Bergson and Personal realism

Chapter I Bergson's Definition Of Being

Uncertainty in the Definition of Matter 32

This uncertainty arises from the use of words with double meaning, from imperfect physical analogies, and from the mystery of life. The confusion arising from the attempt to describe both matter and spirit by the abstract term "perception." The difficulty attending a description of matter as the inverse of movement.

Failure to Note a Real Distinction between

Matter and Spirit 36

Again matter and spirit cannot be safely identified under the term "image." If matter is an aggregate of images, and perception is the reference to another "image" which is myself, we remain either in a world which is wholly phenomenal, or we do not reach a realm of thought at all. This fate follows his definition of personality as clearly as it does his definition of body.

From this Definition of Matter Arises Confusion in the Meaning of Self 40

The personal factor cannot be ruled out of perception. Perception cannot be fundamental reality.

The Idea of "Duration" Alone is Insufficient to Solve the Conflict between Mind and

Matter 43

"Duration" in so far as it is a solution is endowed

with the unique powers of personality.

The Resort to a Theory of Vibration as the

Basis of Explanation 45

Metaphysical conclusions drawn from the introduction of the vibratory theory are purely materialistic and leave the problem still unsolved. The persistent ghost of exorcised intellectualization.

CHAPTER H THE DEFINITION OF MEMORY AND LIFE

The Meaning of "Pure" Memory 55

Memory is the intersection of mind and matter; "pure" memory is experience after the event. The failure to complete the connection between matter and spirit.

Of the Relation between Perception and

Memory 58

We are met by the fact that neither perception nor memory is anything apart from persons in a personal world. Memory must be of concrete experiences by concrete persons. Bergson's "pure" memory must be held practically synonymous with the more common term "personality" if it is to be retained.

The Assumed Independence of Memory and Matter is Not Tenable on these Terms. . 64 Independence between thought and thing can be attained only by the assumption of a higher unity.

The Metaphysical Bearing of the Things

which Escape Our Explanation 66

Dualism that exists by express consent of creative intelligence.

The Definition of Life 69

(a) Life as the Intersection of Streams of Reality and as Initial Impulsion.

We must, then, explain the creation of these independent streams, and find that we have but committed ourselves to the infinite regress. If life is to be fundamental, it must also be self-creative.

(b) Life as Duration.

Bergson here comes to the heart of the problem, but needs to recognize the personal implications of the idea.

(c) Life as Vital Impulse.

The unforeseen requirements of a vital impulse adequate for homogeneity. It must in a real sense be deterministic or it cannot explain the world.

(d) Life as the Point of Minimum Cognition. Here the thing to be remembered is that intuition

can never in actual perception be entirely clear of intellectualization.

CHAPTER m INTUITION AND INTELLIGENCE

It is Necessary to Attain Accuracy in the Use

of the Term "Intuition" 86

Differences of nature must not be concealed by the use of a general term. Used indiscriminately as a name for the mental process in man, instinct in animals, and cellular attraction in plants. Any real choice is attended by possession of personality.

The Intellectual Element in All Human Intuition 90

Human intuition is inseparable from intelligence. Unintelligible intuition would be meaningless on the human plane.

Intuition as a Practical Guide in Life 93

We may be able to pronounce it valuable, but hardly superior, and not infallible. It is an inferior guide under new or unusual conditions.

Implications of Such a Doctrine as to the Nature

of Truth 96

General truths are an expression of the nature of life, and as such are a part of reality.

The Theory of Intuition as an Aid to Religious

Ideas 99

It does not provide a solution of the problem of revelation, of miracle, nor of spirituality.

In What Sense Can Intuition be Said to Bring

Us Nearer Reality? 104

Intuition as acting personality in distinction from reflecting personality. Conscious choice becomes unconscious habit, and, therefore, life itself.

CHAPTER IV THE THEORIES OF SPACE AND TIME

Space as a Qualityless, Homogeneous Medium. . 110

Space gains a universal validity not from its independent, objective character but because it has meaning for a Supreme Creative Intelligence which wills a world of spatial relations. 10

The Idea of Time as a Form of Space 112

This idea arises from the distinction necessary between time as given by reflection, and the time of successive experiences which is really duration. But I do not relate things and events to myself after the same order. There is a difference between enumeration of objects and succession of events.

Time as Contracted Experience 117

The difference between time and consciousness of time flown. The individual must in the end pay homage to the clock.

Time as Duration 120

The conflict between the idea of duration as experience and as applying to matter. Time, materially speaking, derives its meaning from the unfinished character of the world.

CHAPTER V FREEDOM AND CAUSATION

The Conception of Freedom in the Philosophy

of Change 133

Bergson aims to escape both mechanism and determinism by the doctrine of duration, but his unclearness on duration as applied to matter vitiates the result because choice, which is the mark of freedom, is dependent upon personal duration.

The Value and Possibility of a Purposeless

Freedom 137

A freedom of accident cannot account for a rational world. Such a freedom is valueless for religion. Freedom is inseparable from personality. The highest freedom is consonant with highest intelligence and moral character. Apart from this, skepticism. 11

Of Causation as Freed from Determinism 142

(a) Duration in Things as Different from Duration in Self.

Whatever the "elan" may be, it must act subject to the time order — that is, successively — and with prevision for the future if there is to be an evolutionary progress. If this progress is real, duration in things does not differ from duration in us, and the "elan" is purposive.

(b) The Only Free Causation is Personal.

This is the only ground on which we can maintain the reality of evolution.

CHAPTER VI

THE NATURE OF CREATIVE BEING IN

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHANGE

The Implications of Impersonalism as to

Ground of Being 152

Bergson posits a God subject to matter, and so creatively inadequate. This God is lacking also in moral qualities and hence is inadequate to create a world with moral values.

The Meaning of Duration and Change in the

Creative Being 156

Duration in the World Ground implies abiding selfconsciousness in order to remain creatively active. Such a World Ground must retain unchanging moral and spiritual purpose. It must be not morally subject to the world. It must relate itself to but transcend the temporal order.

A True World-Ground Must be Self-Creative. 169

An example of self -creative activity to be found in finite personality. A creative being might through the evolution of the world be realizing himself, which might be the essential definition of a living God.

CHAPTER Vn

THE FRAGILE FLOWER OF HUMAN

PERSONALITY

The Impossibility of an Impersonal Freedom. . 174

Personality the needed element in a philosophy of change.

Bergson's Definition of Personality 176

Distinguished by its indefiniteness, in shifting from "body" to "image" to "I." Its unity is phenomenal, a matter of mental concentration. Personality becomes a thing of degree. Haunted by an insurmountable dualism. As an impediment to the "elan," personality is reduced to the rank of inert matter.

Disappearance of the Ground of Personal Immortality 188

While philosophy may not be charged to prove immortality, there is reason to doubt the validity of any system which leaves no room for an instinct so universal and necessary. Thus alone can the creative continuity of the "elan vitale" be maintained.

A Doctrine of Personality is Fundamental to

Metaphysical Understanding 193

No abiding philosophy can omit the ultimate explanation.

Section II Personal Realism Chapter VIII The Aim And Method Of Realism

Realism in General 197

At its best, realism strives to maintain the obvious, and to stop the analyzing away of the true nature of being.

Neo-Realism 198

Neo-realism seeks to escape the unrealities of dialectic by affirming independence of the objects of consciousness and the identity of object and percept. In the case of one school this leads to the position that reality is the relation of subject and object in perception, but ignores the self-identifying nature of the subject which makes perception possible.

Personal Realism 200

(a) Personal Realism Affirms Indivisibility of Personality.

It holds that reality is a connection and a relation indivisible except in abstract analysis. Pluralism is a fact only to the rationalizing nature of man. The only unity is a personal one. There is, strictly speaking, no dissociation of personality, but what is so termed is a dissociation of conscious states.

(6) Personal Realism Aims an Advance over Ordinary forms of Personal Idealism.

Personal idealism posits self-consciousness as fundamental to thought; personal realism affirms personality as the Ground of being and the indivisible real. Personality in the World Ground is limiting only because of uncertain notions of space and time. "Things as they are" must include personality, and because personality includes change and freedom we avoid a static world.

(c) Personal Realism Aims through a Doctrine of Personality to Unite the Oppositions

Personality presents the common ground of reconciliation demanded by modern thought. It presents an unmistakable example of self-causation, and of identity in change. In a world of mystery we must choose the mystery least incompatible with the whole of life. Is it better to be thrust back upon a lawless unintelligible ground of being, or shall we recognize its identity with the supreme mystery of all life, the mystery of personality? This standpoint gives distinct relief in the solution of the deepest problems, which are ultimately those that gather about the meaning of personality.

CHAPTER IX THE DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY

The Meaning of Personality in a System of Personal Realism 223

Personality as the indivisible unit of reality. It is not a combination of states of consciousness, nor do we consider the brain as the seat of the independent, self-existing soul. It is the essentially real.

Some Essential Features of Personality 225

(a) Self-Definition and Recognition of Other Personalities.

Personal identity differs from numerical identity by relation to the temporal order. The personality realizes itself through personal relations.

(b) Duration.

(c) Freedom.

To deny freedom would be to deny moral accountability.

(d) Causality.

Causality is the unique possession of personality.

The Self-Conscious and Self-Creative Elements

in Personality 236

By self-consciousness in man we mean the unique power of conscious self -consciousness through which he judges the motives of his action, and so becomes moral. The self-creative element, a first cause, the operation of which we each experience. Finite causation is limited by the world of relations; infinite cause is limited only by moral nature and purpose.

Personality the Fundamental Reality 238

In ultimate analysis, the personality is the one survivor of time and change.

CHAPTER X

PERSONAL REALISM

AND THE TROUBLESOME PROBLEMS OF

PHILOSOPHY

The Question of Causal Explanation 240

Any mechanical or impersonal explanation is inconsistent with the maintenance of evolutionary progress. No explanation is to be had apart from purpose. The only self -creativity we know is personal.

Vibratory theories only delay the real problem which immediately arises of how differing speeds of vibration are interpreted not as vibrations but as qualities. The hypothetical nature of such theories.

Space and Time 247

Emphasis must be put upon the space and time transcending nature of personality.

The Dualism of Thought and Thing 250

This dualism is not to be overcome by ignoring either element. The relation of the two orders remains the question of philosophy. In making "relation" the real, neo-realism drops into an abstraction akin to that of idealism. The prime reality is not the relation but the relator. The reality is persons in a personal world. The unity of personality is ultimate and less mysterious than philosophical abstraction.

Error and Evil 254

Error is not accounted for in the commonly accepted realism of perception. To avoid the issue is to raise too many problems. The idealistic solution of the problem of evil must submit to the test of the concrete instance. The only possible justification of the existence of error and evil is personal.

CHAPTER XI PERSONALISM AND THE GROUND OF BEING

Personality Assumed or Implied is the Basis of

Explanation in Current Theories 261

This is because the law of the sufficient reason demands an intelligent source for an intelligible world. "Unknowables," "monads," "atoms," "vortices," "electrons," or "elans," in so far as they explain are endowed with causality, freedom, duration, and even self-identity, which are the elements that make up personality.

Affirming Personality in the World-Ground is not to Confuse God with His World. . . . 263 God is immanent in his world, as is the artist in his picture. It is the expression of himself, but it is not himself. The demand that matter shall serve as a sort of body for the Deity is due to faulty thinking.

A Changing World Implies not a Changing

but a Living God %65

To live implies an enriching content of experience rather than a changing moral purpose.

Personal Realism Provides a Philosophical Basis for a Doctrine of Incarnation 270

(a) Impossible, holding a view of God as Static, to show how he could be in Christ.

Questions of human limitations, foreknowledge, omnipotence, etc., no longer haunt us if the chief attributes of God relate to character. They become merely academic questions.

(6) Does away with the Question of how God could manifest himself in historic time.

Time and space are to him both transcended and real.

A Personal World-Ground Provides for "God,

Freedom, and Immortality." 274

An impersonal God or World-Ground is lacking in all qualities which give the idea practical value to man, reerects the system of necessity, and closes the door in the face of humanity's one undying instinct, the hope of personal survival.

CHAPTER XH INDIVIDUALISM AND PERSONALISM

The revival of learning, break-up of feudalism, growth of democracy, new emphasis on science and the liberation of philosophy, all facilitated the growth of individualism.

Politically, set forth in the work of Rousseau and Marx; in literature, Goethe, romanticism, realism, Nietzsche; educationally in Rousseau's theory of education; ethically represented in Spinoza; religiously, in the Methodist and kindred movements; scientifically, the dominance of the empirical method, Haeckel and modern science; philosophically, in modern realism, relativism, empiricism, and skepticism

The Cultural Ideals of Individualism 282

The perverted and irresponsible view of individual culture which neglects the moral attainments.

The Contrasting Ideals of Personalism 284

Its essential principle the necessity of moral and spiritual values in all true culture of personality.

The Present Conflict between Individualism

and Personalism 286

Individualism with its doctrine of Superman developed at the expense of the many and without moral regard is opposing a personalism which contends for the inalienable cultural rights of all men.

The Cross as the Solution of the Deeper Problems of Life 287

As the individual reaches his highest personal attainment through suffering for righteousness, so the cross becomes the symbol of an uncompleted world in process of perfection.

Index 291

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The philosophy of change is as old as Heraclitus, yet it has appeared again and again in the field of the history of philosophy, whenever other systems that have long contested the field have shown signs of weakness, decay, or deadlock. It is a natural compromise between the systems of sheer materialism and sheer idealism. It offers as reality something more tangible than abstract idea, namely, a law of change, and something less objective than the theories of materialism.

It provides a movement under which the self-creative soul may express itself, and cross the line from subject to object, while it denudes materialism of its static inertia and helplessness, and gives to nature and life a unity.

One cannot read the pages of the latest philosopher of change, Mr. Bergson, without being reminded of many names in the history of philosophy which his doctrines suggest.

One recalls the impetus which another French

philosopher, Descartes, gave to mechano-mate-

rialistic speculation, which had its effect in

running out to its limit the materialistic hypothesis, and making clear the demand for something better. One remembers the relation, or at least the concomitance, of this movement with the movement of realism in letters and in art. And though the term is used in a different way when speaking of realism in philosophy it is not to be forgotten that there is more than a casual connection between them.

When one reads the doctrine of intuition, as against intellectualization, one cannot overlook the results of French romanticism with its great emphasis on the value of the psychological reaction of the individual, disclosed in the intuitionalism of Pascal and the surviving individualism in modern life which is known as a doctrine of the superman, which is the haunting spirit of modern literary realism.

With the conscious barrenness of idealistic dialectic on the one hand and a sense in many quarters of the breakdown of materialistic explanation on the other, it is the most natural thing in the world that philosophy of the present hour should witness a new appeal to the things which sense does not reach and which intellectualization seems only to obscure.

Essentially the Bergsonian system seems to

us an attempt to give philosophical expression

to a demand of the times; to offset the exclusive

claims of materialism for reality; to refute the

INTRODUCTION

idealistic trust in pure dialectic; to provide a definition of life which shall transcend those of science and yet leave room for spontaneity, contingency, and life; and, not least of all, to restore philosophy to the popular interest and to the uncritical by simplification.

There is no doubt that Bergson has accomplished many of the items of such a program, whether or not he ever had such a course in mind. He has done work which we believe is of great significance in the clearing of philosophical ideals. If at times we seem hypercritical in our discussion of his teachings, it is that by rather extreme measures we may attract attention to elements of danger which are easily overlooked by reason of the winning charm and contagious enthusiasm of the philosopher.

It seems good to have a really great philosopher with so popular an appeal, and no doubt many of the points here complained of will be cleared up by Mr. Bergson himself in subsequent works. The purpose of this volume is to show that the philosophy of change is not complete so long as it remains upon the abstract and impersonal basis. The difficulty with Bergson's realism, as well as with that of the neo-realists with whom he is often classed, is that in this abstract element they are nearer 25 idealism than they dream. Their need is to bring theory to the test of the concrete instance in life. The concrete instance is based upon the experience of a person in a world of persons. And there is an element in personality which at least since the days of Kant must be recognized as existing in its own right. It is this element of personality which we feel is needed to complete and ground a true philosophy of change. Such a system was worked out to great completeness in America by Borden Parker Bowne under the name of Personalism. We have presumed here to call it a system of personal realism.

Acknowledgments are due to my colleagues Professors Ulrey, Dixon, and Healey of the University of Southern California, to M. Poincare, vice-Rector of the Sorbonne, and to Professor Bergson.

It is not pleasant to disagree with one to whom there is a sense of personal obligation linked with so profound an admiration and esteem.

These considerations are not offered in a spirit of contention nor as an attempt at finality, but in the humble hope that they may be not altogether without value in that conflict of ideas by which comes the more perfect statement of truth.

m

INTRODUCTION

Acknowledgment should be made to the following firms for courtesies in connection with the quotations used in this book:

Henry Holt & Co., publishers of Creative Evolution, by Henri Bergson.

The Macmillan Company for quotations from Bergson's Matter and Memory; and Time and Free Will; also Bosanquet's Value and Destiny of the Individual.

G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, for quotations from Bergson's Metaphysics.

Charles Scribner's Sons for quotations from Poincare's Science and Method.

Houghton Mifflin Company for Lucy Larcom's poem "A Strip of Blue."

The Yale University Press for quotations from Hocking's Meaning of God.

Dana, Estes & Co. for Knowles's "The Tenant" from On Life's Stairway.

The University of Chicago Press for quotations from Coe's Psychology of Religion.

Mean, Paris, for quotations from Piat's La Personne Humaine.

Open Court Publishing Company for Lane's translation of Herder's poem "Self."

Thomas Bird Mosher for the poem "Sometimes," to be found in The Rose Jar, by Thomas S. Jones, Jr.

The Author.

Paris, Aprfl, 1919.

SECTION I THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHANGE

CHAPTER I BERGSON'S DEFINITION OF BEING

In any system of philosophy, the definitions of being, reality, and life are more important than any house of speculation that may be built upon them. The definition is fundamental, and by it the remainder of the system must stand or fall. It is, then, important to any critical review of the Bergsonian philosophy that we should seek the exact definition which is given to being, reality, and life.

The foremost clue to this definition will be given us if we can ascertain first of all the aim of the author. Bergson aims in his definition of matter to avoid the chief difficulty which besets materialism. This difficulty is the unavoidable skepticism which arises from the affirmation of a reality which exists independent of all intelligence, and which ends in the denial of knowledge. This is his endeavor when he presents the definition of matter in this fashion:

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 existence placed half way between the "thing" and the representation. This conception of matter is simply that of common sense. 1

Uncertainty in the Definition of Matter However much we may sympathize with the attempt thus to overcome the age-long dispute in philosophy, one can scarcely feel satisfied with a solution which seems so largely verbal. Though strictly defining the meaning of the term "images," the common connotation of the word is different, and this shadow of meaning creeps into Bergson's discussion. The confusion thus created becomes most apparent when he comes to define the relation of matter to personality or spirit.

I call matter the aggregate of images, and perception of matter these same images referred to the eventual action of one 'particular image, my body. 2

Here is a system which I term my perception of the universe, and which may be entirely altered by a very slight change in a certain privileged image — my body. This image occupies the center; by it all the others are conditioned; at each of its movements everything changes, as though by the turn of the kaleidoscope. Here, on the other hand, are the same images, but referred each one to itself; influencing each other no doubt, but in such a manner that the effect is always in proportion to the cause: this is what I term the universe. 3

1 Matter and Memory, pp. vii-viii.

In this case we have the same term, "image," applied to two systems, to that of perception or thought which later becomes memory or spirit, and to that of matter as independent existence. The question at once arises as to the validity of this double use of the term. Certainly, no questions existed previously which do not remain under the disguise of words. Either self is identical with matter or it is not. As an image in the sense of one body among others it might be, but if we have a mind for that which transcends materiality, we still have two worlds, and have not advanced by our definition. What Bergson seems to have hoped by this device was to obtain a suspension of judgment or truce in hostilities whereby we will accept things as they appear to common sense and not push the remorseless logic of the mind to either the extreme of materialistic agnosticism or idealistic subjectivism. The great question is how can we stop by fiat and be satisfied with the truce of ambiguous terms?

In still another passage he defines matter as the inverse of movement, which is life. As steam from a vessel escapes into the air, the condensed drops of water fall back, opposing themselves to the rising vapor. The drops represent matter and the steam spirit, or life. He says:

In reality, life is a movement, materiality is the inverse movement and each of these two movements is simple, the matter which divides the world being an undivided flux, and undivided also the life that runs through it, cutting out in it living beings along its track. Of these two currents the second runs counter to the first, but the first obtains, all the same, something from the second. 4 The movement is of the very essence of reality. 6

4 Creative Evolution, pp. 249, 250.

6 "If matter so far as extended in space is to be defined (as we believe it must) as a present which is always beginning again, inversely our present is the very materiality of our existence, that is to say, a system of sensations and movements, and nothing else" (Matter and Memory, p. 178).

"Each of these qualities resolves itself, on analysis, into an enormous number of elementary movements. Whether we see it in vibrations or whether we represent it in any other way, one fact is certain, it is that every quality is change. In vain, moreover, shall we seek beneath the change the thing which changes: it is always provisionally, and in order to satisfy our imagination, that we attach the movement to a mobile. The mobile flies forever before the pursuit of science, which is concerned with mobility alone. In the smallest discernable fraction of a second, in the almost instantaneous conception of a sensible quality, there may be trillions of oscillations which repeat themselves. The permanence of a sensible quality consists in this repetition of movements, as the persistence of life consists in a series of palpitations. The primal function of perception is precisely to grasp a series of elementary changes under the form of a quality or of a simple state, by a work of condensation. The greater the power of acting bestowed upon an animal species, the more numerous, probably, are the elementary changes that its faculty of perceiving concentrates into one of its instants. And the progress must be continuous in nature, from the beings that vibrate almost in unison with the oscil-

When we consider still further Bergson's claim that matter is simply "run-down" or exhausted life, we see how great is the need for clarifying definition and analysis, for in Bergson's scheme of things both matter and life spring from a common creator in which the mechanical order is opposed to the living order, and is likewise produced by it.

He says:

All our analyses show us in life, an effort to remount the incline that matter descends. In that, they reveal to us the possibility, the necessity even, of a process the inverse of materiality, creative of matter by its interruption alone. 6

On this basis life could not create matter until it already had some matter to oppose it. But this shakes our original structure to its foundations because it raises the question we presumed settled at the start. Instead of allowing us to assume that motion is original, it forces us to weigh whether it is matter or movement or life that is original. We shall find ourselves philosophically in the situation of the man who could find no way out except by lifting himself on his own bootstraps.

lations of the ether, up to those that embrace trillions of these oscillations in the shortest of their simple perceptions" (Creative Evolution, p. 301).

6 Creative Evolution, p. 245. 35

Failure to Note a Real Distinction Between Matter and Spirit

Any system of philosophy which attempts definitions that shall of themselves reconcile the dualism of spirit and matter is doomed to fall into a similar confusion. For philosophy and for life there is the one great secret, and that secret is beyond intelligible expression and analysis. The secret of life resides measurably within the depths of our own personalities. We have there exposed as by a flashlight a small portion of the garment of mystery. How can atoms of energy with their deducible heat units be traced into the purpose and will of the individual? Mr. Bergson recognizes this fact when in the introduction to Matter and Memory 7 he denies a parallelism between the two series psychical and physiological. Why not, then, openly admit that in personality itself we chance upon the unexplained mystery of connection between the worlds of matter and of spirit? And if perchance we seek the solution of the larger mystery of efficient causation, it might be that personality in the "elan" would settle problems for which there is promise of settlement by no other conceivable premise.

If we frankly recognize the dualism between