452 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



matic representation." 1 Analysis gives not parts of a whole 

 but merely notes of a total impression. For this reason, by no 

 act of reconstruction can one regain the whole upon which an 

 analysis has been performed; thought may proceed from 

 objects to symbols but it cannot retrace the route from 

 symbols to objects. Hence scientific knowledge is always 

 partial and relative, and to this extent erroneous. It sup- 

 poses that since an object has a number of aspects it is there- 

 fore itself a plurality; it endeavors to construct an object by 

 multiplying to infinity the abstract symbols in terms of 

 which it is portrayed; it attempts by representations which 

 are outside the object to get inside it. 



One of the best illustrations of the inadequacy of the con- 

 ceptual approach to reality can be seen in the scientific 

 attempt to explain motion. Motion is analyzed into briefer 

 and briefer durations terminating in mere positions, which 

 represent the points through which the moving body passes. 

 Motion is then defined as a series of such positions. But from 

 a mere series of positions, argues Bergson, we cannot get 

 motion. The positions "are not parts of the movement, they 

 are so many snap-shots of it. . . . The moving body is 

 never really in any of the points ; the most we can say is that 

 it passes through them. But passage, which is movement, has 

 nothing in common with stoppage, which is immobility." 

 The points "are not, properly speaking, positions, but 'sup- 

 positions,' aspects or points of view of the mind." 2 Thus by 

 means of a characteristically scientific approach to reality 

 we find that we have lost that very reality; science is in- 

 capable of revealing the true nature of things. 



It soon becomes clear that Bergson's theory of reality is 

 based not merely upon the inadequacy of scientific symbols. 

 As in the case of Eddington, Bergson finds the scientific 

 approach to be unsatisfactory because there is another 

 approach which seems to be more satisfactory. It seems 

 impossible to conclude that science fails to disclose reality 

 unless there is some other method which does disclose real- 



1 Ibid., p. 27. 2 Ibid., p. 49. 



