Leonard Lawlor - The Challenge of Bergsonism

The Challenge ofBergsonism:

Phenomenology, Ontology,Ethics

Leonard Lawlor

CONTINUUM

The Challenge of Bergsonism

For my parents

The Challengeof Bergsonism

Phenomenology, Ontology, ELthics

LEONARD LAWLOR

ontinuumLONDON • NEW YORK

ContinuumThe Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

15 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10010

© Leonard Lawlor 2003

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any

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ISBN: 0-8264-6802-0 (hardback), 0-8264-6803-9 (paperback)

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Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Abbreviations viii

Preface: Memory and Life ix

Chapter One: The Concept of the Image: Phenomenology 1

The Artifice 1

The Threefold Differentiation in Order to Determine the Conceptof the Image 4

The Role of the Body 11

The Theory of Pure Perception 18

Chapter Two: The Concept of Memory: Ontology 27

The Primacy of Memory 29

The Two Differences in Nature that Define Memory 31

The Central Metaphysical Problem of Existence 39

The Image of the Cone 43

Chapter Three: The Concept of Sense: Ethics 60

The Bergsonian Concept of Intuition 63

Bergson's Philosophy of Language 70

Conclusion: Think in Terms of Duration 80

Appendix I: The Point where Memory Turns Back into Life:An Investigation of Bergson's The Two Sources of Moralityand Religion 85

I. The Theoretical and Practical Objectives of The Two Sources of Moralityand Religion 86

vi Contents

II. Asceticism and Sexuality 91

III. The Trumpery of Nature 97

IV. Mystical Experience: Emotion and Image 99

Conclusion: The Star 110

Appendix II: English Translation of Jean Hyppolite's 1949'Aspects divers de la memoire chez Bergson' ('Various Aspectsof Memory in Bergson'), translated by Athena V. Colman 112

Notes 128

Bibliography 136

Index 143

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Miguel de Beistegui who invited me to deliver threelectures on Bergson at the Collegium Phaenomenologicum in Citta di Costello,Italy, during July of 1999. I would also like to thank John Mullarkey, FredericWorms, Renaud Barbaras, Keith Ansell Pearson and Marie Cariou for helpingme understand Bergson's philosophy. Finally, I would like to thank the stu-dents who participated in two graduate seminars on Bergson that I taught atthe University of Memphis (spring 1999 and spring 2002). In particular, Iwould like to thank Heath Massey, who proofread and indexed the manuscript.The writing of this book was made possible by a Faculty Research Grant fromthe University of Memphis (summer 2001).

Note: Appendix II is an English translation by Athena V. Colman of JeanHyppolite's 'Aspects divers de la memoire chez Bergsons', in Jean Hyppolite,Figures de la pensee philosophique, tome /, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,1971: 468-88. Michel Meyer of Revue International de Philosphie has grantedpermission for this translation. I would like to thank Athena Colman fortranslating this text.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations have been used throughout. At times the Englishtranslations have been modified. Reference is always made first to HenriBergson, CEuvres, Edition du Centenaire, textes annotes par Andre Robinet,Introduction par Henri Gouhier, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959,then to the corresponding English translation.

EC Creative Evolution, translated by Arthur Mitchell, New York: Dover,1998 [1911].

PM The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics, translated by MabelleL. Andison, New York: The Citadel Press, 1992 [1946]; translation ofLa Pensee et le mouvant.

R Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, translated by CloudsleyBrereton and Fred Rothwell, Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1999 [1911].

MM Matter and Memory, translated by N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer, NewYork: Zone Books, 1994 [1910].

ES Mind-Energy, translated by H. Wildon Carr, London: Macmillan, 1920.

DI Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness,translated by F. L. Pogson, Mineola: Dover Publishing Company, 2001[1913].

MR The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, translated by R. Ashley Audraand Cloudsley Brereton, with the assistance of W. Horsfall Carter, NotreDame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977 [1935].

PREFACE

Memory and Life

Bergson himself states the challenge that his philosophy represents when hesays, 'Questions relating to subject and object, to their distinction and to theirunion, should be put in terms of time rather than space' (MM 218/71; alsoMM 354/220). To put questions relating to subject and object in terms of timemeans that we must think in terms of duration. While Bergson defines durationin many ways - most basically, this book concerns itself with the concept ofduration - it can be summarized in the following formula: duration equalsmemory plus the absolutely new. Giving the primary role to memory, thisformula implies that Bergsonism is a 'primacy of memory', and not a 'primacyof perception', and this is why Bergsonism is, first, a challenge to phenomen-ology. In the Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty says, 'To perceive isnot to remember'.1 Through this distinction between perception and remem-bering, Merleau-Ponty intends to prioritize perception over memory; for himthere is no call from the present to memory without the 'immanent sense' thatperception makes available. In contrast, in Matter and Memory, Bergson says,'to imagine is not to remember' (MM 278/135). Through this distinctionBergson intends to prioritize memory over any form of imaging, includingperception; for him, while perception calls for memory, perception does notmake sense without memory. In fact, for Bergson, the priority of memory is soextreme that we must say that being is memory. Even though the concept of theimage in Matter and Memory looks to be a new non-phenomenological conceptof presence, presence becomes in Bergson derivative from memory.

This identification of being and memory is why, second, the challenge ofBergsonism is a challenge to ontology. Of course, in the most famous footnotein Being and Time, Heidegger criticizes Bergson's conception of time as dura-tion for having merely 'reversed' Aristotle's numerical definition of time.2

Indeed, Bergson's relentless denunciations of analyses that divide thingsaccording to numbers or according to quantitative differences looks to be areversal in favour of quality. It is possible to see in Bergson's concept ofmemory a reversal of Platonism. Yet, Bergson, to use Heidegger's phrase,'twists free' of Platonism. He twists free because memory in Bergson is onto-

x Preface: Memory and Life

logical; it gives us a new sense of being: being in terms of the past not in termsof the present, being as the unconscious instead of consciousness. (In order tounderstand the connection between memory and being in Bergson, I reliedheavily on Jean Hyppolite's 'Aspects divers de la memoire chez Bergson'. Thisis why I have included an English translation of it as Appendix II.) This newsense of being means that Bergson is not merely replacing objectivism with akind of subjectivism. But there is more. Because Bergson compares his imageof the memory cone to a telescope, we can see that he has replaced the Platonicsun (the good) with the Milky Way, with stars and planets. This means thatwhat memory recalls are multiplicities and singularities, not identities anduniversals.

It is clear that Bergson at least reverses Platonism since he constantly criti-cizes Zeno's alleged paradoxes; he does not subscribe to the Eleatic philosophyof the same. Moreover, Bergson's emphasis of the absolutely new means thathis thought is not totalizing; in fact, the slogan for this book could be that 'thewhole is not given'.3 In his later writings of course, Levinas acknowledges theimportance of Bergson's philosophy for ethics, ethics in the sense of a discourseof alterity.4 But, Levinas also wonders whether the Bergsonian experience ofduration - what Bergson calls intuition - really lets the 'alterity of the new ...explode, immaculate and untouchable as alterity or absolute newness, theabsolute itself in the etymological sense of the term'.5 Levinas can say thisbecause he believes that Bergsonian intuition is a form of representation. Butthis 'failure' in Bergsonism, for Levinas, may be what is most important aboutit: it leads us away from the discourse of intersubjectivity and the logic ofalterity. When Bergson criticizes the Eleatic tradition, he in effect criticizes theentire logic of the same and other. He does this in what we could call a 'phi-losophy of language'. Through the concept of the dynamic schema, Bergsonfurnishes us with a new concept of sense (a new concept of the concept) inwhich there is no alterity, but, instead of representation, there is alteration,variation, movement and, therefore, life.

These three challenges - to phenomenology, to ontology, to ethics - cameabout on the basis of a reading of Bergson's Matter and Memory (1896). Thethree chapters in the present volume correspond to those three challenges.Chapter Three, however, ends by taking up the idea of creative emotion fromBergson's The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932). Appendix I expandsthe investigations of The Two Sources by attempting to think about Bergson'sethics as such (and not in relation to his so-called philosophy of language).Between the completion of the third chapter and the writing of the firstappendix, I started to wonder about the resources available in contemporaryphilosophy for ethical thinking, resources other than Scheler, other thanLevinas, other than Heidegger, other than Sartre and deBeauvoir. I also started

Preface: Memory and Life xi

to wonder about the possibility of an ethical thinking that is distinctly 'con-tinental', in contrast to analytic philosophy's moral theory. But it is clear that,when I started to wonder about ethics, I had fallen into the line called forth bythe very noisy drumbeat of philosophy today: 'ethics and politics, ethics andpolities'. In contemporary philosophy it is hard not to be swept up into trends;it is hard to be genuinely untimely. But I hope the reader can recognize that, bylinking Matter and Memory with The Two Sources - two books, by the way, thatBergson himself did not directly link; he intended The Two Sources as a con-tinuation of Creative Evolution (MR 1193/256) - I am trying to link some nowapparently uninteresting 'metaphysical' ideas, like reversing Platonism, withsome now apparently interesting 'ethical' ideas, like absolute justice. In thisbook I am trying to follow my own line. Nevertheless, as Bergson would say,there is always aspiration along with pressure. So, one should note that the titleof this preface is an allusion to a small book by Gilles Deleuze, Memoire et vie.6

Deleuze, of course, defined Bergson's philosophy with this phrase, 'Memoryand Life'. But it also makes one think, thanks again to Deleuze, of Nietzsche'sOn the Genealogy of Morals. When I started then to investigate The Two Sources,I was looking for similarities with Nietzsche. After all, The Two Sources is theonly published book of Bergson's in which Bergson mentions Nietzsche byname (MR 1212/278).7 With Nietszche in mind, it turned out that The TwoSources is engaged in a project that cannot be characterized as moral theory.Instead, Bergson is engaged in an archaeology of originary experience. Thisexperience is what Bergson calls mystical experience; it is the experience of thereciprocal implication of images and emotion. In fact, it is not even clear thatwe can call what he is doing in The Two Sources an ethics in the standard sense,since he says that this experience is more metaphysical than moral. If it presentsanything, The Two Sources presents an 'originary ethics'. But besides anarchaeology, Bergson is engaged in a genealogy. He thinks that mysticalexperience (and its asceticism) will transform the genus humanity into a 'divinehumanity', into, one might say, a super-humanity. As archaeology and gen-ealogy suggest, the most striking similarity between Bergson and Nietzsche isthe concern with memory. Again, as I said above, I have tried to show here thatBergson's 'ethics', his originary ethics, maintains a deep connection with theconcept of memory developed in Matter and Memory. Mystical experience inBergson is an experience of memory. Consequently, following the image hegives us in Matter and Memory - the memory cone is a kind of telescope - wemust say that Bergson ethics is really an astronomy. This 'astronomy', lookingheavenward, indicates a fundamental difference between Bergson andNietzsche, a difference that perhaps overturns the results of Chapter Three.The Two Sources privileges a religious experience - and Bergson explicitlymentions the ascetic ideal - over philosophy; On the Genealogy of Morals pri-

xii Preface: Memory and Life

vileges 'we knowers', that is, the philosophers who question even the value oftruth, over the ascetic ideal. Perhaps in the final analysis we have to char-acterize Bergson as a philosopher of transcendence rather than as a philosopherof immanence. On the basis of this investigation, I am more certain than everthat, today, we must rethink precisely the relation between immanence andtranscendence. In any case, because Deleuze focused primarily on Matter andMemory - Deleuze says that Matter and Memory contains the 'secret' of Berg-sonism8 - he classified Bergson as an immanentist. Indeed, Deleuze (andGuattari) in What is Philosophy? say:

Will we ever be mature enough for a Spinozist inspiration [of immanence]?It happened once with Bergson: the beginning of Matter and Memory marksout a plane that slices through the chaos - both the infinite movement of amatter that continually propogates itself, and the image of a thought thateverywhere spreads an in principle pure consciousness (immanence is notimmanent 'to' consciousness but the other way around).9

Because Matter and Memory lays out a strict plane of immanence, it confrontsthe problem of metaphysical dualism. The subtitle of the original Frenchedition of Matter and Memory (there is no subtitle to the English edition)translates as 'An essay on the relation of the body to the mind or spirit' (I'esprit,of course) and immediately makes one think of An Essay on the Immediate Dataof Consciousness, the title of Bergson's first book (Time and Free Will is the titleof the English translation). This association to the Essay is supposed to indicatethe progress made over the seven years (1889 to 1896) between the twopublications. The Essay constructed a dualism between time and space,between spirit and matter. As I have already stated, Bergson always denouncesthinking in terms of differences of degree; the conclusion of the Essay is that thedifference between spirit and matter is a difference in nature. So, like the Essay,Matter and Memory is, as Bergson says explicitly in the preface of 1910, 'clearlydualist' (MM 161/9). But, unlike the Essay, Matter and Memory 'asserts thereality of spirit and the reality of matter' (MM 161/9). It is not the case thatmatter is some sort of illusion; rather, matter is real. The dualism of realityallows us then, according to Bergson, to 'attenuate, if not suppress, the theo-retical difficulties' which the dualism suggested by immediate consciousnessand adopted by common sense has always raised (MM 161/9, 318/181).Therefore, the purpose of Matter and Memory lies in showing that both con-sciousness (conscience, in French, con-science) and science are right (MM 191/41), that 'science and conscience fundamentally agree provided that we regardconsciousness in its immediate data and science in its remotest aspiration'(MM 333/197). Thus Matter and Memory is supposed to bring us to a new

Preface: Memory and Life xiii

monism, 'the plane of immanence'. In Matter and Memory's fourth chapter,Bergson himself says that his philosophical method of intuition, which hadbeen used in relation to the problem of consciousness in the Essay, is now beingapplied to matter. He says,

The question is whether . . . the confused mass which tends towardsextension could be seized by us on the nearer side of the homogeneous spaceto which it is applied and through which we subdivide it - just as that partwhich goes to make up our inner life can be detached from time, empty andindefinite, and brought back to pure duration. (MM 323/186-7)

Commenting on this discussion, Victor Delbos noted in his 1897 review thatMatter and Memory allows us 'to surmount the dualism with which the Essayhad been content and which here [in Matter and Memory] is conceived only as acritical procedure resulting in a provisional conclusion'.10 The real conclusionis memory, or more precisely, duration, understood as a sort of monisticsubstance (cf. PM 1420 n. I11) where substance itself is not understood assomething stable but rather as unstable differentiations of spirit into matter.Bergson's psychology of the immediate data of consciousness, therefore, isnothing less than a 'springboard' into ontology;12 it is an introduction tometaphysics, to the metaphysics that Matter and Memory presents. Thismetaphysics begins with the concept of the image.

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CHAPTER I

The Concept of the Image: Phenomenology

In this opening chapter we are going to consider Bergsonism's relation tophenomenology, and to do this we must consider the Bergsonian concept ofperception, which is found in chapter one of Matter and Memory. This chapteris entitled 'Concerning the Selection of Images for Representation'; its subtitleis 'The Role of the Body'. While Bergson himself, in his Table of Contents,divides the chapter into thirteen sections1, we are going to approach the con-cept of perception with three preliminary steps. The first step will concern theBergsonian method, the second the concept of image that is introduced on thefirst page of Matter and Memory, and the third 'the role of the body'. Finally, weshall turn to what Bergson calls 'pure perception'. What we are going to see isthat Bergsonism differs from phenomenology by means of its concept of pre-sence; the Bergsonian concept of image amounts to a new concept of presence.We shall also see that, unlike phenomenology, Bergsonism refers consciousnessto matter. But this reference of consciousness to matter does not mean thatBergsonism is a kind of 'fleshism', as we find in Merleau-Ponty. Nor does itmean that Bergsonism is a kind of materialism. Most importantly, Bergson inMatter and Memory's first chapter is not making a 'phenomenology of per-ception'.

THE ARTIFICE

Overall, chapter one of Matter and Memory announces that the traditionalmetaphysical positions of materialism or realism and idealism or spiritualismare dead.2 Spiritualism and materialism are reductionistic metaphysical posi-tions; each is the reverse of the other, either reducing the reality of matter tospirit or the reality of spirit to matter. Both positions are based in views ofexternal perception. In idealism, external perception is defined by the spiritualprojection of representations that are taken to be reality; in realism, externalperception is defined by the brain having the role of generating representationswhich are then projected out but which do not meet up with external things

2 The Challenge of Bergsonism

(cf. MM 317-18/181). Reductionistic positions such as spiritualism (or ide-alism) and materialism (or realism) move around in a circle and are enclosed inirresolvable or badly stated problems. For Bergson, the problem of perceptionneeds to be restated, or, as Bergson says, 'enlarged' (MM 176/25: 's'elargit'y,when the problem of perception (like all metaphysical problems) is stated well,it will open itself to solutions.

To state the problem of perception well, Bergson starts with what seems tobe a fiction. The first sentence of Matter and Memory says: 'We are going tofeign for an instant that we know nothing of the theories of matter and of thetheories of spirit, nothing of the discussions concerning the reality or ideality ofthe external world' (MM 169/17; cf. also MM 162/10). The wordfeindre, likefeign in English, literally means to fashion or to shape; the opening of Matterand Memory therefore is an 'artifice'. We can call it an artifice, because, inMatter and Memory's fourth chapter, Bergson speaks of the artifice of his phi-losophical method; the artifice consists in distinguishing the viewpoint ofcustomary or useful knowledge from that of true knowledge (MM 322/186). Ina lecture Bergson delivered in 1895, the year before the publication of Matterand Memory, he defines an artifice as something that leads some of us to a placewhere others find themselves naturally.3 With this artifice, therefore, he intendsto call us back from the habitual ways we think about the problem of per-ception. So, this artifice is based in an act of liberation, an act of freedom, inwhich Bergson himself is inventing the terms of the problem. Like Descartes'sfiction of the evil genius - Descartes too uses the word 'feindre'4 - Bergson'sartifice is needed to restrain our habits and to restrain the metaphysical theoriesthat develop on the basis of them. The last sentence of the 1910 preface says,'the habits formed in action find their way up to the sphere of speculation,where they create fake [factice] problems; metaphysics must begin by dis-sipating this artificial obscurity' (MM 168/16). So, Bergson's artifice is sup-posed to 'dissipate' the obscurity; it is a 'hypothesis' in the literal sense of theword; it is a thesis, which is 'below', but which is supposed to return us toexperience 'above' utility, return us to what he calls 'immediate experience' or'immediate consciousness'. This return to immediate consciousness is Berg-son's famous 'turn of experience': the philosophical enterprise, for Bergson,consists in 'seeking experience at its source, or rather above that decisive turnwhere, taking a bias in the direction [sens] of our utility, it becomes properlyhuman experience' (MM 321/184, Bergson's emphasis). We shall return to theturn of experience in Chapter Three, but for now let us note that the turn ofexperience is really the Bergsonian equivalent to the phenomenologicalreduction, but it is not a return to perceptual faith.

One can say that the turn of experience does not return us to perceptual faithbecause, for Bergson, immediate experience is not common sense, although, in

The Concept of the Image: Phenomenology 3

the 1910 preface as well as in the original 1896 preface, he suggests as much.5

Again, in Chapter Three, we shall return to the question of common sense inBergson and distinguish it from what he calls 'good sense' and especially fromwhat he calls 'superior good sense'. But for now, we must recognize theimportance for Bergson of the word 'sens '; like the German 'Sinn', sens meansnot only meaning and sense, but also direction. Common sense in Bergson isthe common (or even natural) direction, the direction towards utility. It is ourcommon theories about how to make things useful, what Bergson, in thesecond introduction to his 1934 collection of essays called La pensee et lemouvant (The Creative Mind - the title of the English translation), calls 'thesocialization of the truth' (PM 1327/87).6 This theoretical outlook based insocial needs is why common sense is primarily concerned with decomposing.The tendency of common sense to decompose is why Bergson throughoutMatter and Memory finds himself 'correcting' common sense (MM 219/73; cf.also MM 327/191, 329/193, 332/196). The most important comment Bergsonmakes in Matter and Memory concerning common sense is found in chapterfour when he says,

Against [materialism and idealism] we invoke the same testimony, that ofconsciousness, which shows us our body as one image among others and ourunderstanding as a certain faculty of dissociating, of distinguishing, ofopposing logically, but not of creating or of constructing. Thus, willingcaptives of psychological analysis and, consequently, of common sense, itwould seem that, after having exacerbated the conflicts raised by ordinarydualism, we have closed all the avenues of escape which metaphysics mightset open to us. But, just because we have pushed dualism to an extreme, ouranalysis has perhaps dissociated its contradictory elements. (MM 318/181)

This comment implies that Matter and Memory's opening hypothesis is reallysupposed to 'push' common sense up above to an extreme which in turn willopen common sense up and allow us to escape from it. In other words, theimmediate experience that Bergson is hypothesizing here is not a 'naive con-viction' (MM 192/43), an Urdoxa; rather it is intuition, knowledge. But, thisknowledge is not equivalent to science, at least not science in the normal sense.With Bergson, we must always speak of this conjunction: 'consciousness in itsimmediate data' and 'science in its remotest aspiration' (MM 333/197). So,since Bergson speaks of science in its remotest aspiration, it is difficult tomaintain, as Merleau-Ponty does in Phenomenology of Perception, that he pre-supposes 'the objective world' for the sense given to the word 'being'.7 As weshall see in a moment, Bergson is concerned, in Matter and Memory, with the


refutation of materialism; we shall also see how important the word 'image' isfor Bergson and with it the word 'vibration' (ebranlement or vibration).

So, the opening hypothesis is leading us above the 'turn' in experience; itreads: 'Here I am therefore in the presence of images, in the vaguest sense ofthe word, images perceived when I open my senses, unperceived when I closethem' (MM 169/17). Thus the opening hypothesis defines all of reality withone term, 'images'. The problem of perception must be restated 'in terms ofimages, and of images alone'; images are the 'common terrain' on which rea-lism and idealism do battle (MM 177/26). Undoubtedly, the concept of theimage is the central concept of Matter and Memory, since the title of eachchapter concerns images ('The Selection of Images', 'The Recognition ofImages', 'The Survival of Images' and 'The Delimitation and Fixation ofImages'); it is also one of the most difficult concepts. We are going to make athreefold differentiation in order to try to understand it. The threefold differ-entiation consists in this: the Bergsonian image differs from an affection, from athing and from a representation. We are going to start with the first difference,that of image from affection.

THE THREEFOLD DIFFERENTIATION IN ORDER TODETERMINE THE CONCEPT OF THE IMAGE

In the 1910 preface, Bergson tells us that matter is images (MM 161/9). Sincematter is always denned in terms of extension, then extension must apply toimages. So, the first characteristic of the Bergsonian image is extension and thismeans objectivity. Things that are external have an order that does not dependon our perceptions; in fact, the order of our perceptions depends on extension.This independence is why Bergson can say that 'an image may be without beingperceived1 (MM 185/35). Because extension and objectivity define the Berg-sonian image, it differs in nature from what Bergson calls affection: affection isinternal; it is the lowest degree of subjectivity (MM 206/57, 364/234). Simply,the image is matter and not spirit (MM 355/221). Thus, the first differentiationwe can make is that the Bergsonian image is not affection; the 'pure image' hasno affection mixed in with it (MM 206/58); the image is defined by extensionand objectivity. The second differentiation we can make is between the imageand the thing. Again, we must return to the 1910 preface. Here, Bergson tellsus that realism has been excessive in its conception of matter insofar as realismattempts to make matter 'a thing that produces representations in us but thatwould be of a nature different from these representations' (MM 161/9). Hiscriticism of realism is directed at this 'thing'.8 With the concept of the image,Bergson is dispelling the false belief that matter is a thing that possesses a


hidden power able to produce representations in us (cf. ES 961-6/191-8). AsBergson says: 'The truth is that there is one, and only one, method of refutingmaterialism: it is to show that matter is precisely what it appears to be. Therebywe eliminate all virtuality, all hidden power, from matter ... ' (MM 219/72).Bergson's refutation of materialism is contained in this rather obscure com-ment from Matter and Memory's first chapter:

No theory of matter can escape [the necessity of thinking in terms of theimage]. Reduce matter to atoms in motion: these atoms, though denuded ofphysical qualities, are determined only in relation to an eventual vision andan eventual contact, the one without light and the other without materiality.Condense atoms into centers of force, dissolve them into vortices revolvingin a continuous fluid, this fluid, these movements, these centers, canthemselves be determined only in relation to an impotent touch, an inef-fectual impulsion, a colorless light; they are still images. (MM 185/35)

This comment means that if one denudes matter of physical qualities, in otherwords, if one insists on conceiving matter not in terms of the image, one muststill define these denuded things negatively in relation to perceivable qualities: alightless vision, an immaterial touch, an impotent touch, an ineffectual impulsion,a colourless light. These 'things' are still images. This 'concession to idealism', asBergson calls it (MM 360/229), is why he then defines the image as 'presence'(MM 185/35). Especially after the developments of twentieth-century phe-nomenology, we always tend to turn the word 'presence' into the phrase'presence to consciousness'; in particular, after Derrida, we place this word,presence, immediately in the lexicon of idealism. But, with Bergson, presence,understood as an image, is not immediately or not yet idealistic. Presence, forBergson, means only that the image is what it appears to be. So far therefore,we have two characteristics of the Bergsonian image: extension (and objective)- it is not affection (and subjective) - and presence - it is not the thing. But ifthe image is what it appears to be, then we must wonder: Why does Bergsonuse the word 'image'? This question is crucial.

Bergson insists on the word image because it suggests vision (cf. PM 1355/118). We shall return to the priority of vision in Bergson when we discuss pureperception below, but for now, we must note that, with the image, Bergson isprivileging vision because vision is dependent on light. The Bergsonian imageemits light; it is a 'picture', as Bergson himself says (MM 186/36). What theilluminated picture gives vision to see primarily is colour, not lines. Bergsonalways praises Berkeley for having proved that the secondary qualities of matterhave at least as much reality as the primary qualities (MM 162/10). So, theBergsonian image is composed of what modern philosophy called 'secondary


qualities' and it is not therefore defined by what modern philosophy called'primary qualities', which are spatial relations defined by geometry. Therecognition that the Bergsonian image consists in secondary qualities, likecolour in particular, provides us with other characteristics of the image: theimage in Bergson is at once simple or one, complex or different, and con-tinuous or successive. When I see a picture, I see a unity composed of amultiplicity of colours all different from one another; Bergson says: 'Betweenlight and darkness, between colors, between shades, the difference is absolute'(MM 332/196). These absolute differences between qualities like colours arewhat Bergson calls 'natural articulations' (MM 333/197) or 'the articulations ofthe real' (PM 1292-4/50-2). That there are natural articulations of the real iswhy Bergson constantly speaks of 'images' in the plural; for example, in chapterone of Matter and Memory he says that 'I call matter the whole of images'(MM 170/22). Despite this plurality of articulations, when I see a picture, thecolours flow continuously one into another. Unlike the senses of hearing, smelland taste, vision does not contain intervals during which or between which it isnot functioning (MM 332/197).9 If we think about taste, for example, it isnever necessary that, as soon as I open my mouth, I taste something; even if Imaintain my mouth open, it is still not necessary that I am going to tastesomething. But, as soon as I open my eyes - as the opening hypothesis ofMatter and Memory says -1 see and continue to see, because light immediatelyflows into this opening; even if it is night-time, even if there is virtually no light,I see pictures.

Bergson also insists on the word image because it is always a picture ofsomething; the word, of course, literally means 'copy'. But, we have just seenthat the Bergsonian image is not a copy of a hidden thing. The impression thatthe image copies a thing comes from the fact that it is a surface and a surfacehas depth. Bergson says in Matter and Memory'?, fourth chapter:

Indeed we have no choice: if our belief in a more or less homogeneoussubstratum of sensible qualities has any ground, this can only be found in anact that would make us seize or guess, in quality itself, something that goesbeyond our sensation, as if this sensation itself were pregnant with detailssuspected yet unperceived. Its objectivity - that is, what it contains over andabove what it yields up - must then consist ... precisely in the immensemultiplicity of movements which it executes, somehow, within its chrysalis.Motionless on the surface, in its very depth it lives and vibrates. (MM 339/204, Bergson's emphasis; cf. also MM 376/247)

In this comment Bergson emphasizes the phrase 'in quality itself, whichimplies that we are still not referring the image to a hidden thing. We can guess


about something that goes beyond quality but which 'is not essentially differentor distinct from' (MM 343/208) quality. Deep within the chrysalis, there arevibrations of the larva that make the chrysalis gleam. Deep within the light ofqualitatively different colours, which are given to con-science, there are thequantitatively continuous vibrations of science. The concept of vibration,which the chrysalis suggests, means that consciously seen colours are neitherthe mere translation of a hidden original text (cf. MM 171/22) nor the'duplicata' of a non-present object; the colour is not even the duplicata of adiminutive object like an atom or a corpuscle (cf. MM 358-9/226-7, 338-9/203).10 The vibrations are there in the qualities, just as when we strike a key ofthe piano at the low end of the scale, we hear the note and can see thevibrations of the string (cf. MM 338/203). Science, for Bergson, in its remotestaspiration aims at a metaphysics of plural rhythms.11

Because the chrysalis is not a relation of translation or of duplication,Bergson, in this comment, also emphasizes the word 'act'; there must be an actwhich would make us guess what goes beyond perception, towards theunperceived. We shall come back to this act later in this chapter when wediscuss pure perception. So, it is important to note the direction of the tran-sition that this act involves: here, we go from what is for us to what is in itself,we go from part to whole. Pure perception, as we shall see, goes in the oppositedirection. To use the language that Bergson develops in the later 'Introductionto Metaphysics', pure perception is diminution instead of an 'enlargement'.This act - which we can indeed call intuition - is the genuine experience of matter. InMatter and Memory, Bergson in fact describes this act by which we experiencematter (MM 343/208). This is a remarkable description, and we shall havereason to return to it in Chapter Three:

If you abolish my consciousness ... matter resolves itself into numberlessvibrations, all linked together in uninterrupted continuity, all bound up witheach other, and traveling in every direction like shivers. In short, try first toconnect together the discontinuous objects of daily experience; then, resolvethe motionless continuity of these qualities into vibrations, which aremoving in place; finally, attach yourself to these movements, by freeingyourself from the divisible space that underlies them in order to consideronly their mobility - this undivided act that your consciousness grasps in themovement that you yourself execute. You will obtain a vision of matter thatis perhaps fatiguing for your imagination, but pure and stripped of what therequirements of life make you add to it in external perception. Reestablishnow my consciousness, and with it, the requirements of life: farther andfarther, and by crossing over each time enormous periods of the internalhistory of things, quasi- instantaneous views are going to be taken, views this


time pictorial, of which the most vivid colors condense an infinity of repe-titions and elementary changes. In just the same way the thousands ofsuccessive positions of a runner are contracted into one sole symbolic atti-tude, which our eye perceives, which art reproduces, and which becomes foreveryone the image of a man who runs. (MM 343/208-9)

This is the only time Bergson mentions art in all of Matter and Memory. While itis the case that Bergson insists on denning matter in terms of the image becauseimage suggests vision and because it suggests surface with depth, we must seethat, ultimately, Bergson insists on image because it suggests art.

In his 1899 essay on laughter, Bergson defines art as the picture of thevibrations of nature:

What is the object of art? If it were the case that reality strikes our senses andour consciousness directly, if we could enter into immediate communicationwith things and with ourselves, I really believe that art would be useless, orrather that all of us would be artists, for our soul would vibrate then con-tinually in unison with nature. Our eyes, helped by memory, would carveout [decouperaient] in space and fix in time inimitable pictures. (R 135-51458-9; cf. PM 1370/135)

Art and image are, therefore, virtually identical in Bergson. Nevertheless, wemust keep them distinguished: the artistic picture is art, while the imagisticpicture is nature. Insofar as it is nature, the image is material life; it is, asBergson himself says, a 'living unity which was born from internal continuity'(MM 320/183). The image, therefore, is one or simple - 'contracted into onesole symbolic attitude' - and yet multiple and continuous - 'the successivepositions of a runner'. The image, in other words, is 'the interior organizationof movement', 'the intimate nature of movement' (MM 327/191). To be,however, the intimate nature of movement, the image must itself be movement;it cannot be a thing that moves. For Bergson, movement is real; that thingsmove, that movement depends on things, is illusory (MM 337/202). Thispriority of movement over things, a priority that defines the Bergsonian image,is why Bergson in chapter four of Matter and Memory speaks of 'moving images'(MM 325/189). The moving image, so to speak, 'runs in place'. It is not likethe 'snapshot', but like the motion picture: 'cinema'. We can call the movingimage cinema and ignore Bergson's famous criticisms of cinema in chapter fourof Creative Evolution by noting only, as Deleuze does, that cinema has changedsince Bergson's day.12 But, cinema - thanks to production techniques, themobile camera and the liberation of the viewpoint - is art, not nature. Whilewe must maintain the distinction between the artistic picture created by


spiritual energy and the natural picture created by material energy, we mustalso see why the two are virtually identical. The artistic picture, for Bergson,does not reverse the relation of movement to thing; it does not make move-ment a function of the thing. In this way, the artistic picture remains virtuallynatural; in the artistic picture there are no intervals, there is continuity. But,there is a second reason for the virtual identity. The artistic picture is virtuallyidentical with the natural image because it carves up the universe according toits natural articulations; the 'symbolization' of the artistic picture 'corre-sponds' to the differences in nature between colours; the painting is not adrawing, and especially not language. And again, the artistic picture remainsvirtually natural.13

Before turning to the third and last differentiation of the Bergsonian image,let us summarize this section so far. Overall, we have seen that for Bergson theimage defines matter. More specifically, we have seen that the image differs notonly from affection since the image is extension and objective, but also from thething since the image is presence. This equation of the image with presenceseemed to be leading us in the direction of idealism. Bergson's so-called'concession to idealism' then allowed us to raise the question of why he insistson the word image. We then saw that Bergson has three reasons for doing thisthat actually provide us with a very specific, and new, definition of presence.First, the word image suggests the visual unity of a picture composed of con-tinuous and complex colour; secondly, it suggests a surface which itself impliesdepth: the chrysalis; and thirdly, it suggests art. With this last suggestion again,it seems that the Bergsonian image is leading us in the direction of idealismsince artistic creation is spiritual. But, of course, the crucial word of idealism isnot 'art', nor even 'presence', but 'representation'. This gives us the thirddifferentiation of the Bergsonian image: the image differs from representation.

If we return again to Bergson's 1910 preface, we see that he criticizes notonly materialism, but also idealism insofar as it attempts to reduce matter to therepresentation we have of it; unlike materialism, which is excessive in itsconception of matter as being different in nature from representation, idealismis excessive in its conception of matter as being identical to representation.While the realistic excess is one of extreme differentiation, the idealistic excessis one of extreme non-differentiation. Bergson's criticism of idealism of courseimplies that the image differs from representation, but it cannot differ in naturefrom representation since his criticism of materialism consists in showing thatmatter does not differ in nature from representation. His solution to thisproblem lies in the following comment: 'by "image" we mean a certain exis-tence that is more than what the idealist calls a representation, but less than whatthe realist calls a thing - an existence placed halfway between the "thing" andthe "representation" ' (MM 161/9). The 'more' and the 'less' in this comment


indicate that representation differs from the image by degrees; the repre-sentation is less than the image, which is connected continuously to otherimages in the whole.14 A representation is a part cut out (decouper) of thewhole; representation is a decomposition of the whole. So, here, with repre-sentation, we have the first interval that breaks up the natural continuity ofimages (MM 185/35). But this first interval is not necessarily a 'denaturation'of nature; representations, although partial, can be recomposed. This recom-position is artifice (MM 325/189). As Bergson says again in the essay onlaughter, 'Below art, there is artifice' (R 418/63). Artifice is the 'zone', asBergson calls it in Laughter, in which imagination constructs only relations andfigurations; it is the zone of lines and drawings, schemas and symbols, languageand sense. Thus it is not a zone of colours; rather it is the grey zone - like thegrey light between night and day - between colours and forms, between matterand spirit, and also between life and death and between the natural and theunnatural. We shall return to this grey zone of artifice, which is the grey zone of'the turn of experience', in Chapter Three and in Appendix I. But for now, wemust note that artifice remains natural insofar as it does not reverse the priorityof movement and things and insofar as it does not carve up the imagesaccording to utility. As long as artifice does not reverse the priority of move-ment and things out of needs of utility, it remains turned towards the movingimages, towards the real, towards experience, towards 'true knowledge'(MM 334/199); in a word, it remains 'open'. But, if imagination - our 'spirit ofinvention', as Bergson calls it in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (MR1234/304) - 'reverses the natural order of the terms' out of 'inferior needs'(MM 351/217), then it ends up enclosing movement in things; it carves up themoving images artificially. Then, we no longer have artifice, but factice, fakery(MM 320/183). Nature is denatured; we have lost the pictures and only the'empty frames' remain (MM 320/183); everything becomes 'inert' (MM 320/183), a word he uses frequently in Matter and Memory, which literally meansartless. These ideas have turned their back on true knowledge, on experience,on the real. If the understanding then works on these 'perverse' ideas(MM 351-2/217-18), then we end up with ideal schema which we take for thereal. We have only mathematical or abstract symbols by means of which wedesignate different things indifferently (MM 297/156). These abstract symbolsand inert schema homogenize so well that it even looks as though the whole isgiven, but it is not. No matter what, representation gives us only a part of thewhole.15

The Concept of the Image: Phenomenology I I

THE ROLE OF THE BODY

In fact, we cannot underestimate the logic of parts and whole or the logic ofcontainer and contained that Bergson sets up in Matter and Memory's firstchapter. It entirely determines his theory of perception. And, we must noteimmediately that, insofar as the spatial relation of whole-parts determines thetheory of perception, Bergsonism cannot be defined as a 'primacy of percep-tion'; to repeat the most basic principle of Bergsonism: all questions of subjectand object must be posed in terms of time, not space. So, let us return to theopening hypothesis (MM 169-73/17-22). The starting point for Bergson is a'holding onto the appearances of [matter and my body]' (MM 170/18). Tohold onto the appearance of matter means we realize that matter hides nothingwithin itself: 'the future of the images must be contained in their present andwill add nothing new' (MM 169/17; cf. MM 174/23). The 'must' in thissentence of course implies necessity, which allows for a perfect deducibility ofthe future from the present. Moreover, what I know of matter I know byperceiving it from the outside. In contrast, Bergson defines 'my body' by thefact that it introduces something new into the universe; this newness comesabout because in my body I do not discover 'the constraint that precludeschoice' (MM 169-70/18). My body therefore acts freely. The differencebetween freedom and necessity, which differentiates my body from the rest ofthe material world, is due to the way I can know my body; as Bergson says: 'Yetthere is one image that contrasts with all the others in that I know it not onlyfrom the outside by perceptions, but also from the inside by affections: it is mybody' (MM 169/17). In the opening hypothesis of images, this sentence formsan important transition. But the transition does not occur at the 'pourtant', the'yet', in the sentence; it occurs at the 'mats aussf, the 'but also'. The bodyknown from the outside by perceptions is continuous with the images ofmatter. This continuity of images is crucial for Bergson since, later in chapterfour of Matter and Memory, he will claim that 'all division of matter intoindependent bodies with absolutely determinate contours is an artificial divi-sion' (MM 332/196). What is natural is the continuity of my body with the restof matter. For Bergson, my body known from the outside is not radicallydistinct from the rest of matter, 'but also', the body is known from the inside byaffections. As soon as we talk about the body being known from the inside byaffections, we are on the verge of leaving matter behind for memory. BeforeBergson speaks of affection, there is a difference in degree between the images;as soon as he speaks of affection, we have a difference in nature between matterand spirit. Again, on the one hand, when we know the body by perceptionsfrom the outside, we have an image like all of the others; on the other, the bodyknown from the inside by affection is already a body conditioned by memory.


So, we stay on the outside in Matter and Memory's first chapter, until wecome to the discussion of affections. That we remain on the outside is whyBergson says in the opening hypothesis that 'On the basis of bodies similar tomine, I am now studying the configuration of this particular image that I callmy body' (MM 170/18). This study of bodies similar to mine, from the out-side, leads us, as Bergson says, to interrogate the physiologist and the psy-chologist concerning the system of afferent and efferent nerves that I can detectin these other bodies. Bergson himself in Matter and Memory does not specifywho these physiologists and psychologists are, but we can see that with them heis pointing at a general scientific attitude of his own time, an attitude that isperhaps still prevalent today. In any case, according to Bergson, this generalscientific attitude says that if the centrifugal movements of the nervous systemcan provoke the movement of the body or parts of the body, the centripetalmovements or at least some of them can give birth to create or engenderrepresentations of the external world. What this general scientific attitude issaying implies that the image called the brain contains the representation of thewhole material universe. In a letter from 1897, Bergson says,

I believe that if we study all the realist and idealist doctrines from Descarteson, we will see them always start - consciously or unconsciously - from thisradical distinction between our body and the rest of matter. Since my bodyis separated from other bodies that I perceive, we think that it is self-sufficient and that it could be conceived as attached to the soul and detachedfrom the rest of matter.16

In other words, to hold this scientific position (which all realist and idealistdoctrines since Descartes have held), one would have to maintain that since therepresentation of the whole material world is infinitely greater than that ofcerebral vibrations, these molecular movements are not images like others; ifthey were of the same nature, how could they engender something greater thanthemselves? So, to hold this belief consistently, one has to say that cerebralvibrations are something that differs in nature from an image; this difference innature, say, between the brain and the rest of matter, is the only way one couldexplain how it could create the representation of the whole material world(MM 174/23, 175/24).

For Bergson, however, this scientific hypothesis is self-contradictory; it saysthat a part is the whole. Here, science, here not in its remotest aspiration, hasreversed the true container-contained relation; as Bergson says, 'The brain ispart of the material world; the material world is not part of the brain' (MM 171/19; cf. MM 174/23); or, as he says - and this is a crucial comment - 'Everyimage is inside certain images and outside others; but concerning the whole of


images, we cannot say that it is inside us or that it is outside us, since interiorityand exteriority are only relations between images' (MM 176/225). To test thisclaim, Bergson engages in another sort of hypothesis: if the image that bears thename of the material world were suppressed, the brain and the cerebralvibrations which are part of it would be annihilated; in contrast, if you eliminatethe image called the brain, you erase only an insignificant detail from theimmense picture, 'The picture as a whole, that is, the universe, subsists com-pletely' (MM 171/19). We cannot overlook the fact that this Bergsonian fictionof the destruction of the world resembles Husserl's famous fiction of thedestruction of the world in Ideas /, para. 49. And it seems we can interpret thesimilarity in two ways. On the one hand, one could say that both Husserl andBergson draw the same conclusion from this thought experiment. Since thedestruction of the world, for Bergson, affects only matter, it does not affectspirit, which, as we shall see in Chapter Two, differs in nature from matter.Since the destruction of the world, for Husserl, affects only transcendent being,it does not affect the immanence of consciousness, which differs essentiallyfrom transcendent being. But, there is one important difference here betweenHusserl and Bergson. For Husserl, spirit, if we can use that word, is con-sciousness; for Bergson, spirit is primarily unconscious. So, we must go to theother interpretation of the similarity concerning the thought experiment of thedestruction of the world. One could say, and it seems one must, that theconclusion that Bergson draws from it is exactly opposite to that of Husserl.For Bergson, after the annihilation of the world, there is no residuum ofconsciousness, since consciousness corresponds to cerebral vibrations and isdefined by the present awareness I have of my body (MM 281/138). In contrastto phenomenology, consciousness is referred to the image of the universe. Inother words, the hypothesis of an isolated material object - the brain forinstance - implies a kind of absurdity, since this object borrows its physicalproperties and consequently its very existence from the relations which itmaintains with all others in the universe as a whole (MM 175-6/24).

The general scientific attitude, and that of some philosophers, those of themodern tradition, is that the brain is an isolated material object capable ofcreating representations because of the phenomena of hallucinations anddreams. In hallucinations and dreams, representations are created withoutexternal objects influencing the afferent nerves: 'the object has disappearedwhile the brain persists' (MM 192/43). Hallucinations seem to suggest thatthere is some hidden source of representations within us; if this is the case, thenwe might believe that perception is nothing more than what Bergson calls a'veridical hallucination' (MM 192-3/43, 215/68, 369/239). Here, Bergsondoes not demonstrate the existence of God to provide the veracity of ourrepresentations, he merely points to a very simple observation:


in many people blind from birth, the visual centers are intact; yet they liveand die without having formed a single visual image. Such an image,therefore, cannot appear unless the external object has played its part at leastonce; at least in the first time, it must have consequently actually enteredinto the representation. (MM 193/43)

In hallucinations and dreams, memory, according to Bergson, plays the chiefpart; this role of memory will motivate him, as we shall see in a moment, tostrip perception clean of memory. But besides the phenomena of dreams andhallucinations, there is another reason philosophers and scientists believe thatperception is a veridical hallucination, that we, our brains in other words,create representations. They presuppose that perception has a wholly spec-ulative interest, that it is pure knowledge (MM 179/28), that it is a kind ofcontemplation (MM 215-16/68). To conceive perception as having a purelyspeculative end, as aiming at some sort of disinterested knowledge, amounts,for Bergson, to cutting off its attachment to the real, to severing the part fromthe whole, to reversing the relation of container and contained.

In the opening hypothesis of images, Bergson therefore is reattaching per-ception to the real. Since the body is one image in the whole of the materialworld, it acts like other images, receiving and giving back movement 'with,perhaps, this sole difference, that my body appears to choose, within certainlimits, the manner in which it shall restore what it receives' (MM 171/19). Thebody therefore is a centre of action, its role is 'to exercise on other images a realinfluence, and, consequently, to decide which step to take among several whichare all materially possible' (MM 172/20; cf. MM 356/225 and ES 965/196). Infact, my body is a 'privileged centre' insofar as it regulates the other images; asmy body moves closer to or farther from other images, they change. Fartheraway from my body they are removed from my possible action; closer they canbe touched. As Bergson says, 'The objects that surround my body reflect itspossible action upon them' (MM 172/21). To demonstrate that the body is acentre of action, he takes up another hypothesis: 'in thought', sever all theafferent nerves of the cerebro-spinal system (MM 173/21). What happens isthat while the rest of the universe, even the rest of my body, remains the same,'my perception' has entirely vanished. The usual role of the centripetal nerves isto transmit movements to the brain and to the spinal cord; the centrifugalnerves send back the movement to the periphery. Therefore, as Bergson says,

Sectioning of the centripetal nerves can ... produce only one intelligibleeffect: that is, to interrupt the current that goes from the periphery to per-iphery by way of the center, and, consequently, to make it impossible for mybody to extract, from among all the things that surround it, the quantity and


quality of movement necessary in order to act upon them. Here is somethingthat concerns action, and action alone. (MM 173/21-2)

Perception for Bergson occurs when the whole of images called matter isrelated to the possible action of one image, my body (MM 173/22).

Besides this 'thought' experiment of sectioning the nerves, Bergson providesa second argument to show that perception concerns action and not con-templation. This is an evolutionary argument that follows 'step by step theprogress of external perception from the monera up to the superior vertebrates'(MM 179/28). Here in chapter one of Matter and Memory, he starts with 'livingmatter', 'a simple mass of protoplasm', but he could have started with inani-mate matter such as hydrochloric acid (MM 299/159) because, like proto-plasm, hydrochloric acid 'is open to the influence of external stimulation, andanswers to it with . . . chemical reactions' (MM 179/28). As in hydrochloricacid, the reaction in protoplasm is immediate, without delay, automatic, areflex. But as soon as we leave single-celled creatures, we have what Bergsoncalls 'a division of physiological labor' (MM 179/28-9; cf. MR 997/27). Whennerve cells appear, they tend to group themselves into systems, which allowsthe animal to react to external stimuli with more varied movements. Thesedivisions of cells into systems allow delays in reaction or in the reflex. But,Bergson says, 'even when the vibration received is not immediately prolongedinto movement, it appears merely to await its occasion' (MM 179/29). Thiscomment is important because the prolongation of the vibration through thecomplexity of cellular systems might lead one to think that 'the receivedimpression is being spiritualized into knowledge' (MM 180/29). This spir-itualization of the vibration, however, does not take place, even when the brainintervenes. As Bergson says, and this comment reiterates what we have alreadynoted about the true whole-part relation,

as soon as we compare the structure of the spinal cord with that of the brain,we are bound to infer that there is merely a difference of complication, andnot a difference in nature, between the functions of the brain and the reflexactivity of the medullary system. (MM 180/29; cf. MM 175/23-4)

For Bergson, the brain is an instrument in a very complex reflex; when avibration is received from the periphery, it goes through the centripetal fibres tothe brain, which then allows 'the received vibration to reach at will this or thatmotor mechanism of the spinal cord, and so to choose its effect' (MM 180/30,Bergson's emphasis). So, the brain adds nothing to what it receives, andtherefore Bergson describes the brain as 'a kind of main telephonic desk'(MM 180/30).


We cannot underestimate the importance of this image of the main tele-phonic desk: Bergson conceives the living body as a machine. On the one hand, thisconception of the living body means that we cannot make something like thelived body (Lett) or something like the flesh central to Bergsonism. For Berg-son, if one talks about the body known from the inside, one has crossed adifference in nature, going from matter to spirit. In chapter two of Matter andMemory, Bergson says that my body is 'the mobile sharp point' of memory,pushing incessantly into the future (MM 224/78). Memory, and that meansduration, is how the body known from the inside produces something new thatescapes the deductions of science. So, if we speak of the Bergsonian bodyknown from the outside by perceptions, we are in the scientific body (andultimately the body taken up by science when it enters into its remotestaspiration); and if we speak of the Bergsonian body known from the inside byaffections, we are in memory. To repeat, on the one hand, the Bergsonianconception of the body as a machine means that Bergsonism is not a, so tospeak, 'fleshism'. But, on the other hand, while the image of the main tele-phonic desk clearly anticipates the computer, there is one rather obvious dif-ference between these two types of machine. The main telephonic desk includesa type of slowness, a hesitation, a 'making wait', an interval; everything con-cerning computers and now modems and the Internet comes down to speed, nowaiting, no hesitation. But, the slowness in reaction, which the main telephonicdesk indicates, has allowed nature, according to Bergson, 'to make a machinethat should triumph over mechanism' (EC 719/264).17 In this interval inmatter, as we shall see, spirit has the opportunity to insert memories.18 So justas we cannot say that Bergsonism is a fleshism, we cannot say that Bergsonismis a philosophy of artificial intelligence. Unlike the brain, artificial intelligencegoes too fast, and because it goes too fast, it makes no room for spirit.

Now this is what we have to visualize with the main telephonic desk: whatused to be called a 'switchboard'. A switchboard consisted in a large table witha large number of pins attached to wires that could be pulled out of the table inorder to allow any pin to be inserted into any one of a large number of socketswhich were located in the wall perpendicular to the table; the calls would comein through the wires to which the pins were attached and the insertion of thepin into a socket would allow communication to take place. With this com-parison, Bergson intends to make us see that sometimes the brain is an instru-ment of 'analysis', meaning that it leads the received vibration up to a pluralityof systems of movements; in other words, the brain is the large, perhapsindefinite number of sockets on the wall. The brain opens to the receivedvibration 'the totality of motor pathways so that it indicates to it all the possiblereactions with which [the brain] is pregnant and so that [the brain] analyzesitself by dispersing itself (MM 181/30). With analysis, the brain's role is to


make the vibration wait. At other times, however, the brain is an instrument of'selection', meaning that it puts the received vibration in relation with a par-ticular chosen motor mechanism; in other words, the brain is the pin beinginserted into a specific socket. The brain 'leads the received [vibration] to anorgan of reaction that has been chosen' (MM 181/30). With selection, thebrain's role is to allow communication. But, 'in one case as in the other, [thebrain's] role is limited to the transmission and division of movement. And nomore in the higher centers of the cortex than in the spinal cord do the nervouselements work with a view to knowledge: they only sketch all at once a pluralityof possible actions or organize one of them' (MM 181/30-1).

Before we turn to the next section, let us summarize what we have seenconcerning the role of the body for Bergson. When Bergson speaks of the roleof the body, he is really speaking of the brain. He focuses on the brain becauseof a position adopted by scientists as well as philosophers since Descartes, thatsomething in us, the brain, creates representations. To claim that the brain,which is material, creates the representation of the material world requires thatthe brain be conceived as different in nature from the rest of matter. It alsorequires the presupposition that perception aims at disinterested knowledge,and that one has to assemble support phenomena such as hallucinations anddreams, because in these phenomena representations are created although theobject has disappeared. So, what we saw was that Bergson tries to show thatthere is only a difference in degree between the brain and the rest of matter,between the brain and the reflex function of the spinal cord. He argues for thisdifference in degree by means of the hypothesis of the suppression of thematerial world which shows that the brain is part of or contained in the materialworld. He also argues against the supporting phenomena of hallucinations anddreams by pointing to an obvious fact of blindness: for someone to have a visualrepresentation, the object must have been effective at least once. And finally, hedoes not accept the presupposition that perception is contemplation. AsBergson says in the very first sentence of the conclusion, 'our body is aninstrument of action, and of action alone' (MM 356/225). He shows that thebody is an instrument of action in two ways. On the one hand, he engages inanother thought experiment, the experiment of severing the nerves, whichshows that when perception has vanished the body cannot extract from externalobjects the quality and quantity of movement in order to act upon them. Onthe other, he places the brain in the evolutionary scale, which shows that thebrain is a 'main telephone switchboard'. Its role is to allow vibrations tocommunicate with a chosen motor system (selection) or to make vibrationswait before the plurality of motor possibilities (analysis). With this conceptionof the role of the body, we now have the context within which to consider whatBergson calls pure perception.


THE THEORY OF PURE PERCEPTION

We can see already that it is very hard to maintain, as Merleau-Ponty does inthe La nature lectures, that Bergson in Matter and Memory wants to make a'phenomenology of perception'.19 Clearly, by means of the concept of image,as we have discussed it here, Bergson is not adopting a realist perspective onperception. But, just as much, if a phenomenology of perception consists inshowing how conscious syntheses constitute the perception of an object, thenthis is not Bergson's project. He is not showing us how consciousness castslight on things in order to let them be perceived, instead, he is showing us howconsciousness, that is, conscious perception, is deduced from matter (MM 182/31). 'Deduction' is a word Bergson always uses in relation to matter; when hespeaks of spirit, he always uses the word 'progress' (cf. MM 354/221).

The starting point for this deduction is the indetermination in regard tomotor reactions that the brain's complexity symbolizes: the main telephoneswitchboard. Bergson says, 'Let us start, then, from this indetermination asfrom the true principle, and try whether we cannot deduce from it the possi-bility, and even the necessity, of conscious perception' (MM 182/31). Withinthe images of matter, living beings are 'zones of indetermination', zones inwhich the strict laws of natural necessity encounter hesitations. In inanimatematter, there is no hesitation between action and reaction; thus the reaction isalways determined. In a being with a nervous system, however, the influence ofan action or a vibration takes time, and thus the reaction is indeterminate. As ittravels through the system, the vibration encounters numerous paths downwhich it can travel; so, in effect, it must choose to continue on its way and onlythrough this 'choice' does it result in a reaction. Perception - here we have tosay perception in the forms of touch and taste - arises in the moment ofhesitation before the reaction.

Bergson states that there is a strict connection between the zones of inde-termination and perception: 'Let us note first that a strict law connects theextent of the perception back to the intensity of action that the living being hasat its disposal' (MM 182/31). For Bergson, this law means that there is a directproportion between the indeterminacy of reaction and the scope of perception,that is, a direct proportion between the uncertainty, the 'making wait', thehesitation of the reaction and the distance over which the living being is sen-sitive to the actions of the object which interests it. For example, in a rudi-mentary organism, a reaction 'can hardly be made to wait' (MM 182/32).Therefore, its only means of perception is touch; in an organism such as aprotozoa, touch is at once passive, insofar as the organism's membrane mustcome into immediate contact with an object to perceive and recognize it, andactive, insofar as the same membrane reacts by moving away from the object (if


the object is a menace) (MM 182/32). In a living being with a complex brain -like a dog for example (cf. MM 228/82) - there are numerous hesitations; so, indirect proportion to the quantity of hesitations, there is vision and hearing andsmell through which the being can be subject to more and more distantinfluences. As Bergson says, 'perception has space at its disposal in exactproportion to the time that action has at its disposal' (MM 183/32). In otherwords, the longer the wait in reaction, the more the living being can see.20

This exact law governing the relation between the indeterminacy of reactionand perception of distance does not, however, explain why the relation of theorganism to more or less distant objects takes the particular form of consciousperception. So far, we have concerned ourselves only with action, whichallowed us to see perception deduced from the action-reaction system ofmatter, but we have not yet reached representation. As Bergson asks, 'how is itthat this perception is consciousness?' (MM 183/33). To answer this question,he constructs the famous hypothesis of pure perception (MM 184/33). Pureperception is not factual perception; in fact, perception is 'complex and con-crete' (MM 184/34), because it is 'mixed with' or 'impregnated by' memories(souvenirs) (MM 183/33). Here (MM 184/34), we have the first mention ofduration when Bergson says: 'However brief we suppose any perception to be,it naturally occupies a certain duration, and involves, consequently an effort ofmemory [la memoire] which prolongs, one into another, a plurality of moments'(MM 184/34). We see therefore that memory, for Bergson, defines duration;but duration and memory are not the focus here in the first chapter of Matterand Memory. Anticipating the discussion of memory in the second chapter,Bergson says that memory (la memoire) has two forms: one that 'covers over[recouvre] a bedrock of immediate perception with a covering of memories';and one that 'contracts a multiplicity of moments' (MM 184/34). These twoforms of memory imply that factual perception, on the one hand, 'swells' withmemories (souvenirs} and, on the other hand, always offers a certain 'thicknessof duration' (MM 185/34). According to Bergson, memory in both these formsmakes up the principal contribution of personal or individual consciousness inperception; it is the 'subjective side of the knowledge of things' (MM 184/34).The covering of memories especially, allows us to perceive quickly and con-veniently, that is, to perceive without effort; but also, according to Bergson,these memories give birth to every kind of illusion (MM 184/33). In particular,as we have already noted, these memories are the source of the illusion inwhich we conceive perception as a veridical hallucination. If we do not realizethat memories are the content of hallucinations, then we start to think thatperception could be an interior, subjective, and therefore unextended visionthat would be projected outward and would somehow gain objectivity andextension (MM 184/34). The hypothesis of pure perception is supposed to


eliminate this illusion and show us that we perceive things in the things, andfor Bergson, is supposed to show us that conscious perception is veridical butis not an hallucination. And this claim - that conscious perception is true - isno hypothesis for Bergson (MM 188/39); pure perception is a theory(MM 212/65).

Bergson provides two descriptions of pure perception. First, he says.

Nothing forbids us from substituting for this perception, which is entirelypenetrated with our past, the perception that an adult and formed con-sciousness would have, but enclosed in the present and absorbed, to theexclusion of all other work, in the task of molding itself upon the externalobject. (MM 184/33)

Then, he says,

By [pure perception] I mean a perception which exists in principle ratherthan in fact [en droit and en fait] and would be possessed by a being placedwhere I am, living as I live, but absorbed in the present, and which iscapable, through the elimination of memory in all of its forms, of obtaining avision of matter both immediate and instantaneous. (MM 185/34)

On the basis of these two comments, we can say first that pure perception forBergson is defined by being 'in principle' rather than 'in fact', which means thatpure perception is a condition of factual perception: pure perception 'is at thebase of our knowledge of things' (MM 184/34). Thus, pure perception differsin nature from pure memory, as we shall see in Chapter Two. But now we cansee that, since memory is subjective, personal and interior, and since pureperception differs in nature from memory, pure perception is defined by beingobjective, impersonal and external or extended. Moreover, it is a vision; it is avision that has eliminated memory in both forms of prolongation and con-servation in memories. On the one hand, since it is a vision that has eliminatedthe mediation of the covering of memories, this vision is not 'concrete percep-tion'; instead, it is 'ideal' (MM 184/33); but also it seems to me that we arejustified in calling pure vision 'abstract', since that term is really the opposite of'concrete'. In relation to the elimination of memories, we have to make onemore point: since it has removed the covering of memories, that is, the med-iation that memory makes available to perception, pure vision is immediate (cf.MM 319/182). Now let us turn to the elimination of the other form of memory,prolongation. On the other hand, since this vision has eliminated the 'multi-plicity of moments', it is not thick or complex perception; instead, it is'instantaneous' (see above in the last passage cited) and 'simple' (Bergson


opens the discussion of pure perception by saying 'we will first simplify con-siderably the conditions under which conscious perception takes place'MM 183/33). So, we have been able to assemble the following characteristicsof pure perception: it is a vision, which is determined as ideal or abstract andimmediate through the elimination of memories and which is determined asinstantaneous and simple through the elimination of prolongation.

But, in the two descriptions just presented, Bergson also says that pureperception is 'absorbed' or even 'enclosed' in the present. Because of beingenclosed in the present, pure perception has no access to the past; having noaccess to the past, pure vision must be denned as forgetfulness: pure visionforgets what it sees as soon as it sees it. Insofar as forgetfulness defines purevision, we must say that each instant experienced by its consciousness isexperienced as the same. Each instant cannot be experienced as different, sincein order to experience difference one must have other instants which one cancompare against. But, in this pure vision, the other instants have been for-gotten. So, absorbed and enclosed in the present, pure vision can be describedas the experience of repetition. Lacking both forms of memory, this pure visionlacks all duration. We must be extremely careful in our characterization of purevision; we must not confuse pure perception with the act by which we passfrom the chrysalis to what is inside it, an act which included duration, in fact, aduration with a very fast rhythm. In contrast to this act, pure perception is anexperience of matter, but one that is instantaneous and therefore not thegenuine experience of matter. Pure perception is division or, better, it is divi-ded. This division is why Bergson compares the body in pure vision to 'amathematical point' (MM 204/56). When we eliminate memory from per-ception and achieve this pure vision, we are at the exact point, the mathema-tical point, where spirit is 'grafted' onto matter (MM 356/222). In chapter fourof Matter and Memory, Bergson says,

... pure perception, which is the lowest degree of spirit - spirit withoutmemory - is really part of matter, as we understand matter. We may gofurther: memory does not intervene as a function of which matter has nosense and which it does not imitate in its own way. If matter does notremember the past, it is because it repeats the past unceasingly, becausesubject to necessity, it unfolds a series of moments of which each is theequivalent of the preceding moment and may be deduced from it: thus itspast is truly given in its present. (MM 356/222-3)

Pure perception - spirit that is matter - is nothing but a repetition of the same,a superficial repetition.

To understand the mechanism of pure perception, we must return to the


concept of the image. In pure perception (and as well in perception mixed withmemory), the image or presence of a material thing becomes a representation,perception becomes conscious. According to Bergson, as we have seen,representation is always in the image virtually, as a part of the whole (MM 186/36). In perception, there is therefore a transition from the image being in itselfto its being for me (MM 186/35); in other words, in pure vision, the transitiongoes from the inside of the chrysalis to its outside. Again, this opposite direc-tion of transition is why we cannot confuse pure perception with the fatiguingact by which we reached the more rapid duration of matter. Bergson describesthe transition in the following way:

[The image of the material object appears to be in itself what it is for me]because, being in solidarity with the totality of other images, it is continuedin those which follow it just as it is prolonged in those which preceded it. Inorder to transform its pure and simple existence into a representation, itwould suffice to suppress all of a sudden what follows it, what precedes it,and also what fills it, to conserve from it only its external crust, its superficialskin. What distinguishes the image as a present image, as an objective image,from a represented image is the necessity which obliges it to act througheach of its points upon all the other points of other images, to transmit thetotality of what it receives, to oppose to each action an equal and contraryreaction, to be finally only a path upon which the modifications which arepropagated in the immensity of the universe pass in every direction. I wouldconvert it into a representation if I could isolate it, especially if I could isolateits envelope. (MM 186/36)

The verbs by means of which Bergson always describes this transition are:isolate, detach, suppress, limit and diminish. Pure perception implies, forBergson, that there is merely a difference of degree, and not in nature, betweenbeing and being perceived (MM 187/37). So, we perceive things in them, notin us. Pure perception adds nothing new to the image; in fact, it subtracts a partfrom the whole. If there is a relativity to perception, for Bergson, it is a relativitynot to us, but to the whole universe. Bergson, therefore, defines the transitionof pure perception as 'discernment in the etymological sense of the word', a'slicing up', or a 'selection' (MM 188/38).

How does the selection occur? According to Bergson, it occurs because of lifenecessities (MM 333-4/198); there is 'a purely utilitarian origin of our per-ception of things' (MM 299/158). Living beings, according to Bergson, as wehave seen, are 'centres of indetermination'; and indetermination is based onhaving a variety of'functions' (MM 186/36) or 'needs' (MM 188/38). In pureperception, things turn the side of themselves that interests our functions and


needs, in short, our body. As Bergson says, 'Our representation of matter is themeasure of our possible action upon bodies: it results from the discarding ofwhat has no interest for our needs, or, more generally, our functions' (MM 188/38, 218/71). In other words, conscious representation results from the sup-pression of what has no interest for bodily functions and the conservation ofonly what does interest bodily function. Thus, compared to 'the perception ofany unconscious material point whatsoever, in its instaritaneousness, [which] isinfinitely greater and more complete than ours, since it gathers and transmitsthe influence of all the other points of the material universe', the consciousperception of a living being exhibits a 'necessary poverty' (MM 188/38).21 Wemust not get confused here: what Bergson is calling 'pure perception' resem-bles what he calls 'intuition', that is his philosophical method, only insofar asboth are immediate. Because pure perception is poor, it cannot be intuition.Later in chapter three of Matter and Memory, he tells us that 'a luxury ofperception' is 'the clear distinction of individual objects', and at the same timehe says that 'a clear representation of general ideas is a refinement of intelli-gence' (MM 298/158). But this luxurious perception is not intuition either, aswe shall see in Chapter Three. In any case, in contrast to this luxury andrefinement, Bergson speaks of perception starting from an 'intermediateknowledge', one equally remote from generality fully conceived and fromindividuality clearly perceived (MM 298-9/158). This intermediate knowledgeis the poverty, even the crudity of pure vision. He goes on to say, 'Whatinterests us in a given situation, what we are likely to grasp in it first, is the sideby which it can respond to a tendency or a need. ... A need ... cares little forthe individual differences' (MM 299/158). In pure vision, I see an appleimmediately because of my need for nourishment and because this need hasbeen repeatedly satisfied with apples. But, I do not see an apple clearly anddistinctly with a specific shade of the colour green, which would allow me todistinguish it from another variety of apples; what difference does the shade ofcolour make for nourishment? My need for nourishment makes me see anapple as confusedly distinct from, say, the apple tree, which does not satisfy theneed for nourishment. (But the apple tree could, of course, satisfy other needsand is therefore seen as well.) Our needs therefore are like 'so many beams oflight', as Bergson says in chapter four of Matter and Memory, beams of light thatsketch out confusedly 'distinct bodies' (MM 334/198).

But we can see immediately that if pure perception gives us only confusedlydistinct bodies (and not clear and distinct shades of colour), it could be nothingmore than a sketch: impoverished, ideal and abstract. For Bergson, a clear anddistinct idea must have the colours and differences, the complexity anddynamism that only memory can provide; a clear and distinct idea in Bergsoncould never be geometrical, that is, static. Pure perception for Bergson is a


simple line drawing, in fact, a drawing that could, with effort, become geo-metrical. That pure perception is like an abstract and simple line drawing iswhy he compares pure perception to a photograph (MM 188/38-9). We mustremember that in 1896 we are at the beginning of photographic technology:colour photographs have not yet been invented. So, pure perception is like ablack-and-white photograph. The beams of light of needs only illuminate partof the surface of things, giving us only the external crust, the envelope, thechrysalis - in other words, only the contours of the thing. As Bergson says, inorder to make the transition from presence to representation, from whole topart, 'it would be necessary, not to throw more light on the object, but, on thecontrary, to obscure some of its aspects, to diminish it by the greater part ofitself, so that the remainder ... should detach itself from [its surroundings]'(MM 186/36). Moreover, according to Bergson, the light does not really floodout from our needs; rather, it emanates from the surfaces themselves, frompresence. What happens is that the light, when it reaches living beings, can nolonger pass through unopposed because it encounters them as zones of inde-termination. If it could propagate itself, it would issue immediately in areaction; in this case, it would be refracted. But when light reaches a 'spon-taneity of reaction', in short, freedom, the light is no longer refracted butreflected. The reflection is a 'virtual image', an image of potential reactions(MM 187/37). When I see the apple, the representation I have is an image ofthe fact that I have the potential reaction of eating it. As Bergson says, 'Per-ception therefore resembles those phenomena of reflection that result from animpeded refraction; it is like a mirage effect' (MM 187/37). Because consciousperception is a mirage of reflected light, it 'adds nothing to what is there; [it]effects merely this: that the real action passes through, the virtual actionremains' (MM 188/39).

Let us summarize this discussion of pure perception before we bring thischapter to a close. All perception for Bergson is connected to action, notcontemplation; in fact, perception results from the 'hesitation' between actionand reaction. This 'hesitation' or 'interval' is caused by the brain makingindeterminate reactions possible; the brain is the 'main switchboard' for all ourbodily functions. Therefore, for Bergson, what we always perceive first is whatinterests our needs or functions. Because living beings like human beings havelots of bodily needs, we have vision, which is subject to the influence of lots ofdistant things. While factual perception involves all the senses, pure perceptionis only a visual representation. Insofar as it is vision (and not touch), pureperception has not yet completed itself in an action. What makes pure per-ception pure is that it does not involve memory at all; so, it is both immediateand instantaneous. What pure perception recognizes immediately is a con-fusedly distinct body. This discernment of a confusedly distinct body is due, to


say it again, to our needs. In other words, the beams of light of our needsdelimit the contours, and only the contours of this body rather than that one.Pure perception therefore for Bergson is 'delimitation', as the title of the fourthchapter of Matter and Memory indicates. But delimitation, again as the title ofthe fourth chapter indicates, is not 'fixation'. In order to fix the vision, in otherwords, in order to make the virtual action become actual action, we wouldhave to restore some of perception's thickness; we would need an affection oremotion (and that means life). An emotion always makes us leap across theinterval of indetermination. If we experienced an emotion of sufficient force,we would complete the drawing we make with our eyes with a real drawing onpaper. Lacking such an emotion, the drawing we make with our eyes vanishesas soon as it happens; pure perception is like, as Bergson says, 'an instanta-neous flash of lightning which illuminates a stormy landscape by night'(MM 325/189).

It is well known, of course, that Bergson loved all psychological and psychicalresearch. Hence, Matter and Memory is filled with discussions of cases of psy-chic illnesses. But, sadly, no 'Schneider' emerges in Matter and Memory toamuse us with his sexual problems and to make us read the book as if it were anovel. This lack of a 'Schneider' means probably that Merleau-Ponty's Phe-nomenology of Perception will always be more popular than Bergson's Matter andMemory. But in the second chapter of Matter and Memory, Bergson focuses on apeculiar fact of patients who suffer from 'psychic blindness', that is, patientswho cannot recognize specific objects even though their vision is perfectlyintact (MM 242-3/96-8). These patients seem unable to draw pictures or atleast they cannot draw pictures very well, and this leads Bergson to discuss twoways of drawing, discussion which, I believe, is very helpful in understandingBergson's theory of pure perception. On the one hand - and this is howBergson's poor mental patients draw — they 'fix' on paper in an uncertain way 'acertain number of points', then they connect the points up, verifying at everymoment whether the image resembles the object they are drawing. Bergsoncalls this first way of drawing 'drawing "by points"' (MM 243/97). Clearly, thename implies that Bergson's mental patients are rather untalented geometers.But there is a second way to draw according to Bergson, 'the habitual way',which he describes as 'drawing with "a continuous line" after having looked ator thought of the model' (MM 243/97). Bergson explains this second, non-geometrical way of drawing 'by means of our habit of discovering immediately[tout de suite} the organization of the most usual contours, that is, by means of amotor tendency to draw its schema in one whole line' (MM 243/97). This habitof drawing a schema with a continuous line is at the base of our knowledge ofthings, allowing us immediately to draw with our eyes the most usual contoursof things; this habit is not only at the base of science in its remotest inspirations


but also at the base of art. But to have a painting and not a drawing, to have artand not artifice, to add colour and not subtract greys, we need memory. As weshall see in Chapter Two, memory differs in nature from perception and evenall forms of imaging; this difference is such a radical difference that Bergsonsays that 'to imagine is not to remember' (MM 278/135). Although a radicaldifference in nature, this difference can be experienced; to have this experiencewill require us to pay attention to the mental illness that Bergson calls 'divisionof the personality' (MM 313/175); we ourselves will have to divide our per-sonality between matter and memory. So, in Chapter Two, we shall return tosome of Bergson's mental patients. But unlike the patients suffering from'psychic blindness', whose impoverished souls make them draw by points likebad geometers, these schizophrenics have souls that are too rich: they draw byone continuous line because they see everything double.

CHAPTER 2

The Concept of Memory: Ontology

We now enter into a discussion of extremely difficult, maybe the most difficult,material in Matter and Memory: Bergson's concept of memory. Before we turnto the concept of memory, let us summarize what we saw in the last chapter.We engaged in an investigation of chapter one of Matter and Memory in order todetermine Bergsonism's challenge to phenomenology. When we consideredBergson's hypothesis of pure perception, we saw that consciousness does notengender representations but is the selection of images from the whole ofimages called matter - and this selection takes place on the basis of the body,which is itself one of the images. Insofar as consciousness is the selection fromthe whole of images called matter, Bergson does not define consciousness asconsciousness of something; rather consciousness is something. Consciousnessis itself deduced from matter. So, we cannot define Bergsonism as a philosophyof consciousness; in fact, as we are going to see now, this means that Berg-sonism is a philosophy of the unconscious. But no matter what, it is hard toconceive phenomenology in any other way than as a philosophy of con-sciousness; phenomenology always remains irreducibly connected to inten-tionality. Insofar as phenomenology remains irreducibly connected tointentionality, it defines consciousness as 'consciousness of something'. Asconsciousness of something, phenomenological consciousness engenders or,more precisely, constitutes representations. When we considered Bergson'sconcept of the image, we saw that this concept amounts to a new definition ofpresence. We must here take advantage of Derrida's remarkable clarification ofthe phenomenological concept of presence. In Voice and Phenomenon., Derridahas established that presence in phenomenology is always defined as 'self-proximity in interiority',1 in other words, as presence to consciousness. Becauseof this definition, we have to say that phenomenological presence is equivalentto what Bergson calls representation. And if this is the case, then we have torecognize that Bergsonian presence - the image - precedes presence to con-sciousness. Moreover, the Bergsonian image is not defined by interiority andtherefore subjectivity, but by exteriority and therefore objectivity. Presenceexceeds consciousness and this is why Bergsonism is not a phenomenology of


perception. But, as Derrida has also shown, phenomenology is always a phe-nomenology of perception.2 Here, of course, Derrida is alluding to Merleau-Ponty who had shown in the Phenomenology of Perception that phenomen-ological consciousness must really be rooted in the body, in Leib, in the flesh.But even here, when phenomenology starts to take the body seriously, what itfinds is a corporeal or operative intentionality. Thus, we have not really escapedfrom the philosophy of consciousness. But, what we saw in Matter and Memoryis that the Bergsonian body is a machine; it is conceived as a 'central telephoneswitchboard', not as flesh. And, we also saw that, as this machine becomesmore complicated, it runs slowly. The slowness of the machine allows mem-ories to be selected and to be inserted into the present. The memory-imagesadd colour to the black-and-white photograph. Memory plays such a large rolein concrete and complex perception that Bergson says in the fourth chapter ofMatter and Memory that 'every perception is already memory'; in fact, Bergsonsays, 'we perceive, practically only the past' (MM 291/15). Thus, there is noprimacy of perception in Bergson; to appropriate Merleau-Ponty's famousphrase, we must say that Bergsonism is a 'primacy of memory'.

It is this primacy of memory which opens the challenge to ontology.Obviously, in the second half of the twentieth century, the word 'ontology' issynonymous with Heidegger's name. Here, I am not really going to present aBergsonian challenge to Heidegger's ontology; rather, I am going to take ser-iously the standard Heidegger has set for ontology and try to see whetherBergson's metaphysics of memory measures up to it. Heidegger himself, ofcourse, suggests that it does not. In the most famous footnote from Being andTime3 - made famous obviously by Derrida - Heidegger claims that Bergsonmerely 'reverses' Aristotle's views on time. Heidegger's use of the word'reversal' here anticipates its use in para. 24 of his first set of Nietzsche lectures,where he claims that Nietzsche merely 'reverses' Platonism without 'twistingfree' of it.4 Most generally, this claim means for Heidegger - and we can seethis most clearly in his essay 'Nietzsche's Word: God is Dead'5 - that Nietzscheremains mired in the modern philosophy of subjectivity. To reverse Platonismwithout twisting free of it means to reverse the objectivity of the Platonic ideasfor the subjectivity of the soul, which in Nietzsche's case is the will to power.Heidegger therefore raises the question, which we are going to address toBergson, is it the case that Bergson merely reverses Platonism without twistingfree of it? In his 1928 lecture course, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic,Heidegger says, 'Bergson's "images" are the very expression of his efforts tograsp really the phenomenon within the realm he takes for his theme.'6 If wetake this comment seriously, then we are led to Bergson's famous image of thecone, an image that is, to repeat Heidegger, 'the very expression of his efforts tograsp really the phenomenon'. On the basis of an examination of the image of

The Concept of Memory: Ontology 29

the cone, I am going to try to make a case here that Bergson does not merely'reverse' Platonism, but actually 'twists free' of it. Further, by examining thesecond and third chapters of Matter and Memory,7 and, then, through a three-stage process, I hope to show, or, at least, suggest, that Bergson's metaphysicsof memory is not a new subjectivism. First, we have to examine how Bergsondefines memory by means of establishing two sets of differences in nature; then,we are going to have to turn to what he calls 'the central metaphysical problemof existence'; and, finally, we are going to have to look at the image of the cone.But, initially, we need to see why there is a 'primacy of memory' in Matter andMemory.

THE PRIMACY OF MEMORY

The problem of memory is primary for Bergson because of his refutation ofmaterialism; in other words, it is primary for what he calls at the end of chapterone of Matter and Memory 'the philosophy of matter' (MM 220/73). ForBergson, as we have already seen, matter has to be understood as having nohidden or unknowable power (MM 220/73); moreover, the claim that matterhas no hidden power means that the brain, in particular, does not somehowhave the power of engendering representations in perception. To put thispositively, the brain is only an instrument of action (MM 221/74). Memorybecomes primary for the philosophy of matter in Bergson because we cannotempirically verify these claims about matter through the analysis of perception.We can make a strong case for these claims being true because they explainperception better than other explanations (MM 221/74), but we cannot pointto an experience. With the experience called perception and even with thestrange experience called pure perception, we are always dealing with a presentobject. The present object activates our organs and nerve centres and, conse-quently, it always looks as though our perceptions emanate from these nervecentres, in short, from the brain (MM 221/75). So, regardless of whether wesay that the brain does or does not engender perceptions, the experiential resultis the same. But, if one claims that the brain is the cause of perceptual repre-sentations, then it ought to be able to do this when the object is absent as in amemory (MM 222/75). Consequently, memory has to be the test case for thishypothesis. The first point that Bergson makes is: if the brain is not sufficient toengender the representation of an absent object, in other words, if the brain isnot sufficient to engender a memory, then we must conclude that it is notsufficient to engender the representation of a present object. We must say thatthe present object is the cause of the perceptual representation. Memory,however, for Bergson, can provide the empirical verification of another claim


made in the first chapter of Matter and Memory, that in pure perception we areactually placed outside ourselves in matter (MM 222/75). Bergson's secondpoint is: if it can be shown that memories differ in nature (and not by intensity)from perceptions, then we must say that something entirely different frommemory is going on in perception, something objective rather than subjective.As we are going to see, for Bergson, memories are personal, i.e. subjective. Ifthey differ in nature from perceptions, then we must say that perceptions areimpersonal, i.e. objective. Through the difference in nature between memoriesand perceptions, we can establish, according to Bergson, that we perceivematter in matter and not in us. But, there is a third point he can make thanks tomemory. If there is a 'radical difference' between memories and perceptions,then we must also say that memory is a power absolutely independent frommatter; indeed, we must say that memory is a power absolutely independent ofthe brain, despite the fact that psychologists constantly treat the brain as 'astorehouse of memories' (MM 220/74). Psychologists, and now we can sayphilosophers of artificial intelligence, constantly reduce memory to matter. But,what Bergson is going to do - and this is what makes these middle chapters onmemory so powerful - is erect spirit into a reality independent of matter on thebasis of 'the very example that is commonly supposed to be the most unfa-vorable to [spirit]' (MM 220/74), memory. Memory, for Bergson, is the most'palpable' experience of spirit (MM 220/73). At the end of this chapter, we aregoing to return specifically to this experience; there is one rather surprisingimplication of it.

But, before we go on, let me repeat: overall, for Bergson, there is a primacy ofmemory because memory is an experience. The experience is primary for himin three ways. First, in reference to psychology or, more precisely, psycho-physiology; if the survival of memories, which are representations of absentobjects, cannot be explained by the brain, then we can conclude, as well, thatthe brain does not engender perceptions, which are representations of presentobjects. Second, if there is a difference in nature between memories and per-ceptions, and not a difference of degree, then we can conclude that perceptionis radically different from memory; perception really is the experience ofmatter. But then third, if there is a radical difference between perceptions andmemories, between the experience of matter and the experience of spirit, wehave reason to argue - here leaving the philosophy of matter behind for thephilosophy of spirit - that spirit is a reality independent of matter. As we know,this dualism between matter and memory for Bergson is absolutely necessary inorder to dispel all thinking in terms of differences in degree, but it is alsoprovisional. As we are going to see, the cone image explicitly symbolizes the'connection' between matter and memory. So, let us turn now to the way inwhich Bergson defines memory.

The Concept of Memory: Ontology 3 I

THE TWO DIFFERENCES IN NATURE THAT DEFINEMEMORY

FIRST DIFFERENCE IN NATURE THAT DEFINES MEMORY: 'THETWO FORMS OF MEMORY'

The dualism begins by establishing a difference in nature between whatBergson calls 'the two forms of memory', and for him the two forms of memorydistinction is the first difference in nature that defines memory; it is primarilydiscussed in the first third of chapter two of Matter and Memory (MM 225/79;cf. also MM 219/73, 184/34). What is at issue in these two forms is a differencein nature between a memory of the body and a memory of the soul, or, in otherwords, a difference in nature between a material memory and a spiritualmemory. Again, the reason Bergson believes this difference in nature isnecessary lies in the fact that psychologists have always associated memory withthe brain; memory is 'the very example that is most unfavourable' to the thesisthat spirit is an independent reality. If the brain really stores memories, then itseems unlikely that spirit is an independent reality. The question is: domemories survive only in the brain, or do they survive somewhere, somehow,else? Bergson is going to say that they survive somehow else. The establishmentof the difference in nature between the two forms of survival takes place bymeans of an example: learning a lesson by heart (MM 255/79).

Let us see how this example works. On the one hand, Bergson describes theeffort to learn by heart. First, one reads the lesson to be learned one time; itseems that the lesson is a poem, since he speaks of 'punctuating each verse' inthis first reading. Then, one repeats the whole poem a number of times, makingprogress each time. Bergson says, 'At this precise moment [that is, when thewords, which have been punctuated, form a continuous whole], I know mylesson by heart; some say that it has become a memory [souvenir], that it isimprinted on my memory [la memoire]' (MM 225/79). On the other hand, hedescribes a different effort by means of which I remember how the lesson waslearned. Here, I 'represent to myself the step-by-step phases, the successivereadings, through which I passed; each comes back to mind, 'passes againbefore me', and I 're-see' it with the circumstances that accompanied it andthat still enframe it. The circumstances distinguish it from those that precededand followed it; so, it occupies a place in time; it is a determinate event of myhistory. As Bergson says, 'Some will say again that these images are memories[souvenir}, that they are imprinted in my memory [ma memoire}.' And, hecontinues: 'These people use the same words in the two cases. Is the same thingreally at issue?' (MM 225/79). When Bergson says this - is the same thing reallyat issue in the two cases even though the same words are used? - he is referring


to the words 'souvenir1 and 'la memoire'. So, the difference in nature is going tobe established between two operations of memory and two types of memory.But, as Bergson says, 'the example of a lesson learned by heart is artificial'(MM 229/84). The efforts described here - both the repetition of the lesson inorder to memorize it and the evocation of the images of the phases of mem-orization - are voluntary efforts; these voluntary efforts - 'active' memory(MM 233/87) and active memorization - are not the operations of memorybetween which Bergson is distinguishing. That they are not what is at stakehere is why this example is so perplexing. On the basis of the example oflearning a lesson by heart, Bergson is going to distinguish between twooperations that function passively, automatically, 'subconsciously' (cf.MM 233/87), or, better, unconsciously. Of course we shall return to thequestion of the unconscious in a moment, but for now we must recognize thatmemory in Bergson is unconscious.

These two 'unconscious' operations of memory divide in two differentdirections (cf. EC 616-17/143-4); difference in direction always defines a differ-ence in nature for Bergson. On the one hand, the first form of memory, to whichthe active process of memorization refers, is the operation of 'prolongation'(MM 229/83); according to Bergson, prolongation contracts a perceptualimage by repeating its useful effect or action (MM 227/81, 228/82). Forexample, when I start to learn to drive a car, I must consciously think: whenapproaching traffic lights and I see the amber light, I must press down on thebrake pedal. Then I will not cause an accident. In this situation, every time Isee the amber light, I repeat the same action, depress the brake pedal. Althoughthe appearance of the amber light is random or accidental, eventually thereaction becomes automatic; I have contracted a habit, which will alwaysoperate into the future. The first form of memory is this prolongation throughrepetition. The role of prolongation, as Bergson says, 'is merely to utilize, moreand more, the movements by which the first [image] was continued, in order toorganize [the movements] together and, by setting up a mechanism, to create abodily habit' (MM 229/83-4). Prolongation, as he also says, is 'seated in thepresent and looking at nothing but the future' (MM 227/82). In other words, itis directed towards future 'action'. Insofar as the operation of prolongation isdirected towards future action, it is directed towards utility and adaptation(MM 229-30/84). This direction towards the future, towards action andtowards utility adaptation, in a word, towards 'life', is why Bergson calls pro-longation 'more natural' (MM 228/83): it makes progress (MM 228/83). Itwould seem that, since he uses the word 'progress' in the description ofmemorization, we could call this first form of memory 'the progressive mem-ory'. Bergson himself, however, does not use this designation; he calls it instead'habit-memory' (MM 231/86).8 Later, in The Two Sources of Morality and


Religion, Bergson will call the operation of prolongation, in other words, therepetition by means of which habits are contracted, 'the whole of obligation'(MR 999/29). The distinction he is making is between particular obligations,keeping promises, for instance, and the process by which I am obliged to haveobligations, in the plural. In other words, all obligations for Bergson are habits;the whole of obligation is the habit of contracting habits, the 'habit-memory' ofMatter and Memory. The whole of obligation takes place unconsciously. Icontract thousands and thousands of habits by means of the operation ofprolongation without being aware of the process. Therefore, unlike activememorization - habits learned voluntarily, as in the learning a lesson by heartexample, which are 'exceptional and rare' (MM 228/83) - the innumerableordinary and common habits that I have are contracted by means of 'theaccidental repetition of the same situations' (MM 231/85). We saw in ChapterOne as well that, as the same situations continue to repeat themselves (evenwhen they repeat themselves accidentally), habits become perfected, so perfectthey look to be 'innate'; they become, as Bergson says, 'more and moreimpersonal, more and more foreign to our past life' (MM 229/83). Thesehabits survive, they are 'deposited' in the body (MM 227/81), and this is whythey can be destroyed when my body is injured.

Now, let us turn to the second form of memory, which Bergson explicitlycalls 'the regressive memory' (MM 229/83). In the example of learning alesson by heart, the process of evocation - the second description in which Ireproduce the images of me memorizing the poem - refers to the operation ofregressive memory. The operation is denned by 'conservation' (MM 228/82,230/84, 234/88), which, according to Bergson, conserves by 'recording' per-ceptual images (MM 227/81). It records each image as it occurs and maintainsthe images in the order of their appearance. This is why Bergson calls thesecond form of memory 'regressive' (MM 228/83). We can easily see thedifference in direction of the two forms of memory. Unlike habit-memory,which makes progress towards the future, regressive memory regresses into thepast. Through the recording of perceptual images, something survives. But,unlike the habit-memory, which puts habits somewhere in the body, theregressive memory is not a place. In fact, as we shall see in a moment, thequestion of where the memories are stored or recorded, as if memory were abig container, is always the wrong question for Bergson. Because he uses theobvious metaphor of imprint to speak of memory, we might describe regressivememory as a kind of writing or as a sort of ledger (a formalization or somethinglike the white on black of the Milky Way). But, to use Bergson's terminology,what survives due to conservation are 'representations' (MM 224/78), or, as hesays later in chapter two, what survives is a 'memory-image' {image-souvenir}(MM 227/81). (The hyphen in this phrase will turn out to be significant.)


Memory-images are personal, and they bear the place and date of their originaloccurrence; so, each is different from the next. In fact, for Bergson, memory-images cannot be repeated in the way that habits can; they cannot be doneover; they are recorded just once (MM 229/84). Thus, they are perfect; theydo not and cannot require the perfecting that habits require, and that makeshabits impersonal. Insofar as memory-images are personal, they are thereforeat home in our past life and not seated in the present; they do not look to thefuture. Insofar as regressive memory is directed to the past, it is directed not toaction or movement but towards dreaming or hallucination. We must noteimmediately that dreams and hallucinations are 'evocations' of the past, whichbring past images back to the present; the direction of regressive memory hassuddenly changed., which suggests that the habit-memory and regressivememory are really not independent but connected (cf. MM 231/85). We shallreturn to this connection later in this chapter when we turn to the cone image.But, here, what Bergson wants us to see is that dreams and hallucinations areuseless (MM 228/83) and do not contribute to adaptation; in a word, they arenot directed towards life. These images are, as Bergson says, 'thought' ratherthan acted (MM 228/82); they do not respond to the present moment, so theyare in a sense 'detached' or 'withdrawn' from the moment (MM 228/83).Insofar as the regressive memory is turned back towards the past, towardsuselessless, it is less natural for Bergson. But this claim, that regressivememory is 'less natural', is extremely complicated. Let us stop for a momenthere.

Bergson never explicitly calls regressive memory less natural; he says onlythat habit-memory is 'more natural' (MM 228/83). 'More' implies again aconnection between the two forms of memory; it even suggests a difference ofdegree. But the recording operation of regressive memory is itself natural, sinceBergson explicitly says that the recording of perceptual images happensaccording to a 'natural necessity' (MM 227/81). So, what is less natural aboutregressive memory? What is less natural is that I do not pay attention to lifewhen I dream or hallucinate, and not to pay attention to life is in a sense notonly to be dead, but also to be free of life's necessities, both of which suggestspirit. We can conclude therefore that to be less natural, for Bergson, is to bemore spiritual, which leads us to the last characteristic of the Bergsonianmemory-images. Besides being personal, dated and non-repeatable in the senseof not being able to be done over, memory-images, for Bergson, are sponta-neous (MM 231/86). Here the French word souvenir is essential. It comes fromthe Latin, subvenire, which means to come to mind. For Bergson, a memory, unsouvenir, just comes to mind, spontaneously. The spontaneity of the memory-image means that it is 'capricious' in its reproduction (MM 234/88) and'fugitive' in its retention (MM 231/85). But, even though these memory-


images are capricious and fugitive, i.e. not under the conscious control of one'swill, they are not determined by necessity. Their spontaneity is the very sign ofour freedom, that we are not mere automatons.

Let us simplify this discussion in order to be able to see what is at stake in it.Despite Bergson's suggestions that there is a connection between the two formsof memory, habit-memory and regressive memory are differentiated in nature:habit-memory goes in the direction of the future, regressive memory goes in thedirection of the past. Habit-memory is denned by the operation of prolonga-tion; prolongation repeats the useful effect of a perceptual image towards thefuture, towards action, utility and adaptation, and life; by means of theoperation of prolongation, what survives is a habit, which is acquired acci-dentally; habits have the characteristics of being impersonal, repeatable, per-fectible, and, ultimately, they are foreign to our past life. Regressive memory isdefined by the operation of conservation; conservation records step by step theperceptual image towards the past, towards dreaming (or hallucination),withdrawal, the useless and thought; by means of the operation of conserva-tion, what survives is a memory-image. Memory-images have the character-istics of being personal (and not impersonal), different (and not repeatable:they cannot be done over) and perfect (and not perfectible). Ultimately,memory-images are at home in our past life, to which they are never foreign.And, while they are not acquired accidentally like habits, memory-images arespontaneous in their reproduction (they are capricious) and in their retention(they are fugitive). By means of seeing this difference in nature - regressivememory towards the past, habit-memory towards the future - we can answerthe question which Bergson asked after the two descriptions of learning byheart. Because prolongation makes habits survive in the body and becausehabits become more and more foreign to our past life, Bergson concludes thathabits are not memories and that 'habit-memory' is not the true memory(MM 229/84). In the case of memorization and habit-memory, the wordssouvenir and memoire., therefore, are misused, but in the case of evocation andconservation, they are used correctly for Bergson, because what survives is amemory- image, which is a memory of our past life.

SECOND DIFFERENCE IN NATURE THAT DEFINES MEMORY:'THE DIFFERENTIATION ACCORDING TO INTEREST'

For Bergson, what leads to the second difference in nature that defines memoryis that the element of what we have been calling regressive memory is thememory-image (image-souvenir or souvenir-image). If we look at Fig. 2.1 we cansee that what Bergson calls a 'memory-image' is an intermediate term between


Figure 2.1 (MM 276/132)

the pure memory and perception. Its intermediate status is why the term ishyphenated. Since regressive memory has memory-images as its element, itconsists in a mixture of memory and image. A 'pure and simple image', asBergson says, is of the present and material (MM 278/135). Having thememory-image as its element, the 'regressive memory' is still partly material.So, while in the first difference in nature, that of 'the two forms of memory',Bergson purified memory of habit or bodily motion, he did not purify it ofperception: perception's element is always the image. This brings us to oursecond difference in nature, between memory and perception. As Bergson says,and he himself italicizes this sentence: 'To imagine is not to remember1 (MM 278/135); in other words, for him a memory is not an image. Because a memory isnot an image, Fig. 2.1 shows on the left 'pure memory', i.e. memory purified ofimages.9 Perception in Fig. 2.1 is not called pure perception, because it includessensation or affection or feeling. When affection is added into pure perception,we no longer have instantaneous perception, we have a thick perception. Anaffection, like pain, transforms or prolongs the virtual perceptual image intoactual action. But, even though affection makes perception thick, the elementof perception is an image, not a memory.

According to Bergson, psychological as well as philosophical theories ofassociation - he calls this whole group of theories 'associationism' (MM 277/134) - rely on the obvious fact that Fig. 2.1 represents, i.e. a pure memoryactualizes or materializes itself in a sensation. It is an 'incontestable truth' thatas I make an effort to recall an old pain, I can feel or sense the pain again(MM 279/136). 'Incontestable truth' is Bergson's phrase, which means that itis an incontestable truth in general and not just for associationism. Yet, on thebasis of this incontestable truth that memories actualize themselves in sensa-tions, associationism argues that, since pure memory actualizes or materializesitself in a sensation, the memory-image is simply a weaker state of a present


sensation, which is the stronger state. For associationism, every memory thatcomes to mind in an image is really a nascent sensation.10 To contest this,Bergson argues that, given the hypothesis of weaker and stronger states, weought to be able to go in the opposite direction. Since there is only a differenceof degree between sensation and memory we should be able to go from asensation to a memory as well as going from a memory to a sensation:

If the memory of an acute pain, for example, is only a weak pain, inversely,an intense pain, that I am feeling, will, by diminishing, end up being aremembered acute pain. Now, without any doubt, a moment comes when itis impossible for me to say whether what I sense is a weak sensation that Iam feeling or a weak sensation that I imagine (and that is natural, since theimage-memory participates already in the sensation). But never will thisweak state appear to me as the memory of a strong state. The memory istherefore something entirely different. (MM 279/136-7)

This is an obscure passage, but, its logic depends on this: because all memoriesactualize themselves in sensations which are, at least at first, weak, associa-tionism supposes an identity between the memory of an acute pain and theweak pain I am feeling now. If these two states are perfectly identical - thememory of an acute pain equals the weak pain I am feeling now - then it shouldbe the case that as an intense pain diminishes into a weak pain, I shouldexperience the present weak pain as the memory of an acute pain. For example,let us say I have a sharp, throbbing toothache; then, through painkillers, thethrobbing diminishes. Now, thanks to the painkillers, I have only a sort of dullpain. Do I get confused and think that this dull toothache is the memory of thesharp toothache, which I had before the painkillers? It is possible, as Bergsonsays, that I experience the weak pain as a memory-image of a weak pain. Thedull toothache that I feel now is just like the dull toothache that I had last year.But neither the memory-image of a dull pain nor the present feeling of the dullpain make me wince. In contrast, when I recall the sharp toothache I hadbefore the painkillers, I wince at the very thought of it. Therefore, I never getconfused and say that I experience the weak pain as the memory of a strongpain. To repeat, what Bergson realizes here is that associationism overlookssomething in this incontestable truth that all memories actualize themselves insensations. What it overlooks is that the memory of a sharp pain actualizes itselfonly at first as a weak pain; as I make the effort to recall it, the memoryactualizes itself in a strong pain. Associationism isolates the moment when allmemories become weak images from their beginning before becoming animage and their ending when they are just like a strong perception. Because ofthis isolation of the weak moment, associationism treats all memories indif-


ferently; no matter what sensible intensity the memory represents, it is treatedas a weak sensation. If all memories are just weak sensations, then a weaksensation that I am having right now should feel identical to a memory of a paststrong sensation. Immediately we can see the contradiction: for associationism,a weak sensation is a strong sensation.

Bergson specifies this difference in nature between memory and image interms of interest. As in Chapter One, for Bergson, perception is not interestedin speculative knowledge; in other words, it is not disinterested (MM 279/137);it is practical and interested. And what it is interested in is the present action(MM 361/230). This interest means that the images that perception receiveshave extension; they are actual. In contrast, as we have seen, memory is turnedtowards the past. But, since perception is interested only in the present, it findsmemories uninteresting (MM 282/139). Simply, memories of the past do notcontribute to useful actions. Because pure memories have no utility (until theyare inserted into an actual perception), Bergson calls pure memories 'impotent'(MM 280/137) - they do not have the power to bring about action - and'virtual' (MM 282/139) - they are not actual. Insofar as pure memories areuninteresting from the viewpoint of utility,11 insofar, in other words, as they arevirtual, they involve no sensation and, therefore, they are unextended(MM 283/140-1). To summarize this difference in nature between perceptionand memory, perceptual images are present, actual and extended, while purememories are past, virtual and unextended. As Bergson says,

The memory actualized in an image differs, then, profoundly from [the]pure memory. The image is a present state and can participate in the pastonly by means of the memory from which it has emerged. The memory, incontrast, impotent as long as it remains without utility, is pure of all mixturewith the sensation, without attachment with the present and consequentlyunextended. (MM 283/141)

Before we turn to 'the central metaphysical problem of existence', we need tosummarize the two differences in nature by which Bergson defines memory.Both differences in nature - 'the two forms of memory' and 'the differentiationaccording to interest' - focus initially on the difference between the power ofmemory and other powers or abilities. In the 'two forms of memory', we sawBergson differentiate between conservation of perceptual images and pro-longation of images in bodily movement. Then, in the 'differentiationaccording to interest', we saw him differentiate between memory and percep-tion. Memory is always of the past and is therefore uninteresting. Bodilymovements and perception are always 'seated' in the present, interested in thepresent, 'looking only at the future' (MM 227/82). But these differences in


nature are established not only to make us see these differences between thepowers, bodily movement, perception and memory; they are also established tomake us see the difference in nature concerning what survives by means ofthese powers. The prolongation of an image by means of the repetition of itsuseful effect deposits habits in the body. These bodily habits are purelymaterial, purely objective, purely impersonal. In contrast to this so-called'memory' of the body, the conservation by recording of perceptual images isthe true memory, the memory of the spirit. Since we have noted the differencein nature between the so-called memory of the body and the true memory, it ishard to maintain that the true memory is recording memory-images in thebody, or, more precisely, in the brain. Bergson spends pages in chapter two ofMatter and Memory examining the literature on aphasics. While a patient suf-fering from a brain lesion cannot come up with a word when its definition, forinstance, is given, the patient can use the word under other circumstances;what the brain lesion has destroyed, according to Bergson, is the mechanismthat reacts to the hearing of the definition. The memory of the word is stillintact. According to Bergson, since the motor mechanisms are in the body, theyand only they can be destroyed. We must say that memory-images survive in away different from bodily habits. But, Bergson takes the issue of survival fur-ther: memory-images are partly material, since they are images. A pure memoryinvolves no image, no matter, not even any sensation. In other words, a purememory is purely spiritual, purely subjective, purely personal. The obviousquestion now is whether this definition of pure memory as purely subjectivetraps Bergson in a subjectivism. So, let us turn to Bergson's brief examinationof what he calls 'the central metaphysical problem of existence'.

THE CENTRAL METAPHYSICAL PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE

Chapter three of Matter and Memory is entitled 'Of the Survival of Images'.The word 'survival' means a type of existence: memories, according to Berg-son, survive the destruction of brain cells. How is this possible? To answer thisquestion, he again reminds us that consciousness is primarily practical and notspeculative (MM 284/141). Because consciousness is interested in presentaction, in general it remains unaware of what is ineffective or impotent inrelation to action. Impotence in relation to action is precisely how Bergsoncharacterizes pure memories; in fact, he characterizes them as 'radicallyimpotent' (MM 283/141). Pure memories are, for Bergson, 'unconsciouspsychical states' (MM 283/141). In fact, throughout Matter and Memory., hedefines unconsciousness as impotence (MM 315/176, 193-4/44). In order tohelp us conceive unconscious psychical states, the first thing Bergson does is


break the identification of consciousness with existence since this identificationis common in 'the psychological domain'; for Bergson, in the psychologicaldomain, consciousness is not 'synonymous' with existence (MM 283/141).Thus, he limits the extension of the word 'consciousness' to the present, to theactually lived, to the active. And this limitation has the effect for Bergson ofbroadening the extension of the word 'existence'. Existence then can beattributed not only to consciousness, that is, to what is active, but also tounconsciousness, that is, to what is inactive both in the sense of being nolonger lived and past and in the sense of being not yet lived and future.

Because Bergson breaks the synonymy between consciousness and existence,which in turn allows him to broaden the meaning of the word 'existence', hecan establish a comparison between 'the series of objects simultaneouslyarranged in space and the series of states successively developed in time'(MM 287/145). As he says in chapter three of Matter and Memory: 'In reality,the adherence of [memories] to our present state is entirely comparable to theadherence of unnoticed objects to the objects we perceive; and the unconsciousplays the same kind of role in both cases' (MM 286-7/145). In everyday life, wedo not recognize this comparison because we have contracted the habit of'emphasizing' the differences between these two series and then of 'erasing'their 'resemblances' (MM 287/145). This operation of overemphasis anderasure occurs, according to Bergson, in three ways.

First, because the objects arranged in space around me represent possibleactions that I can execute at some moment in the future, space, like the future,remains indefinitely open, 'pregnant with menaces and promises' (MM 286/144). Unlike this open horizon of possible actions, memories are 'the deadweight of the past', dead because our interest in possible actions closes off thepast in favour of the future. This is the difference, as we have seen, betweeninterest in action and lack of interest in what no longer acts. But, for Bergson,we erase any resemblance between the series of objects and the series of states,because the indefinite or infinite horizon of extended space in front of us ispregnant with promises and menaces; this 'pregnancy' makes the infinitehorizon of space appear to be given and present to us. Moreover, and for thesame reason, in order to facilitate action, we pretend that we are free of the pastof memories (MM 286/144-5). The result of this appearance is that whatcounts as reality in the material universe includes all that overflows our per-ception; the result of this pretence is that what counts as reality in 'our inner life'includes only the present moment. But this difference between the spaceextending infinitely and yet being present and our inner life being present butnot infinite is only an appearance. The truth, for Bergson, is that what isunextended is partly present but also infinite, and the extended is infinite butalso partly present.


The second way the operation of overemphasis of differences and erasure ofresmblances occurs concerns the order of the series of objects arranged simul-taneously in space and the series of states developed successively in time. Theorder of the series of objects arranged simultaneously in space is based innecessity: there is a type of deductivity to objects in space, which allows me toforesee the appearance of each one on the basis of the one in front of me. Thisstrict determinateness is why it is easy for me to believe that the infinity ofobjects is present to me; as Bergson says, 'the strictly determinate order of theseobjects lends to them the appearance of a chain, of which my present per-ception is only one link' (MM 287/145). But, as we have already noted, thereproduction of memories in consciousness is capricious. The capriciouscharacteristic of memories leads us to think that the series of memories iscontingent, therefore lacking the appearance of a chain (MM 287/145). Again,for Bergson, there is a difference in the two orders but we emphasize it to thepoint of erasing the resemblance between them. As he says, 'by looking at itclosely, we see that our memories form the same kind of chain and that ourcharacter, always present in all of our decisions, is really the actual synthesis ofall our past states' (MM 287/145-6). In fact, according to Bergson, by lookingclosely, we see that, in fact, all of our past states exist for us more than theexternal world since our character, which is the whole of our past states, plays arole in any decision while only a small part of the external world plays a role.

The role of the will indicated here in a decision brings us to the third way theoperation of overemphasis and erasure occurs. For Bergson, again, this is reallya difference but one that ends up erasing the resemblance. When I decide to dosomething in a given situation, I have to 'cross over one by one' all obstaclesthat lie between me and the completed action. In the same decision and even inthe execution of the action, it is of course useful to recall situations which aresimilar to the present one. But, unlike when I act, when I recall, I 'leap over theinterval of time which separates the actual situation from a prior, analogoussituation; and since [I] transport [myself] to [the prior situation] with a singlebound, the whole intermediate part escapes from [my] grasp' (MM 288/146).In other words, when I recall, there is not a process of one-by-one crossing; Isimply leap. We are going to return to this leap in a moment. For now, we needto recognize that this difference between a leap and a one-by-one crossingmakes me think that the whole of the past does not exist intact while the wholeof space does. For Bergson, these three overemphasized differences betweenobjects arranged simultaneously in space and states developed successively intime - the openness of the future versus the closedness of the past; the con-tingency of the chain of states versus the necessity of the chain of objects; andthe leap over states versus the one-by-one crossing of objects — do not formwhat Bergson calls a 'metaphysical distinction' (MM 286/144). Unperceived


objects in space and unconscious memories in time are not 'two radicallydifferent forms of existence'; rather, there is an 'inverse' relation between them.

The inverse relation between unperceived objects in space and unconsciousmemories in time is based in what Bergson calls the two conditions of exist-ence; these two conditions show us how the extension of the word 'con-sciousness' has been limited. Bergson says:

... existence seems to imply two conditions that are connected back to-gether: 1) presentation to consciousness and 2) the logical or causal con-nection of what is so presented with what precedes and what follows. Thereality for us of a psychological state or of a material object consists in thisdouble fact that our consciousness perceives them and they form a part of atemporal or spatial series in which the terms determine one another. Butthese two conditions admit of degrees and, though both are necessary, wesee that they are unequally fulfilled. (MM 288/147)

The qualifier, 'connected back together', 'reams', is important, since Bergsonrepeats it at the end of his discussion of the metaphysical problem of existence(MM 289/148). What he is doing is connecting these two conditions of exis-tence back together after the understanding had made a clear-cut distinctionbetween them and turned them into two radically different modes of existence(MM 289/147-8). In fact, the two conditions are so closely connected that theyform a whole; this is why Bergson says that a psychological state and a materialobject 'form a pan of a series'; the series is the whole but the whole is divided intwo, 'doubled', we might say following Bergson's phrase, 'this double fact'.Most importantly, we must note that, after all the differences in nature havebeen established, Bergson is re-establishing a difference of degree. In fact, he isestablishing a difference of degree between matter and memory. When he says'in all cases' (MM 289/147) the two conditions are 'unequally fulfilled', orfulfilled in 'diverse proportions', or fulfilled in 'different degrees' (MM 289/147), he really means just two cases: matter and memory. The proportion inmatter is, to say this again, the 'inverse' of what it is in memory. Thus, inmemory, in psychic states, the connections between the links of the series is lessstrict, leaving ample room for contingency, and the presentation to con-sciousness of a psychic state is perfect 'yielding the whole of its content in the actitself whereby we perceive it' (MM 288/147). Inversely, in matter, in externalobjects, the connection between the links of the series is perfect, makingsomething like 'a mathematical derivation' possible, and the presentation toconsciousness is less than completely fullfilled (MM 288-9/147). In short, inthe psychic case, we have perfect presentation of a present state and less logicalor causal connection between past states; in the external case, we have less


presentation of a present object and perfect logical or causal connectionbetween objects that are not present.

We can simplify into four steps the rather complicated development we haveseen so far in regard to the central metaphysical problem of existence. WhileBergson is considering the problem of existence primarily within the psycho-logical domain - this is why his comments here are brief - I think we arejustified in seeing them as applying more generally (cf. EC 671-2/208); after allthis consideration could 'lead us step by step into the heart of metaphysics'(MM 288/146-7). To put this as simply as possible, this is what Bergson isdoing here. First, he breaks the 'synonymy' between consciousness and exist-ence, synonymy that, especially in the psychological domain, would havedenned all kinds of existence by means of differences of degree of conscious-ness. But this is a false difference of degree because consciousness meanspresent awareness and the present is a part of a whole; the present itself is notthe whole. Then, second, since the present consciousness is not the whole,Bergson broadens the sense of existence beyond this part to include both pre-sentation to consciousness and logical or causal connections. Breaking thissynonymy apart allows for these different senses of being. But, then, third, byde-emphasizing differences and restoring resemblances - in contrast to ournormal habit of overemphasizing differences and erasing resemblances - hemakes us see that a comparison is possible between matter and memory. Thereare two sides, a doubling, of being. But, fourth, the doubling relation betweenmatter and memory consists in an inverse relation between presentation toconsciousness and connection in the series. Bergson is conceiving the doublingrelation in terms of differences of degree; but, these are the true differences ofdegree since they are differences of degrees of the whole: matter and memoryhave the same ontological sense only in inverse quantities.12 As we are going tosee, the cone image represents this doubling of matter and memory and thisconnection between matter and memory. Already, I think we can see that thisstrange relation between matter and memory suggests something other than asubjectivism. It certainly does not suggest Platonism.

THE IMAGE OF THE CONE

So far, we have seen Bergson eliminate three differences of degrees and thenestablish three differences in nature. To say this again, difference in directionalways defines a difference in nature for Bergson. So, first, we have seen Bergsoneliminate the difference of degrees which would make memory be defined bymatter; he shows us that matter and memory go in opposite directions: habit-memory goes towards the future, while regressive memory goes towards the


past. Second, we have seen Bergson eliminate a difference in degree whichwould turn memory into a weak perception; if we go from the past to thepresent, the memory of a strong sensation can resemble a perception of a weaksensation, but if we go in the opposite direction, from the perception of a weaksensation to the memory of a strong sensation, the weak sensation cannotresemble the memory of a strong sensation. Then, third, we saw Bergsoneliminate a last difference in degree which would make all psychological exis-tence be defined by consciousness: memory-images have stopped being inter-esting because they are not potentially action; thus we are unconscious of thembut they still exist. So, Bergson concludes, not all psychic states are conscious.This last difference in nature, however, led us to the comparison betweenmatter and memory found in Bergson's brief discussion of the central meta-physical problem of existence. This comparison has brought us back to a dif-ference of degrees between matter and memory, which seems to suggest thatwe have lost the differences in nature between matter and memory. We mustrecognize here that what we have seen so far tells a very complicated storyconcerning being. Already we have to acknowledge that Bergson's 'thought ofBeing' is not a mere rearrangement of old philosophical ideas. Bergson isconfronting us with a new philosophical idea of existence, which is represented inthe cone image. The cone image should, I think, therefore show us preciselyhow Bergson reverses Platonism and twists free of it.

Before we turn to the cone image, we must reconstruct, in a very generalway, Heidegger's logic of the reversal of Platonism. According to Heidegger, itseems that Platonism has defined being in terms of objectivity; the ideas areremoved from this world. If one wanted to reverse Platonism therefore, onewould define being in terms of subjectivity, bring the ideas down to earth. Thisreversal is what happened in modern philosophy, which comes to its comple-tion in Nietzsche. But, again according to Heidegger, this reversal remainstrapped in Platonism because subjectivism is merely a reversal of Platonism'sobjectivism. In the modern tradition, this definition of being as subjectivitymeans that one defines being as presentation to consciousness. Because of theword 'presentation', with its suggestion of the present, we must investigatetime. For Heidegger, the sense of being is time, but the present turns out not tobe the primary determination of time and it is this realization that is the way outof modern subjectivism and Platonistic objectivism. If we look at Bergson'sfamous 1903 essay, 'Introduction to Metaphysics', we see that Bergson con-siders what he calls 'the entire philosophy which begins with Plato and endswith Plotinus'. He claims that this tradition, in a word, Platonism, developedunder the belief that there are two different ways of knowing: one, the con-templation of stable immutable forms and the other, action, unstable action ormutable movement; moreover, Platonistic philosophy believed that one passed


from the immutable to the mutable by diminution as if there is more in theimmutable than in the mutable (PM 1424-5/192-3). For Bergson, however,this belief, which defines Platonism, is false; there is more in the mutable thanin the immutable. In this regard, Bergson explicitly allies himself with modernphilosophy and modern science:

To borrow once more the language of the Platonists, we will say, by strip-ping the words of their psychological meaning, by calling Idea a certainassurance of easy intelligibility [Bergson's emphasis] and the Soul a certainpreoccupation with life [Bergson's emphasis] that an invisible current carriesmodern philosophy to raise the Soul above the Idea. It tends thereby, likemodern science (which does this even more than modern philosophy), to goin the reverse [my emphasis] direction of ancient thought. (PM 1426/194;see also PM 1428-30/196-7).

Like modern philosophy and modern science, Bergson places the soul over theidea, mutability over immutability, movement over thing; there seems to benothing like a return to the Greeks in Bergson. But does this lack of a returnmean that Bergson's philosophy remains bound up with modern philosophyand thus remains only a reversal of Platonism? If we follow Heidegger's logic,everything will depend on how Bergson conceives the present.

Now, let us turn to the cone image. In chapter three of Matter and MemoryBergson develops the cone image within the question of whether memories cansurvive forms of material destruction like brain lesions. The two conditions ofexistence, which we discussed earlier - presentation to consciousness andlogical or causal connection - are supposed to show us that each one of our pastpsychological states has a real, though unconscious, existence (MM 289/148).For Bergson, the two conditions of existence show us that the past must exist orsurvive, 'in itself (MM 290/149): in itself here means that the past is the whole,not the part; it cannot therefore be a part of something else; it cannot thereforebe conserved in something else. The veracity of this claim depends entirely on usrecognizing that the chain of memories is just like the chain of material objects,a chain whose existence, of course, we never really doubt. If we grant thiscomparison, then we must say that the chain of past memories is greater thananything present to me right now; the present is one link in this larger chain.So, if we were to say that the past is conserved in something else, then wewould be saying that the whole is conserved in the part. The past, especially forBergson, is not conserved in the brain. Here, he makes a simple argument.Since the brain is an image, it is one image in the whole of images called matter;it is, in other words, a content in the container; thus it cannot be conceived as acontainer. Since it is a content, it must also be conserved in a container. No


matter how we look at this, from the side of matter or from the side of memory,the brain is a part and not the whole. In other words, since it is an image, it isone of the things being conserved by memory; it cannot therefore conservememories (MM 290/148-9). But, just as the brain is one part in the whole ofmatter, the present psychic state that I am having right now is a part of thewhole called memory or the past. Bergson says we must take the two conditionsof existence 'at once' (MM 289/147). Therefore, if we must speak of a contentand a container, it is memory that is the container, not my consciousness. Inany case, however, if we can speak this way, in terms of containers, the past isthe container, and the present is a content.

Bergson's image of the cone symbolizes this container-content relation of thepast to the present. We are going to have to revise this comment about the conesymbolizing the container-content relation in a moment, but right now it canhelp us understand what is at stake in it. In chapter three of Matter and Memory,Bergson shows us two images of the cone.

Figure 2.2

The first image of the cone (Fig. 2.2) is constructed with a plane and aninverted cone, whose summit is inserted into the plane. The plane, 'plane P', asBergson calls it, is the 'plane of my actual representation of the universe'(MM 293/152). The cone 'SAB', of course, is supposed to symbolize memory,specifically the true memory or regressive memory. At the cone's base, 'AB', wehave unconscious memories, the oldest surviving memories, which come for-ward spontaneously, for example, in dreams (MM 294/153). As we descend,we have an 'indefinite number' (MM 309/170) of different regions of the pastordered by their distance or nearness to the present. The second cone image(Fig. 2.3), represents these different regions with horizontal lines trisecting the


Figure 2.3

cone. At the summit of the cone, 'S', we have the image of my body, which isconcentrated into a point, into the present. The summit is inserted into theplane and thus the image of my body 'participates in the plane' of my actualrepresentation of the universe (MM 293/152). The participation in the planeimplies that my body is more than a mathematical point; we are not dealinghere with pure perception. Instead, with the cone image, we are dealing withfactual perception, which is thick with habit-memory; habit-memory isrepeating and prolonging a multitude of moments into action and evenprolonging the useful effect of the perceptual images into repeatable actions orhabits. This thickness is why Bergson calls the body a 'hyphen' - more than apoint - 'between the things that act upon me and the things upon which I act'(MM 293/151). Since the true memory, where memories are survivingunconsciously, is inserted into the body where habit-memory is located andwhere actions are happening consciously, the 'hyphen' is the 'connection', asBergson says, between the two forms of memory (MM 292/151). The coneimage, therefore, for Bergson symbolizes this connection between the twoforms of memory. The two forms of memory are not really separate; the truememory serves 'as a base' for habit-memory (MM 293/152).

This is a surprising conclusion since we had spent so much time trying todistinguish the two forms of memory. But we do not understand this con-nection or hyphen - here we should also recall that the phrase 'memory-image'is constructed with a hyphen - unless we visualize what is most difficult tovisualize in the cone image. This is why we cannot really say that the conesymbolizes a content-container relation: the cone is supposed to be an image ofmovement. The cone really symbolizes a dynamic process. In his descriptionsof the cone, Bergson says that my actual representation of the universe is a


'moving plane'; the summit is constantly 'advancing'; and memories are'descending' from the regions of memory (MM 293/152-3). Before we go anyfurther, we must see that the movement of the whole cone image is double. Onthe one hand, as the memories are descending, the cone's summit is itselfadvancing across the plane of my actual representation of the material universe;but, on the other hand, at the same time, my actual representation of theuniverse is moving. Again, Bergson calls it a 'moving plane'. It would be absurdto say that the moving plane is moving with the advancing summit, since thenthe summit would make no progress. Instead, we must say that the movingplane is moving against the advancing summit. Thus, precisely at this summit,we have the difference in nature between matter and memory; matter andmemory for Bergson come together from opposite directions at the summit (cf.MM 274/129). We must even say that, if the memories are descending towardsthe summit, images are ascending up from the bottom. If the differencebetween matter and memory consists in these two opposite directions, then wehave to say that the cone image as Bergson presents it is incomplete; there is asecond cone, a cone of matter, below the cone of memory. Being a double, likea mirror image, this second cone would have to be the inverse of the first.13 Wehave already seen that, when Bergson introduces the idea that there is aninverse relation between matter and memory, this inversion is a difference ofdegrees. So, precisely at the summit, we also have the difference of degreesbetween matter and memory:

... my present consists in the consciousness I have of my body. ... [Mybody] represents the actual state of my becoming, that part of my durationthat is in the process of formation. More generally, in that continuity ofbecoming, which is reality itself, the present moment is constituted by thequasi-instantaneous section [coupe} effected by our perception in the massthat is in the process of flowing, and this section is precisely what we call thematerial world. Our body occupies its center; it is, in this material world,that part whose flowing we sense directly; the actuality of our presentconsists in its actual state. If matter, insofar as it is extended in space and asbeing denned according to us as a present that recommences constantly,then, inversely, our present is the very materiality of our existence. (MM 281/139; cf. MM 290/141)

In other words, for Bergson, matter is a presentation to consciousness that repeatsthe deduction of the material world and, inversely, presentation to conscious-ness is the very materiality of our existence. All the differences of matter andmemory, therefore, take place in the present. But that the differences are heredoes not mean that Bergson is prioritizing the present. In the extract quoted


above, Bergson says that the present is 'a quasi-instantaneous section' in the'continuity of becoming, which is reality itself. Immediately, we can see thatBergson is conceiving being as time: 'the continuity of becoming, which isreality itself. But he is not conceiving time in terms of the present, since thepresent is nothing more than a 'quasi-instantaneous section of continuousbecoming'. Becoming or time is not, for Bergson, a function of the present; thepresent is a function of time or becoming. In a way, Bergson's prioritization oftime over the present is not surprising, since earlier we saw that he does notdefine existence, especially not psychological existence, solely in terms ofpresentation to consciousness. So, to say that the present is a function of timealso means that consciousness is a function of the unconscious. It seems then,given Heidegger's logic of the reversal of Platonism, that Bergson does notremain trapped in a subjectivism: for Bergson the sense of being is neither thepresent nor consciousness. Whether you view conscious subjectivity from the sideof matter or from the side of memory, conscious subjectivity is only the summitof the cone, the hyphen. The realization that Bergson's philosophy is not asubjectivism also, of course, reinforces what we saw in Chapter One, thatBergson, in Matter and Memory, is inventing a new, non-subjectivistic conceptof presence. Instead of defining being as the present or consciousness or pre-sence to consciousness, he is going to define being with the past.14 But in orderto reach this new definition of being, we need to examine the movement of thecone itself and leave the movement of the plane behind.

In his descriptions of the cone, Bergson says that memories are descending tothe summit. Immediately we see that if the memories are descending from thepast to the present, they are progressing towards the summit and not regressingaway from the summit. We must conclude that 'the true memory' (MM 292/151), that is, what we have been calling 'regressive memory', according toBergson's own usage in chapter two of Matter and Memory, is also the trueprogressive memory.15 This is why Bergson says in the summary and conclusionthat memory is not really regressive at all, but always progressive (MM 3697239). It is also why, earlier, we had to avoid calling habit-memory 'the pro-gressive memory'. In Bergson, all memory, memory as a whole, is alwaysprogressive. Let us focus on this progressive movement.

This progressive movement of memory as a whole takes place, according toBergson, between the 'extremes' of the base of 'pure memory', which isimmobile and which Bergson calls 'contemplation' (MM 302/163), and theplane where action takes place. So, with the cone image, memory movesbetween contemplation and action.16 This movement of memory between immobilecontemplation and moving action is intelligence (MM 371/242). We must keep inmind, as Leon Husson has shown, that Bergson in his early works such asMatter and Memory and 'Intellectual Effort' (which is a 1902 essay collected in


L'Energie Spirituelle, Mind-Energy in English) does not distinguish betweenintelligence and intuition as he will do in later works such as Creative Evolutionand the 1934 collection of essays called La pensee et le mouvant (which is TheCreative Mind in English).17 Intelligence refers here to a specific mental effort,which coincides with Bergson's philosophical method of intuition. As we shallsee in Chapter Three, what he calls intuition cannot be reduced to a kind ofunintelligent feeling, although intuition is based on feeling. Again, invokingHeidegger, we are speaking of what counts in Bergson for thinking: uncon-scious pure memory (feeling) being explicated - moved - into memory-imagesand representations (contemplation), and then into actions (cf. MM 269/125:'thought is a movement'). Thus, thinking, for Bergson, is the movementbetween the two extremes of contemplation and action. Here, we are going toexamine only one of the directions: from the singular to the general; in otherwords, we are going to examine what Bergson has to say about 'general ideas'(MM 296/155). In Chapter Three, we shall look at the opposite movement ofthought, from the general idea to the singular.

Concerning general ideas, in Matter and Memory Bergson says, 'The essenceof the general idea, in fact, is to be constantly going backwards and forwardsbetween the sphere of action and that of pure memory' (MM 301/161).General ideas are at once singular, having an extension over a multitude ofindividuals, and universal, having a comprehension or sense, a unity (MM 296/155). At the base of the cone - contemplation - we have individual or singularmemories, all differentiated and contiguous according to their dates and placesof occurrences; as Bergson says, 'contemplative memory ... apprehends onlythe singular in its vision' (MM 296/155). At the summit of the cone - action -we have habits that are contracted by repetition and which react only to thingsthat resemble one another. So, the two extremes are also extremes of contiguityand resemblance. Because of this sensitivity to resemblance and not to con-tiguity, that is, to repetition and not to difference, Bergson calls the extreme atthe summit, the universal. What I am going to do here is show how thismovement of intelligence, from the singular to the general, works for Bergson. Iam going to lay this movement out in three distinct steps, but we must keep inmind that the three steps refer to a continuous movement of intellectual effort.

So, let us say I have a need in the present, a problem that can be solved onlyif I impose an order on a situation. First, according to Bergson, I must make a'leap' (MM 288/146). We have already seen this leap; as we know, the leap or'bound' represents that I am not making a 'one-by-one' regress into the past.Again, for Bergson, memory is never regressive in this sense. By means of theleap, I am immediately in the past; the immediacy that this leap represents iswhy Bergson uses the expression 'd'emblee', 'right away', so often in the centralchapters on memory (cf. MM 278/149-50, 261/116; also ES 944/170). So, we

The Concept of Memory: Ontology 5 I

make the leap, and right away we are in 'the past in general and then in a regionof the past' (MM 276/134). We shall return to this past in general in a moment.But let us say that, with the leap, I have landed in a region of my childhood, inthe region before my parents moved to the suburbs. Even though the leapplaces me in this region, no image appears at first because I have forgotten theevents that formed my character; all I have is the idea of my character. The ideaof my character, according to Bergson, is like a 'cloud', composed of thousandsof drops of water (MM 277/134); he calls this state the 'nebulosity of the idea'(MM 266/122; cf. MM 310/171). Before these 'drops' condense, each memoryis a pure memory, having the characteristics of being unextended, withoutsensation, without potency in the present, without image, without conscious-ness, even without life. Nevertheless, although these pure memories are notalive, they are not destroyed but are surviving. Then, we come to the secondstep: the cone 'rotates' (MM 308/169). The movement of rotation expands andrelates memories contiguously; the cone is like - this is Bergson's own com-parison - a 'telescope' pointed upward to the night sky, whose lens-holders Iam rotating to bring a region of the sky into focus (MM 305/166, 310/171; cf.also MM 262/122). My character is like a galaxy, white against the black of thenight sky, a multiplicity with all the singular memory-images clustered toge-ther.18 Thanks to the rotation of the 'lens-holders', the stars and planets start toappear. Now I have the image of my parents' old house in the heart of the city; Ican now walk through the different rooms of the house; I can see the pieces offurniture and people in each of the rooms, and then I can see the events thattook place in the rooms. The rotation of the lens-holders continues. I am in thebedroom I shared with my brother; he is huddled over the little desk that wealso shared; he is pasting stamps into an album, carefully, according to thecountry of origin, according to the size and colour, according to the value ofeach; there is a song, 'Under the Boardwalk', on the radio: I know it is thesummer of 1964. Now, I have singular and personal memories, memory-images, as Bergson would say, making sure to insert the hyphen. The purememories in which my character consists have become fixed in living colour.Then, the third effort, which is going on at the same time as the rotation. Oncethe pure memories are fixed in images, the cone 'contracts' (MM 308/168).Instead of 'expanding' into contiguous, singular, personal images, the move-ment of contraction 'narrows' or 'diminishes' the images. The narrowingmovement of contraction pulls the singular and personal images down the tubeof the 'telescope' into general and impersonal images which resemble oneanother. In other words, I forget again about the summer of 1964; my memoryof my brother carefully ordering what he used to call his 'stamp-book' contractsinto an image of his general orderliness. Here with contraction, the differ-entiations again become obscured in order to correspond to the present per-


ceptual image, which, as we know from Chapter One, is like a line drawing.The image of my brother's general orderliness becomes an idea or even ageneral 'method' (cf. PM 1326/85) for solving problems of order. This is whereBergson's analysis of general ideas in the third chapter of Matter and Memorystops.

But we must note that the contraction can go further. If I am to solve thepresent problem of orderliness, the contraction must go further. In order to beinserted into the present, the movement of contraction must make the idea oforderliness as thin as possible so that it can be inserted into the hyphen of thebody, so that it can fit in, in between 'the things which act upon me and thethings upon which I act' (MM 293/151). When this happens, the idea becomesan action. We have to say it becomes an individual, different, or even newaction. But the contraction can even go further: over time, through repetition,the method can become a motor habit if the effects of the action are favourable.And it can go still further: over time, the method can be put in words andbecome an artifice for intelligence. In Matter and Memory, this is when whatBergson calls 'a refinement of intelligence' takes place, when what he also calls'reflective analysis' 'erases the particularities of time and place from a repre-sentation' (MM 298/158). This is when the idea becomes, as Bergson says in'Introduction to Metaphysics', 'a certain assurance of easy intelligibility'. Buthere, as an artifice, the idea is still 'vital' and dynamic because it is based only inresemblance which means that it is still open to differences or singularities (cf.PM 1299/58). We must not be confused here: insofar as a general idea, forBergson, is dynamic, it is both general and singular, which means in ChapterThree, when we go in the opposite direction, from the general to the singular,we are really repeating the process we see here in Chapter Two. In fact, withthis dynamism between generality, or, more precisely, universality and singu-larity, we are in the heart of Bergson's concept of duration. But the dynamismcan be stopped; the contraction can go even further: the general idea canbecome 'something geometrical' where identity replaces resemblance (PM1299/58). The idea then loses its vitality and becomes a static inert or artlesssymbol for classifying things. This symbol, of course, can then become ametaphysical concept. But, for Bergson, the true universal lies in the dyna-mism, in the vitality of the movement of the effort. Now, as I said, in Matter andMemory Bergson does not extend the process this far, but we must keep thiswhole process in mind as we go forward. Especially we must keep in mind thedistinction between dynamic and static ideas. This distinction will becomeparticularly important in Chapter Three.

Nevertheless in Matter and Memory, we have a three-step process in theconstruction of general ideas: the leap, the rotation and the contraction.Through these three steps, we can see that memory, in Bergson, is always


progressive and centrifugal. Memory does not come from perception but toperception; the past does not come from the present but to the present. The so-called 'regressive memory', which conserves by recording, sends memories outfrom the past, like an electric 'current', to be actualized in present perceptions,which themselves, from the other side, receive vibrations, like another electriccurrent (MM 274/129). When the two currents come together the virtualimage that results from the confluence prolongs itself into useful action, inconjunction with the acquired motor habits. In other words, remember that thevirtual image of perception, as we saw in Chapter One, arises in the interval orthe hesitation or the 'making wait' which the complexity of the brain's func-tions makes possible; the brain makes indetermination possible and opens aloop in the tight mesh of material cause and effect; I can then evoke, select andinsert a memory-image right into the interval that opens up before the virtualimage actualizes itself in action. The selection of the memory-image to beinserted in the interval is how we stop ourselves from being automatons, frombeing at the mercy of acquired habits (and nature).

This progressive movement of memory - the leap into the past in general andthen into a region of the past, the rotation that expands the pure memories intosingular and personal memory-images, and the contraction that contracts thememory-images eventually into a habit - returns us to Bergson's definition ofthe sense of being as the past. Bergson explicitly says (and I have alreadyquoted these passages once here), '... in truth, every perception is alreadymemory. We perceive, practically, only the past, the pure present being theungraspable progress of the past gnawing into the future'. (MM 291/150,Bergson's emphasis). We have already noticed that the present for Bergson isdependent on time, that is, on the continuity of becoming, but now we see thatthe present is really dependent on the past. In a well-known essay,19 JeanHyppolite has argued that we must conceive pure memories in Bergson asessences. (What Hyppolite here calls essence Bergson himself calls 'dynamicschemas' (see ES 936-7/160). We shall return to the concept of dynamicschema in Chapter Three.) He says, 'The German language allows us to bringthe past and essence together (gewesen and Weseri). This is really how, it seems,we must understand pure memory in Bergson.'20 To say that the past isgewesen, that it was, means not only that the actual object of perception haspassed away, but also that nothing can change the past; the past cannot berepeated in the sense of being done over. Bergson, of course, defines memoriesin this way, as 'perfect', that is, as non-perfectible through repetition. Thatmemories are non-perfectible - that I cannot do the summer of 1964 over again- is why Bergson says, in his descriptions of the cone, that the base of the coneis immobile. The memories at the base are in a sense eternal, since they havepassed out of the present, where change occurs, where one can perfect actions.


But although the memories have passed out of the present, they have not, as wehave seen Bergson also claim, passed out of time; insofar as they constitute ourcharacter, they continue to affect the present. Since the memories have not andcannot pass out of time - they can pass only out of the present - we reallycannot call them 'eternal'; they are 'quasi-eternal' or, if we want to resort to astrange word from Deleuze, we can say that they are 'impassible'.21 This termmeans that memories cannot pass away. But to say that the past cannot passaway leads us to conceive memories not just as gewesen but also as Wesen, sincewe normally think of essences as eternal. Because the memories have passedout of the present, they are detached from the factual objects which causedthem. They are no longer tied to factual conditions. This detachment from theobject allows memories to be repeated, not in the sense of doing them overagain but in the sense of unifying them on the basis of resemblance; thememories can be evoked and, so to speak, can be generalized. The cone'scontractions bring the memories together into a unity which, so to speak,forgets the differences, so that the present action I am considering can baseitself on them.

If the contractions bring forth something like an essence, then I think we arejustified in introducing another strange expression, one that is common intwentieth-century French thought and which probably in fact derives fromMatter and Memory. The phrase is 'a past that was never present'. Wheneverthis phrase occurs - whether it is in Derrida, Deleuze, Levinas or Merleau-Ponty - it always refers to what we used to call an a priori condition. In thetwentieth century, however, due to certain criticisms of Kantianism coming outof the early days of phenomenology, a priori conditions now must be conceivedas temporally determined; they cannot be merely constructed, as the earlytwentieth-century neo-Kantians did; this construction was still speculation inthe worst sense of the word. Instead, a priori conditions must be experiencible.But as soon as we say that the a priori must be experiencible, we realize, as well,that they cannot be reducible to experience; if the a priori is reducible toexperience, then it would no longer be a priori. So, the conditions of experiencemust be conceived as at once experiencible and yet not reducible to experience.This 'at once' means that the conditions must be in the present experience, thatis, affecting present experience or conditioning it, but still not themselvespresent; if they were actually present, they would no longer be prior toexperience. Now let us come back to Bergson.

Because we must conceive the past in Bergson not as a function of thepresent, and because we must conceive the present as a function of this past,the past fits the general definition of 'a past which was never present'. As wehave already seen, Bergson in chapter three of Matter and Memory speaks of'the past in general' (MM 276/134).22 We must conceive of this as always


coexisting with the present: all the doublings or dualisms in Bergson derive from thecoexistence of the past with the present. To say that the past in general coexistswith the present means that it is impossible to conceive of an experience that isnot conditioned by the past or that has not had the past affect it. In Bergson,the coexistence of the past with the present seems to happen in two ways: onthe one hand, since the past is a past in general, it is a general condition whichmakes every perceived image pass, become past, be something past; withoutthe coexistence of the past with the present, we could not explain why anypresent would pass or change. The past in general therefore makes the passingof the present possible, and yet, being past, it is itself not present. On the otherhand, insofar as this past in general is not abstracted from past experiences, it isnot merely general or indeterminate. The past in general is concrete in all thepast memories. So, if the past is always coexisting with the present, then wemust conclude that there has never been a present experience that is prior to itsmemory, that there has never been a beginning or origin of the past in thepresent. For Bergson, we must always say that the past is the origin. No matterwhat present we have, there is always a past that is prior to it, affecting it, just asmy character affects every present decision I make. So, Bergson's idea of a purepast functions as a general condition of present experience, making it pass, andas singular conditions affecting the present. Paradoxically, Bergson's pure pastimplies not that memory repeats perception, but rather that perception repeatsmemory. This means that the memory that records perceptual images isactually developing perceptual images; it is not the past that is copying thepresent, it is the present that is copying the past. But even this statement ismisleading, because we must not think that an object is there in the past that isbeing copied; memory in Bergson has no object because the factual object hasdisappeared. As the telescope image suggests, the current of light that the pastemits is dim and distant, virtually invisible. The progression from the past tothe present is a progression, as Bergson says, 'from obscurity or darkness intothe light of day' (MM 278/135).

Now we can see exactly how Bergson's metaphysics of memory reversesPlatonism and twists free of it. It seems that every attempt to reverse Platonismmust conserve certain elements of Platonism; so, let us assemble some ofPlatonism's most obvious claims. In Plato, as the divided line indicates, actual,material reality consists in images of the originals, that is, in images of the ideas;according to the myths in the dialogues, the ideas existed in the past and wehumans had contact with this past before our souls acquired bodies. Therefore,for Plato, the present images repeat or copy past ideas. But since the ideas forPlato are immobile - and the myths imply this immobility of the ideas - theyare constantly present; they exist therefore in a sort of mythological present,which means that the ideas for Plato must be denned by a past present. Before


we acquired bodies, we contemplated these immobile ideas, a contemplationwhich the divided line places at the top. If we combine the analogy of the sunwith the allegory of the cave, we know that ultimately we contemplate the ideaof the good, which is located above at the very 'summit', we might say, of thedivided line. This contemplation was disrupted, however, when our souls fell toearth and acquired bodies. In effect, for Plato, matter makes us forget the ideas,and Platonic reminiscence is supposed to put us back into the contemplativevision of the ideas. Now, let us turn to Bergson. Bergson conserves from Platothat the original of perceptual images lies in the past, in ideas (or essences, toappropriate Hyppolite's insight again). But, unlike Platonic ideas, Bergsonianideas were never present, not even in a mythological present; they consist in apast that has never been present. Therefore, Bergsonian ideas must be defined bya past past (and not by a past present). Bergson also conserves from Plato thatthe activity of the soul at the uppermost part of the divided line is noesis, i.e.contemplation. But unlike Platonic contemplation, which concerns itself withidentity or universality, the Bergsonian contemplation is a vision of singularitiesor multiplicities. In Bergson's cone image, the uppermost part is not thesummit of identity but the base of singularities. And, while it is tempting to saythat the cone image is Bergson's equivalent to the divided line, we cannot saythis because the cone really has no divisions in it; it is all movement. Bergsonhas identified ideas with the movement of thought and has spread thoughtthroughout the cone. This is the most radical thing Bergson does through thecone image: he has mobilized every idea (EC 673 n. 1/210 n. 1), withoutexception, even the idea of the good (MR 1026/61, 1205/270). Instead of anidea of the good, Bergson has what he calls 'good or practical sense' (MM 294/153). Although we shall return to good sense in Chapter Three and inAppendix I, we can now say that good sense, unlike common sense, which isunidirectional, is double. Bergson says that good sense consists in a 'superior'equilibrium between the base and the summit, between singularities and uni-versality. But superior here means that good sense is unbalanced in relation tothe balance of'inferior' common sense. This disequilibrium explains why goodsense, like a pendulum, goes in two directions at once; it moves 'indefinitely'(MM 301/161) towards pure contemplation and pure action, towards purememory and pure forgetfulness. The last thing Bergson conserves from Plato isthe source of forgetfulness. For Plato, there is a fall into matter that makes usforget our original contact with the ideas; for Bergson, 'matter puts forgetful-ness in us' (MM 316/177). With Bergson we cannot, however, speak of a fallinto matter because being is always from the beginning doubled, doubledbetween matter and memory. But because matter is always there, so is thepossibility of profound forgetfulness. One can enclose oneself entirely in habitsand habitual ways of thinking, one can stop the indefinite movement of


thought. When this happens, then we need to evoke the past. We need toremember, as Plato makes the slave boy remember in the Meno. After the sunhas set, we need to point our telescope up at the night-time sky, looking for theMilky Way. Bergson's memory returns not to immobile ideas but to immobilememories; it returns not to universals (in the strict sense) but to singularities.Thus Bergsonian reminiscence in Plato's eyes would be forgetfulness. TheBergsonian reversal of Platonism consists in this: Bergsonian reminiscence isPlatonic forgetfulness.23

Now I am going to summarize the discussion concerning the image of thecone. Here, we came closest to showing how Bergson's philosophy represents achallenge to ontology in the Heideggerian sense. This has not really been achallenge to Heidegger's philosophy as such. Instead, we have accepted thestandard he set for thinking about our relation to being. So, like Heidegger, weraised the question of the sense of being in Bergson through his brief discussionof the 'central metaphysical problem of existence'. But, for Heidegger, thecurrent metaphysical sense of being that originates in Platonism conceals thetrue sense of being as time. To retrieve the true sense we must not only reversePlatonism but also twist free of it. For Heidegger, one cannot simply turn thedivided line upside down, but rather one must reconceive the entire relationbetween the division anew; one must in short reconceive time. And to do this,one must stop thinking in terms of the present. Most generally, we have tried toshow that Bergson's metaphysics of memory does not think in terms of thepresent: Bergson thinks in terms of the past. To understand this thinking interms of the past, we focused on the cone image. Here, we saw that the mostimportant but also the most difficult thing to visualize is that the entire coneimage is moving; in fact, it is moving in two directions at once. When we realizethat the cone is moving, we are able to see, immediately, that Bergson isreversing Platonism; Bergson places mobility over immobility, he mobilizes allof the ideas, even the idea of the good. But, we specified this reversal in favor ofmobility in three ways. First, because the cone image represents the 'connec-tion' between matter and memory, we were able to conclude that Bergson'sreversal does not end up in a subjectivism; Bergsonism is not a philosophy thatdefines being as conscious presence - such a philosophy would be a merereversal of Platonism. We were able to see that Bergsonism is more than a merereversal, because the 'connection' between matter and memory is the presentconsciousness I have of my body. Since Bergson represents this present con-sciousness by the summit of the cone inserted into the plane of the materialuniverse, present consciousness, we can say, is conditioned by two sides or bytwo electrical currents. Whether one views present consciousness from the sideof matter or from the side of memory, present consciousness is conditionedeither by the vibrations of matter or by the unconscious of memory. In order to


determine Bergson's reversal of Platonism precisely, we must keep in mind thatthe cone itself represents the unconscious. The recognition that the cone itselfrepresents the unconscious led us to the second specification of Bergson'sreversal of Platonism. Because the unconscious or the past always conditionsthe present, the past does not repeat the present but rather the present repeatsthe past. As in Plato, the original of all perceptual images lies in the past. Butunlike Plato who conceives this past as a present, Bergson, we had to say,conceives this past as a past and that means as a past that was never present.We were able to introduce this phrase to help us conceive the Bergsonianmovement of general ideas, because the cone image implies that the past alwayscoexists with the present. The cone image implies a fundamental doubling ofthe present with the past (and therefore of consciousness with the uncon-scious). Unconsciously, the past always both conditions the present as whatmakes the passing of the present possible and affects the present as our char-acter which supports every decision we make. The third specification camefrom the recognition that Bergsonism conserves elements of Platonism. LikePlato, Bergson conserves the idea that when our soul is most removed fromaction, it engages in contemplation. For Bergson, contemplation is purememory, but pure memory is a vision of singularities. Bergson's conservation ofcontemplation as denning pure memory, but as defining pure memory as avision of singularities, brought us to the realization that, if Plato looked atBergsonian reminiscence, he would see forgetfulness. The most precisedetermination of Bergson's reversal of Platonism is that Bergsonian reminis-cence is Platonic forgetfulness.

At the beginning of this chapter, we noted that the reason the problem ofmemory is central for Bergson lies in the fact that memory is an experience. Weare going to conclude by thinking a little bit about this experience. Theexperience of memory that Bergson is seeking is one that verifies that memoriessurvive brain lesions; only such an experience would allow us to establish anindependent reality for spirit. Here we return to Bergson's sad mental patients.In the 1910 preface, Bergson proposes, without going into a general theory ofmental pathology, that mental illness results from a 'relaxation or a perversionof our attention to life'; indeed here in the preface, Bergson tells us that 'theattention to life' is one of the 'guiding ideas' of Matter and Memory (MM 166/14). Attention to life is our attention to action, to solving problems, to over-coming obstacles found in the present; it is equivalent to the summit of thecone (MM 311-12/172-3). And, in the preface, Bergson compares theattention to life to a vise whose jaws are tightening. Such an explanation ofmental illness implies that when the attention to life becomes 'perverse', that is,when the jaws of the vise become so tight that memories cannot be inserted, wehave a pure experience of life. If this is the case, that the perversion of the


attention to life is pure life, then we must say that, when the attention to lifebecomes relaxed, when the jaws of the vise are wide open, we have a pureexperience of death. Only such a pure experience of death can verify thatmemories survive independent of the body. This experience is why Bergson isso fascinated with what he calls 'the panorama of the dying'; a person whoalmost died violently - by 'drowning' or by being 'hanged' - always says, 'mywhole life flashed before my eyes' (MM 285/155; also PM 1387/180).24 Thatthe experience of pure memory must be an experience of death is furtherconfirmed by the fact that throughout the second and third chapters of Matterand Memory, Bergson repeatedly says that until a memory reaches the present,it is lifeless, even cold (for example, MM 311/173: 'if the idea is to live'). Thus,we must conclude that Bergson's ontology of memory does not concern life butdeath. Of course, for Bergson, this concern with death is really a concern withsuperlife, la survivance; he will even suggest, after Matter and Memory, in his1912 essay 'The Soul and the Body', that since memories survive thedestruction of parts of the brain, it is probable that the soul survives for a timeafter the destruction of the body (ES 859/58; also MR 1199-200/263-4). Buteven if his theory of memory really concerns the survival of the soul after death,it is difficult to maintain, as Levinas does in Time and the Other, that Bergson'sphilosophy is a 'philosophy without death'.25 Perhaps here we have beenspeaking of nothing but death. But, can we say that this Bergsonian experienceof death is an experience of the other?

CHAPTER 3

The Concept of Sense: Ethics

In Chapter One, we tried to see exactly how Bergsonism differs from phe-nomenology. The major point here was that while Bergsonism deducesconsciousness from matter, consciousness is not fundamental for Bergson.The recognition that consciousness is not fundamental led us to see that theunconscious plays a fundamental role in Bergson. Thus, we cannot char-acterize his philosophy as a primacy of perception, of conscious perception;rather, we must characterize it as a primacy of memory. This brought us towhat I called a challenge to ontology in the Heideggerian sense; but, as wesaw, this was not really a challenge to Heidegger's thought of being. Mostgenerally, we attempted to understand the complicated story Bergson has tosay about existence. For Bergson, being is dual or doubled by the differencein nature between matter and memory; but, this dualism is also 'connected'by a difference of degree, which implies a monism. This complicated storyshould be enough to alert us that Bergsonism confronts us with a new phi-losophical idea (called 'duration') of how reality is arranged. (We shall returnto the concept of duration in the Conclusion.) Nevertheless, in Chapter Two,while we came to recognize the great novelty of Bergson's thought of being,we also tried to see whether, to use Heidegger's words, Bergson's philosophynot only 'reverses Platonism', but also 'twists free of it. We were able to seethat Bergson reverses Platonism in two ways. On the one hand, since the coneimage is supposed to be an image of movement, Bergson prioritizes the soulor movement over the ideas or immobility; he mobilizes all of the ideas,including the idea of the good. On the other hand, since he specifies the baseof the cone as a memory of 'impassible' or 'quasi-eternal' singularities andnot as a memory of eternally present ideas - we must remember that the coneis inverted - we were able to say that Bergsonian memory is Platonic for-getfulness. The major point, however, was that Bergson does not define time,and therefore being, in terms of the present; he defines it in terms of the pastand this allows him to escape from any charge of subjectivism. Bergson'smetaphysics of memory therefore seems to be more than a reversal ofPlatonism.

The Concept of Sense: Ethics 61

It is possible that with Bergson's metaphysics of memory, we had beenspeaking of nothing but death. Clearly, we had to raise the question of deatheventually, since we were taking Heidegger's ontology seriously. We found theexperience of death in Bergson by stressing that the experience of memory, forBergson, is a relaxation of the attention to life. If it is a relaxation of theattention to life, it seems that we can say that the experience of memory issomething like an intensification of death. There is some textual evidence tosupport this claim about death in Matter and Memory. For instance, in chapterthree, Bergson describes the inverted cone as an inverted 'pyramid' (MM 312/173; cf. also ES 886/94) - a pyramid, of course, is a tomb - the past as a 'deadweight' (MM 286/145) and, finally, the sudden reappearance of a memory as a'ghost' (MM 286/145). Now, while we had to acknowledge that the Bergsonianconcern with death is really a concern with survival,1 with, so to speak,superlife, survivance, it nevertheless allowed us to raise a new question in regardto Bergson: if we can say that the experience of memory is something like anexperience of death, can we also say that the experience of memory is anexperience of the other? This question brings us to what we could call aBergsonian challenge to ethics in the Levinasian sense.

Here, we will not really see a challenge to Levinas; in fact, the question that Ijust asked is clearly indebted to Levinas's philosophy. Instead, what I intend tofollow here is a sort of suspicion that important consequences follow fromprioritizing intuition over language or language over intuition. Maybe this isobvious, but let me make my suspicion more specific. In his 1961 Totality andInfinity, Levinas defines ethics as 'the Same taking the irreducible Other[Autrui] into account'.2 Of course, the Other for Levinas is the face. But, moreimportantly, Levinas defines the face as immediacy and as - this is his phrase -'the imperative of language', as discourse.3 Levinasian ethics therefore is boundup with a sort of linguistic immediacy. Of course, Levinas spent a lot of his latercareer trying to clarify his idea of linguistic immediacy - the trace - in light ofcertain criticisms levelled by Derrida in his 1964 essay 'Violence and Meta-physics'. But, if there is an affinity between Derrida and Levinas, this is due tothe fact that both prioritize language over intuition. Now, it seems to me thatsuch a prioritization does not take place in Bergson because for him, anyphilosophy that bases itself on language is relative and mediate. It is relativebecause language for Bergson is social and societies are established in order tosatisfy needs of adaptation; a philosophy based in language is mediate becausethe repeated satisfaction of needs leads to habits and habits are expressed instatic or inert general ideas through which we perceive the world. In contrast,for Bergson, philosophy must not be relative and mediate; rather, it must beabsolute and immediate. And, for Bergson, this can be achieved only throughintuition; only intuition can give us 'immediate consciousness' or the


'immediate data of consciousness'. In other words, if philosophy cannot besocial, philosophy must inhabit a 'world without others',4 a phrase I take from a1967 essay by Deleuze on Michel Tournier's rewriting of the Robinson Crusoestory. It seems obvious but perplexing that there is no discourse of alterity inDeleuze, at least not like the one we find in Derrida and Levinas. So, let mespecify the suspicion I am going to follow a little further: it seems to me that ifone prioritizes language over intuition, then one has a philosophy of the otheras you find in Levinas and now Derrida; but, if one prioritizes intuition overlanguage, then one ends up with a philosophy of alteration (not alterity) as Ibelieve it is conceived by Bergson and now Deleuze. Let me put my suspicionin another way: it seems to me that if you prioritize language over intuition, youbecome a philosopher of transcendence, while, if you prioritize intuition overlanguage, you become a philosopher of immanence. Levinas, of course, is thegreat philosopher of transcendence and Deleuze is the great philosopher ofimmanence.

But, again, this opposition is only a suspicion; indeed, one very large factweighs against it: the immense influence of Bergson on Levinas. For instance,in his 1946-7 lectures, Time and the Other., Levinas says that Bergson's elan vitalis what he calls 'fecundity'.5 Levinas, however, also wonders, more recently inthe 1980s, whether the Bergsonian experience of duration - again whatBergson calls intuition - really lets the 'alterity of the new ... explode,immaculate and untouchable as alterity or absolute newness, the absolute itselfin the etymological sense of the term'.6 Levinas is able to wonder whetherintuition lets alterity be absolved from the same because he thinks (and thinksthis starting very early in his career with The Theory of Intuition in Husserl'sPhenomenology7") that intuition (be it Husserlian or Bergsonian) is always a kindof representation. If intuition is representation and thus embedded in theo-retism, then we can reach Levinas's philosophy from Bergson only by inter-preting the concept of duration on the basis of the love that Bergson describesin his only ethical text, the 1932 The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Inother words, one would have to make the call that brings forth the love of God- the love of the Other - more fundamental than duration. Yet it is possible togo in a different direction. One can interpret the love that Bergson describes inThe Two Sources on the basis of the concept of duration. In this direction - thedirection that we are following in this chapter8 - we can say that intuition iscreative (and not therefore embedded in theoretism); it creates a concept(sense) which is neither a constant nor a variable, a concept that is pure var-iation, pure becoming, pure 'alteration': pure movement.9

The challenge to ethics that we are about to enter does not concern moralprescriptions or moral theories, it concerns the relation of thought tounthought. Foucault has shown that in the contemporary period, ethics con-


cerns an imperative found within thought itself to think what resists thought(the unthought).10 Is the relation of thought to the unthought to be conceivedon the basis of intuition or on the basis of language? So what we are concernedwith here is the priority of intuition over language. Thus we are concerned withBergson's concept of intuition and his so-called philosophy of language. In fact,this chapter is entirely devoted to the Bergsonian concept of sense. To do this, Iam going to draw on a number of texts: Bergson's famous comments in chapterfour of Matter and Memory on the 'turn of experience'; his 1903 'Introductionto Metaphysics'; and his very important second introduction to the 1934 col-lection of essays called La pensee et le mouvant (The Creative Mind in English).There is a common perception that Bergson does not thematize language; thisclaim is hard to understand since there are at least four texts that deal withlanguage explicitly: Matter and Memory, chapter two, in the section on'attentive recognition'; the 1902 essay 'Intellectual Effort', which is collected inL'Energie spirituelle (Mind-Energy in English); again the important secondintroduction to La pensee et le mouvant', and finally, in the 1932 The Two Sourcesof Morality and Religion, towards the end of chapter three, 'Dynamic Religion'. Iintend to extract bits and pieces from all four of these texts in order to constructsomething like a Bergsonian philosophy of language.

THE BERGSONIAN CONCEPT OF INTUITION

As we have seen from our investigation of memory in Chapter Two, Bergson'sphilosophical method is an empirical one; the experience he relies on is calledintuition. But, as Bergson says in a letter to Harald Hoffding, 'The theory ofintuition, upon which you insist a lot more than upon the theory of duration,became clear to me only a long time after the theory of duration.'11 If we are tounderstand anything about intuition in Bergson, then we must start from oneof his later works, like the second introduction to La pensee et le mouvant. Toorient ourselves, we must first recognize the aim of intuition: it is the attempt toexperience directly or immediately the flow of my own interior life, of'immediate consciousness' (PM 1273/32), of my own duration, and that meansintuition is an intuition of memory. It is an attempt to 'enlarge' consciousnessto include the unconscious (PM 1273/32). So, beyond recognizing this aim ofenlargement, we can ask: what is intuition? In the second introduction, Bergsontells us what intuition is not; he says that it is not instinct and it is not feeling,sentiment (PM 1328/88). Now, it is going to turn out, as we will see, thatBergsonian intuition has a lot to do with feeling, but with a specific sort offeeling. So, here in the second introduction what Bergson wants to steer usaway from is thinking that intuition is just any sort of feeling of Anteriority or


just any sort of feeling of memory. The problem with instinct and feelings ingeneral for Bergson is that they come to us too easily: '... we repudiate facility.We recommend a certain difficult manner of thinking; above everything else,we value effort' (PM 1328/87). Although intuition may happen to us, like avision - and this passivity of intuition is why Bergson associates it with instinctin Creative Evolution - it demands to be explicated into representations andactions. Thus it requires intelligence, 'intellectual effort'; the requirement ofintelligence is why Bergson can call it a method, indeed, the only method ofphilosophy. But for Bergson there is no thinking that does not start in intuition.

Although thinking starts with intuition, we must not believe that intuition issome sort of special faculty above or outside of the senses; it is a particularlydifficult way of sensing, sentir (PM 1364/127-8). We must keep in mind theetymological connection between sentir and sens as we go forward. In any case,intuition is a difficult way of sensing, because in general our senses are coor-dinated to bodily needs; therefore, they are directed towards dividing the worldup according to possible satisfactions of needs. If intuition is a sensible intui-tion, it must be an intuition that has reversed this customary direction of oursenses to divide according to utility. As Bergson says in his 1904 'Introductionto Metaphysics', 'To philosophize is to invert the customary direction ofthought' (PM 1422/190; cf. EC 632/162). To do this inversion of our senses,we must, for Bergson, 'harmonize' them; 'harmony' is the word Bergson usesin Matter and Memory when he speaks about the need to educate the senses(MM 197-8/48-9); the education of our senses 'fills in the intervals or gaps',which our needs establish (MM 198/49).12 If Bergsonian intuition is an edu-cated intuition, amounting to a filling in of all the gaps established by ourdifferent senses insofar as they are 'the beams of light of our needs', then wemust realize that it is above all else 'a simple intuition' (PM 1348/110). Simplehere means continuity. If our intuition is complex or complicated, then we havenot inverted the customary direction of thought. In other words, intuition inBergson is always an intuition of the most simple idea, which is duration, as weshall see. The simplicity of the intuition means that, if Bergson most frequentlycharacterizes intuition in terms of the sense of vision or sight (PM 1364/127,1329/89, 1350/112), vision alone is not enough; alone, vision gives us only onepart divided from the other parts that the other senses can give us. At the least,vision will have to be harmonized or made continuous with touch and hearing.

As we saw in Chapter One's discussion of the Bergsonian concept of theimage, Bergson prioritizes vision, precisely because of its continuity; once oureyes are open we see images continuously or without interruptions. And, thepriority of vision is why he calls intuition 'reflection' (PM 1328/88); it has aconnection to light. But, due to this connection to light, vision strictly concernsonly images; it is the sense that informs us most about possible action. Since


intuition must invert the customary direction of thought towards actions and -if you recall the cone image - therefore towards dreaming at the base of thecone, in other words, since intuition is an enlargement of consciousnesstowards unconscious memory, it is actually going up above the images towardspure memories. Pure memories, we recall, differ in nature from images insofaras pure memories are virtually invisible. Here, it is helpful to recall the trueperception of matter that we discussed in Chapter One: the direction of thetrue perception of matter goes from the surface of the image to the vibrationsdeep inside. If this description can also characterize Bergsonian intuition - inMatter and Memory, Bergson actually says that intuition can be internal orexternal (MM 319/183) - then we must say that intuition, like external per-ception, must go into the depths of the 'chrysalis'; this is where we find the purememories. To reach this depth, vision itself will have to be enlarged. So,besides vision, Bergson also characterizes intuition, of course, by means of thesense of touch; he calls it contact. Touch is similar to vision, because contactimplies an uninterrupted experience; once I start to rub my hand across asurface, I experience no interruptions. But unlike vision, touch is not a sense ofdistance but rather of proximity; as I move my hand across the surface, I am inimmediate contact with it. And, as I feel the surface, I can feel the variations oflevels - I can sense depth. The problem with touch is that I can gain no tactileaccess to the depth unless I rip the surface open; but, as soon as I rip the surfaceopen, the image is destroyed.

How can I gain access to the depth of pure, unconscious memories by meansof which I can enlarge consciousness? In his 'Introduction to Metaphysics',Bergson describes intuition in this way: intuition 'proposes ... to penetrate thelife of [the self], and through a kind of spiritual auscultation, to sense [sentir] itssoul palpitate' (PM 1408/175, Bergson's emphasis). 'Auscultation' is a tech-nical term in medicine meaning to listen attentively to organs either by the eardirectly or by means of an artifice like a stethoscope. Thus, auscultation impliesthat intuition is like a doctor listening through a stethoscope to a heartbeat or tothe breathing of the lungs. When one auscultates, one must really listen, onemust really concentrate. In this auscultation we find the effort of Bergsonianintuition; even vision and touch are too easy. To listen to these quiet sounds, tothese rhythms, in short, to listen to time, requires a fatiguing effort, whichimplies that intuition cannot be maintained for long (PM 1275/35). We shallreturn to the transitory nature of Bergsonian intuition, but let us note now thatit is the simplicity of the intuition that is fatiguing and thus transitory. Once thesimple intuition has vanished, then, for Bergson, it is time for the elaboration ofthe intuition, in a word, for complication. Nevertheless, the image of theauscultator tells us that Bergsonian intuition is like a doctor's intuition, anintense intuition in which one recognizes differences and continuities (PM


1319-20/79). When a doctor auscultates, he or she finds the one simple sourceof the illness without cutting the patient up.

Here we must be careful: intuition understood as a kind of intense listening,in harmony with touch and vision, like a doctor's intuition, does not mean thatwe have a relation to the other in intuition, that intuition is a sort of inter-subjective experience. In fact, we have to be very careful about Bergson's fre-quent characterizations of intuition as sympathy, because sympathy, too,suggests intersubjectivity. In his 'Introduction to Metaphysics', Bergson says:

There is at least one reality that we grasp entirely from within, throughintuition. ... It is our own person in its flowing across time. It is our selfwhich endures. We can sympathize intellectually or rather spiritually withnothing else. But we sympathize surely with ourselves. (PM 1396/162-3)

It is hard to renounce the habitual way of conceiving sympathy as a sympathywith others. But, strictly, for Bergson, we sympathize only with ourselves. It isonly from this position, self-sympathy, that we can then sympathize in thenormal sense with others; in fact, for Bergson, from this self-sympathy we caneven sympathize with the entire universe (PM 1273/32-3). In connection withthis question of others, it is perhaps needless to say that, of course, we cannotcharacterize Bergsonian intuition as an objectifying 'look' or 'gaze', un regard.In chapter four of Matter and Memory, Bergson says,

The duration wherein we look at ourselves acting [nous nous regardons agir], andin which it is useful that we should look at ourselves, is a duration whoseelements are dissociated and juxtaposed. The duration wherein we act is aduration wherein our states ground themselves in other states. (MM 322/186)

In this quote Bergson uses the verb regarder, un regard is precisely, for Bergson,the experience of classical empiricism. Intuition, however, for Bergson, is thebasis of the true empiricism.

In the same chapter, in a section entitled 'The Method We are Following'(MM319-24/183-8), Bergson distinguishes his 'true empiricism', as he calls it(PM 1408/175), from classical empiricism. He says, '[the] error [of classicalempiricism] is not that it sets too high a value on experience'; the error lies inthat it values 'an experience that is disarticulated and consequently undoubt-edly denatured' (MM 320/183). The experience classical empiricism values isone that is 'fragmented', 'detached' and 'discontinuous'. Obviously, theexperience that empiricism values is exactly the opposite of Bergsonian intui-tion, the true experience. But what is important here is to see what motivates


the fragmentation of the experience; the motivation for the fragmentation lies,according to Bergson, in the 'adaptation of the real to the interests of practiceand to the requirements of social life' (MM 319/183). In other words, thefragmentation of the true experience has been done 'in view of the require-ments of practical life' and 'for the greater facility of action and language'(MM 320/183-4). Overall, therefore, the fragmentation occurs on the basis of'inferior needs' (MM 321/184). If there is a relativity to knowledge, as Kan-tianism suggests, according to Bergson, this knowledge is relative to our needs;but these needs are not 'definitive' (MM 321/184).

Bergson does not call the fragmented experience a false experience; in fact,when he speaks of 'the error of empiricism', he uses the French word 'ton', likethe English word 'tort', which literally means 'a twist'. The experience at thebase of empiricism is not really a mistake, but a turning away from the trueexperience, a turning away motivated by 'the inferior needs', the need to adapt,'bodily functions' (MM 321/184). This 'turning away' based on needs foradaptation turns towards, ultimately, traditional metaphysics - what Bergsoncalls 'dogmatic metaphysics' - which constructs arrangements of the frag-mented parts of experience; these metaphysical constructs are really artificialand fake, in a word, false. Because the experience at the base of empiricism isnot a false experience but a turning away, it is a natural experience for Bergson.In chapter one of Matter and Memory, he noted that, as we ascend in theevolutionary scale, in other words, as organisms become more and morecomplex, nature establishes a sort of 'division of physiological labor' within theorganism (MM 179/28-9); each organ within one organism becomes special-ized and, in order to achieve a task, each organ must work with all of the others.This natural tendency to divide labour among different organs within oneorganism has destined certain organisms to live in societies, which replicate theoriginal divisions of labour within the organism. According to Bergson, thisevolutionary tendency to put organisms into societies diverges into two lines:humans and hymenoptera, i.e. bees (MR 996-7/26-7). What differentiateshumans from bees is that humans invent their own tools; they manufactureartifices. But, despite this difference between humans and bees, what definessocial life, according to Bergson, is needs, and to facilitate the satisfaction ofthese needs there is always 'a system of more or less deeply rooted habits'(MR 982/10). As we saw in Chapter One, what we called habit-memoryconsists in the contraction of habits of action and thinking by means ofrepeating the useful effects of perceptual images. Directed towards utility,towards the satisfaction of needs, towards adaptation, this 'habit of contractinghabits' is at the root, according to Bergson in The Two Sources, of all obligations- including moral duties (MR 996/27, 995/25).13 But it is precisely theseduties, these obligations to society, these habits directed to societal needs and


utility that require us to turn away from the true experience; these habits, whichcan become inert or artless general ideas, mediate our relation to the trueexperience. If philosophy therefore, for Bergson, is to turn to the true experi-ence - to turn to true, and not relative, knowledge - it must turn its back onsocial life; hence his loneliness in Matter and Memory. Bergson in fact says inThe Two Sources that Robinson Crusoe is still social (MR 987/16). The phi-losopher, for Bergson, must therefore inhabit a world without others moreradical than that of the famous Robinson Crusoe.

Obviously, with all of these turns, we are approaching Bergson's famous'turn of experience', a phrase he uses twice in chapter four of Matter andMemory. First, he says,

But there is one last enterprise to attempt [after empiricism, dogmatism andcritical philosophy]. This would be to go to seek experience at its source, orrather above the decisive turn where, bending itself in the direction [sens] ofour utility, it becomes literally human experience. (MM 321/184)

Then, he says,

To renounce certain habits of thinking, and even of perceiving, is far fromeasy: yet this is but the negative part of the work to be done; and when it isdone, when we have placed ourselves at what we were calling the turn ofexperience, when we have taken advantage of the nascent light with which,illuminating the passage from the immediate to the useful, the dawn of ourhuman experience begins, we still have to reconstitute, with the infinitelysmall elements of the real curve which we in this way see, the form of thecurve itself which extends itself into the darkness behind them. (MM 321/185)

Of course, in these passages, we must pay attention to the directions. On theone hand, the turn of experience is a turning away from utility, society andliteral human experience. This turning away is the negative part of Bergson'sphilosophical method. To turn away from or to invert the customary directionof thought towards utility means to turn away from action and matter. We sawin Chapter Two that action and matter are located at the summit of theinverted cone. Turning from action, intuition therefore is a turning to dreamingand memory, in a word, to spirit (PM 1292/50, 1272/32). In the secondintroduction to La pensee et le mouvant, Bergson says that intuition is 'theattention that spirit gives to itself in surplus over [the attention it gives to life]'(PM 1320/79). As we have already seen, intuition is a sort of experience ofdeath, a turning away from social life and practicality, a turning away from the


external in order to pay attention to the internal, to spirit. Yet we know fromChapter Two that spirit is not identical to consciousness; it includes uncon-scious memories (PM 1398/164). Enlarging consciousness to include uncon-scious memory, the 'turning to' of experience therefore is like the rotating of thecone. If we realize that the turning to of experience is like the rotation of thecone of memory, then we can understand the light image found in Bergson'sdescriptions of the turn of experience. Insofar as it rotates and turns tomemory, the turn of experience places us right in the grey light between the night ofdreaming and day of practical action. It lies precisely in what we called earlier 'thegrey zone'.14 Again in 'Introduction to Metaphysics', Bergson says,

I shall never imagine how black and white interpenetrate each other if I havenot seen grey, but I have no difficulty in understanding, once I have seengrey, how one can consider it from the double viewpoints of black and white.(PM 1430/198)

Like grey, the turn of experience is the place where one can see how nature andart, death and life, memory and matter interpenetrate and double themselves(cf. PM 1430/198). In fact, we must keep in mind that this grey source ofexperience is also the source sought in Bergson's later Two Sources, whichmeans we might even say that the turn of experience lies between what is pre-moral and what is moral.15 The grey zone implies that Bergson could havegiven Matter and Memory another name, like The Dawn, or he could have calledThe Two Sources, On the Genealogy of Morals.16 In any case, what is important tosee here is that the grey zone of the turn of experience does not imply that allartifice is excluded. In 'Introduction to Metaphysics', Bergson defines meta-physics as 'the science that claims to dispense with symbols' (PM 1396/162)and not as the science that dispenses with language. We must realize that theturn of experience establishes a certain relation to language. Indeed, if we do notunderstand that Bergson is setting up a certain relation to language here in theturn of experience, then we cannot understand the positive part of Bergson'sphilosophical method. Exactly like the cone, which not only rotates but alsocontracts, the turn not only turns to but also turns back or re-turns to matter.The form of the curve, which, Bergson tells us, is the passage going from theimmediate to the useful, is still in the dark; it must be 'reconstituted', asBergson says. Thus, we must take advantage of the nascent light of practicalaction in order to see the infinitely small elements of the real curve andreconstitute its whole form. So, if we see that Bergson's philosophical methodhas two sides, a seeing of the infinitely small elements of the passage from theimmediate to the useful and a reconstitution of the whole form on the basis ofthis seeing, then we must see that the turn of experience is bi-directional. But to


understand this bi-directionality, everything depends on getting the directionright: one must get up to the source above the bend where experience becomesliteral human experience; and, clearly, although Bergson does not say this here,we get up to the source only by a leap or a bound. Then, we come back down tohuman experience. The wrong or the bad direction is to regress from humanexperience to the source above. If we regress, the source will be mediated bystatic general ideas, like the idea of the good, which derive from the frag-mentation of experience due to social needs; in short, we end up in Platonism.For Bergson, if we want to be good metaphysicians, we must go from thesource down to the human, not from the human up to the source. If we get thedirection right, then the experience is immediate, true; it is unmediated by theregress from social life and thus it is unmediated by the obligations, habits andstatic general ideas of social life, by what Bergson calls 'the socialization of thetruth' (PM 1327/87).

The 'good' direction determines the relation between intuition and languagein Bergson. But before we turn to the relation between intuition and language, Iam going to summarize what we have seen so far. Bergson's philosophicalmethod can be characterized as an 'intuitionism' or an 'empiricism', in whichintuition or experience is not understood as a sort of easy instinct or feeling; it isan intellectual effort in which I put my senses in continuity with one another, inwhich I especially listen carefully to my own interior life. In other words, inBergson's intuitionism, I enlarge my consciousness to include unconsciousmemory; this enlargement, as we shall see, is the intuition of duration: I amlistening, so to speak, to the rhythm of my own heartbeat. In order to obtainthis intuition - here is the effort - I must turn away from the fragmented anddiscontinuous experience of social life and inhabit a, so to speak, 'worldwithout others'. In this loneliness, I am in the grey zone between the day ofpractical action and the night of dreaming. Here, in the middle, I try to see theinfinitely small differences in which experience consists and I try to reconstitutethe whole curve of experience. In this attempted reconstitution, I return tosocial life, or action, or language. Again, even in this brief description, we cansee the good direction, from experience above to human experience below.Now let us turn to Bergson's so-called philosophy of language.

BERGSON'S PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

The first thing we have to say here is that, for Bergson, intuition is not lan-guage. Indeed, there is a difference in nature between them. Intuition is notlanguage, because intuition is the continuity of duration, while language is thedivision of words. Language is division into words because it is directed


towards social needs (PM 1321/81); in contrast, intuition is continuousbecause it is directed towards our interior life. And finally, language gives usonly rearrangements of the old, while 'the philosophic spirit is sympathetic tothe endless renovations and re-inventions which are at the bottom of things'(PM 1322/82). This difference in nature between intuition and language is whyBergson rejects, perhaps infamously, all forms of verbalism,17 but it does notmean that we have excluded every relation between intuition and language. Itwould be entirely un-Bergsonian to say that things that differ in nature have norelation to one another. As Bergson says, 'thought... always utilizes language'(PM 1275/35).

In the second introduction to La pensee et le mouvant, Bergson defines lan-guage in this way:

What is the scope of words? One must not think that social life is a habitacquired and transmitted. Man is organized for city life as the ant is for theant-hill, but with this difference, that the ant possesses ready-made means ofattaining its end, while we bring what is necessary to reinvent them and tovary their form. Even though each word of our speech is conventional,language is not therefore a convention, and it is as natural to speak as it is towalk. Now, what is the primitive function of language? It is to establish acommunication with a view to cooperation. Language transmits orders orwarning. It prescribes or describes. (PM 1320-1/80)

What we must see here is that he is making a distinction that is parallel to onefound in his Two Sources of Morality and Religion, where he speaks of particularmoral obligations, which are particular acquired and transmitted habits, and hespeaks of the 'whole of obligation', which is the general habit of contractinghabits. In other words, particular moral obligations are conventional, while thewhole of obligation is natural. So, in regard to language, we can say thatBergson is making a distinction between linguistic conventions such as theparticular forms of words and particular linguistic codes or rules of syntax inwhich a particular language consists, and what we can call, following the ter-minology of The Two Sources, 'the whole of language'; in fact, in The TwoSources, Bergson suggests such a parallel distinction when he says that'[Obligation] is a virtual instinct, like that which lies behind speech. Themorality of a human society may indeed be compared to its language' (MR998/28). Therefore, if we can coin this phrase, 'the whole of language', thewhole of language would be the habit of contracting the habit of speaking aparticular language. The whole of language then would be at the source of theparticular languages we speak; it would be the absolute of language. In con-trast, the particular languages we speak are relative to the communities in


which we live and consequently they mediate our experience with the acquired,inert or static general ideas of those communities. In other words, to use theterminology of The Two Sources, particular linguistic conventions - which are,of course, artifices - enclose us; the habits of speaking are so easy, so handy,that we move outside them only with difficulty; in short, we do not want tomove outside them. But, to remain trapped within a particular set of conven-tions, artifices, or habits is not thinking; it is not freedom. So, if we can speak ofsomething like a 'philosophy of language' in Bergson, it is a philosophy of 'thewhole of language'. Only the whole of language can open us up and allow us tomove. That Bergson is concerned with the whole of language is why he says inthe second introduction that the philosophical method cannot be dialectic ordialogue or conversation (PM 1321-2/81). Philosophy, for Bergson, cannot beconversation because all conversational or dialectical philosophies merely cutreality up according to the already established divisions of a particular language(PM 1321-2/81). In fact, Bergson's disdain for dialectic or dialogue or con-versation explains his linguistic example found in chapter two of Matter andMemory.

So, let us go back to this chapter. Here, as we saw in Chapter Two, Bergsonis trying to differentiate between the two forms of memory. To see this dif-ference, he then turns to what he calls 'the intermediate states' between the twoforms (MM 235/89). We recall that the one form is 'habit-memory', the other,the memory that conserves images. The intermediate state between the twoforms of memory is recognition. Remember, the two forms of memory forBergson are not separate from one another; in fact, he intends the cone imageto illustrate the 'connection' between them. So, with the intermediate state ofrecognition we are again at this very connection. And, like the two forms ofmemory, recognition itself, according to Bergson, comes in two forms. On theone hand, there is inattentive or automatic recognition, which works entirely byhabits, and in which 'our movements prolong our perception in order to drawfrom it useful effects and thus distances us from the object' (MM 244/98).Insofar as it is concerned with habits and useful effects, inattentive recognitionworks entirely in terms of generality and is easy. When we make use of generalideas, especially static general ideas, we are in inattentive recognition. On theother hand, there is attentive or voluntary recognition, which involves memory-images and, consequently, requires effort, and in which our movements ''lead usback to the object in order to emphasize its contours' (MM 244/98). Insofar asit involves memory-images and is not concerned with useful effects, attentiverecognition works entirely in terms of singularity. We can see that with the twoforms of recognition we again have the summit and the base of the cone.

Bergson is primarily interested in attentive recognition because it involvesmemory-images. He illustrates this with the following example:


I listen to two people speaking in an unknown language. Is that sufficient forme to understand them? The vibrations that come to me are the same thatstrike their ears. However, I perceive only a confused noise in which all ofthe sounds resemble one another. I distinguish nothing and I could repeatnothing. In this same sonorous mass, in contrast, the two interlocutorsdisentangle vowels and syllables that hardly resemble one another, andfinally distinct words. Between them and me, where is the difference?(MM 254/109)

Clearly, the difference lies in that they know the language and I do not. BecauseBergson is interested in how memory functions in attentive recognition, hisdescriptions focus on the one who does not know the language, but let us thinka moment about the ones who do know the language and who are engaged in aconversation. Bergson does not tell us what they are speaking about but, if it isa normal conversation, we can imagine that they are talking about practicalmatters and therefore are utilizing conventional forms of speech and inter-preting one another in general ways or according to the acquired, static, generalideas of their community. Since these general ideas mediate their conversation,there can be no experience of alterity or alteration here; everything that is said isanalysed and synthesized, subsumed, under these ideas. So, for these peoplethere is no recognition of difference or singularity and no movement outsidethe conventions; there is only recognition based on habits. Indirectly, Bergsonpoints to an obvious feature of this experience when he talks a little later aboutraising the volume of the sound (MM 254/109). We all know this feature: whenpeople realize that you do not understand what they are saying, they speaklouder, and they might even start to yell at you. Of course, the louder voicesonly make you feel more outside their world and, when you still do not respondto them, they probably start to think that you are a little crazy. In fact, Bergsonconstructs this example because he thinks aphasics are, in relation to their ownlanguage, precisely like this person in relation to an unknown language.Therefore, being a little crazy like an aphasic - unable to recognize, unable tocommunicate - this person, we could say, inhabits a world without others. Thisis important: for Bergson, if we are to understand another person, to interpretspeech, in other words, to recognize the difference that defines that person, wemust be able to leap outside the particular world that we inhabit together. If Ido not make the leap, I remain captive to the static general ideas or conventionsof that particular language (cf. MM 261/116-17), and these ideas eliminate thevery possibility of experiencing difference. We have already mentioned this leaponce in this chapter, and we shall return to it in a moment.

As I said, Bergson constructs this example in order to illustrate attentiverecognition; in particular, the example of the person is supposed to illustrate,


for Bergson, what keeps the person who does not know the language and theaphasics from recognizing or understanding what is being said. When I hear alanguage I do not know, the words all flow into one another and resemble oneanother. Therefore, what I and, it seems, the aphasics lack is the ability todecompose the sounds into articulate words. Similarly, I and, it seems, certainaphasics lack the ability to recompose the words into sentences. What Bergsonrealizes here is that a part of any language training consists in a sort of 'manualeducation' (cf. PM 1325/85), in which we almost literally form the innermembranes of our ears upon the shapes of the sounds that we are hearing;similarly, we almost literally form the muscles of our throat and lips into thesounds we are speaking. This muscular formation, of course, takes place byrepetition (MM 256/111). When my ear and throat have been so formed, I canthen 'punctuate the sentence which is heard and ... emphasize its mainarticulations'; then, we have what Bergson calls 'the motor schema' (MM 255/110-11), that is, the muscular ability to discern the internal articulations of thesentence as well as the muscular ability, so to speak, 'to sketch' these samearticulations with our voice. But this ability to 'sketch' the motor schema withour ears and throat is only one side of attentive recognition for Bergson. Likethe first form of memory, this first side of attentive recognition entirely con-cerns the body: when the repetitions have had their effect, the motor schema isa motor habit. When we speak a foreign language fluently, we can speak it likean automaton - rapidly, perhaps even without thought. In fact, at the momentwhen the habits have taken control, the language becomes easy; the recognitionis so easy that we do not really have to pay attention. So, the first side ofattentive recognition does not really tell us much about the form of recognitionin which I really have to pay attention. But for Bergson, there is also a secondside. While the first form of attentive recognition concerns the body, the secondside concerns spirit.

Even if I am fluent in a language, or perhaps because I am fluent in a lan-guage, I do not hear what is different, singular and new in a sentence. What Ihave is a sort of manual dexterity with the language that allows me todecompose and recompose the sentences according to the motor schemas orhabits, that is, according to generalities. I am enclosed in this particular lan-guage with its particular set of conventions. But when I know a language'imperfectly' (ES 944/170), I am in a different situation. Here, I am extendingthe example Bergson gives in Matter and Memory of a person hearing a con-versation in a language I do not know. Let us say that now I have had sometraining in this language. Even with this training, I must make an effort becausethe motor schemas are not entirely in place. So, I must reflectively form my earand throat. But in order to listen to what is being said and understand itexactly, it is not enough to know the general motor patterns of the language, the


rules of syntax and the vocabulary. A motor schema, for Bergson, concernsonly action, not thought. Here we return to the leap.

In the second chapter of Matter and Memory Bergson says, 'To understandthe speech of another is ... to reconstruct intelligently - that is, starting from theideas - the continuity of sound that the ear perceives' (MM 261/116-17, myemphasis). In other words, if I am to understand, I must place myself'immediately' - d'emblee - 'in the midst of the corresponding ideas' (MM 261/116). As we have seen, what is most important about the leap in Bergson is thatit is not a step-by-step regress. In fact, in the case of listening, of understanding,it is really impossible to regress from the words that I am hearing to the ideas,because words, as Bergson says, have no 'absolute sense'; their sense is alwaysrelative to what follows them and what precedes them. Bergson goes on tomake the following comparison:

.. . a word has individuality for us only from the moment we have beentaught to abstract it. We do not first learn how to pronouce words butsentences. A word is always anastomosed to the other words that accompanyit and takes different aspects according to the cadence and movement of thesentences of which it makes an integral part: just as each note of a themevaguely reflects the whole theme. (MM 262/118, my emphasis; cf. alsoMM 269/124 and ES 945/170)

The word 'anastomose' is a biological term that means flowing into somethingelse by means of an outlet, like the criss-crossing of blood vessels or thechannels of a river. It suggests that a sentence is a complicated but unifiedpattern of flows or rhythms. So, if I tried to regress from each distinct word toan idea, I would be 'at a loss', 'wandering' from word to word (ES 945/170). Iwould never find the pattern. Bergson says that sense or the idea is the 'solder'of the words (MM 267/122). Therefore, in order to find this 'soldering' sense, Imust not regress; instead, I must leap right into the sense, and that means intothe past in general and then into a region of the past. Indeed, with the leap weare back inside the cone. But, this leap into the past also means that we haveescaped the particular language and now we find ourselves in the whole oflanguage, where we see language connected to memory.18 And, as with thecone, the direction of intelligence is from the ideas to the images, from thesense to the distinct words, from thought to action. We must keep this directionin mind, because it implies already that, if there is alterity in this experience, itis going to be dependent on my own interior life, on my memory, on my sense.

What is sense in Bergson? As we have noted earlier, sense is what Bergsoncalls a 'dynamic schema', and he discusses this concept most in his 1902 essay'Intellectual Effort' (ES 936/160). In Chapter Two, we encountered the con-


cept of dynamic schema in our discussion of a past that was never present; adynamic schema, we said, is a sort of essence. In 'Intellectual Effort', Bergsongives a very good example of a dynamic schema: the memory of a skilful chessplayer (ES 937-8/161-2). He notes that a skilful player can play several gamesof chess at once without looking at the chessboards, that this player does nothave the image of each chessboard in memory 'just as it is, "as if it were in amirror"', nor does he have 'a mental vision of each piece' (ES 938/161).Instead, the player 'retains and represents to himself... the power, the bearing,and the value, in a word, the function of each piece' (ES 938/162). And, foreach game, the player retains and represents to himself 'a composition of forcesor better a relation between allied or hostile powers' (ES 938/162). Then, atevery move the player makes an effort of 'reconstruction'; in other words, he orshe 'remakes' the history of the game from the beginning, or 'reconstitutes' thesuccessive events that have led to the present situation. Therefore, as Bergsonsays, 'He thus obtains a representation of the whole that enables him at anymoment to visualize the elements' (ES 938/162). What the example implies isthat the chess player has something like what Bergson would call an intuition;he or she has an intuition of the whole and the differences that can be devel-oped from it. We cannot think, however, that the chess player has the whole assuch; this would imply that the whole is given. But, for Bergson, the whole isnever given. Instead, the chess player has the whole as a schema, in which thereare unforeseeable developments. So, Bergson defines a dynamic schema in thisway: a dynamic schema is - these are Bergson's words - a 'simple' 'outline oftemporal relations' (ES 950/177), which is 'developable' into 'multiple images'(ES 936/160). In other words, it is a 'representation' of the whole that can bedeveloped into multiple parts or elements. Even though the dynamic schema isan 'outline' - it is also what we are going to call, in Appendix I, an example or asymbolic vision and is what we were calling in Chapter Two a dynamic generalidea - it is not, according to Bergson, an 'impoverised extract or summary' ofthis particular series of images (ES 937/160); if it were an extract or summary,the schema would be limited just to that series of images, and then the chessplayer would be unable to play new and different games. Similarly, a dynamicschema is not what the images taken together 'signify'; in other words, it is nota 'logical meaning', because a logical meaning 'may belong to quite differentseries of images' and therefore would not allow us to retain and reconstruct onedefinite series of images to the exclusion of others (ES 937/160). So, while animpoverished extract is too limited to be a dynamic schema, a logical meaningis too unlimited to be a dynamic schema. In other words, the extract has toosmall an extension, while the logical meaning has too large an extension. Adynamic schema, as Bergson says, is as complete as the images that developfrom it; it has 'reciprocal implication' and, consequently, 'internal complica-


tion', which the elements or images develop. The dynamic schema or sense inBergson is, to repeat an image from Chapter Two, 'the nebulosity of the idea'(MM 266/122). A cloud is a whole composed of thousands of drops of water,but I do not see the different drops until the cloud condenses. Similarly, theidea I have of my character is composed of thousands of singular events, but Ido not see those singular events until I rotate the cone. The idea anyone has ofhis or her character would be an example of a dynamic schema in Bergson. Theidea I have of my character is a simple outline of forces, which are developableinto singular images of action. This is sense in Bergson. His conception of senseas an outline of temporal relations or as a relation of forces and powers dis-tinguishes it from the phenomenological elaborations of sense, which seems tobe determined by the teleology towards an object.19 Bergsonian sense is atendency; it really is a direction, but an unpredictable direction. Bergsoniansense is creative.

Now, if we return to the problem of understanding another person who isspeaking a language that I do know well, we can see that it requires an intuitionof sense like that of the chess player. It may seem that I start from the sounds Iam hearing but, according to Bergson, this starting point is an illusion: thearticulate words I can discern act as nothing more than 'suggestions' or'benchmarks' for me to follow (ES 943/168). From them, I make the leap intosense, that is, into the past in general and then into a region of the past. When Ihave the sense suggested or the 'corresponding idea', I then have what Bergsoncalls the 'directing idea' (ES 956/184). This idea directs my progressiontowards distinct elements or auditory images such as words. In other words, onthe basis of the sense, I repeat or double what the other person has said. Both inMatter and Memory and in 'Intellectual Effort', Bergson compares this processto the operation of solving a mathematical problem (MM 261/116; ES 943/168). Even if the solution to a mathematical problem is written on the black-board, printed in books, or verbally explained to me, I do not understand thesolution to the problem unless I do it myself, unless I do it over for myself.Again the chalk marks on the blackboard or the symbols in the book or thesounds I hear do not lead me to the idea; they are nothing but suggestions. Iunderstand the solution to the problem when I can do it myself. Similarly, inthe case of hearing a language I know imperfectly, I understand the otherperson when I reconstruct, or re-say his or her sentence. In fact, I must say thesentence over again just as rapidly as the person speaking in order to keep up.But only if I can repeat the sentence completely can I say I really understand it,and this understanding is not that of generalities; it is not the understandinggiven to me either by the motor schema or by a static general idea. Because ofthe starting point in sense from which I develop the singular images of words, Iunderstand exactly what has been said in its singularity. But while this


understanding has had its suggestions and benchmarks in the speech I hear,and while Bergson calls it a 're-construction' or a 're-constitution', we mustrealize that the understanding of these specific words, in their very difference, isdependent on my sense. I must make the leap to understand the sentence but,insofar as I leap into sense, the understanding of the sentence develops fromme, not you. Indeed, we must even see the rhythm of the other's speech as afunction of my own rhythm. For Bergson, therefore, the plurality of rhythmsdevelops - and we must say develops without a mediating general idea, i.e. itdevelops immediately - from my intuition of my own sense.

So, the direction is not from the other to me for Bergson, but from me to theother. More precisely, the direction is from the dynamic schema or sense to thedistinct words and sentences; or, it is from my character to actual actions. Thisdirection is what Bergson throughout his writings calls 'good sense'. In chapterthree of Matter and Memory, Bergson calls good sense practical sense, whichmeans that its direction is towards action. In fact, in a speech he made in 1895,one year before the publication of Matter and Memory, Bergson says that goodsense 'loves actions'.20 Nevertheless, its direction towards action must beunderstood through its primary characteristic; good sense is primarily definedas being 'well balanced' (bien equilibre) between the extremes of the cone,between the 'docility' of the dreamer and the 'energy' of the person who acts(MM 294/153). Yet, insofar as good sense is 'well balanced', it never regresses,but always makes the leap and then progresses from the sense or dynamicschema to action and language. The leap and the progress towards action andlanguage is why we have to define good sense as doubly directed or bi-directional; it is dynamism itself. This dynamism is why, in the 1895 speech,Bergson calls good sense 'intellectual work itself.21 It is docile enough to usememory-images to recognize the singularity of the present situation andenergetic enough not to fall asleep and dream; it swings back and forth like apendulum. Again, in the 1895 speech Bergson says that good sense neithersleeps nor dreams. Indeed, this is why good sense is so fatiguing (ES 892/102).He also calls good sense 'an intuition of a superior order that is necessarilyrare'.22 In fact, this entire speech implies that what Bergson throughout hiswritings calls intuition is good sense, which means that for him intuition isnever simply knowledge, never simply speculative, but always also active,directed towards action. Finally, Bergson tells us that good sense's love ofaction conies from being 'profoundly moved for the good', from 'an intensewarmth that has become light'.23 Both of these comments suggest that intuitionin Bergson is based in a type of feeling or emotion.

Almost 30 years after this speech and Matter and Memory, we find in The TwoSources of Morality and Religion that intuition is based in a specific sort ofemotion, which Bergson calls creative emotions. He defines creative emotions


as those that generate thought (MR 1011/43). Most emotions, according toBergson, arise as a consequence of a representation; for instance, when I seesomeone I know, I feel pleasure. Here the cause of the emotion is the repre-sentation. But, for Bergson, there are also emotions that precede the repre-sentations and are in fact 'pregnant' with representations; here the emotion isthe cause and the representation is the effect. These emotions are rare (cf. MR1156/213); an example would be joy (and not pleasure). Another examplewould be the religious emotion of mystical ecstasy. As is well known, for betteror worse, in The Two Sources, Bergson provides a defence of mysticism whichconsists in arguing that mystics have 'superior good sense'. This superiorityconies from the visions, raptures, or ecstasies, in other words, the emotion thatcomes up from the depths, 'from the darkest depths of the soul' (MR 1170/229). Bergson interprets this emotion as a fleeting vision of the continuity ofour inner life, of the very roots of our being, of the very principle of life ingeneral (MR 1187/250). In other words, mystical rapture is an intuition ofduration. But such a rare and transitory experience upsets one's normal mentalequilibrium; in relation to common sense, the balance of superior good sense isa disequilibrium. This 'disequilibrium' is why mystics are frequently classifiedas insane (MR 1183/245). But such insanity amounts to a leap outside thehabits and conventions that are relative to one society. Therefore, if the dis-equilibrium is like the leap, then, as Bergson insists, the 'disturbance is asystematic readjustment with a superior equilibrium' (MR 1170/229); in fact,he insists that mystics have 'an exceptional, deep-rooted mental healthiness'(MR 1169/228). Thus, what is truly important about superior good sense is itsdirectedness towards action (MR 1169/228). And the action it is directedtowards is love of all humanity; superior good sense is not enclosed in onesociety but is open to all. In fact, the mystical soul is so open that its loveextends to animals, to plants, to all nature, to the entire universe (MR 1007/38). Now, we might think that this superior form of love actively directed at allhumanity, at the entire universe, defines duration, but, as with everything inBergson, we must not take this mystical love as a metaphor to help usunderstand duration, but rather we must redefine love on the basisof Bergsonian duration. So, we are going to conclude with a discussion ofduration.24

CONCLUSION

Think in Terms of Duration

The challenge of Bergsonism is to think in terms of duration and, perhaps, inthese investigations, we have done nothing but think in terms of duration; butnow, we are going to be as precise as possible about it. Most generally, Bergsondefines duration as memory, as he does for instance in his 'Introduction toMetaphysics' (PM 1411/179). But even if we can say this, that Bergson definesduration with memory, or that he defines it with change or movement, or withbiological or artistic creation, this does not help us understand duration. Wemust not define duration with these terms; we must see that duration redefinesmemory, change, movement, creation. In general, traditional metaphysics hasdefined these phenomena as a synthesis of discontinuous elements; we knowalready this synthesis of already analysed or juxtaposed elements cannot beduration. It seems to me that, despite Bergson's numerous and varieddescriptions of duration in his corpus,l we can define duration with two simpleclaims. The first is perhaps at the heart of Bergson's philosophy: the pastsurvives. The second follows from the first: the moment coming from thefuture is absolutely new. As we already know, Bergson describes this connec-tion between the first claim and the second, between the survival of the pastand the novelty of the future, in a number of ways: prolongation, continuity,progress and passage, to name the most obvious. But no matter what term wedecide to favour, this connection confronts us with an obscure logic. I am goingto try now to throw as much light on it as possible.

As we saw in Chapter Two, the survival of the past implies that the past isimpassible, i.e. it cannot be changed or done over. For Bergson, this impassiblecharacter of the past means that duration is irreversible (EC 499/6). To use theexample we saw in Chapter Two, if I am in the process of memorizing a poem,I repeat or do over the poem an indefinite number of times; each time I do itover, I improve my recitation of it. But no matter what, each time that I repeatthe poem on a particular day, in a particular place, this particular recitation isan event of my personal history, which I cannot repeat. Each time, each reci-tation, is an unrepeatable event - unlike the poem itself, which can be repeated.This explanation gives us the Bergsonian idea of the irreversibility of the past.


The next step in the explanation of duration is crucial: if duration or time werereversible, then I could say that the coming moment is a mere rearrangement ofpast moments, the past moments done over; like the repetition of the poem,this rearrangement certainly would not be new. But, since duration or time isnot reversible, I must conclude that each coming moment is new in relation tothe past moments, which are still surviving, and since the past moments are stillsurviving, the coming moment cannot be doing them over. Perhaps we canvisualize this connection between survival of the past and the coming momentin this way. Imagine that someone is holding a bunch of leaves from the sametree behind his back; then, this person is laying each leaf down side by side on atable in front of you and he is not taking any of them away as he lays down anew one. As each leaf is presented to me, I can see that it is different from allthe others because they are still there; I can see this even though the leavesresemble each other almost to the point of being indiscernible. Now, let uschange the image. Imagine that the person holding the leaves is taking each leafaway immediately after he has laid it on the table; now, we would start to think- because the leaves are so similar to one another - that this person is pre-senting the same leaf over and over again. When each leaf is taken away, weperceive no difference, when they are still there, we perceive difference. If thisimage makes sense, then, with Bergson, we must conclude that the survival ofthe past implies that the coming moment is not a repetition of the past, but is atleast singular.

Nevertheless, this way of characterizing the connection between the survivalof the past and the singularity of the future does not really give us newness; itseems to me that it only gives us difference. We can see why Bergson insists onthe novelty of the coming moment if we realize that, as each moment comes, itis added onto the whole of the past. So, with each different moment, memoryitself has changed; it includes the whole of the past plus one more moment. Inother words, memory as a whole has a constantly new organization. Grantedthat the difference of each coming moment from the past gives us a neworganization of the past or a new organization of duration as a whole, never-theless I think we probably would not yet call this 'swelling' of the past crea-tion. Yet, in Creative Evolution, for example, Bergson says that 'Each [momentof our life] is a kind of creation' (EC 500/7). I think we can start to see whyBergson would call this swelling of the past by different moments creation, ifwe change direction. So far, we have been characterizing duration only fromthe direction of the future to the present. If we now move from the past to thepresent, we can see that memory is constantly and spontaneously rotating andcontracting past memories in order to insert them into the present, into thehesitation, in other words, between the future and the past. The past is addingmemory-images to the perceptual image, like an artist painting a portrait (cf.


EC 499-500/6-7). Of course, I should have said here that an artist painting aportrait is like duration or that an artist painting a portrait is even in duration.Nevertheless, what is truly important is that, with the creation of the perceptualimage by means of the addition of memory-images, we can say now that, in asense, the present repeats the past (even though the past is irreversible).Moreover, like any artistic creation, the picture that results from this process isalways unpredictable or unforeseeable; it is unforeseeable because, on the onehand, the past is spontaneously adding memory-images to the perceptual image,and, on the other, the coming moment is always adding different perceptualimages to the whole of memory. If we keep this difference in mind betweeneach coming moment being different in relation to the whole of the past and thespontaneous contributions of memory to the creation of the perceptual image, Ithink we can see that, in the passage between the past and the future, there areboth quantitative differences and qualitative differences. Each differentmoment being added onto the ever swelling past does not necessarily bring fortha new existence or work or action; it differs by degrees from the past moments.For instance, as a pain grows, I can say that it is getting worse; indeed, I candescribe the pain on a numerical scale, which implies a kind of homogeneity.But, at a certain moment, the pain reaches a level where I sense that I have todo something, and then I decide to act; my decision and consequent action is aqualitative change and implies a kind of heterogeneity. Thus, I think we can seewhy Bergson constantly characterizes duration in contradictory terms: unityand multiplicity, simplicity and complexity, indivisible and divisible. But nomatter what, the connection between the survival of the past and the absolutelynew is not a contradiction because we must start with unity, simplicity andindivisibility, in a word, with homogeneity. Homogeneity is, of course, notreally the right word here, since there is always potential complexity in dura-tion. The right word to characterize duration is immanence. This starting pointin immanence is why we have to say that the logic of duration is not one ofsame and other, but a logic of alteration; duration is the same becoming-other.This is why Bergson says in his essay on laughter that 'As paradoxical as thisassertion may appear, we do not believe that the observation of other men isnecessary for the tragic poet' (R 466/148). Instead, inner observation isnecessary intuition. Here is what Bergson says, again, in his essay on laughter:

If the characters created by a poet give us the impression of life, it is onlybecause they are the poet himself - a multiplication or division of the poet -the poet plumbing the depths of his own nature in so powerful an effort ofinner observation that he lays hold of the virtual in the real, and takes upwhat nature has left as a mere outline or sketch in his soul in order to makeof it a finished work of art. (R 467/150)


Shakespeare was neither Macbeth, nor Hamlet, nor Othello; still, he mighthave been them. This is alteration from immanence, not the alterity fromtranscendence.

Bergsonian duration therefore is a simple idea; in fact, I can reduce itscomplexity down to three sentences. First, the past survives. Second, becausethe past survives, each coming moment cannot be a mere rearrangement of theold moments. Third, not being a rearrangement of the old, each comingmoment must therefore be new. This is as precise a formula as we can con-struct for Bergson's idea of duration. Yet, no matter how precise the expres-sions of the logic of duration have been here, what these expressions refer toremains, for Bergson, inexpressible (cf. MR 1189/252); no formula of durationis ever adequate to the intuition of duration, no formula ever gives us the wholeof the experience of duration (PM 1288/45). This inexpressibility of theintuition of duration is why Bergson was interested, throughout his career butespecially at the end, in the construction of expressions. So, near the end of TheTwo Sources of Morality and Religion, he speaks of two ways of writing. And, ofcourse, everything depends on the direction. On the one hand, one can takeideas and words made readily available by society and rearrange them. Bergsonadmits that, with this way of writing, there is a result and one that may be'original and vigorous' (MR 1190/253). But then there is the other way ofwriting: 'It consists in re-ascending from the intellectual and social plane to apoint in the soul from which there springs an imperative demand for creation'(MR 1191/253). This point in the soul is a creative emotion. Then, one worksfrom the emotion to the words, in which case the words are, as Bergson says,'fragments of [the emotion's] own materialization'. These words, of course,cannot be entirely new; if they were, nothing would be communicated. So, themovement from the emotion to the words will be one in which the words areforced and violence is done to them. As a result of this forcing and violence,success is never certain. In fact, according to Bergson, 'the writer wonders atevery step if it will be granted to him to go on to the end; he thanks his luck forevery partial success, just as the punster might thank the words he comes acrossfor lending themselves to his fun' (MR 1191/254). This reference to a punster,to un faiseur de calembours, sends us back to the essay on laughter (cf. R 444/111, where Bergson speaks of the calembour). And, indeed, there in the dis-cussion of wit - esprit, of course - we find what may be the most perfectlinguistic expression of the intuition of duration. As an example of esprit,Bergson gives us an expression of the love between a mother and a daughter(and not an expression of a love between a father and a son).2 He gives us thefollowing excerpt from a letter from Madame de Sevigne to her ailing daughter.Madame de Sevigne's love for her daughter is famous. Some would think that itis insane; but, if we use Bergson's terminology, we could call it 'superior love'.


Here is the witticism: 'The cold wind of your chateau makes me hurt in yourchest' (R 438/100).3 I shall end by noting that, according to Bergson, thiswitticism makes us neither cry nor laugh; instead, it only makes us smile(R 437/97).

APPENDIX I

The Point where Memory Turns Back into Life:An Investigation of Bergson's The Two Sources

of Morality and Religion

For Bergson, as for Levinas, ethics is defined neither by decision proceduresnor by the theoretical justification of moral judgements. In The Two Sources ofMorality and Religion, Bergson is not doing moral theory. Instead, as the titleitself indicates, he is attempting to determine the origin, or better, the origins ofmorality and religion. For Bergson, civilization or acquired knowledge andhabits are 'the thick layer of vegetative earth that today covers over [reconvert]the rock of original nature' (MR 1045/83). The Two Sources therefore isattempting to dig through this layer to the 'rock' below, hidden and yet stillpresent. We must therefore call what Bergson is doing here an archaeology,which means that it is a work of memory. The first two sentences of The TwoSources say,

The memory [souvenir] of forbidden fruit is what there is oldest in thememory [memoire] of each of us, as in the memory of humanity. We wouldnotice this, if this memory [souvenir] was not covered over [reconvert] byothers, to which we prefer to relate ourselves. (MR 981/9)

But, The Two Sources is more than an archaeology, it is an attempt to rememberthe very forces of life. It seeks to find the point where memory turns back intolife. Therefore, we must call it a genealogy, the genealogy of morality andreligion.1 And like Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality, Bergson's gen-ealogy aims at a transformation of our current situation, our 'today'.

The text that follows investigates Bergson's genealogy of morality and reli-gion; it seeks the very point where memory, a memory-image, as Bergsonwould say in Matter and Memory, turns back into life or emotion.2 In order toreach the point where memory turns back into life, we are going to, first,determine what Bergson means by 'today', a word with which he repeatedlyqualifies his comments (cf. MR 1215/282). As we shall see, our 'today' isdefined by being 'aphrodisical' (MR 1232/302). For Bergson, the counter-


weight to the aphrodisical nature of our whole civilization is asceticism. If thereis something like a philosophy of history in Bergson, it consists in a pendulummovement between 'asceticism and sexuality'. Now, we are going to see thatthere is a certain 'misdirection' (une tromperie) of nature that allows for thispendulum movement. And this misdirection of nature is at the heart of theBergsonian mystical experience. Thus, second, we shall investigate whatBergson means by mysticism; we shall see that 'the form of the mysticalexperience' consists in a certain relation between emotions and images. Theform of the mystical experience will bring us to 'the point where memory turnsback into life'; mystical experience in Bergson is memorial. But before we turnto what Bergson means by 'today', we must identify clearly the problem withwhich The Two Sources is concerned, and this is not as easy as one might think.Unlike his 1896 Matter and Memory, for which Bergson provided a preface 15years after its first publication, The Two Sources possesses no such guide. Weshall therefore begin our investigation with identifying the book's purpose.

I. THE THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL OBJECTIVESOF THE TWO SOURCES OF MORALITY AND RELIGION

In the 'Final Remarks' of The Two Sources, Bergson states explicitly that 'Theobjective of the present work was to investigate the origins of morality andreligion' (MR 1220/288). What is important is that Bergson does not rest withthe theoretical conclusions about these origins. He asks, 'can [the origins ofmorality and religion] help us practically"?' (MR 1206/271, my emphasis).Bergson was involved actively in world politics during and after the First WorldWar, and especially with practical matters such as the formation of the Leagueof Nations. And, just as the League of Nations was intended to prevent war, inThe Two Sources, Bergson's practical aid consists in showing how what he callsthe 'war-instinct' 'will be able to be repressed or turned aside' (MR 1220/288;cf. EC 537-8/50-1). Bergson's explanation of the war-instinct depends on theidea of a 'frenzy', a frenzy for luxury, in particular, which means that the frenzyis based on the artificial extension of the vital need for food (MR 1229/298).But, for Bergson, the frenzy is double (MR 1227/296). And just as there is now- 'today', he says - a frenzy for luxury, there was in the Middle Ages a frenzy forasceticism. According to Bergson, the double frenzy works like a 'pendulum'(MR 1123-4/292). The frenzy for luxury will eventually (but not necessarily)swing back towards asceticism. What we should notice here is that Bergsondescribes the two positions of the pendulum as 'frenzies'. The word frenzy(frenesie) derives from the Greek phrenesia, which means 'inflammation of thebrain' - in a word, madness.

Appendix I 87

With this double frenzy in mind, we can now determine three interrelatedtheoretical objectives that Bergson is pursuing, each one corresponding to thethree chapters in which The Two Sources consists. In the 'Final Remarks',Bergson says that 'mysticism calls forth asceticism' (MR 1238/308). So, tounderstand the frenzy of asceticism, we must understand mysticism. Andindeed, chapter three, 'Dynamic Religion', concerns precisely Bergson's defi-nition of mysticism. But in order to define mysticism, he must distinguish fromthe normal view we have of it; normally what we see in mysticism is only'pathological [mental] states' (MR 1183/245). In other words, he must distin-guish what he is calling mysticism from mental illness, from unbalanced states,states of 'disequilibrium' (desequilibres) (MR 1183/245).3 The reason weassociate mysticism with unbalanced states consists in the fact, which Bergsonadmits, that mystical states are 'abnormal' (TMSR 1169/228). The 'morbidstates' of 'a lunatic' (un fou) resemble mystic raptures and ecstasies (TMSR1169/228-9). Bergson distinguishes between mystic abnormality and morbidabnormality by showing that the 'great mystics'4 themselves (such as Joan ofArc) do not define themselves by the mystical visions and emotional dis-turbances they undergo. The visions and emotion are only a 'systematic rear-rangement aiming at a superior equilibrium'. Most importantly, this superiorequilibrium results in action. Action, for Bergson, defines mysticism. If we definemysticism as action, then we can distinguish the frenzy of mysticism from whathe calls 'charlatanism' (charlatanisme) (MR 1184/246; cf. MR 1169/229). Theword 'charlatan' literally means to prattle, to engage in idle talk, and thereforenot to act. This charlatanism brings us to Bergson's second theoretical objective,which is located in chapter two, 'Static Religion', of The Two Sources.

Bergson begins chapter two with an obvious fact: 'The spectacle of whatreligions were and of what certain religions still are is humiliating for humanintelligence. What a tissue of 'aberrations', 'errors', and 'absurdities' (MR1061/102). What Bergson is calling here 'static religion' refers not only to allthe polytheisms such as the religion of ancient Greece, not only to all the formsof paganism, but also to all superstitions, including the belief in evil spirits andmagic. Here, for Bergson, in these non-mystical religions we really havemadness. So, his second theoretical objective consists in showing why rationalbeings, 'Homo sapiens', are the only beings that believe in 'irrational things'(des choses deraisonable} (MR 1062/102). He will explain these aberrant beliefsby means of the fact that human beings, unlike animals, possess intelligence. Inother words, intelligent beings like human beings are the only creatures tobelieve in superstitions (MR 1067/109). For Bergson, intelligence consists inthe ability to manufacture tools, but this ability to manufacture tools requiresreflection (MR 1153/210). Reflection then produces two kinds of danger (MR1153-4/210). On the one hand, reflection gives humans a kind of 'foresight'


(prevision) that allows them to be aware of future dangers, in particular, death.The result of this vision of death is that humans become depressed;5 they thenlose 'confidence' (MR 1085/130) in their ability to act and finally detachthemselves from life. Because of intelligence, human beings become unbal-anced. But we become unbalanced in a second way. So, on the other hand,reflection allows humans to reflect on themselves. And, according to Bergson,as soon as we begin to think of ourselves, we become egoistical. Nature,however, has generated humanity to live in societies and societal life demandsdisinterestedness. Thus in two ways things need to be set right again. To dothis, according to Bergson, nature uses one of intelligence's functions, a specificform of the imagination, the 'tabulation function' (MR 1066-7/107-9). Thefabulation function invents images, 'voluntary hallucinations' (MR 1141/195),out of the feeling that there exists an invisible but efficacious presence that has'its eyes always turned towards us' (MR 1124/176). Eventually, the images ofthis efficacious presence become individual gods. The gods, on the one hand,intervene in human affairs to ward off the future dangers that we cannotcontrol. On the other hand, the gods intervene in human affairs in order toforbid egoism and thereby ensure social cohesion. The gods therefore restorethe balance lost through intelligence.

Bergson thinks that this restoration of balance occurs naturally and that thereis no madness here. This is not where the madness is; it occurs when anindividual is afraid or feels a need (MR 1090/136). For example, an enemy in adistant city threatens the individual or disease has destroyed his crops; theindividual can neither reach the distant enemy in order to strike back norobliterate the disease. Confidence is lost. Then the fabulation function takesover and starts to produce images of evil spirits to attack the enemy or toexplain the ruined crops. We are now in the domain of magic.6 These firstimages of evil spirits, according to Bergson, are extended in the direction of themagical 'recipes' or 'formulas' that are used to conjure up the spirits. Here wereturn to the idea of charlatanism. The magician is a charlatan, that is, he is notjust an imposter but also someone who merely talks, who merely utters'incantations'. The magician does not engage in scientific research to cure thedisease, nor does he go to the distant city and attack his enemy. In short, hedoes not act. But even this idle chatter is not quite madness, for Bergson. Atfirst, we had the images of the evil spirit; these images were extended in thedirection of formulas. But then, the images continue to extend themselves. As ifunder the influence of the magic incantation 'like is equivalent to like' (cf.TSMR 1118/169; also EC 519/29), the first images attract more, similar ones.Eventually, for this individual, the entire world ends up being 'peopled' withevil spirits. This unstoppable 'proliferation' (MR 1118/169) of images is'monstrous' (MR 1091/137); Bergson also calls it 'decadent' (MR 1094/140).

Appendix I 89

On the basis of this consideration of the first two theoretical objectives, wecan see already why Bergson called his book 'The Two Sources of Morality andReligion'. We have seen two sources or origins of religion. On the one hand,nature is the source of static religion. That is, the evolution of nature hasproduced intelligence, but intelligence unbalances the individual. This unbal-ance produces a natural need which in turn develops the fabulation function inorder to restore the balance. On the other hand, a certain kind of psychologicalstate, which is abnormal, is the source of dynamic religion. That is, a mysticalrapture unbalances the normal balance of the individual resulting in a differentkind of balance. Superior equilibrium results in action. Obviously, since bothsources - nature and mysticism - concern different kinds of balances andequilibriums, we are again speaking of the image of the pendulum (to which weshall return below). But just as obviously, if we think only of the title Bergsongave to this book, we can see that one of its theoretical objectives is to differ-entiate between these two sources. But why do they need to be differentiated?This question brings us to the third theoretical objective.

The third theoretical objective is located in the first chapter of The TwoSources, 'Moral Obligation'. Unlike the titles to chapters two and three - 'StaticReligion' and 'Dynamic Religion' - which together indicate a difference, thetitle for chapter one indicates a unity, within which Bergson is going to make adifference. This difference is that of closed morality and open morality. Closedmorality is the morality of a group, the morality of the city, and here we shouldkeep in mind the old walled cities of Europe. The closed morality aims only atthe self-preservation of the group and thus social cohesion. It consists in cus-toms.7 Society therefore trains the individual in these customs to the pointwhere the individual is habituated. The closed morality is entirely abouthabituation, even automatism. In contrast, the open morality is entirely aboutcreation. For Bergson, the open morality refers to the great moral initiators, themystics, and in particular, Jesus. Jesus gives us the image, according to Berg-son, of an individual who loves all humanity, not just one's friends, not just thegroup. In fact, the openness of this love is such that it has no object and thusextends to infinity, to every single thing. Here, we do not have customs but anexample (the image of Jesus given -in the Gospels) to follow or, more precisely,to which one aspires. Here, in the open morality, we do not have habits, butemotion and therefore, for Bergson, effort. As I said, the title of the firstchapter, 'Moral Obligation', implies a kind of unity. The two kinds of morality,the open and the closed, can come to be mixed together and therefore beindistinguishable.

But also, the title of the first chapter quickly makes one think of duty andthus of Kant's moral philosophy.8 According to Bergson, Kant has made a'psychological error' that has 'vitiated many theories of ethics' (MR 991/20).


The psychological error is this. In any given society, there are many different,particular obligations. The individual in society may at some time desire todeviate from one particular obligation. When this illicit desire arises, there willbe resistance from society but also from his habits (MR 992/21). If the indi-vidual combats these resistances, a psychological state of tension or contractionoccurs. The individual, in other words, experiences 'the rigidity' (la raideur) ofthe obligation. Now, according to Bergson, when philosophers such as Kantattribute a severe aspect to duty, they have 'externalized' this experience ofobligation's inflexibility. In fact, if we ignore the multiplicity of particularobligations in any given society, and if instead we look at what Bergson calls'the whole of obligation' (MR 995/25), then we would see that obedience toobligation is almost natural. Obligations, that is, customs, arise because of thenatural need an individual has for the stability that a society can give (MR 986-7/15). As a result of this natural need, society 'inculcates' habits of obedience inthe individual (MR 1057/97). And, habituation means that obedience to thewhole of obligation is, in fact, for the individual, effortless (MR 990/19).

The psychological error then consists in externalizing an exceptional experi-ence - which Bergson calls 'resistance to the resistances' - into a moral theory.Duty becomes severe and inflexible. But there is more to this error. Philosophers- and again Bergson has Kant in mind - 'believe that they can resolve obligationinto rational elements' (MR 992/22). In the experience of resistance to theresistances, the individual has an illicit desire. And, since the individual isintelligent, the individual will use intelligence, a 'rational method', to act onitself. According to Bergson, what is happening here is that the rational methodis merely restoring the force of the original tendency to obey the whole ofobligation that society has inculcated into the individual. But the tendency isone thing, the rational method is another (MR 993/22). The success of therational method, however, gives us the illusion that the force with which anindividual obeys any particular obligation comes from reason, that is, from theidea or representation, or better still, from the formula of the obligation.

But it is this rationalization of the force of closed morality into formulas thatreally leads to the need to differentiate between the closed and the openmorality. The open morality, for Bergson, is identical with the dynamic reli-gion, with mysticism. Here too we have a force. This second force is whatBergson calls 'the impetus of love' (elan d'amour) (MR 1057/96). Here too wemust speak of an experience, but one that is different from the experience ofresistance to the resistances. When a mystic has the experience of the impetusof love, this mystic, according to Bergson, undergoes a specific emotion andspecific images (MR 1170/229).9 Both the emotions and the images can,indeed, must, be explicated into actions and representations. But this processof explication can be extended. The representations that the mystic explicates

Appendix I 9 I

can be further explicated into formulas, for example, the formula of eachperson being deserving of respect and dignity. These formulas, which are theexpression of creation and love, are now able to be mixed with the formulasthat aim solely to insure the stability of any given society. Since we are nowspeaking only of formulas, this mixture of creation and cohesion is found on, asBergson says, 'the plane of intelligence'; the two forces now are mixed together,in other words, in reason. As before, where the rational method used in theexperience of resistance to the resistances comes to explain force of obedience,here in the mystical experience of the impetus of love, the formulas come toexplain the force of creation. A reversal has taken place. The very forces -which, Bergson says, 'are not strictly and exclusively moral' (MR 1056/96) -that have generated the formulas are instead now being explained by the for-mulas. We can see the difficulty that rational moral theories encounter. Howcould 'some representation of intelligence have the power to train the will'?How could 'an idea demand categorically its own realization'? As Bergson says,'Re-establish the duality [offerees], the difficulties vanish' (MR 1057/96).

Before we proceed to the next section, let me summarize what we have seenso far. In Bergson's The Two Sources of Morality and Religion., there are fourobjectives, each one corresponding to one of the book's four chapters. Thereare three theoretical objectives. Corresponding to chapter one, there is thetheoretical objective of righting the relation between intelligence or reason andthe forces of morality. Again, as Bergson says, 'Re-establish the original duality[offerees], the difficulties [found in intellectualist or rationalistic moral the-ories] vanish' (MR 1057/96). Corresponding to chapter two, there is the the-oretical objective of explaining why the only beings with intelligence believe inirrational things. It is intelligence itself that brings about this belief sinceintelligence unbalances the individual. Corresponding to chapter three, there isthe theoretical objective of differentiating between two unbalanced psycholo-gical states, between mystical states and morbid states. The difference is thatmystical states result in action, while the morbid ones do not. Then, corre-sponding to the 'Final Remarks', we saw the practical objective, which consistsin finding a method to repress the war-instinct. We shall now turn to a morethorough investigation of these 'Final Remarks' concerning the repression ofthe war-instinct.

II. ASCETICISM AND SEXUALITY

We can only 'repress' or 'turn aside' the 'war-instinct', and not abolish itbecause, as for Nietzsche,10 for Bergson, war is natural (MR 1023/57, 1217/284), 'inevitable' (MR 1210/276), even normal (MR 1001/31). War is natural


because humanity is an animal species like any other. Therefore, like everyother animal species, we have an instinct for the self-preservation of the species.And this instinct means that we must form ourselves into small communities(tribes, for instance); then it means that each small community, under certainconditions, will take what it needs and protect itself from any other smallcommunity that threatens it. As we shall see in a moment, this instinct for theconservation of the species includes an instinct for the multiplication of indi-viduals. In any case, the instinct for the conservation of the species is a war-instinct; it is 'the egoism of the tribe' (MR 1211/277). While, for Bergson, thereis no inescapable historical law, 'there are biological laws; and the humansocieties, insofar as they are partly willed by nature, pertain to biology on thisparticular point', that is, on war (MR 1221/293). Thus it is impossible thathumanity should renounce 'these habits of life' (MR 1221/293).

Yet, humans differ from other animal species, however, because nature gavehumanity a 'tool-making intelligence' (MR 1216/284, EC 613/139). We'construct' or 'invent' tools ourselves. So, humanity has necessarily the'property' of its instruments. While the war-instinct, which exists indepen-dently of any motivation (MR 1220/288), gives us the origin of war, property,for Bergson, is the necessary condition of war.11 The sufficient condition,however, is contact between human communities. At the moment when twocommunities meet, we might say that sociability and unsociability at once takeplace. For Bergson, if human communities had remained small (MR 1023/57,1209/275), and therefore isolated from one another, war would have notnecessarily broken out; war would have remained only 'virtual' (MR 1023/57).The virtuality of war at this moment does not mean that there are no conflicts.Because of the egoism that comes with intelligence, conflicts between differentindividuals within a small closed society break out necessarily. Yet, becauseclosed societies, like the closed society of the hymenoptera, aim at self-preservation and therefore command disinterestedness imperiously, two dif-ferent individuals who are quarreling with one another will feel the pressure oftheir habits and the pressure of society - they will experience the 'resistance tothe resistances' - to find a way to adjudicate the dispute (MR 1220/287). AsBergson stresses, however, there is a 'radical distinction' between differentindividuals within one community and different closed societies. Closedsocieties are defined by 'self-centeredness, cohesion, hierarchy, absoluteauthority of the chief, all of which, according to Bergson, 'means discipline,the war-spirit' (MR 1216/283).

But, again, if communities had remained small and isolated from oneanother, the war-spirit would have remained virtual. For Bergson, however,contact is necessary or essential because of the nature of the tools humansinvent. One human community must expand geographically because the tools

Appendix I 93

it has invented are intended to do work on specific 'matter' (MR 1217/284). Aplot of land or a forest or a lake will inevitably become exhausted, therebyforcing a community to seek out other lands, other forests, other lakes on whichto use its tools and thereby support its population. Then this community willinevitably encounter another, and the sufficient condition for war is fulfilled.Following the egoism of the tribe, human communities then clash over thematter on which the tools work (MR 1217/284). Bergson calls this kind of waran 'essential war' (MR 1219/286). Here, although it is originally independentof any motivation, the war-instinct 'hooks itself (s'accroche) onto 'rationalmotivations' (MR 1220/288); it is rational to support the population, in short,to feed it.

In contrast to essential wars, there are also what Bergson calls 'accidentalwars' (MR 1219/286, 1217/285). Although Bergson does not make this dis-tinction clearly, accidental wars seem to arise for two reasons. On the one hand,certain wars take place in order to prepare and train for essential wars, to keep,so to speak, the sword sharp (MR 1217/285). On the other hand, certain warstake place out of 'wounded pride, prestige or glory' (MR 1219/286). Con-nected with wounded pride, of course, is wounded vanity (MR 1230/300).Two different human communities come in contact, and the sufficient con-dition for war is fulfilled. This contact might be due at first to essential reasonsconnected with the matter on which the tools work. Yet, in the case of acci-dental wars, we have the phenomenon where each group compares itself to theother; they see each other's tools. One group recognizes the superior strength ofthe other group due to its tools, thus one group then experiences woundedpride and vanity. Since it is easier to take the tools that are already made than tomake them oneself (MR 1217/284), war breaks out. In accidental wars, thewar-instinct does not hook itself onto rational motivations of self-preservation,but becomes, we must say, irrational.

Now, for Bergson, 'the wars and conflicts of today' differ from the essentialand accidental kinds of war (MR 1219/286, 1220/288). The wars of today areconnected to the industrial character of our civilization (MR 1220/288).Bergson presents a schema of the conditions that lead to war today (MR 1220-1/288-9). Three times Bergson punctuates his description with a claim aboutthere being no war or about war emerging. These three terse but emphaticcomments allow us to divide the description into three phases. So, according toBergson, in order to understand the wars of today, we have to think aboutnations as purely agricultural populations. At this first phase, any given nationproduces enough food to feed the population, and the population increasesparallel to the yield of the soil. As Bergson says, 'So far, so good', no war. But,we come to a second phase. Without telling us why, Bergson states that anexcess (un trop-pleiri) of population occurs. Thus we now have an over-


populated community, and this fulfils the sufficient condition for war, which iscontact with another nation. The contact, however, does not occur because ofemigration. Here the egoism of the tribe determines not only that the excesspopulation does not want to emigrate but also that other nations do not wantthe overflow. The contact comes because 'industry will arrange things'.Industry puts the excess population to work in factories, and the factoriesproduce products to be exchanged with other nations for all kinds of goods, butprimarily for food. The result is that the excess population becomes, as Bergsonsays, 'internal emigrants'. One nation employs, indirectly, the excess populationof another nation, although the excess remain citizens of the nation in whichthey were born. Industry has therefore found a way of feeding the excesspopulation. But, if the nation that is indirectly employing the excess decidesnot to employ it, the excess 'is condemned to die of hunger - unless theydecide, carrying the whole country with them, to go and take what is refused tothem. There will be war' (MR 1221/289, my emphasis). This brings us to thethird phase. In the wars of today, people are not really threatened with dying ofhunger. Instead, what has happened, according to Bergson, is that 'peopleconsider that life is not worth living if they cannot have comforts [le confort],pleasures [I'amusement], and luxury [le luxe]' (MR 1221/289). From this needfor luxuries, 'war can emerge' (MR 1221/289). So, in the third phase, whichreally defines the wars of today, the 'need' for luxuries brings forth war.

The schema for the wars of today that Bergson has set up resembles thedescription of what he calls essential war insofar as the war-instinct hooks itselfonto the rational motivation to take the matter on which the tools work, inshort, the rational motivation to acquire food to stop starvation. Yet, theschema for wars of today differs in two ways from essential wars. On the onehand, it is not the case that the matter has exhausted itself and therefore there isa shortage of food; rather overpopulation causes the shortage and therebyprovides the motivation for war. Bergson says that 'the most serious [amongthe causes of the wars of today] is over-population' (MR 1221/289). On theother hand, instead of immediately attacking another community in order totake its food, the wars of today occur because of the way industry arrangesthings, putting the excess population to work, in effect, for other nations. Whenthe situation in the nation that indirectly employs changes - say, the demandfor certain products declines, which then leads to unemployment in the over-populated nation - then the overpopulated nation takes from the other nationby force. Yet, as an outgrowth of industry, as an outgrowth of modern scienceand 'the spirit of invention', there is a 'need' for luxury. In short, the causes ofthe wars of today are overpopulation and the need for luxury. But, for Bergson,these two causes are interconnected through the question of pleasure, in par-ticular, sexual pleasure.

Appendix I 95

In relation to overpopulation, it is necessary to recall, as Bergson does, anobvious fact about human sexuality. There is in humans an instinct to repro-duce, just as there is in other living beings (MR 1022-3/56-7). This instinctdemands that we preserve the species by producing as many individuals aspossible, by multiplying as much as possible. If we let this instinct determineour actions, we will find ourselves in a situation of overpopulation and there-fore in the threat of people dying of hunger: 'there will be war'. As Bergsonsays,

In no other matter [that is, in procreation] is it so dangerous to rely uponinstinct. Ancient mythology realized this when it coupled the goddess of lovewith the god of war. Let Venus have her way and she will bring you Mars.(MR 1222/290)

This instinct for reproduction reinforces Bergson's claim that war is naturaland must be controlled in a rational way, even 'rationed' (MR 1222/290).Clearly, Bergson thinks some sort of birth control must be enforced on anational or even international scale in order to attenuate this cause of war (MR1222/290). He also thinks that industry should be arranged to provide enoughfood, to satisfy the most basic of all needs, that is, feeding the world's popu-lation (MR 1236/306). In fact, he is confident that industry can do this,12

which tells us that while overpopulation is the most serious cause of war forBergson, it is not the most prevalent cause. The instinct for conserving thespecies by means of multiplying individuals, in short, sexuality, has anothereffect, one other than overpopulation.

The instinct for conserving the species is demanding. As we all know, 'thedemands of the procreative sense are imperious' (MR 1232/302). Thedemands must be satisfied and when they are, we experience pleasure. ForBergson, sexual pleasure is a sensation and not an emotion, which means thatsexual pleasure is 'a psychical transposition of a physical stimulus' (MR 1011/43). In other words, it is physical and not spiritual. Bergson calls this sensationof bodily pleasure 'forte mais pauvre', 'strong but impoverished' (MR 1232/302). It is easy to understand why he calls the sensation 'strong', since it is anintense pleasure. If intensity, however, defines the sensation, then sexual pleas-ure is based only on differences of degree. These differences of degree canexplain our preference for one sexual partner over another; one partner is betterthan another insofar as that partner gives a more intense pleasure. But, if thereare only differences of degree, then the pleasure, even as it varies from onepartner to another by degrees, is always essentially the same; there is no dif-ference in kind from one sexual act to another, from one partner to another. So,we must conclude that for Bergson, precisely because the sensation is strong, it


is 'impoverished'. The sensation is always the same; indeed, the act always endsin the same way, with exhaustion. Despite the impoverishment of the sensationand because of its strength, humanity, according to Bergson, has taken sexualpleasure as a fundamental 'musical note', from which it has made emerge aconstantly growing number of harmonics and timbres (MR 1232/302). If you'strike' any object - of course, a shoe, an odour, a room - you hear the 'sound'of sex, and the sound calls to us, to our senses, since it makes us imagine thesexual act. Bergson calls this sound of sex an obsession (MR 1232/302). As hesays, and we have quoted this passage before, 'all of our civilization is aphro-disicaF (MR 1232/302). All that we love is pleasure, which means that in 'ourcivilization' the object of love is not a person or God or all things or somethingcreated like a child. Pleasure itself has become the goal or end of sexuality.

But for Bergson, there is more to this 'love of pleasure'; it is pleasurable tolove pleasure. If we love pleasure, we must find ways of experiencing pleasure,and if we must experience pleasure, it is necessary to have, at least, 'con-veniences' (le simple agrement) (MR 1233/302). Having the convenience of, say,a bed is pleasurable, having the comfort (le bien-etre) of a soft bed is better, buthaving the luxury (le luxe) of, say, cotton sheets is even more pleasurable. Ofcourse, the soft bed and the cotton sheets are physically pleasurable. But toexperience pleasure, one must attract a partner; one must be 'sociable'. Thus,as Bergson says, 'at the beginning [of this scale going from conveniences tocomforts to luxuries] was vanity' (MR 1233/303). All the pleasure in the lovingof pleasure, therefore, for Bergson, comes down to the pleasure of beingdesired by someone else for one's luxuries (MR 1051/90). Pride too is at thebeginning of this scale; the appreciation given by someone else for one'sluxuries gives one pleasure. In this ascending scale from conveniences to lux-ury, we see developing an ascending scale of needs, needs that arise from thelove of pleasure. These needs, for Bergson, are artificial or anti-natural. In thisscale, the only natural need is the need to satisfy the demands of the procreativesense. The need for luxuries, however - luxuries that we take for comforts andcomforts that we take for conveniences - leads to war. In this case, in the warsof today, the war instinct has hooked itself onto irrational motivations: the needfor luxuries.13

For Bergson, as we noted in Section I, this need for pleasure that onlyluxuries can satisfy is a kind of frenzy today. Yet, this frenzy was a 'reaction' toanother frenzy, the frenzy for asceticism of the Middle Ages. As Bergson says,'Throughout the Middle Ages, an ascetic ideal had predominated. ... Herealready you had frenzy' (MR 1229/298). Again, as we have already noted,Bergson uses the image of the pendulum to describe this movement from onefrenzy back to another. Yet for a pendulum to swing back and forth, it must besuspended from a point. Thus Bergson claims that it is not impossible that

Appendix I 97

there was a 'kinship' among the three reactions - the Reformation, theRenaissance and the industrial impetus - against 'the form taken until then bythe Christian ideal' (MR 1238/308). Here Bergson changes his image. TheChristian ideal is like a planet revolving, now showing one side, now the other.The planet, like our moon, revolved: the frenzy for asceticism turned into thefrenzy for sexual pleasure. It might just as well turn back. Thus, according toBergson, if industry were organized to increase 'leisure for something otherthan the so-called pleasures, which an ill-directed industry has put within thereach of all', humanity might swing back to the other frenzy, that of asceticism.The frenzy for the complications of an aphrodisical civilization might turn backinto a frenzy for a simpler life. This new asceticism would allow humanity todevelop spiritually. Mysticism might be able to turn the war-spirit aside. Yet,these two faces of the ascetic ideal are indeed frenzies. How is any frenzypossible? We must return to the procreative sense.

III. THE TRUMPERY OF NATURE

Bergson thinks that 'we would finish with these demands [of the procreativesense] quickly if we held ourselves to nature' (MR 1232/302); in other words, ifwe restricted ourselves to the natural function of procreation like other animalspecies, humans would engage in the sexual act and be done with it. If werestricted ourselves in this way, the sexual act would be a means to an end, theend being the multiplication of individuals in order to conserve the species.But, since, today, everything seems to revolve around sex, something hashappened to this means-end relation. The direction (sens) of sexuality haschanged from its natural direction.

How is it possible to go in the opposite direction from nature, to misdirectnature? In chapter one of The Two Sources, Bergson describes the transitionfrom the closed morality to the open morality:

... there are numerous cases where humanity has deceived [a trompe] nature,which is so knowing and yet so naive. Surely, nature intended that humansshould procreate endlessly, like all the other living beings. Nature has takenthe minutest precautions in order to insure the conservation of the speciesthrough the multiplication of individuals. It has not therefore foreseen that,by giving us intelligence, intelligence would discover immediately the meansof cutting the sexual act off from its consequences, and that humans couldabstain from reaping without renouncing the pleasure of sowing. (MR1022-3/56-7, my emphasis)


The 'misdirection' (la tromperie) that intelligence plays on nature allows us toenjoy the pleasure of sex without producing children. In other words, intelli-gence has found a way of'cutting off the means - the sexual act and its pleasure- from its natural goal. It has found a way of turning Venus's love into an end initself. Love becomes the love of pleasure in and of itself. Now we can under-stand the impoverishment of the sexual sensation, which we noted above, inanother way. We saw that its impoverishment was due to the fact that thevariety of sexual pleasures amounted to nothing more than differences ofdegree. But, since the 'trumpery' that intelligence plays on nature separates thesexual act from its natural goal, the pleasure creates nothing. Pleasure has nogoal, pleasure has no direction, pleasure is not used. This side of the deception is asuperficial repetition of the same. Bergson, however, continuing the extractquoted above says:

It is in a wholly other direction [sens] that humans misdirect [trompe] naturewhen they extend social solidarity into human fraternity, but humans mis-lead nature nevertheless. Those societies whose design was pre-formed inthe original structure of the human soul, and of which we can still perceivethe plan in the innate and fundamental tendencies of modern humanity,required that the group be closely united, but that between group andgroup, there should be virtual hostility; we were always to be prepared forattack or defense. Not of course that nature designed war for war's sake.Those great leaders of humanity drawing humans after them, who havebroken down the gates of the city, seemed indeed thereby to have placedthemselves again in the current of the vital impetus ... [and] re-open whatwas closed. (MR 1023/57, my emphasis)

Nature aims only at the closed. The very same misdirection allows humanity toopen and go against nature by going either in the direction (sens) of pleasure forits own sake or in the direction (sens) of the love of all beings, of everything.The love that I have for one person, like Madame de Sevigne's love for herdaughter,14 can be repeated to everything. This would be repetition not of thesame, not a superficial repetition but a deep repetition of difference. These two'misdirecting' senses become, for Bergson, the two frenzies of history, aphro-disia and asceticism.

But we can see already the point from which these two frenzies are sus-pended: the repeatability of the form. The form of love can be repeated.Intelligence misdirects or trumps nature, since its function is to manufacturetools. As we have already seen, because intelligence has this function, it mustbe able to reflect (MR 1158/210). And as soon as I reflect, as soon as I think, asBergson says, I think of myself. The point suspending the pendulum of the two

Appendix I 99

frenzies is auto-affection. It is self-imitation (cf. MR 1102/149, 1118/168). Ifself-imitation is fundamental, then the self is always already doubled. Here wehave what must be called 'the paradox of the double'. The paradox is that if theself can be imitated, it is always already memorized, formalized, imitated,'imaged'. We might even say that it is always already art, artifice and artificial.15

Reflection (and not a reflex), this fold - 'pli', as in 'im-pli-cation', 'corn-pli-cation' and 'sim-pli-fication' - puts an interval between the stimulus andreaction; there is a hesitation (cf. MR 990/19). Thanks to the hesitation, thepast returns and the future is already seen. Although the derivation is unclear,the word 'trompe' is associated with infidelity, perfidy; there is a loss of con-fidence (as we have seen) in self-reflection. There is a 'deficit' (MR 1159/210),a 'lack' (MR 1155/211), depression. One is no longer confident that whatreturns from the past into the present will go in the right direction (sens). Thereis an 'interval' (MR 1005/37) between the present and the future. Or, there is akind of imbalance or disequilibrium between the past and the future (whichexplains what Bergson, in the 'Final Remarks', calls the 'law of the twofoldfrenzy'). But this disequilibrium means that the returning form is freed fromthe present. Thus the form of what returns is iterable or, as Bergson would say,'transformable', 'transfigurable', or 'transferable' from one object to another,even to unnatural or irrational objects. We cannot but think of Nietzsche: 'theform is fluid, but the sense [Sinn] is even more so'.16 The form and sense canbe hooked or unhooked, folded, re-folded, de-folded. Yet, with Nietzsche inmind, we must ask: what does the hooking and unhooking? In Bergson, 'wehave no choice' (MR 1008/39). There are always and only two forces: the forceof nature or instinct or habit - the procreative sense is imperious - or the forceof religion or intuition or emotion - creative emotion. But these two forces, likethe two frenzies, are reciprocally implicated in the elan vital. Unlike the abstractconcept of the will to live, the power of the vital impetus, as Bergson stresses, isempirical, meaning that it can be experienced (MR 1073/115).

IV. MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE: EMOTION AND IMAGE

Always for Bergson - this defines his 'superior empiricism' - if we are tounderstand what is original, the primitive force, we must seek out 'exceptionalexperiences' (MR 1111/161). Hence his interest in mystical experience. ForBergson, mystical experience re-ascends to the impetus of life itself; it goesback up above the turn in experience. Consequently, it generates 'dynamicreligion', without which there would be no open morality (MR 1002/33). Weare going to reconstruct Bergsonian mystical experience in terms of two sides:emotion or image. There is a disjunction here between the two sides because


Bergson himself puts one there: 'When the darkest depths of the soul arestirred, what rises to the surface and attains consciousness takes on there, if itbe intense enough, the form of an image or an emotion' (MR 1170/229, myemphasis). This disjunction refers to what Bergson himself calls the 'reciprocalimplication of the vital impetus' (elan vital) (MR 1072/115). There is a 'reciprocalimplication' between emotion and image that defines the form of the mysticalexperience. Bergson gives us three different ways to construe the reciprocalimplication: (a) the voice; (b) the tests; and (c) the detour.

FIRST WAY OF CONSTRUING THE 'RECIPROCAL IMPLICATION'BETWEEN EMOTION AND IMAGE: THE VOICE

We have already seen, in Section I, that Bergson aims to distinguish mysticalexperience from the morbid psychological states that afflict the mentally ill.The reason we associate mystics with those who suffer from mental illness isthat both undergo 'abnormal psychological states' (MR 1169/228). In both,there is an experience of imbalance or disequilibrium. As Bergson says, 'we runa risk in disturbing the normal relations between the conscious and theunconscious. We must not be astonished therefore if nervous disturbances attimes accompany mysticism' (MR 1170/229). But, in contrast to a lunatic,what precisely in the mystic is out of balance? We can answer this question onlyif we return to the individual in a closed society. An individual in a closedsociety lives in a feeling of 'well-being' (bien-etre), which one undergoes if thevarious resistances 'interfere' with one another, thereby cancelling each otherout (MR 1024/58). Bergson claims that this feeling of well-being resemblespleasure rather than joy (MR 1018/51). The idea is clear: one feels happy whenthe moral obligations are in balance with egoism. When this balance of theclosed society is disturbed - we stop the circular movement, the reciprocalconditioning between individual and society (MR 1170/230) - then we areabout to enter the mystical experience. There is a lack of well-being 'at thetimes when one's customary maxims of conduct look to be insufficient' (MR1004/34). These times (a des heures) of emotional disturbance are the beginningof mysticism. The first side of the mystical experience therefore is the feeling oremotion that disturbs well-being.17

The other side of the mystical experience is an image. But even before themystic undergoes an image, she18 experiences 'a call' (un appel) (MR 1003/34)or a 'voice' (MR 1170/230). We might even say that in general the mysticalexperience is the mystery of the voice. Nevertheless, the form of the mysticalexperience requires this voice, since Bergson stresses that the emotion thatopens the mystical experience is 'inexpressible' (MR 1189/252, 1013/46). The

Appendix I 101

emotion, being an emotion, is non-linguistic, silent. The voice therefore, forBergson, must be 'tacit' (MR 1004/35) or 'silent' (MR 1173/232). To define itin the most minimal way, we must say that this silent voice is a non-vocalizedvoice, which means that the voice is internal. The mystical experience is aninternal dialogue (auto-affection). Indeed, Bergson speaks of'silent conversa-tions' (des entretiens silencieux) (MR 1173/233); moreover, he says that prayer indynamic religion, that is, in mysticism, 'is indifferent to its verbal expression; itis an elevation of the soul that would be able to do without speech' (MR 1146/201).19 By means of listening to this voice (which is in the mystic), the mystic'senses [sent] an indefinable presence or divines [devine]' it (MR 1170/230).This presence is at first an 'invisible presence' (cf. MR 1110/159; also MR1125/176) found not out in nature but in me:20 God in me.21 Mysticism, inBergson, is 'entirely interior' (MR 1127/179) and yet this presence comes from'the outside' of consciousness (cf. MR 1011/43). As we noted in the previousparagraph, in the mystical experience the normal relations between con-sciousness (the inside) and the unconscious (the outside) are disturbed.

Bergson stresses that the sensing or divination of the presence is not a directperception (MR 1170/230). In addition, he says that dynamic religion supportshumans not by 'imaginative representations' (MR 1127/179), that is, not bythe voluntary hallucinations of static religion. But the sensing of the presence,the 'auscultation',22 we might say, of the silent voice, the 'apperception' of it(MR 1172/232), brings forth images. That there are images in the experience iswhy Bergson (quoting the great mystics) warns that the images may be hal-lucinations (MR 1170/229). If, however, the sensing of the presence is notperception and not the fabulation function, then this sensing of the presence ismemory. By means of memory, the voice, the invisible and silent presence - thevibration, we might say, deep within the chrysalis that is me or the base of thememory cone with its purified memories - has transformed itself into an image,into a memory-image, into, as Bergson says, a 'symbolic vision' (MR 1170/230,1172/232). The result of this image is that the mystic has detached herself fromlife. This detachment from life means that the mystic is now in God (MR1170-1/230); the detachment from life means attachment to God. As Bergsonsays, 'then comes a boundless joy, all-absorbing ecstasy or an enthrallingrapture' (MR 1170/230).

SECOND WAY OF CONSTRUING THE 'RECIPROCAL IMPLICATION'BETWEEN EMOTION AND IMAGE: THE TESTS

The Bergsonian mystical experience therefore is an experience of the emotionjoy, and not of well-being or pleasure. The joy comes from the pure con-


templation of the symbolic vision. For Bergson, any mysticism that stops here,that 'rests' (MR 1171/230) in contemplation remains 'incomplete mysticism'(MR 1166/225). Indeed, for Bergson, mysticism could stop here, as it did inancient Greek mysticism and in the eastern mysticisms. But if the mystic's joyrelinquishes its space in the mystic's soul to anxiety (inquietude), then themystic will move forward into complete mysticism. Why does anxiety occur?Bergson gives two reasons. The first reason for the mystic's anxiety is that thevision does not endure (MR 1170/230). That the vision does not endure meansthat it fades into the past; it is as if the vision died (and the mystic herself isindeed detached from life).23 The second reason consists in the fact that themystic's life is not yet divine. Even though the union with God is 'close'(etroite), even though there is no longer any 'distance' between thought and theobject of thought, even though there is no longer a 'radical separation' betweenthe one who loves and the one who is beloved, there is still something of themystic that remains 'outside' the union. The union then is not 'total' andtherefore not 'definitive' (MR 1171/230). What is still not absorbed in God isthe mystic's will. If the mystic acted, her action would be based only on herself,on her human will. This exteriority of the will and action in relation to Godbrings forth anxiety and agitation. Here we can see that the two reasons foranxiety are connected. If the mystic acted, she would be reattaching herself tolife and moving forward into the future; thereby forcing the vision into the past.

Now, according to Bergson, when this feeling of anxiety has grown to thepoint that it resides everywhere in the mystic, thereby displacing the joy thatcomes with the vision, then this anxiety becomes 'the impetus' (elan) for themystic to move forward beyond contemplation. The vision has faded and themystic finds herself alone, desolate, lost in the shadow (MR 1171/231). HereBergson adopts St John of the Cross's phrase: 'the darkest night'; we mustkeep in mind that this phrase implies that the vision is a kind of star in the nightsky. In any case, Bergson says that the idea of the darkest night is 'perhapswhat there is most significant, in any case most instructive, in Christianmysticism' (MR 1171/231). He says this because the darkest night brings onthe 'definitive phase' of complete mysticism, and this is the final preparationfor action. Bergson says that we cannot analyse this final preparation since themystics themselves have barely caught a glimpse of it (MR 1171/231). ThusBergson does not provide a detailed description. But he tells us that, in thisfinal preparation, the mystic submits herself, each part of herself'to the hardesttests' (aux plus dures epreuves). We must understand these tests as a kind ofascesis, a kind of asceticism. As Bergson says in the 'Final Remarks', and wehave already quoted this passage earlier, 'mysticism calls forth asceticism' (MR1238/308); in this experience the pendulum is swinging back. Mysticism, ofcourse, calls for a simpler life: no luxuries. The mystic therefore 'eliminates'

Appendix I 103

everything from her substance that 'God cannot use' (MR 1172/231-2, myemphasis). By means of the tests of herself, the mystic does not feel thedeprivation of what she has eliminated (cf. MR 1025/59).24 But insofar as theyeliminate and simplify, the tests are precisely tests of the will (MR 1172/231).While in contemplation, the mystic's soul was attached to God, she was inGod; now, after the tests, she is attached to life but God is in her (MR 11121232). As Bergson says, 'for the soul there is a superabundance of life. There isa boundless impetus. There is an irresistible impulse that hurls it into the mostvast enterprises' (MR 1172/232), in a word, into action. The 'definitive con-sequence' of the tests is that the mystic becomes a 'genius of the will' (MR1023/58, 1172/232, 1169/228). The mystic obtains from matter, from anyobstacle she confronts, 'for the future of the species, promises such as were outof the question when the species was constituted' (MR 1023/58). She is theone who is allowed to make promises, she is the one who is sovereign, beyondthe good and evil of any closed society.25 The mystic has 'superior good sense'(MR 1169/228). As Bergson says, 'An innate science, or rather an acquiredinnocence, suggests to her at the first blow the useful procedure, the decisiveact, the word that has no rejoinder' (MR 1172/232). Even though the mystic'sactions now 'flow from a spring [source] which is the very impetus of life' (MR1172/232), even though she is elevated, she feels no pride or vanity. Instead,the joy she felt in the contemplation of the symbolic vision has become 'greathumility' (MR 1173/232).

Before turning to the third way of construing the 'reciprocal implication'between emotion and image in the Bergsonian mystical experience, I am goingto summarize what we have seen in the first two. So far, we have charted thetransformation of both emotions and images. In the first way, we saw thefeeling of disturbed well-being transform itself into the joy. Between the twoemotions is the tacit voice that expresses an invisible presence calling to themystic. This voice then transforms itself into a vision, through which the mysticexperiences joy. What links the first two ways is the fact that the vision does notendure; it fades into the past and becomes a memory. This fading of the visioncauses the feeling of anxiety in the mystic, which eventually transforms itselfinto humility. But the mystic also feels anxiety insofar as her will is external tothe union with God experienced in the vision. The first two ways also chart amovement of inside and outside. In the first way the voice had started out asbeing internal to the mystic, but as it became a vision the mystic unifies herselfinto the vision. The second way starts out with the recognition that the mystic'swill is external to the union. God needs to be brought into the mystic's will. Thetests - mystical asceticism - achieve this. But how? The image in the visionbecomes an example and that is why Bergson speaks of the vision being'symbolical'. The mystic now is able to follow the example; thereby God acts in


the mystic's action. But what are these acts? According to Bergson, they areacts of love. This example and this love bring us to the third way.

THIRD WAY OF CONSTRUING THE 'RECIPROCAL IMPLICATION'BETWEEN EMOTION AND IMAGE: THE DETOUR

We have already seen that Bergson separates emotion from sensation, althoughemotion is a 'feeling' (sentiment) or a 'manifestation of sensibility', an 'affectivestate' (MR 1011/43). That emotion is not sensation means that it is not a'psychical transposition of a physical stimulus'. We also saw in Chapter Threethat Bergson in The Two Sources distinguishes between creative or supra-intellectual emotions and infra-intellectual emotions. The distinction is simple.A supra-intellectual emotion comes temporally before representations; indeed,it generates representations. This is why Bergson calls it creative. On the otherhand, there are emotions, like pleasure, that come temporally after repre-sentations or sensation; indeed, the sensation causes the emotion. Now, in themystical experience we are, of course, concerned with creative emotion; in fact,we are concerned with the emotion of love.

The love that forms a side of the mystical experience is not the love of one'scountry, one's fellow citizens, or one's family. If we ascend from our family tothe nation, according to Bergson, this emotion varies only by degrees. Yet themystic's love is a love of all humanity, of all things in fact (MR 1006-7/38).Here we have a difference in kind between patriotism and mystical love. Thisdifference in kind implies that mystical love is a genuine origin, based onnothing but itself. Indeed, as he did throughout his career, Bergson comparesmystical love to the emotion expressed in music. In an early text, from theperiod of Matter and Memory, Bergson had suggested that music is a creation exnihilo.2f> By the time of Creative Evolution (1907) Bergson criticizes the idea ofcreation ex nihilo (EC 747/298). This criticism means that creation is only everfor Bergson replacement (EC 732-3/2810) or, we might say, repetition.Although creation is repetition in Bergson, it still produces something new. Ashe says in The Two Sources,

new feelings adhere [adherent} to each new musical work, new feelingscreated by that music and within that music, new feelings that are dennedand delimited by the very design, unique of its kind, of the melody orsymphony. They have not therefore been extracted from life by art. (MR1009/40-1)

This comment means that the emotions created by the musical design are not

Appendix I 105

mere copies of emotions found already in nature, that is, they are not caused bynature.

There is, however, some relation between creative emotions and the emo-tions that nature has already caused. In order to define this relation, Bergsonspeaks first of all of the emotion felt in the face of a mountain: 'Thus themountain has been able, from all time, to communicate [communiquer a] tothose who were contemplating [contemplaient] it certain feelings [sentiments]comparable to sensations and which were in effect adherent to it [qui lui etaient

adherents]' (MR 1009/41). We can see with this word 'contemplation' we arevery close to the mystical experience. Yet, the emotion here is caused by therepresentation of the mountain; it is not yet a creative emotion. Bergsoncontinues: 'But [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau has created, in relation to it [a proposd'elle, that is, in relation to the mountain, la montagne], a new and originalemotion' (MR 1009/41). This emotion sprang from the soul of Rousseau,Bergson claims. Yet, the emotion 'hooks itself onto' (s'accrochdt a) themountain because 'the elementary feelings, neighbours [voisins] of the sensa-tion, provoked directly by the mountain came to be harmonized [s'accorder]with the new emotion' (MR 1009/41). Again, we are very close to the mysticalexperience since we have a new emotion. Being new and separated by thedative relation (the preposition 'a') from the elementary feelings, which arethemselves neighbours of the sensation of seeing the mountain, this emotioncannot be a mere copy; this is a creative emotion. Nevertheless, we do not havecreation out of nothing; 'Rousseau's emotion', we must say duplicates orrepeats - 'a propos d'elle', ''qui lui etaient adherents'', 'communiquer a', 's'accrochdta' - another emotion and another representation. Indeed, if the emotion werenot some sort of repetition, Rousseau would not have been able to put theemotion in circulation and allow it to become well known.

But Bergson not only speaks of the mountain, he also speaks of woman:'from all time woman must have inspired in [inspire a] man an inclinationdistinct from desire, which remained however contiguous and as it were sol-dered to it [y: to desire], participating simultaneously in feeling and sensation'(MR 1010/42). Here we return to the question of sexuality. Bergson is sayingthat, from always, there has been the sensation of woman, which stimulates theprocreative sense of men, which stimulates, in other words, desire. Yet, con-tiguous with the sensation, soldered to it, participating in it, and yet distinctfrom it, there is an emotion. This distinct yet contiguous emotion would belove and not desire, joy and not pleasure. Although the emotion was there fromall time (de tout temps'), Bergson claims that 'romantic love' has a date; it wascreated in the Middle Ages (MR 101/32). At this moment, the relation betweendesire and emotion, sensation and love reversed itself; the pendulum swung.Bergson says, 'someone suddenly thought of absorbing [I'on s'avisa d'absorber]


natural love into a feeling that is somehow supernatural, into the religiousemotion that Christianity had created and launched into the world' (MR 1010/42). At this moment (and we have already noted the importance of the MiddleAges for Bergson, its ascetic ideal), someone got the idea that love was vasterthan sex, that sex was included in love as a part in relation to the whole. At thismoment, pleasure, indeed sexual pleasure with another individual, was nolonger an end in itself but had become a means to an end; pleasure had a use inthe love of all things. Bergson calls this reversal or repetition or duplication ofpleasure and love a 'transfiguration' (MR 1010/42). Indeed, he distinguishesbetween pleasure and love by means of vanity. Between the two there aredifferent kinds of illusions of love. If we desire, we err in relation to the surfaceof what we see: the face of the beloved is not what it seems due to adornments.If we love, we err in relation to what we expect of love, to the depth of what wesee: fidelity.

Yet the love Bergson is describing in the mystical experience is more than thelove of a man for a woman (or vice versa). This heterosexual love would still beclosed, since it would exclude other people (and therefore include a kind ofhatred [MR 1007/39]).27 Bergson is speaking of the love of all humanity. Butthe object of this love cannot be represented. Bergson says that the object is toovast (MR 1005/36), since it includes not just all humanity, past, present andfuture, but also animals, plants and all nature (MR 1006-7/38). It is onlybecause the mystic cannot represent the object of her love that the love can becreative. If she could represent the object of her love, her love would only copythe representation; the emotion would only be infra-intellectual. Because themystic has no representation of all of humanity that could be copied, it cancreate only by means of what Bergson calls a 'detour' (MR 1002/33). What isthis detour?

We come now to the most crucial description of the 'reciprocal implication'of emotion and image. It is found in chapter one of the The Two Sources. Thedetour, Bergson says, is:

a personality brought up from the depths of the soul into the light of con-sciousness, stirring into life within us, which we felt might completely per-vade us later, and to which we wished to attach ourselves for the time being,as the disciple does to the master. As a matter of fact, this personality isoutlined from the day we have adopted a model; the desire to resemble,which is ideally the generator of a form to be taken, is already resemblance;the word, which we shall make our own, is the word whose echo we haveheard within ourselves. (MR 1004/35)

Thus, the personality that we are to become or to which we aspire is outlined

Appendix I 107

from the day we have adopted a model. There is a desire to resemble a modelor an example (MR 1003/34) or an image, something or someone singular.The image - and here we understand again why Bergson in his description ofthe mystical experience speaks of a symbolic vision - could indeed be a model,that is, the image or vision could become entirely representational or symbolic,a linguistic formula. Bergson says that the model might be a 'parent' or a'friend' that we evoke in thought or that it could be a person whose life story wehave heard. It could even be a mediocre professor mechanically teaching ascience that had earlier been created by geniuses (MR 1158/215). But it couldjust as well be something we had to memorize during childhood, like a poem ora prayer. Because Bergson speaks of resemblance and echo here - he alsospeaks of imitation (MR 1003/34) - this relation between personality andimage is a duplication or repetition. But this is a strange repetition since,according to Bergson, the repetition ideally creates the form that is to be taken,that is, it creates the form that is to be repeated, it duplicates that which is to bedoubled. We are again speaking of the paradox of the double. This creativerepetition happens, according to Bergson, when the formulas are filled withmatter and the matter is animate (MR 1005/36). In other words, the depth ofthe soul has to rise to the surface; this depth is emotion. It comes from theunconscious 'into' (a) consciousness, it is the silent voice calling to me like anelectric current passing through the telephone wire. Then the desire toresemble is replaced by love. Next, 'the materials furnished by intelligence firstfuse and then solidify again into ideas . . . informed by spirit itself (MR 1014/46). Bergson again compares this creation to musical composition:

What is there more systematically architectonic, more reflectively elaboratethan a Beethoven symphony? But through all the labor of arranging, re-arranging, selecting, carried out on the intellectual plane, the musician wasturning back to a point situated outside that plane, in order to search in thatpoint the acceptance or the rejection [of a musical phrase, for example], thedirection, the inspiration; at that point there lurked an indivisible emotion,which intelligence doubtless helped to unfold [s'expliciter] into music, butwhich was in itself something more than music and more than intelligence.(MR 1190/252-3)

This is the point where form is transformed, where pleasure become joy, whereone frenzy replaces another. It is the precise point where the past turns into thefuture, in other words, the precise point where memory turns back into life.

Memory being turned back into life means that the mystic is going to create anew genus. The mystic feels the need not just to act in order to save humanity -this kind of action would be based on an emotion caused by the representation


of suffering humanity, caused by the representation of the human genus. Themystic feels a need, however, to transform humanity itself; the mystic wants tocreate a 'divine humanity' (MR 1175/235). The image into which the mysticdetours is, in fact, the very image of God (MR 1002/33). The mystic thereforewants to create beings who love to create, as God Himself creates (MR 1191-2/254-5). We might say that the mystic in Bergson wants to create a super-humanity.

We have so far considered only 'the form of the mystical experience', because,in the third chapter of The Two Sources, 'Dynamic Religion', Bergson himselftemporarily distinguishes the form of the experience from its content. Indeed, hepresents Joan of Arc as an example of a great Christian mystic28 who separatedthe form of the experience from the content of spreading Christian faith anddogma (MR 1168/228). Bergson's privileging of Joan of Arc explains why wehave insisted on using the feminine pronoun when describing the form of theBergsonian mystical experience.29 Nevertheless, while he distinguishes the formof the experience from its content, it is not possible to understand the formwithout referring to Christianity. As Bergson says, 'mysticism and Christianitycondition one another indefinitely' (MR 1178/239). Thus, it is not even possibleto understand the example of Joan of Arc completely without referring toChristianity.30 Bergson stresses that the 'beginning' of mysticism, the 'origin' ofChristianity is 'the Christ' (MR 1178/239); 'the great mystics are indeed... theimitators, and original but incomplete continuators of what the Christ of theGospels was completely' (MR 1179/240). But he continues, 'He Himself can beconsidered as the continuator of the prophets of Israel' (MR 1179/240). At thebeginning of Christian mysticism, before 'the Christ', Bergson makes us 'recallthe tone and accent of the prophets of Israel' (MR 1038/76). The prophets ofIsrael provided 'the impetus' (I'elari) for Christian mysticism since they 'had thepassion for justice, demanded [redamerent] it in the name of the God of Israel'(MR 1179/240). When a 'great injustice has been done and condoned', '[theJewish prophets] raise their protest from the depth of the centuries'. Of course,this protest for justice was for the Jewish people alone; it was closed, not open.31

Yet Joan of Arc, too, had a passion for justice.32 Perhaps, one of the voices sheheard was also the cry of injustice (cf. MR 1039/76).

The cry of injustice helps us understand better the pendulum image. Inchapter one of The Two Sources, Bergson makes a distinction within justice justas he did within moral obligation. Much like Nietzsche, he claims that 'the ideaof justice must have already taken shape as far back as the days of exchange andbarter' (MR 1033/69). Justice, of course, has always evoked ideas of equality,of proportion, of compensation. Here we have equality between different thingsestablished by measuring them against a definite third thing, by weighing themin a pendulum device, in a scale or balance. Because justice is established in

Appendix I 109

relation to a third thing, and the third thing is determined by the society (by thecustoms of a closed society), Bergson calls this first kind of justice 'relativejustice' (MR 1035/72). He notes that a closed society with a class structure willmaintain the same definition of justice - equality measured by a third thing -but will extend it into a ratio or proportion (MR 1034/70). This kind of pro-portional equality allows for orderly societies. Bergson gives the example ofPlato's republic but he is speaking of any kind of aristocratic or oligarchicsociety (MR 1035/71). But when the inequality of class comes to look suspect,'the aristocracies tend to merge into democracies' (MR 1037/73). Now Berg-son does not specify these democracies, but, because he immediately says thatmany of them allow the inequality of slavery, he seems to have ancient Greekdemocracies in mind (MR 1037/74). Even democracy, which constantly evokesequality, does not break free of closed society; it remains true to its 'mercantileorigins' (MR 1035/71). This sort of democratic society still seeks 'equilibrium,arrived at mechanically and always transitory, like that of the balance held inthe hands of ancient justice' (MR 1037/74).

The other kind of justice, which Bergson calls 'absolute justice', comes onlyafter Christianity (MR 1040/77). The ancient Greeks, Bergson stresses, couldnot give up slavery, or the idea that foreigners, being barbarians, could claim norights (MR 1040/77). Not even 'the Stoic who was an emperor [that is, MarcusAurelius] considered the possibility of lowering the barrier between the freehuman and the slave, between the Roman citizen and the barbarian' (MR1040/77-8). With Christianity, the step was taken towards universal brother-hood, towards 'the idea that everyone, insofar as being human, were of equalworth and that the community of essence conferred on them the same fun-damental rights' (MR 1040/77). But Bergson's concept of absolute justice goesfurther than equality of rights. Unlike relative justice in which each individualhas a measurable value, in absolute justice each individual has an incommen-surate value (MR 1037/74). Here justice has become 'categorical and trans-cendent' (MR 1039/76). In fact, insofar as each individual is priceless, absolutejustice is actually charity, in the literal sense of the word: cams, cher (cf. MR1025/59, also MR 1007/38, 1016/49). According to Bergson, this charity is theessence of mysticism (MR 1238/309). It is the love of all humanity, Christianlove of the neighbour. Each person is so 'dear' or 'expensive' that justice can berendered only by giving oneself (MR 1166-7/225).33 And even this gift ofoneself does not balance the scales. Playing on the etymology, we can say that'ex-pensive' means 'outside of compensation', 'outside of the weighing', 'out-side of the balance'. The pendulum is always unbalanced, which makes itswing. In this sense, charity is always 'unjust charity'.34 Being essentiallyunjust, absolute justice or charity involves a complete representation only 'atinfinity' (MR 1036/74). Because it cannot be completely defined, it is for-

I 10 The Challenge of Bergsonism

mulated precisely and categorically only by prohibitions, by negative formulas,while its positive formulas proceed by successive creations (MR 1037/74). Thisway of proceeding is also true of democracy after Christianity, after the MiddleAges (MR 1040-1/78, 1238/308). Bergson says,

Objections occasioned by the vagueness of the democratic formulas arisefrom the fact that the original religious character has been misunderstood.How is it possible to ask for a precise definition of freedom and of equalitywhen the future must lie open to all sorts of progress, and especially to thecreation of new conditions under which it will be possible to have forms offreedom and equality which are impossible of realization, perhaps of con-ception, today? (MR 1215/282)35

Thus Bergson claims that the democracy of the post-medieval period 'is indeedthe most distant from nature, the only one to transcend, at least in intention,the conditions of the "closed society"' (MR 1214/281); it consists in 'a mightyeffort in the opposite direction [sens] from nature' (MR 1216/283). We findourselves again at the trumpery of nature.

CONCLUSION: THE STAR

Almost 40 years later, the descriptions of mystical experience in The TwoSources - the 'reciprocal implication' of emotion and image - complete Berg-son's description of the movement of the memory cone in Matter and Memory -pure memory (emotion) and memory-image (symbolic vision). Just as theconcept of memory in Matter and Memory was not just psychological butontological, the love that defines the mystical experience in The Two Sources is'essentially still more metaphysical than moral' (MR 1174/234). If The TwoSources is genuinely a book of ethics, then we must say that this ethics is an'originary ethics'. But the connection between Matter and Memory and The TwoSources is deeper still. The latter is a book of memory. It is not an accident thatits first line describes a memory. Indeed, Bergson calls the example that onefollows in open morality a 'memory that remained alive' (souvenir reste vivanf)(MR 1060/99). Again, if we must speak of an ethics in Bergson, we must saythat ethics is fundamentally mnemonic. It is an archaeology of the originaryexperience of the reciprocal implication of emotion and image. It is a genealogyof forms and forces in order to transform the human genus. Repeatedly, wehave alluded to similarities between Nietzsche and Bergson in this investiga-tion. In fact, as already mentioned, The Two Sources is the only published workof Bergson's which mentions Nietzsche's name (MR 1212/278).36 Bergson is a

Appendix I I I I

reverser of Platonism. But the sinking of the sun in Bergson does not return usto the earth. His 'Zarathustra' does not descend from his mountain back downto the earth. The setting of the Platonic sun in Bergson reveals, across the greylight, a night-time sky, with a point, a shining star (un astre), that sometimesshows one side and sometimes another (cf. MR 1238/308). Bergson's mysticalascetic, his 'Zoro-aster', his star-gazer, re-ascends, turns his eyes to the heavens(cf. MR 1175/235), using his 'telescope' of memory. More than an archae-ology, more than a genealogy, Bergson's anti-Platonism is an astronomy thatlooks for other forms of life.

APPENDIX II

English Translation of Jean Hyppolite's 1949 'Aspectsdivers de la memoire chez Bergson' (Various

Aspects of Memory in Bergson'), translated byAthena V. Colman

i

Bergson repeated several times that his entire philosophy had its source in theintuition of the pure duration, as described in his first original work, Time andFree Will. This duration - which is pure succession, the extension of the pastinto the present and therefore already memory - is not a series of distinct termsoutside of one another, nor a coexistence of the past with the present. Butrather, it manifests the indivisibility of a change, a change that, as Bergsonnotes in chapter four of Matter and Memory, undoubtedly endures. That is, thechange is not given all at once, but remains nevertheless indivisible. If onereflects on it, there is really an original intuition of consciousness, untransla-table exactly into the language of concepts, and that certain images - in thesense in which Bergson speaks of the mediating images of philosophicalintuition - can attempt to communicate in order to lead us to that firstexperience: I endure therefore I am. The Bergsonian 'cogito' implies this originalsynthesis of the past and the present with a view to the future, which is the newsense which Bergson gives to the word 'memory'. Memory here is not a par-ticular faculty that is concerned with repeating or reproducing the past in thepresent; it is consciousness itself insofar as this consciousness is creativeduration. One will note already this truly new meaning of the word 'memory'.Ordinarily, memory is only conceived of as a faculty of repetition or ofreproduction, and is thereby opposed to invention and creation. But Bergsonreunites the impetus towards the future with the thrust of the past in a uniqueintuition he calls memory. He speaks of 'the interior force that allows being tofree itself from the rhythm of the flow of things and to retain in an ever higherdegree the past in order to influence ever more deeply the future, that is, itsmemory, in the special meaning we give to the word' (MM 355/222), and 'all

Appendix II 1 1 3

the possible intensities of memory, or, what comes to the same thing, all thedegrees of freedom' (MM 355/222). In perception, spirit is distinguishedalready from matter in that it is, 'even then, memory, that is, the synthesis ofthe past and the present in view of the future' (MM 354/220). This memory,identical to duration, allows us to understand that Bergson reconciles, in hisfirst intuition, the philosophies of becoming with those of being. Becoming isnot reduced to a dust of successive fading instants, as in Heraclitean philoso-phy, nor is being thrown out outside of time, as in the philosophy of theEleatics. Through memory, duration is as substantial as it is change. The pastadheres to the present without, however, juxtaposing itself to the present - itextends itself into the present in order to create novelty and the unforeseeable.

In these conditions, the conservation of our past, as Bergson has ofteninsisted, does not constitute a particular problem:

an attention which could be extended indefinitely would hold under its gazeall the prior sentences with the last sentence of the lesson, and the eventsthat have preceded the lesson, and a portion, as large as we will want, ofwhat we call our past. The distinction which we make between our presentand our past is, therefore, if not arbitrary, at least relative to the expanse ofthe field that our attention to life can embrace. (PM 1386/151-2)

But it is precisely this distinction between the past and the present that constitutes aparticularly important problem for us in Bergsonism. This problem poses itselfat the same time as that of the limits of our attention to life, that of thedeterminate conditions of the effectiveness of our action in the world. Bergsontells us that memory does not need to be explained because it is duration itself,or the impetus of consciousness, from which he concludes: 'We will no longerhave to give an account of memory [du souvenir], but of forgetting' (PM 1388/153). Now we believe the Bergsonian problem of memory - in the varioussenses which Bergson gives to the term, and not solely in his 'special sense' ofmemory - is not just 'why forgetting?' but also 'why the distinction between thepast and the present?' We do not make this distinction in the intuition of theindivisibility of our duration. Indeed, these two questions are interdependent.It is against the background of forgetfulness that the past can stand out as past,but we must first understand how our indivisible, full duration is able itself tobreak itself open and give birth to this opposition of a past recognized as suchand a present whose axis is titled towards the future. Modern philosophies oftemporalization have criticized Bergson for making nothing more of theduration than 'cohesion', for not having recognized the separations and thereunifications of the ecstases of the past, present and future. In fact, one can saythat the second philosophical work of Bergson - Matter and Memory - is an


attempt to raise this problem and resolve it. 'Nature', Bergson writes, 'hasinvented a mechanism for canalizing our attention in the direction of thefuture, in order to turn it away from the past, I mean from this part of ourhistory that does not interest our present action' (PM 1388/153). In 'ThePerception of Change', after having shown how in principle a rather broadattention would hold its entire past with itself, not as a distinct representationof the present, but rather as a representation 'of the continuously present whichwould also be continuously moving', Bergson adds this remark that allows us toconsider how this separation of the present and the past presents itself to him:

As soon as this particular attention releases something that it held under itsview, immediately what is abandoned from the present becomes 'ipso facto'a part of the past. In a word, our present falls back into the past when westop attributing to it a current interest. It is so in the present of individuals,just as in the present of nations: an event belongs to the past, and it entersinto history when it no longer directly interests the politics of the day, andcan be neglected without the affairs of the country being affected by it. Aslong as its action makes itself felt, it adheres to the life of the nation andremains present to it. (PM 1386-7/152)

There would be much to say about this comparison which raises the questionof historical duration, of the past that constitutes history, that is, the question ofwhat, in our current history, incorporates the present or separates itself fromthat present as now being only historical. But Bergson has not developed thistheme, and has not explicitly studied historical duration - human duration ingeneral. In relation to this question, there are, in his work, only a few indica-tors. In contrast, Matter and Memory is devoted to the problem of the past ofthe human personality, to the problem of the past's distinction from the presentand its connection to the present. It is in this work that the various meanings ofthe word 'memory' come into view, such as 'creative duration'; 'knowingsomething [connaissance] from the past'; better, 'knowledge [savoir] of the past';'image' or the concrete and actualized memory [souvenir} of an event of myformer life. All these meanings are tied to each other, but they all presupposethe first, memory, in the special sense that Bergson gives to it, that is, creativeduration. We have to understand, however, how a certain rupture is possible atthe heart of this duration. Now, the transition from Time and Free Will to Matterand Memory and the different points of view in which Bergson places himself inthese two works are able to guide us already. In Time and Free Will, Bergsondiscovers duration through an effort of abstraction similar to that of Descartesin the first Meditations, isolating the soul from the body: 'I shall now close myeyes, I shall stop up my ears... I shall efface even from my thoughts all the

Appendix II 1 1 5

images of corporeal things'. In this way, Bergson attempts to isolate pureduration from space and the material things with which it is ordinarily mixed.'In our ego [mot], there is succession without 'mutual externality', outside ofthe ego, 'mutual externality' without succession' (DI 72-3/108). But thisdualism is as untenable as the dualism of the soul and the body. After having soseverely separated duration from space - the interior life from the world - it isindeed necessary to attempt to bring them together again, because we live inthe world and our freedom itself is an efficacious power only insofar as we canmake something of ourselves pass into the exteriority of the matter. Themajority of the criticisms that were made of Bergson's Time and Free Willconcerned this separation between duration and the world and the difficulty ofconceiving a pure interior life. The freedom of this pure interior life resemblesthe freedom of a beautiful soul because precisely the conditions of the reali-zation of this freedom in the world do not seem to be considered by it. But, incontrast, Matter and Memory deals with this problem of the insertion of ourfreedom into material being. In this work, there is much more talk of a 'choice'than in Time and Free Will because the material conditions of our realization inthe world require certain decisions and certain options, which allow us to makeour deep ego [mot] explicit, but which condemn us at the same time tomaintaining always a certain gap between oneself and oneself. In contrast, Timeand Free Will defined freedom by the undivided totality of our self. In its widestscope, Matter and Memory raises the question of incarnation. In Matter andMemory, we are no longer considering merely pure and undivided duration, butthe relationship of this duration to things; this is why the role of the body iscentral in it. The demands of action, the finitude of the spiritual impetus thatwe are, but which succeeds in expressing itself only by renouncing a part ofitself, lead to this body, this centre of action and organ of my presence in theworld. Action is, Rimbaud said, this dear point of the world. Thus it is in relationto this point that our duration is considered. This is why Matter and Memorystarts from the world, then the body, and not from interior duration.

I see clearly how my body ends up occupying a privileged situation in thiswhole. And I also understand how the notion of the interior and the exteriorarises, which is in the beginning nothing other than the distinction of mybody from other bodies. (MM 196/47)

While Time and Free Will, by a rigorous effort of abstraction, opens up theessence of a creative duration, Matter and Memory refers first to the body assymbolizing, by the complexity of its nervous system, a growing indetermina-tion in our reactions to the solicitations of the external world.

And if this be so, is not the growing richness of this perception likely to


symbolize the wider range of indetermination left to the choice of the livingbeing in its conduct with regard to things? Let us start, then, from thisindetermination as from the true principle. (MM 181-2/31)

One really sees how this freedom, which was far away from the world in Timeand Free Will., becomes here in Matter and Memory a certain indeterminationconnected to the complexity of an organic system. And, when Bergson followsthe progress of this complexity 'from the monera up to higher vertebrates'(MM 179/28), do we not see already the thesis of Creative Evolution sketchedout: how life was able to obtain from inert material an instrument of freedom?

It was a question of creating with matter, which is necessity itself, aninstrument of freedom, of making a machine which should triumph overmechanism, and of using the determinism of nature to pass through themeshes of the net which this very determinism had spread. (EC 719/264)

The human body is this set of utilized conveniences, this set of obstacles turnedaside, which characterize a certain species; and as Valery also says:

It has too many properties, it solves too many problems, possesses too manyfunctions and resources for it not to be a response to some transcendentdemand, which is powerful enough to construct it, but which is not powerfulenough to forgo its complication.

This finitude of our spiritual impetus and the necessity of passing through themechanisms of the body in order to give an efficacious power to our freedomexpress themselves by this attention to life, which is not, moreover, for Bergson,the only attention to which humans have access. Others are possible, even theattention of spirit to itself, 'the intuition that is reflection'. But before bringingourselves to this intuition which presupposes a painful effort of spirit in order toseize itself, Bergson studies in Matter and Memory the spontaneous functioningof our memory, which adheres to the mechanisms of the body and which islimited by them. By first considering this function, we can understand thenecessary separation of the past from the present, and then raise the problem ofthe being in itself of the past and the past for us.

II

In Matter and Memory, Bergson therefore studies spirit as oriented according toits attention to life or on the contrary (this orientation presupposing the reverse

Appendix II 1 1 7

orientation) spirit as slipping away from this attention and escaping intodreams. But it is spirit before its reflection on itselfin a pre-reflective stage -which is first the object of his study. Reflection only appears later, as anextension of the spontaneous process, reproducing that process in order topush it up to its extreme ending point or finally as a return of spirit to itself.(This attention of spirit to itself which Bergson in The Creative Mind callsintuition must not be confused either with the attention to life in its superiorforms that provides scientific intelligence, or with this abandonment of spirit tothe past, which really presupposes a detachment, but which leads only todreams or to a contemplation that is still sterile.) In this spontaneous func-tioning of spirit guided by its attention to life and to the world, memory plays aprimordial role. It is, for Bergson, spirit itself. Memory is not merely themechanical reproduction of the past, but sense. Sense is really what is revealedto us in Bergson's study of general ideas insofar as they are vital schemas whichoscillate between a motor habit, an identical response to different situations,and a discrimination of individual nuances. It is a supple memory whichspontaneously contracts itself or develops itself according to the demands ofadapting to the world. But already the first form of reflection appears there, theone which, taking up the spontaneous operation, pushes it to its extremeendpoint in order to fix its results. The idea, spontaneously formed as a vitalschema, thus becomes the idea of idea, and spirit becomes capable of doing thisspontaneous process again for itself.

But from genera so sketched out mechanically by habit we have passed, bymeans of an effort of reflection upon this very process, to the general ideal ofgenus; and when that idea has been constituted once, we have constructed(this time voluntarily) an unlimited number of general notions. (MM 301/161)

In Creative Evolution, Bergson will show how this effort of intelligence, appliedto language, will lead to a deeper reflection, the very reflection that implies atrue turning of spirit back upon itself, which intelligence alone cannot achieve,but intuition 'which is reflection' can.

The memory [memoire] about which Bergson is speaking, grasped in its workof adapting to the real, is, as we said, sense, as well as knowledge. Memoryalways carries itself completely towards the present in order then to make itselfexplicit, at a certain level corresponding to the demands of the action and of thequestion posed, in actual images which more or less overlap with the situationgiven in perception. But these images are actively created or reproduced; one mustnot compare the work of memory to a mechanical combination of images, ofready-made memories [souvenirs], which, deposited somewhere in the brain or


in the unconscious, would come to complete the given situation. In this lastcase, the functioning of spirit would be comparable to that of a machine, ascomplex as is imaginable. In the first case, on the contrary, memory [memoire]carries sense, and it is memory which precedes the situation, which mouldsitself onto the situation and informs it with its own knowledge, with its ownexperience, confirming, through the situation, the validity of its hypotheses,which are, in the etymological sense of the word, projects. Perhaps it isimportant to describe this work of a supple memory, which is spontaneousintelligence, before distinguishing with Bergson between the image memory[memoire] (which gives us an original representation of the past) and habitmemory [memoire] (which presents in a present corporeal mechanism theaccumulated results of past efforts). This famous distinction, with whicheveryone always starts, has perhaps distorted the study of Bergson a little,because by starting with it we neglect too much the movement of this memorywhich is recognition at all stages (that is, which is the sense of the present bymeans of the knowledge of the past, which is the discovery of the sense of givensituations). We are thus led to interpret the past in Bergson as a set of imageswhich are given ready-made in an unconscious - which, despite certainexpressions in Bergson, do not seem to us to correspond absolutely to hisconception of living memory [memoire]. Living memory is stretched outtowards the situation to be interpreted; its suppleness, its ability to dilate andcontract, contrasts with the rigidity of every mechanism. In contrast, by startingfrom this memory, we can understand the dissociation required by actionbetween a knowledge [savoir] of the past as such and a precise adaptation to thepresent which results in an actual process or in a gesture of the body. 'It is thewhole of memory', writes Bergson, 'that passes over into each of these circuits,since memory is always present', and again, 'in the effort of attention, spirit isalways concerned in its entirety, but it simplifies or complicates itself accordingto the level that it chooses in order to accomplish its evolutions' (MM 250/104-5). The famous image of the cone thus only symbolizes the possible doublemovement of spirit, its contraction down to the point of action, or its indefinitedilation up to dreaming. But, at each mental tone, at each level, memory isgiven in its completeness, and the double direction, the direction that leads backtowards the ecstasis of the past and the direction that leads to the ecstasis ofgesture, is as outlined. What then needs to be explained on the basis of theattention to life is this immanent distinction by which the 'me' [moi] of the past isopposed to the 'me' of the present at the same time as it collaborates with the'me' of the past, this distinction of the self with itself [de soi avec soi] which theopposition between the past and the present translates and which then thememory [souvenir] that has become actual in an image and the corporeal habitexpress. Before considering this knowledge of the past as such and its sig-

Appendix II 1 1 9

nificance, let us take note of the double process that Bergson speaks of withrespect to the cone. There is, on the one hand, the contraction or the expansionby which consciousness narrows or widens the development of its content. Butthere is also, at every possible stage, an unfolding of this or that past situationwhich serves to interpret the present. In fact, it is not the case that there aresome memories [des souvenirs], but one sole personal past which we can divide,render explicit more or less arbitrarily according to the demands of a presentsituation. This unfolding can be done at every mental level, which is whyBergson says the following:

In other words, the complete memory responds to the call of a present stateby two simultaneous movements, that of translation by which it carries itselfin its entirety to the experience and thus contracts more or less without itselfdividing itself in view of the action; and the other of rotation upon itself, bywhich it orients itself toward the current situation in order to present to itthat side of itself which is most useful. (MM 307-8/168-9)

Let us not moreover be duped by these mechanical and geometrical metaphorswhich Bergson makes use of here. These are only, as he himself says, meta-phors to make us rediscover the process of this memory which is spirit. Thismemory responds to the present situation by occupying a certain mental levelwithout dividing itself; it also responds by distinguishing in itself, in the totalitygiven at this level, a situation comparable to the present situation. We thus passfrom a virtual multiplicity, that of knowledge [satwr], to an actual multiplicity,that of the image. We are now going to consider the double direction aboutwhich we have spoken, the ecstasis of the past and that of the present, betweenwhich the concrete self [moi] is always situated. Thereby we will try to under-stand the past as such in Bergson.

Ill

Let us first start with this passage which seems to us essential and which showsus why spirit represents to itself the past, while matter only repeats it.

If matter does not remember the past, it is because it repeats the pastconstantly, because, subject to necessity, it unwinds a series of moments ofwhich each is the equivalent of the preceding moment and can be deducedfrom it. ... But a being which evolves, more or less freely, creates somethingnew every moment; it is therefore in vain that we would seek to read its pastin its present if the past were not deposited within this being in the form of


memory [souvenir]. Then, to take up a metaphor which has more than once

appeared in this book, it is necessary, and for similar reasons, that the past is

acted by matter, imagined by spirit. (MM 356/223)

Therefore insofar as spirit is invention, insofar as it is the creation of an

unforeseeable novelty, the distinction must be able to be made in it between a

past from which it detaches itself and a present to which it attaches itself. Spirit,

insofar as its impetus is finite, insofar as its attention to life is limited, must be

able to oppose its past to its present as what one contemplates to what one does.

No doubt we must still consider spirit, living memory, as uniting in itself the

two possible movements, the movement towards the past which results in the

ecstasis of a pure knowledge, where we unify ourselves with our past, and the

movement towards the present - or better yet, towards the future (for which

the world of our current perception sketches out possible realizations) - which

results in, at the limit, that gesture that is in the process of being done. In both

cases, spirit is outside of itself and loses itself in an unconsciousness. In the first

case, according to the direction of the past, spirit no longer gives itself over to

action. It is entirely contemplation, but a mute contemplation, for the pure

memory [le souvenir pur] is not an image; it becomes an image only in the effort

by which we bring it about, or, by which we, so to speak, re-create it. In the

second case, it is only just one movement or one series of bodily movements.

Therefore, we must really situate the creative spirit between these two direc-tions. Trying hard to gather itself together despite a double solicitation, the

creative sprit has a hold on its future only because it is capable of giving itself a

certain perspective upon its past, without abandoning itself to the disinterested

contemplation of the past which would completely detach it from life and from

reality. In this way, the representation of the past is generally conditioned by

our impetus towards the future; and this rupture of which we were speaking

previously between the past and the present must appear within the very heart

of our creative duration. Our past is what we must leave behind us in order to

be able to act. Our past is, nevertheless, still ourselves, because we are our past

as much as we are our bodies. But the true Self [le Soi], spirit, would not be able

to define itself either by one or by the other, since it is the creative impetus and

since this creation in a finite being like us presupposes precisely these two

extreme limits of pure contemplation, 'of the dreaming which is knowledge',

and pure movement. The finite spirit that we are is even nothing but the effort

to unify itself, despite this duality that is always present within it.

The ultimate problem in Bergson's philosophy, as he raises it himself in his

last work, The Two Sources, is without a doubt contained in the opposition of

these two terms (to which we shall return): contemplation and action. Let us

content ourselves here to indicating that the attention to life is not the only

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attention possible, that pure contemplation, which always sinks us into the pastand which always distances us from creative action, is only the refuge of anintelligence, which, detaching itself from the present, can no longer seize spiritas a creator. What would be needed is to unite, by a painful effort, the twodemands. Indeed, philosophical intuition is defined by Bergson as this vision ofcreative action:

What would be needed is that, turning back on itself and twisting on itself,the faculty of seeing should be made to be one with the act of willing - apainful effort which we can make suddenly, doing violence to our nature,but cannot sustain more than a few moments. (EC 696-7/237)

What would be needed is that the pure contemplation by which we define thepast be not merely the result of an interruption or of a relaxation of the creativeimpetus.

However, if our analysis is correct, we are now in a position to understandbetter what Bergson calls the past, and the kind of existence - in itself and forus - which he attributes to it. This existence of the past is considered in chapterthree of Matter and Memory. Unfair criticisms are often formulated against theconception that Bergson makes of the existence of our past: 'His realistic theoryof memory', for example writes Sartre in L 'Imagination, 'forces him to give tounconscious objects exactly the discontinuity and the multiplicity of objects inthe material world'. But this criticism neglects the distinction between thevirtual and the actual, the two multiplicities that were already opposed to oneanother in Time and Free Will. Our past, which is given in its totality undividedto consciousness, contains the details and events of our past life as a virtualmultiplicity. Just as, in Malebranche, we would not be able to identify intelli-gible extension with the local extension of things, in Bergson, we would not beable to identify the created extension, the virtual multiplicity of all the aspectsof our past life, with the distinct objects spread out in space. Although, it is truethat in dreams - through a sort of parallelism between the relaxation of thebody, which is nothing more than a multiplicity of sensations and affections,and the relaxation of spirit which loses itself in the knowledge of our past - acorrespondence is established between the two which leads to the diversity ofdream images. In dreams, pure knowledge actualizes itself in the affections ofthe body, and these affections refer back in turn to this knowledge.

But 'imagining is not remembering [se souvenir]' (MM 278/135). It is alwaysimportant to turn back to this passage in Bergson which refuses to turn the purememory of the past into an image or a multiplicity of images.

Without a doubt a memory [souvenir], insofar as it actualizes itself, tends to


live in an image; however, the converse is not true, and the image, pure andsimple, represents the past to me only if it is indeed in the past that I wentlooking for it, thus following the continuous progress that has led it out fromobscurity into the light. (MM 278/135)

How, therefore, must we understand this past, and what is spirit as long as it isonly pure memory? Bergson clearly insists on the characteristics of this pure -not imagined - knowledge that constitutes our past. 'Pure memory', he tells us,'is without an object'; it is purely speculative and by that it cuts in upon thepresent which is action.

We are bent on regarding perception as only an instruction addressed to apure spirit, as having a completely speculative interest. Then, as purememory [souvenir] is itself essentially a knowledge [connaissance] of this kind,since it no longer has an object, we can find between perception and memory[souvenir] only a difference of degree. (MM 279/137)

The German language allows us to bring the past closer to essence (gewesen etWeseri); it is indeed in this way it seems that we must understand the past, purememory in Bergson, provided that we do not confuse essence with the generaland abstract. My past is only knowledge; in memory the object is no longerdistinct from the subject. The different things we know [connaissance] about theworld are transposed into the dimension of knowledge [savoir] when it hasbecome my past. The past presents this characteristic: in the past, theknowledge [savoir] of the object has become a knowledge [savoir] of self. Itwould be interesting to compare this conception of the past in Bergson withPlatonic reminiscence. But the past which is at issue in Bergson is my past, theinteriorization of all my lived experience, which, without losing its individualityand its originality, has drawn itself up to essence. This is why the past is notimage. Without a doubt, it contains the virtual multiplicity of images that I amcapable of extracting from it according to the demands of action, or accordingto the whims of dreams. But at its core the past is only knowledge and when Iconfuse myself with my past, I can lose myself in nothing but a pure con-templation, which contains no distinction between the object contemplatedand the self which contemplates. This is an extreme limit where consciousnesstends to disappear.

This pure memory [souvenir] is unextended precisely because it is knowledgeand not action. In pure memory, as we have already noted, the multiplicity ofmemories [souvenirs], the various aspects, are only virtually indicated. This isreally a difficult problem, this relationship in Bergson between this virtualmultiplicity and the real multiplicity of the extended world and of the body. It

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looks as though there is a certain correspondence between the relaxation of myspirit which, renouncing action, becomes nothing but knowledge [savoir] of thepast, and the relaxation of the pure creative impetus which expresses itself bymeans of extension and materiality. But this correspondence on which Bergsoninsists in Creative Evolution with regard to the 'ideal genesis of matter' shows usthat we carry within ourselves, a priori in our own relaxation, the essence ofmultiplicity and spatiality, precisely because this relaxation is not spirit insofaras it is a creator, but spirit insofar as it is only contemplation. This corre-spondence between spirit which reduces itself to its past and renounces actionand materiality which is an interruption of the absolute creative impetus is atthe centre of Bergsonian metaphysics.

Finally, the past, insofar as it is not considered in its relation to present actionbut insofar as it is pure past [passe] or, if one takes the liberty to play on thesewords, insofar as it is something 'overcome', 'a thing of the past' [depasse], thispast is useless and powerless. We can only contemplate it and not do it. Mypast is disinterested; my present is sensori-motor. This is why there is anaesthetic of memory, and it would even perhaps be true to say that all aes-thetics, being contemplation, leads us to the past. There is, however, anotheraspect of art on which Bergson has also insisted. This is the aspect of creation,the aspect of the work, by means of which mute contemplation brings itself aboutin an image or in a present object.

These various characteristics of the past - absence of an object, unextended,powerlessness - allow us to understand what the existence of the past means. Mypast, Bergson says, no more stops existing when I stop realizing it than theobjects of the world stop existing when they are not present to my con-sciousness. 'There is no more reason to say that the past erases itself once it hasbeen perceived than there is to suppose that material objects stop existing whenI stop perceiving them' (MM 284/142). The past has not ceased to be; it has, incertain respects, but not completely, ceased to act. Since it cannot completelyrepeat itself in my action, since it is overcome [depasse] by my action insofar asit is new, my past, considered from this point of view, is what I am in itself [ensoi]. This 'in itself is opposed to the becoming of an ego [moi] which alwaysadds a new sense to what already was, but which can only make this addition,however, on the basis of this past which then re-becomes for us [pour nous].The difficulty really seems to lie in the necessity within which we are to con-sider this double relation: my past, insofar as it is only past, insofar as I canchange nothing in it and can only contemplate it in myself [en moi], and mypast insofar as it is still for me [pour moi] and insofar as it is waiting for itsultimate sense from my action. But this double relation, which corresponds tothe two possible directions of spirit, towards the past and towards the future, isthe life itself of spirit, as we have already seen.


The past in itself has not therefore stopped existing, 'but the same instinct, invirtue of which we open out space indefinitely before ourselves, prompts us toclose off time behind us as it flows' (MM 286/145). The world sketches,beyond the part present to consciousness, the horizon of our possible action inthe future. And all our interest bears on the progressive discovery of this worldwhich represents our future or is joined to our future. The past, on the con-trary, no longer interests us, since there is nothing we can change about it. It isthus considered, insofar as it is useless, as non-existent. But this is an illusiondue to the demands of the attention of life. If in fact one reflects on theconditions of existence that Bergson reduces to two fundamental conditions -(1) the presentation to consciousness, and (2) the logical or causal connectionof what is in this way presented with what precedes and what follows - onenotices, by denouncing the practical illusion of which we were previouslyspeaking, that these conditions are realized, but in a different way, for the objectsof the world as well as for our past. The objects of the world are partially givento our consciousness; that is our current perception. And the rigorous order ofthe laws of nature makes it such that this world does not distinguish itself from itspast, but repeats it tirelessly. 'If matter does not remember the past, it is becauseit repeats the past continually; .. . in this way its past is truly given in its present'(MM 356/222-3). But our past is also given to us in a certain way; it is this totalknowledge that always follows us. 'Our psychological life as a whole revealsitself in our character, although none of its past states manifests itself explicitlyin character' (MM 289/148). Finally, our past also conditions our present 'butwithout determining it in a necessary manner' (MM 289/148). The differencebetween the existence of the objects of the world and the complete existence ofour past is based, therefore, on the fact that, on the one hand, our discovery ofthe world goes from the part to the whole (since our perception disposes ofspace exactly in proportion to how our action disposes of time), while our past,which is self-knowledge, is initially given only as an undivided totality. Thereare no memories which are 'independent and fixed beings' (MM 305/166), butwe must observe 'the solidarity of psychological facts always given together toimmediate consciousness as an undivided whole which reflection alone cuts upinto distinct fragments' (MM 305/166). The difference between the existenceof objects of the world and the complete existence of our past is based, on theother hand, on the fact that the thrust of the past, which constitutes ourduration, does not completely determine our future. Our future really dependsin certain respects on our past, and when we join back up with the total impetus(this is the first meaning of the word 'memory' [memoire], it is synonymous withcreative duration, of which we are parts), we understand how this creativeimpetus differs from this repetition and from this identity towards which mattertends. But this is precisely why in the midst of this creative impetus the

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demands of action oppose the past, insofar as it is overcome [depasse], to thepresent as creator in relation to this past. We now come back to the fundamentalcomment which has inspired our entire analysis:

But a being which evolves, more or less freely, creates something new everymoment; it is therefore in vain that we would seek to read its past in itspresent if the past were not deposited within this being in the form ofmemory [souvenir]. (MM 356/223)

The separation of the past and the present, the separation of what is con-templated and what is done, results at once from the demands of the attentionto life and from the creative impetus which characterizes duration. The effort ofspirit presupposes this duality, this opposition of its past and its present, but theeffort makes sense only by means of the unity which envelops it, and by meansof the tension which reunites the two moments. In this way, we understand thedifficulties of the conception of the past for Bergson, which, considered in itsthrust and in its impetus, is not without power but which, considered incontrast as distinct from the present and from the future, can only be powerlessand merely contemplated.

IV

We come back now to this opposition - contemplation and action - which is for usfundamental in Bergson's philosophy as a whole, from Time and Free Will upuntil The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Of course, the distinction of thepast and the present in a human individuality is relative to the tension of hismemory, relative to the proper rhythm of his duration. The distinction istherefore more or less arbitrary. I call past what I can only contemplate withoutusing it or without including it in the richness of my lived present, in the richnessof my actual indivisible duration. And thereby it seems that one could conceive -Bergson has insisted on this many times - a completely indivisible duration ofthe Ego [Moi]. In this case, it would no longer be correct to speak of the past,even though duration and living memory are still constitutive of this Ego. It istrue that one would conceive badly, at least in a finite being like us, the creationof a new future, if one did not take into account a certain separation. This iswhy, even if, in humans, there is some arbitrariness in the distinction of past andpresent, nevertheless the necessity of a retrospection and of a prospection, of arelaxation towards the past and of a tension towards the future imposes itself.

It looks as though it may be necessary to go still further by interpreting thearticle which Bergson has devoted to false recognition, to the memory of the


present. The past, pure knowledge [savoir], would always accompany in principlethe lived present, as the shadow accompanies the person who moves. In this waycontemplation would always be possible. It would be the other side of thecreative impetus. But this inversion of the impetus, which would result incontemplating the present instead of projecting it towards the future, wouldmanifest itself to consciousness only on the occasion of an interruption of theattention to life. It is in this way that sometimes we recognize the present,contemplating in it its proper past; but at that moment, we truly stop acting,suspending, in this reflection of the present in its past, duration as creator. Wethus see ourselves in the gestures that we are making, but these gestures appearto us with a character of destiny. It looks as though the whole is given; werecognize or we are going to recognize the present as if it had already been lived'in an indeterminate past'. Creative action would always have its shadow, self-contemplation, but the attraction of the future would prevent us from seeing it.The past, in its essence, would in this way find its source in this other side ofaction. However, to contemplate the present as the past in this way is to stopacting. It is to interrupt the very impetus of life, such that we are not ablesimultaneously to contemplate and to do, short of a painful and rare effortwhich, without interrupting the impetus, would allow us to reflect creation itselfas creation: this would be intuition.

We want only to indicate these perspectives of Bergson's metaphysics.(Likewise, we have not been able to treat here the difficult problem of theimage in Bergson which would require taking up all of his philosophy underthis aspect.) What looks to us to condense the philosophical position thatBergson wanted to take is a formula which would invert the terms of one ofPlotinus' propositions cited by Bergson: 'Action is a shadow of contemplation.'And, for an intelligence that would detach itself from life, from the conditionsof the attention to life demanded of the human species, this contemplationwould appear as a summit. But, for Bergson, one must say on the contrary -and this would even hold for the mystics who, beyond the attention to life,participate in the source of all creation and in turn create - that 'contemplationis the shadow of action'. In this way we have seen the past which can only becontemplated, which expresses perhaps the essence of all contemplation,profiles itself always as the other side of the present oriented towards the future.

The very contemplation of our personal past is imageless; it is mute. Andwhen one wants to realize it, express it in images or works, an intellectual effort isnecessary which draws up more from us than there was at first. In this, perhaps,materiality justifies itself, as this beautiful passage from Bergson shows:

A thought, taken by itself, is a reciprocal implication of elements of whichwe cannot say whether they are one or many. Thought is a continuity, and in

Appendix II 127

all continuity there is confusion. For a thought to become distinct, it isindeed necessary that it scatter itself in words. Our only way of takingaccount of what we have in mind is to set down on a sheet of paper, side byside, the terms which interpenetrate one another. Just in this way doesmatter distinguish, separate, resolve into individualities and finally intopersonalities, tendencies previously confused in the original impetus of life.On the other hand, matter provokes and makes effort possible. Thoughtwhich is only thought, the work of art which is only conceived, the poemwhich is no more than a dream, as yet cost nothing in toil; it is the materialrealization of the poem in words, of the artistic conception in statues or inpaintings, which demands an effort. The effort is hard, but it is also valu-able, even more valuable than the work which it produces, because, thanksto the effort, one has drawn up more from oneself than there was, one hasraised oneself above where one was. This effort was impossible withoutmatter. By the resistance that it opposes and by the docility with which weendow it, it is at one and the same time the obstacle, the instrument, and thestimulus. It tests our strength, keeps its imprint, and calls for its intensifi-cation. (ES 831-2/22-3)

Notes

Preface: Memory and Life

1. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenologie de la perception., p. 30; Phenomenology ofPerception, p. 22.

2. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, pp. 432-3; Being and Time (Harper and Row),pp. 500-1; Being and Time (SUNY), pp. 416-17.

3. BER 108/104. Cf. also, Deleuze, Bergson, 1859-1941, in Les philosophescelebres, p. 298. Deleuze constructs this slogan for Bergsonism on the basisofPM 1260/19; EC 501/8.

4. Levinas, The Old and the New, in Time and the Other and additional essays,p. 132.

5. Levinas, The Old and the New, in Time and the Other and additional essays,p. 133.

6. Henri Bergson, Memoire et vie, textes choisi par Gilles Deleuze (Paris:Presses Universitaires de France, 1957).

7. Bergson's personal library is housed at Bibliotheque Doucet in Paris.Apparently, he never owned a copy of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. Butthe catalogue lists a 1939 French translation of The Will to Power. Bergsonmentions Nietzsche twice in Melanges, pp. 832 and 1180. The firstmention on p. 832 is a 1910 letter that suggests that he had a rather goodunderstanding of Nietzsche long before The Two Sources.

8. Deleuze, Bergson, 1859-1941, in Les philosophes celebres, p. 298.9. Deleuze and Guattari, Qu'est-ce que la philosophic?, p. 50; What is Philo-

sophy?, pp. 48-9.10. Delbos, Etudes critiques, Revue de metaphysique et de morale, 1897, p. 378.11. This footnote does not appear in the Citadel Press English translation:

'Once more, we have in no way pushed substance to the side. On thecontrary, we assert the persistence of existences. And we believe we havemade it easier to represent that persistence. How could one compare thisdoctrine to that of Heraclitus?'

12. Deleuze, Bergsonisme, p. 76; Bergsonism, p. 76.

Notes 129

Chapter One: The Concept of the Image: Phenomenology

1. The Table of Contents lists the following titles, to which I have added thepage numbers:I. Real Action and Possible Action (169-73/17-22)II. Representation (173-6/22-5)III. Realism and Idealism (177-81/25-30)IV. Selection of Images (181-92/31-43)V. The Relation of Representation to Action (192-7/43-8)VI. Image and Reality (197-201/48-52)VII. Image and Affective Sensation (201-3/52-5)VIII. Nature of Affective Sensation (203-6/55-8)IX. Image, Isolated from Affective Sensation (206-9/58-61)X. Natural Extension of Images (209-12/61-5)XI. Pure Perception (212-15/65-8)XII. Passage to the Problem of Matter (215-18/68-71)XIII. Passage to the Problem of Memory (218-23/71-6)

2. Deleuze, Cinema 1: L'Image-mouvement, p. 83; Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, p. 56.

3. Cf. Melanges, p. 361. Bergson extends this idea to mysticism in The TwoSources. For more on The Two Sources, see Appendix I.

4. Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, p. 23. The Latin term is, ofcourse, fingam.

5. The original preface concludes by saying: '[La philosophic] doit nousramener, par 1'analyse des fails et la comparison des doctrines, aux con-clusions du sens commun' (CEuvres, Edition du Centenaire, p. 1491).

6. This idea of 'the socialization of truth' refers back to the idea of a closedsociety and its natural instinct for self-preservation.

7. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenologie de la perception, p. 72; Phenomenology ofPerception, p. 59.

8. In this regard it is difficult to understand Sartre's criticism of the Berg-sonian image in his 1936 L'Imagination, p. 57. While Sartre is correctwhen he says that Bergson has 'constamment confondu le noeme et lanoese' (p. 51), this 'confusion' is precisely what makes the Bergsonianconcept of the image interesting and important.

9. See Bergson a G. Lechalas, in Melanges, pp. 410-11.10. See Bergson a G. Lechalas, in Melanges, p. 411.11. In this regard, it is hard to understand Gaston Bachelard's criticism of

Bergson in his 1936 The Dialectic of Duration, which concludes with achapter on 'rhythmanalysis', as if this idea is an advance over Bergsonism.

12. Deleuze, Cinema 1: I'lmage-mouvement, pp. 11-12; Cinema 1: TheMovement-Image, pp. 2-3: 'The evolution of the cinema, the conquest ofits own essence or novelty, was to take place through montage, the mobilecamera, and the emancipation of the viewpoint, which became separatefrom projection. The shot would then stop being a spatial category andbecome a temporal one, and the section would no longer be immobile butmobile. The cinema would rediscover that very movement-image of thefirst chapter of Matter and Memory.'

130 Notes

13. Bergson describes this specific type of symbolization in chapter four, MM355/222. Although he does not use the word 'correspond' there, thedescription resembles the descriptions in chapter one where he speaks of acorrespondence between two systems of images (MM 191/41). Otherpositive uses of the word 'symbol' can be found in chapter one, MM 187/37, 205/56.

14. Again, Sartre in L}Imagination correctly understands what Bergson issaying about the concept of the image ('on ne saurait trouver de reeledifference', p. 57), but it is precisely because there is only a difference indegree between the image and representation that Bergson can say that weperceive in the thing itself, and that the thing is not in us, in our per-ception.

15. Deleuze, Bergsonisme, p. 108; Deleuze, Bergsonism, p. 104. Cf. also,Deleuze, Bergson, 1859-1941, p. 298. Deleuze constructs this slogan forBergsonism on the basis of PM 1260/19; EC 501/8.

16. Bergson a G. Lechalas, in Melanges, p. 411.17. This comment should be compared to the last sentence of The Two

Sources: 'the essential function of the universe ... is a machine for themaking of gods' (MR 1245/317).

18. This hesitation or interval is very important. We return to it in Appendix I.19. Merleau-Ponty, La nature, p. 82. But, perhaps, we have to say that

Merleau-Ponty in The Visible and the Invisible is also not doing a phe-nomenology of perception. In a working note from February 1959,Merleau-Ponty says that Wesen in the sense of a verb is what 'Bergsonrather badly called "images"' (Le Visible et I'invisible, p. 228; The Visibleand the Invisible, p. 174). Coming from Heidegger, the idea of Wesen in thesense of a verb is at the centre of Merleau-Ponty's later thinking.

20. Here we must think of the telescope, an image to which we shall return inChapter Two and in Appendix I.

21. One could compare this poverty and luxury, this superficial repetition, ofpure perception with the poverty and luxury of sexuality in The TwoSources. See Appendix I.

Chapter Two: The Concept of Memory: Ontology

1. Derrida, La voix et le phenomene, p. 83; Speech and Phenomena, p. 75. Formore on Derrida's interpretation of Husserl, see Leonard Lawlor, Derridaand Husserl (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).

2. Derrida, La voix et le phenomene, p. 117; Speech and Phenomena, p. 104.See also Derrida's more recent, Le Toucher - Jean-Luc Nancy (Paris:Galilee, 2000).

3. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, pp. 432-3; Being and Time (Harper and Row),pp. 500-1; Being and Time (SUNY), pp. 416-17.

4. Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 1, p. 233; Nietzsche, vol. 1, p. 201.5. Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays,

translated by William Lovitt (New York, Harper and Row, 1977).

Notes 1 3 1

6. Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, p. 203.7. When one considers these two famous chapters one is always confronted

with a decision. One can focus on the psychology of memory, as Janke-levitch, for instance, does in his book on Bergson; or, one can focus on themetaphysics of memory, as Deleuze and Hyppolite do. I am obviouslyfollowing Hyppolite and Deleuze. See Vieillard-Baron in his 'Que sais-je?'volume, Bergson (p. 50 n. 1 and p. 51 n. 1).

8. For more on 'the whole of obligation' see Appendix I.9. Memory purified of images is life, the elan vital, creative emotion; the

affections or feelings involved in perception are infra-intellectual emo-tions. Clearly, at the time of Matter and Memory, Bergson had not yetmade the distinction between creative or supra-intellectual emotions andinfra-intellectual emotions. For more on this distinction see ChapterThree and especially Appendix I.

10. Bergson also compares memories, pure memories, to the suggestive wordof the hypnotist. When a hypnotist makes someone hypnotized feel hot,the hypnotist uses a word to suggest the feeling of hotness; but, obviously,the word 'hot' is not itself hot. A memory, therefore, for Bergson, is likethis suggestive word, which is not a sensation.

11. It is very important to remember that Bergson specifies the impotence ofpure memory in terms of utility, that is, in terms of needs and therefore interms of instincts, in a word, nature.

12. We could say that there is a 'reciprocal implication' between memory andmatter, between emotion (memory) and image (matter), or better still, areciprocal implication between emotion (memory) or image (matter).

13. Indeed, the other image Bergson provides, in reference to the function ofmemory in recognition, suggests the possibility of a second cone. See MM250/105.

14. Deleuze, Bergsonisme, p. 50; Bergsonism, p. 55.15. In the discussion of the difference in nature between the two forms of

memory, Bergson suggests that the two forms are not really independent(MM 231/85).

16. Cf. Hyppolite, Figures de la pensee philosophique, tome 1, p. 480; appendixtwo, p. 121-2

17. See Husson, L'Intellectualisme de Bergson, p. 21, where he says that '... inthe early text, the word "intelligence" designated the set of superiorfunction of knowledge, taken as a whole, regardless of the distinction onecan make between them, or, at least, it designated the set of functions ofintellection, that is, comprehension'. See, for example, PM 1275/35.

18. For more on this image of the night sky and planets, see Appendix I.19. For an English translation of this essay, see Appendix II.20. Hyppolite, Figures de la pensee philosophique, tome 1, p. 482; appendix two,

p. 12321. Deleuze, Bergsonisme, p. 50; Bergsonism, p. 55.22. In Bergson's 1908 essay, 'Memory of the Present and False Recognition',

he calls this past that was never present 'an indeterminate past' or a 'pastin general' (ES 899/111).

23. Insofar as Bergsonian memory is Platonic forgetfulness, Bergsonian

132 Notes

memory is really what Foucault calls a 'counter-memory'. See Foucault,Jean Hyppolite. 1907-1968, in Michel Foucault, Bits et ecrits, 1954-1988,p. 775; Foucault, Nietzsche, la genealogie, 1'histoire, in Homage a JeanHyppolite, p. 171; Nietzsche, Genealogy, History, in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, p. 163.

24. See Vieillard-Baron, Bergson, p. 56, and p. 56 n. 1.25. Levinas, Le temps et I'autre, p. 71; Time and the Other, p. 80.

Chapter Three: The Concept of Sense: Ethics

1. See Jankelevitch, Bergson, p. 271.2. Levinas, Totalite et infini, pp. 17-18; Totality and Infinity, p. 47.3. Levinas, Totalite et infini, p. 23; Totality and Infinity, p. 52.4. See Deleuze, Michel Tournier et le monde sans autrui, in Logique du sens;

Michel Tournier and the World without Others, in The Logic of Sense.5. Levinas, Le Temps et I'autre, p. 83; Time and the Other and additional essays,

pp. 89-90.6. Levinas, The Old and the New, in Time and the Other and additional essays,

p. 133.7. Emmanual Levinas, Theorie de I'intuition dans la phenomenologie de Husserl

(Paris: Vrin, 1984); English translation by Andre Orianne as The Theory ofIntuition in Husserl's Phenomenology (Evanston: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1973).

8. We will follow the other direction in Appendix I.9. 'Pure variation' is Deleuze and Guattari's definition of a concept in Qu'est-

ce que la philosophic?, pp. 25, 190; What is Philosophy?, pp. 20, 202.10. See Michel Foucault, Les mots et les choses (Paris: Gallimard, 1966),

pp. 318-19; English translation by anonymous translator as The Order ofThings (New York: Random House, 1970), p. 328.

11. Melanges, pp. 1148-9.12. Cf. MM 197-9/48-50, on the education of the senses.13. We return to The Two Sources in Appendix I.14. I have appropriated this idea of a grey zone from Foucault, in his

Nietzsche, Genealogy, History. But, as in Appendix I, we could call thiszone, again following Foucault in The Archeology of Knowledge, a kind of'point of diffraction'. Calling it a point allows us to connect this zone toBergson's metaphor of a revolving star or planet (un astre).

15. Cf. MR 1056/96: 'but in the two cases [open and closed], you are con-fronted by forces that are not strictly and exclusively moral.'

16. We shall return to this intersection between Bergson and Nietzsche inAppendix I.

17. See, for example, Hyppolite, Logique et existence, p. 60; Logic and Existence,pp. 48-9.

18. And thus connected to the elan vital, to use Bergson's later terminology.19. See Husserl, Ideas I, paras 124, 130, 131.20. Melanges, p. 363.

Notes 133

21. Melanges, p. 362.22. Melanges, p. 361.23. Melanges, pp. 371, 372.24. We return to the question of mysticism and creative emotion in Appendix I.

Conclusion: Think in Terms of Duration

1. There are two main descriptions of duration in Bergson's corpus: chaptertwo of the Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness (Time and Free Willin English) and the first eight pages of Creative Evolution.

2. Cf. MR 1012/44 for Bergson on 'feminine' sensibility and see, especially,n. 1 in the French, n. 2 in the English.

3. The actual letter is from 29 December 1688, pp. 294-6 of vol. Ill ofLettres.

Appendix I: The Point where Memory Turns Back into Life: An Investigationof Bergson's The Two Sources of Morality and Religion

1. Since, as Bergson himself says, The Two Sources 'goes beyond the con-clusions of Creative Evolution' (MR 1193/256), we have to see The TwoSources as an attempt, like Creative Evolution, to trace 'the genealogical treeof life' back to its 'root' (EC 531/43).

2. Concerning Bergson's idea of ethics, it is an appendix to Chapter Threeabove, in particular.

3. See Henri Gouhier, Bergson et le Christ des evangiles (Paris: Fayard, 1961),p. 154.

4. Bergson takes this phrase (MR 1179/240) from Henri Delacroix's study ofmystics (Etudes d'histoires et de psychologie du mysticisms). See Melanges,p. 789.

5. Like Nietzsche who had already recognized that religion has the functionof'curing' depression (On the Genealogy of Morals, third treatise, para. 17,p. 94), Bergson says, 'Religion is that element which, in beings endowedwith reason, is called upon to fill in any deficiency [deficit] of attachment tolife' (MR 1154/210, also MR 984-5/13). By means of the fabulationfunction, static religion fills in this deficiency and reattaches us, or moreprecisely, individuals, to life in closed societies.

6. Strictly, for Bergson, before its indefinite extension, magic is rational andnot madness (cf. TM 1090/136). At the beginning, magic apparentlyworked (MR 1116/166), and this efficacy is why magic contributed attimes to the progress of science. Magic becomes irrational when it extendsitself in the direction of evil spirits and the mechanical repetition ofincantations (MR 1117-18/168-9).

7. The closed morality in Bergson is identical to what Nietzsche, in TheGenealogy of Morals, calls 'the morality of mores'; see second treatise, para.2, for example. Deleuze explicitly compares Bergson's 'the whole of

134 Notes

obligation' to Nietzsche's 'morality of mores'; see Nietzsche et la philoso-phic, p. 153; Nietzsche and Philosophy, p. 133.

8. See Frederic Worms, L'intelligence gagnee par 1'intuition? La Relationentre Bergson et Kant, in Les Etudes philosophiques, No. 4/2001: 453-64.

9. We return to the nature of this experience below in Section III.10. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, second treatise, para. 11, p. 50.11. Here as often in his discussion of war, Bergson follows Rousseau's Second

Discourse, On Inequality.12. Bergson thinks that agricultural overproduction is a deception; at times

it seems as though there is overproduction, according to Bergsonbecause production in general has not been organized well, so that there isno way to exchange all of the products (MR 1235/305-6, 1235 n. 1/306n. 5).

13. According to Bergson, this irrational cause of war has been exacerbated bythe spirit of invention. The question concerning technology, for Bergson,is whether the spirit of invention necessarily creates artificial needs orwhether the artificial needs have guided the spirit of invention (MR 1234/304). Modern science continually expands in its discoveries, and thesediscoveries stimulate new inventions. But Bergson claims that we cannotsay that modern science is responsible for the startling quantity of newinventions in the last few centuries. From ancient times onward, humanshave always invented machines. Modern science has not therefore pro-duced artificial needs. As Bergson says, 'If that were so, humanity wouldbe vowed to a growing materiality, for the progress of science will neverstop' (MR 1235/305). But, modern sciences, the spirit of invention, andindustry have only given what has been asked of them. Bergson says,'Generally speaking, industry has not concerned itself enough about thegreater or lesser importance of the needs to be satisfied. It has willinglyfollowed fashion [la mode] and manufactured with no other thought thanselling' (MR 1236/306). Again, at the beginning was vanity.

14. See MR 1012 n. 1/44 n. 2 for Bergson's discussion of a mother's love forher child, and for more on Madame de Sevigne, see the Conclusion.

15. For more on these three terms (art, artifice and artificial or fake), seeChapter One.

16. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, second treatise, para. 12, p. 51.17. For a brief discussion of the distinction between creative emotions and

non-creative emotions, see Chapter Three, pp 78-9.18. See later in this section why it is necessary to use the feminine pronoun.19. Cf. Delacroix, Etudes de mysticisme, p. 365.20. While Bergson introduces this idea of efficacious presence in the discus-

sion of static religion, we must note that it functions in both static anddynamic religion. He says, ' "semi-personal powers" or "efficacious pre-sences" ... are, we believe, at the origin of religion' (MR 1142/196). Inthis comment Bergson does not limit the word 'religion' to static religion.

21. Cf. what Bergson says in his 1897 'Compte rendu des "Principes deMetaphysique et de psychologic" de Paul Janet'. There he quotesRavaisson: 'Dieu nous est plus interieur que notre interieur. II est plus pres

Notes 135

de nous que nous ne le sommes, sans cesse et a mille egards etrangers anous-meme' (Melanges, p. 391).

22. See Chapter Three for more on auscultation in intuition.23. Again we must see Bergson's discussion of anxiety in The Two Sources as

quite close to that of Heidegger in Being and Time. We have suggested thisconnection between Bergson and Heidegger in Chapter Two, pp. 28-9,44-5, 49, 58-9. But see Jankelevitch for a different view on death inBergson, Bergson., pp. 270-1. The anxiety of the mystic seems to contra-dict what Jankelevitch says: 'il n'aura done plus d'insomnies ni d'angoisse'(p. 272).

24. This not feeling the deprivation is, according to Bergson, what Jesusmeans in the Sermon on the Mount when he speaks of the 'poor in spirit'.

25. Cf. Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, second treatise, para. 2, pp. 36-7.26. Melanges, p. 390. See also Jankelevitch, Bergson, pp. 264-5.27. Indeed, the 'trumpery' that intelligence plays on nature, which allows for

the openness of love, also allows for non-heterosexual, that is, homosexualdesire and love.

28. As great Christian mystics, Bergson mentions St Paul, St Teresa, StCatherine of Sienna and St Francis.

29. While she does not cite Bergson, deBeauvoir's distinction between mys-tical women of action (she mentions Joan of Arc) and narcissistic femalemystics in The Second Sex resembles the distinction Bergson makesbetween incomplete and complete mysticism. See deBeauvoir, The SecondSex, p. 678. See also, Margaret A. Simons, Bergson's Influence onBeauvoir's Philosophical Methodology, in The Cambridge Companion toSimone de Beauvoir, ed., Claudia Card (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2003).

30. Of course, Bergson is aware that static religion can adopt an image such asthat of Joan of Arc and thus convert her image into 'imperialism' or fas-cism. See MR 1239-40/310-11.

31. Cf., however, Jankelevitch, Bergson, pp. 275. Also Noe Gottlieb, D'Uneerreur fondamentale dans les 'Deux Sources' de M. Bergson, Revue desEtudes juives, XCV, No. 189, 1933.

32. For a careful reconstruction of Joan of Arc's life, see Edward Lucie-Smith,Joan of Arc. Bergson himself is basing his comment about Joan of Arc onHenri Delacroix's study and the poetry of Charles Peguy.

33. Here we can again refer to Joan of Arc. See Charles Peguy, Le Mystere dela Charite de Jeanne d'Arc, in CEuvres poetiques completes, pp. 379-87. Seealso Melanges, pp. 1586-7.

34. Jankelevitch, Bergson, p. 276.35. This comment must remind us of Foucault's idea of the continuing work

of freedom.36. See n. 7 in the Preface.

Bibliography

Works by Bergson

CEuvres, Edition du Centenaire, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959.Melanges, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972.Cours I: Lecons de psychologie et de metaphysique, Paris: Presses Universitaires de

France, 1990.Cours II: Lecons d'esthetique. Lecons de morale, psychologie et metaphysique, Paris:

Presses Universitaires de France, 1992.Cours III: Lecons d'histoire de la philosophic moderne. Theorie de I'dme, Paris:

Presses Universitaires de France, 1995.

English translations

Mind-Energy, translated by H. Wildon Carr, London: Macmillan, 1920;translation of L'energie spirituelle.

The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, translated by R. Ashley Audra andCloudsley Brereton, with the assistance of W. Horsfall Carter, Notre Dame,IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977 [1935].

The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics, translated by Mabelle L.Andison, New York: The Citadel Press, 1992 [1946]; translation of Lapensee et le mouvant.

Matter and Memory, translated by N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer, New York:Zone Books, 1994.

Creative Evolution, translated by Arthur Mitchell, New York: Dover, 1998[1911].

Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, translated by CloudsleyBrereton and Fred Rothwell, Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1999 [1911].

Bergson: Key Writings, edited by Keith Ansell Pearson and John Mullarkey,London: Continuum, 2001.

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, translatedby F. L. Pogson, Mineola: Dover Publishing Company, 2001 [1913].

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Grenoble: Millon, 2000.Burwick, Frederick, and Douglas, Paul, The Crisis in Modernism, New York:

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Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 1: L'Image-mouvement, Paris: Minuit, 1983; Englishtranslation by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam as Cinema 1: TheMovement-Image, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.

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Delhomme, Jeanne, Vie et conscience de la vie, Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1954.

Delhomme, Jeanne, Nietzsche et Bergson: La representation de la verite, Lesetudes bergsoniennes, Vol. 5, 1960: 37-62.

Derrida, Jacques, La voix et le phenomene, Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1967; English translation by David B. Allison as Speech and Phe-nomenon, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973.

Derrida, Jacques, Le Toucher -Jean-Luc Nancy, Paris: Galilee, 2000.Descartes, Rene, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, Meditations Philosophiques,

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Foucault, Michel, L'Archeologie du savoir, Paris: Gallimard, 1969; Englishtranslation by Alan Sheridan as The Archeology of Knowledge, New York:Pantheon, 1972.

Foucault, Michel, Nietzsche, la genealogie, 1'histoire, in Homage a Jean Hyp-polite, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971, pp. 145-72; Englishtranslation by Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon as Nietzsche, Gen-ealogy, History, in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1977, pp. 139-64.

Foucault, Michel, Jean Hyppolite. 1907-1968, in Dits et ecrits, 1954-1988,Paris: Gallimard, 1994, pp. 770-85; originally published in Revue deMetaphysique et de morale, No. 2, 1969: 131-4.

Freud, Sigmund, Das Unbewusste, in Gesammelte Werke, Zehnter Band:Werke aus denjahren 1913-1917, London: Imago Publishing Co., 1949, pp.264-303; English translation by James Strachey as The Unconscious, in

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Index

abnormality 87, 89, 91, 100the absolute 62abstract 10, 20-1, 23, 52, 99, 122action 2, 15, 17-19, 24, 32, 34, 36, 38,

40-1, 44, 47, 49-50, 52-4, 58, 64-5,67-8, 70, 75, 77-9, 82, 89-91, 102,107-8, 114-17, 120-6

acts of love 104centre of action 14-15, 115future action 32and mysticism 79, 87, 89-91, 102possible action 14-15, 17, 23, 40, 44, 64present action 38, 54real and virtual 24-5and superior equilibrium 89to turn away from action and matter 68

adaptation 32, 35, 61, 67affection 4, 9, 11-12, 25, 36allegory of the cave 56alteration x, 62, 73, 82-3alterity x, 62, 73, 75, 83analogy of the sun 56anxiety (inquietude) 102-3aphasia 39, 73-4aphrodisia 85-6, 95-8appearance 5, 11, 40archaeology xi, 85, 110-11Aristotle ix, 28art 8-10, 26, 69, 82, 99, 104, 123, 127

artistic creation 9, 80, 82an artist painting a portrait 81-2the artistic picture 8-9artless general ideas 68artless symbol 52

artifice 2, 10-11, 26, 32, 52, 67, 69, 72,99

artificial extension of vital needs 86artificial intelligence 16, 30artificial metaphysical constructs 67artificial needs 96, 134artificial obscurity 2artificial self 99

asceticism xi-xii, 86-7, 96-8, 102-3, 106,111

associationism 36-7astronomy xi, 111automatic recognition 72automaton 35, 53, 74, 89

balance 56, 78, 87-8, 99-100, 108-9becoming 48-9, 53, 82, 113being ix-x, 3, 7, 22, 42-4, 49, 53, 57, 60, 79,

113as conscious presence 57conceived as time 49, 57a doubling of being 43for us 7, 22in itself 7, 22as memory ixroots of our being 79senses of being x, 42-3, 49, 53, 57

Bergsonism, basic principle of 1,11Berkeley, George 5biology 92blindness 14, 17

psychic blindness 25-6the body 3, 11-17, 21, 23, 27-8, 31, 47-8,

52, 57, 59, 74, 114-15, 118, 120, 122acquisition of bodies 55-6bodily functions 23-4, 67bodily injury 33bodily movement 38-9bodily needs 64bodily pleasure 95known from the inside 11,16known from the outside 11the lived body (Leib) 16, 28as a machine 15-16memory of the body 31and the soul, see the soul

the brain 1, 12-19, 24, 29-30, 39, 45, 53,117

as instrument of analysis 16-17as instrument of selection 17damaged by a lesion 39, 45, 58as storehouse of memories 30makes indetermination possible 53

144 Index

causal connection 42-3, 45, 79cause and effect 53, 79chain of appearances 41, 45change 7, 14, 34, 53, 55, 80, 82, 112-13character 41, 51, 54-5, 58, 77-8, 124charity 109charlatanism 87choice 1, 14-15, 18, 115-16Christianity 108-9

Christian ideal 97chrysalis 6-7, 9, 21-22, 24, 65, 101cinema 8, 129civilization 85-6, 93, 96-7closed 41, 89-90, 92, 100

closed morality 89-90closed society 92, 100closedness of the past 41

colour 5-7, 9-10, 23-4, 28, 51communication 16-17, 105communities 92-4complexity 6, 9, 19-20, 23, 53, 64, 67, 82computer 16the concept

of absolute justice 109of the concept xof duration ix, 52, 62of the dynamic schema 53, 75-7of the image xiii, 1, 4-5, 18, 21-2, 27,

64of intuition 63of memory xi, 27, 110of perception 1of presence 1, 27, 49of sense x, 63, 75—7of vibration 7of the will to live 99

concession to idealism 5conditions of experience, a priori 54-5

necessary condition of war 92sufficient condition of war 92-3

the cone x-xi, 28-30, 34, 43-54, 56-7, 60,68-9, 72, 75, 77-8, 110-11, 118-19,131

the base 46-50, 56, 72the summit 46-50, 56-7, 68, 72, 126

confidence 88, 99connection

to light 64logical connection 42-3, 45, 124between matter and memory 30, 41-3,

57between memory and being xbetween the survival of the past and the

absolutely new 82between two forms of memory 47, 72

conscience xii, 7consciousness x, xii-xiii, 1, 3, 5, 7, 13, 18-21,

27-8, 39, 41-4, 46, 49, 57, 60-3,69-70, 100-1, 107, 119, 122, 124, 126

the conscious and the unconscious 100-1,107

consciousness of the body 57conscious perception 18-24conscious subjectivity 49conscious syntheses 18enlarging consciousness 63, 65, 69-70a function of the unconscious 49immediate data of consciousness 62-3presentation to consciousness 42-5,

48-9present consciousness 57synonymy between consciousness and

existence 40, 43conservation 20, 23, 33, 35, 38, 45

of our past 113of the species 92, 95, 97

constitutionof objects 18of representations 27

contact 5, 65, 92-4contemplation 14-15, 17, 24, 44, 49-50,

56, 58, 102-3, 105, 120-6contiguity 50-1, 105continuity 6-7,9 11,25-6,48-50,53,

64, 70, 79-80, 126-7of becoming 48-9, 53continuous line 25-6continuous movement of intellectual

effort 50continuous whole 31

contraction 19, 51-4, 67, 69, 71, 117-19of habits of action and thinking 67psychological state of tension or

contraction 90conversation 72, 101copy 6, 55-6, 105-6creation 80-3, 89, 91, 98, 104, 108, 112,

119-26of beings who love to create 108creative duration 112-15creative emotion x, 79, 83, 99, 104creative repetition 107creativity 77

critical philosophy 68Crusoe, Robinson 68custom 2, 89-90

customary direction of thought 64-5, 68customary maxims 100

death 10, 59, 61, 68-9, 88, 102, 135the dead weight of the past 40, 61a vision of death 88

De Beauvoir Simone x, 135deception 97-8decision 41,55,58,82,115decoupage 8, 10deduction 18

Index 145

deduction (continued)consciousness deduced from matter 27, 60the future deduced from the present 11,

41of the material world 48perception deduced from matter 18

Delbos, Victor xiiiDeleuze, Gilles xi-xii, 54, 62, 128-33democracy 109-10depth 6, 8-9, 65, 79, 106-7Derrida, Jacques 5, 27-8, 54, 61-2, 130Descartes, Rene 2, 12, 17, 115, 129desire 90, 105-6destruction 33, 39, 51, 59, 65

of the body 59of brain cells 39, 59of habits 33of the image 65of memories 51

detachment 24, 34, 54, 88, 101-2, 117, 120detour 100, 104, 106development 76dialectic 72difference 4, 7, 21, 26, 30, 40-3, 72-4, 76,

81deep repetition of 98difference in complication 15difference in direction 32-5, 43, 98differentiation xiii, 4, 9, 11, 38, 51, 72, 89,

91quantitative and qualitative differences

82between supra-intellectual and infra-intel-

lectual emotions 104difference of degree xii, 10-11, 17, 22, 30,

34, 37, 42-4, 48, 52, 60, 104, 122between love of family and love of

nation 104in sexuality 95, 98

difference in kind 89-90, 104between open and closed morality 89-90between patriotism and mystical

love 104difference in nature 4, 9, 11-13, 15-17, 22,

26, 29-32, 35-6, 38-9, 42-3, 48, 60,70, 89-90

between intuition and language 70-1between memory and perception 30, 36,

38between habit-memory and regressive

memory 35, 131between infra- and supra-intellectual

emotion 104-6, 131between matter and memory 48, 60between spirit and matter xii

diminution 7, 22, 24, 36, 45, 51direction 2-3, 7, 22, 32-5, 37, 43, 48, 52,

57, 64, 68-70, 75, 77-9, 81, 83, 86, 88,99, 107, 119-20, 123

directed toward action 79, 87of expression 83of formulas 88good sense as bi-directional 78ill-directed industry 97of the love of all beings 98misdirection (tromperie) 86, 97-9, 110,

135of sexuality 97of thought 64the turn of experience as bi-directional

69-70of what returns from the past to the pre-

sent 99discernment 22, 24discontinuity 7, 80, 121discourse 61-2disequilibrium/imbalance 87-9, 91,

99-100distance 18-19, 24, 65, 72the divided line 55-6division 21, 26, 82

indivisibility 82, 113of the personality 26of physiological labour 15, 67of words 70

dogmatism 67-8doubling 55, 58, 60, 107

of consciousness with the unconscious 58double direction of good sense 78double frenzy 86-7double movement of the cone 48, 118,

120double viewpoints 69double vision 26duality of forces 91of good sense 56of matter and memory 43, 56, 60, 69the paradox of the double 99, 107of the present with the past 58of the psychological state and the material

object 42of the self 99of what the other person has said 77drawing 24-5, 52

dreams 13, 17, 34-5, 68, 70, 78, 118,121-2, 127

dualism xi, xiii, 3, 30, 55, 60, 115duplication 7, 105-7duration ix-x, xiii, 16, 19, 21-2, 48, 52, 60,

62-3, 66, 70, 79-83, 112-15, 133creative duration 112-15, 120, 124-6formula for ix, 83historical duration 114inexpressibility of the intuition of 83the logic of duration 82-3relationship to things 115thinking in terms of ix

duty 89-90

146 Index

dynamism 23, 52, 78dynamic process 47-8dynamic religion 87, 89-90, 99, 101dynamic schema x, 53, 75-8

echo 106-7ecstasis 118-20ecstasy 79, 87effects 32, 35, 39, 47, 52effort 31-2, 36, 50, 64-5, 70, 72, 74, 82,

89, 117-21, 125-7egoism 88, 92-3, 100elan vital 62, 98-100, 102-3, 131-2element 35-6, 76-7equality 108-9equilibrium, superior 56, 79, 87emotion 25, 78-9, 83, 95, 99-101, 103-4,

107, 110creative emotion 79, 83, 99, 104, 131emotional disturbances 87, 100the force of religion or intuition or emo-

tion 99infra- and supra-intellectual 104-7of the mystic 90, 99-100a new and original emotion 105relation with image 86,100,103,106,

110, 131empiricism 66, 68, 70, 99

classic versus true 66superior empiricism 99

enclosedin one society 79in particular linguistic conventions 72,

74in the present 20-1

enlargement 2, 7, 70of consciousness 63, 65, 69-70

equilibrium 78-9, 109essence 53-4, 76, 122-3, 126eternal 54

quasi-eternal singularities 60ethics x-xi, 62, 85, 89, 110events 51, 76-7

an unrepeatable event 80evolutionary argument 15,17existence 9, 13, 30, 38-40, 43-4, 49, 60

the central metaphysical problem of exis-tence 29, 38-9, 42-3

identification of consciousness with exis-tence 40

a new philosophical idea of existence 44of the past 121, 123-4two conditions of existence 45-6, 124

experience 2, 10, 21, 26, 29, 54, 58, 63,66-7, 72

of alterity or alteration 73, 76of a priori conditions 54of death 61,68

of difference 73of duration 62, 83exceptional experiences 99false experience 67fragmented, detached and discontinuous

experience 66, 70human experience 68, 70of the impetus of love 90of the instant 21intersubjective experience 66of matter 21of memory 58, 61mystical experience xi, 86, 91, 99-102,

105-8, 110of obligation's inflexibility 90of the other 61of pleasure 95-6of the reciprocal implication of emotion

and image xi, 110religious experience xiof repetition 21of spirit 30true experience 67-8turn of 2, 4, 10, 62, 68-9of union with God 102-3uninterrupted experience 65of the vital impetus 99

expression 83, 101extension 4, 9, 19-20, 38, 40, 121-3exteriority 13, 20, 27, 102, 115

externalisation of the experience of inflex-ibility 90

external objects 14, 17, 20, 42external perception 1,15external things 1external world 1-2, 12, 41of the will and action 102-3

the fabulation function 88-9, 101, 133factual perception 19, 24, 47feeling 36-8, 50, 63-4, 70, 78, 88, 100,

102, 104-6fiction 2, 13

of the destruction of the world 13the flesh 16,28

fleshism 1, 16flow 63, 66, 75force 25,83,90-1,99,110

duality of forces 91foresight 41, 87, 97

the unforeseeable 76, 82, 113forgetfulness/forgetting 21, 51, 54-8, 60,

113, 131form 10, 69, 74, 98-9, 106-7, 110

created by repetition 107distinguished from content 108fluidity of 99formalized self 99

Index 147

form (continued)formation of the ears and throat

muscles 74forms of life 111forms of memory 19, 47, 72hooked and folded 99of the mystical experience 100, 108new forms of freedom and equality 110the point where form is transformed 107of what returns 99

Foucault, Michel 62, 131-2, 135fragmentation of experience 66-7, 70freedom 2, 24, 35, 72, 110, 112, 115-16

and necessity 11, 34frenzy 86-7, 96-9functions 22-4, 88-9, 101the future 11, 16, 32, 34-5, 38, 40, 43, 53,

80-3, 99, 102-3, 110, 120, 123-6already seen 99the coming moment 81-3dangers of 88moving forward into 102open to progress 110the past turns back into the future 107of the species 103

genealogy xi, 85, 110-11general ideas 23, 50-2, 58, 61, 68, 70,

72-3, 76, 78dynamic 23, 56, 76static and inert 10, 23, 52, 61, 68, 70,

76-7genuine experience of matter 7geometry 6, 23-6God 13, 62, 95, 101-3, 134good sense 2, 56, 78-9, 103

superior good sense 79, 103the Greeks 45, 87, 103, 109grey zone 24, 69-70, 111, 131

habit 2, 25, 32-5, 40, 43, 47, 50, 52-3, 56,61, 67-8, 70-4, 85, 92, 99, 117-18

the force of nature or instinct or habit 99habit-memory 33-5, 43, 47, 67the habit of contracting habits 67, 71the habit of erasing resemblances between

objects and states 40habituation 89-90motor habit 52-3,74,117

hallucinations 13-14, 17, 19, 34-5, 88, 101harmony 64, 66, 105hearing 64, 74, 77, 106Heidegger, Martin ix-x, 28, 44-5, 49, 57,

60-1, 128, 130, 135hesitation 16, 18-19, 24, 53, 81, 99history 114Hoffding, Harald 63homogeneity 10, 82

humanity 79, 89, 97-8, 104, 106-10divine humanity xi, 108human experience 2human fraternity 98human genus xi, 108, 110human intelligence 87leaders of humanity 98love for all humanity 89, 104, 106, 109need to transform humanity 108super-humanity xi, 108

hunger 94-5Husserl, Edmund 13, 62, 132Husson, Leon 49, 131Hymenoptera 92the hyphen 33, 36, 47, 49, 52hypothesis 2-4, 6, 11-13, 17, 19-20, 29

hypothesis of pure perception 19, 27hypothesis of weaker and stronger

states 36-7opening hypothesis 2-4, 6, 11-12, 14

Hyppolite, Jean x, 53, 56, 112-27, 131-2

ideas 44, 51-2, 55-6, 60, 75, 90, 117Bergsonian versus Platonic ideas 56clear and distinct 23dynamic and static see general ideasthe idea of the darkest night 102the idea of the good 56-7,60,70immobility of ideas 55-6, 60nebulosity of 51, 77

ideal 20-21, 23, 96-7ascetic ideal xi-xii, 96, 106

idealism 1-5, 9, 12identification

of memory with weak sensation 37-8of consciousness with existence 40-3

identity x, 56idle talk 87-8illusion 8, 19-20, 77, 90, 106, 124image xiii, 1, 3-14, 18, 22, 25, 27-8,

32-38, 45-6, 51, 55, 64-5, 72, 76-7,99-100, 103, 106, 108, 110, 117-26,129-31

the brain as one image among others 45of the cone see the cone)of evil spirits 88of God 108imaging ix, 26imaged self 99movement-image 8, 129of the pendulum 56, 78, 85-6, 89proliferation of 88relation with emotion 86, 100, 103, 106,

110of the universe 13

imagination ix, 8, 10, 36, 88, 101, 120-1to imagine is not to remember ix, 35, 121

imitation 99, 107

148 Index

immanence xi, 62, 82of consciousness 13immanent sense ix

the immediate 61, 68-9immediate communication 8immediate consciousness xii-xiii, 2, 61,

124immediate contact 18immediate data xii-xiii, 3immediate development 78immediate experience 2-3, 70immediate perception 19-21, 23^1immediate reaction 24immediately in the midst of ideas 75immediately in the past 50linguistic immediacy 61

the immutable 45impassibility 54, 80impersonal 20, 30, 33-5, 39, 51impetus 62, 90-1, 98-100, 102-3, 108,

113-16, 120-7boundless 103for Christian mysticism 108of love 90-1to move beyond contemplation 102vital 62, 98-100, 102-3

implication 77, 99-100, 106reciprocal implication 100, 103, 106

impoverishment 76, 95-6, 98indeterminacy 18-19, 24indetermination 18, 25, 53, 115-16

indetermination of motor actions 18individuality 23, 75

individual action 52individual consciousness 19society and individuals 90, 92, 100

industry 93-4, 97inner life (see interior life)insanity 79, 83

madness 86-8, 133mental illness 87-9, 100morbid states 87, 89, 91

phrenesia 86inspiration 105, 107instantaneous 7, 20-21, 23-5, 36

quasi-instantaneous section of becom-ing 48-9

instinct 63-4, 92, 95, 129, 131the war instinct 86, 91-4

intelligence 49-50, 52, 64, 75, 87-8, 90-2,97-8, 107, 117, 121, 126, 131

humiliation of 87infra-intellectual emotion 104, 106, 131intellectual and social plane 83intellectual work 78intelligibility 45, 52plane of intelligence 91, 107supra-intellectual emotion 104-5, 131tool-making intelligence 92, 98

intensityof action 18of sensation 38, 95

intentionality 27-8interest 22-23, 35, 38-40, 44, 67, 116,

122, 124disinterestedness 88, 92

interiority 13, 19-20, 27, 63, 70, 101, 115,122, 134

interior organization of movement 8interior life 40, 63, 70-1, 75, 79internal complication 77internal continuity 8internal voice 101, 103

interruption 64-5intersubjectivity x, 66interval 10, 16, 24-5, 41, 53, 64, 99intuition x, xii, 3, 7, 23, 50, 61-71, 76-9,

82-3, 99, 112-13, 116-17, 121, 126of duration in mystical rapture 79as good sense 78method of xiii, 50, 63-70of pure duration 112of sense 77thinking starts with intuition 64as a turning from action to spirit 68of the whole 76

invention 2, 10, 49, 71, 88,92-3,112, 120, 134inversion

of the senses 64of thought 68

Israel 108

Jesus Christ 89, 108, 135Joan of Arc 108joy 79, 100-2, 105, 107justice 108-9

absolute justice xi, 109-10formula of 109-10passion for justice 108

juxtaposition 80

Kant, Immanuel 54, 89-90, 134knowledge 2-3, 15, 17, 19, 23, 25, 68, 78,

85, 118-26, 131of language 73two ways of knowing 44true knowledge 2, 10

language 10, 53, 61-3, 69-75, 77-8, 117the absolute of language 71linguistic convention 71-4linguistic formula 107particular languages 71, 73-5philosophy of x, 62-3, 70, 72the whole of language 71-2, 75writing 83

Index 149

laughter 8, 10law 18-19, 92

of the two fold frenzy 99League of Nations 86leap 25, 41, 50-3, 70, 73, 77-9learning a lesson by heart 31-3, 35Levinas, Emmanuel x, 54, 59, 61-2, 85, 128,

132life x, 7-8, 10, 22, 25, 32, 34-5, 45, 51,

58-9, 63, 65, 68, 79, 85-6, 88, 101-2,104, 106-7, 123, 127

attention to life 34, 58-9, 61, 68,114-17, 120-1, 124-6

detachment from 88, 101-2life's necessities 22, 34memory turns back into life 107the point where memory turns back into

life 85-6requirements of 7a simpler life 102a superabundance of 103

light 5-6, 10, 23-5, 55, 64, 68-9, 78, 111love 62, 78-9, 83-4, 89-91, 96, 98, 104-6,

110of all beings 89, 98, 104, 106of all humanity 89, 104, 106, 109more metaphysical than moral 110mystical love 104and pleasure 106of pleasure 96,98romantic love 10superior love 84

luxury 23, 86, 94, 96, 102, 130

machine 15-16, 28, 130, 134mechanical repetition see repetition

magic 88, 133Malebranche, Nicolas 121materialism, see mattermathematics

mathematical point 21mathematical problem 77

matter xii-xiii, 1, 4-5, 7-13, 15-21, 29-30,42-3, 48, 56, 65, 69, 107, 115-16, 119,123-4, 126-7

animate matter 107fall into matter 56material cause and effect 53material destruction 45material energy 9material life 8material object 22, 42, 45material reality 55material universe 23, 40, 57material world 11-14, 17, 48materialism 1-5, 9, 29the materiality of our existence 48the materiality of memory 36-7, 39

the plane of the material universe 57return to matter 69the source of forgetfulness 56to turn away from action and matter 68a vision of matter 8, 20on which tools work 93-4

meaning 2logical meaning 76

mechanism 16, 21, 32, 39motor mechanism 17

mediation 20, 61, 68, 72, 78memory ix-xi, 8, 11, 16, 19-24, 26-9, 31-9,

42-4, 48-52, 55, 58, 60, 63-4, 68-70,72, 75-6, 80-1, 85-6, 99, 101, 107,110, 112-13, 116-21, 124-5

active memory and memorization 32, 35,107

actualized/materialized in sensations 36-7connection between two forms of mem-

ory 47constantly new organization 81effort of memory 19elimination of memory 20-21habit-memory 32-5, 39, 43, 49, 72, 118of an invisible and silent presence 101memorized self 99memory as an experience 58, 63memory turns back into life 85-6, 107not just psychological but ontologi-

cal 110, 130as a power absolutely independent of

matter 30primacy of ix, 28, 30, 60progressive memory 32, 49regressive memory 33-5, 39, 43, 46,

49-50, 53as subjective, personal and interior 19—20supple memory 117-18true memory 46-7, 49two forms of memory 19,31-5,47,72,

131memories (souvenirs) 19—21, 28, 30—6,

40-2, 45-6, 49-50, 53-5, 58, 69, 81,85, 114, 117-22, 125

chain of memories 45conservation of memories 45-6covered over by others 85the impassibility of memories 54inserting memories 16, 28, 38, 46-7,

51-3, 58, 81memory-image (image-souvenir) 33-7,

39, 44, 47, 50-1, 53, 72, 78, 82, 85,101, 110

metaphysics of (see metaphysics)pure memories 65, 120, 122, 131singular memories 50-1unconscious memories 69

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice ix, 1,18, 25, 28,54, 128-30

150 Index

metaphysics xi, xiii, 1-3, 7, 38, 52, 55, 57,67, 69-70, 80, 110, 123

dogmatic metaphysics 67a metaphysical concept 52a metaphysical distinction 41metaphysical dualism xiimetaphysics of memory 28-9, 55, 57,

60-1, 130the central metaphysical problem of exis-

tence 29, 38-9, 42-3, 57the Milky Way x, 33, 51misdirection (tromperie) 86, 97-8mobility 8, 55-7, 60, 129monism xii-xiii, 60morality 71, 85-6, 133

moral duties 67moral initiators 89moral judgements 85moral obligation 89, 100, 108moral prescriptions 62moral theory 62, 85, 90-1open and closed 89, 97the origins of morality and religion 85-6

motor see habit, mechanism, schema, ten-dency

movement x, 6-9, 12, 14-17, 33, 38, 44-5,47-50, 60, 72, 80, 100, 103, 110,118-20, 129

between asceticism and sexuality 86circular movement of conditioning 100of the cone 48-9, 51-4, 56-7, 60, 69,

110, 118, 120of contraction 51-2from emotion to words 83of intelligence 50movement-image 8, 60, 129moving in place 7-8of the plane 48-9progressive movement 49of thought 50

multiplicity x, 8, 19, 50-1, 76, 119, 121-2music 96, 104, 107mysticism 79, 86-91, 97, 99-108, 110-11,

126, 129, 134-5charity as the essence of 109Christian mysticism 102, 108complete and incomplete 102, 135mystical experience xi, 86, 91, 99-102,

105-8, 110mystical love 104, 106mystical rapture 79, 87, 89, 101will of the mystic 102-3

nature 8-10, 16 , 34, 53, 69, 71, 82, 85-6,88-9, 101, 105-6, 110, 113, 116, 131

deceived by humanity 97denaturation 10

habit-memory more natural than regres-sive memory 34

laws of 124misdirection of nature 86, 97natural articulations 6, 9natural continuity of images 10natural function of procreation 97natural image 9natural love absorbed into a supernatural

feeling 106natural necessity 34natural need 90natural obedience to obligation 90natural order 10natural restoration of balance 88source of static religion 89trumpery of 86, 97-9, 110and war 91-2

necessity 11,21-23,34,41need 22-25, 50, 61, 64, 67, 86, 89-90, 131

artificial needs see artifice)ascending scale of 96basic 95inferior needs 10for luxuries 94, 96for stability 90

the new ix-x, 11, 16, 62, 74, 80-3, 104-5,112-13

Nietzsche, Friedrich xi, 28, 44, 91, 99, 108,110, 132-5

objectivity 4, 6, 9, 19-20, 27-8, 30, 39, 44love that has no object 89objectifying look 66the objective world 3objectivism xobjects in space 40-2, 123-4

obligation 33, 67, 70-1, 89-90particular obligations versus the

whole 90ontology ix-x, xiii, 28, 43, 57, 59-61, 110open 10, 40

open morality 89-90, 99openness of the future 41

order 4, 33, 40, 50-2order of appearance 33order of perceptions 4order of the series of objects in space and

states in time 41organization 25, 32, 81origin 55, 58, 85, 104

archaeology of originary experience xi, 110of morality and religion 85mysticism as a genuine origin 104of the present 55,58

the other 59, 61-2, 66, 78the outside 12, 72-3, 101

Index 1 5 1

pain 35-7, 82painting 26passage 53-5, 58, 68-9, 80the past 20-21, 28, 33-5, 38, 44-6, 49-51,

53-7, 60, 75, 77, 80, 99, 102, 107,113-26

being denned in terms of the past 49coexistance of the past with the pre-

sent 55distinction between past and pre-

sent 113, 116irreversibility of the past 81-2past as container of the present 46past life 33-5a past that was never present 54-6, 58,

76, 131the past truly given in the present 21the past turns back into the present 107the present repeats the past 58, 82regions of the past 46, 51, 75, 77return of 99thinking in terms of the past 57vision fades into the past 102

pendulum 56, 78, 85-6, 89, 96, 98, 102,105, 108

perception ix, 1-2, 4, 7, 11, 14, 17-25,28-30, 32-3, 35-8, 44, 47-8, 53, 55,61, 65, 72, 81, 101, 112, 115, 117, 122,130

deduced from matter 18, 27to perceive is not to remember ixperception repeats memory 55perceptual images 32-3, 35-6, 38, 47,

52, 55, 67, 81-2primacy ofi x, 11, 28, 60thick perception 20, 25, 36, 47true perception of matter 65the unperceived 7, 41-2

personality 106-7perversion 58-9phenomenology ix—x, 1, 5, 13, 18, 27—8,

54, 60phenomenology of perception 18, 28,

130phenomenological elaborations of

sense 77phenomenological reduction 2

philosophyof language x, 62-3, 70, 72modern philosophy 44-5philosophical method xiii, 2, 23, 63-4,

68-70, 72photography 24, 28physical qualities 5piano 7picture 5-6, 8, 10plane of immanence xii

of intelligence 91, 107of representation 46-8

Plato 55-8, 60, 109anti-Platonism 111Platonic forgetfulness 56-8, 60Plato's republic 109Platonic ideas 55-6, 60Platonism ix-x, 28-9, 42-5, 49, 55-8, 60Platonic reminiscence 55-7, 122Platonic sun x, 111reversing Platonism ix-xi, 28-9, 44-5,

49, 55-8, 60, 110-11pleasure 94-8, 100-1, 105-7Plotinus 126plurality 6-7, 16-17, 19poetry 80, 82, 107, 127poverty 23, 26, 130power 38-9, 91, 99

impotence of pure memory 39, 51, 123,125, 131

of the vital impetus 99practicality 68, 73, 78

the point where memory turns back intolife 85-6

prayer 107pregnancy 6, 19, 40, 79presence x, 1, 4-5, 9, 22, 24, 27, 49, 57,

88, 100-1, 103efficacious presence 88invisible presence 101

the present 11, 20-21, 28, 32, 34-5,38^0, 43-50, 52-8, 60, 76, 78, 82, 99,112-14, 117-21, 124-6

coexistence of the past with the pre-sent 55

distinction between past and pre-sent 113, 116

knowledge of the past 114mythological present of Platonic ideas 55a past that was never present (see the past)presentation to consciousness 42-5,

48-9the present as a function of the past 54present consciousness 57present experience 54present image 22present objects 29, 40-2the present repeats the past 58, 82the present situation 76, 78the pure present 53

pride 93, 96priority

of intuition over language 62-3of language over intuition 61-2of movement over things 8,10of vision 5, 64

problems 50, 52, 58badly stated problems 2

procreation see senseprogress 32, 49, 53, 78, 80progression 55

152 Index

prolongation 15, 19-20, 22, 32-3, 35,38-9, 47, 53, 72, 80

promises 33, 40, 103property 92proportion 18-19, 108-9psychology xiii, 25, 30-1, 36, 40

psychological analysis 3the psychological domain 40, 43psychological error 89-90psychological state of tension 90psychological states of unbalance 89, 91,

100psychological theories of association 36reality of psychological states 45

punster (faiseur de calembours) 83purity

pure action 56pure alteration 62pure becoming 62pure consciousness xiipure contemplation 56pure duration xiii, 112, 114pure experience of death 59pure experience of life 58-9pure forgetfulness 56pure image 4pure knowledge 14pure memory 36, 39, 49-51, 53, 56,

58-9, 65, 110pure movement 62pure past 55pure perception 1, 17, 19-25, 29, 36, 47

adds nothing new to the image 22as objective, impersonal and exter-nal 20as superficial repetition 21

pure variation 62pure vision 20-3

questions relating to subject and object ixthe question of where memories are

stored 33

reflection 24, 64, 87-8, 98-9, 117, 124,126

reflex 15, 17, 99relativity

of particular languages 71relative justice 109of sense 75to the universe 22

relaxation 58-9, 61, 121, 123, 125religion 85-90, 133-4reminiscence 56-8, 122repetition 32-5, 39, 50, 52-A, 58, 74, 77,

80-1, 104-7, 112, 124creative repetition 107of difference 98mechanical repetition 107, 109, 133perception repeats memory 55the present repeats the past 58repeatability of the form 98of the same 21, 98

representation x, 4, 7, 9-10, 12-14, 17, 19,22-24, 27, 29-30, 32-3, 46, 50, 52, 62,64, 76, 78-9, 90-1, 101, 104-6, 109,114, 118-19, 130

creative emotions precede representa-tions 104-5

engendering representations 29object of mystic's love cannot be repre-

sented 106the plane of my actual representation of

the universe 46-7veracity of our representations 13

reproduction 33-4, 41, 112, 117resemblance 40-1, 43, 50, 52, 54, 73, 106-

7resistance 90-2, 100reversal ix, 1,14, 28-9, 44-5, 49, 55, 57-8,

60, 64, 91, 105-6, 110-11reversing Platonism see Platonism

rhythm 7, 21, 65, 70, 75, 78, 126, 129Rimbaud, Arthur 115Rousseau, Jean-Jaques 105,134

the real 10, 14realism 1-2, 4, 12, 18reality 1, 4, 30-1, 40, 48, 66

of spirit xii, 30recognition 26, 63, 72-4, 78, 101, 118, 126

attentive and inattentive recognition72-4

auscultation 65-6, 101auto-affection 99, 101false recognition 125

reductionism 1-2, 9, 30intuition irreducible to unintelligent feel-

ing 50conditions of experience irreducible to

experience 54

the same x, 61, 82, 98Sartre, Jean-Paul x, 121, 129-30Scheler, Max xschema 25, 93-4

inert schema 10motor schema 74-5, 77

Schneider 26science xii, 3, 7, 16, 25, 45, 94, 134

innate science of the mystic 103metaphysics as a science 69the remotest aspiration of xii, 3, 7, 16, 25scientific attitude 12the scientific body 16

schizophrenia 26sensation 36-8, 44, 51, 95, 98, 104-5, 121

Index 153

sense 10, 62-3, 75, 77-9, 97-9, 101,117-18, 123

common sense 2-3, 56different ontological senses of matter and

memory 42fluidity of 99good sense 2, 56, 78-9immanent sense ixprocreative sense 96-7, 99, 105

sens 2-3, 64, 68, 97-9senses of being x, 42-3, 49, 53

sentir 64-5Sinn 2, 99

the senses 24, 64, 70Sevigne, Madame de 83-4, 98, 134sexuality 86, 94-7, 106, 130Shakespeare, William 83singularity x, 50-3, 56-7, 60, 72-4, 77-8, 81,

106singular events 77singularity of the future 81

societyclosed society 92, 100, 109-10, 129democratic society 109habits and conventions of 79, 92and individuals 90, 92, 100intellectual and social plane 83language as social 61-2sociability and unsociability 92social cohesion 88-9, 91-2social life 67-8, 70-1, 88social needs 3, 70-1social solidarity extended 98socialization of the truth 3, 70, 129

the soul 12, 31, 45, 55, 58-60, 79, 82-3,100-1, 106-7, 114-15

and the body 12, 31, 55, 59, 114-15depths of 79, 100, 106-7elevation of 101memory of 31of the mystic 102-3

space ix, xiii, 6, 8, 11, 19, 40-2, 48, 114-15,121, 123-4

speculation 2, 14, 39, 54, 78, 122spirit xii-xiii, 1, 4, 10-11, 13, 16, 21, 30-1,

34, 39, 58, 65, 68-9, 74, 83, 107, 112,116-25

evil spirits 88grafted onto matter 21independent reality of spirit 58intuition as a turning to spirit 68of invention 94palpable experience of 30sexual pleasure not spiritual 96spirit of invention 10, 94spirit of philosophy 71spiritual auscultation 65spiritual energy 9spiritualism 2

spiritualization of impressions 15the war-spirit 92, 97

stars 102, 110-11, 132staticity 23, 68, 70, 72-3, 77

static ideas see general ideasstatic religion 87-8, 101

St John of the Cross 102subjectivity 4, 19-20, 27-8, 30, 39, 49

conscious subjectivity 49subjectivism x, 28-9, 29, 42-4, 49, 57, 60

succession 6, 8, 40, 112-13, 115survival 31-3, 35, 39, 45, 59, 61, 80-1

of memories 33,51,58-9of the past 80-1, 83of representations 33

switchboard/telephonic desk 15-17, 24, 28symbol 10, 52, 69, 76-7, 130

symbolic attitude 8symbolic vision 76,101-3,106,110

sympathy 66

telescope x-xi, 51, 55, 57, 111, 130tendency 23, 77, 90, 98

motor tendency 25tests 100-3theory 2-3, 20

moral theories 62, 85theoretical justification 85theoretical objectives 87-9theoretism 62theory of duration 63theory of intuition 63theory of pure perception 20, 25theory of perception 11theories of association 36

things 4, 9, 20, 24, 45, 47, 52, 130corporeal things 114a thing that moves 8love of all things 89, 98, 104, 106relationship to duration 115

thinking/thought ix, 34, 50, 56-7, 62-4,67-8, 72, 75, 79, 98, 126-7

ancient thought 45generated by creative emotions 79the movement of thought 56the relation of thought to the

unthought 62-3speaking without thought 74thought of being 60thought experiment 13-15, 17

time ix, xiii, 8, 11, 18-19, 28, 40-2, 44,53-4, 57, 60, 65-6, 81, 113, 124

Aristotle's view reversed ix, 28listening to time 65questions of subject and object put in

terms of ixreconceiving time 57states in time and objects in space 40

154 Index

tools 92-4ton 67touch 18, 24, 64-6Tournier, Michel 62training 74, 89, 91, 93transcendence xi, 62

transcendent being 13transformation xi, 22, 36, 85, 99, 101, 103,

107, 110transmission and division of movement 17trumpery see direction

unbalance see imbalancethe unconscious x, 27, 40, 49, 57-8, 60, 63,

100-1, 107, 118, 120unconscious material point 23unconscious memories 42, 44, 46, 50,

69-70unconscious operations of memory 32unconscious psychical states 39, 44unconscious spirit 13unconsciousness as impotence 39

understanding 2, 73-5, 77-8unity 6, 9, 54, 82, 89universality x, 50, 52, 56-7, 109universe 12-13, 23, 46Urdoxa 3utility 2-3, 10, 22, 32, 35, 38, 64, 67-9,

131the useful 69useful action 53useful effect repeated 32, 35, 39, 47,

72uselessness 34

vanity 93, 96, 103, 106, 134verbalism 71veridical hallucination 13-14, 19-20vibration 4, 6-8, 15-18, 53, 57, 73, 101virtuality 5, 9, 24, 36, 38, 82

virtual identity 9virtual image 24, 53virtual instinct 71virtual invisibility 55, 65virtual multiplicity 121-2of war 92

vision 5-8, 14, 19-25, 50, 64-6, 106-7of the continuity of inner life 79of creative action 121of death 88foresight 87-8of the ideas 56an invisible but efficacious presence 88of matter 8, 20of the mystic 87, 101-3, 107of singularities 58symbolic vision 76,101-3,107,110visual unity 9

vitality 52vital impetus (elan vital) 62, 98-100,

102-3vital need for food 86vital schema 117

voice 100-1, 103, 107-8silent voice 101, 103, 107

war 86, 91-8essential versus accidental 93-4the war-instinct 86, 91-4, 96-7

Wesen 53-4the whole x, 7, 10-15, 43

of images 27of language 71-2, 75of memory 82, 118of obligation 33,71,90of the past 41,45,81-2of space 41never given x, 76, 126whole-part relation 7, 10-15, 22, 43,

45-6, 75, 90, 106, 124will 41, 91, 102-3, 121

genius of the will 103of the mystic 102-3will to live 99will to power 28

wit (espirit) 83-4words 73-5, 77, 83, 106the world 11-14, 17, 41, 44, 48, 61, 64, 73,

95, 106, 115, 117, 120, 122, 124world politics 86a world without others 62, 68, 70, 73

Zeno's paradoxes x

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Leonard Lawlor - The Challenge of Bergsonism

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