16 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



Probably in dogs it exceeds anything to be found in 

 human beings. But those who see in these facts a recom- 

 mendation of intuition ought to return to running wild 

 in the woods, dyeing themselves with woad and living 

 on hips and haws. 



Let us next examine whether intuition possesses any 

 such infallibility as Bergson claims for it. The best 

 instance of it, according to him, is our acquaintance with 

 ourselves ; yet self-knowledge is proverbially rare and 

 difficult. Most men, for example, have in their nature 

 meannesses, vanities, and envies of which they are quite 

 unconscious, though even their best friends can perceive 

 them without any difficulty. It is true that intuition has 

 a convincingness which is lacking to intellect : while it is 

 present, it is almost impossible to doubt its truth. But 

 if it should appear, on examination, to be- at least as 

 fallible as intellect, its greater subjective certainty be- 

 comes a demerit, making it only the more irresistibly 

 deceptive. Apart from self-knowledge, one of the most 

 notable examples of intuition is the knowledge people 

 believe themselves to possess of those with whom they 

 are in love : the wall between different personalities 

 seems to become transparent, and people think they see 

 into another soul as into their own. Yet. deception in 

 such cases is constantly practised with success ; and even 

 where there is no intentional deception, experience 

 gradually proves, as a rule, that the supposed insight 

 was illusory, and that the slower more groping methods 

 of the intellect are in the long run more reliable. 



Bergson maintains that intellect can only deal with 

 things in so far as they resemble what has been experi- 

 enced in the past, while intuition has the power of appre- 

 hending the uniqueness and novelty that always belong 

 to each fresh moment. That there is something unique 



