The same tendency to over-emphasis can be observed elsewhere.  It is noticeable, for instance, in his discussions of Change, which are so marked and important a feature in his writings.  His Philosophy has been called, with his approval apparently, the Philosophy of Change, though it might have been called, still more truly and suggestively, the Philosophy of Creation.  It is this latter phase of it which has so enormously interested and stimulated the world.  As to his treatment of Change, it reveals Bergson in one of his happiest moods.  It is difficult to restrain one’s praise in speaking of the subtle and resourceful way in which he handles this tantalizing and elusive question.  It is a stroke of genius.  The student of Philosophy, of course, at once thinks of Heraclitus; but Bergson is not merely another Heraclitus any more than he is just an echo of Jacobi.  He places Change in a new light, enables us to grasp its character with a success which, if he had no other claim to remembrance, would ensure for him an honourable place in the History of Philosophy.  In the process he makes but a mouthful of Zeno and his eternal puzzles.  But, as Mr. Gunn also points out,[Footnote:  See p. 142.] Change cannot be the last word in our characterization of Reality.  Pure Change is not only unthinkable—­that perhaps Bergson would allow—­but it is something which cannot be experienced.  There must be points of reference—­a starting point and an ending point at least.  Pure Change, as is the way with “pure” anything, turns into its contradictory.  Paradoxical though it may seem, it ends as static.  It becomes the One and Indivisible.  This, at least, was recognized by Heraclitus and is expressed by him in his figure of the Great Year.

It is not my purpose, however, to usurp the function of the author of this useful handbook to Bergson.  The extent of my introductory remarks is an almost involuntary tribute to the material and provocative nature of Bergson’s discussions, just as the frequent use by the author of this book of the actual words of Bergson are a tribute to the excellence and essential rightness of his style.  The Frenchman, himself a free and candid spirit, would be the last to require unquestioning docility in others.  He knows that thereby is the philosophic breath choked out of us.  If we read him in the spirit in which he would wish to be read, we shall find, however much we may diverge from him on particular issues, that our labour has been far from wasted.  He undoubtedly calls for considerable effort from the student who takes him, as he ought to be taken, seriously; but it is effort well worth while.  He, perhaps, shines even more as a psychologist than as a philosopher—­at least in the time-honoured sense.  He has an almost uncanny introspective insight and, as has been said, a power of rendering its result in language which creates in the reader a sense of excitement and adventure not to be excelled by the ablest romancer.  Fadaises,