Bergson and His Philosophy | Page 6

has so
enormously interested and stimulated the world. As to his treatment of
Change, it reveals Bergson in one of his happiest moods. It is difficult
to restrain one's praise in speaking of the subtle and resourceful way in
which he handles this tantalizing and elusive question. It is a stroke of
genius. The student of Philosophy, of course, at once thinks of
Heraclitus; but Bergson is not merely another Heraclitus any more than
he is just an echo of Jacobi. He places Change in a new light, enables
us to grasp its character with a success which, if he had no other claim
to remembrance, would ensure for him an honourable place in the
History of Philosophy. In the process he makes but a mouthful of Zeno
and his eternal puzzles. But, as Mr. Gunn also points out,[Footnote: See
p. 142.] Change cannot be the last word in our characterization of
Reality. Pure Change is not only unthinkable--that perhaps Bergson

would allow--but it is something which cannot be experienced. There
must be points of reference--a starting point and an ending point at least.
Pure Change, as is the way with "pure" anything, turns into its
contradictory. Paradoxical though it may seem, it ends as static. It
becomes the One and Indivisible. This, at least, was recognized by
Heraclitus and is expressed by him in his figure of the Great Year.
It is not my purpose, however, to usurp the function of the author of
this useful handbook to Bergson. The extent of my introductory
remarks is an almost involuntary tribute to the material and provocative
nature of Bergson's discussions, just as the frequent use by the author
of this book of the actual words of Bergson are a tribute to the
excellence and essential rightness of his style. The Frenchman, himself
a free and candid spirit, would be the last to require unquestioning
docility in others. He knows that thereby is the philosophic breath
choked out of us. If we read him in the spirit in which he would wish to
be read, we shall find, however much we may diverge from him on
particular issues, that our labour has been far from wasted. He
undoubtedly calls for considerable effort from the student who takes
him, as he ought to be taken, seriously; but it is effort well worth while.
He, perhaps, shines even more as a psychologist than as a
philosopher--at least in the time- honoured sense. He has an almost
uncanny introspective insight and, as has been said, a power of
rendering its result in language which creates in the reader a sense of
excitement and adventure not to be excelled by the ablest romancer.
Fadaises, which are to be met with in philosophical works as elsewhere,
are not to be frequently encountered in his writings. There is always the
fresh breeze of original thought blowing here. He is by nature as well
as by doctrine the sworn foe of conventionality. Though he may not
give us all we would wish, in our haste to be all-wise, let us yet be
grateful to him for this, that he has the purpose and also the power to
shake us out of complacency, to compel us to recast our philosophical
account. In this he is supremely serviceable to his generation, and is
deserving of the gratitude of all who care for Philosophy. For, while
Philosophy cannot die, it may be allowed to fall into a comatose
condition; and this is the unpardonable sin. ALEXANDER MAIR
LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY
This huge vision of time and motion, of a mighty world which is

always becoming, always changing, growing, striving, and wherein the
word of power is not law, but life, has captured the modern imagination
no less than the modern intellect. It lights with its splendour the patient
discoveries of science. It casts a new radiance on theology, ethics and
art. It gives meaning to some of our deepest instincts, our strangest and
least explicable tendencies. But above and beyond all this, it lifts the
awful weight which determinism had laid upon our spirits and fills the
future with hope; for beyond the struggle and suffering inseparable
from life's flux, as we know it, it reports to us, though we may not hear
them, "the thunder of new wings."
Evelyn Underhill


CHAPTER I
LIFE OF BERGSON
Birth and education--Teaches at Clermont-Ferrand--Les donnees
immediates de la conscience--Matiere et Memoire--Chair of Greek
Philosophy, then of Modern Philosophy, College de
France--L'Evolution creatrice--Relations with William James--Visits
England and America--Popularity--Neo- Catholics and
Syndicalists--Election to Academie francaise--War-work-- L'Energie
spirituelle.
Bergson's life has been the quiet and uneventful one of a French
professor, the chief landmarks in it being the publication of his three
principal works, first, in 1889, the Essai sur les donnees immediates de
la conscience, then