December 31, 19 14] 



NATURE 



475 



(Cambridg^e University Press, 1914.) Price 



9^. net. 

 (i) T F a layman may presume to criticise the 

 1 professional metaphysician, one may say 

 that the merit of M. Bergson is to have freshened 

 up philosophy. His point of view is nullius 

 oddictus jiirare in verba magistri, and he has 

 successfully cast off all the trammels not only of 

 the old cut and dried philosophy of the schools, 

 but even the gaseous mysticism of Neo- 

 Hegelianism. Yet some style him a Neo- 

 Heg"elian. Philosophy, he says, should be 

 moulded on experience, and experience both 

 changes and g-rows with human development. 

 There is something of most philosophies in M. 

 Bergson's attitude to the universe, for his philo- 

 sophy is simply this : it is everything but a system. 

 He is neither monist nor pantheist, but, as it were, 

 a layman trying to understand. This attitude of 

 his is optimistic; he has confidence in the uni- 

 verse. It may seem that he, like other exponents 

 of "the new philosophy," has a quarrel with 

 monism and materialism, but he himself has de- 

 precated all philosophical quarrels, for after all 

 philosophy is only our attitude to and conception 

 of the Absolute, and the wise man simply absorbs 

 the positive results of all philosophies. 



M. Bergson has given movemtnt to meta- 

 physics ; he has charmed it with change. Change 

 is "the very basis of all reality." To drive home 

 his dynamic idea of reality, he employs phrases. 

 In such a subject nothing else can be employed, 

 for metaphysics is not science. It is at its best 

 and it is most useful when it does not aim at 

 being a science. The French philosopher is akin 

 to the Greek Heraclitus, who preached eternal 

 flux, and Heraclitus coined some great phrases. 

 M. Bergson observes that "the animal is a 

 specialist." It is a well-known truth, but has 

 never been put so neatly. M. Bergson's demerit 

 perhaps is his animism. He has studied most 

 branches of science, but the only positive hint he 

 derives from them is a "creative evolution," which 

 is simply vitalism writ large. He speaks of "the 

 idea of a God, Creator and free, the generator of 

 both matter and life, whose work of creation 

 is continued on the side of life by the evolution 

 of species and the building up of human jjer- 

 sonalities." This may be pragmatic (though he 

 would resent the imputation), but it amounts to 

 very little. Equally a priori is his observation 

 that "the brain apart from its sensorial functions 

 has no other office than to exhibit in pantomime 

 the mental life." It is scarcely fair, again, to 

 credit the parallelist with supposing "that 

 memories are somehow hung on the brain, as 

 though a telephone conversation should remain 

 NO. 2357, VOL. 94I 



on the wire." On the whole, M. Bergson strikes 

 one as a brilliant epigrammatist, illuminating with 

 modern flashes of insight the ancient and per- 

 manent text of Aristotle, " the principle of life is 

 a God ; for energy of mind constitutes life, and 

 God is this energy. He, the first mover, imparts 

 motion and pursues the work of creation as some- 

 thing that is loved." The phrase is worthy of 

 Bergson, but the argument is in a circle. 



{2) Signor Aliotta criticises with some volume 

 the Idealistic reaction against science in modern 

 thought. He himself holds "a spiritualistic 

 realism " by means of which he can defend scien- 

 tific method and natural reality against the 

 irrationalism of Neo-Hegelianism. His volume is 

 remarkable as including criticism of every scien- 

 tific and philosophic hypothesis and method of 

 the last hundred years. Both Aliotta and Bergson 

 show how modem philosophy aligns Itself with 

 science. All its deductions are based on some 

 scientific theory. Signor Aliotta is at one with 

 M. Bergson and other moderns in having done 

 with scholasticism and systematism. " Concrete 

 thought is not a cold abstract conception, but 

 experience seen in the glow of the Idea which 

 breathes the warmth of feeling, and is moved by 

 the energetic impulse of spontaneous volition, 

 which inspires it with the enthusiasm of faith." 

 "We must replace the static conception of the 

 object which regards It as complete In itself In an 

 inaccessible sphere by a dynamic view which 

 beholds it in its progressive ascent to a higher 

 form of knowledge and reality." He attempts to 

 eff^ect a rapprochement between idealism and 

 realism, a laudable efl"ort. Whereas Bergson finds 

 in " Intuition " the crucible of nature, Aliotta 

 regards reason as "the final goal at which an 

 experience aims and to which by Its means all the 

 beings in the world tend." This is teleology and 

 presumes an Absolute Consciousness. "Nature 

 does not exist only in the mind of man, but also 

 outside our thought." "He who believes in the 

 objective value of his science must then also 

 believe in God. If an Absolute Thought does not 

 exist, nature cannot be rational, and if there is no 

 rationality in things, the reconstruction which we 

 make of them with the categories and principles 

 of our mind is an arbitrary projection of no value 

 whatsoever. " 



(3) Such critical reflections would have inter- 

 ested Berkeley, the theorist of vision and the 

 theistic Idealist, who argued for the non-existence 

 of matter. Existence and reality are terms which 

 have borne the burden and heat of philosophers' 

 tongues. Why not admit everything to be real? 

 Berkeley's letters, hitherto unpublished, contain 

 nothing of scientific or philosophic interest. They 



