DISCOVERY 



81 



that the new attitude finds itself at the outset without a 

 vehicle of expression. The philosophy therefore appears 

 at first to bristle with paradoxes, but these are resolved 

 as the ideas behind thtm gradually become familiar and 

 the ditficultv of the philosophy is found to lie principally 

 in the language in which it must of necessity be ex- 

 pressed. 



Professor Bergson's theories are disconcerting because 

 we are not much given to exaniining the shortcomings of 

 our intellectual processes, being perhaps even a little 

 complacent in the possession of a mental apparatus so 

 much more complex and effective than that of our pre- 

 decessors in evolution. But if, as we may assume, our 

 mind has been e\'olved in order to enable us to act 

 efficiently, it is not altogether surprising that we encounter 

 certain difficulties when we apply it to another end — 

 that of knowing for the sake of knowing. 



It is perhaps an open question whether the difficulty 

 that we experience in trying to get at the " real truth " 

 of things is due to an inherent incapacity of the intellect, 

 or whether, as Professor Bergson claims, it is due to a 

 faulty habit of thinking ; for he points out that we 

 commonly use our mind not in order to know as much as 

 possible, or even to know as accurately as possible, but 

 in order to arrive at a working explanation of the situa- 

 tion with which we are presented. In order to explain 

 the situation, all facts in it are not of equal value to us, 

 but those facts stand out that serve to identify the 

 situation with some previous experience, and enable us 

 to describe it in terms of the already known ; any facts 

 that are superfluous to our explanation, or incongruous 

 with it, are liable to be neglected or even unperceived, so 

 that our anxiety to obtain a workable explanation of a 

 situation is liable to Umit rather than extend our know- 

 ledge of the facts themselves. We may even disregard 

 the facts in favour of some more or less fallacious explana- 

 tion of them, as when we speak of the " flow " of an 

 electric " current " along a wire. The attitude of Pro- 

 fessor Bergson and his followers towards reality may be 

 compared with that of the physicist who is investigating 

 the nature of electricity, and the attitude of the rest of 

 the world towards reality may be compared with that 

 of the electrical engineer who is content to think in terms 

 of volts and amperes. 



It has been the disappointing experience of some 

 explorers that primitive races are occasionally less im- 

 pressed with the unfamiliar mechanisms of our civilisa- 

 tion than one might have hoped. They fail to appreciate 

 them because they are just a little too ready with an 

 explanation, and a gramophone may be quite satisfactorily 

 " accounted for " by them as a superior kind of ventrilo- 

 quism. Our own attitude towards a new phenomenon is 

 not so very different, and it will probably be admitted 

 that even the most highly ci\-ilised individual, when pre- 

 sented with an unfamiHar situation, such as a spiritualistic 

 seance, may be biased in his observation of the facts by 

 the explanation that he applies to them. Professor 

 Bergson holds that this habit of mind is followed not 

 only with the unfamiliar, but also in our everyday 

 "^common-sense " attitude, in which we seek not to know 



the facts, but to construct from a limited selection of 

 them a workable explanation. Thus, in spite of the 

 Scotsman's famous definition of time as " an arbitrary 

 division of the continuous," we are compelled to parcel 

 it out into blocks of seconds, minutes, and hours, and 

 divide it into past, present, and future in order to think 

 of it in a useful way, and therefore we come to miss its 

 real nature, its essential continuity. 



This " explanatory " and analj^ical habit of mind 

 works well enough in the ordinary business of life, but, 

 according to Professor Bergson, it fails us when we 

 employ it in the region of philosophic inquiry since it 

 carries with it a conception of reality built up out of our 

 fallacious explanations of fact and effectively barring any 

 real progress towards the truth. To throw aside our old 

 logical modes of thought requires an heroic mental effort, 

 a kind of intellectual salto mortale that threatens to 

 plunge us into the void if we fail to catch the precarious 

 trapeze that Professor Bergson holds out to us and 

 thereby " regain our contact with direct experience " ; 

 for we are asked to forgo all classification into mutually 

 exclusive parts, and to treat such ideas as " singular " 

 and " plural," and " past " and " present " as abstrac- 

 tions. 



The form of this " direct experience," to which the 

 new attitude of mind should lead us, is described by 

 Professor Bergson as " duration," a process that under- 

 lies all change, fusing the elements that change into a 

 synthetic continuum, and thus being in itself essentially 

 creative. 



It may be asked whether it is worth while for anyone 

 who is not a professional philosopher to grapple with these 

 difficulties. An answer to this question may be found 

 on p. 99 of IVIrs. Stephen's book, where the author says : 

 " If we could o^•ercome this bias [of our habitual mode 

 of thought], we might know more than we do now, 

 though how much more it is not possible, in advance, 

 to predict." Such a promise goes far to explain the 

 wideness of interest that has been evoked by Professor 

 Bergson's pliilosophy, and contrasts with the faint suspi- 

 cion of sterilitj' that is attached to the academic philo- 

 sophies. E%-en if the reader is unable to accept Professor 

 Bergson's point of view, there is a strong stimulus in his 

 searching criticism of our intellectual methods, of the 

 methods which everyone, whether " plain man " or 

 " intellectual," uses to gain fresh knowledge. 



Although Mrs. Stephen's book carries the sub-title of 

 " A Study of Bergson's Attack on Intellectualism," yet it 

 is not the study of a purely destructive criticism, but 

 actually an exposition of the fundamentals of Bergson's 

 philosophy. It is admirably clear, and the author has 

 avoided the technical terms that make most philosophical 

 works so formidable to the average reader. It forms 

 an excellent introduction to the constructive aspect and 

 application of the philosophy, and is niade authoritative 

 by a foreword from Professor Bergson in which he says : 

 " The author has teen able to unify and present with 

 great logical rigour views which I was obliged by my 

 method of research to treat in isolation." 



F. A. H.\MPTON. 



