CONTINUITY OF BERGSON S THOUGHT 157 



potential, just as we did find that the atom is not the ultimate cor- 

 puscle, though the laws of chemistry remain valid. 



Hypnotism versus the Association Theory 



Psychological determinism assumes that one state of consciousness 

 causes another. In hypnosis, the preceding conscious state is often 

 taken for a cause, while the true cause is unknown, except to the 

 hypnotist, yet the association theory appears to be in good working 

 order. 



Bergson thinks that we sometimes will for willing's sake, by a kind 

 of coup d'etat, and that the laws of association are not applicable. 



Bergson gives an account of the usual associational analysis of a 

 typical case of choosing — the different complexes struggling for mas- 

 tery, etc. The self acts as one — as a fusion, not as a juxtaposition of 

 elements. Association is a spatiahzed psychology : it regards not the 

 living but the dead and dissected psychosis. The soul is not deter- 

 mined by love and hate, but the soul is love or hate: language and 

 psychology give a pale phantom of the actual soul. The soul is free 

 just because it is all these alleged motives. Of course, many of our 

 phases of consciousness really do belong to space and sensation, and 

 do not blend with ourself like drops falling into a lake. But then 

 we are not always entirely free, but only so far as we express our deeper 

 will and feeling. 



What Freedom Really Means 



I am free when my whole soul acts, when I envisage a crisis with 

 my whole personality, alert and consenting. But most of my daily 

 acts are not of this sort, and leave me the slave of habit and environ- 

 ment. 



Determinism assumes an ego (always self -identical), hunted down 

 by feelings, images, etc. This, of course, is absurd, and takes no 

 account of the real, enduring ego. It makes the soul resemble a 

 material object. 



What are the tests of freedom ? It is a quality of the living act. 

 When my act bears the stamp of my personality, I am free. But 

 determinism asks about the past and the future: 



