Contents Καὶ εἴ τις δὲ τὴν φύσίν ἔροιτο τίνος ἔνεκα ποίεῐ εἰ τοῡ ἐρωτῶντος ἐθέλοι ἐπαΐειν καὶ λέγειν, εἴποι ἄν "ἐχρῆν μὲν μὴ ἐρωτἂν, ἀλλὰ συνιέναι καὶ αὐτὸν σιωπῇ, ὤσπερ ἐγὼ σιωπώ καὶ οὐκ εἴθισμαι λέγειν." PLOTINUS...

Henri Louis Bergson was born in Paris, October 18, 1859. He entered the École normale in 1878, and was admitted agrégé de philosophie in 1881 and docteur ès lettres in 1889. After holding professorships in various provincial and Parisian lycées, he became maître de conférences at the École normale supérieure in 1897, and since 1900 has been professor at the Collège de France. In 1901 he became a member of the Institute on his election to the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques. A full li

I. WORKS BY BERGSON. (a) Books. Quid Aristoteles de loco senserit, (Thesis), Paris, 1889. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, Paris, 1889, 1910. 7 Matière et Mémoire, Essai sur la relation du corps avec l'esprit, Paris, 1896, 1910. 6 Le Rire, Essai sur la signification du comique, Paris, 1900, 1910. 6 (First published in the Revue de Paris, 1900, Vol. I., pp. 512-545 and 759-791.) L'Évolution créatrice, Paris, 1907, 1910. 6 (b) Articles. La Spécialité. (Address at the distribution

We necessarily express ourselves by means of words and we usually think in terms of space. That is to say, language requires us to establish between our ideas the same sharp and precise distinctions, the same discontinuity, as between material objects. This assimilation of thought to things is useful in practical life and necessary in most of the sciences. But it may be asked whether the insurmountable difficulties presented by certain philosophical problems do not arise from our placing side by

We shall distinguish several different artifices in the process of transition from Weber's experiments, or from any other series of similar observations, to a psychophysical law like Fechner's. It is first of all agreed to consider our consciousness of an increase of stimulus as an increase of the sensation S: this is therefore called S. It is then asserted that all the sensations ΔS, which correspond to the smallest perceptible increase of stimulus, are equal to one another. They are therefore

Number maybe defined in general as a collection of units, or, speaking more exactly, as the synthesis of the one and the many. Every number is one, since it is brought before the mind by a simple intuition and is given a name; but the unity which attaches to it is that of a sum, it covers a multiplicity of parts which can be considered separately. Without attempting for the present any thorough examination of these conceptions of unity and multiplicity, let us inquire whether the idea of number

It is easy to see why the question of free will brings into conflict these two rival systems of nature, mechanism and dynamism. Dynamism starts from the idea of voluntary activity, given by consciousness, and comes to represent inertia by gradually emptying this idea: it has thus no difficulty in conceiving free force on the one hand and matter governed by laws on the other. Mechanism follows the opposite course. It assumes that the materials which it synthesizes are governed by necessary laws,

To sum up the foregoing discussion, we shall put aside for the present Kant's terminology and also his doctrine, to which we shall return later, and we shall take the point of view of common sense. Modern psychology seems to us particularly concerned to prove that we perceive things through the medium of certain forms, borrowed from our own constitution. This tendency has become more and more marked since Kant: while the German philosopher drew a sharp line of separation between time and space,