A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson | Page 7

Review"
(January 1903): a short but marvellously suggestive memoire,
constituting the best preface to the reading of the books themselves. We
may say in passing, that we should be grateful to Mr Bergson if he
would have it bound in volume form, along with some other articles
which are scarcely to be had at all today.
II.

Every philosophy, prior to taking shape in a group of co-ordinated
theses, presents itself, in its initial stage, as an attitude, a frame of mind,
a method. Nothing can be more important than to study this
starting-point, this elementary act of direction and movement, if we
wish afterwards to arrive at the precise shade of meaning of the
subsequent teaching. Here is really the fountain-head of thought; it is
here that the form of the future system is determined, and here that
contact with reality takes effect.
The last point, particularly, is vital. To return to the direct view of
things beyond all figurative symbols, to descend into the inmost depths
of being, to watch the throbbing life in its pure state, and listen to the
secret rhythm of its inmost breath, to measure it, at least so far as
measurement is possible, has always been the philosopher's ambition;
and the new philosophy has not departed from this ideal. But in what
light does it regard its task? That is the first point to clear up. For the
problem is complex, and the goal distant.
"We are made as much, and more, for action than for thought," says Mr
Bergson; "or rather, when we follow our natural impulse, it is to act
that we think." ("L'Evolution Creatrice", page 321.) And again, "What
we ordinarily call a fact is not reality such as it would appear to an
immediate intuition, but an adaptation of reality to practical interests
and the demands of social life." ("Matiere et Memoire", page 201.)
Hence the question which takes precedence of all others is: to
distinguish in our common representation of the world, the fact in its
true sense from the combinations which we have introduced in view of
action and language.
Now, to rediscover nature in her fresh springs of reality, it is not
sufficient to abandon the images and conceptions invented by human
initiative; still less is it sufficient to fling ourselves into the torrent of
brute sensations. By so doing we are in danger of dissolving our
thought in dream or quenching it in night.
Above all, we are in danger of committal to a path which it is
impossible to follow. The philosopher is not free to begin the work of
knowledge again upon other planes, with a mind which would be
adequate to the new and virgin issue of a simple writ of oblivion.
At the time when critical reflection begins, we have already been long
engaged in action and science, by the training of individual life, as by

hereditary and racial experience, our faculties of perception and
conception, our senses and our understanding, have contracted habits,
which are by this time unconscious and instinctive; we are haunted by
all kinds of ideas and principles, so familiar today that they even pass
unobserved. But what is it all worth?
Does it, in its present state, help us to know the nature of a disinterested
intuition?
Nothing but a methodical examination of consciousness can tell us that;
and it will take more than a renunciation of explicit knowledge to
recreate in us a new mind, capable of grasping the bare fact exactly as it
is: what we require is perhaps a penetrating reform, a kind of
conversion.
The rational and perceptive function we term our intelligence emerges
from darkness through a slowly lifting dawn. During this twilight
period it has lived, worked, acted, fashioned and informed itself. On the
threshold of philosophical speculation it is full of more or less
concealed beliefs, which are literally prejudices, and branded with a
secret mark influencing its every movement. Here is an actual situation.
Exemption from it is beyond anyone's province. Whether we will or no,
we are from the beginning of our inquiry immersed in a doctrine which
disguises nature to us, and already at bottom constitutes a complete
metaphysic. This we term common- sense, and positive science is itself
only an extension and refinement of it. What is the value of this work
performed without clear consciousness or critical attention? Does it
bring us into true relation with things, into relation with pure
consciousness?
This is our first and inevitable doubt, which requires solution.
But it would be a quixotic proceeding first to make a void in our mind,
and afterwards to admit into it, one by one, after investigation, such and
such a concept, or such and such a principle. The illusion of the clean
sweep and