22 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY 



such onesidedness, not instinct itself, that reason aims 

 at correcting. 



These more or less trite maxims may be illustrated 

 by application to Bergson's advocacy of " intuition " as 

 against " intellect." There are, he says, " two profoundly 

 different ways of knowing a thing. The first implies 

 that we move round the object ; the second that we 

 enter into it. The first depends on the point of view at 

 which we are placed and on the symbols by which we 

 express ourselves. The second neither depends on a 

 point of view nor relies on any symbol. The first kind 

 of knowledge may be said to stop at the relative ; the 

 second, in those cases where it is possible, to attain the 

 absolute." 1 The second of these, which is intuition, is, he 

 says, " the kind of intellectual sympathy by which one 

 places oneself within an object in order to coincide with 

 what is unique in it and therefore inexpressible " (p. 6). 

 In illustration, he mentions self-knowledge : " there is 

 one reality, at least, which we all seize from within, by 

 intuition and not by simple analysis. It is our own 

 personality in its flowing through time our self which 

 endures " (p. 8). The rest of Bergson's philosophy 

 consists in reporting, through the imperfect medium of 

 words, the knowledge gained by intuition, and the 

 consequent complete condemnation of all the pretended 

 knowledge derived from science and common sense. 



This procedure, since it takes sides in a conflict of 

 instinctive beliefs, stands in need of justification by 

 proving the greater trustworthiness of the beliefs on one 

 side than of those on the other. Bergson attempts this 

 justification in two ways first, by explaining that intellect 

 is a purely practical faculty designed to secure biological 

 success ; secondly, by mentioning remarkable feats of 



1 Introduction to Metaphysics, p. i . 



