we thus perceive of the real curve, the curve itself stretching out into the darkness behind them. In this sense the task of the philosopher, as we understand it, closely resembles that of the mathematician who determines a function by starting from the differential. The final effort of philosophical research is a true work of integration.
We have already attempted to apply this method to the problem of consciousness;[1] and it appeared to us that the utilitarian work of the mind, in what concerns the perception of our inner life, consisted in a sort of refracting of pure duration into space, a refracting which permits us to separate our psychical states, to reduce them to a more and more impersonal form and to impose names upon them,—in short, to make them enter the current of social life. Empiricism and dogmatismBut empiricism and dogmatism alike take reality in a discontinuous form, ignoring duration. take interior states in this discontinuous form; the first confining itself to the states themselves, so that it can see in the self only a succession of juxtaposed facts; the other grasping the necessity of a bond, but unable to find this bond anywhere except in a form or in a force,—an exterior form into which the aggregate is inserted, an indetermined and so to speak physical force which assures the cohesion of the elements. Hence the two opposing points of view as to the question
- ↑ Time and Free Will, H. Bergson. Published by Sonnenschein & Co. Translation of Les données immédiates de la conscience.
