Introduction To Modern Philosophy

Dr. B. R. AMBECKAR
OPEN UNIVERSITY

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HENRI BERGSON

From the photograph by Henri Manuel

Introduction to

MODERN
PHILOSOPHY

BY
C. E. M. TOAD

Author of Essays in Common Sense Philosophy,
Common Sense Ethics, Common Sense Theology, &>.

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction . 3

1. Modern Reali;m ...... 5

2. The Philosophy of Mr. Berirand Russell . 21

3. Xeo-idealism ...... 39

4. Pragmatism . ... 66

5. The Philosophy of Bcrgsoii .... 86
Bibliography . . .Ill

TIRST FDTTION IQ24

REPRINTED KJ25, 1^34, 1941, J 942, 104^ (twice)

PRIN1ED IN GKfcAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY IMiKSS, OXFORD

INTRODUCTION

THE following chapters aim at giving a short but comprehensive
account of the most important developments in Modern Philo-
sophy. In preparing this brief survey, I have endeavoured, as
far as possible, to avoid the use of all technical terms, and to
describe the views of modern philosophers in language which will
be intelligible to ordinary persons.

With the best will in the world, however, it is not an easy
matter for a writer on Philosophy to avoid the charge of obscurity,
not because of any professional leaning to the unintelligible
although it must in honesty be admitted that too many philo-
sophers have mistaken obscurity of statement for profundity of
thought but because of the inherent difficulty of the subject-
matter. Whatever deals with the fundamental and simple is bound
to be difficult and complex, and it is no good ignoring the fact
that philosophy, which is not lightly to be attempted by any,
must always seem singularly like nonsense to some. I make no
apology, then, for the difficulty of this book ; it is at any rate
easier than the philosophies it surveys.

When one attempts to reduce the corpus of modern philosophy
to the compass of a small text-book, selection and compression
become of paramount importance. What you select depends co
a large extent on what you think significant, and, as the case of
Anthologies demonstrates, no man will be found to agree in its
entirety with another's selection.

In making my own selection I have endeavoured to follow the
principle of only introducing those doctrines which pass the
double test of being both important and distinctively modern.
The omission of any account of the philosophy of the English
i A

Introduction

Idealists is perhaps the most important consequence of the adop-
tion of this principle. Speaking broadly, I have dealt only
with those views which have emerged since the publication of
Mr. Bradley's Appearance and Reality, not because I desire to
underrate the importance of the contribution to philosophy of
the English Idealists, but because that contribution has been long
enough before the world to be familiar to all English readers who
are interested in philosophy. The important innovations which
have been introduced into Idealist theory since the publication
of Mr. Bradley's great work have been largely, if not wholly, due
to the Neo-Idealist school of Italian philosophers, of whom
Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile are the most prominent ;
and a chapter has accordingly been devoted to the exposition of
the views of these philosophers.

I have endeavoured to follow the same principle of selection
and omission throughout.

My thanks are due to Professor Wildon Carr for kindly reading
through Chapters 3 and 5 in manuscript and making several
valuable suggestions in regard to their contents.

C. E. M. J.

Modern Realism

Inlroductory. The difficulties of giving in a short space a com-
prehensive survey of modern Realism arc considerable. They
arise chiefly from the fact that Realism is not a body of systematic
doctrine to which numbers of different philosophers can be found
to subscribe. There are, indeed, different schools of Realists which
arc mainly identified with the names of particular philosophers ;
but although there is a certain amount of agreement between these
various schools, the positions with regard to which this agreement
obtains are mainly of a negative character, being based upon a
common antipathy to Idealism. So soon as a constructive philo-
sophy is attempted, important differences between the various
schools of Realists begin to manifest themselves.

Our task is further complicated by the fact that, while the
great Idealist systems endeavour to present a coherent view of
the Universe as a whole, many Realists are prepared cheerfully
to renounce the notion that there is a whole of which a coherent
account can be given : there may be only an aggregate, the
Universe being a gigantic box with a number of different con-
tents, and the philosophy of an aggregate will be a catalogue of
items rather than a systematic doctrine deducible from one
general principle.

In any event, the belief that philosophy should be an absolutely
systematic and complete doctrine is itself a philosophical assump-
tion which remains to be proved, and, until it is so proved, the
Realist for the most part remains content with finding out what can
be asserted with a fair show of truth with regard to a number of
different and often isolated problems.

Modern Realism

Now it is easier to summarize a system than a catalogue, and
it is impossible therefore to do more in this chapter than to
indicate the main grounds for the common Realist refutation of
Idealism, and then briefly to sketch one or two characteristic
theories with regard to the problem which Realists have made
peculiarly their own, and with regard to which their contribution
to philosophy is most important, that is to say, the problem of
sense perception. Realism is, however, a movement of very great
significance in modern philosophy, and in order that the reader
may enlarge the conception, formed from the outline sketched in
this chapter, of the sort of attitude to the world as a whole that
the Realist favours, I propose in the next chapter to trace in
rather more detail the developments in the philosophy of a
prominent Realist, Mr. Bcrtrand Russell, since this philosophy,
both in its earlier and in its later phase, is fairly representative of
the different types of Realist theories.

I. Refutation of Idealism. Modern Realism is historically to be
regarded as a reaction from the various philosophies of Idealism.
In order to grasp its significance it is necessary to understand
the Idealist positions which it attacks, and the way in which it
attacks them.

Now it is clear in the first place that the attitude of the ordinary
man in the street to the Universe is that of an uncompromising
Realist. He conceives of himself as existing in a world of objects
which exist together with him, yet independently of him, and
he regards his consciousness as a sort of searchlight which illu-
minates this world of objects and enables him to ascertain their
number and their nature. This theory, in so far as it can be
called a theory at all, makes no difference between seeming and
being : things in fact are what they seem. Reflection, however,
ihows that there is much in our experience which it seems difficult
to conceive of as being * out there in the world '. Such pheno-
mena as dreams, hallucinations, reveries, and the experience of

Modern Realism

seeing double which attends intoxication, suggest that it is not
everything in our experience that comes from outside. Where,
then, are we to locate the objects of our dreams ? Obviously in
the mind of the dreamer. It seems possible, then, that we can
experience ideas of our own which have no necessary counter-
part in the world of outside objects : at any rate, the fact that
we can perceive what is not there, that in short there is such
a thing as error, means that the common-sense realism of the man
in the street must, in certain respects at least, be abandoned.
Idealism grasps at this possibility and develops it into a complete
denial of the existence of the plain man's world.

The first step in the departure from the common-sense view
is taken in the so-called Rcpresentationalism of Descartes
and Locke. These philosophers conceived of consciousness
not as a beam of light illuminating the outside world, but as
a photographic plate upon which objects are represented. The
representations of the objects on the plate arc the ideas which
appear in consciousness. Mind, therefore, perceives its own ideas,
but does not perceive the external objects which stimulate con-
sciousness and cause the ideas to arise. It is believed that a world
of external objects exists, but it is denied that it can ever be
directly known.

But Idealism could not remain long in this position. If we
can never know the world of external objects, we cannot know
that it possesses the property of causing our ideas, nor can we even
know that it exists. The next stage, then, is to eliminate this
world of external objects, and to rest content with a Universe
containing mind which knows, and its mental states which are
what it knows, and we have the Subjective Idealism of Berkeley
and Hume. Berkeley indeed stopped short of the full logical
development of his position and admitted the existence of other
minds and of the self, though in point of fact we have ideas of
neither. Hume, however, ruthlessly pushed to its conclusion

Modern Realism

Berkeley's argument that a thing's existence consists of its being
known, and came to rest in the position which is called Solipsism,
a position which asserts that mental states are the only things that
can be known to exist in the Universe. 1

Kant's philosophy is an attempt to escape from the subjcctivist
Solipsism to which Hume's arguments were logically reducible.
He not only formulates a ' Thing in itself ' which, like the external
object of Locke and Descartes, is never known and never can be
known, but endeavours to endow the world of what is known,
that is to say, the world which enters experience, with objectivity
by attributing to mind the power of prescribing to this world
its laws, so far at least as these are based upon the forms of time
and space, and upon the categories.

Kant also introduced a new element in the shape of a distinction
between the self as knower that owns as its states the objects that
it experiences, and the self as known which is just one among
a world of different objects. Hegel eliminated the ' Thing in
Itself ', extended the notion of the mind as the prescriber of laws
to the Universe until consciousness came to be regarded as the
source of all laws and all relations, and unified in one absolute
soul the plurality of knowing minds or souls left by Kant, with the
result that the various souls or selves as known, which are mere items
in a world of other objects, came to be thought of together with
their objects as mere fragmentary manifestations of the Absolute,
and not to be regarded as completely real except in so far as they
are or can be merged therein. Thus the Absolute is the only real
thing that is left in the Universe, the apparent multiplicity of
objects that we know being only partial aspects of the Absolute.

In this way the whole Idealist movement in Philosophy may
be regarded as a development and an elaboration of the doubt
that first assailed the common-sense Realist when he found that

1 Hume did believe in the existence of other selves, selves meaning for him
1 bundles of perceptions ', but on his premises he had no ground for doing so.

Modern Realism

certain of his perceptions were erroneous, or had at any rate no
counterpart in the outside world. And it is in precisely the same
way that the Realist movement may be regarded as an attempt
to save the common-sense view of the world by accounting both
for the fact of perception and for so-called erroneous perceptions,
without reducing the whole physical Universe to modifications
of mental states.

Some Realist theories succeed in retaining a picture of the
world which is not very far removed from the notions of common
sense ; others, as we shall see in the case of Mr. Russell's later
views, depart in their conclusions almost as far from the unreflect-
ing attitude of every day as do the Idealists themselves. But the
primary object which all have in common is the refutation of the
Idealists.

The ordinary Realist method of disposing of the Subjective
Idealism of Be r kcley and Hume is to accuse it of basing a false
conclusion on a true proposition. The true proposition is, ' It is
impossible to discover anything that is not known ', because it
becomes known by the mere process of being discovered. From
this proposition it follows that it is impossible to discover with
certainty what characteristics things possess when they are not
known. The Idealist then proceeds falsely to conclude, c Things
have no characteristics when they are not known ; therefore the
characteristic of being known is that which constitutes their
existence : therefore things only exist when they arc known '.

But the Idealist conclusion docs not in fact follow. The orly
conclusion which can validly be based upon the proposition quoted
above is that ' All known things are known '. This is a truism,
and in so far as the Idealist argument asserts more than this, in
so far, in fact, as it draws the conclusion which it does draw, it
achieves this result by tacking on to this truism a falsity, this
falsity being f All things are known '. But from the fact that we
do not know what characteristics things possess when they are

io Modern Realism

not known it does not follow that all things are therefore always
known. Nor is it really a fact that we can never tell \vhat charac-
teristics things possess when they are not known. We can assert,
for example, of a number that is so large that it has never been
thought of the following characteristic ' The number in question
possesses the characteristic of being half of an even number.'

A similar fallacy underlies the Idealist's use of the word idea '.
The argument that we can only know our own ideas can be
expressed in the form of what is called a Syllogism :

(1) Ideas are incapable of existing apart from a mind.

(2) Physical objects, in so far as they are perceived or known

at all, are certainly ideas.

Therefore (3) All physical objects are incapable of existing
apart from a mind.

This Syllogism, which is formally valid, shrouds an ambiguity
in the use of the word 'idea 1 . In the major premise (i) the
word ' idea ' is used to denote the act of perceiving : in the minor
premise (2) the object of the act, that is to say, the thing or
content that is perceived. But the object of an act of thought
can never be the same as the act of thought of which it is an
object. Hence we shall find that most Realists begin by adopting
an attitude towards mind which conceives of it as that which has
the power of knowing things which are other than itself.

But a refutation of the Subjective Idealism of Berkeley and
Hume docs not necessarily carry with it a disproof of the more
elaborate Idealism of Hegel. Hegel's philosophy is one which,
whatever other claims it may make, takes its stand upon the
existence of something other than states of the knowing mind,
and, even if this something is ' Thought ' taken as a whole, of
which the knowing mind is an imperfect manifestation, it is con-
tended that the Absolute does at least rescue Idealism from the
reproach of being a Solipsistic philosophy.

But does this contention stand the test of analysis ? The

Modern Realism n

Realist claims that it does not. The Absolute, he says, is either
knowable or not knowable. If the Absolute is knowable, it must
form part of the experience of the individual minds which are its
own fragments ; that is to say, its being, falling as it does within
individual experience, affords no evidence for the existence of
anything outside individual experience, and we revert to the
Solipsist position again. If, on the other hand, the Absolute is
unknowable, then it reduces itse]f to the status of the physical
object of Descartes and Locke ; that is to say, of something
behind experience, the existence of \vhich, from the very fact
that it cannot enter into experience, must remain an unverified
hypothesis, a mere guess.

The above dilemma is one which, according to the Realist,
besets any philosophy which makes knowledge in any way con-
stitutive of its objects, or, in other words, any form of Idealism.
This phrase needs a little explanation. Most philosophers have
held that since we can never know an object except as known,
that is to say, since we can never know it as it is apart from being
known, the object's being known forms an integral characteristic
or part of the object as known, such that the object must be
different as known from what it was before it was known. Hence
the knowing of an object tends to modify or constitute the object,
so that knowledge may be regarded as at least in part constitutive
of the object it knows.

Some such reasoning as the above lies at the root of most
Idealist systems, but the Realist holds it to be fallacious reasoning.
Against it and against the various forms of Idealism we have
considered, he urges the following propositions : l

(i) The entities (objects, facts, &c.) under study in logic,
mathematics, and the physical sciences are not mental
in any proper or usual meaning of the word ' mental '.

1 These propositions .together with much of the preceding argument, are taken
from The New Realism, a work by six American professors, published in 1912.

12 Modern Realism

(2) The being and nature of these entities are in no sense
conditioned by their being known.

Hence (3) Things may continue to exist unaltered vJien they
are not known, or pass into and out of knowledge without
prejudice to their reality.

(4) Knowledge is a peculiar type of relation which may subsist
between a mind and any entity.

From these propositions there follow the general Realist con-
clusions : (i) that the nature of things is not to be sought primarily
in the nature of knowledge ; (2) that, accordingly, the nature of
things is what it is independently of our knowing it ; and (3) that
it is therefore not mental.

There is one other question on which a word must be said
before we leave the Realist refutation of Idealism : this is the
question of the being and nature of relations. Most Idealist
theories hold that relations are parts or states of their terms.
The argument is briefly as follows : every object is clearly related
to every other object in the Universe ; thus a hen's egg is more
oval than a cricket ball, more brittle than india-rubber, larger
than a wren's egg, and smaller than an emu's. Unless the egg
stood in all these relations to other objects it would not be the
egg it is ; therefore its relations do help to constitute the nature
and being of the egg. Hence there arc no such things as inde-
pendent relations, but all relations are states of the terms or
things they relate and make those terms what they are. It follows
that, since all things are interrelated, the nature of each contains
and forms part of the nature of all, and we are once more traversing
the path which leads to the Absolute. It is essential therefore
for the Realist to establish the independence of relations, if the
independence and plurality of objects is to be maintained.

His reply consists roughly in asserting that the egg only stands
m the various relations we have mentioned to other objects
because it is itself an egg independently of these relations. If

Modern Realism 13

the egg were its relations we should be compelled to say that the
set of relations which is the egg stands in certain relations to
a number of other sets of relations : we should in fact be left
with a world containing an infinite number of relations with
nothing left to relate.

Hence the Realist lays down the following axiom, known as
the axiom of external relations :

' In the proposition " the term (a) is in the relation R to the
term (b), (a) R in no degree constitutes (b), nor does R (b) con-
stitute (a), nor does R constitute either (a) or (b) ".' It will be
seen, therefore, that the Realist contention that, when a mind
(a) enters into relation with an object (b) (the relation in this
case being the relation of knowing), the knowing of (b) by (a)
docs not modify or constitute (), is only a special case of the
general axiom of external relations.

II. Realist Theories of Perception. We must now consider what
the Realists have to say on the positive side of the question. If
objects are not to be resolved into states of the knowing mind,
what account are we to give of the process of perception by
which they become known ? Most Realists deal at length with
the problem of perception, and it will be readily seen that, if
their object is to conserve as much as possible of the common-
sense view of the world while making allowance for the possibility
of error, the problem of perception must be the starting-point
of their philosophy.

Realist views of perception may be divided into three types,
the first of which maintains the existence of three, the second of
two, and the third of one element only in perception. We will
postpone our consideration of the third view (sometimes known
as Neo-Realism) until the next chapter (when we shall have
occasion to refer to it in connexion with the later developments
of Mr. Russell's philosophy), and briefly describe the first and
second.

14 Modern Realism

(a) The Austrian philosopher Meinong holds that the three
elements involved in the perception of an object are the act of
thought, the content of the act, and the object. The act is the
same in any two cases of the same kind of consciousness : thus,
if I perceive a cow or if I perceive a horse, the act of perceiving
is exactly similar on each occasion. What is different, however, is
the content of m\ perception, this being a cow-content in the
case of the first perception and a horse-content in the case of
the second. The content is again clearly distinguished from the
object, since it must exist in my mind now while the object may
be out in the field, and may also be past as in the case of
memory, or future as in the case of anticipation. As a perception,
and not only a perception but a thought, must always be directed
upon something, it is impossible for a thought to exist without
an object, although an object may exist without a thought.

The chief difficulty of this view consists in the attempt to
distinguish the act of thought from its content. A bare act of
thought, divorced from all the characteristics which give it form,
is as unthinkable as a bare material substance stripped of all the
qualities which give it form. There is in fact no such tiling as
an act or an object \\hich is devoid of qualities : the qualities
constitute the act. It is, moreover, psychologically impossible to
distinguish in consciousness a thought which is not a thought
with a definite content. Most Realists accordingly prefer to run
act and content together and to regard perception as involving
two elements and two only.

(1) The view that in perception two elements only are involved
is common to a great many Realists, and has been urged with
great force and clearness by Professor Alexander, who speaks of
perception as a process in which the mind enjoys itself in corn-
presence with an object. The following is a typical statement
of this view by Professor Dawes Hicks.

The relationship between a physical object and a knowing mind

Modern Realism 15

is twofold, the object forming at once the stimulus of the act of
knowing, and determining its character or content.

Thus a physical object, when placed in a certain juxtaposition
to the sensory organs, produces a stimulation of those organs.
This stimulation is conveyed by purely neural processes to the
brain and so enters into consciousness. This consciousness is neces-
sarily directed upon something in point of fact upon the physical
object which constituted the stimulus. The physical object is
therefore at once the stimulus and the content of the conscious
act. From the fact that the physical object determines the
characteristics or content of the act, it follows that every act will
be qualitatively different from every other act, a perception of
red being therefore a different mental event from the perception
of green. Now, throughout this process the mind is not a purely
passive instrument : on the contrary it is active. Its activity
consists mainly in selection, and selection is dictated by our own
special interests, by our bodily equipment, and by our mental
peculiarities. Thus it is obvious that a red rose, \\hich we will
call R, will appear in different ways to an artist, a botanist, and
a colour-blind person. These different appearances, n, rz, and
r$, form the contents of the three acts of perception of the artist,
the botanist, and the colour-blind person respectively. Because
each pcrcciver emphasizes certain features of the presented whole
at the expense of others, and emphasizes differently, each of these
contents is different from the others. This does not mean that
n, r2, and 7*3 exist as actually selected aspects of R independently
of the perceiver, in the sense in which R exists independently;
n, r2, and 7*3 are selections from the total qualities of R, which
are only discriminated in R by the special bias of the perceivcr's
attention : they arc, in fact, ways in which R is appearing to three
different observers. Nevertheless, they are not entities which
exist only in the mind of the perceivers, but special selections
from the actually existent qualities of the object R. Thus we

16 Modern Realism

have both saved the independence of external objects and
accounted for the different appearances these objects present to
different perceivers.

It is unfortunate that so simple and straightforward an analysis
should not prove ultimately satisfactory. That in the opinion of
many it does not do so, and that it is deficient more particularly
in the primary requisite of accounting for error, the later develop-
ments of Realism which we shall proceed to describe in the next
chapter bear witness.

III. Critical Realism. Another form of Realism which is pro-
minent in modern philosophy has been propounded under the
name of Critical Realism by seven American philosophers, Pro-
fessors Drake, Lovejoy, Pratt, Rogers, Santayana, Sellars, and
Strong. Its distinctive feature consists in its view of the nature
of the objects which form the data of perception, with regard to
which, it is asserted, not only the Idealists, but also other schools
of Realists, have gone radically astray.

Realists, as we have seen, have held on the whole that these
data are the actual physical existents which are believed to form
the constituents of the Universe, and have argued that perception
is a process by which these objects somehow get within our
experience and are directly apprehended. But this account, it
is urged, must be erroneous for the following reasons :

1. An object cannot be in two consciousnesses at once. If,
therefore, it is in A's experience, taking ' in ' literally to mean
* a part of ', it cannot at the same time be in B's.

2. Science teaches that physical objects arc never themselves
the data of perception, but that these data are the messages which
the physical objects send out. Thus the appearance of a star
which is now seen directly overhead is really a message sent by
a star which may have gone out of existence thousands of years
ago. Thus it cannot be said that we actually experience the star.
Thus all cases of perception register data which are at a different

Modern Realism 17

moment in time (especially, e.g., in the case of hearing), and at
a different point in space, as compared with the object which is
supposed to have caused the data. Thus the datum of perception
is a message which is other than the physical object which may be
supposed to have dispatched it.

3. If the object gets into the experience of A, who has normal
vision, as something blue, and of B, who is colour-blind, as some-
thing green, we are required to suppose that the object is both
blue arid green at the same time. Hence erroneous perceptions
would be impossible.

But the Idealist view of perception is equally unsatisfactory.
Idealists in general contend that the data of perception are
psychological existents, ideas or mental states of the perceiver,
which may or may not be copies of an outside object whose
existence must at best remain an assumption. But our data
cannot, it is urged, be our own mental states. For suppose
that the datum perceived is, in the words of one of the Critical
Realists, * a round wheel about three feet in diameter moving
away from us and now between this house and the next ' ; it is
clear that my mental state is neither round, nor three feet in
diameter, nor between this house and the next. The mental
state must then be other than the datum perceived. Further,
it is contended that though A and B may perceive an identical
datum, as, for instance, an identical shade of red, A's mental
state, from the very fact that it is A's, must be qualitatively
different from B's.

But if the datum is neither the physical object, nor any selection
from or aspect of that object, nor the mental state of the per-
ceivcr, it must follow that perception cannot be what is known
as a two-term process. It must involve three terms, and the third
term is the datum.

What, then, is the datum ? It is a character-complex or essence
which, although it is not the object, is taken in perception to be

2535-3I B

i8 Modern Realism

one of the characteristics of an existing object. What happens
in perception is roughly as follows. When an object C comes
into contact with a conscious organism A it exerts an influence
over A. This influence is causal, what it causes being among
other tilings the appearance to A of certain character-complexes.
These character-complexes B arc the data of perception, being
as it were projected by A into the outer world, or imagined as
being out there ; and in true perception they are, or they are
identical with, the characteristics of C. Perception, then, is
' imagining character-complexes out there in the world together
with an implied attribution of existence '. If the perception is
correct, the character-complexes are the actual characteristics of
C, whose influence caused their projection, and the attribution
of existence is justified ; if not, not. Of these character-complexes
we are told that they do not exist : they have logical being or
subsistence nly, and are therefore not altered by the circumstance
of their being the data of perception, nor by their being abandoned
for other data. Professor Santayana indeed speaks of the essences
or data much as Plato did of his famous Ideas or Forms : they
are immutable, intrinsic, and essential ; they subsist eternally in
the Universe wailing to be lit up by our roving thoughts. But
since in true perception the essences or data are, or are identical
with, the characteristics of the object \\hich started the whole
process, the Critical Realist can urge that for him c knowledge
is a beholding of outer and absent objects in a very real and
important sense a beholding that is of their what or nature '.
In other \\ords, we do know the qualities and characteristics of
an object through perceiving the data which reproduce these
characteristics, although the actual physical existent, the that of
the object, never is and never can be perceived.

The Critical Realist can also cL im that his theory avoids the
difficulties that usually beset the Realist account of en or. For
just as true perception means assigning a certain group of charac-

Modern Realism 19

tcristics B to a certain outside reality C whose qualities are
identical with the characteristics in question, so error consists in
ascribing characteristics or essences to a reality which does not
possess them, that is, in supposing that our data are in fact the
characteristics of some object, when they are not.

The theory which has just been outlined is not an easy one
to follow, nor is the task of the student made lighter by important
differences that lie concealed beneath the statements of their
views made by the various essayists.

Thus, while for some the datum is a self-subsistent logical
entity, found out there by the roving mind of the perceivcr, for
others it is a mental projection not found but imagined, its
appearance being in fact due to certain occurrences in our mental
states. The former view reduces perception to a mere accident,
in which all connexion between the original object C and the
datum B which we happen to perceive is lost : the latter is
perilously akin to the subjective idealism which asserts that we
only know our ow r n mental ' projections ' or ' imaginings '. If,
however, we waive these differences of view and consider the
doctrine of Critical Realism as a whole, we shall still find it
open to serious objections. Of these the most important arc the
following :

i. Its analysis of perception precludes the possibility of any
real knowledge of reality. Perception, as we saw, is a three-term
process involving a knowing mind or mental state A, the datum
or essence known B, and the physical object C with whose
characteristics the data are in true perception identical. But if
we always and in all circumstances know B and never in any
circumstances know C, we cannot know anything about C.
We cannot know, therefore, either that C exists or that it has
the property of influencing our mind in such a way as to cause
it to * imagine ' data. Furthermore, if we are denied all direct
knowledge of the qualities or what of C, we cannot know

B 2

20 Modern Realism

whether our data do in fact represent those qualities or not : we
may believe on Pragmatic grounds that perception does as a rule
give us an accurate representation of reality, but, unless we know
this reality directly, the belief will remain little more than a mere
guess, which we shall regard as probable or improbable according
as we do or do not independently hold the doctrines of Critical
Realism, but which cannot be used in support of those doctrines.
Critical Realism therefore provides no criterion in practice for
determining whether our perceptions arc correct or not : if they
are correct, their correctness can never be verified, while if they
are not, it cannot be said that we ever perceive the qualities of
the real at all.

2. Critical Realism attributes the fact that perception takes
place to the influence exerted by an alleged object on the brain,
an influence which causes the brain to project or imagine the
characteristics of the object as its data. Thus if there is no
influence there can be no projection of data.

The doctrine therefore fails to provide us \\ith any account of
the genesis of erroneous perception. If it is the influence of the
object which causes us to imagine the characteristics of the object
as being out there, how comes it that we sometimes imagine
characteristics which are not those of the object, characteristics
which, in the language of the Critical Realists, cannot be * em-
bodied in reality ' ? If, on the other hand, we possess the power
of spontaneously generating data which have no counterpart in
reality, why may we not assume that all perception is of this type ?

3. The theory adopts a criterion of truth and error which
though formally consistent can never be applied. True belief
means assigning data B to an outside reality C whose characteristics
are those data. But as we never know C we can never know
whether our belief is true or false.

The theory, in fact, like all three-term theories of perception,
constitutes a relapse into the Representationalism of the philoso-

Modern Realism 21

phcr Descartes. If it once be admitted that we cannot know
reality directly, it follows that we cannot know reality at all, and
we fail back logically either into Kantian Idealism, or into the
subjective Idealism of Berkeley which asserts that we know only
our own ideas.

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell

MR. RVSSILL'S philosophy may be studied in three successive
phases, which synchronize with the publication of three of his
books entitled, The Problems of Philosophy, Our Knowledge of the
External World, and The Analysis of Mind. The development of
his philosophy, which can be traced in these three books, may
be described as a continuous application of Occam's razor, an
application which grows progressively more drastic, to the con-
stituents of the Universe. In the Middle Ages the monk Occam
enunciated a famous axiom to the effect that 4 Entities are not to
be multiplied without necessity ' ; and the changes which have
taken place in Mr. Russell's philosophy consist of a continuous
paring away of unessential elements, and the reduction of the Uni-
verse to an ever-diminishing number of fundamental constituents.

I. The Problems of Philosophy. The view advocated in
Mr. Russell's later works is commonly known as Neo-Rcalism. The
Problems of Philosophy, however, published in 1911, presents us
with a philosophy which has little in common with these later
developments. While it possesses certain features which point
the way to Neo-Rcalism, it is more akin in spirit, in its attitude to
Idealism, and in its treatment of the problems of perception,
to the theories at which we have already glanced in the previous
chapter, and a brief account of it will help to fill in the outline
of our sketch of this earlier type of Realism.

22 The Philosophy of Mr. Bert rand Russell

Mr. Russell begins by an attack on the ordinary idealist position
as adopted, for instance, in the philosophy of Berkeley, which, as
we have seen, asserts, so far as it is consistent with itself, that the
only entities of which we can have knowledge are ideas in our
minds. Hence, since all that we can know of a tree is a series
of impressions or ideas which the so-called tree imprints upon
our senses, the tree does in fact consist of these ideas which are
entirely in our minds.

The plausibility of this theory, according to Mr. Russell, rests
upon an ambiguity in the use of the word ' in '. When we speak
of having a person in mind, we mean not that the person is in
our mind but that a thought of him is in our mind ; but the
thought is different from the person, and we can, in fact, only
think about the person because he is something other than our
thought about him. This distinction between an act of thought
and the object of the act is of fundamental important e ; if it is
overlooked or obscured, as Berkeley is held to have obscured it,
we arrive at the position that we cannot know that anything
exists except our own ideas. This position, krown as Solipsism,
is, according to Mr. Russell, logically irrefutable, but there is, on
the other hand, no need to suppose that it is true. If, however,
we are to renounce the Solipsist hypothesis, ue can only do so
by assuming that there does exist the distinction between the act
and the object of thought to which I have just referred ; that is
to say, by defining mind to begin with as that which possesses
the characteristic: of becoming acquainted with tilings other than
itself. Knowledge of objects therefore consists in a relation
between mind and some entity other than the mind which knows.

Having established the possibility of the existence oi external
objects, we have now to consider what the various forms of this
relationship may be. Of this relationship there are, according to
Mr. Russell, two forms called respectively knowledge by acquain-
tance and knowledge by description. c We have knowledge by

BERTRAND RUSSELL

The Philosophy of Mr. Bcrtrand Russell 23

acquaintance of everything of which we are directly aware, without
the intermediary of any process of inference or knowledge of
truths.' Thus if we consider any physical object, such as a table,
what we know by acquaintance is not the table itself but a number
of sense data, that is to say, entities perceived by the various
senses, such as hardness, smoothness, brownness, oblongness, and
so forth, which make up the appearance of the table. The know-
ledge of the table itself, on the other hand, is not direct : it is
what Mr. Russell calls knowledge by description. We describe
the table by means of the sense data we know directly, and we
also assume the truth of a certain proposition such as ' These
smsc data are caused by a physical object '. But ' the actual
thing which is the table is not,' says Mr. Russell, ' strictly
speaking, known to us at all '. Nevertheless, our acquaintance-
knowledge of the sense data and our knowledge of the general
truth about the sense data with which we arc acquainted are
thought to justify us in assuming the existence of the physical
object which \\e do not know directly. All knowledge by descrip-
tion will be found to involve in a similar way some knowledge
of truths.

Knowledge of truths, however, involves in its turn knovt ledge
by acquaintance of certain things whose nature is essentially
different from that of sense data. These tilings arc entities to
which Mr. Russell gives the name of univcrsals. Univcrsals,
which arc also called concepts or abstract ideas, are entities such
as whiteness, justice, in-ness, to the left of, and so forth.

Mr. Russell establishes the existence, or rather the * subsistence '
(for, in order to indicate the fact that they are neither in space
nor in time and that they are not perceived by the senses, a \\ord
other than existence is used to denote the type of being they
possess), of these entities on the following lines. If \\e take
a statement such as * Edinburgh is to the north of London ' and
concentrate on the meaning of the phrase ' to the north of ', it

24 The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell

is clear : (i) That * to the north of ' means something, since the
whole proposition would have a different meaning if c to the
south of ' were substituted for it. (2) That this meaning is not
contained in the meaning of Edinburgh. (3) That it is not con-
tained in the meaning of London. (4) That it is not a creation
of my mind, seeing that Edinburgh would still be to the north of
London even if I did not know it, or even if I ceased to exist.
Since, then, it is impossible to think of nothing, * to the north of
is clearly something which subsists in its own right.

By similar methods Mr. Russell establishes the independent
being or subsistence of other general ideas or univcrsals such as
whiteness, in-ncss, and justice. This theory is in part derived
from Plato, who maintained the eternal and independent being
of Forms, such as the Forms of goodness, truth, and beauty,
which arc conceived of in a manner not very different from
Mr. Russell's universals. Mr. Russell, however, goes farther than
Plato in two respects : he recognizes the existence of universals
not only of substantives, such as the universal ' humanity ', and
of adjectives, such as the universal ' whiteness ', but also of verbs
and prepositions.

Prepositions and verbs tend to express relations between two
or more things, and unless the independent existence of these
types of universals is recognized, it is impossible, on Mr. Russell's
view, to establish the independence of physical objects, or indeed
of the external world. The point is important since, as we have
seen in the previous chapter, many if not most philosophers have
held that relations, such as * in-ness ', were not independent
universals external to their terms, but in some way or other
states of or parts of the terms they related. If, however, this
conclusion be admitted, if, that is to say, what is called ' the
axiom of external relations ' which asserts the independence of
the relation of * on-ncss ' be rejected, it follows cither (i) that
there is only one thing in the Universe, the seeming multiplicity

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell 25

of objects in the world being really incomplete aspects of the
same thing (Spinoza's view), or (2) that, if there be a number
of different things, they cannot interact with one another, since
such interaction would involve their coming into relationship
(LcibmVs view).

It is essential therefore for Mr. Russell to establish both the
independent being of universals and the fact that we know them
directly by acquaintance ; and it is essential not only for his
general theory of the external world, but for his particular
doctrine of knowledge by description. For since (i) knowledge
by description always involves, as we have seen, some knowledge
of truths ; and since (2) we can only know truths, or, more pre-
cisely, we can only knoAV that propositions are true, when we
know the constituent parts of the propositions by acquaintance ;
and since (3) every proposition contains one or more universals ;
it follows that knowledge of physical objects is dependent for
Mr. Russell both upon the existence of universals and upon our
direct knowledge of them by acquaintance.

The chief importance of knowledge by description is that it
enables us to pass beyond the limits of our immediate experience,
and to know things which we have never experienced, e.g. that
the President of the United States is clean-shaven, or that Caesar
crossed the Rubicon.

As a summary of Mr. Russell's philosophy at this stage we may
say that it recognizes the existence of at least four different kinds
of entities : (i) knowing minds, (2) sense data which arc known
by acquaintance, (3) universals which are known by acquaintance,
and (4) physical objects which are known by description. It will
be seen that so far the philosophy has more in common with
common-sense or naive Realism than with Nco-Realism. We
must now sec how the application of Occam's razor proceed
to pare away these various entities in later developments of
Mr. Russell's thought.

26 The Philosophy of Mr. Bcrlvand Russell

II. Our Knowledge of the External IF arid. In Our Knowledge
of the External World, published in 1914, Mr. Russell approaches
the problem of sense perception from an entirely different point
of view, his object being nm to carry initial doubt to the farthest
possible limits, and then, abandoning \vhate\cr c.in be doubted,
to reconstruct the world of experience from the simplest materials
with the minimum of assumptions. He points out how most
philosophers in their accounts of sense perception have first
implicitly assumed the existence of other people's minds, and
have then found difficulty in accounting for the fact that the
same physical object presents different appearances to two minds
at the same time, or to one person at two times between which
it cannot be supposed to have changed. As a result of these
difficulties they have either come to doubt whether an external
rcalitv, other than mind, can exist at all (the position of most
Idealists), or have been led to believe that if such a reality does
exist, it can never be known (the position of Kant).

Air. Russell's way out of the difficulty is to eliminate so-called
phvsical objects from the Universe while still maintaining the
existence of an external world. The question immediately presents
itself, Of what is the external world composed if it is not composed
of physical objects ? Mr. Russell's answer is that it is composed
of sense data. These sense data are not physical objects, but
they are the entities, such as raps of sound and patches of colour,
of which, to use the language of Tkc Problems of Philosophy, we
have knowledge by acquaintance, that is to say, of which we are
immediately aware in sensation. These sense data Mr. Russell
calls 'sensible objects', distinguishing between (l) 'our sensation,
which is a mental event, consisting in our being aware of a sensible
object, and (2) the sensible object of which we are aware in
sensation. When I speak ', he continues, ' of the sensible object,
it must be understood that I do not mean such a thing as a table.
. . . What I mean is just that patch of colour which is momentarily
seen when we look at the table, or just that particular hardness

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Riissell 27

which is felt when we press it, or just that particular sound which
is heard when we rap it. Each of these I call a sensible object, arid
our awareness of it I call a sensation ? .

The chief difference between Mr. Russell's position here and
that outlined in The Problems of Philosophy is that, whereas in the
former work he was prepared to assume the existence of the table,
although it was known only by description, he is now averse from
admitting the existence of any class of entities other than the sense
data which we experience in sensation ; the existence of these
sense data, unlike that of the table, is fleeting and momentary, and
probably docs not continue after sensation has ceased, or con-
tinues only for a short space of time. What, then, is the table ' of
whose existence w r e are in practice so con\ inced ? ' Mr. Russell
answers that it is a logical construction from the different appear-
ances that sets of sense data present to different people. These
appearances are necessarily always different owing to the fact that
each mind looks out upon the world from a standpoint peculiar to
itself. It follows that the ' world seen by one mind contains no
place in common with that seen by another, for places can only be
constituted by the things in and around them '. We may suppose,
however, that c in spite of the differences between the different
worlds, each exists entire exactly as it is perceived and might be
exactly as it is even if it were not perceived '. There are, therefore,
an infinite number of such worlds, as many in fact as there are
places from which a view of the world could be obtained, and
whether any of these places is occupied by a mind or not there
will be a special and peculiar view of the world from that place.
Hence aspects of the world exist from all possible points of view,
although no observer need necessarily be perceiving them from
these points of view. It follows that each aspect of the Universe
which is presented to a different place is independent of mind :a
respect of its existence, and an external reality is therefore
established which is non-mental.

But we have still to explain the logical construction of the

28 The Philosophy of Mr. Bcrtrand Russell

common-sense physical object. The view of a world from anyplace
Mr. Russell calL a 4 perspective ' ; the view of the world from a
place \\here there are sense organs, that is, a perceived perspective,
' a private world ' ; and the system of all the views of the Universe
perceived and unpcrceived, 'the system of u perspectives "'.
Two persons whose ' places ' arc near together perceive very
similar perspectives, and can use the same words to denote them,
asserting that they sec the same table because the difference
between the two aspects of the table presented to them is so
small as to be negligible. Thus, these two persons can establish
a correlation by means of similarity between the objects appearing
in their different perspectives. Between these two near points of
observation there \\ill, of course, be other places whose distance
one from another is even smaller than that between the two
points where the observers arc. From these other places the views
of the world, though unperccivcd, will be even more alike. We
can increase the nearness of the points of view indefinitely until,
at their limit, we arrive at a continuous series of related per-
spectives, which may be said to constitute space.

We can now define the physical object. ' Given an object in
one perspective, form the system of all the objects correlated
v\ith it' (by means of similarity) "in all the perspectives; that
system may be identified v\ith the momentary common-sense
u thing ". Thus, an aspect of a " thing " is a member of the
system of aspects which is the thing at that moment.' But
the aspect is not the thing: the aspect that is to say, that
which is immediately experienced is a set of sense data, and
the thing which is the system of all the different sense data
which appear in all possible perspectives is a logical construc-
tion and not a real existent. An analogy will be found in the
logically constructed concept ' humanity ", which is the system of
all the real men who compose humanity, but which has no real
existence in its o\\n right.

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell 29

At this stage, then, we have retained the external world, but
eliminated the common-sense physical object. We have now to
make the next advance in economy.

III. The Analysis of Mind. This advance is made in The
Analysis of Mind, and, from our present point of view, its chief
importance consists in the abolition of the distinction between
our sensations and the sense data which we experience.

The doctrines put forward in Mr. Russell's The Analysis oj
Mind, published in 1921, have much in common with what is
called Neo-Realism, a theory, largely American in origin, which
has been advocated in this country by Professor T. P. Nunn. In
this book Mr. Russell seeks to reconcile, or rather to bring under
one common heading, psychology, or the science of mind, and
physics, or the science of matter. He endeavours to achieve this
result by establishing the existence of a common subject-matter
for both sciences, and, in the course of his reasoning, he is led to
adopt a peculiar position with regard to the vexed question of
the relationship between mind and matter.

Common sense presents us with a world which appears to
contain two different classes of existents : matter, which is known
by mind, and mind, which knows matter. Scientists and philo-
sophers have as a rule endeavoured to resolve this apparent duality
into a more fundamental unity, and in so doing to bring the
whole realm of existence under a common formula. For this
purpose it is necessary to abolish either mind or matter. Scientists
on the whole have endeavoured to eliminate mind ; they have
denied its efficacy and restricted its scope, while extreme views
have regarded it as a highly attenuated form of matter ; philo-
sophers on the whole have tried to eliminate matter, convicting
it on Idealist grounds of being a fictitious abstraction from an
experience whose nature is mental through and through.

Recent developments have affected these traditional attitudes
towards mind and matter in rather a peculiar way. In the first

30 The Philosophy of Mr. Bcrtrand Russell

place matter, under the influence of modern physics, has been
growing less material. The physicist deals not with physical
objects but with the curvatures of a four-dimensional continuum
into \\hicli objects are resolved. In the second place mind,
under the influence of modern psychology, has become progrcs-
sixcly less mental. The Behaviourist school in psychology con-
tends that the sum total of our knowledge of any person is limited
to our observation of his behaviour. Mind cannot be observed,
and, though its existence is not explicitly denied, it remains at
best a doubtful inference from observed behaviour. This is, it
is true, an extreme position in psychology, but it is the logical
development of a tendency which is sufficiently widespread. Mind
and matter having both lost their most salient characteristics, the
difficulty of bringing them under a common formula is corre-
spondingly diminished ; but this result is achieved not by merging
cither into the other, but by deriving both from a more funda-
mental stuff of \\hich the Universe may be supposed to be com-
posed. To this stuff Mr. Russell gives the name of ' neutral
particulars ', the word neutral being intended to convey the
fundamental character of the particulars, and the fact that they
are in themselves neither mental nor material. These particulars
are arranged in different contexts. Taken in one context and
arranged in a certain way, they form the subject-matter of
psychology ; taken in another context and arranged in another
way, they form the subject-matter of physics.

The position is not an easy one to grasp, but an illustration,
which Mr. Russell himself uses, may perhaps serve to make it
plainer.

If a photographic plate is exposed to a star on a clear night,
it reproduces the appearance of the star. We are accordingly
forced to conclude that at the place where the plate is, and at all
places between ii and the star, something is happening which is
specially connected with the star. Similarly at every place to

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell 3 1

which the star is presented something is happening which is
specially connected with the star, although, unless at the place in
question there is an oljcct akin to a photographic plate, that
happening is not recorded.

The complete system of all these happenings, or, in other words,
the system of all the appearances cT the star at different places,
constitutes the momentary star. So far the argument is only
a repetition of the view already expressed in Our Knowledge of the
External World. Let us now return to the photographic plate.
Many other things are happening at the plate besides the pre-
sented appearance of the star. Among these are the appearances
of other stars, and doubtless also of numerous other objects whose
impression is too faint for the plate to record. It follows, then,
that, besides the happenings which consist of the collected system
of all the appearances or aspects of our original star at different
places, we can also collect together at a given moment another
system of happenings which are occurring at the place where the
plate is. One particular or member of this second system, namely,
the appearance of the original stai, will belong also to our first
system of particulars which is the star. Thus, every particular
belongs to two distinct series or systems of particulars, namely,
that series which together with itself constitutes the physical
object, and that series which together with itself constitutes the
appearances of all objects at a given place.

Now let us suppose that the place at which the appearance of
the star is presented is occupied not by a photographic plate but
by a mind. The appearance of the star at that place will now be
called a sensation, and will belong to the series of sensations which
taken together at any one moment constitute what is called a mind
at that moment. It remains, however, all the time a member of
the other series to which it belongs, namely, the series whicli
constitutes the star, and as a member of this series it iorms one of
the sense data which are presented to mind. The conclusion is

32 The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell

that sensations and sense data, instead of being separate and
distinct according to the view put forward in Our Knowledge of the
External World, are really identical entities, these entities being
the neutral particulars which, according as they are taken in one
or other of two different systems or contexts to each of which
they belong, are called respectively sense data and sensations.
The difference between what is called a mind and what is called
an object presented to a mind is therefore a difference not of
substance but of arrangement. We arrive therefore at the
following conclusions :

(i) A perception of an object is the appearance of the object
at a place where there is a brain with sense organs and nerves
forming part of the intervening medium. (2) An object is the
sum total of the appearances (of w r hich the appearance which is
a perception is one) presented by it at all places at a given moment.
(3) A mind is the sum total of all the appearances presented at
a place at which there is a brain "with sense organs and nerves
forming part of the intervening medium at a given moment ;
a mind is in fact, to revert to the language of Our Knowledge of
the External World, the view of the world from a particular kind
of place.

It may be asked in what sense such a theory can be termed
a realistic one. Its divergence from the common-sense theory of
naive Realism is far-reaching and obvious, and it must be admitted
that, as applied to the later developments of modern philosophy,
the old labels of Realism and Idealism are hopelessly inadequate.
It should be sufficient therefore to demonstrate the radical differ-
ence of this \ievv from any form of Idealism without insisting too
strongly on its claim to the title of Realism.

Mr. Russell is asserting the existence of a world of neutral
particulars which, so far from depending for their existence upon
knowledge by mind, are, not affected by the circumstance of their
being known by mind : they are not in fact known by mind at

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell 33

all. Mr. Russell's position is that a cross-section of these particulars
arranged in a ccilain system iorms the actual stuff ot which mind
is made, that eacli one of the particulars belonging to this cross-
section is at the same time a member of another cross-section,
and that as a member of this second cross-section it constitutes an
aspect of the object known by mird. This view, which reduces
mind as a certain arrangement of particulars to a position of relative
unimportance, is clearly opposed to any form of Idealistic inter-
pretation of the Universe.

Two questions remain to complete our sketch of Mr. Russell's
development, and on these we have space only to indicate his
view without entering into the reasons for it.

The first is the question of error. All forms of Neo-Realism
find difficulty in accounting for the existence of error. If the
function of mind in perception is limited to an awareness of sense
data and its constructive powers arc reduced to a minimum or
bluntly declared to be non-existent, it is not easy at first sight to
see how erroneous perception can occur. The mind cannot be
aware of what docs not exist, and the blue sense datum of the
colour-blind man who is looking at the grass must therefore be
pronounced as real as the green sense datum of the person with
normal vision. The Neo-Realist is, thus, debarred from adopting
the view that mind creates error for itself, by his restriction of
the function of mind to that of discovering or becoming aware.

Mr. Russell boldly embraces the difficulty by asserting that
there are no such things as c illusions of sense '. ' Objects of
sense,' that is to say, sense data, ' even when they occur in dreams,
are the most real objects known to us.'

What, then, is the basis of our belief in the comparative unreality
of dreams and the complete unreality of hallucinations ? It is
clear that, since all objects known to sense are equally real, \<e
cannot find our criterion of unreality in any special characteristic
of the relationship between an unreal object and mind, such that

2535-31 C

34 The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell

all unreal objects do stand in this particular kind of relationship to
mind, whereas all real objects stand in a different kind ol relation-
ship. \Ve must, therefore, look for it in the relationship sub-
sisting between the so-called unreal object and objects commonly
bclie\cd to be real. 'Objects of i-ensc \ says Air. Russell, 'are
called "real " when they have the kind of connexion with other
objects of sense \\hich experience has led us to regard as normal ;
when they fail in this they are called " illusions n V What is
illusory, however, is not the object of sense, but the inference to
which it gives rise. Thus, when I dream I am in America and
wake up to find myself in England, the- dream is stigmatised
as unreal since the customary days on the Atlantic which are
normally connected with a visit to America are known not to have
intervened.

The other question to which a passing reference must be made
is the question of universuls. As we have seen, the Universe
pictured by Mr. Russell in The Problems of Philosophy is peopled
with hosts of universals of which we are supposed to have know-
ledge by acquaintance. This position is abandoned in later books.
The argument by means of which Mr. Russell is enabled to
eliminate universals from the list of entities he finds necessary for
the construuion of his universe is dcrued from mathematical
logic, and is difficult to grasp. While not committing himself to
a definite denial of the possibility of the existence of universals,
Mr. Russell finds it unnecessary to postulate these entities in order
to account for the possession of a so-called common quality by
members of a class of entities which are grouped together because
of their possession of that quality. There is, he thinks, no need
to assume the existence as a universal of the quality in question in
addition to the class, since the existence of the class of entities
which possess the quality is sufficient to account for the known
facts.

The proof of this assertion is as follows : When 2 relation exists

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell 35

such that, if one term has this relation to another, then the other
has it to the one, the relation is termed ' symmetrical '. Such a
relation is that of ' being the brother or sister of '. A ' sym-
metrical ' relation is further called ' transitive " uhcn, if one term
ha? the relation to a second and the second has it to a third, then
the first term also has it to the third ; thus, if A is called by the
same name as B and B is called b, the same name as C, then A is
also called by the same name as C. Now, whenever a number of
terms possess a common property or quality, transitive sym-
metrical relations exist between them ; but in all such cases
'the class of terms that have the given transitive symmetrical
relation to a given term will fulfil all the formal requirements
of a common property of all the members of the class '. Hence,
as the existence of the class is certain, and that of the common
property as something over and above the class is doubtful,
it is more economical only to posit the existence of the class.
This principle is called by Mr. Russell ' the principle of abstrac-
tion '. By its means, and by means of the further analysis
carried out in The Andy sis of Mind^ Mr. Russell is enabled to
construct his Universe exclusively from sense data and sensations,
these sense data and sensations being themselves only special
arrangements of more fundamental neutral particulars.

Criticism. Mr. Russell's views, especially in their later develop-
ments, do not find favour with many philosophers. This fact may
partly be accounted for by the consideration that, if Mr. Russell's
attitude to the world is the right one, no sphere is left to Philosophy
which she may regard as peculiarly her own. In The Analysis
of Mind the place and methods of philosophy are abandoned for
physics and psychology respectively, while Mr. Russell suggests
that the most fruitful source of investigation in the future will
be found in a third science, more fundamental than either phys ; :s
or psychology, which will study the arrangements of the neutral
particulars which lie at the basis of both mind and matter.

C 2

36 The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell

The questions at issue here between Mr. Russell arid more
orthodox philosophers arc largely questions of object and of
method. Philosophers have held that it was their business to
take all knowledge for their province and, by synthesizing the
results obtained by the special sciences, to endeavour to obtain
a view of the Universe as a whole, which was more comprehensive
than that to which any single science could aspire. Philosophers,
therefore, while accepting without question the results which the
various sciences have reached, each within its special sphere, have
proceeded to deduce therefrom by purely rational processes
certain considerations tending to show \\liat must be the character
of the Universe as a whole. The philosopher is concerned,
accordingly, not with science itself, but with the nature of the
Universe \\hich the existence of science implies ; not with
experience itself, but with the question of the conditions or
presuppositions necessarily involved in the fact that experience
is what it is. It is this conception of the aims and methods of
philosophy that Mr. Russell questions at the outset, and many of
the Xco-Realists share his scepticism. For him no concrete
results are attainable, just as no concrete results have been
attained, by the methods of a priori reasoning which philosophy
has hitherto pursued. He advocates, therefore, that philosophy
should dissolve itself into the various special sciences, and should
proceed by scientific methods to arrive at isolated, specific results,
instead of speculating at large about the results achieved by
other forms of inquiry. He holds, that is to say, that philosophy
should take its problems one by one and endeavour to solve them
piecemeal, that for such piecemeal solutions it is not necessary
to have a complete theory of the Universe, and that there is no
such thing as philosophic truth, that is, truth about the Universe
as a whole, in addition to and other than the collection of true
solutions of specific, scientific problems.

The questions at issue here are fundamental, and anything like

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell 37

an adequate treatment of them would take us far beyond the
confines of the present book. If Mr. Russell is right, most philo-
sophy is meaningless ; if he is wrong, we may still hope by the
methods which philosophy has traditional!/ pursued to arrive at
truth about the Universe. Whether he is right or wrong, how-
ever, it is certain that men will continue to philosophize, if only
because of the ennobling and wkiening effect upon the intellect
of philosophical speculation, and the deep-seated character of
the instinct of curiosity to which it appeals.

But although a discussion of the general question is beyond our
present scope, it will be relevant to mention three considerations
with regard both to the revolution Mr. Russell advocates in
philosophical method, and to certain of the specific conclusions
at which he arrives.

(a) The strictures which Mr. Russell passes on the methods
of traditional philosophy are themselves the outcome of those
methods. It is philosophical reflection about the nature of reality
as a whole, and about the results achieved by the special sciences and
their significance for our conception of reality as a whole, which
leads Mr. Russell to the conclusion that no concrete results can
be obtained by philosophical reflection about reality as a whole.
Yet this conclusion constitutes in itself a statement about the
nature of reality, a statement which has philosophical purport and
is reached by philosophical methods ; and, even if this statement
is to the effect that truth about the Universe is not to be reached
by the methods of traditional philosophy, it is, nevertheless,
invalidated by the very fact which it affirms. If no philosophical
conclusions reached by traditional methods are demonstrably true,
then the statement that they are not is itself not demonstrably true.
It would seem, therefore, that Mr. Russell is not justified ir using the
methods of traditional philosophy in order to discredit those methous.

(b) The problem of error is one of the most difficult in philo-
sophy. When Mr. Russell says that all objects known to the senses

38 The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell

are real, there is clearly a certain sense in which his statement is
true. This sense embraces also the objects which we construct
for ourselves in imagination and which appear to us in dreams.
It is clear also that if we accept his view that objects of sense
are the same entities as our sensations of those objects taken
in a different context, there can be no such thing as error or
illusion.

If, however, \\e are unable to go to the length prescribed by
Air. Russell's latest \ie\v, if in fact we adhere to the more ordinary
Realist view that thoughts about objects arc different from the
objects thought about, a different, and in many ways more satis-
factory, criterion of error suggests itself.

We shall say that a true thought is one which corresponds with
a reality existing independently of it ; that a false or illusory
thought is one \\hich has no such corresponding reality. The
advantage of this position is that it requires the truth of every
thought to be tested by something other than itself, instead of
allowing it to be established- -as must necessarily be the case if
there is no object other than the thought by the self-asscrtiveness
of the thought itself. Of course such a position postulate? the
exigence of a mind which is active, to the extent of being able
to go out beyond the sense data presented to it, and which can
therefore create error for itself. Air. Russell's latest position
\\ould presumably deny to mind this activity. But if mind is
not active, it cannot act erroneously ; there is therefore no such
thing as intellectual error; and it accordingly becomes difficult to
see how Mr. Russell could deny to opposing views as to the con-
stitution of mind and the nature of error a validity equal to that
of liis nun

(r) The manner in which Mr. Russell disposes of universals is
ur^atisfactory. In his view the existence of a class of terms
possessing a given relationship to a certain given term will fulfil
all the requirements of a common property belonging to each

The Philosophy of Mr. Bertrand Russell 39

member of the class ; there is, therefore, no need to postulate
the existence of the common property as a universal.

But how are the members of the class collected together in the
first instance ? They are collected in virtue of the fact that they
possess certain affinities with one arir.iier, which arc such that
entities not belonging to the class do not possess them. These
affinities constitute a certain qurlity. Mr. Russell defines this
quality as that of c possessing a given transitive symmetrical rela-
tion to a given term '. But, however we define it, its existence
appears to be a necessary presupposition of there being a class at
all. If there were no common quality, there would be no class
of entities which could be collected together because they have
it. Since, then, it is necessary to postulate the existence of the
quality in order to explain the class, we cannot use the class to
do the work of the quality : we cannot in fact substitute the class
for the quality from the very fact that the quality is the con-
dition of there being a class. Hence the quality exists indepen-
dently of the class, and hence we must readmit universals into
our universe. But if we admit the existence of universals we have
clearly admitted something which it is impossible to account for
in terms of sensations and sense data, and the position adopted
by Mr. Russell in The Analysis of Mind will have to be still further
modified.

3

NcO'Idcalism

I. Introductory. For many philosophers the school of thought
known as Neo-Idcalism constitutes the most significant and
original, as it is certainly the most recent, of all modern develop-
ments in philosophy. The doctrines of this school, of which
the Italian philosophers Benedetto Croce and Gio\anni Gentile
are the chief exponents, although claiming a validity which is

40 Nco-Idcalism

universal, are markedly nationalist in origin and characteristics, and
both Crocc and Gentile claim for them that, in their insistence
on the significance of art and of history, they express a distinctively
Italian outlook on the Universe.

GUI concern, houcver, is with their philosophical import, and
from this point of view we shall most easily grasp their significance
by considering their relationship to the philosophy of Hegel, of
certain aspects of whose system they may be regarded as the
logi c a 1 d e v e 1 o p in e n t .

He^cl may be said to have bequeathed to the world of philo-
sophy two distinct doctrines which, though they may be regarded
and were regarded by Hegel himself as complementary and ulti-
mately reconcilable, are held by some to be incompatible.

These doctrines are : (l) That thought is a living concrete
reality and that, since thought, our thought in point of fact, is
the only type of existent of whose reality we are definitely assured,
thought must be regarded as that in terms of which we arc to
interpret the whole of reality. (2) That behind the immediate
thought or experience of \\hich we are aware, transcending it and
yet immanent in it, there is a total concrete unity of thought in
terms of which alone individual experience becomes intelligible,
and through participation in which it is real.

While not by any means neglecting the first of these doctrines,
what we may call the normal developments of Hegel's philosophy
have tended to emphasize the second, and the insistence on the
complete reality of the total unity of thought, the Absolute as it
is called, and on the only partial reality of the thought of indi-
viduals in so far as it falls short of this full reality, is the central
doctrine of the important school of English Idealism of which
Mr. Bradley and the late Professor Bosanquet * are the chief
exponents. Now the significant point about this development is
that it is one \vhv:h in the long run regards the Universe as static
1 Profcsbor Bosanquet died early in 1923.

Neo-Idealism 41

and completed. Individual thought may b~ continuously develop-
ing and continuously synthesizing the results of its development ;
but the ultimate structure of the Universe remains a unity whose
nature, being all that it is, can never become mere than it is ; it is
therefore immutable. This recognition 01 the character of com-
pletedncss of the whole on the part of d'e English Idealists does not
in their view imply that the totality of the Universe is dead and
finite. On the contrary it is ever new in its continual expression of
itself in finite terms, and, since none of these terms can express it
adequately, each expression of itself is different. But 3eeing that,
although immanent in each partial expression, it retains, never-
theless, its character of infinite totality, it cannot in itself be
supposed to change, or, in other words, to be historical in character,
since history presupposes change in what it records. This con-
ception has been variously attacked under the name of the * block
Universe ', by William James and the Pragirutists, by the Realists,
and finally by the Neo-Idealists. It is attacked more particularly
because, by locating the Absolute, with which reality is identified,
behind and beyond our finite experience, it makes reality transcend
our experience and so precludes the possibility of knowledge of
reality ; because, by making the Absolute the immanent spring
from which all thought rises as well as the all-embracing sea into
which all thought merges, the universal presupposition of experi-
ence as well as the final synthesis of experience, it renders progress
non-existent and change unreal ; and because for this very reason
Reality becomes an embodiment of thought as a passive structure,
and not an expression of thinking as an active principle.

If, in short, the Universe is really given and immutable as
a whole, the apparent differentiation and multiplicity which it
exhibits arc equally given and immutable, and the Hegelian
dictum that * Philosophy is History ' becomes meaningless.

Into the merits of the controversy between the English school
of Idealists and their critics we cannot enter here. But it will be

42 Nco-Idealism

well to pause for a moment and to examine the implications of
the dictum ' Philosophy is History', since it is this phrase more
than any other that constitutes the point of departure for the
development? in Hegel's philosophy for which the Neo-Idealists
are responsible. If the only thing that exists in the Universe is
mind, History will be the History of mind ; it will record not
the occurrence of events, but the developments of mind. So far
the Nco-Idcalist is at one with the Hegelian. But it is here that
the point of departure to which we have already referred occurs.
If reality is a static Absolute, it cannot advance in time; it cannot
therefore progress ; if the structure of thought is already com-
plete, the activity of thinking, which implies change and develop-
ment, cannot, in the Xeo-Idealist view, be of the essence of
Reality; and, since History inevitably involves the conception
of development and progress which History records, there can be
no such thing as real History. It follows, therefore, that if we are
to save any meaning for the Hegelian phrase Philosophy is
History ', we must, according to the Neo-Idealists, definitely
abandon the second of the two positions bequeathed by Hegel,
and, forgetting the static Absolute behind the multiplicity and
immediacy of experience, concentrate on the multiplicity and
immediacy of experience. And it is precisely in this abandonment
and in this concentration that the advance made by Croce and
Gentile consists. For them, mind, active, self-creative and self-
creating mind, is literally the only thing in the world, and besides
mind there is nothing, not even an all-generative Absolute at the
beginning or an all-merging Absolute in the end.

Now Philosophy studies the nature or being of reality ; that
is to say, it studies the nature or being of mind. But, according
to the Neo-Idealists, it is the nature or being of mind to be
self-creative : mind creates therefore what it interprets, and it
interprets what it creates. As creative, mind is History; it is
making reality, and History therefore is present reality : as inter-

CROCK

From the painting by Ciai-omo Grossc

Nco-Idealism 43

pretative, mind is Philosophy : Philosophy therefore is nothing
but the continuance of the activity which it interpiets. We may
go one step farther and say that it is that activity : for, since
mind is what it makes itself, it is the process of its own self-
realization : therefore the reflection uy mind on mind's nature
and being is itself mind'? nature and being. Hence the Philosophy
of History is the same as the His ' jry of Philosophy.

The Universe therefore as conceived by the Neo-Klealists not
merely includes an advance in time, as it did for Hegel, but
actually is and consists in such an advance, being an unrolling of
mental events. Thus Reality is a perpetual becoming, whose
completion would be self-contradictory. It moves because, in
Croce's words, ' every particular form is particular, and thi
spirit' (i.e. reality) 'does not stay still, but rather is never as
the whole in any one of its particularizations, and therefore its
true being is just its circular movement which, in its perpetual
rotation, produces the perpetual increment of itself upon itself,
the ever new history '. Reality is conceived of therefore as
a recurrence of cycles rather than as a progress ad infinitum ; at
every instant something is attained, yet nothing is ever completely
attained, and this twofold characteristic is exhibited by reality
throughout. ' The true conception of progress ', says Croce,
* must therefore fulfil at once the two opposite conditions, of an
attainment, at every instant, of the true and good, and of raising
a doubt at every fresh instant, without, however, losing what has
been attained ; of a perpetual solution and of a perpetually
renascent problem demanding a new solution ; it must avoid the
two opposite onc-sidednesses of an end completely attained and
of an end unattainable, of the " progressus ad finitum " and the
" progressus ad infinitum ".'

This extract from Crocc will serve the double purpose r t
summarizing the general metaphysical conception of tne Neo-
Idealists, and of indicating the attitude adopted by Croce to the

44 Neo-Idcalism

Universe regarded from the special point of view of ethics. We
must now examine in a little more detail the application of this
conception to the traditional problems of philosophy, and from
this point onwards it will be convenient to consider the theories
of Croce and of Gentile separately.

II. Benedetto Croce. Croce's Philosophy is entitled by him
' The Philosophy of the Spirit ', and consists of four volumes called
respectively Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Lin-
guistic ; Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept ; Philosophy of the
Practical Economics and, Ethics \ and The Theory and History of
Historiography. Each of these works has been translated into
English by Mr. Douglas Ainslie. Let us begin by restating \\ith
greater particularity the general doctrine of Croce that the only
tiling which exists is mind, and try to understand the founda-
tion on which its seeming paradox rests.

Croce starts from the position common to all Idealist philo-
sophers, that experience, our experience, to be precise, is the only
tiling of whose existence we can be absolutely certain. Experience
alone therefore possesses in its own right the full title to be called
real ; everything else is only real in so far as it is a movement,
a grade, a factor, a condition, or a presupposition of experience.
This experience must furthermore be present and actual, the past
and future only being real in so far as they depend on, arc con-
tinuous with, or are presupposed by the present.

Now experience appears at first sight inalienably to involve the
conception of that which is experienced : it seems to suggest an
object which stands as it were face to face with the expericncer,
and in so doing stimulates the experience and determines its
character. But this suggestion is a delusion. The distinction
between experience and the object of experience is a distinction
made within experience itself, the experience, namely, with which
we start. This experience with which we start is a whole, a unity,
mental through and through, and the distinction made within it

Neo-Idealism 45

between an experience and the object of an experience is a dis-
tinction which is itself a product of the experiencing mind : we
experience, not the object, but our experience of the supposed
object. Hence, since our experience is tLe only thing of which
we are directly aware, theic is no need to suppose that the object,
or indeed the whole \\orld of external matter believed to be
independent of mind, is anything more than a mental construc-
tion, a species of abstraction made by mind for its own purposes
from the concrete whole of experience. But if there is no external
object it is clear that mind must create its own objects, and we
are accordingly forced to the view that experience is a self-
determining and self-creating activity, which is both scif-begelting
and self-begotten. And, since whatever is real must be of this
type, it follows that reality is a universal Mind or Spirit which
creates alike itself and its environment. Mind therefore is like a
Universe without windows. Nothing can pass into it or pass out
of it. And, since there can be no such thing as a reality without
form, it follows that every form which reality can assume must
have its ground within mind or experience. All reality is thus
engendered from experience, and we have no knowledge of a
reality which is not in this way formed out of our experience.

Now reality does in fact assume for us a variety of forms, and
since, in virtue of the fact that each form is a form of experience,
each possesses an equal reality, the only task of philosophy is to
grade these forms in their proper order, to determine their
relationship to each other, and to reveal the part they play in
constituting the concrete whole of experience which is the reality
we know. This is the task which Croce's philosophy sets out to
perform.

A. The Theoretical Activity. The first form is that of knowing,
which Croce calls the theoretical activity. From the fact thr t
our conception of experience requires us to believe that mind
itself generates or actualizes the material which forms the subject-

46 Neo-Idcalism

matter of knowledge, it follows that the knowing form of activity
must have two subgrades, the first of which will be the form
under which the mind supplies the material, which under the
second form it arranges and classifies. These two subgrades are
called respectively (d) Intuition with its corresponding science of
aesthetic, and (/;) Conceptual thinking with its corresponding
science of logic. We must consider each of these subgrades
separately.

(if) Intuition. For Croce there is no problem of sense percep-
tion, that bugbear of the Realists. There arc no objects of sense
and no independent sense data ; and, since there are no objects
or data given to experience, there can be no passive element in
experience consisting of the mere acceptance or awareness of these
data. Perception therefore is not, as many previous philosophers
have thought, a process in which a mind A becomes aware of
something outside it, B, or in which A moulds B, or in which
A becomes mixed with or interpenetrates or synthesizes B, but
an activity in which A generates for itself its own data in the
shape of images and intuitions. This activity is called the aesthetic
activity, and the process by which the data of thought are created
is called a process of imagination or of intuition.

This brings us to the most distinctive feature of Crocc's philo-
sophy : the faculty of perception so defined is pre-eminently the
faculty of the artist or of the poet. This does not mean that
only artists or poets perceive. What it docs mean is that in
giving an account of the machinery of perception on Croce's lines
we find that we are in fact describing the behaviour of the artist
and the poet. We have said above that the aesthetic activity
produces its data for itself ; describing this process more precisely
we shall say that mind has intuitions and expresses these intuitions
in the form of images. This does not mean that the intuition and
the image arc distinct, or that an unexpressed intuition can exist
in its own right. The intuition and the image are only spoken

Neo-Idealism 47

of as two owing to the exigencies of language ; and the fact that
subsequent reflection can distinguish them as two distinct phases
in the aesthetic activity docs not mean that they possess a separate
existence or can function separately. There is in fact no such
thing as an unexpressed intuition ; for the intuition is its expres-
sion. But it is just this expression of intuitions in images which is
the business of the artist. Art is lyrical ; it is the giving expression
to the intuitions in the poet's soul : beauty itself is expression or
rather successful expression, and disgust at ugliness disapproval of
a failure to express. And, just as the creation of beauty is expres-
sion, so is its appreciation : we only appreciate a work of art in
so far as it succeeds in expressing the intuitions which are our
own. In saying that art is expression, Croce means to imply
among other things that it is expression and nothing else. It is
characteristic of the aesthetic activity to take things just as they
are, and, without reflection, classification, definition, arrangement,
or estimate of their reality or unreality, to express them in con-
crete form or shape. But this is not to be taken to imply that
it is an external object whose influence upon himself the artist
seeks to express, in the sense in vvhich we should say that the
beauty of a spring morning inspired a Shellcyan lyric. The
things which the artist expresses are intuitions which form them-
selves within himself, intuitions which are generated by mind and
which form the stuff of which reality is made. The position
which Croce adopts may therefore be summarized briefly as
follows.

(i) In all experience there is involved an element, grade,
moment, call it what you will, in which intuitions are simply
accepted and expressed without either selection or reflection.
The activity of this moment, as Croce calls it, is the inevitable
condition of all experience and of all thinking. Though never
occurring in actuality without the conceptual elements (see ()
below) which constitute thought, this activity is logically separable

48 Neo-Idealism

from thorn, whereas all thinking or conception is dependent upon
its prior occurrence ; that is to say, thinking is logically inseparable
from it. Croce therefore calls the aesthetic the lowest moment
in experience, as opposed to Kant and others who regarded it as
the highest, intending by the word ' lowest ' to signify that it is
that which must logically precede the rest.

(ii) This element in experience is that which chiefly charac-
terizes the work of the artist and the poet. There is theoretically
an initial stage in perception in which every man is both a poet
and an artist. ' If ', says Croce, ' we think of man at the first '
(imaginary) ' moment of his unfolding theoretic life, his mind as
yet unencumbered by any abstraction or any reflection, in that
first moment, purely intuitive, he can be but a poet. Art, which
creates the first presentations and inaugurates the life of know-
ledge, also continually keeps fresh in our mind the aspects of
things which thought has submitted to reflection and the intellect
to abstraction, and so for ever is making us become poets again.
Without it, thinking would lack its stimulus and the very material
of its mysterious and creative work.' Croce himself is an eminent
art critic and writer on literary subjects, and the bulk of his work
will be found to consist of a detailed application of his theory
that art is expression to a criticism of the work of particular
writers and artists.

(b) 'The concept. The second subgrade of the theoretic activity
is conceptual thinking, which universalizes what is presented in
the bare intuition. More particularly, it is a process of putting
relations in between the intuitions and images which the first
grade of the theoretic activity has supplied, and a process of
knowing those relations. As we have seen, this conceptual activity
is inevitably preceded by the aesthetic activity which supplies it
with its material, and cannot take place without it. We have
intuitions which are intuitions of, or which more correctly are,
individual things, like good wine, good tennis, good character,

Neo-Idealism 49

and it is the concept of goodness which,by enabling us to understand
the relations between these different intuitions, constitutes the ele-
ment of universality which is a necessary condition of all thinking.

We have already, in describing Mr. Russell's philosophy, met
the concept under the name of c universal ', and traced the process
by which Mr. Russell endeavoured to give an account of the
Universe without the aid of universals. But Crocc's concept,
though in a sense performing the same function as the Realist's
universal, is of a totally different character. The most important
difference lies in the fact that for Croce the concept is mental
and stands for no class of qualities in the external world. It is
merely a moment or phase in thinking. As such it has three
characteristics which must be carefully borne in mind. It is
universal, expressive, and concrete ; and it is these three charac-
teristics, which we must now consider in turn, which distinguish
the concept proper from its spurious imitation the c pscudo con-
cept or false concept ', which, according to Croce, has led so many
philosophers astray.

In ascribing universality to the pure concept Croce means to
assert that the concept is present in every manifestation of life
and reality, that is to say, of experience. Instances of concepts
of such an entirely general character arc quality, evolution, shape,
and beauty. However trivial, minute, or abstract the experience
we choose for our example, it must possess the characteristics of
quality, shape, and beauty in some degree, however small : if it
did not, there would be no means of distinguishing it from other
experiences : it would be without form or properties ; in short,
it would not be real. Croce's way of expressing this is to say
that the concept is immanent in every presentation of life or,
more exactly, in every intuition or image which forms the material
of thought. But, though immanent, the concept is also tran-
scendent ; that is to say, even if it were possible to collect together
the whole mass of individual experiences taken in sum, these

50 N co-Idealism

experiences would not exhaust the concept ; hence, though quality
is always present in any and every manifestation of reality, it is
always something more than the sum of its presentations.

As regards expressiveness, the concept is the expression of the
logical activity, just as the image is the expression of the aesthetic
activity. In order to be real a thought must have form : if it
has no form it is not a thought ; and the concept is that which
gives form to the thought that in virtue of which its form is
what it is in the same way as the image gives form to the intui-
tion. The concept therefore is the formal expression of thought
or of the logical activity.

Finally, the concept is concrete, by which Croce means that it
is real. It is present in every moment of our experience ; it is
immanent in every intuition, and, since experience is, as we have
seen, the only form of reality, we may conclude that whatever
is real is also conceptual. It is the quality of cuncreteness which
serves most of all to distinguish the concept from the pseudo
concept. The pseudo concept is a class name for a number of
existent entities or, in Croce's language, presentations which
possess a common property. Examples of the pseudo concept are
' house ', ( triangle ', ' water ', ' man '. Much philosophy has been
concerned with the attempt to establish the status of these pseudo
concepts, and in particular to determine the question whether
they possess an existence which is independent of the classes of
objects for which they stand. Croce answers this question in the
negative. The pseudo concept ' house ' has no existence in its
own right apart from the sum total of all the individual houses
which it represents ; it is simply a class name, the product of a
piece of mental shorthand, in the course of which mind abstracts
from all existing houses certain qualities which they have in
common, and catalogues them under the term ' house ' ; this term
then serves as a symbol for any one house the thinker may choose
to take of all the houses that actually exist.

N co-Idealism 51

The importance of the pseudo concept consists in the use
which is made of it by the special sciences. The natural and
mathematical sciences study the pseudo concept, just as logic
studies the pure concept. And it is for this reason that Croce
denominates the sciences abstract, as opposed to philosophy which
is the one concrete science. Philosophers, and in particular
Idealist philosophers, have often been accused of hostility to
science. This accusation derives its plausibility from the fact
that, while admitting the utility of the sciences and the importance
of the results which they have achieved, Idealists deny that their
objects are entirely real : they are rather abstractions from reality
made for a special purpose. The conclusions of the sciences
therefore, though possessing validity, possess validity of a very
special order which holds within certain special limits, these
limits being not the indefinite limits of reality as a whole, but
those which have been arbitrarily constituted by the scientist's
special selection from reality of his subject-matter. What is the
basis of this contention ?

For the Neo-Idcalist, as we have seen, only mind is real.
Experience is the insertion of mind in reality, and there is no
reality apart from the experience of mind ; there is therefore
no ' that ' which the mind experiences, in the sense of a ' that '
which somehow subsists apart from the experience of it. Now it
is precisely with such a ' that ' that science deals. Science carves
out from the concrete whole objects which it treats as real. It
arranges these objects according to certain common properties
which they appear to possess, and catalogues them under class
names (Crocc's pseudo concepts). Thus, arithmetic studies the
properties of numbers, zoology the behaviour of animal life,
psychology the structure of mind, physics the properties of heat
and sound ; and these objects, their relations, and the laws
governing their occurrence are studied as though they were self-
subsistent entities existing independently of experience. It is

D 2

52 Neo-Idealism

assumed that these objects of scientific inquiry are real facts of
everyday life, and that, for their study and comprehension, a con-
sideration of the act of knowing, of which they really form part,
is irrelevant : and the pseudo concepts triangle, flesh and bone,
matter, electrons, c., arc formed for the express purpose of
enabling them to be so studied and understood.

But a study of entities formed by abstraction from concrete
reality must yield a type of truth which is only true within the
limits, and subject to the conditions, which the initial abstraction
from the real involves. The only study which can yield results
which are entirely true is the study of that which is wholly and
entirely real, namely, concrete mind. And just as philosophy is
more real than science, so the pure concept studied by philosophy,
being an actual moment in the life of mind and not an unreal
abstraction from mind, possesses a reality which is greater than
that of the pseudo concept.

By developing his notion of the pure concept Crocc is enabled
to take the two further steps which are requisite for the com-
pletion of his system. These consist in the establishment first of
an experience beyond the experience of the individual, and
secondly of the possibility of action.

The argument for the existence of Mind as a whole outside
the individual experience with which we have been hitherto con-
cerned is not easy to follow, and has seemed to many unconvincing.
Croce's philosophy has often been charged not only with providing
no escape from the position of Subjective Idealism, which asserts
that the only things we can know are our own ideas, but even
with a logical reduction of itself to Solipsism, the doctrine that
our own mental states are the only things that exist in the
Universe. Croce certainly invites criticism on this head, and, as
we shall see at the end of this chapter, his position is not one
which can be easily defended against these charges.

There is no doubt, however, that he does hold that the experi-

Neo-Idealism 53

ence which philosophy studies is not in the long run individual
experience, or at any rate not only such experience, but the
universalized experience of mind as a whole, with which the
individual's experience is continuous and of which it forms part.
* The consciousness which forms the object of philosophical
inquiry is not that of the individual in so far as he is an individual,
but the universal consciousness which is in any individual, the
basis alike of his individuality and of that of others.' And the first
link between the mind of the individual and mind as a whole is
constituted by the concept.

The argument is briefly as follows. Intuitions without concepts
are, to use an expressive Idealist term, * blind '. They are sheer
presentations with regard to whose nature and status we cannot
make any assertion until we begin to think. Thinking means
passing a judgement, and all judgements involve concepts. Now
a judgement is something by means of which we can communicate
with other people : even if they dissent from a particular judge-
ment of ours, they will understand it: the judgement in fact
forms a common ground between us. But, if my experience is
entirely individual and particular, this common ground could not
exist : I could not, for instance, give a notion of colour to a con-
genitally blind man : there would be no basis of appeal, no means
of bringing my consciousness into touch with his. Now concepts
are definitely regarded as being common to different minds. The
concept of quality, for instance, is a presupposition not only of
my experience, but of the experience of others also. Thus, it is
by means of the conceptual and not of the intuitional elements
in my experience that I am able to communicate with them.
But the concept of quality could not be a common element in
a number of experiences, such that it affords a basis of under-
standing between minds, unless those minds and experiences were
themselves aspects of a universal mind which is immanent in each
of them. The concept, therefore, is a moment in experience as

54 Neo-Idealism

a whole, and its universality, and the universality of the experience
to which it belongs, are demonstrated by the fact that it is not
exhausted by any number of individual experiences, but, though
present in each, is something more than all.

There is another important argument by which Croce estab-
lishes the existence of a universal experience. This argument is
derived from bis conception of History, to which we have already
referred. The essence of mental activity is, as we have seen,
* History '. A mind is not something which has a history, in the
sense of being something outside the historical events which occur
to it ; it is its own History, and it is a History in which the
present is determined by the past and determines the future in
one continuous process. The History of every individual mental
process is therefore illimitable, and is identical with the mental
process which it records. But by a similar process of reasoning
all reality which is mental, that is to say, all reality, is equally
History. The reality therefore with which the mind has to
deal, or, to use Croce's language, which it generates for itself, is
History ; in other words, reality or experience as a whole is
History. But we have already seen that the individual mind
is identical with History : therefore the individual mind is con-
tinuous with, and in a sense identical with, reality or experience
as a whole.

B. The Practical Activity. We have no space to do more than
briefly touch upon Croce's conception of ethics. Croce is here
concerned witli the second form of the activity of mind,
namely, that of willing or acting, which is the function of the
practical activity, as knowing is of the theoretical. We use the
words willing or acting advisedly, since, for Croce, there is no
distinction between a volition and the action which issues from
it. Just as there is no such thing as an unexpressed intuition,
intuition being expression, so there are no volitions which are not
also actions. The volition is in fact not something which may

Nco-Idcalism 55

or may not be followed by * movements of the legs and arms ;
these movements are the volition '. Thus, even the smallest voli-
tion will be found to be already putting the organism in motion
and producing so-called external effects. It is equally impossible
to imagine an action which is not willed. Whatever is not action
is mere mechanical movement, and this is a pseudo concept, an
abstraction from the concrete whole which is action.

The second or practical form of the mind's activity is logically
dependent on the first or theoretical, since, although knowledge
exists for the sake of action, we may know without willing or
acting, whereas we cannot will or act without previously knowing.
Like the first, the second form is divided into two subgrades, the
economical and the ethical, the economical being based upon
the concept of the useful, and the ethical upon the concept of the
good. Here again we find the second subgradc logically dependent
on the first, which is independent of the second. By this dis-
tinction Crocc means that in the activity of the first subgradc the
objects of our actions are presented to us solely as the attainment
of what is useful to us as individuals, as the satisfaction of our own
personal desires. In the second moment these individual needs
and satisfactions are merged in those of others, so that the concept
of goodness, which is no more than the concept of utility univer-
salized, is now seen to require the same kind of action in relation
to the needs and desires of others as we should pursue in relation
to our own. Having made this distinction, however, it is impor-
tant to point out that every action embodies the forms both of
utility and of goodness. There is no such thing as a purely
economic, self-regarding, individual act, just as there is no such
thing as a purely ethical, other-regarding, universal act. ' When
we seek ', says Croce, ' to recognize the purely moral form of
conduct, we find at once that it entails the other form we wish
to disregard, because our action, even in its universal significance,
must always be concrete and individually determined.' Egoism

5(> Nco-Idcalism

and altruism, therefore, are not two opposed conceptions, but
arc two logically connected and indissoluble moments of experi-
ence, such that every action can in fact be said to be both egoistic
and altruistic in character.

In summing up Crocc's theory of knowledge we may say that
he regards mind or experience as the only thing which possesses
reality. This mind or experience is essentially an activity pos-
sessing two moments called respectively the pure intuition and
the pure concept. These two moments do not stand in a temporal
relation of before and after, nor is it possible for one form of
activity to function without the other ; they are iridissolubly
united by a synthesis, which is not achieved as the result of
experience, but which is the necessary condition of there being
experience : the synthesis is in fact given in experience to begin
with, and the two moments are only extracted from it by later
reflection. This means that the intuition and the concept, though
distinct, together form a unity : the intuition without the concept
would be blind, the concept without the intuition empty, while
each would be unreal. Hence experience may be termed a unity
of distincts.

We must now consider the further developments made in the
theory of Neo-Idealism by Giovanni Gentile.

III. Giovanni Gentile. Gentile stands to Croce in the relation
of a pupil to the master he has outstripped. While he has done
much to popularize the theory of Nco-Idcalism as Croce's col-
league, his later work consists of a development which carries to
their logical limits the theories with which Croce is identified.

The most complete statement of Gentile's philosophy is con-
tained in two volumes entitled respectively A Summary oj Pedagogy
and The Theory of Mind as Pure Act. Of these works the latter
is a published course of lectures, and has recently been translated
into English by Professor Wildon Carr. Gentile's line of develop-
ment is sufficiently obvious. Croce begins with an experience

N co-Idealism 57

which he insists is a unified whole, the two moments or activities
with their subgradcs of which experience is a synthesis being
presumed not to impair the oneness of the mind in which they
arise. But these moments or articulations of experience are not the
result of the mind's reflection upon or deduction about itself ;
they arc assumed or given to begin with, being in fact distinctions
which are logically involved in the fact that experience is what
it is. The mind, however, cannot at one and the same time be
a unity and the ground of a fourfold multiplicity. If it is a unity,
it cannot generate from within itself distinctions which arc as real
as the unity ; while, if the distinctions are not generated but
given to begin with, then mind is not and never was a unity.

But if mind cannot be at once a unity and the single source of
orderly multiplicity, we must give up cither Croce's grades and
moments or else the unity of experience. What Gentile does is
to give up the former. He starts with a mind which is a complete
unity, retains the unity throughout, and from that unity extracts
whatever multiplicity there is.

This mind or experience, as it is called, is for Gentile literally the
only thing in the Universe : in fact the Universe is mind or spirit.

It is clear that the difficulty of such a position will lie in the
attempt to account for apparent multiplicity. We start with
a reality which is one spirit or mind ; this spirit cancels and
supersedes all oppositions and distinctions ; it makes and unmakes
everything that there is, including itself ; and from this starting-
point Gentile has by some means to show how the whole wealth
of concrete detail which constitutes our everyday w r orld, with its
various degrees and stages of being, is developed.

How is this development effected ? We are precluded in the
first place from regarding the content of our knowledge, the
actual things we know, either as a collection of objects set over
against mind and existing independently of it, or as a composite
something which, though it determines and is determined by

58 N co-Idealism

mind, being indeed a necessary condition of the mind's knowing
at all, is, nevertheless, something other than the mind which
moulds or fashions it. Knowledge, that is to say, is not on this
view an external relationship between mind and a world which is
unaffected by being known, nor a relationship in which mind
forms for itself the objects of its knowledge from material which
is essentially unknowable. We have already seen, in discussing
Croce, on w r hat grounds these more familiar conceptions of the
knowledge relationship are rejected, and they arc grounds which
Gentile shares. Since, then, experience is the only thing in the
world, it is clear that we must look for the object of experience,
an object which is only falsely separated from it for the purposes
of abstract argument, within experience itself. The question is,
then, does experience contain within itself an example of the
so-called knowledge relationship ? The answer is that it does,
and that it does so most obviously in self-consciousness. In self-
consciousness mind is both knowing subject and known object ;
it can and must postulate itself as acting under each of these two
phases while still remaining one with itself. In self-consciousness
it is the same mind which is at the same time both knower and
known. Nor is it true to say that the subject is a piece of mind,
such that there is another piece of mind left over which has no
part in the subject and is, for example, object. On the contrary,
mind throws itself wholly into each phase, so that the subject is
just as much and just as completely mind as the object. Thus
mind separates within itself these two phases or stages of its being,
and permits them, as it were, to develop along their own lines,
while remaining itself wholly present in each phase. Self-con-
sciousness is therefore a synthesis or uniting of two distinguishable
moments or phases, in one of which mind appears as subject, in
the other as object.

The fact that the experience of which we are most fully and
clearly aware, the experience which is most indubitably real, is

Neo-Idealism 59

a unity containing within itself distinguishable aspects, is of the
utmost importance when we endeavour to develop the apparent
multiplicity of the Universe out of Gentile's all-pervasive mind
or spirit.

For Gentile's main thesis is that the relationship of which we
are most indubitably aware in self-consciousness is that in terms
of which we must interpret reality as a whole. Mind, being the
only thing in the Universe, must of necessity beget its own
objects, and all consciousness, that is to say, all reality, is therefore
of the type of self -conscious ness.

Art is the study of mind as consciousness of the subject ;
religion is the study of mind as consciousness of the object. Art
alone must, even in its fullest development, remain merely
subjective, while religion divorced from art is embarked upon an
endless and objectless quest. But just as subject and object are
merged in the synthesis of self-consciousness, so religion and art
are merged in Philosophy, which integrates both and is therefore
the supreme type of concrete reality. In Gentile's words, ' Philo-
sophy is the final form in which the others are taken up and
reconciled, and represents the Truth, the plenary actuality, and
the Spirit '. In this conception, and not in this alone, Gentile's
philosophy constitutes a return to the position of Hegel, in those
very respects in which Croce had rejected Hegel.

This brings us to Gentile's most striking notion, a notion which
to those who do not share the presuppositions of the Nco-Idealist
is as startling as it is striking. This is his conception of the
philosopher as the maker of reality. Philosophy, as we have seen,
is the study of reality, that is, the study of concrete mind : it is
the process by w r hich mind makes itself know itself. But, in
coming to know itself by thinking about itself, mind is adding to
itself and so making the self which it knows : for thought after
all is nothing but the continuous process of its own creation, and
in thinking about thought we are creating it. Now thought

60 Neo-Idealism

about thought is philosophy ; and philosophy is therefore not
only a continuation of the thought about which it philosophises
but identical with it. It is therefore identical with reality. Thus
the philosopher makes reality ; in philosophizing we create what
is. And, since self -consciousness is, as we have seen, a process in
which mind generates or actualizes its own objects, and since
philosophy also studies the objects which itself as thought has
created, it follows that philosophy is the supreme form of self-
consciousness, the whole and sole Reality.

Knowledge of reality, then, is knowledge of thought, and in
thinking we create the thought we think about. * Nothing is,'
as Gentile puts it, ' but thinking makes it so in the act of its own
self-formation.'

Since, moreover, we have found that the experience of which
we are most clearly aware is in its essence an example of self-
consciousness or mental generation of objects known, and since
there is no source other than mind from which the objects of
mind could be generated, it follows that all experience of any
kind is of the type of self-consciousness, and that experience as
a whole is, in fact, a self-contained, self-begetting reality of which
our own experience is a pattern in miniature. Each individual
experience therefore, however different it may seem from its
fellows, must repeat in some degree the structure of experience
as a whole, while, to carry the argument a step farther, it only is
what it is because of its participation in experience as a whole.
Experience as a whole is thus continuously and completely
immanent in each individual experience, just as each individual
experience was completely immanent, wholly there, as it were, in
the subjective and objective phases of itself. Thus the distinction
between individual and universal experience breaks down, and the
mind with which we are acquainted is seen to be only an aspect
of that all-embracing, ever-active mind which is, or rather which
is creating, the Universe as a whole. Reality is therefore compact

Nco-Idcalism 61

of experiences which, however apparently distinct, reflect each in
its own manner the structure of experience as a whole.

Difficult and highly abstract as Gentile's system is, it is never-
theless possible to regard it in the light of a perfectly logical
development from the postulate, c Experience is the one thing of
whose reality we are assured ; therefore the rest of reality must
be in the likeness of experience '. Once mind begins to conceive
of reality after the pattern of itself, it will quickly come to think
of that pattern and consequently of reality in the terms of what
it regards as its own highest activity, namely, Philosophy. And
since in Philosophy mind speculates about itself and in so doing
creates the object it studies, it follows that the Universe as a whole
must be one gigantic reproduction of this self-generating mental
activity. The reality of our self-consciousness, then, is that in
the light of which we must interpret everything that is.

And, in truth, this position is not as paradoxical as it may at
first sight appear. It may be readily admitted that experience is
that of whose existence we are most indubitably certain, and that
self-consciousness is that type of experience which is at once most
constant and most palpable. Is it not reasonable, then, that when
Mind comes to consider the nature of the Universe, it should
liken it to itself, and in particular to its own highest and clearest
activity ? It is true that the farther we move from the centre
of experience which is self -consciousness, the more difficult the
application of Gentile's principle becomes. Yet, even in the most
remote regions of mental speculation, we can never light upon
anything which is such that our knowledge of it contradicts the
view that it is but another aspect of consciousness begotten by
consciousness itself. Whatever enters into knowledge must,
according to Gentile's view, form part of the knowledge into
which it enters ; and, as we are never aware of any external source
of that knowledge of a source, that is to say, which does not itself
enter into knowledge and form part of it it follows naturally

62 Neo-Idealism

enough that the so-called object of knowledge is begotten by the
mind which knows it.

Hence we arrive at Gentile's fundamental position that expe-
rience is a free self-determining activity, the author both of its
world and of itself, separating itself into distinguishable phases in
which all that is lives, moves, and has its being.

IV. Criticism. As we follow Gentile's working out of the
presuppositions which he shares with Croce, it is, 1 think, fairly
evident that, in his refusal to accept the position in which Croce
is prepared to rest, he is only developing the logic of the Neo-
Idcalist standpoint with a somewhat greater thoroughness and
consistency. Crocc's doctrine of moments and distincts is, to put
the matter bluntly, little more than an elaborate attempt to have
it both ways. He asserts that experience is a unity, yet he
requires it to develop a multiplicity. He insists that experience
is active and developing, yet he equally insists that experience
necessarily involves the distinction between intuition and concept
as its initial presupposition. But, as Gentile points out, if the
experience develops, the distinctions between the forms of experi-
ence cannot be assumed to be there to begin with. If, however,
they are there to begin with, if in fact the determinations of the
forms of the spirit are static and not developed, then the whole
doctrine of the unity of mind must be abandoned.

To return for a moment to Hegel, it is relevant to point out
that his synthesis was a synthesis not of distincts but of opposites.
Now a synthesis of opposites gives rise to contradictions arid
antinomies which lead to new syntheses, which continue to grow
in a progressive scries until the Absolute or all-embracing synthesis
is reached. A synthesis of opposites therefore contains the seed and
principle of development within itself. A synthesis of distincts,
however, does not generate the same need for further development.
It contains no contradictions : it develops no logical antinomies.
The distincts therefore remain a static articulation, a pattern

Neo-Idealism 63

which is, so to speak, given within the framework of the real,
and the real has no inducement to seek a more complete unity by
transcending and merging the distincts by further development.

The above criticism of Croce's position is significant because
it indicates the basis on which Gentile founds the developments
of which his own philosophy consists. It requires, however,
a knowledge of the system of Hegel for its proper comprehension,
and is a criticism which falls wholly within the framework of the
Idealist assumptions. For those who do not share these assump-
tions, for those who do not believe that experience, thought,
spirit, call it what you will, is the only form of reality, the
approach to Philosophy is so radically different, that it is difficult
to bring to the consideration of the Nco-Idealist position the
intelligent comprehension which fruitful criticism requires. To
criticize a philosophy so different in its assumptions, its outlook,
and its reasoning from that of Realism or of Pragmatism, is like
criticizing the mathematics of an inhabitant of a four-dimensional
Universe or the musical taste of a man from Mars.

It is nevertheless possible, while accepting the presuppositions of
Croce's and Gentile's philosophy, to point to one or two diffi-
culties that suggest themselves in connexion with its development.

(a) In the first place it is open to question whether the efforts
made both by Croce and by Gentile to escape the implications
of Subjective Idealism, or even of Solipsism, are successful.

In this respect Neo-ldealism is at a disadvantage as compared
with orthodox Hegelianism. The latter, while admitting that
there is nothing which transcends experience as a whole, insisted
that there is much which transcends immediate experience.
Immediate experience is partial and finite, and, for this very
reason, it not only fails to grasp the true nature of reality as a
whole, but is itself not entirely real, since the whole of reality
is implied in it. And if we ask in what way the whole of reality
is implied, the answer is that an analysis of immediate experience

64 Neo-Idealism

shows that, taken as it apparently Is, isolated, that is to say, from
the rest of experience, it is full of contradictions and anomalies
which can only be resolved on the assumption that it is part of
something greater. The whole is therefore regarded as being
immanent in each individual experience, since, apart from the
whole, it is impossible to explain how the individual experience
comes to be what it is. Thus orthodox Hegelianism is able to
rebut the charge of Solipsism by means of its doctrine of the
whole as immanent in immediate experience and necessarily pre-
supposed in the analysis of it.

But Nco-Idealism has no such resource. For it, nothing is
transcendent. There is nothing behind or beyond immediate
experience for the simple reason that immediate experience
generates \\hatevcr is. But it is not true to say that immediate
experience is aware of itself as participating in a universal experi-
ence whose structure it reproduces down to the smallest detail.
(Croce, as a matter of fact, believes that this participation is a fact,
but, if it is so, it is not a fact which is given in experience, and on his
own premises Croce has no right to believe in anything except the
immediately given. Experience as a whole or universal experience
remains therefore like Locke's substance, or the physical object of
the Critical Realists, something which we never know, but which
we assume to underlie and to condition what we do know. This
assumption we shall be prepared to make, if we already accept
independently of it the position of the Neo-Idcalists, but it
certainly does not constitute a support for that position ; while,
if we cannot make this assumption, we are left with our own
experience as absolutely the only thing existent in the Universe.)

(/;) We have already seen how Gentile convicted the unity of
Crocc's mind (or experience) of inability to account for the multi-
plicity of his forms and moments. But if we start with the unity
of individual experience and insist on it throughout, how is it at
all possible to account for the seeming multiplicity of the world

Neo-Idealism 65

we know ? Diversity and plurality can only develop out of unity
in virtue of some initial potentiality for diversity and plurality
latent in the unity. But if the unity contains the possibility of
developed difference, it is not really a unity. If, on the other
hand, we attempt to write off the appearance of difference as
mere illusion due to partial vision, the difficulty remains, for the
task of making a real unity generate an apparent diversity is not
less than that of accounting for its generation of a real diversity.
Unity can in fact no more account for error than for diversity.

The world of matter, says Croce, is abstracted by mind from
the concrete experience of mind. For what puipose, by what
means, unless (i) mind contains within itself as a feature of reality
the disposition to make this particular abstraction and no other,
and (2) reality is initially qualified by the potentiality not only
for this division but for just this division and no other ? But, if
this is the case, the division of experience into mind and matter
is not purely arbitrary, but is conditioned by something in reality
which makes the division not only possible but necessary.

But, in any event, if we once abandon the Hegelian Absolute,
whose manifestation in diffeient individuals may be conceived
adequately to explain the richness and diversity of the world we
know, how can the common faculty or capacity of thinking and
experiencing individuals be made the source of all the variety of
nature and of history ? It is not science but the doctrine of Neo-
Idealism itself which seems to merit condemnation as an unreal
abstraction from the facts, ignoring as it does every element in
experience except the activity of the experiencing mind.

(<:) And finally, how are we to account for this activity?
Returning once more to the system of Hegel, we find the con-
ception of a developing activity in mental processes springing
direct from the tendency of the whole to express itself in individual
manifestations., and from the contradictions to which these partial
expressions give rise. The effort to transcend these contradictions

2535-31 F.

66 Neo-Idealism

by returning to the whole explains the element of progressive
movement or of development in the Universe. For the Neo-
Idcalist, however, there is nothing but this movement : there is
no end to which it tends, there is no source from which it rises.
The Spirit is defined as * an infinite possibility overflowing into
infinite actuality ', and, since we are expressly forbidden to regard
this process as a process ad infinitum (' The progress ad infinitum,
never reaching its goal, is not a progress ; and the idea of
approximation is an illusion '), we fall back on the conception
of circular movement. But our question still persists, ' Why does
it move ? ' If there is no systematic totality to move to, and no
clash of contradictions to move from, the fact of activity or
movement which, we are told, is the very essence of the real,
remains an enigma.

The above remarks will serve to indicate the nature and direc-
tion of the criticism which an orthodox Hegelian would be
disposed to bring against the Nco-Idealist developments. But
for those who do not accept the presuppositions of Idealism the
points at issue will seem abstract and meaningless enough. It is
important, therefore, that the reader should make up his mind at
the outset on the merits of the controversy between Realists and
Idealists, before deciding in favour of one or another of the
various branches of Idealism offered by modern Philosophy.

4
Pragmatism

Introduction. Pragmatism is the name given to a number of
different, though allied, tendencies in modern thought. These
tendencies originated chiefly in America, the name Pragmatism
being first applied to them in 1878 by a writer named C. S. Peirce.
The works of William James are Pragmatic in character, and the
widespread attention \\liich James's writings secured is largely

WILLIAM JAMES

From the photogiaph by Messrs. Notman & Co.

Pragmatism 67

responsible for the considerable influence exercised by Pragmatism
in modern thought. The Pragmatic method has been further
elaborated by Professor Dewey in the United States and by
Dr. Schiller in Great Britain. Dr. Schiller is also mainly respon-
sible for the doctrine of Humanism, which may be described as
an offshoot of Pragmatism, and which seeks to apply to meta-
physics the methods followed by Pragmatism in logic.

Thus Pragmatism is not so much a definite and compact
philosophical theory as a characteristic of a philosophical atti-
tude. This attitude expresses itself in the view that personal
considerations affect all knowing, and that logic, and even meta-
physics, are therefore dependent upon psychology. The view
that allowances must always be made for the personal factor in
any account of knowledge it. maintained in opposition to the
traditional theory of knowledge, which holds that the cognitive
faculty can be studied in isolation and that a man^s view of the
Universe, even if it is to some extent colouicd by the desires he
entertains and the purposes he wishes to fulfil, docs not necessarily
depend upon such considerations.

Writers on Pragmatism may thus claim an affinity with the
Greek philosopher Protagoras, whose famous axiom, ' Man is the
measure of all things ', is invoked to give the much-needed sanc-
tion of antiquity to a doctrine which, until quite recent years,
tended to occupy the role of the enfant terrible of modern
philosophy.

Although, as already stated, Pragmatism docs not constitute
a complete philosophical creed, and thinkers who employ the
Pragmatic method may in theory hold the most widely differing
views with regard to the nature of the Universe and of the mind
that knows it, there is as a matter of fact a considerable measure
of agreement among Pragmatists with regard to certain funda-
mental propositions.

These propositions may be classified under three main heads,

2

68 Pragmatism

psychological, logical, and metaphysical. I propose briefly to
outline the Pragmatist position under each of these three
heads before considering the objections which have been urged
against it.

I. Psychology. The Pragma tist holds a special theory with
regard to the nature of our experience and the manner in which
it comes to us, which can only be understood in relation to the
so-called ' atomistic psychology ' against which it is largely a
reaction.

The atomistic psychology, which was common to the English
philosophers Locke and Berkeley, seeks to give an account of
exactly what it is that happens when we perceive things. Accord-
ing to this psychology, the objects of perception consist of a
number of distinct and separate sensations or impressions. When
we are brought into contact with what is called a physical object,
a table for instance, the table produces certain sensations upon our
sense organs. These sensations are conveyed by the nerves to the
brain, where we become conscious of them as ideas, and it is these
sensations, or rather these ideas, each of which is a distinct and
separate entity, which are known by the mind and which form
the subject-matter of all our knowledge. Thus, when we think
we perceive the table, what we in fact experience is a series of
isolated sensations, such as hardness, smoothness, coolness, square-
ness, brownness, and so forth ; we never perceive the table itself.

The implications of this psychology, when logically developed,
speedily lead, as we have already seen, 1 to the position of Solipsism.
In the first place, if it be insisted that we never do know the
table and never can know the table, but only know the impressions
produced by the table, we cannot know any of the qualities or
properties which the table possesses. Thus we cannot know that
it has the property of causing our sensations ; nor can we even
know that the table exists. Secondly, if, in Hume's words, * All
1 See chapter on Modern Realism, pp. 7 and 8.

Pragmatism 69

our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, among which the
mind never perceives any real connexion ', the constructional
work performed by mind when it informs us that the sensation
of hardness and the sensation of brownness both spring from and
are caused by the same table is sheer guess-work, for which reality,
as we know it, provides no justification.

Kant endeavoured to solve these difficulties by endowing the
mind with an apparatus of faculties, which performed the function
of welding together the chaotic material presented to us by our
senses into a coherent and intelligible whole. He arranged our
sensations according to categories by means of his famous Principles
of Understanding, and endeavoured to show that mind was acting
legitimately in constructing its experience in this way. But what
right had Kant, asks the Pragmatist, to legitimize the mind's
impudence in tampering with its sensations ? Why should the
sensations conform to the categories, and why should the con-
structional process, by means of which connexions are interposed
between the originally unconnected, result in anything but a com-
plete falsification of reality ? Rightly or wrongly, then, the
Pragmatist refuses to take shelter in the elaborate structure erected
by Kant, and insists that, if we accept the premises from which
Hume starts, there is no way of escape from the scepticism in
which he finishes.

But, we may put the question, is it after all necessary to accept
these premises ? And the first characteristic of the Pragmatist
position consists in the assertion that it is not. So far in fact from
the atomistic psychology being true, it is, according to the Prag-
matist, the exact reverse of the truth. Locke had said that experi-
ence is composed of distinct sensations between which the mind
interposes connexions. William James retorted by asserting that
experience is a continuous whole in which the mind interposes
distinctions. ' Consciousness ', in James's words, * does not appear
to itself chopped up in bits.' On the contrary, it is a continuum

70 Pragmatism

in which the relations between the different sensations are experi-
enced just as truly and just as directly as the sensations related.

Whereas Locke's analysis of the proposition * the egg is on the
table ' asserts an isolated sensation of an egg, an isolated sensation
of a table, and a piece of mental jugglery which invented the
relation ' on ? between them, William James's analysis asserts first
a continuous stream or flux in which the egg, the on, and the
table arc all alike experienced as an indistinguishable whole, and
secondly a piece of mental activity which subsequently separates
the egg from the table, and then postulates a distinct relation
of on-ncss which subsists between them. Thus, according to the
Pragmatist view of perception, the essence of mental activity is
to break up and separate that which is originally a continuous
whole. This separation is effected by means of what are called
mental concepts, such as the concept of * on-ness ', and it is
effected for the purposes of action. A world of experience which
was a vast indeterminate flow 7 would prove difficult, if not impos-
sible, to live in, and it is necessary therefore, in order that we
may act, that we should separate the flow of experience into eggs
and tables. Hence all our mental processes bear a definite relation
to action. This brings us at once to a new and important point.

In analysing experience the mind is active. Not only does it
eliminate but it selects, not only does it select but it adds, and
it selects and adds in accordance with the interests of the per-
ceiver and in relation to the purposes which he has in view.
Thus all analysis is a form of choice and is conditioned by will.
What is real for us consists of a reality which we ourselves have
made, and we have made it of such and such a kind because it
is precisely that kind of reality which best serves our purpose.

Thus the Pragmatist psychology emphasizes two important
points :

(a) Experience is a continuum which is broken up and analysed
into objects and their relations by the activity of the mind.

Pragmatism 7 1

(b) This analysis is not arbitrary, but is dictated by the interests,
the purposes, and, we may add, the temperament of the pcrcciver.
The establishment of the important principle of the influence of
* usefulness ' or ' purpose ' in conditioning perception lies at the
basis of the Pragmatist view of logic, which springs direct from
an extension of the same principle.

If what we believe to be real depends upon what it is useful
for us to believe to be real, may not the same principle determine
what we believe to be true ?

II. Logic. The problem of truth and error is the central
problem of Pragmatism, and it is upon the answer it gives to
this problem that Pragmatism must stand or fall.

The first suggestion of this answer is to be found in William
James's famous book, The Will to Believe. The thesis which he
advocates in this work is briefly as follows : In certain cases of
religious and moral perplexity it is right to adopt one of two
contending alternatives, even if there is no evidence that it is the
true one. William James appears tacitly to assume that there is
no evidence for the truth of religion ; nevertheless, he insists that
we must either believe or disbelieve what it asserts.

c Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide
an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option
that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds.'
When such an option is presented, we do, he thinks, in fact decide
to adopt one of the two alternatives on emotional grounds : we
adopt, in short, the belief that gives the greatest emotional
satisfaction. It follows that, since different people find different
beliefs emotionally satisfying, they ought to entertain different
beliefs.

We are now in sight of the fully developed Pragmatist theory
of truth. Staiting from the proposition, * people hold beliefs to
be true which are emotionally satisfying ', we have only to take
the further step which consists in asserting ' a true belief is one

72 Pragmatism

which is emotionally satisfying ', or, as it is usually put, * a true
belief is one which works ', and we have arrived at the Pragmatist
doctrine of the meaning of truth. How does Pragmatism justify
the taking of this further step ?

The words true and false arc only applied to beliefs with regard
to which a question has arisen. When the question does arise,
4 Is it true or is it false ? ' we answer it in some such way as this :
' If the belief furthers the purpose which led us to ask the question,
it is true ; if not, false.' Hence the meaning of the words true
or false is the furthering or not furthering of the purpose which
led to the asking of the question, * Is such and such a belief true ? '

Now it is clear that the extent to which a belief furthers purpose
can only be ascertained by experience. Hence the truth of a belief
is not immediately established : if, however, we proceed upon the
assumption that a belief is true, and find that this assumption is
warranted by the consequences which follow the adoption of the
belief, if, in short, the belief works in practice, then it becomes
progressively more and more true ; so that the truth of a belief
which has stood the test of experience over a long course of years,
such as the belief in the law of gravitation, bccomes_/0r all practical
purposes established. Since all experience is finite, no belief can
be said to be absolutely true ; but this fact need not disturb us.
Absolute truth is a figment of the logicians : it is of no importance
in practice.

Every belief, then, is a truth claim. By acting upon the belief
we test it, and if the consequences which follow from adopting
it are good, if they promote the purpose in hand and so have
a valuable effect upon life, the truth claim of the belief is validated.
Hence we make our own truth just as we make our own reality,
the truth of the beliefs we hold and the reality of the objects we
perceive being equally relative to our purposes.

' The true ', says William James, ' is the name of whatever
proves itself to be good in the way of belief and good too for

Pragmatism 73

definite assignable reasons,' and he sums up the whole theory as
follows : * The " true ", to put it very briefly, is only the expedient
in the way of thinking, just as the " right " is only the expedient
in the way of our behaving. Expedient in almost any fashion ;
and expedient in the long run and on the whole, of course.'

At this point the inevitable objection arises ; although we may
agree that true beliefs usually work and false beliefs do not, it is
not the fact that a belief works that makes it true. What we
mean by a true belief is a belief that squares with the evidence.
Scientific laws are held to be true because they conform with all
the known evidence and only for so long as they conform ; this is
clear, if for no other reason, from the fact that when fresh evidence
is discovered with which the law does not conform, the law is
modified or another law is substituted in its place.

The theory that a true belief is one which corresponds with fact
is of great antiquity in Philosophy, and is one of the few instances
of an authoritatively held philosophical belief which accords with
the presumptions of common sense. But the Pragmatist has little
difficulty in disposing of this theory to his own satisfaction.

It is clearly the intention of every belief, says the Pragmatist,
to correspond with reality : no belief would in fact ever be
entertained unless it were thought to be true of reality. But,
unless we can prove that a belief does so correspond, we must
hold that all beliefs are equally true. Can we, then, prove the
fact of correspondence between a belief and reality ? In order
that the proof may be effected the reality must somehow be
known independently of the belief, so that the two may be com-
pared and found to agree. But if we do know the reality directly,
what is the point of asserting a belief about it and claiming truth
for the belief ? If we do not know the reality directly, and, as
a matter of fact, we do not, how can we know that the belief
corresponds with it ? Hence the correspondence cannot be made
out. A true thought and a false thought then, on this view, are

74 Pragmatism

each equally true, since each claims to correspond with reality,
and in neither case can the claim be made good.

Another time-honoured philosophical theory as to the nature
of truth, the coherence theory, fares little better at the hands of
the Pragmatists. The coherence theory asserts that a belief is
true if it coheres or is consistent with the general structure of
our beliefs. Upholders of this theory are usually Idealist philo-
sophers, who regard the distinction between individual minds as
one which cannot in the long run be maintained. For coherence
with our own beliefs, then, we may substitute, in our definition
of the meaning of truth, coherence with the structure of mind
as a whole, or, in the language adopted by Idealists, with the
experience of the Absolute.

Against this theory the Pragmatist brings objections of the same
type as those which are urged against the correspondence
theory. In the first place it is possible to imagine systems of
completely coherent beliefs which have no relation to reality :
mathematical systems of this kind, which are perfectly consistent
with themselves, may be and have been constructed ; a world
of coherent dreams might be similarly constructed. On the
coherence theory, then, we should be compelled to regard these
systems as true, and we should be compelled to do so even though
the imagined world or system had no counterpart in reality.

If, on the other hand, it is urged that the structure of belief
as a whole, the experience of the Absolute in fact, provides an
outside criterion by means of which to test the truth of individual
beliefs, we are in the same difficulty as before ; for as we do not
know the mind of the Absolute, we cannot tell whether any
particular belief is or is not coherent with it. The Pragmatist
insists, then, that the ordinary philosophical theories of truth
provide no practical criterion by means of which to distinguish
what is true from what is false.

Such a criterion is, however, essential, unless we are content

Pragmatism 75

to hold that the truth of every belief is constituted by the mere
fact that the belief is entertained ; and this criterion Pragmatism
claims to supply when it asserts that the truth of every belief must
be tested by the practical consequences which follow if we adopt it.

As for the truths of science, which appeared to involve the
adoption of the correspondence theory of truth, they are in
point of fact established by the - ery method which Pragmatism
advocates. Scientific laws are not in reality laws at all. A scientific
law prima facie claims to embrace not only all the phenomena
that have occurred in the past, but all the phenomena of the
same type which can possibly occur in the future. But since
the future is unknown, we cannot tell that a scientific law,
however well it has worked in the past, will necessarily hold
good in the future : hence the so-called laws of science are
properly to be regarded as hypotheses or postulates. A postu-
late is a man-made hypothesis which purports to explain all
the facts known at the time. It is a product of free choice,
dependent upon the will and modifiable by the will. Having
formed a postulate the scientist looks round for facts to support
it. If the process of selection from the stream of experience
produces facts which verify the postulate, the postulate may
be said to have worked, and its claim to truth is thereby en-
hanced. If the facts reject the postulate, it is modified or
abandoned. Now all scientific laws are postulates of this kind.
Originally formed to fit the facts known at the time, they became
progressively truer as more and more facts are found to conform
to them. Thus no scientific law is either finally or absolutely
true : in the words of Sir J. J. Thomson, it ' is a policy, not
a creed ', and its truth, which is continually subject to review, is
tested by the consequences which attend its application to reality,
and progressively validated or invalidated by the results of the tet.

The laws of logic are treated from a similar point of view.
The sustained criticism which Pragmatists have brought to bear

76 Pragmatism

upon the structure of Intcllectualist logic is indeed so charac-
teristic a feature of the theory we are considering, that, although
it belongs to the negative rather than to the positive side of
Pragmatism, our account would be incomplete if it failed to
indicate its general character.

Intcllectualist logic, it is alleged, is based upon the premise that
thought can be disinterested : that is to say, it involves the
assumption that our reason can function independently of our
will, our purposes, and our desires. It is held that when reason
functions in this way, and only when it functions in this way, it
can give us correct information about reality and arrives at
results which must necessarily and always be true of reality. The
operation of disinterested reason proceeds according to certain
formulae. Of these the best known is the formula of the syllogism,
since it is chiefly by means of the syllogism that we arrive at new
truth. The syllogism consists of a major premise in the form of
a general statement, such as ' all men are mortal ', a minor
premise consisting of a particular statement such as ' Socrates is a
man ', and a conclusion ' therefore Socrates is mortal ' which is
said to follow from the two premises and to constitute a statement
which is both new and true.

The Pragmatisms criticism of the syllogism, which is typical of
his general attitude to Intellectualist logic, consists simply in
pointing out that if the conclusion follows it is not new, and
that if it is new it does not follow. Thus, if the major premise
' all men are mortal ' is formulated after a consideration of all
known instances of men in the Universe it is false, since it excludes
men like Elijah and the Struldbrugs. If, however, Elijah and the
Struldbrugs are excluded from the scope of the major premise,
either (i) because they arc mythical, or (2) because they do not
belong to the class of men, the resultant position is either (i) that
the conclusion simply states the mortality of a man whose case
must have already been considered and approved as that of a bona-

Pragmatism 77

fide man before the major premise could be formulated, i.e. the
conclusion is superfluous, or (2) that by definition we exclude
immortal men from the category of men, and are therefore simply
committing ourselves to a tautology in affirming the mortality of
Socrates.

If, then, we insist, as the Intcllcctualists do, that our conclusion
must be both logically determined and absolutely true, it follows
that our conclusion cannot be new; whereupon the Pragma! 1st
appropriately retorts, ' Then why bother to reach it ? ' He then
proceeds to point out that thought only occurs in practice when
the thinkci believes that by reasoning he can arrive at something
new. Hence practical thought is purposive : it is conditioned by
the necessity of arriving at a conclusion, and this conclusion must
possess two characteristics ; it must be new and it must apply to
reality. In practice, then, it appears that just in so far as a con-
clusion is new, it is not logically determined. A new conclusion
involves j definite mental jump : it is a risk, a piece of guess-work
on the part of the mind, of which the only justification is that
the conclusion works. Hence reasoning, according to the Prag-
ma tist, is relative and provisional ; relative in the sense that it
is undertaken with a definite object to serve a definite purpose,
provisional in the sense that it is always liable to be overturned
by a sudden failure to apply to new circumstances.

The logic of the Intellectualists is of necessity barren and
academic, since it only attains to certainty at the cost of novelty,
and only conforms to the demands of reason becauscjt fails to
conform to the facts of reality.

Reasoning, then, cannot in practice be
and the truth of all laws, whether of sciem
of logic, is only established by the consquc
their adoption. t " "*' ^

III. Metaphysics. The metaphysics o Pragma ti*5rJ nee^r not
detain us long. In the strict sense, indeed, there is

78 Pragmatism

mctaphysic, since the Pragmatic method admits in theory of any
Mctaphysic. The conception of reality which Dr. Schiller has
elaborated in his Studies in Humanism, a conception to which
Professor Dewey has also subscribed, does, however, in a very
important sense, follow from the Pragmatic theory of truth, and
may justly claim to be the metaphysic which that theory requires.

While chiefly influenced and determined by the Pragmatic
theory of truth, Dr. Schiller's conception springs in part from
a second source. As we have seen, marked emphasis is placed by
Pragmatism upon the influence of the will in perception : we
carve out of the flux of reality the facts that interest us by means
of concepts formed by mind for that purpose ; and, although we
cannot altogether deny the existence of a certain brute substance
which is the subject-matter of this perpetual vivisection, the
substance of reality is unknown and remote, while the facts which
are known arc, so to speak, dressed up and ' faked ' for our
delectation by the mere circumstance of our perceiving them.

Thus the act of perception, which alters the fact perceived, in
a very real sense creates it. All knowing is relative to doing, and
that which in point of fact determines whether a fact gets known
is the suitability or non-suitability of the fact for the purposes of
our action. And, since our knowledge of the fact brings the fact
into existence for the first time as a separate constituent of reality,
everything that is known is affected by the fact that we know it :
no fact therefore is independent of our knowledge of it. This
conclusion accords well enough with the Pragmatic theory of
knowledge, for, if all knowing is for the purposes of action, our
knowledge of a fact necessarily involves our acting upon the fact
known. It is only disinterested knowledge, whose existence, as
we have seen, the Pragmatist denies, that could be conceived of
as not altering or affecting that which it knows.

The conclusion is, also in complete agreement with the
Pragmatic theory of truth : it reinforces it and is reinforced by it.

Pragmatism 79

How is this agreement effected ? Belief in a fact, as we have
seen, alters the fact. If the belief alters the fact in harmony
with our wishes, then the belief works and becomes, according
to the Pragmatic theory of truth, a true belief : the fact is
accordingly a real fact. If, however, the belief in the fact alters
the fact in such a way as to be inharmonious with some of our
wishes, the belief in the fact has not completely worked, and is,
therefore, replaced by a modified belief which alters the fact
in some other way. If the modified belief produces satisfactory
consequences, the modified belief is ipso facto truer than the
original belief, and the fact formed by the modified belief is
therefore more real than the original fact. Thus reality is con-
tinually being made just as truth is continually being made, the
essential factor in the creation of truth and reality alike being
the ability of the belief which is true and of the fact which is
real to satisfy the wishes which led to the belief being entertained
and the fact being created. Thus complete truth and complete
reality are to be found reconciled at the end of the road which
leads to the complete satisfaction of our wishes, and the axiom
6 Man is the measure of all things ' has been faithfully maintained
as the touchstone of the Pragmatist philosophy in Psychology, in
Logic, and in Metaphysics.

Criticism. It cannot be said that Pragmatism has ever become
a widely held philosophical theory. It has been popular rather
with the scientist and the plain matter-of-fact man, to whose
instinctive methods of thought it extends a semi-philosophic
sanction, than with the professional philosopher whose specula-
tions it is apt to dismiss as barren and academic. It may be
doubted, however, whether the opposition to Pragmatism springs
wholly from those vested interests of the academic mind in the
logical formulae whose validity is threatened, to which the
Pragmatist would have us attribute it.

Objections of a serious kind can be and have been brought

8o Pragmatism

against the theory of Pragmatism, which seem to invalidate its
claim to give a satisfactory account of the nature of thought and
of reality.

Some of these objections we must briefly consider.

The Pragmatist, as we have seen, regards experience as a con-
tinuous flux or stream from which the mind selects certain aspects
according to the interests of the perceiver, and then proceeds to
work them up into the chairs and tables of everyday existence.

But if experience is really an indeterminate flux or blur, as void
of distinction, say, as a sheet of white paper, it may be asked why
mind should carve out of it certain objects rather than others.
Why, for example, should my mind carve out a chair instead of
a rhinoceros as the object upon which I am now sitting, unless
there is some distinctive mark or feature in reality itself in virtue
of which I do in fact say ' chair ' and not ' rhinoceros ' ? Is it
not, then, necessary to assume, as most philosophers have assumed,
that reality is not wholly featureless, not wholly without differentia-
tion, but contains within itself certain rudimentary distinctions
which form the basis upon which mind builds the structure of
the world known to science and to common sense ? Whichever
view of the matter we take, however, Pragmatism finds itself in
a dilemma. Let us consider the two alternatives separately.

I. If, on the one hand, it is true that mind can arbitrarily
carve out of the flow of experience whatsoever it pleases without
let or hindrance from reality, if, in short, mind can, as the
Pragmatist holds, make its own facts, how is it possible for a fact
so made to thwart the purposes of the maker ?

Pragmatism, as we have seen, regards scientific laws as postulates
which are progressively verified or invalidated by their success or
failure in conforming with the facts. But, if we select our own
facts, in what sense is it possible for them not to verify the
postulates we have formed ? Pragmatism, which holds that some
postulates work and become true while others fail to work and

Pragmatism 81

are therefore abandoned, obviously envisages the possibility of facts
sometimes conforming to a hypothesis and sometimes failing to do
so : yet it is equally obvious that the psychology of fact- making
upon which Pragmatism is based rules thi possibility out of court.

It is difficult to see, therefore, how on Pragma tist premises any
postulate, or truth claim as it is called, can fail to make good,
seeing that, whatever consequences its adoption involves, the
postulate, being arbitrarily selected from the flow of reality to
serve our purposes, must necessarily have the effect of serving
those purposes. But, if this is the case, the Pragmatist theory of
truth is convicted of the very defect which it imputes to its rivals,
the defect, namely, of failing to provide a criterion by which true
beliefs are to be distinguished from false beliefs.

But the assumption that mind makes its facts by selecting from
the indeterminate flux of experience is attended by difficulties as
serious for the Humanist view of reality as those in which it
involves the Pragmatist theory of truth. It follows from this
assumption, as we have seen, that mind constructs its own facts,
pronouncing that to be real which it has ' conceived after the
likeness of the heart's desire, the product of a human purpose '.
Only those facts are real, then, which are in accordance with our
purposes. It is, however, undoubtedly and unfortunately true
that many facts thwart our purposes. How do these facts come
into being ? The Pragmatist, who defines a real fact as that which
is selected because it serves our purposes and is in fact made real
because it serves them, is driven to assert that disagreeable
facts are in some sense illusory. The steps
at this result are as follows : the only fap
those which we have ourselves selected
serve our purposes ; therefore either (i) ff is
know facts which do not serve our purp|>s
clusion proves contrary to experience, tr|^se^f^cts
but which do not serve our purposes muBl u Bjr ^nr

82 Pragmatism

arc appearances only. Hence we are committed to the time-
honoured distinction between the world of appearance, which is
the world of experience, and the world of reality, a distinction
as complete as that established by the Idealist philosophers Kant
and Hegel, which Pragmatists are never weary of attacking. It
is only in the world of reality that the Pragmatist doctrine of
* real facts ' holds good, and the world of reality is unfortunately
not the world we know. The whole doctrine, therefore, reduces
itself, in Mr. Russell's words, * to the proposition that it would
be heavenly to live in a world where one's philosophy was true '
a proposition which no philosopher would desire to controvert.

2. Let us now consider the second alternative.

It is possible that a Pragmatist, if pressed, might admit that the
flux of experience is not entirely featureless. He might commit
himself to the proposition that rudimentary marks or articulations
are actually given in reality, and that it is the function of mind
by selection, emphasis, and amplification to work up the embryonic
distinctions which exist in reality into the fully developed world
of objects with which common sense is acquainted. Perception,
then, consists of recognizing and working up distinctions which
are already there, not of introducing distinctions which do not
exist. But, if this view of reality is taken, it is clear that our
selection of fact can never be completely arbitrary. If the stuff
of reality is composed of rudimentary objects which are given,
and are given in a certain juxtaposition, and of rudimentary
events which are given, and are given in a certain order, then it
is clearly possible for the view of reality constructed by one mind
to be either more or less correct than the view of reality con-
structed by another. Greater correctness would appear to be
constituted by greater approximation in the world of objects as
constructed to the world of rudimentary distinctions as given :
lesser correctness by an arbitrary construction which to all intents
and purposes ignored the features of the presented reality.

Pragmatism 83

But the notion that there may be a rudimentary order in
reality which is given and not made, involving as it docs the
assumption that one man's view of reality may be truer than
another's, opens the door to a new conception of the meaning
of truth. If, in fact, there is some sense in which A's view of
reality, being largely based on the rudimentary features of the
given, is truer than B's w T hich largely ignores them, is not this
sense precisely that which is asserted to be the meaning of truth
by the correspondence theory of truth, the sense, namely, in
which a true view of reality is one which corresponds with reality ?

This consideration at once suggests a criticism of the essential
doctrine of Pragmatism, the doctrine of the meaning of truth.
It has been suggested by critics of Pragmatism, notably by
Mr. Bertrarid Russell, that the definition of the meaning of truth
as ' that which gives emotional satisfaction ' springs from an
ambiguity in the use of the word ' means '.

Let us first of all consider two propositions in which the word
* means ' is used in the two different senses which it is capable
of bearing. We can either say (i) that ' cloud means rain ', or
(2) that * pluie means rain '. Now the sense in which * cloud
means rain ' is different from that in which ' pluie means rain '.
We say that a * cloud means rain ' because it possesses the causal
properties and characteristics of being liable to produce rain ; we
say that * pluie means rain ' because the words ' pluie ' and * rain ',
both of which are symbols for communicating what is in our
thoughts, happen to be symbols for communicating the same
thought in the minds of two different people. Now the sense
normally given to the word * means ' is this latter sense, and
the question, ' What is the meaning of truth ? ' can therefore be
paraphrased, ' What is it that we have in our minds when we say
that a belief is true ? '

Now let us consider the Pragmatist definition of truth in the
light of these two possible meanings of * means '.

F 2

84 Pragmatism

The Pragmatist begins by inquiring why it is that we affirm
a certain belief to be true. He answers this question, and, in the
light of modern psychological developments, we may agree that
he answers it approximately correctly, by stating that we affirm
those beliefs to be true which further our purposes. From the
proposition that ' a belief which furthers our purpose is a belief
which we affirm to be true ', he deduces the further proposition,
with which we may also agree, that ' the fact that a belief furthers
our purposes causes us to affirm that belief to be true '.

Having reached this stage he proceeds to deduce one more
proposition, and, in order to make this further deduction, he
utilizes the first meaning of * means ' as defined above. He
notices, that is to say, that there is a sense in which if A causes
B we may affirm that A means B, and applies this sense of the
word ' means ' to his definition of truth. He then deduces
from the proposition ' belief furthering our purposes causes us
to think belief true ', the further proposition * furthering our
purposes ' is what truth means.

Having established this proposition the Pragmatist thinks that
he has satisfactorily defined the meaning of truth. And it must
be admitted that he has defined it, but only in terms of the first
sense of the word ' means ' referred to above, the sense, that is to
say, in which a cloud means rain because a cloud causes rain. But
we agreed that this is not the sense in which we commonly use
the word ' means ', and, in particular, it is not the sense which
we have in mind when we ask, c What is the meaning of truth ? '

If, then, we agree that there is a distinction between (a) what
we have in mind when we say a belief is true, and () what causes
us to say that a belief is true, it is clear that the Pragmatic defini-
tion of the meaning of truth which may be justly given as an
account of (b) is not the correct interpretation of (a). It follows,
therefore, that the meaning of truth must be something other than
* furthering our purposes '.

Pragmatism 85

The question of what does constitute the meaning of truth is
one of the most controversial in philosophy, and raises many
interesting problems. It is, however, a question which it is
beyond the scope of the present chapter lo discuss. It is sufficient
for our present purpose if we can shou that the meaning of truth
is something other than what the Pragma tist asserts. And if the
truth of a belief is not to be .Mentificd with its usefulness, the
theory that truth is man-made, the theory, that is, that truth is
created by a progressive verification of the beliefs for which truth
is claimed, also falls to the ground.

The Pragmatist, it will be remembered, draws a distinction
between a belief which has not yet been tested by the criterion
of whether it works such a belief being called a truth claim
and a belief whose consequences have been found to be satis-
factory, the truth of which is said to be validated or established.
But the psychological argument which underlies the Pragmatic
theory only establishes the fact that the beliefs which further our
purposes are those which we persist in calling true after reflection,
and that we do so persist for the very reason that they further
our purposes. But unless we identify the truth of a belief with
the properties which a belief must possess in order that we may
call it true, the fact that we persist in holding a belief after
reflection does not mean that the belief is true. Many beliefs
which have been held by large numbers of reflective men over
considerable periods, such as the belief that the earth is flat, have
been shown to be not wholly true by the test of correspondence
with Reality.

The Pragmatist theory, then, may reasonably claim to be on
safe ground in so far as it asserts, (i) that we tend to hold those
beliefs to be true which are emotionally satisfying ; (2) that we
persist in holding a belief to be true if the consequences of its
adoption are found to be satisfactory. It is incorrect in making the
further assertion (3) that those properties, such as the property

86 Pragmatism

of having satisfactory consequences, which cause us to regard a belief
as true, are the same thing as the truth of a belief.

It should, however, be borne in mind that if the implications
of the Pragmatist psychology are logically developed, and reality
is regarded merely as a featureless flux from which we arbitrarily
select aspects and carve out objects, then the view that the
meaning of truth is correspondence with fact becomes meaning-
less. With a reality so conceived any belief would correspond,
and, since we ourselves construct the facts with which to verify
our beliefs, all beliefs would be true.

If, therefore, we grant the Pragmatist theory of perception,
there is no reason why we should not accept the Pragmatist
theory of truth, even although it involves the conclusion that all
beliefs are necessarily true.

5

The Philosophy of Bergson

I

THE essential doctrines of Bcrgson's philosophy are set forth in
three books entitled, in the English translation, Time and Free
Will, published in 1888, Matter and Memory, published in 1896,
and Creative Evolution, which appeared in 1907.

The philosophy expounded in these books, although simple in
outline and in structure, is based upon a central principle which
it is exceedingly difficult to grasp. Just as the Pragmatists invoke
the authority of Protagoras's remark, ' Man is the measure of all
things ', in support of their relativist doctrines, so does M. Bergson
adopt and elaborate as the central principle of his philosophy
Heraclitus's famous maxim to the effect that 'everything changes'.
The understanding of the significance of this apparently simple
statement constitutes the chief difficulty in Bergson's philosophy,

The Philosophy of Bergson 87

and though he has brought a lucidity of expression, a charm of
style, and a wealth of imaginative insight such as no philosopher
since Plato has possessed, to the task of reconciling this principle
with the common-sense notion of the Universe as composed of
solid objects extended in space, his doctrine still remains some-
thing of a stumbling-block to the man in the street.

It will be convenient to d'vidc our treatment of Bergson'' s
central principle into three sections. In the first we will consider
the various lines of approach by which Bergson reaches it ; in
the second, we will consider its nature ; and in the third, the
nature of the faculty through which we become aware of it. We
shall then proceed to examine the consequences which follow from
the acceptance of the principle, more particularly as touching the
character of the intellect and the nature of matter.

I. The path along which Bergson travels in search of his central
principle, that everything is change, lies mainly through biology
and psychology.

(a) Biology. Bcigson's philosophy devotes considerable atten-
tion to the study of biology ; and seeks to explain the process of
evolution on novel lines.

The facts of evolution which are now generally admitted have,
in the main, been attributed to the operation of one or the other
of two rival principles. According to Darwin, chance variations
in species fortuitously occur ; and of these variations those which
are most suited to their environment tend to survive and to
reproduce themselves. The whole process is a purely chance
affair, in which it is not possible to detect the operation of pur-
posive design or driving force. According to Lamarck, adaptation
to environment is the determining factor in evolution. As
environment changes species put forth new developments to adapt
themselves to it : those which are the more successful in com-
passing the necessary adaptations tend to survive ; the others tend
to die out. Now both these theories of evolution arc in agreement

88 The Philosophy of Bergson

as regards one essential point : both conceive the whole process
of evolution on mechanical lines ; both find it unnecessary to
postulate the existence of mind or purpose to explain how and
why the process takes place.

These so-called mechanist theories of evolution tend to regard
the Universe like the works of a gigantic clock : once the clock
is wound up (an operation which mechanists feel no compunction
for their inability to explain, since the winding up would be
tantamount to that mechanistic impossibility, a first cause), the
whole organism of the Universe proceeds indefinitely by the mere
automatic interaction of the parts.

Now it is this theory of evolution that Bergson questions. He
catalogues a long list of phenomena taken from insect, animal, and
vegetable life which, it is asserted, are inexplicable on mechanistic
principles. The factors normally regarded as those which deter-
mine evolution, adaptation to environment, and chance survival
of the fittest, totally fail, for example, to explain what is known
as transformism or the occurrence of variations in species, and in
particular those peculiar types of abrupt variation called muta-
tions. 1 They arc also unable to account for such phenomena as
the metamorphoses undergone by the insect.

In particular Bergson asks why, if the determining factor in
evolution is adaptation to environment, evolution did not cease
thousands of years ago. * A very inferior organism ', he says, ' is
as well adapted as ours to the conditions of existence, judged by
its success in maintaining life : why, then, does life, which has
succeeded in adapting itself, go on complicating itself and com-
plicating itself more and more dangerously ? . . . Why did not
life stop wherever it was possible ? Why has it gone on ? Why

1 It is now generally held that some species change by manifesting abrupt
and important variations which are not the final stage in a series of gradual
developments, but occur spontaneously without any corresponding change in
the environment of the species. These sudden variations are called mutations.

The Philosophy of Bergson 89

indeed, unless it be that there is an impulse driving it to take
ever gi eater and greater risks towards its goal of an ever higher
and higher efficiency ? '

This impulse is a kind of vital surge, an immanent principle
which pervades, which drives, which indeed is whatever is life.
It is in fact the elan vital which has made Bcrgson's philosophy
so famous. Bergson's contend r jn is that this flan vital is the
thrusting force behind evolution, and that without it it is impos-
sible to explain how and why the movement of evolution occurs :
the factors emphasized by the mechanists play their part in
determining the direction of evolution at any given moment, but
they are incapable of explaining why evolution should take place
at all.

* The truth is,' says Bcrgson, c that adaptation explains the
inner windings of evolutionary progress, but not the general
direction of the movement, still less the movement itself.'

Biology therefore supplies us with a series of facts, which can
only be explained on the assumption that the Universe is the
creation and expression of a vital force or impulse, whose function
it is continually to change and to evolve.

(b) Psychology. The facts of psychology point to a similar
conclusion. Mechanist theories of evolution have their counter-
part in the so-called parallelist theory of psychology. This theory
asserts that whatever changes occur in the body are accompanied
by corresponding changes in consciousness. There is, in fact,
a complete parallelism between the mind and the body, so that,
even if we do not assume an actual causal relationship, it is never-
theless true that all psychological phenomena arc, as it were, the
reflections of physiological modifications whose occurrence renders
them possible.

More extreme forms of the theory tend to abolish mind as
a separate entity in the human make-up altogether. Mind is
regarded either as the sum total of the neural correlates which

go The Philosophy of Bergson

constitute the brain, or as a highly attenuated material substance
surrounding the brain, like the halo round the head of a saint.
In either event, whatever happens in the mind is the result of
something that has first happened in the brain, and the material
always and in all respects determines and conditions the mental.

Bergson brings against this conception a further series of facts
with which it is incompatible. Experiments have shown that the
excision of large portions of the brain, and of those very portions
which were considered essential for the causation of mental
activity, have been succeeded by no psychological disturbance :
whereas, if mental is the result of cerebral activity, modifications in
psychology should inevitably have followed. The phenomena of
abnormal psychology, and especially of dual personality, arc inde-
pendent of any corresponding physiological change. Subconscious
mental activity is also inexplicable on the parallelist hypothesis.
Bergson infers that mental activity conditions cerebral activity
and overflows it. The brain is not consciousness, nor does it
contain the cause of conscious processes : it is simply the organ
of consciousness, the point at which consciousness enters into
matter ; and, as we shall shortly see. it has been evolved by
consciousness for certain specific purposes which are bound up
with the necessity for action.

If mental activity is fundamental and cerebral activity inci-
dental, if consciousness is independent of the brain and only
employs the brain for certain special purposes, how is conscious-
ness to be defined ? The answer is that consciousness is the
elan vital itself ; and in order to understand Bergson's central
conception to which the facts both of biology and psychology
have pointed us, it is necessary to consider a little more closely
what the nature of our consciousness really is, since we shall only
come to understand the elan vital by observing its operations
in ourselves.

II. The elan vital. Bergson then asks us to examine the nature

The Philosophy of Bergson QI

of consciousness. What is the precise meaning of the word
* exist ', when, for instance, we say we exist ?

At first sight consciousness appears to consist of a succession of
psychic states, each of which is a single and independent entity,
these states being strung together along something which is called
the ' ego ', like beads on a necklace. But reflection soon shows
this conception to be erronecus ; and the error consists more
particularly in the fact that, when we admit that one state changes
and gives way to another, we overlook the fact that it changes
even while it persists. Take, says Bergson, ' the most stable of
internal states, the visual perception of a motionless object. The
object may remain the same, I may look at it from the same side,
at the same angle, in the same light : nevertheless, the vision
I now have of it differs from that which I have just had, even
if only because the one is an instant older than the other. My
memory is there, which conveys something of the past into the
present. My mental state, as it advances on the road of time, is
continually swelling with the duration it accumulates.' If this
is the case with regard to our perception of external objects, it is
even more true as a description of our internal states, our desires,
our emotions, our willings, and so forth. The conclusion is, in
Bergson's words, that ' we change without ceasing, and the state
itself is nothing but change '. ' There is no feeling, no idea, no
volition which is not undergoing change at every moment : if
a mental state ceased to vary, its duration would cease to flow.'

It follows that there is no real difference between passing from
one state to another and continuing in what is called the same
state. We imagine such a difference because it is only when the
continual change in any one state has become sufficiently marked
to arrest our attention that we do in fact notice it, with the
result that we assert that one state has given way to another.
Thus, we postulate a series of successive mental states, because our
attention is forced upon them in a series of successive mental acts.

92 The Philosophy of Bergson

It is for the same reason that we tend to regard ourselves as
beings who endure continually in spite of change. Just as we
say there exist separate states which change, so we speak of a self
which experiences changing psychic states, and this self, we say,
endures. But we have no more experience of an unchanging ego
than we have of an unchanging psychic state : however far we
push our analysis, we never reach such an unchanging ego. There
is in fact nothing which endures through change because there is
nothing which docs not change.

Hence Bergson arrives at the truth that we ourselves are beings
who endure not through change but by change. Our life, as
actually experienced, as the inmost reality of which we are sure,
is change itself. * If ', says Bergson, ' our existence were composed
of separate states with an impassive ego to unite them, for us
there would be no duration. For an ego which docs not change
does not endure, and a psychic state which remains the same so
long as it is not replaced by the following state, does not endure
either.'

There is thus no self which changes : there is indeed nothing
which changes for in asserting the existence of that which
changes, we are asserting the existence of something which, from
the mere fact that it is subject to change, is not itself change
there is simply change.

The truth that we are beings whose reality is change supplies
the clue with which we can now proceed to consider and to
understand the constitution of the Universe. For the Universe
is that same stream of continual change or ' becoming ', as Bergbon
calls it, that we experience in ourselves. Try as we will to
penetrate through the changing appearances presented by material
things to something behind them which is stable and unchanging,
we never reach it. Just as in our examination of human con-
sciousness we found that what appeared at first sight to be a series
of motionless states, each of which persisted until replaced by

The Philosophy of Bcrgson 93

another, was in fact a continuous process of change, so the view
of reality which represents it as a series of bodies possessing
qualities which similarly persist until they are replaced, is found
to be equally misleading. Every body, e^cry quality even, resolves
itself, on scientific analysis, into a;i enormous quantity of ele-
mentary movements. Whether we represent them as vibrations,
or as ether waves, or as negativ electrons, or as event particles, it
is equally impossible to arrive at something \\liich is sufficiently
stable to be spoken of as that in which the changes, or move-
ments take place. For if at any stage such an apparent something
is reached, and you affirm of it that this is the ' thing ' that
changes or in which the changes take place, further examina-
tion will always be found to show that the thing itself is
composed of changes, which are other than and additional to
the changes which we predicated of it when we said, ' Here
is something that changes, which is itself other than change'.
Hence there is nothing in the Universe which changes, just as
there is nothing in the self which changes, for the very reason
that a something which changes would be something other than
change, and such a something can never be discerned. The
Universe is conceived, then, as one continuous flow or surge,
and evolution as the mere movement of the flow or surge.
The process of evolution is visualized as though there is some-
where a centre from which worlds and life and matter were
thrown off like fireworks in a vast illumination. But even this
centre is not a concrete thing : if it were, it would be something
other than ceaseless change, and we have seen that nothing but
ceaseless change can exist. The centre is therefore described as
a * continuity of outflow ', a metaphorical expression to suggest
that the vital surge has neither beginning nor end, completeness
nor finality. This description is inherent in the general Con-
ception ; for if the vital surge had a beginning or an end, there
would be something before or after the vital surge which was not

94 The Philosophy of Bergson

the vital surge ; that is to say, there would be something other
than mere change. The world, then, is the embodiment of an
immanent principle, which, as it comes into existence, progres-
sively creates the evolving Universe.

We must now ask by what means we become aware of the real
nature of that which is so strikingly belied by its superficial
appearances.

III. Intuition. Bergson holds that the method by which we
arrive at metaphysical truth consists not in the exercise of the
intellect, but in the deliverances of a faculty which he calls
Intuition. It is through intuition, and through intuition alone,
that we reali/.c our participation in the vital surge. In order that
we may understand what is meant by the word ' participation ',
it is necessary that we should pay attention to an aspect of the
elan vital which has not yet been stressed, the aspect of it which
Bergson calls ' Duration'.

The history of philosophy bears record to a long and heated
controversy as to the nature of time. Some philosophers have
held that time is real ; others that it is merely a form which is
imposed upon reality by the nature and limitations of our under-
standing, reality itself being timeless.

Bergson's contribution to this problem consists of drawing an
important distinction between two different conceptions which
are included in the meaning of the word * time '. In the first
place there is what is called mathematical or scientific time. This
time docs not form part of the reality of the so-called external
world of material things : it is simply a relation between material
things. If we consider any material thing which passes through
two successive states, and then double the rapidity of succession
between the two states, the operation of doubling the rapidity of
succession will in no way affect the reality or the nature of the
states, nor of the material thing which passes through the states.
If, further, we imagine the rapidity of the succession of states

The Philosophy of Bergson 95

infinitely increased, so that the whole of existence were presented
instantaneously to the contemplation of an omnipotent being, the
relations between the objects presented would remain constant,
and the reality of the objects would theieforc remain unaffected.
Time, then, as science conceives it, is not part of the material
world. Time is thought to exit r as a relation between things,
because our intellect requires u.. to conceive things as succeeding
one another in time for purposes of its own : it is, therefore,
a form which appears to be necessary for the understanding of
reality by the intellect.

There is, however, another kind of time which Bergson calls
c Duration ' ; and Duration is nothing but the elan vital itself. As
we have seen, change is the reality of the existence of a living
being ; our actual experience, the one thing of which we arc com-
pletely sure, is a constant flow, and it is this flow which Bergson
calls Duration. This Duration is not a mere succession of instants ;
it is, in Bergson's words, c the continuous progress of the past
which gnaws into the future '. In virtue of the fact that we
ourselves are living beings, we belong to the stream of Duration,
and, if we attend sufficiently closely to our own experience, we
can become conscious of the pulsing of Duration within us. But
our attention must not be an attention of the intellect ; it must
rather be of an instinctive character. It is through instinct that
we feel ourselves to be one with reality ; it is through instinct
that we appear to ourselves to enter into the flow of life and to
live it. Now Bergson gives a distinctive name to instinct, or
rather to that aspect of the instinctive side of our natures through
which we become directly conscious of the Duration in which we
participate. It is to instinct in this relationship that he gives the
name of c Intuition '. ' Instinct ', says Bergson, c is sympathy. If
this sympathy could extend its object and also reflect upon itself,
it would give us the key to vital operations.' Now Intuition is
nothing more nor less than instinct conscious of itself : it is

9 6 The Philosophy of Bergson

instinct that has become disinterested, self-conscious, capable of
reflecting upon its object and of enlarging it indefinitely.

Let us consider for a moment for purposes of illustration the
character of a symphony. There appear to be two quite separate
and distinct ways in which we may regard a symphony : in the
first we shall think of it merely as an aggregate or accumulation
of the various notes of which it is composed, just as we may
think of a picture as the sum total of the various paints and
colours which the artist places upon his canvas ; in the second
we shall regard it not as an aggregate but as a whole, that is to
say, as something which is brought into existence by the coming
together of its parts, but which is, nevertheless, a new and com-
plete entity over and above the sum of those parts. It is clear
that there is a very important sense in which the reality of the
symphony may be said to consist not of the isolated and separate
notes of which it is composed, but of the indivisible and complete
whole which, as we say, is the symphony. Now the view which
Intuition gives us of reality is like the second way of regarding
the symphony. It is by Intuition that we enter into and appreciate
the meaning of the symphony as an indivisible whole : it is by
Intuition that we enter into and grasp the nature of reality as an
indivisible whole. But if Intuition is involved in the appreciation
of a picture or a symphony, it is involved still more directly in
their creation. The great artist creates by penetrating through
the superficial appearance presented by his subject to the reality
beneath : it is, in fact, his vision of this reality that constitutes
his greatness as an artist. This vision he places upon the canvas,
and it is in the reality of this vision and not in the paint, the
colours, the form, the technique, or the faithful portrayal of the
subject that the essence of the picture lies. And just as it is only
by entering through sympathy into the life and meaning of his
subject that the artist succeeds in grasping it, so it is through
the sympathy which is Intuition that we are enabled to enter

The Philosophy of Bergson 97

into the ceaseless flow of the reality which is our life and to grasp
its nature.

Thus, the Intuition we have of our life am* our experience as
ceaseless change is knowledge of reality itself, and all beliefs about
the nature of reality other than tho<v arrived at by intuition arc-
misleading.

IV. Intellect and Matter. What, then, is the function of intel-
lect, and what is the relation to reality of that view of the Universe
as a collection of solid material objects extended in space, with
which the intellect presents us ? These two questions are really
the same question ; for matter is the view of reality given to us
by our intellect, and our intellect is constructed for the purpose
of presenting us with a material Universe.

The intellect, according to Bergson, is a very special faculty
evolved for the purposes of action. Life in a world of ceaseless
flow and change would present difficulties from the point of view
of effective action, which the intellect is designed to overcome.
The intellect therefore makes cuts across the living flow of reality,
and carves out of it solid objects, which we call material objects,
and separate states of consciousness which persist until they arc-
succeeded by other states. But the distinct outlines we see in an
object are not really there in the flux of reality. They are only
the design that we have imposed on reality to suit our own
purposes. The edges and surfaces, the shapes and forms of
things, are, as it were, the representation of the actions that we
desire to take with regard to these things : thir representation,
which emanates from ourselves, is reflected back upon ourselves by
reality as by a mirror, so that we falsely believe reality to possess in
its own right the modifications and features that proceed from us.

In the case of motion this manipulation by the intellect of
reality has surprising results. Philosophy is full of the con^va-
dictions to which the conception of motion which has been
evolved by the intellect gives rise. * Let us consider an arrow in

98 The Philosophy of Bergson

its flight,' said the old Greek philosopher Zeno ; ' it is easy to
show that the motion of the arrow is an illusion. For, consider the
position of the arrow at any one point or moment of the flight :
either it is where it is, or it is where it isn't ; if it is where it is, it
cannot be moving, otherwise it would not be there ; and it cannot
be where it isn't. Therefore the arrow docs not move at that
moment ; similarly the arrow docs not move at any other moment.
Therefore the arrow docs not move at all.'

William James applied a similar analysis to the lapse of time.
It is easy, he said, to show that a period of time, say an hour,
can never elapse ; for half of that period must elapse before the
whole of it ; but half of the remaining half-hour must also elapse
before the whole of it, and half of the remaining quarter of an
hour before the whole of that quarter of an hour. Thus, some
portion of time, however short, must always elapse before the
whole can elapse : therefore the whole can never elapse.

These results have led many philosophers to believe that motion,
change, and time are unreal. Bergson, as we have seen, holds
that motion, change, and time are the only reality, and he pro-
ceeds therefore to attribute the difficulties which Zeno and
William James propounded to the cutting-up operations of the
intellect. The intellect takes the flow of motion and cuts it up
into moments and points ; it takes the lapse of time and cuts it
up into hours and half-hours. But these divisions imposed by
the intellect, these stops inserted in the continuous flow of reality,
are unreal and give rise to unreal results. It is not motion and
time that the intellect grasps, but points in motion and intervals
of time. The intellect, in fact, is cinematographic. One of the
most ingenious of Bergson's similes in illustration of the operations
of the intellect is his comparison of the intellect to the cinemato-
graph. The cinematograph takes snapshot views of something
which is moving, say a regiment of soldiers, each of which repre-
sents the regiment in a fixed and stable attitude. You may lay

The Philosophy of Bcrgson 09

these snapshot photographs side by side and multiply them
indefinitely, but you will not have re-created the movement of
the original : you will be presented only with an infinite number
of static pictures. In order, then, thai your pictures may be
animated, you must introduce movement somewhere ; and it is
not until you unroll your film or, the operator's apparatus that,
for a series of static pictures, yoa substitute a moving representa-
tion of the moving original.

The pictures of reality presented to us by the intellect arc
precisely similar to the series of static snapshots before they are
placed upon the apparatus, and they substitute, in a precisely
similar way, a succession of objects extended in space for the
ceaseless flow and change of the original. Thus the intellect pre-
sents us with a false view of reality, because, in order to further
the purposes of action, that is to say, the ends which we desire
to obtain, it represents reality as composed of points upon which
we may rest. * If matter ', says Bergson, * appeared to us as
a perpetual flowing, we should assign no termination to any of
our actions. ... In order that our activity may leap from an act
to an act, it is necessary that matter should pass from a state to
a state.'

Hence the intellect seeks always to present to us the results of
motions and the ends of action, just because it is not interested
in the fact of motion and the reality of action. The intellect,
therefore, introduces stops or articulations into the ceaseless flow
of reality ; and it is these stops and articulations, which the
intellect has inserted for us, that provide the ground- work for
the common-sense notion of reality as composed of solid objects
which are separated from each other by real distinctions.

Matter. At this point, however, it is necessary to make a
reservation ; for, in cutting up the flow of the Universe into
a world of material objects, the intellect is not acting quite
arbitrarily. Matter is not a mere figment of the intellect ; it

G 2

ioo The Philosophy of Bergson

exists in reality in its own right, or rather something exists other
than the direct flow of life, which is the aspect of the elan vital
hitherto considered, and to this ' something ' intellect is specifically
related. The intellect and matter arc, in Bergson's view, relative
to each other : they were cut simultaneously by an identical
process from the elan vital which contained and contains them
both.

But when we put the question, ' What is the real nature of this
aspect of the elan vital, which the intellect works up for us into
a world of solid matter ? ' the answer is not so clear as we could wish.

The elan vital is a creative impulsion of endless duration ; but
its continual movement does not proceed without interruption :
at a certain point the flow is interrupted and, like the recoil of
a spring, turns back upon itself. This inverse movement is matter.
Everything is still ceaseless change and flow, but matter is a flow
in a direction opposite to that of the vital surge itself. In order
to illustrate this conception of matter Bergson again has recourse
to metaphor. Life is likened to a rocket whose extinguished
remains fall to the ground as matter ; and again, life is like
a fountain, which, expanding as it rises, partially arrests or delays
the drops which fall back : the jet of the fountain is vital activity
in its highest form, the drops which fall back arc the creative
movement dissipated : in short, they are matter.

Free Will. Bergson's view of the intellect as a tool which has
been fashioned in the course of evolution for the purposes of life
enables him to approach the vexed question of free will from a
new angle. Bergson admits the contention of the determinists
that, if we consider any single action in isolation, it is possible to
prove by irrefutable reasoning that it is entirely determined by
what has preceded it. This contention is true, whether we attri-
bute the causation of the action to the influence of an external
physical environment, and see in every case of ill temper another
instance of faulty digestion, or whether we locate it in the

The Philosophy of Bergson 101

psychology of the individual, and, pointing to the obvious fact
that he is responsible neither for his motives nor his desires,
demonstrate that his action is determined by the strongest motive
or desire at the moment.

But this interpretation is only true of the action taken in
isolation. And the action taken in isolation is a false intellectual
abstraction. It is the intellect which, as we have seen, thinks of
our life as divided into states of consciousness which remain static
until replaced by other states and actions which characterize these
states ; and having made this abstraction the intellect proceeds to
reason about the actions so abstracted, as if they were isolated and
self-contained entities springing from and entirely conditioned by
the preceding states.

But, as we have seen, the life of the individual is not to be
regarded as a succession of changing states ; the life of the
individual is a continuous and indivisible flow, and it is precisely
when taken as such that it is seen to be free and undetermined.
Divide the individual's life into parts, consider the individual's
actions separately, and you will find that each part and each
action is determined by its predecessors. But what is true of the
parts is not true of the personality as a whole. It is the nature
of life to be creative, and the individual taken as a whole is
necessarily creative from the mere fact that he is alive. But if
his life is creative, and creative in each moment of it, it is clear
that it is not determined by what went before. If it were so
determined it would only be an expression of the old, and not
a creation of the new.

Free will, then, is creative action : determinism is a belief
imposed upon us by our intellectual view of reality, which reasons
so convincingly, not about our lives as a whole, but about a false
abstraction from our lives which it calls individual actions. But
do we after all really believe in determinism ? Our reason may
indeed be convinced, but our instinctive belief persisting in the

102 The Philosophy of Bergson

teeth of reason is that we are free. Why ? Because this instinctive
belief is of the character of Intuition, whose function it is to
comprehend our life as a whole. In so doing it realizes that, as
such, life is a creative activity, and insists therefore on its freedom
to create the future.

One question still remains to complete our short sketch of
Bergson's philosophy. If reality consists of a continuous vital
flow, whence docs this flow arise ? what was there before it to
bring it into being ? how in fact can the Universe have sprung
from nothingness ? According to Bergson this is a question which
should not be put, and the fact that it has been so frequently
put in the past has had consequences of enormous importance
in philosophy. The question arises from an illusion of the intellect
which opposes the idea of nothingness to the idea of something,
the idea of a void to the idea of the All, and assumes therefore
that the absence of the something would be equivalent to the
presence of nothing. But this idea of nothingness is a false idea :
nothingness is necessarily unthinkable, since to think even of
nothing is to think in some way : to imagine even one's own
annihilation is to be conscious of oneself using one's imagination
to abolish oneself.

When I say, ' There is nothing ', it is not that I perceive
1 a nothing ' ; I can only perceive what is ; but I have not per-
ceived that which I sought for and expected, and I express my
regret in the language of my desire. And just as the so-called
perception of nothing is the missing what is sought, so the thought
of nothing is the thought of the absence of the particular some-
thing with which one is acquainted. Hence the absence of the
order of reality, which is the clan vital, would not be equivalent
to mere chaos or disorder, but would inevitably involve the
presence of some other order.

The question therefore, ' What is the origin or source of the
elan viial itself ? ' should not be asked, since it posits the existence

The Philosophy of Bcrgson i<>3

of a nothing prior to the clan vital from which the clan vital
may be supposed to have evolved, and, in so doing, posits a logical
fiction. It is because philosophers have insisted on asking this
question that they have been wrong])' led to suppose that reality
is one and permanent, and that change is an illusion. The belief
that the absence of the order of reality with which they were
acquainted would involve mere nothing, combined with the
inability to conceive how something could ever have been
generated out of such a nothing, has led them to suppose that
the order of reality with which they were acquainted must have
always existed, eternally the same. Change, then, was written off
as illusory appearance, and the intellect was invoked to penetrate
through to an alleged immutable reality subsisting behind the
changing and unreal appearances of matter. Once, however, the
illusory character of the idea of nothing is grasped, it becomes
superfluous to ask whence did reality arise, and the conception
of reality as change becomes possible.

II

The above constitutes a brief outline of Bergson's philosophy.
It is a philosophy expounded with such charm and lucidity, the
arguments with which it is supported arc so ingenious, and the
cumulative force of the wealth of detail with which it is built
up is so strong, that the reader finds difficulty in avoiding
whole-hearted conversion, at any rate at the time. He thinks
continually as he reads, but he is rarely allowcc,
think. When he does do so, doubts begin

These doubts may be summed up
as to the reality of Bergson's metaphysi^j
validity of his logic.

Let us briefly consider what these dot

I. Bergson presents us with a realitj

104 The Philosophy of Bcrgson

flow or stream. It is a pure becoming, without feature or indi-
viduation of any kind, the distinctions and shapes which we
discern in it being due to the cutting up, discriminating, and
selecting operations of the intellect.

But such a conception of reality is exposed to the same difficulty
as that which beset the continuum of the Pragma tists. If reality
is quite featureless, the view of reality with which the intellect
presents us must, in spite of Bergson's disclaimer, be quite
arbitrary. When on Bergson's premises my intellect carves out
of reality a table and a chair for the purposes of my action, it
might just as reasonably, so far as the nature of reality is con-
cerned, carve out a rhinoceros and an elephant : it only presents
me with the chair and the table because they are more convenient
for my purposes. But as a matter of fact the intellect is very far
from carving out of reality the sort of objects and events we
should naturally choose. If A desires to elope with the daughter
of B, and the only way of effecting his escape consists in catching
the 8.15 from Charing Cross, it serves the purposes of A that
the 8.15 should leave to time, just as clearly as it does not serve
the purposes of the pursuing B. Yet both A and B agree to
carve out of reality the same 8.15 leaving at the same moment.
It would seem, then, that the objects we carve from the flux of
reality are not purely arbitrary intellectual constructions, but
do correspond to some rudimentary distinctions existing in the
real which are not the work of the intellect.

The Bergsonian conception of matter points to the same con-
clusion. Matter is described as a reverse movement of the flow
of reality, due to an interruption of the flow. But there can be
no interruption without something to interrupt. What, then, is
the something that interrupts ? It cannot be the flow, because
the flow could only interrupt itself in virtue of some stoppage in
itself, and the stoppage would then be the interruption which it
seeks to explain ; ndr can it be matter, since matter proceeds

The Philosophy of Bcrgson 105

from the interruption and is not therefore the interruption \vhich
causes matter. We are driven, then, to suppose that the real
must contain the seeds of division in itself; that, instead of being
a featureless becoming, it is variegated and articulated, and that,
instead of being pure change, it contains dements other than
change, which arc able to interrupt the change.

If it were not so, we may well ask how the appearance of
diversity and solidity that matter undoubtedly presents can be
explained. The answer that the appearance is an illusion due to
the operations of the intellect will not satisfy us ; for even if we
assume that shape and form, solidity and diversity are illusions,
we have still to ask whether the fact of the illusion itself does
not point to some flaw in the structure of the real. It is in fart
as difficult to explain how error and illusion can be generated
from pure unindividuated reality, as to account for the fact of
diversity and solidity in a Universe which is one throughout and
change throughout. Bergson, in effect, says ' reality only appears
to consist of solid objects in space because we cannot help
thinking of it in that way '. But the question then becomes,
how did we come to think of it in that way? Ard the only
conceivable answer is, that if reality is not composed of matter
extended in space but is pure becoming, then reality must be
made to account for our error in thinking it is not pure becoming :
reality therefore contains the seeds of error in itself : reality
therefore is not a pure unity, but an initial plurality.

2. Now let us turn to Bergson's logic. The point of difficulty
that immediately presents itself consists in the different functions
assigned respectively to intuition and to intellect. The intellect
has been evolved for the purposes of action, and gives us informa-
tion of practical value ; intuition enables us to see the limitations
of intellect, and is required to supplement intellect before ~t is
possible to attain to metaphysical truth.

Let us consider each faculty separately. The whole conception

iofi The Philosophy of Bcrgson

of intuition is vague in the extreme. Intuition is defined as
instinct conscious of itself, able to consider its purpose, and
through consideration to enlarge and expand it. By instinct is
meant the instinct of animals, in whom this faculty has attained
a much greater degree of development than in man, and by
instinct conscious of itself, instinct that has become so conscious
through an admixture of intelligence. Bcrgson holds that in the
last resort intuition by itself is not sufficient to give us meta-
physical truth, but that it must first absorb intelligence. Intellect
enriched and revivified by intuition, intuition which employs
reason to take account of and to control its deliverances, constitute
together the searchlight which reveals to us the nature of reality.
The truth of Bergson's philosophy is ultimately perceived in
this way.

With regard to this conception of intuition three criticisms
may be urged.

(a) Bergson regards the difference between animals and man as
one of kind and not of degree ; and the difference in kind consists
in the fact that man has developed intelligence, and the animals,
more especially the insects, intuition. Hence in man intuition is
feeble and discontinuous ; in animals it is continuous and all-
pervasive. This theory is, according to many psychologists, out
of harmony with the facts, and the facts which it more particularly
overlooks are those with regard to the subconscious self.

Subconscious psychology dominates animal and human activity
alike, and there is an increasing tendency to regard the subcon-
scious of the animal and the subconscious of the human being as
essentially similar.

Animal instinct is, in fact, merely the first manifestation of that
subconscious which appears in an enriched and expanded form in
the human being, such differences as exist being due to the fact
that animals and human beings arc at different levels in the same
evolutionary progression.

The Philosophy of Bcrgson 107

(b) if, however, the distinction of kind between men and
animals be maintained, in what sense docs Bcrgson assert the
superiority of man ? Bergson continually i^ peaks of man as the
success of evolution, as the one instance in which the flan vitttl
has successfully broken through the deterministic forces of matter
and established freedom, while the animals are the residual and
waste products of an evolutionary thrust which has failed.

Yet the animals apparently possess in full measure that intuition
which is the sovereign guide to truth, while man has it but feebly
and discontinuously. Intuition in man is but a relic, a residue
denoting the common origin from which both men and animals
have sprung : presumably, therefore, as evolution proceeds, this
residue will diminish to vanishing point, and the faculty of intui-
tion will remain a prerogative of the animals. This reasoning
suggests the conclusion that the apprehension by intuition of the
true nature of reality, including the appreciation of Bcrgson's
philosophy which alone correctly asserts the true nature of reality,
will in course of time die out among human beings.

It is true that the animals will for a time be able to share
Bergson's views on the nature of reality in virtue of their posses-
sion of intuition, but, as we may expect that the animals, who
are to be numbered among the failures of evolution, will one day
go to join the Mesozoic reptiles on the evolutionary scrap-heap,
the truth that reality is change will sooner or later completely
pass from the world. Bergson's view is not therefore an optimistic
one with regard to the prospects of truth,

(c) If this conclusion be denied on the ground suggested above,
that it is not by means of the intuition which animals possess,
but through a glorified intuition which has absorbed intelli-
gence, that metaphysical truth is known, we are committed to
a position in which intuition is both judge and jury in its own
cause.

The criterion of truth is to be found in intuition controlled by

io8 The Philosophy of Bergson

intelligence ; but the intelligence which controls the deliverances
of intuition is itself a glorified intelligence which has been revivi-
fied by intuition. Thus, in the last resort, intuition is both the
criterion of truth and that which asserts itself to be the criterion
of truth, and the intelligence which is supposed to direct the
deliverances of intuition is simply intuition under another name,
judging in the interests of itself.

The Bergsonian conception of intellect is equally open to
criticism. Bcrgson's position, as we have seen, is that the intellect
is a special faculty evolved for the purposes of action ; and to
further these purposes it represents the flow of reality as cut up
into segments. From this position one of two results must follow :
cither reality contains in itself distinctive marks or features, which
are what the intellect finds already there, or reality is entirely
featureless and the marks or features arc inserted into it, or
imposed upon it, by intellect. In the first case reality is not
a perfect flow : in the second, the intellect presents us with a false
view of reality.

Now it is clear that on the whole Bergson takes the second view
of the relationship between intellect and reality, the view which
regards the intellect as creating distinctions which are not given.
* Becoming ', he says, * is what our intellect and senses would
show us of matter if they could obtain a direct arid disinterested
view of it.' It appears to follow, although Bergson never explicitly
commits himself to this conclusion, that intellect takes a mis-
leading view of reality. The intellect being relative to practical
convenience, we are explicitly warned against supposing that it
can give us metaphysical truth. * But when in speculating on
the nature of the real we go on regarding it as our practical
interest requires us to, we become unable to perceive the true
evolution, the radical becoming.' There is, moreover, a fine
passage in the introduction to Creative Evolution, in which Bergson
asks how the intellect ' created by life in definite circumstances,

The Philosophy of Bcrgson 109

to act on definite things, can embrace 'ife of which it is only an
emanation or an aspect '.

But a philosophy which begins to look askance at intellect soon
finds itself on dangerous ground : for the despised intellect is the
tool with which the philosophy is ( nstructed, the weapon with
which it asserts its claims. The Greeks pointed out long ago that
you cannot know that intellectual knowledge is unattainable, for
your knowledge that intellectual knowledge is unattainable is
itself a piece of intellectual knowledge. If, then, intellectual
knowledge is really unattainable, then the intellectual knou ledge
which asserts its unattainability is itself unattainable ; so that we
cannot know that intellectual knowledge is necessarily unattain-
able. The existence of knowledge is in fact affirmed in the very
act of its denial.

It has been frequently urged against Bergson that his philosophy,
in denying that the intellect can give us truth about the Universe,
exposes itself to the danger whiih the Creeks sought to avoid.
For his denial that intellect can give us truth about the nature
of the Universe is in itself an intellectual affirmation about the
Universe, an affirmation to the effect that the Universe is such
that the intellect does not give us truth about it. And if we
examine the structure of Bcrgson's philosophy, we cannot avoid
the conclusion that it is an intellectual achievement of the very
highest order. It employs the most subtle dialectic, the most
ingenious similes, the most persuasive arguments, all of which
proceed from Bcrgson's intellect and are addressed to ours, to
prove that the view which the intellect takes of reality is a false one.

But if this is so, then Bcrgson's philosophy, which is assuredly
an intellectual view of reality, is a false philosophy ; so that it
turns out not to be true that the intellectual view of reality is
false. In proportion therefore as Bergson discredits intellect, he
discredits his own arguments : in proportion as he proves his
point, he disproves his philosophy.

no The Philosophy of Bcrgson

While admitting therefore the beauty and unity of Bergson's
conception of reality, we cannot avoid the conclusion that, in
trying to bring everything under the aegis of his single principle,
lie has exposed himself to logical objections of a serious character.
This fact should not, however, be allowed to detract from the
great value of his biological work, and of the achievement, which
assuredly stands to his credit, of being the first to make a serious
breach in that mechanistic view of life and the Universe, which
held almost und^puted sway during the latter half of the nine-
teenth century.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

THIS bibliography is not intended to be complete. Its purpose- is to indicate
in connexion with each chapter the most important wurks in English 01 in
Knglish translations relating to the systerr ta of philosophy described in that
chapter.

The following books, \\hich cover the iield of modem philosophy as a whole,
are recommended for general leading-

Bosanquet (Bernard): The Meeting of Extremes in Content porar v Philosophy.

Macmillan, 1921 : and
Iloernle (R. F. A.) : Studies in Contemponuv Metaphysics. Ke^an Paul, 1920.

(Written from the Idealist standpoint.)
Russell (Bertrand) : The Problems of Philosophy. Williams & Norgate, H)iz.

(Representing the Realist point of view.)

CII-WTFR T

Alexander (S.) : The Rasi's of Realism. Humphrey Milford, 1914.
Space, Time, and Dntv. Macmillan, K)2o.

Drake (Prof. Durand) : Essays in Critical Realism : a Co-operative Study in
the Problem of Knowledge. Macmillan, 1920.

Holt (E. B.) and others : The New Realism : Co-operative Studies in Philo-
sophy. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1912.

Joad (C. E. M.) : Essays in Common Sense Philosophy. Allen & Unwin, 1919.

Laird (J.) : A Study in Realism. Cambridge University Press, 1920.

Moore ((.}. E.) : Philosophical Studies. Regan Paul, 1922.

CHAPTER 2

Russell (Bertrand) : Philosophical Essays. Longmans, 1910.
The Problems of Philosophy. Williams &, Norgate, 1912.

Our Knowledge oj the External World. The Open Court Publishing Co., 1914.
Scientific Method in Philosophy. Clarendon Press, 1914.
hlystieism and Logic. Longmans, 1918.
The Analysis oj Mind. Allen & Unwin, 1921.

CHAPTER 3

Carr (H. Wildon) : The Philosophy oj Benedetto Croce. Macmillan, 1917.
Crocc (Benedetto) : The Philosophy oj the Spirit. In 4 vols. (translated by
Douglas Ainslic) :

(1) Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic. Macmillan,

1909 (Second Edition 1922).

(2) Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept. Macmillan, 1917.

(3) Philosophy of the Practical. Economics and Ethics. Macmillan, 1913.

(4) The Theory and History of Historiography. Harrap, 1921.

1 12 Select Bibliography

Croce (B.) : W 'bat is Living and What is Dead of the Philosophy of Hegel (trans-
lated by Douglas Ainslie). Macmillan, 1915.
Gentile (Giovanni) : The Rcjonn of Education. (Introd. by Benedetto Croce.

Edited by J. E. Springer.) Hurcourt, Bruce & Howe, New York, 1922.
The Theory of Mind as Pure Act (trans, with Introd. by H. Wildon Carr).

Macmillan, 1922.

Ruggiero (Guido) : Modern Philosophy (trans, by Howard Hannay and R. G.
Collingwood). Allen & Unwin, 197.1.

(An important work on Modern Philosophy from the standpoint of the
Neo-ldi-alists.)

CHAPTER 4

The number of books on Pragmatism or of a Pragmatic tendency is very
large, and it is not possible to do more than to mention a few of the most
important. Thcs>c are :

Dewey (John) : HIM we Think. D. C. Heath & Co., 1910.

Essays in Experimental Logic. University of Chicago Press, 1916.

Human Nature and Conduct. Allen & Unwin, 1922.
James (William) : The Will to lU'heve. Longmans, 1897.

Pragmatism. Longmans, 1907.

A Pluralistic Universe. Longmans, 1909.

The Meaning of Truth* Longmans, 1909.

Essays in Radical Empiricism. Longmans, 1912.
Murray (1). L.) : Pragmatism. Constable, 1912.
Schiller (K C.) : Riddles oj the Sphinx. Macmillan, 1891 (revised edition 1910).

Humanism. Macmillan, 1903.

Studies in Humanism. Macmillan, 1907.

Formal Logic. Macmillan, 1912.

ClIAPTJ.R 5

Bergson (Henri) : Time and Free Will. (Trans. F. L. Pogson.) Allen & Unwin,

1910.
Matter and Memory. (Trans. N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer.) Allen &

Unwin, 1911.

Creative Evolution. (Trans. Arthur Mitchell.) Macmillan, 1911.
Mind Energy. (Trans. H. Wildon Carr.) Macmillan, 1920.

The following is a selection of the most important books dealing with the
Philosophy of Bergson :

Carr (H. Wildon) : The Philosophy of Change. Macmillan, 1914.

Gunn (J. A.) : Bcigson and his Philosophy. Methuen, 1920.

Le Roy (Edouard) : A New Philosophy by Henri Bergson. Williams & Nor-

gate, 1912.

Lindsay (A. D.) : The Philosophy of Bergson. Dent & Sons, lyii.
Stephen (Karen) : The Mnuse of Mind. Kegan Paul, 1922.