But it is on this spatial view f things that the physical sciences are built up: the logic of their procedure is based upon the arrangement of solid bodies in space. Corresponding to the antithesis of space and time, accordingly, there is the opposition between life as a continuous movement, essentially free and creative, and the world of permanent objects, standing apart . from each other, and related by necessary laws. The former is the view of Intuition, the latter that of the logic of the Intellect. But the former is the world of real immediate experience, the tatter a transformation or construction of the former effected by the intelligence. It is be cause we are made for action as well as for speculation that this transforrnation of the real is necessary. The intellect is the servant and instrument of action. For the sake of action, it is necessary to break up the inner flow of events, differentiating it into permanent ele ments. with fixed relations. Only by thus ex ternalizing and fixating the unceasing move ment of the real can we get a fulcrum for our action.; only by symbolizing it by means of un changing concepts and established definitions are we able to predict the future behavior of things; and without such prediction we should be unable to act. Moreover, it is inevitable that these satne concepts and descriptive terms which have proved so practically important in dealing with the outer vvorld should be carried over to the mental life, and that psychology should come to describe the mind by means of concepts and methods derived from the physical sciences. Nor is it possible to deny a certain justifica tion to this description : mind has a mechanical habitual side, and to a large extent we live in terms of external acts and ideas.. But in our every-day acts and ordinary associative play of ideas we live outside our true selves; and it is only such an externalized form of life which can be represented or symbolized in terms of separate states of consciousness and their re lations.
We have now before us the grounds on which Bergson bases his defense of freedom. Freedom is possible because the intellectual point of view is not absolute and final. The concept of causality and the logical standpoint of the sciences is something which the intel ligence has superimposed upon reality as it is immediately given in experience. It has even extended this deterministic point of view to living things and to the inner world of con sciousness. But this transformation is for prac tical purposes only. The true reality as it is lived is quite different from the symbolic repre sentation of it which science gives: reality is no repetition of identical terms, but a free crea tive.process in. which what appears is new and original. The importance of Bergson's view of change as a process of creation is seen when this is contrasted with the older ways of con ceiving of the process of evolution. The logic of the sciences, unable to deal with genuine change, represents evolution as a .procession.of unchanging elements. From this standpoint, the process of evolution is described as consist ing in the redistribution of matter and energy: in a progressive adjustment of factors and forces winch are takcn as given, ready-made, perhaps contained in the primitive nebula from which the movement is supposed to set out. And the same thing is true iq principle of those theories which find in the idea or intelligent end the explanation of the evolutionary proc ess. In both cascs alike, nothing genuinely
new ever occurs: all is predetermined, pre arranged: there is transformation and redis tribution, but no real change. From this point of view, real time is eliminated, being taken to be only an external medium like space: it is that in which things are, but it is not essential to them or they to it. But concrete time bites into things, and is essen tial to their comings and goings. Bergson describes his own point of view by the term "creative evolution.9 Change must find its way to the very heart of things, time is of their very essence; the concrete movement of life and history cannot be adequately represented in terms of the mechanical redistribution of ab stract elements or unchanging counters. It is noteworthy that in this connection he repre sents teleology as ih principle identical with mechanism, being, as he says, nothing but an inverted mechanism, and like it an intellectual and deterministic point of view.
Bergson, however, does not confine his de fense of Freedom to these general considera tions. In his book entitled 'Matter and Memory,) he enters into a detailed discussion of the relations of body and mind. The god eral position which he defends is that the body, like the intellect, is the tool or instrument of life, not something which causes or determines it. By an examination of psycho-physical ex periments, he attempts to refute the current notion that the brain is a kind of manufactory of ideas, or that memories are stored up in brain cells. To understand the function of the brain, we must regard it, not from the point of view of knowledge, but from that of action. The body is organized for action, the impres sions which pass into the body are stimuli for action, and the function of the brain (which may be compared to a telephone exchange) is to respond by initiating the appropriate move ment. Perceptions then depend upon the body, and their function is not theoretical, but purely practical. On the other hand, pure memory is completely spiritual in character, it does not depend upon the body, but is the affirmation of the life of the spirit. These two, pure per ception and pure memory, are fundamentally different in principle and origin and sharply opposed to each other in every way. Never theless, in concrete experience they co-operate, always being found in correlation. But in the end, Bergson maintains that the memory, as the inner spiritual principle, is primary and that it subordinates to itself the body and the life of perception. Progress consists in bringing the past to bear upon the present, in prolonging memory through perception, in the embodiment of the spiritual in the material, in making the inner outer.
Bibliography.— Ruhe, A. and Paul, N. M„