18 October: Boreham on Henri Bergson

A Philosophy of Change
It was on this day in 1859, that the extraordinary little French Jew, Henri Bergson, was born. Bergson is one of the few great philosophers of our time who have created a sensation by the promulgation of their conclusions. Thirty years ago Bergson's name was a thing to conjure with. Indeed, in France itself the spell of the audacious thinker was so potent as seriously to threaten his own prestige. The pontiffs alleged that the metaphysical doctrines that could be discussed in the gossip of street corners and in the chatter of coffee-rooms were obviously beneath the dignity of classical recognition. It seemed difficult for the student to believe that a complicated and intricate theory of life could be expressed in terms so simple and so graceful as to make an effective appeal to the man in the street. But the passage of a few months brought disillusionment; and it swiftly became manifest that the teacher whose works were being translated into all European languages, and whose brilliance was crowding his Parisian lecture hall with the clearest thinkers of all nations was becoming a force to be reckoned with in the intellectual life of the world.

A Dauntless Pathfinder
One after another the greatest philosophers yielded to the magic of his persuasion and capitulated to his charm, whilst many who could not adopt in their entirety the principles of his system recognised the cogency and force of the propositions which he had so brilliantly advanced. Perhaps the most outstanding of the compliments paid to the distinguished Frenchman by a renowned overseas contemporary, was the confession made by Prof. William James, of Harvard, the most notable psychologist of his time. In the course of his Hibbert Lectures on "A Pluralistic Universe," Prof. James frankly admitted that he would not have dared to promulgate the theories contained in his own famous lectures "if he had not been influenced by a comparatively young and very original French writer in the person of Prof. Henri Bergson." The study of Bergson emboldened him to seek articulation for his own ideas. "It is certain," James continues, "that, without the confidence which I find in an appeal to the imposing authority of Bergson, I should never have ventured to urge these views of mine upon this ultra-critical audience." It is recognised that Bergson has suffered heavily at the hands of his translators. Those who know him best claim for him that, in the original, his style is the most rhythmic and delightful through which philosophic thought has ever found expression. One critic, of the very highest authority, says that Bergson's style fits his philosophy as elastic silk underclothing follows every movement of the body. This subtle, almost musical, charm of diction is necessarily lost in the severe ordeal imposed by the process of translation, and we find ourselves in some little perplexity when we essay to explain in so many words the extraordinary hold which the abstruse utterances of Henri Bergson laid upon the enraptured mind of France.

Fluidity Of Time
When in Bergson published his "L'Evolution Creatrice," he awoke a popular furore. A sensational novel from an expert could scarcely have excited more general enthusiasm. The average Frenchman garnished his correspondence, his politics, and even his shop-windows with the magnetic name of the philosopher. Enterprising tradesmen displayed Bergson stationery, Bergson haberdashery, Bergson confectionery, and Bergson perfumes. Speaking generally, it may be said that Bergson's distinctive philosophy is a philosophy of time. In effect it is a rebuke launched at our easy-going habit of regarding time mathematically and mechanically—a string with so many knots, a stick with so many notches. Time, according, to Bergson, does not consist of so many years containing so many events as so many waggons might contain so many articles. The vital quantity in relation to time, he insisted, is not the happenings by which it is marked, but the flow of the time element between them. Our spacial conception, he always thought, exaggerates the appearance of having left a great deal behind us in what we call our past. It would be interesting to know what Bergson thought of Mr. H. G. Wells and his "Time Machine." In some respects Mr. Wells, in his fantastic but intriguing story, transplants Bergson's philosophy of time into the realm of the liveliest fiction. On the other hand, Bergson would probably have waved aside Mr. Wells' weird conception as too fixed, too rigid, too static, too inflexible.

Stream And Snowball
Time, Bergson held, is more like a gentle stream; and all things, ourselves included, are being brought down in its regular and ceaseless flow. It is a thing of a thousand illusions. It seems—and the striking metaphor is Bergson's own—like a cinematographic film. Each present moment appears to present a sharply defined entity with a vivid and clear-cut picture, while the long ribbon of film, with its innumerable individual scenes, makes up the entire tale. But this, Bergson assures us, is a mischievous and clumsy travesty of the truth. Time, he holds, is essentially mobile, fluid, indivisible. The separate pictures on the film, the separate ticks of the clock, the separate knots on the string, the separate notches on the stick, are artificial and arbitrary divisions. Indeed, they are not divisions at all, for they divide nothing. They no more exist in the real stuff of time than the lines of latitude and longitude exist in the real stuff of earth. Time is like a river in full flow that cannot be split up into sections or cut into fragments; or, to change the illustration, time is like a snowball rushing down a mountain-side, bearing with it, in addition to all that it gathers and accumulates in its onward sweep, the increment of which it was originally created. Nothing is lost. Time, in a word, is movement; life is movement; movement is the dynamic soul of all things. And here we reach the throbbing heart of the whole matter. For Bergson's philosophy is first and last a philosophy of movement, or, as he himself preferred to call it, a philosophy of change. And, after all, it is the same thing, for what is change but movement? Moreover, change and movement connote life; and life was the centre of Bergson's system. His teaching presented people with new springs of action. He became the apostle of intellectual freedom: he broke the shackles that bound the human will and made it less difficult for men to follow their consciences in scorn of consequence.

As to how long his conclusions will hold the field, no man can say. Some of his ideas have already been superceded. Such a process is inevitable; Bergson himself watched its operation with gratified approval. But the fact remains that Bergson set the whole world thinking, and deserves, on that ground alone the admiration and gratitude of mankind.

F W Boreham

Image: Henri Bergson