A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson | Page 8

total reconstruction can never be too vigorously condemned.
Is it from the void that we set out to think? Do we think in void, and
with nothing? Common ideas of necessity form the groundwork for the
broidery of our advanced thought. Further, even if we succeeded in our
impossible task, should we, in so doing, have corrected the causes of
error which are today graven upon the very structure of our intelligence,
such as our past life has made it? These errors would not cease to act

imperceptibly upon the work of revision intended to apply the remedy.
It is from within, by an effort of immanent purgation, that the necessary
reform must be brought about. And philosophy's first task is to institute
critical reflection upon the obscure beginnings of thought, with a view
to shedding light upon its spontaneous virgin condition, but without
any vain claim to lift it out of the current in which it is actually
plunged.
One conclusion is already plain: the groundwork of common-sense is
sure, but the form is suspicious.
In common-sense is contained, at any rate virtually and in embryo, all
that can ever be attained of reality, for reality is verification, not
construction.
Everything has its starting-point in construction and verification. Thus
philosophical research can only be a conscious and deliberate return to
the facts of primal intuition. But common-sense, being prepossessed in
a practical direction, has doubtless subjected these facts to a process of
interested alteration, which is artificial in proportion to the labour
bestowed. Such is Mr Bergson's fundamental hypothesis, and it is far-
reaching. "Many metaphysical difficulties probably arise from our habit
of confounding speculation and practice; or of pushing an idea in the
direction of utility, when we think we fathom it in theory; or, lastly, of
employing in thought the forms of action." (Preface to "Matter and
Memory". First edition.)
The work of reform will consist therefore in freeing our intelligence
from its utilitarian habits, by endeavouring at the outset to become
clearly conscious of them.
Notice how far presumption is in favour of our hypothesis. Whether we
regard organic life in the genesis and preservation of the individual, or
in the evolution of species, we see its natural direction to be towards
utility: but the effort of thought comes after the effort of life; it is not
added from outside, it is the continuance and the flower of the former
effort. Must we not expect from this that it will preserve its former
habits? And what do we actually observe? The first gleam of human
intelligence in prehistoric times is revealed to us by an industry; the cut
flint of the primitive caves marks the first stage of the road which was
one day to end in the most sublime philosophies. Again, every science
has begun by practical arts. Indeed, our science of today, however

disinterested it may have become, remains none the less in close
relation with the demands of our action; it permits us to speak of and to
handle things rather than to see them in their intimate and profound
nature. Analysis, when applied to our operations of knowledge, shows
us that our understanding parcels out, arrests, and quantifies, whereas
reality, as it appears to immediate intuition, is a moving series, a flux of
blended qualities.
That is to say, our understanding solidifies all that it touches. Have we
not here exactly the essential postulates of action and speech? To speak,
as to act, we must have separable elements, terms and objects which
remain inert while the operation goes on, maintaining between
themselves the constant relations which find their most perfect and
ideal presentment in mathematics.
Everything tends, then, to incline us towards the hypothesis in question.
Let us regard it henceforward as expressing a fact.
The forms of knowledge elaborated by common-sense were not
originally intended to allow us to see reality as it is.
Their task was rather, and remains so, to enable us to grasp its practical
aspect. It is for that they are made, not for philosophical speculation.
Now these forms nevertheless have existed in us as inveterate habits,
soon becoming unconscious, even when we have reached the point of
desiring knowledge for its own sake.
But in this new stage they preserve the bias of their original utilitarian
function, and carry this mark with them everywhere, leaving it upon the
fresh tasks which we are fain to make them accomplish.
An inner reform is therefore imperative today, if we are to succeed in
unearthing and sifting, in our perception of nature, under the veinstone
of practical symbolism, the true intuitional content.
This attempt at return to the standpoint of pure contemplation and
disinterested experience is a task very different from the task of science.
It is one thing to regard