CONTINUITY OF BERGSON S THOUGHT 1 53 



causes, we study atomic movements, and assume some mathematical 

 relationship between these and the corresponding sensations (tuning- 

 fork and pitch of sound). We fancy that an increase of sensation 

 occurs in the same way as an increase in the stimulus. For example, 

 a candle may be brought nearer, and we assume that just as the light 

 becomes stronger as a stimulus (that is, by continuous increase), so 

 the sensation of light becomes stronger, and may be measured by 

 analogy with the stimulus. (Bergson is not here concerned with the 

 exact relation, as in Weber's logarithmic law.) Bergson denies all 

 this. There are different sensations, but not sensations that change, 

 or increase, or diminish. You cannot subtract one sensation from 

 another because there are no fractions between — the thing is a meta- 

 phor and a delusion. 



Bergson's argument proceeds to inquire into the reason for the 

 great plausibility, in the writings of Weber, Fechner, Delboeuf and 

 many others, of this idea that measure applies to intensities as well 

 as to extension. He admits that it is acceptable to common-sense; 

 and it is well known that many sneer at the very suggestion that the 

 view may be erroneous. 



Bodily States Can Be Measured, but Not Psychic 



The author analyzes the idea in relation to deep-seated psychic 

 states, such as desire, hope, joy, sorrow; he goes on to the aesthetic 

 feelings of grace and beauty, and discusses music, poetry and art. 

 Next come the moral feelings, such as pity, conscious states involving 

 physical symptoms, attention, violent emotions, sensations of pitch, 

 heat and cold, light; and in each and every one of these conscious 

 states, he exposes the confusion by which we ascribe the measurable 

 qualities of the outer world to the non-measurable qualities of the 

 inner state : the qualities of the stimulus which causes the state to the 

 state itself, which arises as an effect. 



In conclusion, he shows that the grand culmination and scientific 

 glorification of the whole error is the Weber-Fechner law. He 

 attacks this as the most comprehensive and scientific expression of 

 the idea, and concludes, as he began, with the view that conscious 



