Then, again, we feel Bergson is right in exposing the errors which the “idea of the line,” the trespassing of space, causes; but he comes very near to denying, in his statements regarding duree pure, any knowledge of the past as past; he overlooks the decisive difference between the “no more” and the “not yet” feeling of the child’s consciousness, which is the germ of our clear knowledge of the past as past, and distinct from the future.

To take another of his “pure” distinctions, we cannot see any necessity for his formulation of what he terms “Pure Perception.”  Not only does it obscure the relation of Sensation to Perception, but it seems to be quite unknown and unknowable and unnecessary as an hypothesis.  As to his “Pure” Memory, there is more to be said.  It stands on a different plane and seems to be the statement of a very profound truth which sheds light on many difficult problems attaching to personality and consciousness, for it is the conservation of memories which is the central point in individuality.  His distinction between the habit of repeating and the “pure” memory is a very good and very necessary one.  In his study of the relation of Soul and Body, we find some of his most meritorious work—­ his insistence on the uniqueness of Mind and the futility of attempts to reduce it to material terms.  His treatment of this question is parallel to that of William James in the first part of his Ingersoll Lecture at Harvard in 1898, when he called attention to “permissive” or “transmissive” function of the brain.  Bergson’s criticisms of Parallelism are very valuable.

No less so are his refutations of both physical and psychological Determinism.  Men were growing impatient of a science claiming so much and yet admittedly unable to explain the really vital factors of existence, of which the free action of men is one of the most important.  The value placed on human freedom, on the creative power of human beings to mould the future, links Bergson again with James, and it is this humanism which is the supremely valuable factor in the philosophies of both thinkers.  This has been pointed out in the consideration of the ethical and political implications of Bergson’s Philosophy.  Nevertheless, although his insistence on Freedom and Creative Evolution implies that we are to realize that by our choices and our free acts we may make or mar the issue, and that through us and by us that issue may be turned to good, the good of ourselves and of our fellows, there is an ethical lack in Bergson’s philosophy which is disappointing.  Then, as has been remarked in the chapter on Religion, there is the lack of teleology in his conception of the Universe; his denial of any purpose hardly seems to be in harmony with his use of the phrase “the meaning of life.”