Principles, have mistakenly assigned to Bergson’s ideas priority in time.[Footnote:  For example A. Chaumeix:  William James (Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct, 1910), and J. Bourdeau:  Nouvelles modes en philosophie, Journal de Debats, Feb., 1907.  Cf.  Flournoy:  La philosophie de William James. (Eng.  Trans.  Holt and James, pp. 198-206).] On the other hand insinuations have been made to the effect that Bergson owes the germ-ideas of his first book to the 1884 article by James On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology, which he neither refers to nor quotes.  This particular article deals with the conception of thought as a stream of consciousness, which intellect distorts by framing into concepts.  We must not be misled by parallels.  Bergson has replied to this insinuation by denying that he had any knowledge of the article by James when he wrote Les donnees immediates de la conscience.[Footnote:  Relation a William James et a James Ward.  Art. in Revue philosophique, Aug., 1905, lx., p. 229.] The two thinkers appear to have developed independently until almost the close of the century.  In truth they are much further apart in their intellectual position than is frequently supposed.[Footnote:  The reader who desires to follow the various views of the relation of Bergson and James will find the following works useful.  Kallen (a pupil of James):  William James and Henri Bergson:  a study in contrasting theories of life.  Stebbing:  Pragmatism and French Voluntarism.  Caldwell:  Pragmatism and Idealism (last chap).  Perry:  Present Philosophical Tendencies.  Boutroux:  William James (Eng.  Tr.).  Flournoy:  La philosophie de James (Eng.  Tr.).  And J. E. Turner:  An Examination of William James’ Philosophy.] Both have succeeded in appealing to audiences far beyond the purely academic sphere, but only in their mutual rejection of “intellectualism” as final is there real harmony or unanimity between them.  It will not do to press too closely analogies between the Radical Empiricism of the American and the Doctrine of Intuition of the Frenchman.  Although James obtains a certain priority in point of time in the development and enunciation of his ideas, we must remember that he confessed that he was baffled by many of Bergson’s notions.  James certainly neglected many of the deeper metaphysical aspects of Bergson’s thought, which did not harmonize with his own, and are even in direct contradiction.  In addition to this Bergson is no pragmatist, for him “utility,” so far from being a test of truth, is rather the reverse, a synonym for error.

Nevertheless, William James hailed Bergson as an ally very enthusiastically.  Early in the century (1903) we find him remarking in his correspondence:  “I have been re-reading Bergson’s books, and nothing that I have read since years has so excited and stimulated my thoughts.  I am sure that that philosophy has a great future, it breaks through old cadres and brings things into a solution from which new crystals can be got.”  The most noteworthy