BERGSON, HENRI (1859– ), French philosopher, was born Oct. 18 1859, in Paris, of Anglo-Jewish parents. After a brilliant career at the Lycee Condorcet, he hesitated for some time between literature and science. He became naturalized as a Frenchman, and entered the Ecole Normale Superieure, where he was the contemporary of Jaures. He taught philosophy first at the Lycees of Angers and Clermont, and then in Paris at the Lycee Henri IV., the Ecole Normale Superieure and the College de France. In 1918 he succeeded Emile 011ivier at the Academie Francaise. From that time he gave up teaching and devoted himself to politics and to international affairs, as head of a mission to America, and after the World War as president of the committee of intellectual co-operation. In 1928, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1927.
Bergson's Philosophy.—An account of the appointments held by him is, however, of small importance as compared with the development of his mind, revealed in the books which have gained him a world reputation. He is one of the most highly esteemed of contemporary students of philosophy. Bergson the philosopher is not, like Hegel, Schopenhauer and Spencer, the creator of a great system, conceived as a whole in youth, and gradually expressed in later life. There is, nevertheless, in his philosophy one outstanding idea which is said to have come to him during a walk at Clermont-Ferrand, when he was 25 years old. Since Plato, philosophy had consisted in eliminating dura tion, in regarding time as an illusion and finite being and eternity as one, and Bergson asked himself whether, on the contrary, the being, of which the philosopher took cognizance by reflection, might not be one which endured, might not be time itself. For the phrase of Descartes, "Je suis une chose qui pense," he substi tuted "Je suis une chose qui dure," and for the sub specie aeternitatis of Spinoza, a sub specie durationis. As he substituted durational for non-temporal values, so for static values he substi tuted values of motion and change. This was the true Berg sonian revolution, which may be related to the German and English historical and evolutional philosophies characteristic of the i9th century.
All Bergson's work is thus concerned with duration and move ment. He does not proceed by general speculation. Each of his books is a study of one particular question, and this illustrates his second characteristic, originality of method. In his opinion, philosophy, like science, can only progress by disregarding general theories and universal systems, and devoting attention to par ticular problems, each of which demands its own point of view. The solution of any one of these does not necessarily involve an analogous solution of the others. Bergsonism implies continued striving after a precise adaptation to reality. The aim of each of his works is the elucidation of a detailed problem, though each is also part of a general philosophy, the philosophy of duration and change. For him, the true nature of things is appre hended by intuition ; but those who only recognize the scientific interpretation offered by the intelligence discover in Bergsonism an apotheosis of intuition and of mystical values and a depreciation of intelligence, mistaking the true substance of his theories.
The Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience (1889), which was Bergson's thesis for the doctorate, is primarily an attempt to establish durational values, where the necessary illusions of the mind situate the appearances of space, and thence to proceed towards an original solution of the problem of free will which was at that time the principal occupation of French philosophers. Matiere et memoire (1896) contains a detailed consideration of the problem of aphasia leading to a profound study of the means, namely, the memory, by which existence is made continuous. In L'evolution creatrice (1907) he studies the whole problem of existence. Whilst Spencer merely supported evolution by evidence derived from fragments of the evolved, Bergson takes as his material the essential motion of the being changing, or rather of the being which is itself both change and movement. This is his most famous and influential work, and that which has most fully expressed his ideas as to the secret of the universe.
An important part of Bergson's philosophy is to be found in his minor works, such as the essay Le Tire (1900), his lectures at Oxford entitled La perception du changement (191 1) and the volume Duree et simultaneite (1922), in which he discusses Einstein's theories. Except for the articles which have been collected under the title L'energie spirituelle (1919) he has pub lished nothing of late years, though he has been engaged in the study of moral and religious problems.
His lectures at the College de France were models of clearness and grace of expression and enjoyed great popularity. It was, however, probably as a master at the Lycee Henri IV. that his influence was most strongly felt. His style is modelled on that of the great philosophers, restrained and concise, like that of Condillac and at the same time full of colour and imagery, like that of Plato and Bacon. (See PHILOSOPHY.) (A. T.)