CHAPTER IV 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 



IT has been shown that the principal error of M. Bergson's 

 Creative Evolution and, generally, of his whole system, 

 consists in his disregard of the psychology called sub- 

 conscious or unconscious. 



We shall now examine a philosophy which, in 

 contrast with M. Bergson's, is based on the unconscious. 



The expression, ' The Philosophy of the Uncon- 

 scious,' was invented by von Hartmann; but the 

 foundation of that philosophy, the notion of a creative, 

 immanent, and omnipresent unconsciousness belongs 

 to all ages and all civilisations. 



The numerous metaphysical concepts of the human 

 understanding on the nature of things come in the 

 end to two classes, apparently contradictory; if indeed 

 the contradiction is not really due to the limitations of 

 our intellectual and intuitional faculties. 

 , The one class admits a Creator and a creation, and 

 understands the latter as the carrying out of the design 

 of a sovereign and conscious will. These theories raise 

 irreconcilable contradictions; such as the co-existence 

 of providential foresight with the prevalence of evil; 

 and of the soul of man as immortal but not eternal, 

 having a beginning but no end. The other class places 

 the Divine Idea in the universe itself; its theories seek 

 to disentangle the one sole permanent divine essence 

 from the infinite varieties of passing and ephemeral 

 phenomena. 



Those who belong to the latter class consider that 

 the universe of matter, energy, and mind is made 

 Up of ' representations ' or ' objectifications ' of the 



188 



