"Creative Evolution": Résumé of the Teaching of M. Bergson — Part II

VI.—Perception.

Dr. Wildon Carr writes: “The important doctrine that perception is part of reality, that it actually exists whether it comes to consciousness or not, that it is not an independent and particular kind of inner or mental experience representative of external reality is most ably expounded by Bergson in Matter and Memory” (Philosophy of Change, p. 97).

“If rays of light come from a point P., this point and the rays which it emits, together with the retina and nervous elements affected in the process of Perception, all form a single whole. The point P. is an indispensable factor in this whole, and it is really in P. and not anywhere else that the image of P. is formed and perceived” (Cf. Bergson and His Philosophy, by J. Alexander Gunn, p. 33).

Thus according to Bergson and the New Realism perceptions are non-mental realities. Take the case of the mind’s perceiving the floor, the floor perceived is the mind’s percept. All that the mind does is to exercise, owing to the stimulation of the floor, its power of perceiving in reference to the floor; it does not create or have created within it some modification of itself called a perception by means of which it is able to infer the existence of a floor.

Bergson’s argument for the validity of this view is as follows: “Eliminate the image which bears the name ‘material world’ and you destroy, at the same time, the brain and the cerebral disturbances which are parts of it. Suppose, on the contrary, that these two images—the brain and the cerebral disturbance—vanish; ex hypothesi you efface only these, that is to say, very little—an insignificant detail from an immense picture—the picture in its totality remains. To make of the brain the condition on which the whole image depends is a contradiction in terms, since the brain is, by hypothesis, a part of the image” (Matière et Mémoire, pp. 3-4). His argument may be stated in another way. There is a system of images which we term “external world.” My body is one of them. But within the body occurs affection, i.e., sensation. Because of this distinction between images and sensations, Bergson affirms that the totality of perceived images subsists, even if our body disappears, whereas we cannot annihilate our body without destroying our sensations. The affection or sensation is the subjective aspect of the perception, the image its objective aspect. The one is within, the other is without the body. The perception does not represent but is reality.

Dr. Wildon Carr notes that the New Realism resembles the old idealism rather than the old realism, because for it perceptions are real, but it differs both from the old realism and the old idealism in saying that the perceptions are outside of and not in the mind. Bergson calls objects of which one is conscious “images,” because the perception is a physical fact, and not a mental something from which we may infer a physical fact. The “image” is not something detached from the thing, something that resembles or represents it, or is a truthful copy of it, but the object itself.

The position which Bergson and the New Realists take in regard to Perception differs very little from the scholastic view. Both systems insist that “we have an immediate perception of the outward world, that sense-impressions are not directly perceived, but determine the sense to the immediate perception of the outward object” (Cf. Principles of Christian Apologetics, p. 4). And both systems stress the fact that what the sense organs perceive is true but not the whole truth. The universe is an infinite system of radiating energy, all radiation being wave-movement and all difference in the universe being a difference of wave length. To certain ranges of wave lengths alone can we be susceptible, because our organs are fitted to react to these.

Finally, in answer to the question: what is it that perceives? Bergson replies it is the mind. The brain and movements of the brain are themselves perceptions, objects perceived; they cannot be also the act of perceiving.

VII.—Intellectual Knowledge.

(A) The Intellect.

M. Bergson is an anti-intellectualist, or shall we rather name him a supra-intellectualist? He maintains that the intellect cannot grasp movement, life, or continuity, because it is not made for speculation but for action.

(a) M. Bergson alleges that the intellectual conception of movement is a series of immobilities put together, because the intellect can form a clear conception only of immobility. “The intellect does not pretend to reconstitute movement such as it actually is; it merely replaces it with a practical equivalent” (C.E., pp. 103, 104). Let us test the truth of this statement.

Aristotle defines movement as a “change or passage from one state to another state” (the change may be of place or quality or quantity). This passage is not something negative but positive—an incomplete act. Hence movement is defined as “passage from power to act” (from potentiality to achievement); “act of a being in power as such—act of becoming as such” (Aristotle Phys., Book III., c 1, §§ 6 and 9). As Monsignor Farges writes: “C’est le devenir en marche.” It is clear from these definitions that the philosophy of the schools contemplates movement as such, and not the juxtaposition of a series of immobilities. M. Bergson claims the identity, the homogeneity of being and non-being, act and power. Hence his expression “pure mobility.” The dual element “act” and “power” is necessary for movement. Suppress this duality and movement itself is suppressed.

(b) The intellect cannot understand life.

In defence of this thesis, it is alleged that thought “created by life in definite circumstances to act on definite things cannot embrace life, of which it is only an emanation or an aspect.” Is it only the whole which can know and understand one of its parts? In that case the intellect must be equal to the universe to understand the least detail. No sound philosophy claims that the intellect grasps the nature of any being in the totality of its energy and qualities. But the intellect sees some of the essential characteristics of entities, and is enabled thereby to build up the edifice of scientific truth. When Bergson notes that “life is above all a tendency to act upon matter … a certain effort to obtain certain things from brute matter,” he fails to grasp the essential characteristics of life: (1) immanent activity, and (2) spontaneity.

(c) The intellect can grasp only discontinuity.

This statement is in direct conflict with personal experience. Each conscious intellectual being recognises himself as one and undivided, and this type of continuity is an immediate perception. Aristotle’s definition of continuous bodies shows that he had adequate knowledge of the same: “continuous bodies are those whose extremities are one,” i.e., the parts are united in such a way that the end of one is the beginning of another (Phys. VI., c. 1).

(B) Concept.

In the philosophy of the schools, the function of the Intellect is described as twofold—Abstraction and Generalisation. M. Bergson characterises abstraction as morcelage—an illegitimate division of Things, whereas he regards generalisation as a solidifying of the flowing stream of nature.

(a) “Morcelage.”

The Bergsonian philosophy is monist. All is one. The universe is an immense continuity, from which the intellect cuts distinct parts like you and me. “If I want to mix a glass of sugar and water, I must wait till the sugar melts. This little fact is big with meaning. The time I have to wait is not mathematical time, but a certain portion of my duration. What can this mean except that the glass of water, the sugar and the process of melting are abstractions?” (C.E., p. 10).

In answer to this contention, it is sufficient to say that the real distinction of cosmic things is an undeniable fact. Science is occupied with such divisions. Spatial continuity there may or may not be, but not substantial continuity. The denial of discontinuity in nature results in the elimination of all knowledge. Regarding which fact Bergson writes: “Matter is made to appear to our thought as an immense piece of cloth, in which we can cut out what we will, and sew it together again as we please” (C.E., p. 165).

(b) “Solidification.”

A concept, being crystallised, is dead.

If so, how do concepts give rise to science, morality, and art? M. Poincaré asserts that Science is made up of concepts. Morality arises from concepts of truth, perfection and love. The principles of the Fine Arts are embodiments of concepts. In truth every object has a twofold aspect—one, mobile and fugitive, the other, stable. M. Bergson has seen in a concept only its character of fixity and immobility, and as he maintains that all is flowing, a concept must be an instantaneous view taken from moving reality, the rapid succession of such instantaneous views giving the appearance of moving reality as in the cinematograph.

This statement invites criticism:

(1) A view is never absolutely instantaneous. There is necessarily an interval of time, which involves a quantity (however small) of motion.

(2) If they were instantaneous, it would be an image and not a concept. An image represents the singular, temporal, fleeting; whereas a concept represents the general, abiding.

(3) A concept is not a stable view derived from the instability (the flowing stream) of things, but a stable view based on the stable element of things, i.e., on their necessary and abiding forms.

M. Bergson claims that a general notion or concept is only a word. He is a nominalist for all concepts except that of time, in regard to which he is an ultra-realist, since he makes time the substance of things in his continuous universe.¹

VIII.—Intuition.

We have already alluded to M. Bergson’s anti-intellectual or supra-intellectual attitude. In his view the intellect can furnish us with symbolic knowledge only; it is a “lantern glimmering in a tunnel” and has been unwisely made into a “sun which can illuminate the world.”

To understand what is meant precisely by Intuition is not easy. It is “knowledge from within that can grasp facts in their springing forth instead of taking them as already sprung, that can dig beneath a space and spacialised time” (C. E., p. 382).

“The feeling we have of our evolution and of the evolution of all things in pure duration forms around the intellectual concept properly so called an indistinct fringe that fades off into darkness. Mechanism and Finalism agree in taking account only of the bright nucleus shining in the centre. They forget that this nucleus has been formed out of the rest by condensation, and that the whole must be used in order to grasp the inner movement of life. Indeed, if the fringe exists, however delicate and indistinct, it should have more importance for philosophy than the bright nucleus it surrounds. For it is its presence that enables us to affirm that the nucleus is a nucleus, that pure intellect is a contraction, by condensation, of a more extensive power” (C. E., p. 49).

“We shall be aided by the fringe of vague intuition that surrounds our distinct—that is, intellectual—representation. For what can this useless fringe be if not that part of an evolving principle which has not shrunk to the peculiar form of our organisation, but has settled around it unasked for, unwanted? It is there accordingly that we must look for hints to expand the intellectual form of our thought; from there shall we derive the impetus necessary to lift us above ourselves” (C. E., p. 52).

The question arises: How can we study the fringe without means of the intellect? M. Bergson notes the difficulty but fails to give a satisfactory answer.

“Intuition is the élan vital, the vital impetus which has evolved into animal instinct, then into intelligence. The transition from instinct to intelligence has been made by a sharp leap, so that intelligence differs from instinct not in degree but in kind. The intellect is characterised by a natural inability to comprehend life. Whilst intelligence tries everything mechanically, instinct proceeds, so to speak, organically. If the consciousness that slumbers in it should awake, if it be wound up into knowledge instead of being wound off into action, if we could ask and if it could reply, it would give up to us the most intimate secrets of life” (C.E., p. 174).

“Intuition is mind itself and, in a certain sense, life itself; the intellect has been cut out of it by a process resembling that which has generated matter” (C.E., p. 282).

“Intuition is a lamp almost extinguished, which only glimmers now and then, for a few moments at most. But it glimmers wherever a vital interest is at stake. On our personality, on our liberty, on the place we occupy in the whole of nature, on our origin, and perhaps also on our destiny, it throws a light feeble and vacillating, but which nonetheless pierces the darkness of the night in which the intellect leaves us” (C.E., p. 282).

Critique

(A) If intuition pierces the darkness of the night in which the intellect leaves us, how can the intellect be the luminous nucleus? In truth, M. Bergson’s system cuts mental life in two, which thus becomes the exercise of a double faculty of intuition and thought. Herein is morcelage indeed which has momentous consequences. Moreover, intuition has absolute need of concepts; concepts are not a makeshift to replace intuition.

(B) M. Bergson’s attempt to prove the existence and the functioning of a special faculty of intuition fails, because, as the philosophy of the schools has long pointed out, the intuitional process is a function both of sense perception and of intellectual conception. The truth is widely recognised that:

(1) Man has an immediate intuition of the external world,

(2) An immediate intuition of himself (ego), and

(3) An immediate intuition which penetrates beneath phenomena, and perceives the underlying nature or substance.

(C) The intuitional power of the intellect is well described in the following passage: “From time to time Nature raises up souls more or less detached from practical life, seers of visions and dreamers of dreams, men of Intuition, with powers of great poetry, great music, or great painting. The clearest evidence of Intuition comes to us from the works of these great artists. What is it that we call the ‘genius’ of great painters, great musicians, and great poets? It is simply the power they have of seeing more than we see and of enabling us, by their expressions, to penetrate further into reality ourselves. What makes the picture is the artist’s vision, his entry into the subject by sympathy or Intuition, and however imperfectly he expresses this, yet he reveals to us more than we could otherwise have perceived” (Bergson and his Philosophy, by J. A. Gunn, p. 108).

IX.—Problem of Contingence and of Human Destiny.

In the philosophy of the schools, everything that begins to exist (i.e., has a cause) is contingent. Before attacking the contingency of being, M. Bergson attacks the contingency of one of the modes of being, namely, order.

“When I enter a room and pronounce it to be in disorder, what do I mean? The position of each object is explained by the automatic movements of the person who has slept in the room, or by the efficient causes, whatever they may be, that have caused each article of furniture, clothing, etc., to be where it is: the order in the second sense of the word is perfect. But it is the order of the first kind that I am expecting, the order that a methodical person consciously puts into his life, the willed order and not the automatic: so I call the absence of this order disorder” (C. E., p. 245). M. Bergson goes on to argue: The idea of disorder is only a pseudo-idea raising a pseudo-problem, viz., the origin of order. But disorder, being automatic order, does not exist. Hence order is not contingent, but necessary. “In analysing the idea of order thus subtilised, we shall see that it represents not at all, and at the same time the problems that have been raised around it will vanish” (C. E., p. 235). But granted that we must find either the willed or the automatic order everywhere, why should we find one rather than the other? The choice is contingent. Again in presence of an intentional order, the choice of a definite plan from a great number of plans will also be contingent. The problem of contingency cannot be eliminated.

He proceeds to attack the contingency of being. “Nothing is a pseudo-idea raising a pseudo-problem: What is the cause of being.”

To this statement we answer: Aristotle and St. Thomas are emphatic that the idea of being is the first that the intellect grasps, and that the idea of nothing is conceived only in the second place negatively and by contrast. But granted that all existence cannot be denied, what follows? That some being is necessary, but not that all beings are necessary. Thus again the problem of contingency arises. In a letter to Père Tonquédec, M. Bergson admits the insufficiency of this argument: “The reasoning results in showing that something has always existed. But regarding the nature of this something, there is no positive conclusion.”

Creative Evolution has little to say on the destiny of man. “A principle of creation has been put at the base of things” (C.E., p. 291). Is this principle Pure Duration? Accepting the statement of the principle of creation, we must infer that man and other creatures are contingent. If man is contingent, what is his destiny? We are told that immortality is a dogma affirmed by Intuition, but denied by Intelligence and by Science: “When a strong instinct assures the probability of personal survival, (spiritualists) are right not to close their ears to its voice; but if there exist ‘souls’ capable of an independent life, whence do they come? When, how, why do they enter into this body, which we see arise, quite naturally, from a mixed cell derived from the bodies of its two parents?” (C.E., p. 283).

Whence come souls? From Him who creates them—an answer more intelligible than the auto-creation and absolute commencements without cause of which M. Bergson writes.

Why do souls come into bodies? To live a complete life, since they need corporeal organs for vegetative, sensitive, and indirectly for intellectual life.

How do souls enter bodies? They come from without and enter into bodies as active principles or forms.

When do souls enter into bodies? Some authorities say that at the union of sperm and ovum the soul is infused; others say when the body assumes human shape.

The assertion that these spiritualistic statements are the negation of science lacks even the semblance of proof.

The word “soul” has no meaning in M. Bergson’s philosophy. It does not signify an agent, or a substantial principle of psychic activity, since in his view, actions are without agents, attributes without subject, modes of being without being. Hence the soul is only a “movement,” a pure phenomenon, a shade without any pretence to immortality. Whereas the schoolmen taught that the soul is a simple and spiritual substance, incorruptible in nature, and sufficiently independent of matter to live on after the death of the body.

The Bergsonian “person” is the “continuity of a movement.” No guarantee here of immortality. “The matter that consciousness bears along with it, and in the interstices of which it inserts itself, alone can divide it into distinct individualities. On flows the current, running through human generations, subdividing itself into individuals. The subdivision was vaguely indicated in it, but could not have been made clear without matter. Thus souls are continually being created, which, nevertheless, in a certain sense pre-existed. They are nothing else than the little rills into which the great river of life divides itself, flowing through the body of humanity” (C.E., p. 284). A body cuts a soul from psychical totality, and if it persists after separation from the body, it returns to its origin—to the nirvana of impersonal immortality.

Though M. Bergson protests that he is not a pantheist or monist, it is difficult to interpret his teaching in any other sense: “God is a centre from which worlds shoot out like rockets in a fireworks display—provided, however, that I do not present this centre as a thing, but as a continuity of shooting out. God thus defined has nothing of the already made; He is unceasing life, action, freedom. Creation so conceived is not a mystery; we experience it ourselves when we act freely” (C.E., p. 262). It is clear that M. Bergson is not a monist in the sense that he regards all things as one and homogeneous; again, he is not a materialistic monist. His psychic monism may be best described as evolutionary—a monism giving rise to successive states “always new and irreducible to the preceding.” “The whole of humanity, in space and in time, is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance, and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death” (C.E., p. 286).

Conclusion

The essential errors of the Bergsonian philosophy may be summarised as follows:

1.—Negation of Being: all is “Becoming,” i.e., actions without agent, attributes without subject, accidents without substance, modes of being without being. The apostle of “pure becoming” regards potentiality as greater than realisation, power as greater than act, whereas the Catholic philosophical conception of God, amply justified by argument, is Pure Act.

2.—Negations of the principle of Identity and Contradiction. These principles are allowed to be laws of discourse, but not of reality. In the supra-logical region to which M. Le Roy (a devoted student and accredited representative of Bergson) appeals, logical contradictions are reconciled.

3.—Negation of the principle of Causality.

Creative Evolution is a moment which creates itself, by incessantly giving to itself the existence which it does not possess.

4.—Negation of the real multiplicity of things. All is one; subject and object, cause and effect, father and son, matter and spirit are only illusions of our postulated morcelage.

5.—Negation of the primacy of reason, and consequent divorce of philosophy from science.

“Let us try to see no longer with the eyes of the intellect alone, which grasps only the already-made, and looks from the outside, but with the spirit, i.e., with that faculty of seeing (Intuition), which is immanent in the faculty of acting, and which springs up somehow by the twisting of the will on itself, when action is turned into knowledge, like heat, so to say, into light” (C. E., p. 264).

6.—Bergsonian principles are incompatible with Divine Faith.

M. Maritain has well summarised the essential conflict: “A philosophy which blasphemes the intellect will never be Catholic” (La Revue de Philosophie, Sept. 1911, p. 539). One of M. Le Roy’s sentences further stresses the incompatibility: “Pour nous, Dieu n’est pas, mais il devient.” On the other hand Catholic philosophy and theology fully recognise the primacy of reason. Faith is a superstructure raised on the motives of Credibility. Hence the expression of St. Anselm: “Fides quaerens intellectum,” and that of St. Paul: “Rationabile obsequium nostrum.”

The popularity of M. Bergson’s writings is due to the following characteristics:

1.—His teaching is a reaction against Kantism.

2.—He has a competent knowledge of biological science.

3.—His thought is spiritualistic, elevated, mystical. He defends liberty against determinism, he is the uncompromising foe of materialism, but all is engulfed in what W. James in another connexion calls “the unintelligible monster of Monism.”

4.—M. Bergson’s style is often fascinating. He makes use of metaphors “à jet continu.” He is poetic rather than truly philosophic. His literary music has been compared to the song of the lark.

5.—An attempt to explain “the riddle of the Universe”—an attempt recommended by originality of thought and beauty of style,—appeals to the present-day interest in Philosophy.

Notes

Footnotes

1. M. Bergson wrote before the realisation of the principle of Relativity. Professor Eddington remarks: “the detailed frame of space and time in which we are accustomed to locate events happening around us belongs not to the external world, but to a particular presentation of it, namely, to those observers who are travelling with the same velocity as the earth.” (Science, Religion and Reality p. 193). ↩