152 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



This unfolding multiplicity of sensation is duration in the true 

 sense, real time as contrasted to conceptual (common-sense and 

 scientific) time. 



Former states can never recur in our consciousness, because a 

 conscious state is an interpenetration of elements so heterogeneous. 



The very useful concept of homogeneous time is achieved by 

 spreading a net over duration ; and this network is analogous to the 

 divisions of space. We thus treat what is really intensive as if it 

 were extensive, and we get good and useful results in common-sense 

 (punctuality, etc.) and in science (astronomy, etc.). 



But if we go away from convention and strip our experience of all 

 utilitarian schemes, we find that time means duration, and duration 

 means the unfolding multiplicity of duration. Real concrete dura- 

 tion and the specific feeling of duration are the ground of Bergson's 

 whole philosophy of experience and of the evolution of the world. 



Common-sense, science and the common use of language are in 

 a vast unconscious conspiracy to obscure the truth of philosophy by 

 substituting the useful concept of measurable time for the real primi- 

 tive grip on duration. Most errors in philosophy arise from this root 

 error. 



Applying this teaching in the third chapter to the will, he finds 

 that we take up our stand after the act has been performed and apply 

 to it our false, abstract, conceptual network. From the point of view 

 of abstract logic, we cannot be free: the deadness and unreality of 

 logic denies life and freedom to conduct; but viewed not as the debris 

 of the past but as the vital activity of the present and future, our 

 conduct may be free, although, in the very nature of this freedom, 

 indefinable. 



In fact, freedom is precisely one of the clearest facts established 

 by observation. 



Bergson now proceeds to elaborate this argument. 



Quantitative differences are applicable to magnitudes but not to 

 intensities. (For a clear account of the Weber-Fechner law, see 

 Stout's Manual of Psychology, pages 199-209; also Sanford, Titchener 

 and others.) When we attempt to measure intensities by objective 



