{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6336/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6336","id":"gutenberg_6336","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6336","summary":null,"tags":["Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Knowledge, Theory of"],"text":"The Misuse of Mind\n\nA Study of Bergson\u2019s\nAttack on Intellectualism\n\nby Karin Stephen\n\n_Formerly Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge_\n\nWith a Prefatory Letter by\nHENRI BERGSON\n\nLONDON\nKEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD\nNEW YORK: HARCOURT. BRACE & COMPANY. INC.\n\n1922\n\n_To Professor Henri Bergson\nWith respect and gratitude_\n\nContents\n\n PREFATORY NOTE\n PREFACE\n CHAPTER I. EXPLANATION\n CHAPTER II. FACT\n CHAPTER III. MATTER AND MEMORY\n\n\n\n\nPREFATORY  NOTE\n\n\n_Being an extract from a letter by Professor Henri Bergson_\n\n\nAyant lu de pr\u00e8s le travail de Mrs. Stephen je le trouve int\u00e9ressant au\nplus haut point. C\u2019est une interpr\u00e9tation personelle et originale de\nl\u2019ensemble de mes vues\u2014interpr\u00e9tation qui vaut par elle-m\u00eame,\nind\u00e9pendamment de ce qui j\u2019 ai \u00e9crit. L\u2019auteur s\u2019est assimil\u00e9\n_l\u2019esprit_ de la doctrine, puis, se d\u00e9gageant de la mat\u00e9rialit\u00e9 du\ntexte elle a d\u00e9velopp\u00e9 \u00e0 sa mani\u00e8re, dans la direction qu\u2019elle avait\nchoisi, des id\u00e9es qui lui paraissaient fondamentales. Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la\ndistinction qu\u2019elle \u201c\u00e9tablit entre \u201c fact \u201c et \u201c matter, \u201c elle a pu\nramener \u00e0 l\u2019unit\u00e9, et pr\u00e9senter avec une grande rigueur logique, des\nvues que j\u2019avais \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9, en raison de ma m\u00e9thode de recherche,\nd\u2019isoler les unes des autres. Bref, son travail a une grande valeur; il\nt\u00e9moigne d\u2019une rare force de pens\u00e9e.\n\nHENRI BERGSON.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe immense popularity which Bergson\u2019s philosophy enjoys is sometimes\ncast up against him, by those who do not agree with him, as a reproach.\nIt has been suggested that Berg-son\u2019s writings are welcomed simply\nbecause they offer a theoretical justification for a tendency which is\nnatural in all of us but against which philosophy has always fought,\nthe tendency to throw reason overboard and just let ourselves go.\nBergson is regarded by rationalists almost as a traitor to philosophy,\nor as a Bolshevik inciting the public to overthrow what it has taken\nyears of painful effort to build up.\n\nIt is possible that some people who do not understand this philosophy\nmay use Bergson\u2019s name as a cloak for giving up all self-direction and\nletting themselves go intellectually to pieces, just as hooligans may\nuse a time of revolution to plunder in the name of the Red Guard. But\nBergson\u2019s philosophy is in reality as far from teaching mere laziness\nas Communism is from being mere destruction of the old social order.\n\nBergson attacks the use to which we usually put our minds, but he most\ncertainly does not suggest that a philosopher should not use his mind\nat all; he is to use it for all it is worth, only differently, more\nefficiently for the purpose he has in view, the purpose of knowing for\nits own sake.\n\nThere is, of course, a sense in which doing anything in the right way\nis simply letting one\u2019s self go, for after all it is easier to do a\nthing well than badly\u2014it certainly takes much less effort to produce\nthe same amount of result. So to know in the way which Bergson\nrecommends does in a sense come more easily than attempting to get the\nknowledge we want by inappropriate methods. If this saving of waste\neffort is a fault, then Bergson must plead guilty. But as the field of\nknowledge open to us is far too wide for any one mind to explore, the\nnew method of knowing, though it requires less effort than the old to\nproduce the same result, does not thereby let us off more easily, for\nwith a better instrument it becomes possible to work for a greater\nresult.\n\nIt is not because it affords an excuse for laziness that Bergson\u2019s\nphilosophy is popular but because it gives expression to a feeling\nwhich is very widespread at the present time, a distrust of systems,\ntheories, logical constructions, the assumption of premisses and then\nthe acceptance of everything that follows logically from them. There is\na sense of impatience with thought and a thirst for the actual, the\nconcrete. It is because the whole drift of Bergson\u2019s writing is an\nincitement to throw over abstractions and get back to facts that so\nmany people read him, hoping that he will put into words and find an\nanswer to the unformulated doubt that haunts them.\n\nIt was in this spirit that the writer undertook the study of Bergson.\nOn the first reading he appeared at once too persuasive and too vague,\nspecious and unsatisfying: a closer investigation revealed more and\nmore a coherent theory of reality and a new and promising method of\ninvestigating it. The apparent unsatisfactoriness of the first reading\narose from a failure to realize how entirely new and unfamiliar the\npoint of view is from which Bergson approaches metaphysical\nspeculation. In order to understand Bergson it is necessary to adopt\nhis attitude and that is just the difficulty, for his attitude is the\nexact reverse of that which has been inculcated in us by the traditions\nof our language and education and now comes to us naturally. This\ncommon sense attitude is based on certain assumptions which are so\nfamiliar that we simply take them for granted without expressly\nformulating them, and indeed, for the most part, without even realizing\nthat we have been making any assumptions at all.\n\nBergson\u2019s principal aim is to direct our attention to the reality which\nhe believes we all actually know already, but misinterpret and\ndisregard because we are biassed by preconceived ideas. To do this\nBergson has to offer some description of what this reality is, and this\ndescription will be intelligible only if we are willing and able to\nmake a profound change in our attitude, to lay aside the old\nassumptions which underlie our every day common sense point of view and\nadopt, at least for the time being, the assumptions from which Bergson\nsets out. This book begins with an attempt to give as precise an\naccount as possible of the old assumptions which we must discard and\nthe new ones which we must adopt in order to understand Bergson\u2019s\ndescription of reality. To make the complete reversal of our ordinary\nmental habits needed, for understanding what Bergson has to say\nrequires a very considerable effort from anyone, but the feat is\nperhaps most difficult of all for those who have carefully trained\nthemselves in habits of rigorous logical criticism. In attempting to\ndescribe what we actually know in the abstract logical terms which are\nthe only means of intercommunication that human beings possess, Bergson\nis driven into perpetual self-contradiction, indeed, paradoxical though\nit may sound, unless he contradicted himself his description could not\nbe a true one. It is easier for the ordinary reader to pass over the\nself contradictions, hardly even being aware of them, and grasp the\nunderlying meaning: the trained logician is at once pulled up by the\nnonsensical form of the description and the meaning is lost in a welter\nof conflicting words. This, I think, is the real reason why some of the\nmost brilliant intellectual thinkers have been able to make nothing of\nBergson s philosophy: baffled by the self-contradictions into which he\nis necessarily driven in the attempt to convey his meaning they have\nhastily assumed that Bergson had no meaning to convey.\n\nThe object of this book is to set out the relation between explanations\nand the actual facts which we want to explain and thereby to show\nexactly why Bergson _must_ use self-contradictory terms if the\nexplanation of reality which he offers is to be a true one.\n\nHaving first shown what attitude Bergson requires us to adopt I have\ngone on to describe what he thinks this new way of looking at reality\nwill reveal. This at once involves me in the difficulty with which\nBergson wrestles in all his attempts to describe reality, the\ndifficulty which arises from the fundamental discrepancy between what\nhe sees the actual fact to be and the abstract notions which are all he\nhas with which to describe it. I have attempted to show how it comes\nabout that we are in fact able to perform this apparently impossible\nfeat of describing the indescribable, using Bergson\u2019s descriptions of\nsensible perception and the relations of matter and memory to\nillustrate my point. If we succeed in ridding ourselves of our\ncommon-sense preconceptions, Bergson tells us that we may expect to\nknow the old facts in a new way, face to face, as it were, instead of\nseeing them through a web of our own intellectual interpretations. I\nhave not attempted to offer any proof whether or not Bergson\u2019s\ndescription of reality is in fact true: having understood the meaning\nof the description it remains for each of us to decide for himself\nwhether or not it fits the facts.\n\nKARIN STEPHEN.\n\nCambridge, January, 1922.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\nEXPLANATION\n\n\nIn order to understand Bergson it is not necessary to have any previous\nacquaintance with philosophy, indeed the less the reader knows of\ncurrent metaphysical notions the easier it may perhaps be for him to\nadopt the mental attitude required for understanding Bergson. For\nBergson says that the tradition of philosophy is all wrong and must be\nbroken with: according to his view philosophical knowledge can only be\nobtained by \u201ca reversal of the usual work of the intellect.\u201d[1]\n\n [1] _Introduction to Metaphysics_, page 34.\n\n\nThe usual work of the intellect consists in analysis and\nclassification: if you have anything presented to you which you do not\nunderstand the obvious question to put yourself is, \u201cwhat is it?\u201d\nSuppose in a dark room which you expected to find empty you stumble\nagainst something, the natural thing to do is to begin at once to try\nto fit your experience into some class already familiar to you. You\nfind it has a certain texture which you class as rather rough, a\ntemperature which you class as warm, a size which you class as about\ntwo feet high, a peculiar smell which you recognise and you finally\njump to the answer to your question: it is \u201ca dog.\u201d This intellectual\noperation is a sample of the way in which it comes natural to us to set\nto work whenever we find ourselves confronted with any situation which\nwe are not able to classify off hand, we are not easy till we can say\n_what_ the situation is, and saying _what_ consists in hitting upon\nsome class with which we are already familiar to which it belongs: in\nthis instance the question was answered when you succeeded in\ndescribing the situation to yourself as \u201cstumbling upon a dog.\u201d Now you\nwere only able to class what was stumbled upon as a dog after you had\nrecognised a certain number of properties as being those shared by\ndogs\u2014the rough texture, the size, the smell. You analysed the situation\nas containing these qualities and thereupon classified what had been\nstumbled upon as a dog.\n\nAnalysis and classification are the two methods which we are accustomed\nto rely upon for improving our knowledge in unfamiliar situations and\nwe are accustomed to take it that they improve our knowledge of the\nwhole situation: anyone who said that after you were able to say what\nyou had stumbled upon you knew less of the whole situation than you\nknew before would find it difficult to get you to agree. And yet this\nis very much the position which Bergson takes up. Analysis and\nclassification, he would admit, are the way to get more knowledge, of a\nkind; they enable us to describe situations and they are the starting\npoint of all explanation and prediction. After analysis and\nclassification you were able to say, \u201cI have stumbled upon a dog,\u201d and\nhaving got so far you could then pass on to whatever general laws you\nknew of as applying to the classes into which you had fitted the\nsituation, and by means of these laws still more of the situation could\nbe classified and explained. Thus by means of the general law, \u201cdogs\nlick,\u201d you would be furnished with an explanation if perhaps you felt\nsomething warm and damp on your hand, or again knowledge of this law\nmight lead you to expect such a feeling. When what we want is to\ndescribe or to explain a situation in general terms then Bergson agrees\nthat analysis and classification are the methods to employ, but he\nmaintains that these methods which are useful for describing and\nexplaining are no use for finding out the actual situation which we may\nwant to describe or explain. And he goes a step further. Not only do\nthese methods fail to reveal the situation but the intellectual\nattitude of abstraction to which they accustom us seriously handicaps\nus when we want not merely to explain the situation but to know it. Now\nit is the business of science to explain situations in terms of general\nlaws and so the intellectual method of abstract-ion is the right one\nfor scientists to employ. Bergson claims, however, that philosophy has\na task quite distinct from that of science. In whatever situation he\nfinds himself a man may take up one of two attitudes, he may either\nadopt a practical attitude, in which case he will set to work to\nexplain the situation in order that he may know what to do under the\ncircumstances, or he may take a speculative interest in it and then he\nwill devote himself to knowing it simply for the sake of knowing. It is\nonly, according to Bergson, in the former case, when his interest is\npractical, that he will attain his object by using the intellectual\nmethod of abstraction which proceeds by analysis and classification.\nThese intellectual operations have such prestige, however, they have\nproved so successful in discovering explanations, that we are apt to\ntake it for granted that they must be the best way to set, to work\nwhatever sort of knowledge we want: we might almost be tempted, off\nhand, to imagine that they were our only way of knowing at all, but a\nmoment\u2019s reflection will show that this, at any rate, would be going\ntoo far.\n\nBefore we can analyse and classify and explain we must have something\nto analyse, some material to work upon: these operations, are based\nupon something which we know directly, what we see, for instance, or\ntouch or feel. This something is the foundation of knowledge, the\nintellectual operations of analysis classification and the framing of\ngeneral laws are simply an attempt to describe and explain it. It is\nthe business of science to explain and intellectual methods are the\nappropriate ones for science to employ. But the business of philosophy,\naccording to Bergson, is not to explain reality but to know it. For\nthis a different kind of mental effort is required. Analysis and\nclassification, instead of increasing our direct knowledge, tend rather\nto diminish it. They must always start from some direct knowledge, but\nthey proceed, not by widening the field of this knowledge but by\nleaving out more and more of it. Moreover, unless we are constantly on\nthe alert, the intellectual habit of using all our direct knowledge as\nmaterial for analysis and classification ends by completely misleading\nus as to what it is that we do actually know. So that the better we\nexplain the less, in the end, we know.\n\nThere can be no doubt that something is directly known but disputes\nbreak out as soon as we try to say what that something is. Is it the\n\u201creal\u201d world of material objects, or a mental copy of these objects, or\nare we altogether on the wrong track in looking for two kinds of\nrealities, the \u201creal\u201d world and \u201cour mental states,\u201d and is it\nperceived events alone that are \u201creal?\u201d This something which we know\ndirectly has been given various names: \u201cthe external object,\u201d \u201csense\ndata,\u201d \u201cphenomena,\u201d and so on, each more or less coloured by\nimplications belonging to one or other of the rival theories as to what\nit is. We shall call it \u201cthe facts\u201d to emphasise its indubitable\nreality, and avoid, as far as possible, any other implications.\n\nControversy about \u201cthe facts\u201d has been mainly as to what position they\noccupy in the total scheme of reality. As to what they are at the\nmoment when we are actually being acquainted with them one would have\nthought there could have been no two opinions; it seems impossible that\nwe should make any mistake about that. No doubt it is impossible to\nhave such a thing as a false experience, an experience is what it is,\nonly judgments can be false. But it is quite possible to make a false\njudgment as to what experience we are actually having, or, still more\ncommonly, simply to take for granted that our experience must be such\nand such, without ever looking to see whether it is or not. A small\nchild taken to a party and told that parties are great fun if\nquestioned afterwards will very likely say it has enjoyed itself\nthough, if you happened to have been there, you may have seen clearly\nthat it was really bewildered or bored. Even when we grow up names\nstill have a tendency to impose upon us and disguise from us the actual\nnature of our experiences. There are not very many people who, if\ninvited to partake, for instance, of the last bottle of some famous\nvintage wine, would have the courage to admit, even to themselves, that\nit was nasty, even though it was, in fact, considerably past its prime.\nCases of this kind, with which we are all familiar, are enough to make\nus realize that it is actually quite possible to make mistakes even\nabout facts which we know directly, to overlook the actual fact\naltogether because we have made up our minds in advance as to what it\nis sure to be.\n\nNow Bergson says that such errors are not confined to stray instances,\nsuch as we have noticed, in which the imposition of preconceived ideas\ncan readily be detected by a little closer attention to the actual\nfacts. He believes that a falsification due to preconceived ideas, runs\nright through the whole of our direct experience. He lays the blame\nboth for this falsification and for our failure to detect it upon our\nintellectual habit of relying upon explanation rather than upon direct\nknowledge, and that is one of the reasons why he says that our\nintellectual attitude is an obstacle to direct knowledge of the facts.\nThe intellectual method of abstraction by which we analyse and classify\nis the foundation of all description and explanation in terms of\ngeneral laws, and the truth is that we are, as a rule, much more\npreoccupied with explaining the facts which we know than with the\nactual experiencing of them.\n\nThis preoccupation is natural enough. The bare fact which we know\ndirectly is not enough to enable us to carry on our everyday lives, we\ncannot get on unless we supplement it with some sort of explanation\nand, if it comes to choosing between fact and explanation, the\nexplanation is often of more practical use than the fact. So it comes\nabout that we are inclined to use the facts which we know directly\nsimply as material for constructing explanations and to pay so little\nattention to them for their own sakes that we simply take it for\ngranted that they must be what our explanations lead us to suppose they\nare.\n\nNow according to Bergson the attitude of mind required for explaining\nthe facts conflicts with that which is required for knowing them. From\nthe point of view simply of knowing, the facts are all equally\nimportant and we cannot afford to discriminate, but for explanation\nsome facts are very much more important than others. When we want to\nexplain, therefore, rather than simply to know, we tend to concentrate\nour attention upon these practically important facts and pass over the\nrest. For in order to describe and explain a situation we have to\nclassify it, and in order to do this we must pick out in it properties\nrequired for membership of some one or other of the classes known to\nus. In the situation which we originally considered by way of\nillustration, for instance, you had to pick out the qualities of\nroughness, warmth and so on, in order to classify what you had stumbled\nupon as \u201ca dog.\u201d Now the picking out of these particular qualities is\nreally an operation of abstraction from the situation as a whole: they\nwere the important features of the situation from the point of view of\nclassifying what you had stumbled upon, but they by no means exhausted\nthe whole situation. Our preoccupation with explaining the facts, then,\nleads us to treat what we know directly as so much material for\nabstraction.\n\nThis intellectual attitude, as Bergson calls it, though practically\nuseful, has, according to him, two grave drawbacks from the point of\nview of speculation. By focussing our attention upon anything less than\nthe whole fact, and so isolating a part from the rest, he says we\ndistort what we knew originally: furthermore just in so far as we make\na selection among the facts, attending to some and passing over others,\nwe limit the field of direct knowledge which we might otherwise have\nenjoyed. For these two reasons Bergson insists that it is the business\nof philosophy to reverse the intellectual habit of mind and return to\nthe fullest possible direct knowledge of the fact. \u201cMay not the task of\nphilosophy, \u201che says,\u201d be to bring us back to a fuller perception of\nreality by a certain displacement of our attention? What would be\nrequired would be to turn our attention _away_ from the practically\ninteresting aspect of the universe in order to turn it _back_ to what,\nfrom a practical point of view, is useless. And this conversion of\nattention would be philosophy itself.\u201d[2]\n\n [2] _La Perception du Changement_, page 13. 24\n\n\nAt first sight it appears paradoxical and absurd to maintain that our\nefforts to analyse, classify and explain the facts tend rather to limit\nthan to extend our knowledge, and furthermore distort even such facts\nas we still remain acquainted with. Common sense has no doubt that, far\nfrom limiting and distorting our knowledge, explanation is the only\npossible way in which we can get beyond the little scraps of fact which\nare all that we can ever know directly.\n\nIf the views of common sense on this question were formulated, which,\nfor the most part, they are not, they would be something like this.\nUntil we begin to think the facts which we know directly are all\nmuddled together and confused: first of all it is necessary to sort\nthem by picking out qualities from the general confusion in which they\nare at first concealed. It is possible that during this process, which\nis what is called analysis, we may be obliged, at first, to overlook\nsome of what we already know in a vague sort of way, but this\ninsignificant loss is compensated by the clarity of what remains, and\nis, in any case, only temporary. For as the analysis proceeds we\ngradually replace the whole of the original mere muddle by clear and\ndefinite things and qualities. At first we may be able to distinguish\nonly a few qualities here and there, and our preoccupation with these\nmay possibly lead us, for a time, to pay insufficient attention to the\nrest of the muddle which we know directly but have not yet succeeded in\nanalysing. But when the analysis is completed the distinct things and\nqualities which we shall then know will contain _all_ that we\noriginally knew, and more besides, since the analysis will have\nrevealed much that was originally concealed or only implicit in the\noriginal unanalysed fact. If, for instance, you look at a very modern\npainting, at first what you are directly aware of may be little more\nthan a confused sight: bye and bye, as you go on looking, you will be\nable to distinguish colours and shapes, one by one objects may be\nrecognised until finally you may be able to see the whole picture at a\nglance as composed of four or five different colours arranged in\ndefinite shapes and positions. You may even be able to make out that it\nrepresents a human figure, or a landscape. Common sense would tell you\nthat if your analysis is complete these colours and shapes will exhaust\nthe whole of what you originally knew and moreover that in the course\nof it much will have been discovered which originally you could hardly\nbe said to have known at all, so that analysis, far from limiting your\ndirect knowledge, will have added to it considerably. Starting, then,\noriginally, from a very meagre stock of direct knowledge, analysis,\naccording to the common sense view, by discovering more and more\nqualities, builds up for us more and more direct knowledge.\n\nBergson begins just the other way up. He starts from the idea of a\nwhole field of direct knowledge vastly more extended than the actual\nfacts of which we are normally aware as making up our direct\nexperience. He calls this whole field of knowledge \u201cvirtual knowledge.\u201d\nThis field of virtual knowledge contains the whole of the actions and\nreactions of matter in which our body has its part at any moment, the\nmultitude of stimulations which actually assail the senses but which we\nnormally disregard, together with all the responses by which our bodies\nadjust themselves to these stimulations, and, in addition, the whole of\nour past. For Bergson the problem is to explain, not how we increase\nour direct knowledge, but how we limit it: not how we remember, but how\nwe forget. \u201cOur knowledge,\u201d he says, \u201cfar from being built up by a\ngradual combination of simple elements, is the result of a sharp\ndissociation. From the infinitely vast field of our virtual knowledge\nwe have selected, to turn into actual knowledge, whatever concerns our\naction upon things; the rest we have neglected. The brain appears to\nhave been constructed on purpose for this work of selection. It is easy\nenough to show that this is so in the case of memory. Our past, as we\nshall show in the next lecture, is necessarily preserved,\nautomatically. It survives in its entirety. But it is to our practical\ninterest to put it aside, or at any rate only to accept just so much of\nit as can more or less usefully throw light on the present situation\nand complete it. The brain enables us to make this selection: it\nmaterialises the useful memories and keeps those which would be of no\nuse below the threshold of consciousness. The same thing may be said of\nperception: perception is the servant of action and out of the whole of\nreality it isolates only what interests us; it shows us not so much the\nthings themselves as what we can make of them. In advance it classifies\nthem, in advance it arranges them; we barely look at the object, it is\nenough for us to know to what category it belongs.\u201d[3]\n\n [3] _La Perception du Changement_, pages 12 and 13. 27\n\n\nAccording to Bergson the facts which we actually know directly in the\nordinary course are discriminated out of a very much wider field which\nwe must also be said in a sense to know directly though most of it lies\noutside the clear focus of attention. This whole field of virtual\nknowledge is regarded as standing to the actual facts to which we\nusually devote our attention, much as, for instance, the whole\nsituation of stumbling upon something in a dark room stood to the\nsingle quality of roughness: in both cases there is a central point in\nthe full focus of attention which we are apt to look upon as the fact\ndirectly known, but this central point is really surrounded by a vastly\nwider context and this too is known in some sense though it is commonly\nignored.\n\nFor all philosophies, whether they be Bergson\u2019s or the view of common\nsense or any other, the actual facts which require to be explained are\nthe same, and, though any positive assertion as to what these facts are\nmay be hotly disputed, it will probably be admitted that as we\nordinarily know them they consist in some direct experience, undeniable\nas far as it goes. The point at issue between Bergson and common sense\nis, precisely, how far it does go. Both sides would admit that, in this\nfact directly known, what is in the full focus of attention at any\ngiven moment is very limited; on the other hand both would admit that\nthis fully focussed fact is set in a context, or fringe, with no\nclearly defined limits which also goes to make up the whole fact\ndirectly known though we do not usually pay much attention to it. The\nfact directly known being given the problem is to find out what it is\nand how it comes to be known. What is actually given and needs to be\naccounted for is the fact clearly focussed, with its less clearly\ndefined fringe: Bergson\u2019s sweeping assumption of the existence of a\nfurther vast field of virtual knowledge in order to account for it,\ndoes, at first sight, seem arbitrary and unwarranted and in. need of\nconsiderable justification before it can be accepted. For him the\nproblem then becomes, not to account for our knowing as much as we do,\nbut to see why it is that we do not know a great deal more: why our\nactual knowledge does not cover the whole field of our virtual\nknowledge. Common sense, on, the other hand, sets out from the\nassumption of ignorance, absence of awareness, as being, as it were,\nnatural and not needing any accounting for, and so it regards the\nproblem as being to explain why any experience ever occurs at all. The\nassumption of ignorance as being the natural thing seems at first sight\nto need no justification, but this may well be due merely to our having\ngrown accustomed to the common sense point of view. When one begins to\nquestion this assumption it begins to appear just as arbitrary as the\ncontrary standpoint adopted by Bergson. The actual facts are neither\nignorance nor full knowledge and in accounting for them it is really\njust as arbitrary to assume one of these two extremes as the other. The\ntruth appears to be that in order to account for the facts one must\nmake some assumptions, and these, not being facts actually given, are\nbound to be more or less arbitrary. They seem more or less \u201cnatural\u201d\naccording as we are more or less accustomed to the idea of them, but\nthey are really justified only according to the success with which they\naccount for the actual facts.\n\nThis idea of putting the problem of knowledge in terms exactly the\nreverse of those in which it seems \u201cnatural\u201d to put it was originally\nsuggested to Bergson by his study of the important work on amnesia\ncarried out by Charcot and his pupils, and also by such evidence as was\nto be had at the time when he wrote on the curious memory phenomena\nrevealed by the use of hypnotism and by cases of spontaneous\ndissociation. It is impossible to prove experimentally that no\nexperience is ever destroyed but it is becoming more and more firmly\nestablished that enormous numbers of past experiences, which are\ninaccessible to ordinary memory and which therefore it would seem\n\u201cnatural\u201d to suppose destroyed, can, if the right methods are employed,\nbe revived even with amazing fullness of detail.\n\nIn recent years since Bergson\u2019s books were first published, great\nstrides have been made in the experimental investigation of the whole\nsubject of memory, and the evidence thus obtained, far from upsetting\nthe theory of memory suggested to him by the less extensive evidence\nwhich was available at the time when he wrote, lends it striking\nsupport.\n\nIt appears to be accepted by doctors who use hypnotism in psychotherapy\nthat under hypnotism many patients can perfectly well be taken back in\nmemory to any period of their lives which the doctor chooses to ask\nfor, and can be made not only to remember vaguely a few incidents which\noccurred at the time but actually to re-live the whole period in the\nfullest possible detail, feeling over again with hallucinatory\nvividness all the emotions experienced at the time.\n\nThis re-living of past experience can, with some patients, be made to\ngo on indefinitely, through the whole day, if the doctor has time to\nattend to it, every little incident being faithfully recalled though\nthe actual event may have taken place 20 or 30 years previously. And\nthis happens not simply in the case of some very striking event or\ngreat crisis which the patient has been through, indeed it is just the\nstriking events that are often hardest to recover. Some doctors, in\norder to get at the crisis, have found it useful occasionally to put\npatients back through one birthday after another right back even as\nearly as their second year, to see at what point in their lives some\nparticular nervous symptom first appeared, and each successive birthday\nis lived through again in the utmost detail.[4]\n\n [4] See _Psychology and Psychotherapy_ by Dr. William Brown.\n\n\nEvidence of this kind does not, of course, prove that literally\n_nothing_ is ever lost but it goes far towards upsetting the ordinary\nview that it is the rule for past experience to be annihilated and the\nexception for fragments here and there to be preserved in memory. The\nevidence which has so far been collected and which is rapidly\naccumulating at least seems to justify us in reversing this rule and\nsaying rather that to be preserved is the rule for experience and to be\nlost would be the exception, if indeed any experience ever really is\nlost at all.\n\nThis way of regarding the field of memory is further supported by such\nevidence as has been collected with regard to the influence of past\nexperience in dreams, phobias and various forms of insanity, but in\nthese cases, of course, it is only isolated past experiences here and\nthere whose activity can be observed, and so, while helping to upset\nthe most natural assumption that whatever cannot be recalled by\nordinary efforts of memory may be assumed to have been destroyed, they\ndo not lend very much support to the wider view put forward by Bergson,\nthat no experience, however trivial, is ever destroyed but that all of\nit is included in the field out of which memory makes its practical\nselection.\n\nTaking all the evidence with regard to the preservation of past\nexperience which is at present available, then, it is safe to say that,\nwhile it cannot, in the nature of things, absolutely prove Bergson\u2019s\ntheory of knowledge, it in no way conflicts with it and even supports\nit, positively in the sense that the theory does fit the facts well\nenough to explain them (though it goes further than the actual facts\nand makes assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved by an\nappeal to them) and negatively in the sense that what we now know about\nmemory actually conflicts with the \u201cnatural\u201d view that past experience\nwhich we are unable to recall has been destroyed, which is commonly\nappealed to to show the absurdity of the rival theory put forward by\nBergson.\n\nOn the assumption which Bergson makes of a much wider field of direct\nknowledge than that which contains what we are accustomed to regard as\nthe actual facts which we know directly, Bergson\u2019s problem becomes how\nto account for these facts being so much less than the whole field\nwhich we might have expected to have known. The answer, according to\nhim, is to be found in our practical need of being prepared in advance\nfor what is to come, at whatever sacrifice of direct knowledge of past\nand present facts. For practical purposes it is essential to use\npresent and past facts as signs of what is coming so that we may be\nready for it. To this end it is far more important to know the general\nlaws according to which facts occur than to experience the facts\nthemselves in their fullness. Our intellectual habits which prompt us\nto set to work at once in every unfamiliar situation to analyse and\nclassify it fit us for discovering these laws: in so far as we are\nintellectual we incline to regard facts mainly as material for arriving\nat descriptions which themselves form the material out of which, by a\nfurther intellectual effort, explanations are framed in terms of\ngeneral laws, which we need to know if we are to be ready for what is\ngoing to happen. Now these laws are general laws applying to whole\nclasses of facts of one kind, or another. Facts, therefore, only form\nmaterial for discovering laws in so far as they can be classified into\nkinds.\n\nThe first step in classifying a fact is called analysis and consists in\ndiscovering common qualities which the fact possesses. According to\nBergson the discovery of common qualities in a fact consists simply in\nlearning to overlook everything in that fact except the respects in\nwhich it can be said to be of the same kind, and so to belong to the\nsame class, as other facts. Far from adding to our direct knowledge, as\ncommon sense supposes, he holds that analysis consists in shutting our\neyes to the individuality of facts in order to dwell only upon what\nthey have in common with one another. Starting, then, from the wider\nfield of knowledge which he assumes Bergson explains how we reach the\nlimited facts, which are all that we ordinarily know, by saying that\nthese facts are arrived at by selection out of this much wider field.\nIt is not the disinterested love of knowledge that determines how much\nwe shall actually attend to: our selection from the whole field of what\nfacts we will attend to is determined by the pressing need of being\nprepared in advance for the facts which are to come. We attend only to\nso much of the whole of what is, in some sense, directly known to us as\nwill be useful for framing the general laws which enable us to prepare\nin advance for what is coming. This practical utility explains why\nanalysis and classification seem to us to be the obvious way of dealing\nwith what we know.\n\nThe work of abstraction by which, treating the facts directly known as\nso much material for framing explanations, we pass from these actual\nfacts to the general laws which explain them, falls into four stages,\nand at each stage, according to Bergson, as we go further and further\nfrom the original fact directly known, the two vices of the\nintellectual method, limitation and distortion of the actual fact,\nbecome more and more apparent.\n\nStarting from the fact directly known, the first thing, as we have\nseen, is to learn to distinguish common qualities which it shares in\ncommon with some, but not all, other facts; the next thing is to\nclassify it by fitting it into the further groups to which these\nvarious qualities entitle it to belong. The moment a quality has been\ndistinguished in a fact that fact has been fitted into a class, the\nclass which consists of all the facts in which that quality can be\ndistinguished. Thus, in our original illustration, when you first\ndistinguished warmth, etc., you were beginning to fit your fact into\nclasses: when you perceived warmth you fitted it into the class of warm\nobjects, and it was the same with the other qualities of roughness,\nsize and smell. This fitting of facts into classes according to the\ncommon qualities distinguished in them might be called a preliminary\nclassification, but we shall use the term analysis for this preliminary\ngrouping of facts according to their qualities, keeping the term\nclassification for the next step, which you took when you realized\n\u201cthis is a dog,\u201d which consists in the discovery not of mere\ndisconnected qualities but of \u201creal things.\u201d Just as every quality,\nsuch as \u201cwarm\u201d or \u201chairy\u201d or \u201csweet\u201d or \u201ccold\u201d is a class of actual\nfacts, so every \u201creal thing\u201d such as \u201ca dog\u201d or \u201can ice cream\u201d is a\nclass of qualities. Thus a quality is once, and a \u201creal thing\u201d is\ntwice, removed from actual fact, and the more energetically we pursue\nthe intellectual work of abstraction the further we get from the fact\nitself from which we began. The point of grouping facts into classes,\nwhether by analysing them into qualities or classifying them into \u201creal\nthings,\u201d is that we can then apply to the particular fact all that we\nknow to be true in general of whatever belongs to these various\nclasses: in a word, once we have fitted a fact into a class we can\napply to it all the general laws which are known to apply to that\nclass.\n\nCommon sense, as we saw, tells us that when we distinguish qualities in\nany given fact we obtain fuller knowledge than was given in the mere\nunanalysed fact, and this knowledge is supposed to become fuller still\nwhen we go on to classify these qualities into \u201creal things.\u201d Bergson,\non the contrary, says that common qualities are arrived at by leaving\nout much of the fact originally known, while each successive stage in\nthe process of abstraction by which we explain facts, though it enables\nus to apply more and more general laws, yet leaves out more and more of\nthe actual fact itself. Analysis begins this whittling away of the\nactual fact by confining our attention to qualities which do not\nexhaust the whole content of the actual fact. At this preliminary\nstage, however, though we concentrate our attention on the quality, we\nstill remain aware of the whole fact in which the quality has its\nsetting. Classification carries the work of limitation a stage further.\n\u201cThings\u201d are a stage further removed from actual fact than qualities\nare since, while qualities are classes of facts, \u201cthings\u201d are only\nclasses of qualities. For classification into \u201cthings\u201d therefore only\nthe qualities in a fact will be of any use, and so, when we have\nreached the stage of classification, we need no longer burden our\nattention with the actual facts themselves in their entirety, we need\npay attention only to the qualities which distinguish one group from\nanother, For the purpose of classification into \u201cthings\u201d the quality\ncan stand for the whole fact: thus, as Bergson points out, we begin to\nlose contact with the whole fact originally known, since all the rest\nof it except the respects in which it can be analysed will henceforth\ntend to be ignored.\n\nThe third stage in explaining facts in terms of general laws is called\ninduction and consists in observing and formulating the relations of\n\u201cthings.\u201d \u201cThings\u201d are related to each other through their qualities.\nQualities do not give us the whole fact, because, when we have\ndistinguished qualities, we are inclined to concentrate our attention\non the quality at the expense of the rest of the fact; nevertheless\nwhile we attend to actual qualities we have not lost contact with fact\naltogether. Induction, which consists in framing general laws of the\nrelations of \u201cthings,\u201d though it does not involve attention to the\nwhole fact, does at least demand attention to qualities, and so, while\nwe are occupied with induction, we do still keep touch with fact to\nsome extent.\n\nOnce the relations of qualities have been observed and formulated,\nhowever, we need no longer attend to any part of the fact at all.\nInstead of the actual qualities we now take symbols, words, for\nexample, or letters, or other signs, and with these symbols we make for\nourselves diagrams of the relations in which we have observed that the\nqualities which they represent have stood to each other. Thus we might\nuse the words \u201clightning before thunder\u201d or first an L and then a T, to\nexpress the fact that in a storm we usually observe the quality of\nflashing before the quality of rumbling. Such laws do not actually\nreveal new facts to us, they can only tell us, provided we actually\nknow a fact belonging to a given class, to what other class facts which\nwe shall know bye and bye will belong. Thus, once we have classified\nfacts as belonging to two classes, daylight and darkness, and have\nobserved the invariable alternation of facts belonging to these\nclasses, then, whenever we know directly facts which can be classed as\ndaylight, we can predict, according to our law of the alternation of\nthe two classes, that bye and bye these facts will give place to others\nwhich can be classed as darkness and that bye and bye these in their\nturn will be replaced by facts which can again be classed as daylight.\nThe practical value of being able to make even such elementary\npredictions as these is obviously enormous, and this value increases as\napplied science, which is built up simply by the formulation of more\nand more comprehensive general laws of this type, widens the field of\nfacts which can be explained. Once the laws are known, moreover, we are\nable to say to what class the facts must have belonged which preceded a\nfact of any given class just as easily as we can say to what class the\nfacts which are to follow it will belong. Thus, given a fact which can\nbe classed as daylight, we can infer, by means of the law of the\nalternation of the classes daylight and darkness, not only that facts\nwhich can be classed as darkness will follow bye and bye, but also that\nfacts of that class must have gone before. In this way we can explain\nthe causes of all classifiable facts equally with their effects and so\nbridge over the gaps in our direct knowledge by creating a unified plan\nof the interrelations of all the classes to which facts can belong. By\nmeans of this plan we can explain any fact (that is classify its causes\nand effects), provided we can fit it into one or other of the known\nclasses. This again is of enormous practical use because, when we know\nto what class present facts must belong if they are to be followed by\nthe class of facts which we want, or not to be followed by those which\nwe do not want, we can arrange our present facts accordingly.\n\nBergson would not think of denying that this intellectual method, in\nwhich facts are used as material for abstraction, is of the utmost\npractical use for explaining facts and so enabling us to control them.\nHe suggests, however, that our preoccupation with these useful\nabstractions, classes and their relations, misleads us as to the facts\nthemselves. What actually takes place, he thinks, is a kind of\nsubstitution of the explanation for the fact which was to be explained,\nanalogous with what happens when a child at a party, or a guest at\ndinner, is misled about his actual sensations, only this substitution\nof which Bergson speaks, being habitual, is much harder to see through.\nExplanation, as we have seen, consists in constructing a plan or map in\nterms of such abstractions as classes and their relations, or\nsometimes, when the abstraction has been carried a step further, in\nterms simply of words or symbols, by means of which we represent the\ncausal relations between such of the actual directly known facts as can\nbe classified. This plan is more comprehensive and complete than the\nactual facts which we know directly in the ordinary course of things,\nfor which it stands, and it enables us to explain these facts in terms\nof the classes of causes from which they follow, and the classes of\neffects which they produce. No explanation, of course, can actually\nacquaint us directly with the real antecedent or consequent facts\nthemselves: it can only tell us to what classes these facts must\nbelong. The terms of the plan by which we explain the facts, the\nclasses, for instance, daylight and darkness, and their relation of\nalternation, or the words or symbols which stand for classes and\nrelations are not themselves facts but abstractions. We cannot think in\nterms of actual facts: the intellectual activity by which we formulate\ngeneral laws can only work among abstractions, and in order to explain\na fact we are obliged to substitute for it either a class or word or\nother symbol. All description and explanation of facts consists in\nsubstitutions of this kind. The explanation applies provided the\nabstraction is based on fact, that is, provided it is possible to fit\nthe fact to which the explanation is intended to apply into the class\nemployed to explain it: the general law, for instance, about the\nalternation of the classes daylight and darkness will explain any facts\nwhich can be fitted into one or other of these classes, or again\ngeneral laws about dogs, such as \u201cdogs lick\u201d will apply to whatever\nfact belongs at once to all the simpler classes, \u201cwarm,\u201d \u201crough,\u201d \u201cof a\ncertain size, and smell,\u201d out of which the class \u201cdog\u201d is constructed.\nThe general law itself, however, does not consist of such facts but of\nabstractions substituted for the facts themselves. Such substitution is\nextremely useful and perfectly legitimate so long as we keep firm hold\nof the fact as well, and are quite clear about what is fact and what\nonly symbol. The danger is, however, that, being preoccupied with\ndescribing and explaining and having used abstractions so successfully\nfor these purposes, we may come to lose our sense of fact altogether\nand fail to distinguish between actual facts and the symbols which we\nuse to explain them.\n\nThis, indeed, is just what Bergson thinks really does happen. No doubt\nan intelligent physicist is perfectly aware that the vibrations and\nwave lengths and electrons and forces by which he explains the changes\nthat take place in the material world are fictions, and does not\nconfuse them with the actual facts in which his actual knowledge of the\nmaterial world consists. But it is much more doubtful whether he\ndistinguishes between these actual facts and the common sense material\nobjects, such as lumps of lead, pieces of wood, and so on, which he\nprobably believes he knows directly but which are really only\nabstractions derived from the facts in order to explain them just as\nmuch as his own vibrations and wave lengths. When a scientist frames a\nhypothesis he employs the intellectual method of substitution with full\nconsciousness of what he is about; he recognises that its terms are\nabstractions and not facts. But the intellectual method of explaining\nby substituting general abstractions for particular facts is not\nconfined to science. All description and explanation, from the first\nuncritical assumptions of common sense right up to the latest\nscientific hypothesis employs the intellectual method of substituting\nabstractions for actual facts. The common sense world of things,\nevents, qualities, minds, feelings, and so on, in which we all pass our\nevery day lives is an early and somewhat crude attempt to describe the\ncontinually changing fact which each of us experiences directly, but it\nis perhaps more misleading than the later elaborate constructions of\nchemistry, physics, biology or physchology in that things and qualities\nare more easily mistaken for facts than more obviously hypothetical\nassumptions. Bergson points out that the various things of which this\ncommon sense world consists, solid tables, green grass, anger, hope,\netc., are not facts: these things, he insists, are only abstractions.\nThey are convenient for enabling us to describe and explain the actual\nfacts which each of us experiences directly, and they are based upon\nthese facts in the sense of being abstracted from them. The objection\nto them is that we are too much inclined to take it for granted that\nthese things and qualities and events actually are facts themselves,\nand in so doing to lose sight of the real facts altogether. In support\nof his view that things having qualities in successive relations are\nmere abstractions Bergson points out that whenever we stop to examine\nwhat it actually is that we know directly we can see at once that this\nfact does not consist of things and qualities at all: things and\nqualities are clearly marked off one from another,; they change as a\nseries of distinct terms, but in what we know directly there are no\nclear cut distinctions and so no series. The assumption which we\nusually make that the facts must consist of such things as events and\nqualities and material objects is not based upon the evidence of direct\nknowledge: we make the assumption that the facts must be of this kind\nsimply because they can be explained in these terms.\n\nIt is true that there is some correspondence between the actual facts\nand the common sense world of solid tables and so on, and we usually\njump to the conclusion that this correspondence would not be possible\nunless the facts had common qualities. There is no denying that facts\ncan be classified and it seems only natural to take it for granted that\nwhatever can be classified must share some quality with whatever\nbelongs to the same class, that, indeed, it is just on account of all\nsharing the same common quality that facts can be classified as being\nall of the same kind. Thus common sense takes it for granted that all\nfacts which can be classified as red, and so explained by all the\ngeneral laws which we know about the relation of red things to other\nthings, must share a common quality of redness. It seems only natural\nto make this assumption because we are so used to making it, but if we\nstop to examine the facts which we know directly we discover that they\ndo not bear it out, and we are gradually driven to the conclusion that\nit is quite unwarranted. It is only bit by bit, as we gradually\naccustom ourselves to doubting what we have been accustomed to take for\ngranted, that we realize how ill this assumption fits the facts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\nFACT\n\n\nCommon sense starts out with the assumption that what we know directly\nis such things as trees, grass, anger, hope and so on, and that these\nthings have qualities such as solidity, greenness, unpleasantness and\nso on, which are also facts directly known. It is not very difficult to\nshow that, if we examine the facts which we know directly, we cannot\nfind in them any such things as trees, grass, or minds, over and above\nthe various qualities which we say belong to them. I see one colour and\nyou see another: both of them are colours belonging to the grass but\nneither of us can find anything among the facts known to him\ncorresponding to this grass, regarded as something over and above its\nvarious qualities, to which those qualities are supposed to belong.\n\nThis drives common sense back unto its second line of defence where it\ntakes up the much stronger position of asserting that, while trees,\ngrass, minds, etc., are not among the facts directly known, their\nqualities of solidity, greenness, etc., are. It is usual to add that\nthese qualities are signs of real trees, grass, etc., which exist\nindependently but are only known to us through their qualities.\n\nIt is much harder to attack this position, but its weakness is best\nexposed by considering change as we know it directly, and comparing\nthis with change as represented in terms of qualities. Change, when\nrepresented in terms of qualities, forms a series in which different\nqualities are strung together one after the other by the aid of\ntemporal relations of before and after. The change perceived when we\nlook at the spectrum would thus have to be described in terms of a\nseries of colours, red before orange, orange before yellow, yellow\nbefore green, and so on. We might certainly go into greater detail than\nthis, distinguishing any number of shades in each of the colours\nmentioned, but the description would still have to be given in the same\nform, that of a series of different colours, or shades of colour,\nstrung together by relations of before and after. Now the fact which we\nknow directly does not change so: it forms a continuous becoming which\nis not made up of any number, however great, of fixed stages. When we\nwant to represent this changing fact in terms of qualities we have to\nput together a series of qualities, such as red, orange, etc., and then\nsay that \u201cthe colour\u201d changes from one of these to another. We pretend\nthat there is \u201ca colour\u201d which is not itself either red or green or\norange or blue, which changes into all these different colours one\nafter another. It is not very difficult to see that this abstract\ncolour which is neither red nor orange nor green nor blue is not a fact\nbut only an abstraction which is convenient for purposes of\ndescription: it is not quite so easy to see that this criticism applies\nequally to each of the separate colours, red, orange, etc., and yet a\nlittle attention shows that these also are really nothing but\nabstractions. With reference to the whole changing fact which is known\ndirectly through any period the change in respect of colour is clearly\nan abstraction. But just as there is no \u201ccolour\u201d over and above the\nred, the orange, the green, etc., which we say we see, so there is\nreally no \u201cred,\u201d \u201corange,\u201d \u201cgreen,\u201d over and above the changing process\nwith which we are directly acquainted. Each of these, the red, the\norange, and so on, just like the abstract \u201ccolour,\u201d is simply a\nfictitious stage in the process of changing which it is convenient to\nabstract when we want to describe the process but which does not itself\noccur as a distinct part in the actual fact.\n\nChange, as we know it directly, does not go on between fixed points\nsuch as these stages which we abstract, it goes on impartially, as it\nwere, through the supposed stages just as much as in between them. But\nthough fixed stages are not needed to enable change to occur, simply as\na fact, they are needed if we are to describe change and explain it in\nterms of general laws. Qualities are assumptions required, not in order\nthat change may take place, but in order that we may describe, explain,\nand so control it. Such particular qualities as red and green are\nreally no more facts directly known than such still more general, and\nso more obviously fictitious notions as a colour which is of no\nparticular shade, or a table, or a mind, apart from its qualities or\nstates. All these fixed things are alike abstractions required for\nexplaining facts directly known but not occurring as actual parts of\nthose facts or stages in their change.\n\nThus it appears that the common sense world of things and qualities and\nevents is in the same position, with regard to the actual facts\ndirectly known as scientific hypotheses such as forces, electrons, and\nso on, in their various relations: none of these actually form parts of\nthe fact, all of them are abstractions from the fact itself which are\nuseful for explaining and so controlling it. Common sense stops short\nat things and qualities and events; science carries the abstraction\nfurther, that is all the difference: the aim in both cases is the same,\nthe practical one of explaining and so controlling facts directly\nknown. In both cases the method employed is the intellectual method of\nabstraction which begins by discriminating within the whole field\ndirectly known in favour of just so much as will enable us to classify\nit and ignoring the rest, and then proceeds to confuse even this\nselected amount of the actual fact with the abstract classes or other\nsymbols in terms of which it is explained. We have just seen how the\nresult, the worlds of common sense or science, differ from the actual\nfacts in the way in which they change: these worlds of abstractions\nrepresent change as a series of fixed stages united by temporal\nrelations, while the actual fact forms a continuous process of becoming\nwhich does not contain any such fixed points, as stages in relations.\n\nThe more we shake ourselves free from the common sense and scientific\nbias towards substituting explanations for actual facts the more\nclearly we see that this continuous process of changing is the very\nessence of what we know directly, and the more we realize how unlike\nsuch a continuous process is to any series of stages in relation of\nsuccession.\n\nThe unsatisfactoriness of such descriptions is no new discovery: the\nlogical difficulties connected with the attempt to describe change in\nterms of series of successive things or events have been familiar since\nthe time when Zeno invented the famous dilemma of Achilles\u2019 race with\nthe tortoise. Mathematicians have been in the habit of telling us that\nthese difficulties depend simply on the fact that we imagine the series\nof positions at which Achilles and the tortoise find themselves from\nmoment to moment as finite: the device of the infinite series, they\nsay, satisfies all the requirements needed for representing change and\nsolves all the logical difficulties which arise from it. Bergson\u2019s\ndifficulties, however, cannot be solved in this way for they are not\nbased upon the discovery of logical absurdities but upon the\ndiscrepancy between the description and the fact. What he maintains is\nthat the description of change in terms of an infinite series of stages\nleaves out the change altogether. Zeno\u2019s logical dilemma as to how\nAchilles could ever catch up with the tortoise provided the tortoise\nwas given a start, however small, may be countered by the ingenuity of\nthe mathematicians\u2019 infinite series. Bergson\u2019s difficulty turns on a\nquestion of fact, not of logic, and cannot be so met. He solves the\nproblem simply by denying that Achilles or the tortoise ever are at\nparticular points at particular moments. Such a description of change,\nhe says, leaves out the real changing. And the introduction of the\nnotion of an infinite series only makes the matter worse. For stages do\nnot change, and so, if there is to be any change, it must, presumably,\ntake place in between one stage and the next. But in between any two\nstages of an infinite series there are supposed to be an infinite\nnumber of other stages, so that to any given stage there _is_ no next\nstage. Change, therefore, cannot take place between one stage and the\nnext one, there being no next one, and since it is equally impossible\nthat it should take place at any one of the stages themselves it\nfollows that an infinite series of stages leaves out change altogether.\nSimilarly a series of instants before and after one another leaves out\nof time just the element of passage, becoming, which is its essence.\n\nThe truth, Bergson says, is that with fixed stages, no matter how many\nyou take, and no matter in what relation you arrange them, you cannot\nreproduce the change and time which actually occur as facts directly\nknown. If Achilles or the tortoise are ever at different places at\ndifferent moments then neither of them really moves at all. Change and\ntime, as represented by abstractions, according to the intellectual\nmethod, consist of stages in relations of succession, but the fact does\nnot happen by stages and is not held together by relations: if we\ncompare the representation with the fact we find that they differ\nprofoundly in their form.\n\nAccording to Bergson this difference in form is one of the two\nessential respects in which abstractions fail to represent facts and in\nwhich, consequently, we are led into error as to the facts if we fail\nto distinguish them from the abstractions in terms of which we explain\nthem, or take for granted that they correspond exactly with our\nexplanations.\n\nBergson gives the name \u201cspace\u201d to the form which belongs to\nabstractions but not to actual facts: abstractions, he says, are\n\u201cspatial,\u201d but facts are not. This use of the word \u201cspace\u201d is peculiar\nand perhaps unfortunate. Even as it is ordinarily used the word \u201cspace\u201d\nis ambiguous, it may mean either the pure space with which higher\nmathematics is concerned, or the public space which contains the common\nsense things and objects and their qualities which make up the every\nday world, or the private space of sensible perception. When Bergson\nspeaks of \u201cspace,\u201d however, he does not mean either pure or public or\nprivate space, he means an _a priori_ form imposed by intellectual\nactivity upon its object. This resembles Kant\u2019s use of the word, but\nBergson\u2019s \u201cspace\u201d is not, like Kant\u2019s, the _a priori_ form of sense\nacquaintance, but of thought, in other words logical form. For Bergson\n\u201cspatial\u201d means \u201clogical,\u201d and since so much misunderstanding seems to\nhave been caused by his using the word \u201cspace\u201d in this peculiar sense\nwe shall perhaps do better in what follows to use the word \u201clogical\u201d\ninstead.\n\nNow whatever is logical is characterised by consisting of distinct,\nmutually exclusive terms in external relations: all schemes, for\ninstance, and diagrams, such as a series of dots one above the other,\nor one below the other, or one behind, or in front of the other, or a\nseries of instants one after the other, or a series of numbers, or\nagain any arrangements of things or qualities according to their\nrelations, such as colours or sounds arranged according to their\nresemblance or difference; in all these each dot or instant or number\nor colour-shade or note, is quite distinct from all the others, and the\nrelations which join it to the others and give it its position in the\nwhole series are external to it in the sense that if you changed its\nposition or included it in quite another series it would nevertheless\nstill be just the same dot or instant or number or quality as before.\n\nThese two logical characteristics of mutual distinction of terms and\nexternality of relations certainly do belong to the abstractions\nemployed in explanations, and we commonly suppose that they belong to\neverything else besides. Bergson, however, believes that these logical\ncharacteristics really only belong to abstractions and are not\ndiscovered in facts but are imposed upon them by our intellectual bias,\nin the sense that we take it for granted that the facts which we know\ndirectly must have the same form as the abstractions which serve to\nexplain them.\n\nThis habit of taking it for granted that not only our abstractions but\nalso the actual facts have the logical characteristics of consisting of\nmutually exclusive terms joined by external relations is, according to\nBergson, one of the two serious respects in which our intellectual bias\ndistorts our direct acquaintance with actual fact. He points out, as we\nsaw, that the facts with which we are acquainted are in constant\nprocess of changing, and that, when we examine carefully what is\nactually going on, we discover that this change does not really form a\nseries of distinct qualities or percepts or states, united by external\nrelations of time, resemblance, difference, and so on, but a continuous\nprocess which has what we might call a qualitative flavour but in which\ndistinct qualities, states and so on do not occur.\n\n\u201cConsidered in themselves\u201d he says, \u201cprofound states of consciousness\nhave no relation to quantity: they are mingled in such a way that it is\nimpossible to say whether they are one or many, or indeed to examine\nthem from that point of view without distorting them.\u201d Now, strictly\nspeaking, of course, these \u201cstates of consciousness\u201d ought not to be\nreferred to in the plural, it is, in fact, a contradiction to speak of\n\u201cstates of consciousness\u201d having \u201cno relation to quantity\u201d: a plurality\nmust always form some quantity. This contradiction is the natural\nconsequence of attempting to put what is non-logical into words. It\nwould have been just as bad to have referred to \u201cthe state of\nconsciousness,\u201d in the singular, while at the same time insisting that\nit contained resemblance and difference. The fact is that plurality and\nunity, like distinct terms and external relations, apply only to\nwhatever has logical form, and Bergson\u2019s whole point is to deny that\nthe fact (or facts) directly known have this form, and so that any of\nthese notions apply to it (or them.)\n\nThis, of course, raises difficulties when we try to describe the facts\nin words, since words stand for abstractions and carry their logical\nimplications. All descriptions in words of what is non-logical are\nbound to be a mass of contradictions, for, having applied any word it\nis necessary immediately to guard against its logical implications by\nadding another which contradicts them. Thus we say our experience is of\nfacts, and must then hastily add that nevertheless they are not plural,\nand we must further qualify this statement by adding that neither are\nthey singular. A description of what is non-logical can only convey its\nmeaning if we discount all the logical implications of the words which,\nfor want of a better medium of expression, we are driven to employ. Our\nwhole intellectual bias urges us towards describing everything that\ncomes within our experience, even if the description is only for our\nown private benefit Unfortunately the language in which these\ndescriptions have to be expressed is so full of logical implications\nthat, unless we are constantly on our guard, we are liable to be\ncarried away by them, and then, at once, we lose contact with the\nactual facts.\n\nIn order to get round this almost universal tendency to confuse\nabstractions with facts Bergson sometimes tries to get us to see the\nfacts as they actually are by using metaphor instead of description in\nterms of abstract general notions. He has been much criticised for this\nbut there is really a good deal to be said for attempting to convey\nfacts by substituting metaphors for them rather than by using the\nordinary intellectual method of substituting abstractions reached by\nanalysis. Those who have criticised the use of metaphor have for the\nmost part not realized how little removed such description is from the\nordinary intellectual method of analysis. They have supposed that in\nanalysis we stick to the fact itself, whereas in using metaphor we\nsubstitute for the fact to be described some quite different fact which\nis only connected with it by a more or less remote analogy. If\nBergson\u2019s view of the intellectual method is right, however, when we\ndescribe in abstract terms arrived at by analysis we are not sticking\nto the facts at all, we are substituting something else for them just\nas much as if we were using an out and out metaphor. Qualities and all\nabstract general notions are, indeed, nothing but marks of analogies\nbetween a given fact and all the other facts belonging to the same\nclass: they may mark rather closer analogies than those brought out by\nan ordinary metaphor, but on the other hand in a frank metaphor we at\nleast stick to the concrete, we substitute fact for fact and we are in\nno danger of confusing the fact introduced by the metaphor with the\nactual fact to which the metaphor applies. In description in terms of\nabstract general notions such as common qualities we substitute for\nfact something which is not fact at all, we lose touch with the\nconcrete and, moreover, we are strongly tempted to confuse fact with\nabstraction and believe that the implications of the abstraction apply\nto the fact, or even that the abstraction is itself a real part of the\nfact.\n\nLanguage plays a most important part in forming our habit of treating\nall facts as material for generalisation, and it is largely to the\ninfluence of the words which we use for describing facts that Bergson\nattributes our readiness to take it for granted that facts have the\nsame logical form as abstractions. It is language again which makes it\nso difficult to point out that this assumption is mistaken, because,\nactually, the form of facts is non-logical, a continuous process and\nnot a series. The only way to point this out is by describing the\nnature of the non-logical facts as contrasted with a logical series,\nbut the language in which our description of the non-logical facts has\nto be conveyed is itself full of logical implications which contradict\nthe very point we are trying to bring out. Descriptions of non-logical\nprocesses will only be intelligible if we discount the logical\nimplications inherent in the words employed, but in order to be willing\nto discount these implications it is necessary first to be convinced\nthat there is anything non-logical to which such a description could\napply. And yet how can we be convinced without first understanding the\ndescription? It appears to be a vicious circle, and so it would be if\nour knowledge of change as a process really depended upon our\nunderstanding anybody\u2019s description of it. According to Bergson,\nhowever, we all do know such a process directly; in fact, if he is\nright, we know nothing else directly at all. The use of description is\nnot to give us knowledge of the process, that we already have, but only\nto remind us of what we really knew all along, but had rather lost\ncontact with and misinterpreted because of our preoccupation with\ndescribing and explaining it. Bergson\u2019s criticism of our intellectual\nmethods turns simply upon a question of fact, to be settled by direct\nintrospection. If, when we have freed ourselves from the preconceptions\ncreated by our normal common sense intellectual point of view, we find\nthat what we know directly is a non-logical process of becoming, then\nwe must admit that intellectual thinking is altogether inappropriate\nand even mischievous as a method of speculation.\n\nIt is one of Bergson\u2019s chief aims to induce us to regain contact with\nour direct experience, and it is with this in view that he spends so\nmuch effort in describing what the form of this experience actually is,\nand how it compares with the logical form which belongs to\nabstractions, that is with what he calls \u201cspace.\u201d\n\nThe form which belongs to facts but not to abstractions Bergson calls\n\u201cduration.\u201d Duration can be described negatively by saying that it is\nnon-logical, but when we attempt any positive description language\nsimply breaks down and we can do nothing but contradict ourselves.\nDuration does not contain parts united by external relations: it does\nnot contain parts at all, for parts would constitute fixed stages,\nwhereas duration changes continuously.\n\nBut in order to describe duration at all we have logically only two\nalternatives, either to speak of it as a plurality, and that implies\nhaving parts, or else as a unity, and that by implication, excludes\nchange. Being particularly concerned to emphasise the changing nature\nof what we know directly Bergson rejects the latter alternative: short\nof simply giving up the attempt to describe it he has then no choice\nbut to treat this process which he calls duration as a plurality and\nthis drives him into speaking of it as if it had parts. To correct this\nfalse impression he adds that these parts are united, not, like logical\nparts, by external relations, but in quite a new way, by \u201csynthesis.\u201d\n\u201cParts\u201d united by synthesis have not the logical characteristics of\nmutual distinction and externality of relations, they interpenetrate\nand modify one another. In a series which has duration (such a thing is\na contradiction in terms, but the fault lies with the logical form of\nlanguage which, in spite of its unsatisfactoriness we are driven to\nemploy if we want to describe at all) the \u201clater parts\u201d are not\ndistinct from the \u201cearlier\u201d: \u201cearlier and\u201d \u201clater\u201d are not mutually\nexclusive relations.\n\nBergson says, then, that the process of duration which we know\ndirectly, if it is to be called a series at all, must be described as a\nseries whose \u201cparts\u201d interpenetrate, and this is the first important\nrespect in which non-logical duration differs from a logical series. In\n\u201ca series\u201d which is used to describe duration not only are the \u201cparts\u201d\nnot distinct but \u201ctheir relations\u201d are not external in the sense,\npreviously explained, in which logical relations are external to the\nterms which they relate. A logical term in a logical series can change\nits position or enter into a wholly different series and still remain\nthe same term. But the terms in a series which has duration (again this\nis absurd) are what they are just because of their position in the\nwhole stream of duration to which they belong: to transfer them from\none position in the series to another would be to alter their whole\nflavour which depends upon having had just that particular past and no\nother. As illustration we might take the last bar of a tune. By itself,\nor following upon other sounds not belonging to the tune, this last bar\nwould not be itself, its particular quality depends upon coming at the\nend of that particular tune. In a process of duration, then, such as\ntune, the \u201clater\u201d bars are not related externally to the \u201cearlier\u201d but\ndepend for their character upon their position in the whole tune. In\nactual fact, of course, the tune progresses continuously, and not by\nstages, such as distinct notes or bars, but if, for the sake of\ndescription, we speak of it as composed of different bars, we must say\nthat any bar we choose to distinguish is modified by the whole of the\ntune which has gone before it: change its position in the whole stream\nof sound to which it belongs and you change its character absolutely.\n\nThis means that in change such as this, change, that is, which has\nduration, repetition is out of the question. Take a song in which the\nlast line is sung twice over as a refrain: the notes, we say, are\nrepeated, but the second time the line occurs the actual effect\nproduced is different, and that, indeed, is the whole point of a\nrefrain. This illustrates the second important difference which Bergson\nwants to bring out between the forms of change which belong\nrespectively to non-logical facts and to the logical abstractions by\nwhich we describe them, that is between duration as contrasted with a\nlogical series of stages. The notes are abstractions assumed to explain\nthe effect produced, which is the actual fact directly known. The notes\nare stages in a logical series of change, but their effects, the actual\nfact, changes as a process of duration. From this difference in their\nways of changing there follows an important difference between fact and\nabstraction, namely that, while the notes can be repeated over again,\nthe effect will never be the same as before. This is because the notes,\nbeing abstractions, are not affected by their relations which give them\ntheir position in the logical series which they form, while their\neffect, being a changing process, depends for its flavour upon its\nposition in the whole duration to which it belongs: this flavour grows\nout of the whole of what has gone before, and since this whole is\nitself always growing by the addition of more and more \u201clater stages,\u201d\nthe effect which it goes to produce can never be the same twice over.\n\nThis is why Bergson calls duration \u201ccreative.\u201d\n\nNo \u201ctwo\u201d positions in a creative process of duration can have an\nidentical past history, every \u201clater\u201d one will have more history, every\n\u201cearlier\u201d one less. In a logical series, on the other hand, there is no\nreason why the same term should not occur over and over again at\ndifferent points in the course of the series, since in a logical series\nevery term, being distinct from every other and only joined to it by\nexternal relations, is what it is independently of its position.\n\nIf Bergson is right therefore in saying that abstractions change as a\nlogical series while the actual facts change as a creative process of\nduration, it follows that, while our descriptions and explanations may\ncontain repetitions the actual fact to which we intend these\nexplanations to apply, cannot. This, if true, is a very important\ndifference between facts and abstractions which common sense entirely\noverlooks when it assumes that we are directly acquainted with common\nqualities.\n\nWe have seen that this assumption is taken for granted in the account\nwhich is ordinarily given (or would be given if people were in the\nhabit of putting their common sense assumptions into words) of how it\nis that facts come to be classified: facts are supposed to fall into\nclasses because they share common qualities, that is because, in the\nchanging fact directly known, the same qualities recur over and over\nagain. There is no doubt that the fact with which we are directly\nacquainted can be classified, and it is equally undeniable that this\nfact is always changing, but if this change has the form of creative\nduration then its classification cannot be based upon the repetition of\nqualities at different \u201cstages\u201d in its course. It follows that either\nthe fact with which we are directly acquainted does not change as a\ncreative process, or else that we are quite wrong in assuming, as we\nordinarily do, that we actually know qualities directly and that it is\nthese qualities which form the basis of classification, and hence of\nall description and explanation. We have already seen that this\nassumption, though at first sight one naturally supposes it to be based\non direct acquaintance, may really depend not on any fact directly\nknown but on our preoccupation with explanation rather than with mere\nknowing.\n\nBut if we never really are acquainted with qualities, if qualities are,\nas Bergson says, mere abstractions, how come we to be able to make\nthese abstractions, and why do they apply to actual facts? If\nclassification is not based on common qualities discovered by analysis\nand repeated over and over as actual facts directly known, on what is\nit based? We certainly can classify facts and these abstract common\nqualities, if abstractions they be, certainly correspond to something\nin the facts since they apply to them: what is the foundation in\ndirectly knowu fact which accounts for this correspondence between\nabstractions and facts if it is not qualities actually given as part of\nthe facts? These questions are so very pertinent and at the same time\nso difficult to answer satisfactorily that one is tempted to throw over\nthe view that the changing fact which we know directly forms a creative\nduration. This view is impossible to express without self-contradiction\nand it does not fit in with our accustomed habits of mind: nevertheless\nif we do not simply reject it at once as patently absurd but keep it in\nmind for a while and allow ourselves time to get used to it, it grows\nsteadily more and more convincing: we become less and less able to\nevade these difficult questions by accepting the common sense account\nof what we know directly as consisting of a series of qualities which\nare repeated over and over, and more and more driven to regard it as a\nprocess in creative duration which does not admit of repetitions. There\nis no difficulty in seeing, the moment we pay attention, that what we\nknow directly certainly does change all the time: but if we try to pin\nthis change down and hold it so as to examine it we find it slipping\nthrough our fingers, and the more we look into the supposed stages,\nsuch as things and qualities and events, by means of which common sense\nassumes that this change takes place, the more it becomes apparent that\nthese stages are all of them mere arbitrary abstractions dragged from\ntheir context in a continuous process, fictitious halting places in a\nstream of change which goes on unbroken. Unbiassed attention to the\nactual fact cannot fail to convince us that what we know directly\nchanges as a process and not by a series of stages.\n\nThe creativeness of this process is perhaps at first not quite so\nobvious, but if we look into the fact once more, with the object of\nobserving repetitions in it, we realize that we cannot find any. It is\ntrue that you can pick out qualities which at first appear to recur:\nyou may, for example, see a rose and then a strawberry ice cream, and\nyou may be inclined to say that here you saw the quality pink twice\nover. But you can only say that what you saw was the same both times by\nabstracting what we call the colour from the whole context in which it\nactually appeared on the two different occasions. In reality the colour\nis not known in isolation: it has its place, in the whole changing fact\nin a particular context which you may describe in abstract terms as\nconsisting of the shape and smell and size of the object together with\nall the rest of your state of mind at the moment, which were not the\nsame on the two different occasions, while further this pink colour was\nmodified on each occasion by its position in the whole changing fact\nwhich may again be described in abstract terms by saying, for instance,\nthat the pink on the occasion of your seeing the strawberry ice cream,\ncoming after the pink on the occasion of your seeing the rose, had a\npeculiar flavour of \u201cseen before\u201d which was absent on the previous\noccasion. Thus although, by isolating \u201cparts\u201d of the whole process of\nchanging which you know directly, you may bring yourself for a moment\nto suppose that you are acquainted with repetitions, when you look at\nthe whole fact as it actually is, you see that what you know is never\nthe same twice over, and that your direct experience forms, not a\nseries of repetitions, but a creative process.\n\nBut, once you grant that the fact which you know directly really\nchanges, there is, according to Bergson, no getting away from the\nconclusion that it must form a creative process of duration. For he\nthinks that creative duration is the only possible way in which the\ntransition between past and present, which is the essential feature of\nchange and time, could be accomplished: all passing from past to\npresent, all change, therefore, and all time, _must_, he says, form a\ncreative process of duration. The alternative is to suppose that time\nand change form logical series of events in temporal relations of\nbefore and after, but, according to Bergson, this not only leaves out\nthe transition altogether but is, even as it stands, unintelligible.\nThe argument is this.\n\nIf time and change are real, then, when the present is, the past simply\nis not. But it is impossible to see how, in that case, there can be any\nrelation between past and present, for a relation requires at least two\nterms in between which it holds, while in this case there could never\nbe more than one term, the present, _ipso facto_, abolishing the past.\nIf, on the other hand, the past is preserved, distinct from the\npresent, then temporal relations can indeed hold between them, but in\nthat case there is no real change nor time at all.\n\nThis dilemma all follows, of course, from regarding \u201cpast\u201d and\n\u201cpresent\u201d as mutually exclusive and distinct, and requiring to be\nunited by external relations, in short as terms in a logical series:\nfor Bergson himself this difficulty simply does not arise since he\ndenies that, within the actual changing fact directly known, there are\nany clear cut logical distinctions such as the words \u201cpast\u201d and\n\u201cpresent\u201d imply. But when it comes to describing this changing fact\ndistinct terms have to be employed because there are no others, and\nthis creates pseudo-problems such as this question of how, assuming\npast and present to be distinct, the transition between them ever can\nbe effected. The real answer is that the transition never is effected\nbecause past and present are, in fact, not distinct.\n\nAccording to Bergson a very large proportion of the problems over which\nphilosophers have been accustomed to dispute have really been\npseudo-problems simply arising out of this confusion between facts and\nthe abstractions by which we describe them. When once we have realized\nhow they arise these pseudo-problems no longer present any\ndifficulties; they are in fact no longer problems at all, they melt\naway and cease to interest us. If Bergson is right this would go far to\nexplain the suspicion which, in spite of the prestige of philosophy,\nstill half unconsciously colours the feeling of the \u201cplain man\u201d for the\n\u201cintellectual,\u201d and which even haunts the philosopher himself, in\nmoments of discouragement, the suspicion that the whole thing is\ntrivial, a dispute about words of no real importance or dignity. If\nBergson is right this suspicion is, in many cases, all too well\nfounded: the discussion of pseudo-problems is not worth while. But then\nthe discussion of pseudo-problems is not real philosophy: the thinker\nwho allows himself to be entangled in pseudo-problems has lost his way.\n\nIn this, however, the \u201cintellectuals\u201d are not the only ones at fault.\n\u201cPlain men\u201d are misled by abstractions about facts just as much, only\nbeing less thorough, their mistake has less effect: at the expense of a\nlittle logical looseness their natural sense of fact saves them from\nall the absurdities which follow from their false assumptions. For the\n\u201cintellectual\u201d there is not this loophole through which the sense of\nfact may undo some of the work of false assumptions: the \u201cintellectual\u201d\nfollows out ruthlessly the implications of his original assumptions and\nif these are false his very virtues lead him into greater absurdities\nthan those committed by \u201cplain men.\u201d\n\nOne of the most important tasks of philosophy is to show up the\npseudo-problems so that they may no longer waste our time and we may be\nfree to pursue the real aim of philosophy which is the reconquest of\nthe field of virtual knowledge. Getting rid of the pseudo-problems,\nhowever, is no easy task: we may realize, for example, that the\ndifficulty of seeing how the transition between past and present ever\ncan be effected is a pseudo-problem because in fact past and present\nare not distinct and so no transition between them is needed. But since\nwe have constantly to be using words which carry the implication of\ndistinctness we are constantly liable to forget this simple answer when\nnew problems, though in fact they all spring from this fundamental\ndiscrepancy between facts and the abstractions by which we describe\nthem, present themselves in some slightly different form.\n\nThe notion of duration as consisting of \u201cparts\u201d united by \u201ccreative\nsynthesis\u201d is a device, not for explaining how the transition from past\nto present really takes place (this does not need explaining since,\n\u201cpast\u201d and \u201cpresent\u201d being mere abstractions, no transition between\nthem actually takes place at all), but for enabling us to employ the\nabstractions \u201cpast\u201d and \u201cpresent\u201d without constantly being taken in by\ntheir logical implications. The notion of \u201ccreative synthesis\u201d as what\njoins \u201cpast\u201d and \u201cpresent\u201d in a process of duration is an antidote to\nthe logical implications of these two distinct terms: creative\nsynthesis, unlike logical relations, is not external to the \u201cparts\u201d\nwhich it joins; \u201cparts\u201d united by creative synthesis are not distinct\nand mutually exclusive. Such a notion as this of creative synthesis\ncontradicts the logical implications contained in the notion of parts.\nThe notion of \u201cparts\u201d united by \u201ccreative synthesis\u201d is really a hybrid\nwhich attempts to combine the two incompatible notions of logical\ndistinction and duration. The result is self-contradictory and this\ncontradiction acts as a reminder warning us against confusing the\nactual changing fact with the abstractions in terms of which we\ndescribe it and so falling into the mistake of taking it for granted\nthat this changing fact must form a series of distinct stages or things\nor events or qualities, which can be repeated over and over again.\n\nAt the same time there is no getting away from the fact that this\nchanging fact lends itself to classification and that explanations in\nterms of abstractions really do apply to it most successfully. We are\ntherefore faced with the necessity of finding some way of accounting\nfor this, other than by assuming that the facts which we know directly\nconsist of qualities which recur over and over again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\nMATTER AND MEMORY\n\n\nWe have seen that, according to the theory of change which is\nfundamental for Bergson\u2019s philosophy, the changing fact which we know\ndirectly is described as a process of becoming which does not contain\nparts nor admit of repetitions. On the other hand this changing fact\ncertainly does lend itself to analysis and classification and\nexplanation and, at first sight at any rate, it is natural to suppose\nthat whatever can be classified and explained must consist of\nqualities, that is distinct parts which can be repeated on different\noccasions. The problem for Bergson, if he is to establish his theory of\nchange, is to show that the fact that a changing process can be\nanalysed and classified does not necessarily imply that such a process\nmust consist of distinct qualities which can be repeated. Bergson\u2019s\ntheory of the relation of matter to memory suggests a possible solution\nof this problem as to how it is possible to analyse and so apply\ngeneral laws to and explain duration: it becomes necessary, therefore,\nto give some account of this theory.\n\nLike all other descriptions and explanations, such an account must, of\ncourse, be expressed in terms of abstractions, and so is liable to be\nmisunderstood unless the false implications of these abstractions are\nallowed for and discounted.\n\nAccording to Bergson the only actual reality is the changing fact\nitself, everything else is abstraction: this reality however is not\nconfined to the fragment called \u201cour present experience\u201d which is in\nthe full focus of consciousness and is all that we usually suppose\nourselves to know directly; it includes besides everything that we are\nin a sense aware of but do not pay attention to, together with our\nwhole past: for Bergson, in fact, reality coincides with the field of\nvirtual knowledge, anything short of this whole field is an abstraction\nand so falsified. Even to say \u201cwe know this fact\u201d is unsatisfactory as\nimplying ourselves and the fact as distinct things united by an\nexternal relation of knowing: to say \u201cthe fact is different from the\nabstraction by which it is explained\u201d similarly implies logically\ndistinct terms in an external relation of difference, and so on. If\nBergson is right in claiming that the actual fact is non-logical then\nobviously all attempts to describe it, since they must be expressed in\nterms of abstractions, will teem with false implications which must be\ndiscounted if the description is to convey the meaning intended.\n\nBergson\u2019s claim is that if we allow ourselves to attend to the changing\nfact with which we are actually acquainted we are driven to a theory of\nreality different from the theory of things and relations accepted by\ncommon sense. The two abstractions by means of which he attempts to\nexpress this new theory are matter and memory. In the actual fact\nBergson would hold that both these notions are combined by synthesis in\nsuch a way as no longer to be distinct, or rather, for this implies\nthat they started distinct and then became merged, it would perhaps be\nbetter to say that these two notions are abstractions from two\ntendencies which are present in the actual fact. In the actual fact\nthey combine and, as it were, counteract one another and the result is\nsomething different from either taken alone, but when we abstract them\nwe release them from each other\u2019s modifying influence and the result is\nan exaggeration of one or other tendency which does not really\nrepresent anything which actually occurs but can be used, in\ncombination with the contrary exaggeration, to explain the actual fact\nwhich may be described as being like what would result from a\ncombination of these two abstractions.\n\nWe will take matter first.\n\nMatter, for Bergson, is an exaggeration of the tendency in reality,\n(that is in the actual changing fact directly known) towards logical\ndistinctness, what he calls \u201cspatiality.\u201d His use of the word \u201cmatter\u201d\nin this sense is again, perhaps, like his use of the word \u201cspace,\u201d\nrather misleading. Actual reality, according to him, is never purely\nmaterial, the only purely material things are abstractions, and these\nare not real at all but simply fictions. Bergson really means the same\nthing by \u201cmatter\u201d as by \u201cspace\u201d and that is simply mutual distinctness\nof parts and externality of relations, in a word logical complexity.\nMatter, according to this definition of the word, has no duration and\nso cannot last through any period of time or change: it simply _is_ in\nthe present, it does not endure but is perpetually destroyed and\nrecreated.\n\nThe complementary exaggeration which, taken together with matter,\ncompletes Berg-son\u2019s explanation of reality, is memory. Just as matter\nis absolute logical complexity memory is absolute creative synthesis.\nTogether they constitute the hybrid notion of creative duration whose\n\u201cparts\u201d interpenetrate which, according to Bergson, comes nearest to\ngiving a satisfactory description of the actual fact directly known\nwhich is, for him, the whole reality.\n\nThe best way to accustom one\u2019s mind to these two complementary\nexaggerations, matter and memory, and to see in more detail the use\nthat Bergson makes of them in explaining the actual facts, will be to\nexamine his theory of sensible perception, since it is just in the act\nof sensible perception that memory comes in contact with matter.\n\nThe unsophisticated view is that in sensible perception we become\nacquainted with things which exist whether we perceive them or not, and\nthese things, taken all together, are commonly called the material\nworld. According to Bergson\u2019s theory also sensible perception is direct\nacquaintance with matter. The unsophisticated view holds further,\nhowever, that this material world with which sensible perception\nacquaints us is the common sense world of solid tables, green grass,\nanger and other such states and things and qualities, but we have\nalready seen that this common sense world is really itself only one\namong the various attempts which science and common sense are\ncontinually making to explain the facts in terms of abstractions. The\nworlds of electrons, vibrations, forces, and so on, constructed by\nphysics, are other attempts to do the same thing and the common sense\nworld of \u201creal\u201d things and qualities has no more claim to actual\nexistence than have any of these scientific hypotheses. Berg-son\u2019s\nmatter is not identified with any one of these constructions, it is\nthat in the facts which they are all attempts to explain in terms of\nabstractions, the element in the facts upon which abstractions are\nbased and which makes facts classifiable and so explicable.\n\nThe words by which we describe and explain the material element in the\nfacts in terms of series of distinct stages or events in external\nrelations would leave out change if their implications were followed\nout consistently, but it is only a few \u201cintellectuals\u201d who have ever\nbeen able to bring themselves to follow out this implication to the\nbitter end and accept the conclusion, however absurd. Since it is\nobvious that the facts do change the usual way of getting round the\ndifficulty is to say that some of these stages are \u201cpast\u201d and some\n\u201cpresent,\u201d and then, not clearly realizing that the explanations we\nconstruct are not really facts at all, to take it for granted that a\ntransition between past and present, though there is no room for it in\nthe logical form of the explanation, yet somehow manages actually to\ntake place. Bergson agrees that change does actually take place but not\nas a transition between abstractions such as \u201cpast\u201d and \u201cpresent.\u201d We\nthink that \u201cpast\u201d and \u201cpresent\u201d must be real facts because we do not\nrealize clearly how these notions have been arrived at. Once we have\ngrasped the idea that these notions, and indeed all clear concepts, are\nonly abstractions, we see that it is not necessary to suppose that\nthese abstractions really change at all. Between the abstractions \u201cthe\npast\u201d and \u201cthe present\u201d there is no transition, and it is the same with\nevents and things and qualities: all these, being nothing but\nconvenient fictions, stand outside the stream of actual fact which is\nwhat really changes and endures.\n\nMatter, then, is the name which Bergson gives to that element in the\nfact upon which the purely logical form appropriate to abstractions is\nbased. The actual facts are not purely logical but neither are they\ncompletely interpenetrated since they lend themselves to\nclassification: they tend to logical form on the one hand and to\ncomplete inter-penetration on the other without going the whole way in\neither direction. What Bergson does in the description of the facts\nwhich he offers is to isolate each of these tendencies making them into\ntwo separate distinct abstractions, one called matter and the other\nmind. Isolated, what in the actual fact was blended becomes\nincompatible. Matter and mind, the clear cut abstractions, are mutually\ncontradictory and it becomes at once a pseudo-problem to see how they\never could combine to constitute the actual fact.\n\nThe matter which Bergson talks about, being what would be left of the\nfacts if memory were abstracted, has no past: it simply is in the\npresent moment. If there is any memory which can retain previous\nmoments then this memory may compare these previous moments with the\npresent moment and call them the past of matter, but in itself, apart\nfrom memory, (and so isolated in a way in which this tendency in the\nactual fact never could be isolated) matter has no past.\n\nNoticing how very different the actual facts which we know directly are\nfrom any of the material worlds by which we explain them, each of which\nlays claim to being \u201cthe reality with which sensible perception\nacquaints us,\u201d some philosophers have put forward the view that in\nsensible perception we become acquainted, not with matter itself, but\nwith signs which stand for a material world which exists altogether\noutside perception. This view Bergson rejects. He says that in sensible\nperception we are not acquainted with mere signs but, in so far as\nthere is any matter at all, what we know in sensible perception is that\nmatter itself. The facts which we know directly are matter itself and\nwould be nothing but matter if they were instantaneous. For Bergson,\nhowever, an instantaneous fact is out of the question: every fact\ncontains more than the mere matter presented at the moment of\nperception. Facts are distinguished from matter by lasting through a\nperiod of duration, this is what makes the difference between the\nactual fact and any of the material worlds in terms of which we\ndescribe them: matter, is, as we have said, only an abstraction of one\nelement or tendency in the changing fact which is the sole reality:\nmemory is the complementary abstraction. Apart from the actual fact\nneither matter nor memory have independent existence. This is where\nBerg-son disagrees with the philosophers who regard the facts as signs\nof an independent material world, or as phenomena which misrepresent\nsome \u201cthing\u201d in \u201citself\u201d which is what _really_ exists but which is not\nknown directly but only inferred from the phenomena. For Bergson it is\nthe fact directly known that _really_ exists, and matter and memory,\nsolid tables, green grass, electrons, forces, the absolute, and all the\nother abstract ideas by which we explain it are misrepresentations of\nit, not it of them.\n\nEven Bergson, however, does not get away from the distinction between\nappearance and reality. The fact is for him the reality, the\nabstraction the appearance. But then the fact which is the reality is\nnot the fact which we ordinarily suppose ourselves to know, the little\nfragment which constitutes \u201cour experience at the present moment.\u201d This\nis itself an abstraction from the vastly wider fact of our virtual\nknowledge, and it is this wider field of knowledge which is the\nreality. Abstraction involves falsification and so the little fragment\nof fact to which our attention is usually confined is not, as it\nstands, reality: it is appearance. We should only know reality as it is\nif we could replace this fragment in its proper context in the whole\nfield of virtual knowledge (or reality) where it belongs. What we\nshould then know would not be appearance but reality itself. It is at\nthis knowledge, according to Bergson, that philosophy aims. Philosophy\nis a reversal of our ordinary intellectual habits: ordinarily thought\nprogresses from abstraction to abstraction steadily getting further\nfrom concrete facts: according to Bergson the task of philosophy should\nbe to put abstractions back again into their context so as to obtain\nthe fullest possible knowledge of actual fact.\n\nIn order to describe and explain this fact, however, we have to make\nuse of abstractions. Bergson describes the fact known directly by\nsensible perception as a contraction of a period of the duration of\nmatter in which the \u201cpast\u201d states of matter are preserved along with\nthe \u201cpresent\u201d and form a single whole with it. It is memory which makes\nthis difference between matter and the actual facts by preserving\n\u201cpast\u201d matter and combining it with \u201cthe present.\u201d A single perceived\nfact, however, does not contain memories as distinct from present\nmaterial: the distinction between \u201cpast\u201d and \u201cpresent\u201d does not hold\ninside facts whose duration forms a creative whole and not a logical\nseries. Of course it is incorrect to describe facts as \u201ccontaining past\nand present matter,\u201d but, as we have often pointed out, misleading\nthough their logical implications are, we are obliged to replace facts\nby abstractions when we want to describe them.\n\nAn example may perhaps convey what is meant by saying that a fact is a\ncontraction of a period of the duration of matter. Consider red,\nbearing in mind that, when we are speaking of the fact actually\nperceived when we see red we must discount the logical implications of\nour words. Science says that red, the material, is composed of\nimmensely rapid vibrations of ether: red, the fact, we know as a simple\ncolour. Bergson accepts the scientific abstractions in terms of which\nto describe matter, making the reservation that, if we are to talk of\nmatter as composed of vibrations, we must not say that these vibrations\nlast through a period of time or change by themselves, apart from any\nmemory which retains and so preserves the \u201cpast\u201d vibrations. If matter\nis to be thought of at all as existing apart from any memory it must be\nthought of as consisting of a single vibration in a perpetual present\nwith no past. We might alter the description and say that this present\nmoment of matter should be thought of as being perpetually destroyed\nand recreated.\n\nNow according to Bergson the red which we know directly _is_ a period\nof the vibrations of matter contracted by memory so as to produce an\nactual perceived fact. As matter red does not change, it is absolutely\ndiscrete and complex, in a word, logical: as fact it is non-logical and\nforms a creative process of duration. The difference between matter and\nthe actual fact is made by the mental act which holds matter as it were\nin tension through a period of duration, when a fact is produced, but\nwhich would have had to be absent if there had been no fact but simply\npresent matter. Bergson calls this act memory: memory, he says, turns\nmatter into fact by preserving its past along with its present. Without\nmemory there would be no duration and so no change and no time. Matter,\napart from memory would have no duration and it is just in this that it\nis distinguished from actual fact.\n\nIt is, however, of course, only by making abstractions that we can say\nwhat things would be like if something were taken away which actually\nis not taken away. Matter never really does exist without memory nor\nmemory without its content, matter: the actual fact can only be\ndescribed as a combination of the two elements, but this description\nmust not lead us into supposing that the abstractions, matter and\nmemory, actually have independent existence apart from the fact which\nthey explain. Only the actual fact exists and it is not really made up\nof two elements, matter and memory, but only described in terms of\nthese two abstractions.\n\nBergson\u2019s account of perception differs from the account ordinarily\ngiven in that perception is not described as a relation which is\nsupposed to hold between a subject and an object: for Bergson there is\nno \u201cI,\u201d distinct from what is perceived, standing to it in a relation\nof perception. For an object, to be perceived consists, not in being\nrelated to a perceiver, but in being combined in a new way with other\nobjects. If an object is combined by synthesis with other objects then\nit is perceived and so becomes a fact. But there is no mind over and\nabove the objects which perceives them by being related to them, or\neven by performing an act of synthesis upon them. To speak of \u201cour\u201d\nperceiving objects is a mere fiction: when objects are combined by\nsynthesis they become perceptions, facts, and this is the same as\nsaying that they are minds. For Bergson a mind _is_ nothing but a\nsynthesis of objects. This explains what he means by saying that in\ndirect knowledge the perceiver is the object perceived.\n\nActually he thinks such notions as the perceiver and the object and the\nrelation which unites them, or again matter and the act of synthesis\nwhich turns matter into fact, are nothing but abstractions: the only\nthing there really is is simply the fact itself. These abstractions,\nhowever, do somehow apply to the actual facts, and this brings us back\nto our problem as to how it is that the actual fact, which is in\ncreative duration, lends itself to classification: how it is that\ngeneral laws in terms of abstractions which can be repeated over and\nover again, can apply to the actual fact which does not contain\nrepetitions?\n\nFacts lend themselves to explanation when they are perceived as\nfamiliar. In this perceived familiarity, which is the basis of all\nabstraction, and so of all description and explanation, past as well as\npresent is involved, the present owing its familiarity to our memory of\npast facts. The obvious explanation of perceived familiarity, would be,\nof course, to say that it results from our perceiving similar qualities\nshared by past and present facts, or relations of similarity holding\nbetween them. But Bergson must find some other explanation than this\nsince he denies that there can be repetition in actual facts directly\nknown.\n\nWhenever there is actual fact there is memory, and memory creates\nduration which excludes repetition. Perceived familiarity depends upon\nmemory but memory, according to Bergson, does not work by preserving a\nseries of repetitions for future reference. If we say that memory\nconnects \u201cthe past\u201d with \u201cthe present\u201d we must add that it destroys\ntheir logical distinctness. But of course this is putting it very\nbadly: there is really no \u201clogical distinctness\u201d in the actual fact for\nmemory to \u201cdestroy\u201d: our language suggests that first there was matter,\nforming a logical series of distinct qualities recurring over and over,\nand then memory occurred and telescoped the series, squeezing \u201cearlier\u201d\nand \u201clater\u201d moments into one another to make a creative duration. Such\na view is suggested by our strong bias towards regarding abstractions\nas having independent existence apart from the real fact from which\nthey have been abstracted: if we can overcome this bias the description\nwill do well enough.\n\nAccording to Bergson, as we have just seen, every actual fact must\ncontain some memory otherwise it would not be a fact but simply matter,\nsince it is an act of memory that turns matter into perceived fact. Our\nordinary more or less familiar facts, however, contain much more than\nthis bare minimum. The facts of everyday life are perceived as familiar\nand classified from a vast number of points of view. When you look at a\ncherry you recognise its colour, shape, etc., you know it is edible,\nwhat it would taste like, whether it is ripe, and much more besides,\nall at a glance. All this knowledge depends on memory, memory gives\nmeaning to what we might call bare sensation (which is the same thing\nas Bergson\u2019s present matter) as opposed to the full familiar fact\nactually experienced. Now the meaning is ordinarily contained in the\nactual fact along with the bare sensation not as a multiplicity of\nmemories distinct from the bare sensation, but, as we put it, at a\nglance. This peculiar flavour of a familiar fact can be analysed out as\nconsisting of memories of this or that past experience, if we choose to\ntreat it in that way, just as a fact can be analysed into qualities.\nAccording to Bergson this analysis of the meaning of a familiar fact\ninto memories would have the same drawbacks as the analysis of a\npresent fact into qualities: it would leave out much of the meaning and\ndistort the rest. Bergson holds that wherever there is duration the\npast must be preserved since it is just the preservation of the past,\nthe creation of fact by a synthesis of what, out of synthesis, would be\npast and present, which constitutes duration. The essential point about\nmental life is just the performing of this act of synthesis which makes\nduration: wherever there is mental life there is duration and so\nwherever there is mental life the past is preserved. \u201cAbove\neverything,\u201d Bergson says, \u201cconsciousness signifies memory. At this\nmoment as I discuss with you I pronounce the word \u201cdiscussion.\u201d It is\nclear that my consciousness grasps this word altogether; if not it\nwould not see it as a unique word and would not make sense of it. And\nyet when I pronounce the last syllable of the word the two first ones\nhave already been pronounced; relatively to this one, which must then\nbe called present, they are past. But this last syllable \u201csion\u201d was not\npronounced instantaneously; the time, however short, during which I was\nsaying it, can be split up into parts and these parts are past,\nrelatively to the last of them, and this last one would be present if\nit were not that it too can be further split up: so that, do what you\nwill, you cannot draw any line of demarcation between past and present,\nand so between memory and consciousness. Indeed when I pronounce the\nword \u201cdiscussion\u201d I have before my mind, not only the beginning, the\nmiddle and the end of the word, but also the preceding words, also the\nwhole of the sentence which I have already spoken; if it were not so I\nshould have lost the thread of my speech. Now if the punctuation of the\nspeech had been different my sentence might have begun earlier; it\nmight, for instance, have contained the previous sentence and my\n\u201cpresent\u201d would have been still further extended into the past. Let us\npush this reasoning to its conclusion: let us suppose that my speech\nhas lasted for years, since the first awakening of my consciousness,\nthat it has consisted of a single sentence, and that my consciousness\nhas been sufficiently detached from the future, sufficiently\ndisinterested to occupy itself exclusively in taking in the meaning of\nthe sentence: in that case I should not look for any explanation of the\ntotal conservation of this sentence any more than I look for one of the\nsurvival of the first two syllables of the word \u201cdiscussion\u201d when I\npronounce the last one. Well, I think that our whole inner life is like\na single sentence, begun from the first awakening of consciousness, a\nsentence scattered with commas, but nowhere broken by a full stop. And\nso I think that our whole past is there, subconscious\u2014I mean present to\nus in such a way that our consciousness, to become aware of it, need\nnot go outside itself nor add anything foreign: to perceive clearly all\nthat it contains, or rather all that it is, it has only to put aside an\nobstacle, to lift a veil.\u201d[5]\n\n [5] _L\u2019Energie Spirituelle_\u2014\u201cL\u2019Ame et le Corps,\u201d pages 59 and 60.\n\n\nIf this theory of memory be correct, the occurrence of any present bare\nsensation itself suffices to recall, in some sense, the whole past. But\nthis is no use for practical purposes, just as the whole of the fact\ngiven in present perception is useless for practical purposes until it\nhas been analysed into qualities. According to Bergson we treat the\nmaterial supplied by memory in much the same way as that supplied by\nperception. The whole field of the past which the present calls up is\nmuch wider than what we actually remember clearly: what we actually\nremember is arrived at by ignoring all the past except such scraps as\nappear to form useful precedents for behaviour in the present situation\nin which we find ourselves. Perhaps this explains why sometimes, at the\npoint of death, when useful behaviour is no longer possible, this\nselection breaks down and the whole of the past floods back into\nmemory. The brain, according to Bergson, is the organ whose function it\nis to perform this necessary work of selection out of the whole field\nof virtual memory of practically useful fragments, and so long as the\nbrain is in order, only these are allowed to come through into\nconsciousness as clear memories. The passage just quoted goes on to\nspeak of \u201cthe part played by the brain in memory.\u201d \u201cThe brain does not\nserve to preserve the past but primarily to obscure it, and then to let\njust so much as is practically useful slip through.\u201d\n\nBut the setting of the whole past, though it is ignored for\nconvenience, still makes itself felt in the peculiar qualitative\nflavour which belongs to every present fact by reason of its past. Even\nin the case of familiar facts this flavour is no mere repetition but is\nperpetually modified as the familiarity increases, and it is just in\nthis progressively changing flavour that their familiarity consists.\n\nAn inspection of what we know directly, then, does not bear out the\ncommon sense theory that perceived familiarity, upon which abstraction\nand all description and explanation are based, consists in the\nperception of similar qualities shared by present matter and the matter\nretained by memory. A familiar fact appears to be, not a repetition,\nbut a _new_ fact. This new fact may be described as containing present\nand past bare sensations, but it must be added that these bare\nsensations do not remain distinct things but are synthesised by the act\nof perception into a fresh whole which is not the sum of the bare\nsensations which it may be described as containing. Such a perceived\nwhole will be familiar, and so lend itself to abstraction and\nexplanation, in so far as the present bare sensation which it contains,\ntaken as mere matter (that is apart from the act of perception which\nturns it from mere matter into actual fact), would have been a\nrepetition of some of the past bare sensations which go to form its\nmeaning and combine with it to create the fact actually known. For bare\nsensation now may be a repetition of past bare sensation though the\nfull fact will always be something fresh, its flavour changing as it\ngrows more and more familiar by taking up into itself more and more\nbare sensation which, taken in abstraction, apart from the act of\nsynthesis which turns it into actual fact, would be repetitions. To\ntake the example which we have already used of perceiving first a rose\nand then a strawberry ice cream: let us suppose that the rose was the\nvery first occasion on which you saw pink. The perceived fact on that\noccasion would, like all perceived facts, be a combination of / past\nand present bare sensations. It would I not be familiar because the\nelements of present bare sensation would not be repetitions of the\nelements of past bare sensation (always assuming, as we must for\npurposes of explanation, that past and present bare sensations ever\ncould be isolated from the actual fact and still both exist, which,\nhowever, is not possible). But when you saw the strawberry ice cream\nthe past perceived rose would be among the memories added to this bare\nsensation which constitute its meaning and, by forming a synthesis with\nit, turn it from mere matter into fact. The pink would now be perceived\nas familiar because the pink of the rose (which as bare sensation is\nsimilar to the bare sensation of strawberry-ice-cream-pink) would be\nincluded, along with the present bare sensation of pink, in the whole\nfact of the perception of strawberry ice cream.\n\nPerceived fact, then, combines meaning and present bare sensation to\nform a whole with a qualitative flavour which is itself always unique,\nbut which lends itself to abstraction in so far as the bare sensations,\npast and present, which go to produce it, would, as matter in\nisolation, be repetitions.\n\nThis qualitative flavour, however, is, of course, not a quality in the\nlogical sense which implies distinctness and externality of relations.\nFacts have logical qualities only if they are taken in abstraction\nisolated from their context. This is not how fact actually occurs.\nEvery fact occurs in the course of the duration of some mental life\nwhich itself changes as a process of duration and not as a logical\nseries. The mental life of an individual is, as it were, a\ncomprehensive fact which embraces all the facts directly known to that\nindividual in a single process of creative duration. Facts are to the\nmental life of an individual what bare sensation is to the actual fact\ndirectly known in perception: facts are, as it were, the matter of\nmental life. Imagine a fact directly known, such as we have described\nin discussing sensible perception, lasting on and on, perpetually\ntaking up new bare sensations and complicating them with meaning which\nconsists of all the past which it already contains so as to make out of\nthis combination of past and present fresh fact, that will give you\nsome idea of the way in which Bergson thinks that mental life is\ncreated out of matter by memory. Only this description is still\nunsatisfactory because it is obliged to speak of what is created either\nin the plural or in the singular and so fails to convey either the\ndifferentiation contained in mental life or else its unbroken\ncontinuity as all one fact progressively modified by absorbing more and\nmore matter.\n\nIf Bergson\u2019s account of the way in which memory works is true there is\na sense in which the whole past of every individual is preserved in\nmemory and all unites with any present bare sensation to constitute the\nfact directly known to him at any given moment. If the continuity of\nduration is really unbroken there is no possibility of any of the past\nbeing lost.\n\nThis is why Bergson maintains that the whole of our past is contained\nin our virtual knowledge: what he means by our virtual knowledge is\nsimply everything which enters into the process of duration which\nconstitutes our whole mental life. Besides our whole past this virtual\nknowledge must also contain much more of present bare sensation than we\nare usually aware of.\n\nWe said that, for Bergson, actual fact directly known was the only\nreality; this actual fact, however, does not mean merely what is\npresent to the perception of a given individual at any given moment,\nbut the whole of our virtual knowledge. The field of virtual knowledge\nwould cover much the same region as the subconscious, which plays such\nan important part in modern psychology. The limits of this field are\nimpossible to determine. Once you give up limiting direct knowledge to\nthe fact actually present in perception at any given moment it is\ndifficult to draw the line anywhere. And yet to draw the line at the\npresent moment is impossible for \u201cthe present moment\u201d is clearly an\nabstract fiction. For practical purposes \u201cthe present\u201d is what is known\nas \u201cthe specious present,\u201d which covers a certain ill-defined period of\nduration from which the instantaneous \u201cpresent moment\u201d is recognised to\nbe a mere abstraction. According to Bergson, however, just as \u201cthe\npresent moment\u201d is only an abstraction from a wider specious present so\nthis specious present itself is an abstraction from a continuous\nprocess of duration from which other abstractions, days, weeks, years,\ncan be made, but which is actually unbroken and forms a single\ncontinuous changing whole. And just as facts are only abstractions from\nthe whole mental life of an individual so individuals must be regarded\nas abstractions from some more comprehensive mental whole and thus our\nvirtual knowledge seems not merely to extend over the whole of what is\nembraced by our individual acts of perception and preserved by our\nindividual memories but overflows even these limits and must be\nregarded as co-extensive with the duration of the whole of reality.\n\nIt may be open to question how much of this virtual knowledge of both\npast and present we ever could know directly in any sense comparable to\nthe way in which we know the fact actually presented at some given\nmoment, however perfectly we might succeed in ridding ourselves with\nour intellectual pre-occupation with explaining instead of knowing;\nbut, if reality forms an unbroken whole in duration, we cannot in\nadvance set any limits, short of the whole of reality, to the field of\nvirtual knowledge. And it does really seem as if our pre-occupation\nwith discovering repetitions in the interests of explanation had\nsomething to do with the limited extent of the direct knowledge which\nwe ordinarily enjoy, so that, if we could overcome this bias, we might\nknow more than we do now, though how much more it is not possible, in\nadvance, to predict. For in the whole field of virtual knowledge, which\nappears to be continuous with the little scrap of fact which is all\nthat we usually attend to, present bare sensation and such bare\nsensations as resemble it, form very insignificant elements: for\npurposes of abstraction and explanation, however, it is only these\ninsignificant elements that are of any use. So long, therefore, as we\nare preoccupied with abstraction, we must bend all our energies towards\nisolating these fragments from the context which extends out and out\nover the whole field of virtual knowledge, rivetting our attention on\nthem and, as far as possible, ignoring all the rest. If Bergson\u2019s\ntheory of virtual knowledge is correct, then, it does seem as if\nnormally our efforts were directed towards shutting out most of our\nknowledge rather than towards enjoying it, towards forgetting the\ngreater part of what memory contains rather than towards remembering\nit.\n\nIf we really could reverse this effort and concentrate upon knowing the\nwhole field of past and present as fully as possible, instead of\nclassifying it, which involves selecting part of the field and ignoring\nthe rest, it is theoretically conceivable that we might succeed in\nknowing directly the whole of the process of duration which constitutes\nthe individual mental life of each one of us. And it is not even\ncertain that our knowledge must necessarily be confined within the\nlimits of what we have called our individual mental life. Particular\nfacts, as we have seen, are not really distinct parts of a single\nindividual mental life: the notion of separateness applies only to\nabstractions and it is only because we are much more pre-occupied with\nabstractions than with actual facts that we come to suppose that facts\ncan ever really be separate from one another. When we shake off our\ncommon sense assumptions and examine the actual facts which we know\ndirectly we find that they form a process and not a logical series of\ndistinct facts one after the other. Now on analogy it seems possible\nthat what we call individual mental lives are, to the wider process\nwhich contains and constitutes the whole of reality, as particular\nfacts are to the whole process which constitutes each individual mental\nlife. The whole of reality may contain individual lives as these\ncontain particular facts, not as separate distinct units in logical\nrelations, but as a process in which the line of demarcation between\n\u201cthe parts\u201d (if we must speak of \u201cparts\u201d) is not clear cut. If this\nanalogy holds then it is impossible in advance to set any limits to the\nfield of direct knowledge which it may be in our power to secure by\nreversing our usual mental attitude and devoting our energies simply to\nknowing, instead of to classifying and explaining.\n\nBut without going beyond the limits of our individual experience, and\neven without coming to know directly the whole field of past and\npresent fact which that experience contains, it is still a considerable\ngain to our direct knowledge if we realize what false assumptions our\npreoccupation with classification leads us to make even about the very\nlimited facts to which our direct knowledge is ordinarily confined. We\nthen realize that, besides being considerably less than what we\nprobably have it in our power to know, these few facts that we do know\nare themselves by no means what we commonly suppose them to be.\n\nThe two fundamental errors into which common sense leads us about the\nfacts are the assumptions that they have the logical form, that is\ncontain mutually exclusive parts in external relations, and that these\nparts can be repeated over and over again. These two false assumptions\nare summed up in the common sense view that the fact which we know\ndirectly actually consists of events, things, states, qualities.\nBergson tells us that when once we have realized that this is not the\ncase we have begun to be philosophers.\n\nHaving stripped the veil of common sense assumptions from what we know\ndirectly our task will then be to hold this direct knowledge before us\nso as to know as much as possible. The act by which we know directly is\nthe very same act by which we perceive and remember; these are all\nsimply acts of synthesis, efforts to turn matter into creative\nduration. What we have to do is, as it were, to make a big act of\nperception to embrace as wild a field as possible of past and present\nas a single fact directly known. This act of synthesis Bergson calls\n\u201cintuition.\u201d\n\nIntuition may be described as turning past and present into fact\ndirectly known by transforming it from mere matter into a creative\nprocess of duration: but, of course, actually, there is not, first\nmatter, then an act of intuition which synthesises it, and finally a\nfact in duration, there is simply the duration, and the matter and the\nact of intuition are only abstractions by which we describe and explain\nit.\n\nThe effort of intuition is the reversal of the intellectual effort to\nabstract and explain which is our usual way of treating facts, and\nthese two ways of attending are incompatible and cannot both be carried\non together. Intuition, (or, to give it a more familiar name, direct\nknowledge,) reveals fact: intellectual attention analyses and\nclassifies this fact in order to explain it in general terms, that is\nto explain it by substituting abstractions for the actual fact.\nObviously we cannot perform acts of analysis without some fact to serve\nas material: analysis uses the facts supplied by direct knowledge as\nits material. Bergson maintains that in so doing it limits and distorts\nthese facts and he says that if we are looking for speculative\nknowledge we must go back to direct knowledge, or, as he calls it,\nintuition.\n\nBut bare acquaintance is in-communicable, moreover it requires a great\neffort to maintain it. In order to communicate it and retain the power\nof getting the facts back again after we have relaxed our grip on them\nwe are obliged, once we have obtained the fullest direct knowledge of\nwhich we are capable, to apply the intellectual method to the fact thus\nrevealed and attempt to describe it in general terms.\n\nNow the directly known forms a creative duration whose special\ncharacteristics are that it is non-logical, (i.e., is not made up of\ndistinct mutually exclusive terms united by external relations) and\ndoes not contain parts which can be repeated over and over, while on\nthe other hand the terms which we have to substitute for it if we want\nto describe it only stand for repetitions and have the logical form. It\nlooks, therefore, as if our descriptions could not, as they stand, be\nvery successful in conveying to others the fact known to us directly,\nor in recalling it to ourselves.\n\nIn order that the description substituted by our intellectual activity\nfor the facts which we want to describe may convey these facts it is\nnecessary to perform an act of synthesis on the description analogous\nto the act of perception which originally created the fact itself out\nof mere matter. The words used in a description should be to the hearer\nwhat mere matter is to the perceiver: in order that matter may be\nperceived an act of synthesis must be performed by which the matter is\nturned into fact in duration: similarly in order to gather what a\ndescription of a fact means the hearer must take the general terms\nwhich are employed not as being distinct and mutually exclusive but as\nmodifying one another and interpenetrating in the way in which the\n\u201cparts\u201d of a process of creative duration interpenetrate. In the same\nway by understanding the terms employed synthetically and not\nintellectually we can use a description to recall any fact which we\nhave once known directly. Thus our knowledge advances by alternate acts\nof direct acquaintance and analysis.\n\nPhilosophy must start from a fresh effort of acquaintance creating, if\npossible, a fact wider and fuller than the facts which we are content\nto know for the purposes of everyday life. But analysis is essential if\nthe fact thus directly known is to be conveyed to others and recalled.\nBy analysis the philosopher fixes this wider field in order that he may\ncommunicate and recall it. Starting later from the description of some\nfact obtained by a previous effort of acquaintance, or from several\nfacts obtained at different times, and also from the facts described by\nothers, and using all these descriptions as material, it may be\npossible, by a fresh effort, to perform acts of acquaintance, (or\nsynthesis) embracing ever wider and wider fields of knowledge. This,\naccording to Bergson, is the way in which philosophical knowledge\nshould be built up, facts, obtained by acts of acquaintance, being\ntranslated into descriptions only that these descriptions may again be\nfurther synthesised so directing our attention to more and more\ncomprehensive facts.\n\nInevitably, of course, these facts themselves, being less than all the\nstream of creative duration to which they belong, will be abstractions,\nif taken apart from that whole stream, and so distorted. This flaw in\nwhat we know even by direct acquaintance can never be wholly remedied\nshort of our succeeding in becoming acquainted with the whole of\nduration. It is something, however, to be aware of the flaw, even if we\ncannot wholly remedy it, and the wider the acquaintance the less is the\nimperfection in the fact known.\n\nThe first step, in any case, towards obtaining the wider acquaintance\nat which philosophy aims consists in making the effort necessary to rid\nourselves of the practical preoccupation which gives us our bias\ntowards explaining everything long before we have allowed ourselves\ntime to pay proper attention to it, in order that we may at least get\nback to such actual facts as we do already know directly. When this has\nbeen accomplished (and our intellectual habits are so deeply ingrained\nthat the task is by no means easy) we can then go on to other\nphilosophers\u2019 descriptions of the facts with which their own efforts to\nwiden their direct knowledge have acquainted them and, by synthesising\nthe general terms which they have been obliged to employ, we also may\ncome to know these more comprehensive facts. Unless it is understood\nsynthetically, however, a philosopher\u2019s description of the facts with\nwhich he has acquainted himself will be altogether unsatisfactory and\nmisleading. It is in this way that Bergson\u2019s own analysis of the fact\nwhich we all know directly into matter and the act of memory by which\nmatter is turned into a creative process should be understood. The\nmatter and the act of memory are both abstractions from the actual\nfact: he does not mean that over and above the fact there is either any\nmatter or any force or activity called memory nor are these things\nsupposed to be in the actual fact: they are simply abstract terms in\nwhich the fact is described.\n\nBergson tries elsewhere to put the same point by saying that there are\ntwo tendencies in reality, one towards space (that is logical form) and\nthe other towards duration, and that the actual fact which we know\ndirectly \u201ctends\u201d now towards \u201cspace\u201d and now towards duration. The two\nfaculties intellect and intuition are likewise fictions which are not\nreally supposed to exist, distinct from the fact to which they are\napplied, but are simply abstract notions invented for the sake of\ndescription.\n\nWhatever the description by which a philosopher attempts to convey what\nhe has discovered we shall only understand it if we remember that the\nterms in which the fact is described are not actually parts of the fact\nitself and can only convey the meaning intended if they are grasped by\nsynthesis and not intellectually understood.\n\nPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY\n\n\n\n\nInternational Library of Psychology Philosophy and Scientific Method\n\nGENERAL EDITOR - - - - C. K. OGDEN, M. A.\n\n(_Magdalene College, Cambridge_).\n\n_VOLUMES ALREADY ARRANGED:_\n\nPHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES\n_by_ Q. E. MOORE, Litt. D.\n\nCONFLICT AND DREAM\n_by_ W. H. R. RIVERS, F. R. S.\n\nTHE MEASUREMENT OF EMOTION\n_by_ W. WHATELY SMITH _Introduction by William Brown_.\n\nTHE ANALYSIS OF MATTER\n_by_ BERTRAND RUSSELL, F. R. S.\n\nMATHEMATICS FOR PHILOSOPHERS\n_by_ G. H. HARDY, F. R. S.\n\nPSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES\n_by_ C. G. JONG, M. D., LL. D.\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING\n_by_ EUGENIO RIGNANO\n\nTHE ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY\n_by_ WILLIAM BROWN, M. D., D. Sc.\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS\n_by_ E. VON HARTMANN\n\nTHE FOUNDATIONS OF MUSICAL AESTHETICS\n_by_ W. POLE, F. R. S. _Edited by Edward J. Dent_.\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGY OF MUSIC\n_by_ EDWARD J. DENT\n\nSOME CONCEPTS OF SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT\n_by_ C. D. BROAD, Litt. D.\n\nPHILOSOPHICAL LOGIC\n_by_ L. WITTGENSTEIN _Introduction by Bertrand Russell_.\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF ' AS IF\n_by_ H. VAIHINGER\n\nTHE LAWS OF FEELING\n_by_ F. PAULHAN\n\nTHE HISTORY OF MATERIALISM\n_by_ F. A. LANGE\n\nCOLOUR-HARMONY\n_by_ JAMES WOOD and C. K. OGDEN\n\nTHE STATISTICAL METHOD IN ECONOMICS AND POLITICS\n_by_ P. SARGANT FLORENCE\n\nTHE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM\n_by_ I. A. RICHARDS","title":"The Misuse of Mind","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":23523}