14 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



commonplace but not less trustworthy aspects. It is 

 such one-sidedness, not instinct itself, that reason aims 

 at correcting. 



These more or less trite maxims may be illustrated by 

 application to Bergson's advocacy of " intuition " as 

 against " intellect." There are, he says, " two profoundly 

 different ways of knowing a thing. The first implies that 

 we move round the object : the second that we enter 

 into it. The first depends on the point of view at which 

 we are placed and on the symbols by which we express 

 ourselves. The second neither depends on a point of 

 view nor relies on any symbol. The first kind of knowledge 

 may be said to stop at the relative ; the second, in those 

 cases where it is possible, to attain the absolute." 1 The 

 second of these, which is intuition, is, he says, " the kind 

 of intellectual sympathy by which one places oneself 

 within an object in order to coincide with what is unique 

 in it and therefore inexpressible " (p. 6). In illustration, 

 he mentions self-knowledge : " there is one reality, at 

 least, which we all seize from within, by intuition and 

 not by simple analysis. It is our own personality in its 

 flowing through time our self which endures " (p. 8). 

 The rest of Bergson's philosophy consists in reporting, 

 through the imperfect medium of words, the knowledge 

 gained by intuition, and the consequent complete con- 

 demnation of all the pretended knowledge derived from 

 science and common sense. 



This procedure, since it takes sides in a conflict of 

 instinctive beliefs, stands in need of justification by 

 proving the greater trustworthiness of the beliefs on one 

 side than of those on the other. Bergson attempts this 

 justification in two ways, first by explaining that intellect 

 is a purely practical faculty to secure biological success, 



1 Introduction to Metaphysics, p. i. 



