Bergson and His Philosophy | Page 7

Matiere et Memoire in 1896, and L'Evolution
creatrice in 1907. On October 18th, 1859, Henri Louis Bergson was
born in Paris in the Rue Lamartine, not far from the Opera
House.[Footnote: He was not born in England as Albert Steenbergen
erroneously states in his work, Henri Bergsons Intuitive Philosophie,
Jena, 1909, p. 2, nor in 1852, the date given by Miss Stebbing in her
Pragmatism and French Voluntarism.] He is descended from a
prominent Jewish family of Poland, with a blend of Irish blood from

his mother's side. His family lived in London for a few years after his
birth, and he obtained an early familiarity with the English language
from his mother. Before he was nine years old his parents crossed the
Channel and settled in France, Henri becoming a naturalized citizen of
the Republic.
In Paris from 1868 to 1878 he attended the Lycee Fontaine, now known
as the Lycee Condorcet. While there he obtained a prize for his
scientific work and also won a prize when he was eighteen for the
solution of a mathematical problem. This was in 1877, and his solution
was published the following year in Annales de Mathematiques. It is of
interest as being his first published work. After some hesitation over his
career, as to whether it should lie in the sphere of the sciences or that of
"the humanities," he decided in favour of the latter, and when nineteen
years of age, he entered the famous Ecole Normale Superieure. While
there he obtained the degree of Licencie-es-Lettres, and this was
followed by that of Agrege de philosophie in 1881.
The same year he received a teaching appointment at the Lycee in
Angers, the ancient capital of Anjou. Two years later he settled at the
Lycee Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, chief town of the Puy de
Dome department, whose name is more known to motorists than to
philosophers. The year after his arrival at Clermont-Ferrand he
displayed his ability in "the humanities" by the publication of an
excellent edition of extracts from Lucretius, with a critical study of the
text and the philosophy of the poet (1884), a work whose repeated
editions are sufficient evidence of its useful place in the promotion of
classical study among the youth of France. While teaching and
lecturing in this beautiful part of his country (the Auvergne region),
Bergson found time for private study and original work. He was
engaged on his Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience. This
essay, which, in its English translation, bears the more definite and
descriptive title, Time and Free Will, was submitted, along with a short
Latin Thesis on Aristotle, for the degree of Docteur-es-Lettres, to
which he was admitted by the University of Paris in 1889. The work
was published in the same year by Felix Alcan, the Paris publisher, in
his series La Bibliotheque de philosophie contemporaine.

It is interesting to note that Bergson dedicated this volume to Jules
Lachelier, then ministre de l'instruction publique, who was an ardent
disciple of Ravaisson and the author of a rather important philosophical
work Du fondement de l'Induction (1871), who in his view of things
endeavoured "to substitute everywhere force for inertia, life for death,
and liberty for fatalism."[Footnote: Lachelier was born in 1832,
Ravaisson in 1813. Bergson owed much to both of these teachers of the
Ecole Normale Superieure. Cf. his memorial address on Ravaisson,
who died in 1900. (See Bibliography under 1904.)]
Bergson now settled again in Paris, and after teaching for some months
at the Municipal College, known as the College Rollin, he received an
appointment at the Lycee Henri-Quatre, where he remained for eight
years. In 1896 he published his second large work, entitled Matiere et
Memoire. This rather difficult, but brilliant, work investigates the
function of the brain, undertakes an analysis of perception and memory,
leading up to a careful consideration of the problems of the relation of
body and mind. Bergson, we know, has spent years of research in
preparation for each of his three large works. This is especially obvious
in Matiere et Memoire, where he shows a very thorough acquaintance
with the extensive amount of pathological investigation which has been
carried out in recent years, and for which France is justly entitled to
very honourable mention.
In 1898 Bergson became Maitre de conferences at his Alma Mater,
L'Ecole Normale Superieure, and was later promoted to a Professorship.
The year 1900 saw him installed as Professor at the College de France,
where he accepted the Chair of Greek Philosophy in succession to
Charles L'Eveque. The College de France, founded in 1530, by
Francois I, is less ancient, and until recent years has been less
prominent in general repute than the Sorbonne, which traces back its
history to the middle of the thirteenth century. Nevertheless, it