BERGSON S CONCEPTION OF DURATION 207 



which duration projects into homogeneous space. "Hence our life 

 unfolds in space rather than in time; we Hve for the external 

 To Act Freely world rather than for ourselves ; we speak rather than 

 Is to Be One's think; we are acted upon rather than act ourselves. 

 ^^^ To act freely is to recover possession of one's self, and 



to get back into pure duration." 



Kant's great mistake was to take time as a homogeneous medium; 

 he did not understand that real duration was made up of interpene- 



trating, heterogeneous moments, and that it was not a 

 Time Like homogeneous whole. He clung to freedom but put 

 Space as a the self outside both space and time. He thought that 

 Homogeneous psychic states were perceived in juxtaposition, and 



forgot that such a medium would be space and not 

 duration. Because he believed so thoroughly in freedom, he put it 

 in the sphere of noumena, and because he confused duration with 

 space he made this free self not only outside of space, but outside 

 of duration and beyond our faculty of knowledge. As a rule, we live 

 and act outside our own selves, in space and not in duration, yet we 

 can always get back into pure duration where a cause cannot repeat 

 its effect because it cannot repeat itself. Both the strength and weak- 

 ness of Kant lie in this confusion of duration with its symbol. If 

 time, that is as duration, were homogeneous, science could deal with it, 

 but we have tried to prove that duration, as duration, and motion, as 

 motion, elude the grasp of mathematics, and this is what the Kantians 

 failed to perceive. Besides, if duration were assumed to be homo- 

 Cause and geneous, the same states of consciousness could occur 

 Effect Are over and over again, and causahty would imply neces- 



f^Vy ^^^}^. sary determination, and all freedom would be impossible. 

 m Mere Habits, . . 



but Causes Are ^^^ ^^ Kant had concluded from this that true duration is 



Never Repeated heterogeneous, the latter difficulty would have been 



m Duration cleared up; but instead he puts freedom outside time 



and space and makes an impassable barrier between phenomena and 



things-in-themselves. But the barrier is really easier to cross than he 



supposed. For if the moments of true duration permeate each other, 



