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On the assumption which Bergson makes of a much wider field of direct knowledge than that which contains what we are accustomed to regard as the actual facts which we know directly, Bergson's problem becomes how to account for these facts being so much less than the whole field which we might have expected to have known.
Out of the cloud of witnesses let us choose two or three, and in the first place M. Alfred Fouillée. M. Fouillée is a Platonist the last Platonist in Europe and consequently an amiable man. He is universally regarded as the leader of philosophy in France, a position not in the least shaken by Bergson's brief authority.
And here again it is by borrowing Mr Bergson's own formula from him that we shall most accurately describe the new spirit.
The criticisms I have just pointed out to you, only too briefly, are to be found in several philosophers, confusedly in Berkeley, and with more precision in M. Bergson's book on Matière et Mémoire.
A loan of Bergson's "Creative Evolution" produced no comment for several weeks, when it was returned with the characteristic remark, "I've tried my best to get hold of him, but I don't know what he is talking about." I mention the remark as being characteristic only because it indicates his extreme modesty and disregard of exhaustive scientific research.
WE have seen that, according to the theory of change which is fundamental for Bergson's philosophy, the changing fact which we know directly is described as a process of becoming which does not contain parts nor admit of repetitions.
The omission of this, which is almost the omission of wisdom from philosophy, warns us that in M. Bergson's thought we have something occasional and partial, the work of an astute apologist, a party man, driven to desperate speculation by a timid attachment to prejudice. Like other terrified idealisms, the system of M. Bergson has neither good sense, nor rigour, nor candour, nor solidity.
When Bergson speaks of "space," however, he does not mean either pure or public or private space, he means an a priori form imposed by intellectual activity upon its object. This resembles Kant's use of the word, but Bergson's "space" is not, like Kant's, the a priori form of sense acquaintance, but of thought, in other words logical form.
It is, however, in Bergson's view, vital to the whole of the universe. He expressly denies that la duree is merely subjective; the universe "endures" as a whole. In Time and Free Will it did not seem to matter whether we regarded our inner life as having duree or as actually being duree.
These forecasts of Bergson's thought made by men to whom he owes much and for whom he personally has the greatest admiration are interesting, but we are not yet able to look upon his work through the medium of historical perspective.
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