Bergson and His Philosophy | Page 9

James, pp. 198-206).] On the other hand

insinuations have been made to the effect that Bergson owes the
germ-ideas of his first book to the 1884 article by James On Some
Omissions of Introspective Psychology, which he neither refers to nor
quotes. This particular article deals with the conception of thought as a
stream of consciousness, which intellect distorts by framing into
concepts. We must not be misled by parallels. Bergson has replied to
this insinuation by denying that he had any knowledge of the article by
James when he wrote Les donnees immediates de la
conscience.[Footnote: Relation a William James et a James Ward. Art.
in Revue philosophique, Aug., 1905, lx., p. 229.] The two thinkers
appear to have developed independently until almost the close of the
century. In truth they are much further apart in their intellectual
position than is frequently supposed.[Footnote: The reader who desires
to follow the various views of the relation of Bergson and James will
find the following works useful. Kallen (a pupil of James): William
James and Henri Bergson: a study in contrasting theories of life.
Stebbing: Pragmatism and French Voluntarism. Caldwell: Pragmatism
and Idealism (last chap). Perry: Present Philosophical Tendencies.
Boutroux: William James (Eng. Tr.). Flournoy: La philosophie de
James (Eng. Tr.). And J. E. Turner: An Examination of William James'
Philosophy.] Both have succeeded in appealing to audiences far beyond
the purely academic sphere, but only in their mutual rejection of
"intellectualism" as final is there real harmony or unanimity between
them. It will not do to press too closely analogies between the Radical
Empiricism of the American and the Doctrine of Intuition of the
Frenchman. Although James obtains a certain priority in point of time
in the development and enunciation of his ideas, we must remember
that he confessed that he was baffled by many of Bergson's notions.
James certainly neglected many of the deeper metaphysical aspects of
Bergson's thought, which did not harmonize with his own, and are even
in direct contradiction. In addition to this Bergson is no pragmatist, for
him "utility," so far from being a test of truth, is rather the reverse, a
synonym for error.
Nevertheless, William James hailed Bergson as an ally very
enthusiastically. Early in the century (1903) we find him remarking in
his correspondence: "I have been re-reading Bergson's books, and

nothing that I have read since years has so excited and stimulated my
thoughts. I am sure that that philosophy has a great future, it breaks
through old cadres and brings things into a solution from which new
crystals can be got." The most noteworthy tributes paid by him to
Bergson were those made in the Hibbert Lectures (A Pluralistic
Universe), which James gave at Manchester College, Oxford, shortly
after he and Bergson met in London. He there remarked upon the
encouragement he had received from Bergson's thought, and referred to
the confidence he had in being "able to lean on Bergson's authority."
[Footnote: A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 214-15. Cf. the whole of Lecture
V. The Compounding of Consciousness, pp. 181-221, and Lecture VI.
Bergson and His Critique of Intellectualism, pp. 225-273.] "Open
Bergson, and new horizons loom on every page you read. It is like the
breath of the morning and the song of birds. It tells of reality itself,
instead of merely reiterating what dusty-minded professors have
written about what other previous professors have thought. Nothing in
Bergson is shop-worn or at second- hand." [Footnote: Lecture VI., p.
265.] The influence of Bergson had led him "to renounce the
intellectualist method and the current notion that logic is an adequate
measure of what can or cannot be." [Footnote: A Pluralistic Universe, p.
212.] It had induced him, he continued, "TO GIVE UP THE LOGIC,
squarely and irrevocably" as a method, for he found that "reality, life,
experience, concreteness, immediacy, use what word you will, exceeds
our logic, overflows, and surrounds it." [Footnote: A Pluralistic
Universe, p. 212.]
Naturally, these remarks, which appeared in book form in 1909,
directed many English and American readers to an investigation of
Bergson's philosophy for themselves. A certain handicap existed in that
his greatest work had not then been translated into English. James,
however, encouraged and assisted Dr. Arthur Mitchell in his
preparation of the English translation of L'Evolution creatrice. In
August of 1910 James died. It was his intention, had he lived to see the
completion of the translation, to introduce it to the English reading
public by a prefatory note of appreciation. In the following year the
translation was completed and still greater interest in Bergson and his
work was the result. By a coincidence, in that same year (1911),

Bergson penned for the French translation of James' book,
Pragmatism,[Footnote: Le Pragmatisme: Translated by Le Brun. Paris,
Flammarion.] a preface of sixteen pages, entitled Verite