Formerly Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge With a Prefatory Letter by HENRI BERGSON LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD NEW YORK: HARCOURT. BRACE & COMPANY. INC. 1922 To Professor Henri Bergson With respect and gratitude...

Being an extract from a letter by Professor Henri Bergson Ayant lu de près le travail de Mrs. Stephen je le trouve intéressant au plus haut point. C’est une interprétation personelle et originale de l’ensemble de mes vues—interprétation qui vaut par elle-même, indépendamment de ce qui j’ ai écrit. L’auteur s’est assimilé l’esprit de la doctrine, puis, se dégageant de la matérialité du texte elle a développé à sa manière, dans la direction qu’elle avait choisi, des idées qui lui paraissaient fond

The immense popularity which Bergson’s philosophy enjoys is sometimes cast up against him, by those who do not agree with him, as a reproach. It has been suggested that Berg-son’s writings are welcomed simply because they offer a theoretical justification for a tendency which is natural in all of us but against which philosophy has always fought, the tendency to throw reason overboard and just let ourselves go. Bergson is regarded by rationalists almost as a traitor to philosophy, or as a Bolshe

In order to understand Bergson it is not necessary to have any previous acquaintance with philosophy, indeed the less the reader knows of current metaphysical notions the easier it may perhaps be for him to adopt the mental attitude required for understanding Bergson. For Bergson says that the tradition of philosophy is all wrong and must be broken with: according to his view philosophical knowledge can only be obtained by “a reversal of the usual work of the intellect.” [1] [1] Introduction to

Common sense starts out with the assumption that what we know directly is such things as trees, grass, anger, hope and so on, and that these things have qualities such as solidity, greenness, unpleasantness and so on, which are also facts directly known. It is not very difficult to show that, if we examine the facts which we know directly, we cannot find in them any such things as trees, grass, or minds, over and above the various qualities which we say belong to them. I see one colour and you s

GENERAL EDITOR - - - - C. K. OGDEN, M. A. ( Magdalene College, Cambridge ). VOLUMES ALREADY ARRANGED: PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES by Q. E. MOORE, Litt. D. CONFLICT AND DREAM by W. H. R. RIVERS, F. R. S. THE MEASUREMENT OF EMOTION by W. WHATELY SMITH Introduction by William Brown . THE ANALYSIS OF MATTER by BERTRAND RUSSELL, F. R. S. MATHEMATICS FOR PHILOSOPHERS by G. H. HARDY, F. R. S. PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES by C. G. JONG, M. D., LL. D. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REASONING by EUGENIO RIGNANO THE ELEMENTS OF PSYCH