From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



a psycho-physiological parallelism subsists in modern 

 science, all the beautiful reasoning of a spiritual kind 

 or the highest idealist hopes (apart from an act of faith), 

 will alike be entirely inoperative against them. 



M. Bergson's efforts to buttress intuitive arguments 

 by ingenious similes will not do. He may compare 

 evolution to a sheaf of rockets with God at its centre; 

 intelligence to the ascending energy of the fireworks, 

 and matter to the dead sticks falling back to earth; 

 he may imagine many comparisons to make it understood 

 how, in spite of a seeming psycho-physiological parallel- 

 ism, consciousness is not limited by the organ of con- 

 sciousness ... all these similes, however ingenious, 

 can only give a superficial and fugitive satisfaction they 

 prove nothing. 



Not merely do they prove nothing, they are dangerous, 

 because they bring errors in their train and give the 

 illusion of proof to an investigation which is wanting 

 in thoroughness. 



The chief error in the Bergsonian philosophy, an error 

 which we shall presently expose its anthropocentric 

 concept is probably due to the initial simile comparing 

 evolution to a sheaf of diverging rockets. 



5. CONTRADICTIONS AND INEXACTITUDES 



Besides these illusory or dangerous similes, M. 

 Bergson's philosophy shows obvious contradictions and 

 inexactitudes posing as a system. The contradictions 

 are striking. 



M. Bergson makes out intuition to be a kind of 

 dethroned instinct, a residue of the animal evolution. 

 But he also makes it the basis of philosophic method; 

 so much so, that, according to his system, Man, the 

 privileged member of creation, can know truth only by 

 the faculty which (again according to his system) 



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