'CO Xibran? of philosophy EDITED BY J. H. MUIRHEAD, LL.D.
MATTER AND MEMORY SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
" Though it can hardly be claimed that Bergson has completely solved the extra ordinary complex and difficult problem of memory and least of all the mystery of matter, it may be admitted ungrudg ingly that he has clarified the obscurities of the former problem to a considerable extent, and has, above all, rendered great service by the masterly way in which he points out the insuperable difficulties of the materi alistic position...This excellent trans lation." — The Quest.
" Of M. Bergson's three works the pre sent is that whuh appeals most to the educator because of the excellent treatment of the very practical subjects of memory and attention. We do not look for a final decision of such problems as art here dealt wtth, but no one can rise from reading this book and retain unchanged the vieu's with which he began it. To say this of a book of psychometaphysics is to say much." — Journal of Education.
"As in the case of the former volume the translator of this second volume has the author's assistance and approval, and the author has also written for it a new Introduction, superseding that which ac companies the original work. In this volume, also, the translators have given a number of useful marginal summaries and a copious index." — Westminster Review.
By the same Author, uniform with this volume, 10s. 6d. net.
TIME AND FREE WILL: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
" A philosopher who can think origin ally and write felicitously is a combin ation rare enough to justify a careful study of his message; and it is satis factory to note that M. Bergson's three chief works will soon be all accessible in English. We can only hope that the rendering of the two remaining volumes will be as successful as the clear and scholarly version which Mr. Pogson gives of his Les Donn6es immediates de la conscience. The title Time and Free Will has been substituted for the somewhat colourless title given by M. Bergson to his first book and it indicates accurately the chief contents of the volume, mainly a discussion of the real nature of time and the conclusions drawn by the author there from as to the possibility of real freedom. The general line of argument is the same as that familiar to English readers in James' Principles of Psychology, but it is worked out by Bergson with incom parable lucidity and a fulness of treatment that make it quite conclusive. It is not easy, by any process of summarizing or selecting, to convey the real force and persuasiveness of M. Bergson's argument. The temperate critic may reasonably doubt whether he has laid this venerable controversy to its final rest, but he will not deny that both his admissions and contentions go far to clear the air, and that many musty idols of the schools crumble at his touch." — Times.
" Prof. Bergson otcupies to-day in France, and indeed on the Continent, something of the samt position as the late Prof. William Young occupied among English-speaking peoples. Both are apostles of the plain man and the ordinary consciousness. Both approached philosophy proper through experimental psychology, but Professor Bergson has one special stage in his development which gives his work a peculiar interest. He is an eminent mathematician and familiar with the most abstract types of symbolical thought. Prof, Bergson is not an easy writer to translate. His ttylt in its simplicity and clarity and concentration is one of the best that have ever been used in tht service of philosophy; and for a succinct French style it is a hard mutter to find an English equivalent. Mr. Pogson seems to have done his work ad mirably, for he has succeeded in being always lucid and satisfactory, while re taining something of the grace of the original." — Spectator.
" The translation reproduces the re markable lucidity of thought and express- sion that distinguish A/. Bergson's pre sentment of a philosophical subject. It will be fairly easy for the educated reader who has any taste for inquiry into ques tions of man's mental life to follow M. Bergson's extremely interesting discus sions." — Saturday Review.
" The translator of this book has done his work thoroughly well. Prof. Berg son's French style is lucid enough in its own way, but he writes in a highly con centrated fashion, having, moreover, a line of thought to develop which is apt by its sheer unfamiliarity to baffle even the most professional of philosophers. In the present version the meaning is brought out with punctilious exactness as by ant who has weighed each word of the original, yet the effect of the whole is natural and easy. It is indeed no small misfortune to the world of letters that the rendering of those later works in which the Bergsonian doctrine of reality attains its full consummation must become the task of other hands...It is not necessary here to examine in any great detail a book, the conclusions of which are as stepping stones leading on to the maturer, or at any rate, more comprehensive studies represented by Matiere et Mcmoire, and more notably still that triumph of auda cious synthesis, L'Evolution Creatrire. The present treatise embodies a highly compact piece of introspective psychology in three chapters, the first two of which are intended to terve as a sort of intro duction to the first." — Athcna'iim.
MATTER I AN D MEMORY By HENRI BERGSON MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE PROFESSOR AT THE COLLEGE I>E FRANCE Authorized Translation by NANCY MARGARET PAUL AND W. SCOTT PALMER LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY FIRST PUBLISHED: January 1911 KKPRINTED: January 1912 tl March 1913 „ September 1919 „ July 1929 All rights reserved FEB! 5 1347 in h g/toiurg* TRANSLATORS' NOTE THIS translation of Monsieur Bergson's Matilre el Memoire has been made from the fifth edition of 1908, and has had the great advantage of being revised in proof by the author. Monsieur Bergson has also written a new Introduction for it, which supersedes that which accompanied the original work.
The translators offer their sincere thanks to the author for his invaluable help in these matters and for many suggestions made by him while the book was in manuscript.
They beg leave to call the reader's attention to the fact that all the marginal notes are peculiar to the English edition; and that, although Mon sieur Bergson has been good enough to revise them, he is not responsible for their insertion or character, since they form no part of his own plan for the book.
N. M. P. W. S. P.
INTRODUCTION THIS book affirms the reality of spirit and the reality of matter, and tries to determine the rela tion of the one to the other by the study of a defi nite example, that of memory. It is, then, frankly dualistic. But, on the other hand, it deals with body and mind in such a way as, we hope, to lessen greatly, if not to overcome, the theoretical difficulties which have always beset dualism, and which cause it, though suggested by the immediate verdict of consciousness and adopted by common sense, to be held in small honour among philoso phers.
These difficulties are due, for the most part, to the conception, now realistic, now idealistic, which philosophers have of matter. The aim of our first chapter is to show that realism and idealism both go too far, that it is a mistake to reduce matter to the perception which we have of it, a mistake also to make of it a thing able to produce in us perceptions, but in itself of another nature than they. Matter, in our view, is an aggregate of ' images/ And by 'image' we mean a certain existence which is more than that which the idealist calls a representation, but less than that which the realist calls a thing, — an Vlll INTRODUCTION existence placed half-way between the ' thing ' and the ' representation/ This conception of matter is simply that of common sense. It would greatly astonish a man unaware of the specula tions of philosophy if we told him that the object before him, wrhich he sees and touches, exists only in his mind and for his mind, or even, more gener ally, exists only for mind, as Berkeley held. Such a man would always maintain that the object exists independently of the consciousness which perceives it. But, on the other hand, we should astonish him quite as much by telling him that the object is entirely different from that which is perceived in it, that it has neither the colour as cribed to it by the eye, nor the resistance found in it by the hand. The colour, the resistance, are, for him, in the object: they are not states of our mind; they are part and parcel of an existence really independent of our own. For common sense, then, the object exists in itself, and, on the other hand, the object is, in itself, pictorial, as we perceive it: image it is, but a self -existing image. This is just the sense in which we use the word image in our first chapter. We place ourselves at the point of view of a mind unaware of the dis putes between philosophers. Such a mind would naturally believe that matter exists just as it is perceived; and, since it is perceived as an image, the mind would make of it, in itself, an image. In a word, we consider matter before the dissocia tion which idealism and realism have brought INTRODUCTION x about between its existence and its appearance. No doubt it has become difficult to avoid this dissociation now that philosophers have made it. To forget it, however, is what we ask of the reader. If, in the course of this first chapter, objections arise in his mind against any of the views that we put forward, let him ask himself whether these objections do not imply his return to one or the other of the two points of view above which we urge him to rise.
Philosophy made a great step forward on the day when Berkeley proved, as against the ' me chanical philosophers,' that the secondary qualities of matter have at least as much reality as the primary qualities. His mistake lay in believing that, for this, it was necessary to place matter within the mind, and make it into a pure idea. Descartes, no doubt, had put matter too far from us when he made it one with geometrical extensity. But, in order to bring it nearer to us, there was no need to go to the point of making it one with our own mind. Because he did go as far as this, Berkeley was unable to account for the success of physics, and, whereas Descartes had set up the mathematical relations between phenomena as their very essence, he was obliged to regard the mathematical order of the universe as a mere accident. So the Kantian criticism became neces sary, to show the reason of this mathematical order and to give back to our physics a solid found ation — a task in which, however, it succeeded X INTRODUCTION X INTRODUCTION only by limiting the range and value of our senses and of our understanding. The criticism of Kant, on this point at least, would have been unnecessary; the human mind, in this direction at least, would not have been led to limit its own range'; metaphysics would not have been sacrificed to physics, if philosophy had been content to leave matter half way between the place to which Descartes had driven it and that to which Berkeley drew it back — to leave it, in fact, where it is seen by common sense.
There we shall try to see it ourselves. Our first chapter defines this way of looking at matter; the last sets forth the consequences of such a view. But, as we said before, we treat of matter only in so far as it concerns the problem dealt with in our second and third chapters, that which is the subject of this essay: the problem of the relation between soul and body.
This relation, though it has been a favourite theme throughout the history of philosophy, has really been very little studied. If we leave on one side the theories which are content to state the ' union of soul and body ' as an irreducible and inexplicable fact, and those which speak vaguely of the body as an instrument of the soul, there remains hardly any other conception of the psycho- physiological relation than the hypothesis of- ' epiphenomenalism ' or that of ' parallelism,' which in practice — I mean in the interpretation of par ticular facts — both end in the same conclusions.
INTRODUCTION XI For whether, indeed, thought is regarded as a mere function of the brain and the state of consciousness as an epiphenomenon of the state of the brain, or whether mental states and brain states are held to be two versions, in two different languages, of one and the same original, in either case it is laid down that, could we penetrate into the inside of a brain at work and behold the dance of the atoms which make up the cortex, and if, on the other hand, we possessed the key to psycho-physiology, we should know every detail of what is going on in the corresponding consciousness.
This, indeed, is what is most commonly main tained by philosophers as well as by men of science. Yet it would be well to ask whether the facts, when examined without any preconceived idea, really suggest an hypothesis of this kind. That there is a close connexion between a state of con sciousness and the brain we do not dispute. But there is also a close connexion between a coat and the nail on which it hangs, for, if the nail is pulled out, the coat falls to the ground. Shall we say, then, that the shape of the nail gives us the shape of the coat, or in any way corresponds to it? No more are we entitled to conclude, because the physical fact is hung on to a cerebral state, that there is any parallelism between the two series psychical and physiological. When philosophy pleads that the theory of parallelism is borne out by the results of positive science, it enters upon an unmistakably vicious circle; for, if science inter- XII INTRODUCTION XII INTRODUCTION prets connexion, which is a fact, as signifying parallelism, which is an hypothesis (and an hypo thesis to which it is difficult to attach an intelligible meaning *), it does so, consciously or unconsciously, for reasons of a philosophic order: it is because science has been accustomed by a certain type of philosophy to believe that there is no hypothesis more probable, more in accordance with the interests of scientific enquiry.
Now, as soon as we do, indeed, apply to positive facts for such information as may help us to solve the problem, we find it is with memory that we have to deal. This was to be expected, because mem ory — we shall try to prove it in the course of this work — is just the intersection of mind and matter. But we may leave out the reason here: no one, at any rate, will deny that, among all the facts capable of throwing light on the psycho-physiological relation, those which concern memory, whether in the normal or in the pathological state, hold a privileged position. Not only is the evidence here extremely abundant (consider the enormous mass of observations collected in regard to the various kinds of aphasia), but nowhere else have anatomy, physiology and psychology been able to lend each other such valuable aid. Any one who approaches, without preconceived idea and on the firm ground of facts, the classical problem of the relations Of 1 \Ve have laid stress on this particular point in an essay on " Le paralogisme psycho-physiologic/ue " (Revue de Mela- physique et de Morale, Nov., 1904).
INTRODUCTION Xlll soul and body, will soon see this problem as centering upon the subject of memory, and even more particularly upon the memory of words: it is from this quarter, undoubtedly, that will come the light which will illumine the obscurer parts of the problem.
The reader will see how we try to solve it. Speak ing generally, the psychical state seems to us to be, in most cases, immensely wider than the cerebral state. I mean that the brain state indicates only a very small part of the mental state, that part which is capable of translating itself into move ments of locomotion. Take a complex thought which unrolls itself in a chain of abstract reasoning. This thought is accompanied by images, that are at least nascent. And these images themselves are not pictured in consciousness without some foreshadowing, in the form of a sketch or a ten dency, of the movements by which these images would be acted or played in space, — would, that is to say, impress particular attitudes upon the body, and set free all that they implicitly contain of spatial movement. Now, of all the thought which is unrolling, this, in our view, is what the cerebral state indicates at every moment. He who could penetrate into the interior of a brain and see what happens there, would probably obtain full details of these sketched-out, or prepared, movements; there is no proof that he would learn anything else. Were he endowed with a superhuman intellect, did he possess the key to psycho-physiology, he XIV INTRODUCTION XIV INTRODUCTION would know no more of what is going on in the corresponding consciousness than we should know of a play from the comings and goings of the actors upon the stage.
That is to say, the relation of the mental to the cerebral is not a constant, any more than it is a simple, relation. According to the nature of the play that is being acted, the movements of the players tell us more or less about it: nearly every thing, if it is a pantomime; next to nothing, if it is a delicate comedy. Thus our cerebral state contains more or less of our mental state in the measure that we reel off our psychic life into action or wind it up into pure knowledge.
There are then, in short, divers tones of mental life, or, in other words, our psychic life may be lived at different heights, now nearer to action, now further removed from it, according to the degree of our attention to life. Here we have one of the ruling ideas of this book-the idea, indeed, which served as the starting-point of our enquiry. That which is usually held to be a greater complex ity of the psychical state appears to us, from our point of view, to be a greater dilatation of the whole personality, which, normally narrowed down by action, expands with the unscrewing of the vice in which it has allowed itself to be squeezed, and, always whole and undivided, spreads itself over a wider and wider surface. That which is commonly held to be a disturbance of the psychic life itself, an inward disorder, a disease of the per- INTRODUCTION XV INTRODUCTION XV sonality, appears to us, from our point of view, to be an unloosing or a breaking of the tie which binds this psychic life to its motor accompaniment, a weakening or an impairing of our attention to outward life. This opinion, as also that which de nies the localization of the memory-images of words and explains aphasia quite otherwise than by such localization, was considered paradoxical at the date of the first publication of the present work (1896). It will appear much less so now. The conception of aphasia then classical, universally admitted, believed to be unshakeable, has been considerably shaken in the last few years, chiefly by reasons of an anatomical order, but partly also by reasons of the same kind as those which we then advanced.1 And the profound and original study of neuroses made by Professor Pierre Janet has led him, of late years, to explain all psychasthenic forms of disease by these same considerations of psychic ' tension ' and of attention to reality which were then presumed to be metaphysical.2 In truth, it was not altogether a mistake to call them by that name. Without denying to psycho logy, any more than to metaphysics, the right to make itself into an independent science, we believe that each of these two sciences should set problems to the other and can, in a measure, help it to solve 1 F. Moutier, L'Aphaste de Broca, Paris, 1908; especially Chapter VII. Cf. the work of Professor Pierre Marie.
2 P. Janet, Les obsessions et la Psychasthenie, Paris, 1903; in particular pp. 474-502.
XVI INTRODUCTION them. How should it be otherwise, if psychology has for its object the study of the human mind working for practical utility, and if metaphysics is but this same mind striving to transcend the con ditions of useful action and to come back to itself as to a pure creative energy? Many problems which appear foreign to each other as long as we are bound by the letter of the terms in which these two sciences state them, are seen to be very near akin and to be able to solve each other when we thus penetrate into their inner meaning. We little thought, at the beginning of our enquiry, that there could be any connexion between the analytical study of memory and the question, which are debated between realists and idealistss or between mechanists and dynamists, with regard to the existence or the essence of matter. Yet this connexion is real, it is even intimate; and, if we take it into account, a cardinal metaphysical problem is carried into the open field of observa tion, where it may be solved progressively, instead of for ever giving rise to fresh disputes of the schools within the closed lists of pure dialectic. The complexity of some parts of the present work is due to the inevitable dovetailing of problems which results from approaching philosophy in such a way. But through this complexity, which is due to the complexity of reality itself, we believe that the reader will find his way if he keeps a fast hold on the two principles which we have used as a clue throughout our own researches. The first INTRODUCTION Xvil is that in psychological analysis we must never forget the utilitarian character of our mental func tions, which are essentially turned towards action. The second is that the habits formed in action find their way up to the sphere of speculation, where they create fictitious problems, and that meta physics must begin by dispersing this artificial obscurity.
H. BERGSON. PARIS, October, 1910, CONTENTS PAGES [NTRODUCTION vii-xvii CHAPTER I OF THE SELECTION OF IMAGES FOR CONSCIOUS PRESENTATION. WHAT OUR BODY MEANS AND DOES. 1-85 Real action and virtual action, i— 8; Representation, 8—14; Realism and Idealism, 14—17; The choice of images, 17-35; Relation between representation and action, 35—45; The image and reality, 45—51; The image and affective sensation, 51—55; Nature of affective sensation, 55-59; The image, apart from sensation, 59-62; Natural extension of images, 62-69; Pure perception, 69-73: Approach to the problem of matter, 73-81; Memory, 81-85.
CHAPTER II OF THE RECOGNITION OF IMAGES. MEMORY AND BRAIN...86-169 The two forms of memory, 86-105; Movements and Recollections, 105—118; Recollections and movements, 118-145 • Realization of memories, 145-169.
CHAPTER III OF THE SURVIVAL OF IMAGES. MEMORY AND MIND...170-232 Pure memory, 170—176; What the present is, 176-181; The unconscious, 181-189; Existence, 189—191; Rela tion of past and present, 191-200; Memory and general xix XX CONTENTS PAGES ideas, 201—212; The Association of Ideas, 212—217; The plane of action and the plane of dream, 217-220; The different planes of consciousness, 220—225; Attention to life, 225—226; Mental equilibrium, 227-230; The Office of the body, 231-232.
CHAPTER IV THE DELIMITING AND FIXING OF IMAGES. PERCEP TION AND MATTER. SOUL AND BODY.. 233-298 The problem of dualism, 233—238; Description of the Method, 238—245; Indivisibility of movement, 246—253; Real movement, 254—259; Perception and matter, 259-267; Duration and tension, 267-277; Extensity and sxtension, 277-291; Soul and body, 291—298.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 299-332 INDEX r...333-339 CHAPTER I OF THE SELECTION OF IMAGES FOR CONSCIOUS PRESENTATION. WHAT OUR BODY MEANS AND DOES.
WE will assume for the moment that we know nothing of theories of matter and theories of spirit, nothing of the discussions as to the reality or ideality of the external world. Here I am ir the presence of images, in the vaguest sense of the word, images perceived when my senses are opened to them, unperceived when they are closed. All these images act and react upon one another in all their elementary parts according to constant laws which I call laws of nature, and, as a perfect knowledge of these laws would probably allow us to calculate and to fore see what will happen in each of these images, the future of the images must be contained in their present and will add to them nothing new.
Yet there is one of them which is distinct from all the others, in that I do not know it only from without by perceptions, but from within The nniqne / •.f.
place and by affections: it is my body. I exafunction o!...the living mine the conditions in which these t)0(iv affections are produced: I find that they always interpose themselves between the ex citations that I receive from without and the move- MATTER AND MEMORY CHAP, i