A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson | Page 4

the reality of Time. To produce this
feeling, much more has been necessary than a close study of my works:
it has required deep sympathy of thought, the power, in fact, of
rethinking the subject in a personal and original manner. Nowhere is
this sympathy more in evidence than in your concluding pages, where
in a few words you point out the possibilities of further developments
of the doctrine. In this direction I should myself say exactly what you
have said."
Paris, 28th March 1912.
CONTENTS
Preface
GENERAL VIEW
I. Method.
Scope of Henri Bergson's Philosophy. Material and Authorities.
Investigation of Common-sense. Value of Science. Perception
Discussed. Practical Life and Reality. Concepts and Symbolism.
Intuition and Analysis. Use of Metaphor. The Philosopher's Task.
II. Teaching.
The Ego. Space and Number. Parallelism. Henri Bergson's View of
Mind and Matter. Qualitative Continuity. Memory. Real Duration
Heterogeneous. Liberty and Determinism. Meaning of Reality.
Evolution and Automatism. Triumph of Man. The Vital Impulse.
Objections Refuted. Place of Religion in the New Philosophy.

ADDITIONAL EXPLANATIONS

I. Henri Bergson's Work and the General Directions of Contemporary
Thought.
Mathematics and Philosophy. The Inert and the Living. Realism and
Positivism. Henri Bergson and the Intuition of Duration.
II. Immediacy.
Necessity of Criticism. Utilitarianism of Common-sense. Perception of
Immediacy.
III. Theory of Perception.
Pure and Ordinary Perception. Kant's Position. Relation of Perception
to Matter. Complete Experience.
IV. Critique of Language.
Dynamic Schemes. Dangers of Language. The Eleatic Dialectic.
Scientific Thought and the Task of Intuition. Discussion of Change.
V. The Problem of Consciousness: Duration and Liberty.
States as Phases in Duration. The Scientific View of Time. Duration
and Freedom. Liberty and Determinism in the Light of Henri Bergson's
Philosophy.
VI. The Problem of Evolution: Life and Matter.
Evolution and Creation. Laws of Conservation and Degradation.
Quantity and Quality. Secondary Value of Matter.
VII. The Problem of Knowledge: Analysis and Intuition.
Difficulties of Kant's Position. Insufficiency of Intelligence. Henri
Bergson and the Problem of Reason. Geometric and Vital Types of
Order.
VIII. Conclusion.
Moral and Religious Problems. Henri Bergson's Position.
A NEW PHILOSOPHY
GENERAL VIEW
I. Method.
There is a thinker whose name is today on everybody's lips, who is
deemed by acknowledged philosophers worthy of comparison with the
greatest, and who, with his pen as well as his brain, has overleapt all
technical obstacles, and won himself a reading both outside and inside
the schools. Beyond any doubt, and by common consent, Mr Henri
Bergson's work will appear to future eyes among the most
characteristic, fertile, and glorious of our era. It marks a
never-to-be-forgotten date in history; it opens up a phase of

metaphysical thought; it lays down a principle of development the
limits of which are indeterminable; and it is after cool consideration,
with full consciousness of the exact value of words, that we are able to
pronounce the revolution which it effects equal in importance to that
effected by Kant, or even by Socrates.
Everybody, indeed, has become aware of this more or less clearly. Else
how are we to explain, except through such recognition, the sudden
striking spread of this new philosophy which, by its learned rigorism,
precluded the likelihood of so rapid a triumph?
Twenty years have sufficed to make its results felt far beyond
traditional limits: and now its influence is alive and working from one
pole of thought to the other; and the active leaven contained in it can be
seen already extending to the most varied and distant spheres: in social
and political spheres, where from opposite points, and not without
certain abuses, an attempt is already being made to wrench it in
contrary directions; in the sphere of religious speculation, where it has
been more legitimately summoned to a distinguished, illuminative, and
beneficent career; in the sphere of pure science, where, despite old
separatist prejudices, the ideas sown are pushing up here and there; and
lastly, in the sphere of art, where there are indications that it is likely to
help certain presentiments, which have till now remained obscure, to
become conscious of themselves. The moment is favourable to a study
of Mr Bergson's philosophy; but in the face of so many attempted
methods of employment, some of them a trifle premature, the point of
paramount importance, applying Mr Bergson's own method to himself,
is to study his philosophy in itself, for itself, in its profound trend and
its authenticated action, without claiming to enlist it in the ranks of any
cause whatsoever.
I.
Mr Bergson's readers will undergo at almost every page they read an
intense and singular experience. The curtain drawn between ourselves
and reality, enveloping everything including ourselves in its illusive
folds, seems of a sudden to fall, dissipated by enchantment, and display
to the mind depths of light till then undreamt, in which reality itself,
contemplated face