H4 bergson's conception of time. 



tions, when we look at things in this way ; things do not require 

 time to go through their successive states, but we require this 

 idea of time in order that our imaginations may conceive of 

 them as passing through successive states. 



Add to this a distinction of time that is fundamental in 

 Bergson's speculation. There is a time that is a symbol of 

 space, and there is a time that is true duration; the one makes 

 no difference to reality, the other is the stuff of which reality is 

 made ; and this distinction gives us the difference between a 

 material thing and a living thing. For time affects (gnaws 

 into) the animate but not the inanimate. This point is so vita 

 to Bergson's theories that I give his own exposition of it word 

 for word : 



" Real duration is that duration which gnaws on things, and the same concrete 

 reality never recurs. Repetition is therefore only possible in the abstract: what is 

 repeated is some aspect that our senses, and especially our intellect, have singled 

 out from reality ; first because our action, upon which all the effort of our intellect 

 is directed, can move only among repetitions. Thus, concentrated on that which 

 repeats, solely preoccupied in welding the same to the same, intellect turns away 

 from the vision of time. It dislikes what is fluid and solidifies everything it touches. 

 We do not think real time But we live it, because life tianscends intellect. " * 



But Bergson goes a step further, and gives time a position 

 in the scheme of things, which is most striking. It is a force, 

 inseparable from the creative consciousness, which causes the 

 universe to unfold the successive stages of its evolution. If 

 words have any meaning, we must regard it as an agent in that 

 continuous process of free creation which is life itself. 



If these flights of Mr. Bergson's speculative mind were ever 

 to gain the assent of the general body of thinkers, our view of 

 the universe would indeed be revolutionised. But restricting 

 our thoughts to the above data with regard to time and duration 

 we may safely say that there are many difficulties to be smoothed 

 away before Bergson's theories become general. 



The exhortation with which Bergson opens this inquiry intc 

 the nature of duration is characteristic of his whole method : we 

 are to take our stand in the very centre of the process of becom- 

 ing, by an effort of sympathy which will enable us to feel all the 

 palpitating riches of the process. Unfortunately, he omits to 

 tell us how his instructions can be carried out, and when we see 

 how he has carried out his own exhortation we are bewildered. 

 He has been so overcome by the thought of being able to enter 

 into the intimate reasons of becoming, and of measuring tru 

 process in living things (which he calls real duration), that he 

 has carried away the superexalted notion that what he seems to 

 have observed is the whole of reality, the very life of things. 

 In his new-found fervour he sweeps away as useless in philosophy 

 all the notions of common sense by classing them as the mere 

 sedimentarv deposits of intuition, which is to be the choice 

 instrument of philosophic knowledge. 



* Creative Evolution, p 48. 



