December ^th, igii. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF HENRI BERGSON. 



By Professor Lindsay, M.A., M.D. 



{Abstract). 



Professor Lindsay, who was received with applause, said 

 that no apology was required for presenting a philosophical subject 

 for the consideration of the society, as their title showed that 

 philosophy came well within then- range. It could not be denied 

 that it was a subject which was looked upon with askance, not 

 only by, the average man and the average woman, but even by 

 highly-cultivated people. It was regarded as unpractical and as 

 relating to subjects which were either of no importance or which 

 lay outside the range of the human intellect. Yet philosophy of 

 some kind underlay all their views regarding the nature of mind, 

 the competency of reason, the claims of duty ; and the subject 

 could not, as a matter of fact, be evaded. Philosophy was an 

 attempt to find the reasoned base upon which science rested, to 

 integrate knowledge, to define the powers and limitations of the 

 human faculties, and to discover a satisfactory basis for morals, 

 European philosophy had for the last few decades oscillated 

 between two opposed and contrasted schools of thought — firstly, 

 the mechanical school, which regarded the universe as a highly- 

 organised mechanism, governed by physico-chemical laws ; which 

 held that consciousness was simply a function of the brain ; which 



