa-alble points of view to the real indivisibilityof the object.

l f ny other problems are born of theIllUDe illusion. What stationary points areto the movement of a moving body concepts .


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5 An Introduction to( of df1ferent qualities are to the qualitt.tlftchange of an object. The various concept.

into which a change c n be analysed retherefore 80 many stable views of the instability of the real And to think of anobject in the usual meaning of the word

think - i s to take one or more of theseimmobile views of its mobility. t eonaista,in short, in asking from time to time wherethe object is, in order that we may knowwhat to do with it. Nothing could be morelegitimate, moreover, than this method ofprocedure, 80 long as we are concerned onlywith a practical knowledge of reaHty.Knowledge, in so far as it is directed topractical matters, has only to enumeratethe principal possible attitudes of the thiDItowards us, as well as our best poesibleattitude towards it. Therein lies the ordtnary function of ready-made concepts, th088tlons with which we mark out the pa.tlof becoming. But to seek to penetrate wltllthem into the inmost nature of thing&, lato apply to the mobility of the real a


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Metaphysics 55method created in order to give stationarypoints of observation on it. t is to forgetthat if metaphysic is possible, it can onlybe a laborious, and even painful, effort toremount the natural slope of the work ofthought, in order to place oneself directly,by a kind of intellectual expansion, withinthe thing studied : in short, a passage fromreality to concepts and no longer from concepts to reality. Is it astonishing that likechildren trying to catch smoke by closingtheir hands, philosophers so often see theobject they would grasp fly before them?t is in this way that many of the quarrelsbetween the schools are perpetuated, each

of them reproaching the others with havingallowed the real to slip away. ./ ,.

But if metaphysics is to proceed by in ition, if intuition has the mobility of

uration as its object, and i f duration is

iII

/,a psychical natme shall we not be con-fining the philosopher to the exclusive

contemplation of himself? Will not phi- //losophy come to consist in watching oneself


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6 An Introduction tomerely live, as a sleepy shepherd wateheathe water fiow ? 1 To talk in this waywould be to return to the error which, sincethe beginning of this study, we have notce sed to point out. It would be to miaconceive the singular nature of duration,and at the same time the essentially active,I might almost say violent, character ofmetaphysical intuition. t would be fall-ing to see that the method we spe k ofalone permits us to go beyond idealism,as well as realism, to affirm the existenceof objects inferior and superior (though iua certain sense interior} to us, to matethem co-exist together without diftleulty,and to dissipate gradually the ob&curitieathat analysis accumulates round these greatproblems. Without entering here upon thestudy of these ditferent points, let us coafine ourseheB tO81iowing how the intuition

s_peak of is not a single act, but an In/ definite series of acts, all doubtlesa of the

t Comme un piltre auoupi reprde l'eau coaler.BoUo. Alfred de Muuet (Tranalator e note.)


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Metaphysics 57

llllllle kind, but each of a very particularspecies, and how this diversity of ach1corresponds to all the degrees of being.

f I seek to a lyze duration- that is, toresolve it into ready-made concepts- amcompelled, y the very nature of the concepts and of analysis, to take two opposingviews of duration. in general with whichI then attempt to reconstruct it. This combination, which will have, moreover, some-thing miraculous about it-since one doeRnot understand bow two contraries wouldever meet each other-ean present neithera diversity of degrees nor a variety of forms;like all miracles, it is or it is not. I shallhave to B .y, for example, that there s onthe one hand a multiplicity of succesarivestates of consciousness, and on the other a_1u.n ity which binds them together. Durationwill be the synthesis of this unity andthis multiplicity, a mysterious operationwhich takes place in darkneBB and in regard to which, I repeat, one does not seehow it would admit of shades or of degrees. \


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58 n Introduction toIn this hypothesis there is, and can onlybe one single duration that in which ourown coWJCiousness habitually works. Toexpre88 it more clearly-if we coDBi.derduration under the simple aspect of a movement accomplishing itself in space, and weseek to reduce to concepts movement considered as representative of time, we shallhave, on the one hand, as great a numberof points on the trajectory as we may deHire and on the other hand, an abstractunity which holds them together as a threadholds together the pearls of a necklace_ -tween this abstract multiplicity and this

h ~ o ~ t r c t unity, the combination, when onceit haK been posited as possible, is somethingunique, which will no more admit of shadesthan does the addition of given numbers inarithmetic. But if, instead of professing toanalyze duration i e. at bottom, to makea AynthesiK of it with concepts), we at onceplace ourHelves in it by an effort of intuition, we have the feeling of a certain verydeterminate tension, in which the determina-


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Metaphysics 9tion iteelf appears as a choice between an >infinity of possible durations. Hencefor-ward we can picture to ourselves s manydurations as w wish all very differentfrom each other although each of them onbeing reduced to concepts-that is observedexternally from two opposing points of view-always comes in the end to the same in-definable combination of the many and theone.

Let us express the same idea with moreprecision. If I consider duration as amultiplicity of moments bound to eachother by a unity which goes through themlike a thread then however short the chosenduration may be these moments are un-limited in number. I can suppose them asclose together as I please; there will alwaysbe between these mathematical points othermathematical points and so on to infinity.Looked at from the point of view of multi-plicity then duration disintegrates into apowder of moments none of which endureSeach being an inarta.ntaneity. If on the


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6o An Introduction toother hand, I coDBider tlle UDit,. wlalelabinds the moments togetller, thi CIUUlOtendure either, s n ~ by hypotbeala eftl7'thing that is changing, and everything tll tis really durable in the duration, has beellput to the account of the multiplicity ofmoment& As I probe more deeply into iteRBeDce this unity will appear to me aa eomeimmobile substr tum of that which ia mOY-ing, as some in emporal eRBeDce of time; tis this that I shall call eternity; annity of death, since t is nothing eJse ththe movement emptied of the mobility whidamade its life. ClotJely examined, tilt opla-L ioDB ~ opro ing school on the nbjeetof duration would be aeen to differ eolelyin this, that they attribute a capital import-ance to one or the other of these two eoa..eept& Some adhere to the point of view-f the mu iple; they eet up as coneretereality the distinct moment& of a time wMe1ahave reduced to powder; the D t7whtcla enables us to call the grains a p ~t1ae;r hold to be much more artiaciaL


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Metaphysics 61O t ~ r s on the contrary, set up the unity ofduration as concrete reality. They place-..themselves in the eternal. But as theireternity remains, notwithstanding, abstractsince it is empty, being the eternity of aconcept which, by hypothesis, excludes fromitself the opposing concept, one does notsee how this eternity would permit of anindefinite number of moments coexisting init. In the fi, 'st hYJ(othesis we have a world -... )resting on nothing, which must end andbegin again of its own accord at each instant. In the s e ~ n we have an infinityof abstract eternity, about which also it jis just as difficult to understand why it does (not remain enveloped in itself and how it -allows things to coexist with it. But i iboth cases, iand whichever of the two meta-physics it be that one is switched into, , i m e ~appears, from the psychological point ofview, as a mixture of two abstractions,which admit of neither degrees nor shades.In one system as in the other, there is only one unique duration which carries every- ;

i


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phers generally thought. Their error didnot lie there. t consisted in their beingalways dominated by the belief, so naturalto the human mind, that a variation canonly be the expression and development ofwhat is invariable. Whence it followedthat action w s an enfeebled contemplation,duration a deceptive and shifting image ofimmobile eternity, the Soul a fall from theIdea. The whole of the philosophy whichbegins with Plato and culminates in Plotinus is the development of a principle whichmay be formulated thus: There is morein the immutable than in the moving, andwe pass from the stable to the unstable bya mere diminution. Now i t is the contrarywhich is tru

Modern II ience dates from the day when


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76 An Introduction to/ mobility wu Bet up u an iDdepelldeat~ t It datee from the day whea

Galileo, eetting a ball rolling down aa IDeliDed plane, firmly reBOlved to atuq tillsmovement from top to bottom for itllelt, initeelf, instead of eeeking ita principle iD

j_ :_..he eoueepta of Aigh and ot two immobllities by which Ariatotle believed becould adequately explain the mobllity. Andthia iB not an ilolated fact in the bi8tor7of BCience Several of the great diaeoverlea,of thoee at leaat which have tr&DBformedthe poaitive aciencee or which have creatednew onea, have been BO many BOundinpin the depthB of pure duration. The moreliving the reality touched, the deeper wasthe BOunding.

But the lead-line aunk to the aea bottombring& up a fluid maa which the lUll ' heatquickly dries into BOUd and discontinuousgralna of aand. And the intuition of dnm;tlon. when, l t 1a expneed to.lite ral' of thepdentandly. n like Jllftnner uickly t1lrp

to f lgd1 ~ and immobile concept


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MetaphysicsIn the living mobility of things the U -derstanding is bent on marking real orvirtual stations it notes departures andarrivals for this is all that concerns thethought of man in so far as it is simplyhuman. t is more than human to graspwhat is happening in the intervaL Butphilosophy can only be an effort to tran-scend the human condition. .

Men of science have fixed their attentionmainly on the concepts with which theyhave marked out the pathway of intuition.The more they laid stre88 on theee residualproducts which have turned into symbolsthe more they attributed a symbolic char-acter to every kind of science. And themore they believed in the symbolic character of science the more did they indeedmake science symbolical. Gradually theyhave blotted out all difference in positiveIICieDce between the natural and the arti-ftcial between the d t of immediate intu-ition and the enormous work of analyrdawldch the understanding pursuea round


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78 An Introduction tointuition. Thus they have prepared the ff '1for a doctrine which a1ll rms the relativityof all our knowledge.

But metaphysics h s also labored to thesame end.

}Jow could the masters of modern i l ~phy, who have been renovators of BCieneeas well as of metaphysics, have h d no II8DII8of the moving continuity of reality? Bowcould they have abstained from placingthemselves in what we call concrete duration? They have done so to a greater extent than they were aware; above all, muchmore than they said. f we endeavor tolink together, by a continuous connection,the intuition about which systems havebecome organized, we find, together witother convergent and divergent 1iD.ea onevery determinate direction of thought ndof feeling. What is this latent thoughtHow shall we express the feeling? Toborrow once more the language of thePlatonists, we will say-depriving diewords of their psychological aenae and t ~


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Metaphysics 79ing the name of Idea to a certain settlingdown into easy intelligibility and that ofSoul to a certain longing after the restless-ness of life-that an invisible currentcauses modern philosophy to place the Soulabove the Idea. t thus tends like m o ~ r nscience and even more so than modernscience to advance in an opposite direc-tion to ancient thought.

But this metaphysics like this sciencehas enfolded its deeper life in a rich tissueof symbols forgetting something that whilescience needs symbols for its analytical -velopment the main object of metaphysicss to do away with symbols. Here again

\ fthe understanding has pursued its work offixing dividing and reconstructing. t haspursued this it is true under a rather d ~ f . /ferent form. Without insisting on a pointwhich we propose to develop elsewhere itis enough here to say that the understand-\ ..ing whose function it is to operate on stable jelements may look for stability either in 'relations or in things In so far as it o r ~ : ... .....


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8o n Introduction toon concepts of relatioDB it eulmftea IDcientijic symbolism. In so far as i t worbon concepts of thingB it culmiDatea ImetaphgBicalsymbolism But in both eueathe arrangement comes from the under-standing. Hence t would fain believe itaelfindependent. Rather than recognise at oneewhat i t ; ; s to an intuition of the deptlulof realU.Y t prefers exposing itself to thedanger that its whole work may be lootedupon as nothing but an artificial lll1'&JII8ment of symbols. So that l we were to holdon to the letter of what metaphyllictauandscientists say and also to the materJalaspect of what they do we might beUeftthat the metaphysicians have dug a deeptunnel beneath reality that the aclentfatahave thrown an elegant bridge over it utthat the moving stream of things p8ll1elbetween these two artlftcial constructioDIwithout touching them.

One of the principal arti1lcee of thetJan criticism consiBted in taking thephysician and the scientist HteralJJ


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Metaphysics 8forcing both metaphysics and science to theextreme limit of symbolism to which theycould go and to which moreover they maketheir way of their own accord s soon asthe understanding claims an independencefull of perils. Having once overlooked the ties that bind science and metaphysics tointellectual intuition Kant has no di l-culty in showing that our science is whollyrelative and our metaphysics entirely artiftclal Since he has exaggerated the indpendence of the understanding incases ince he has relieved both meta-physics and science of the intellectual ntuition which served them as inward ballastscience with its relations presents to himno more than a film of form and meta-physics with its things no more than aftlm of matter. Is it surprising that thefirst then reveals to him only frameapacked within frames and the aeeond onlphantoms chasing phantoms?

e has struck such telling blows at ourICience and our metaphysic that they have

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82 An Introduction tonot even yet quite reeovered from ilaelrbewilderment. Our mind would readlJysign itself to seeing in science a mowlecJaethat is wholly relative, and in metaphyldea aspeculation that Is entirely empty. I t aeemato us, even at this present date that tileKantian criticism applies to l l JDeta.physics and to all science. In reality, ltapplies more especially to the philoaop)Q'of the ancients, as also to the form ltalfborrowed from the ancients in which themodems have most often left their thouglat.It is valid against a metaphyaie whlellclaims to give us a ringl and completedsystem of things, against a science profeaa.ing to be a lin system of relatiOD8; IDshort, against a science and a metaphyalepresenting themselves with the archltee-tural simplicity of the Platonic theo 7 ofideas or of a Greek temple. t met pbyaics claims to be made up of concept,which were ours before its advent, if it eoaBiata in an ingenious arrangement of pre-ui ting ideas which we utilise aa bulldlDg


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Metaphysicsmaterial for an edifice, if, in short, it lanything else but the constant expansionof our mind, the ever-renewed effort totJ 8llBCelld our actual ideas and perhapsalso our elementary logic, it is but too evident that like all the works of pure understanding, it becomes artificial. And i fscience is wholly and entirely a work ofanalysis or of conceptual representation,i f experience is only to serve therein as averification for clear ideas, if, instead ofstarting from multiple and diverse intuition-which insert themselves in the particular movement of each reality, but do notalways dovetail into each other -lt _pro-~ vast mathematic, a single~ closed-in u.stem ot.relatjona, impriwmlog the whole of reality bL a ~ e t w o r k _pre- in advance.-tt becomes a knowledppurely relative to hum n upderstJmdiDg. fwe ook carefully into the Critique o PurtJlleaaOA we see that science for ant didIndeed mean this kind of umveraal matluJt n e ~ n o , and metaphysics this practically un


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84 An Introduction toaltered Pl6t0fli3m In truth, the dream ofa universal mathematic is itself but ~viva) of Platouism. Universal mathematicis what the world of ideas becomes whenwe suppose that the Idea consista m arelation or in a law, and no longer in athing. Kant took this dream of a fewmodern philosophers for a reality; morethan this, he believed that all IICientJJI.cknowledge was only a detached fragmentof, or rather a stepping-stone to, unive:raa.lmathematics. Hence the main task of theritique was to lay the foundation of tllia

mathematic-that is, to determine what t aeintellect must be, and what the object,in order that an uninterrupted matlaematic may bind them together. And ofnecesalty, i all possible experience can bemade t enter thus into the rigid and already formed framework of our underlt&Jid.ing, i t la (unlesa we assume a pre-eetablfahed

See on th a aubject a very intenetlq article brBaduliiCU-Motl U, Zur Entwickelunc TOD ltaaeaTheorie der Naturcauaalitit, in Wudt a P .._.._ .. sws r ol 1x., lBH).


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Metaphysicsharmony because our understanding itselforganizes nature, and finds itself againtherein as in a mirror. Hence the possibility of science which owes all its efficacyto its relativity and the impossibility ofmetaphysics since the latter finds nothingmore to do than to parody with phantoms ofthings the work of conceptual arrangementwhich science practises seriously on relations. Briefly the whole Critique of PureReason ends in establishing that Platonismillegitimate if Ideas are things becomes le-gitimate if Ideas are relations and that theready-made idea once brought down in thisway from heaven to earth is in fact as Platoheld the common basis alike of thought andof nature. But the whole of the Critique ofPure Reason also rests on this postulatethat our in.tellect is incapable of anythingbut Platonizing that is of pouring all possible experience into pre-existing moulds.

On this the whole question depends. fscientific knowledge is indeed what Kantsupposed then there s one simple science

\\


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8 An Introduction topl eformed and even preformul.ataJ la ature, u Aristotle believed; great dUeoY-eriee, then, serve only to illuminate, polatby point, the all eady drawn Hne of tht8logic, immanent in things, just 8 8 on thenight of a f ~ t we light up one by one therows of gas-jets which already outliaethe shape of some building. And l metaphysical knowledge is really what antsupposed, it is reduced to a hoi e betweentwo attitudes of the mind before all thegreat problems, both equally possible; itamanifestations are so many arbitrary andalways ephemeral choices between two aolutions, virtually formulated from all eterlity : i t lives and dies by antinomies. Butthe truth is that modern science doea notpresent thi3 unilinear simplicity, nor doeamodern metaphysics present these frre.dncible oppositions.Modem science is neither one nor Bimp1eI t rests, I freely admit, on ideas which iDthe end we ft nd clear; but tbeae ideas haftgradually become clear through the


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Metaphysicsmade of them; they owe most of their clearness to the light which the facts, and theapplications to which they led, have byreflection shed on them the clearness of aconcept being scarcely anything more atbottom than the certainty, at last obtained,of manipulating the concept profitably. Atits origin, more than one of these conceptsmust have appeared obscure, not easilyreconcilable with the concepts already admitted into science, and indeed very nearthe border-line of absurdity. This meansthat science does not proceed by an orderlydovetailing together of concepts predestinedto fit each other exactly. True and fruitfulideas are so many close contacts with currents of reality, which ~ not necessarilyconverge on the same point. However, theconcepts n which they lodge themselvesmanage somehow, by rubbing off each other scorners, to settle down well enough together.

On the other hand, modern metaphysicss not made up of solutions so radical thatthey can culminate n irreducible oppo-


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I

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88 An Introduction tollltiona. t would be ao, no doubt, i f thaNwere no meaJl8 of accepting at the U l etime and on the same level the thesis aDdthe antithesis of the antinomies. utphil 11 phy consists precisely in this, thatby an effort of intuition one plarea oneeelfwithin that concrete reality, of which theCritique takes from without the two op-pok d views, thesis and antithesis. I couldnever imagine how black and white iater-penetl' te if I had never ~ ~ e e n gray; butonce I have eeen gray I easily understandhow it can be considered from two poiDtBof view, that of white and that of blaetDoctrines which have a certain bula of In-tuition escape the Kantian mticlam ex-actly in eo far as they are intnitive; andthese doctrines are the whole of meta-physics, provided we ignore the metaphyaicllwhich is xed and dead in tlaau and eoa-llider only that which is living in f ~ ~ l o e o -Mr. The dlvergenciea between the achoollltha t is, broadly speaking, between the

groupe of dillclples formed round a few


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Metaphysicsgreat masters are certainly striking. Butwould we find them as marked between themasters themselves? Something here dominates the diversity of systems, something,we repeat, which is simple and definite likea sounding, about which one feels that it hastouched at greater or less depth the bottom ofthe same ocean, though each time it brings upto the surface very different materials. t ison these materials that the disciples usuallywork ; in this lies the function of analysis. And the master, in so far as he formulates, develops, and translates into abstractideas what he brings, is already in a wayhis own disciple. ~ u t the simple act which1'-, ,started the analysis, and whkJJ i W . . ~ l s . : ~

I tself b e h i ~ ~ - ~ ~ ~ ~ i . i ' l ~ ~ e e d s from ifaculty quite different from the analytical .

- Tlifsl8, of1ts very e ~ ~ i t i Q I , _ . i u t u i . t i o n .In conclusion, we may remark that t h e r eis nothing mysterious in this faculty.

Every one of us has had occasion to exe r c i ~ it to a certain extent. Any one ofus, for instance, who has attempted literary


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90 An Introduction to. . . _. . . . . llat . . . he IAihjeetbeela ltucUec1 at 1eDgth, tbe maferlall

all eoDeeted, ADd the aota all made, .. ..tll.bac more 18 Deeded in onler to aet; abouttile work of eompoaitloll i t . l f ADd tluat lau ottea fti J paiDfol effort to plaee oe-lehea directly at the heart of tlae Rbjeetaad to eeet u deeply u poll8ib1e u Jm.pul8e, after whieh we Deed only let oar-lelvea p . Thia impuble, once recelftd.lltarta the mind on a path where l t re-dllcoftn all the Information i t had eo}.lected, and a thou.aand other detaila bMldea;lt develope and aualyzeB itself into ten8llwhieh could be enumerated inde8Dlte J.1 he farther we go, the more terma we cJIIt.eoYV; we ahall never B J all that could lie.W uad yet i l we turn back aaddeDly~ the lmpalle that we ~ behind e .ud U7 to it, l t la tDGt a W . but tile dlrectlon of a am .

t l l .JaddnitelJ ~ 1t~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ M ~ ~ ~ ~ c U mt.- to lie IIOmetlaiD.g of the =


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Metaphysics 91kind. What corresponds here to the docu-ents and notes of literary composition isthe sum of observations and experience \gathered together by positive science. Forwe do not obtain an intuition from reality \t ha t is, an intellectual sympathy with the .

most intimate part of it-unless we have :won its confidence by a long fellowshiJ /with its superficial manifestations. And it is not merely a question of assimilating themost conspicuous facts; so immense a massof facts must be accumulated and fused to-gether, that in this fusion all the precon-< eived and premature ideas which observersmay unwittingly have put into their ob-servations will be certain to neutralize eachother. In this way only can the bare ma-teriality of the known facts be exposed toview. Even in the simple and privilegedcase which we have used as an example,even for the direct contact of the self withthe self, the final effort of distinct intu-ition would be impossible to any one whohad not combined and compared with each


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92 An Introduction to Metaphysicsother a very large number of psychologicalanalyaes. The ma tei'B of modern philOBO-phy were men who had assimilated allthe clentific knowledge of their time, andthe partial eclipse of metaphysics for thelast half-century has evidently no othercause than the extraordinary di1Bcultywhich the philosopher finds to-day in getting into touch \\ith positive science, whichhas become far too specialized. ut metaphysical intuition, although it can be obtained only through material knowledge, iBquite other than the mere summary or. synthesis of that knowledge. t is distinctfrom these, we repeat, as the motor impulse is distinct from the path travel'lled bythe moving body, as the tension of thespring is distinct from the visible movements of the pendulum. In this aenaemetaphysics has nothing in common witha generalisation of facts and nevertheleslt mJght be de lned u integr l 61bptnitmoe

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bergson, an introduction to metaphysics

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