The great error of the spiritual philosophers has been the idea that by isolating the spiritual life from all the rest, by suspending it in space, as high as possible above the earth, they were placing it beyond attack; as if they were not, thereby, simply exposing it to be taken as an effect of mirage!  Certainly they are right to believe in the absolute reality of the person and in his independence of matter:  but science is there which shows the inter-dependence of conscious life and cerebral activity.  When a strong instinct assures the probability of personal survival, they are right not to close their ears to its voice; but if there exist “souls” capable of an independent life, whence do they come?  When, how, and why do they enter into this body which we see arise quite naturally from a mixed cell derived from the bodies of its two parents? [Footnote:  Creative Evolution, p. 283 (Fr. p. 291).] At the close of the Lectures on La Nature de l’Ame, Bergson suggests, by referring to an allegory of Plotinus, in regard to the origin of souls, that in the beginning there was a general interpenetration of souls which was equivalent to the very principle of life, and that the history of the evolution of life on this planet shows this principle striving until man’s consciousness has been developed, and thus personalities have been able to constitute themselves.  “Souls are being created which, in a sense, pre-existed.  They are nothing else but the little rills into which the great river of life divides itself, flowing through the great body of humanity.” [Footnote:  Creative Evolution, p. 284 (Fr. p. 292).]

CHAPTER VI

TIME—­TRUE AND FALSE

Our ordinary conception of Time false because it is spatial and homogeneous—­Real Time (la duree) not spatial or homogeneous—­Flow of consciousness a qualitative multiplicity—­The real self and the external self.  La duree and the life of the self—­No repetition—­Personality and the accumulation of experience-Change and la duree as vital elements in the universe.

For any proper understanding of Bergson’s thought, it is necessary to grasp his views regarding Time, for they are fundamental factors in his philosophy and serve to distinguish it specially from that of previous thinkers.  It is interesting to note however, in passing, that Dr. Ward, in his Realm of Ends, claims to have anticipated Bergson’s view of Concrete Time.  In discussing the relation of such Time to the conception of God, he says, “I think I may fairly claim to have anticipated him (Bergson) to some extent.  In 1886 I had written a long paragraph on this topic.” [Footnote:  See The Realm of Ends’ foot-note on pp. 306-7.  Ward is referring to his famous article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition, Psychology, p. 577 (now revised and issued in book form as Psychological Principles).] Be this as it may, no philosopher has made so much of this view of Time as Bergson.  One might say it is the corner-stone of his philosophy, for practically the whole of it is built upon his conception of Time.  His first large work, Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience, or, to give it its better title, in English, Time and Free Will, appeared in 1889.