inti
tion 1
other hand, I consider the nnity
binds the moments together, this
endare either, since by hypothesis ev<
thing that is changing, and ererything thai
is really dttrable in the duration, has been
pnt to the acconnt of the muUiplidty of
moments. As I probe more deeply into
essence, this nnity will appear to me as soi
immobile substratum of that which is mov-
ing, as some intemporal essence of time ; it
is this that I shall call eternity; an eter^
nitj of death, since it is nothing else
the movement emptied of the mobility w!
made its life. Closely examined, th e opin-
jo^,Of _the opposing schools on the subject
of duration would be seen to differ solely
in this, that they attribute a capital import-
ance to one or the other of these two con-
cepts. Some adhere to the point of view
i,^^.of the multiple; they set up as concrete
' ' reality the distinct moments of a time which
they have reduced to powder; the unity
which enables us to call the grains a powi
they hold to be much more artifii
eter^^^ tha^H
Metaphysics 6i
Others, on the contrary, set up the unity of
duration as concrete reality. They place
themselves in the eternal. But as their
eternity remains, notwithstanding, abstract,
since it is empty, being the eternity of a
concept which, by hypothesis, excludes from
itself the opposing concept, one does not
see how this eternity would permit of an
indefinite number of moments coexisting in
it. In the first hypothesis we have a world
resting on nothing, which must end and
begin again of its own accord at each in-
stant. In the sefiond we have an infinity
of abstract eternity, about which also it
is just as difficult to understand why it does
not remain enveloped in itself and how it
allows things to coexist with it. But ij^J
both cases, /and whichever of the two meta-
physics it be that one is switched into,\ time
appears, from the psychological point of
view, as a mixture of two abstractions,
which admit of neither degrees nor shades.
/ In one system as in the other, there is only
one unique duration, which carries every-
An Introduction to
thing with it — a bnttomlesB, banklese river,
which flows without assignable force in a
direction which could not be defined. Even
then we can call it only a river, and the
river only flows, because reality obtains
from the two doctrines this concession,
profiting by a moment of perplexity in their
logic. As soon as they i-ecover from this
perplexity, they freeze this flux either into
an immense solid sheet, or into an
finity of crystallized needles, always into
ih ing which necessarily partakes of
immobility of a point of viev}.
It is quite otherwise if we place our-
selves from the first, by an effort of intu-
ition, in the concrete flow of duration.
Certainly, we shall then find no logical
reason for positing multiple and diverse
durations. Strictly, there might well be
no other duration than our own, as, for
e.xample, there might be no other color in
the world but orange. But just as a con-
sciousness based on color, which sym-
pathized internally with orange instead of
Metaphysics 63
perceiving it externally, would feel itself
held between red and yellow, would even
perhaps suspect beyond this last color a
complete spectrum into which the conti-
nuity from red to yellow might expand
naturally, so the intuition of our duration, \
far from leaving us suspended in the void ^,
as pure analysis would do, brings us into
contact with a whole continuity of dura- .
tions which we must try to follow, whether
downwards or upwards; in both cases we
can extend ourselves indefinitely by an in-
creasingly violent effort, in both cases we '^^
transcend ourselves. In the first we ad- {
vance towards a more and more attenu- /
ated duration, the pulsations of which,
being rapider than ours, and dividing our
simple sensation, dilute its quality into
quantity; at the limit would be pure homo-
geneity, that pure repetition by which we
define materiality. Advancing in the other
direction, we approach a duration which
strains, contracts, and intensifies itself
more and more; at the limit would be '
An Introduction to
eternitj... No longer conceptual eternity,
which is an eternity of death, but an eter-
nity of life. A living, and therefore still
moving eternity in which onr own particular
duration would be included as the vibra-
tions are in light; an eternity which would
be the concentration of all duration, as
materiality is its dispersion. Between these
two extreme limits intuition moves, and
this movement is the very essence of
metaphysics.
There caa be no question of following
here the various stages of this movement,
But having presented a general view of tl
method and made a first application of
it may not be amiss to formulate, as pi
cisely as we can, the principles on wi
it rests. Most of the following pro]
tions have already receive<i in this
some degree of proof. We hope to di
strate them more completely when w
to deal with other problems.
in^^n
''^?^:!^;;r'^;^^:!'smr
Metaphysics
I. There is a reality that is external and
yet given immediately to the mind. Com-
mon-sense is right on this point, aa against
the idealism and realism of the philosophers.
II. This reality is mobility ._^ Not things^
made, but things in the making, not self-
maintaining states, but only changing
states, exist. Rest is never more than appar-
ent, or, rather, relative. The consciousness
we have of our own self in its continual flux
introduces us to the interior of a reality,
on the model of which we must represent
other realities. All reality, therefore, is
tendency, if we agree to mean hy tendency
an incipient change of direction.
III. Our mind, which seeks for solid
points of support, has for its main func-
tion in the ordinary course of life that of
representing states and things. It takes,
at long intervals, almost instantaneous
views of the undivided mobility of the real-
It thus obtains sensations and ideas. In
this way it substitutes for the continuous
the discontinuous, for motion stability, for
An Introduction to
tendency in process of change, fixed points
marking a direction of change and ten-
-dency. This subsfitntion is necessary to
-Common-sense, to language, to practical
'life, and even, in a certain degree, which
we shall endeavor to determine, to posi-
tive science. Our intellect, when it follows
its natural hent, proceeds on the one hand
hy solid perceptions, and on the other hy
stable conceptions. It starts from the im-
mobile, and only conceives and expresses
movement as a function of immobility. It
takes Tip its position in ready-made con-
cepts, and endeavors to catch in them,
as in a net, something of the reality
which passes. This is certainly not done
in order to obtain an internal and meta-
physical knowledge of the real, but
simply in order to utilize the real, each
concept (as also each sensation) being a
practical question which our activity puts
to reality and to which reality replies, as
must be done in business, by a Yes or
a No. But, in doing that, it lets that
Metaphysics 67
which is its very essence escape from the real.
IV. The inherent difficulties of meta-
physic, the antinomies which it gives rise
ixTy and the contradictions into which it
falls, the division into antagonistic schools,
and the irreducible opposition between
systems are largely the result of our
applying,^ to the disinterested knowledge of
the real, processes which we generally em-
ploy_ f or practical ends. They arise from
the fact that we place ourselves in the im-
mobile in order to lie in wait for the mov-
ing thing as it passes, instead of replacing
ourselves in the moving thing itself, in .
order to traverse with it the immobile ^
positions. They arise from our professing
to reconstruct reality — ^which is tendency
and consequently mobility — ^with percepts
and concepts whose function it is to make
it stationary. With stoppages, however
numerous they may be, we shall never make
mobility; whereas, if mobility is given, we
can, by means of diminution, obtain from
68 An Introduction to
it by thought as many stoppages as we de-
sire. In other words, it is clear that fixed
concepts may he extracted hy our thought
from mobile reality; hut there are no
means of reconstructing the mobility of
the real unth fixed concepts. Dogmatism,
however, in so far as it has been aTFuilder
of systems, has always attempted this
reconstruction.
V. In this it was bound to faiL It is
on this impotence and on this impotence
only that the sceptical, idealist, critical
doctrines really dwell : in fact, all doctrines
that deny to our intelligence the power of
attaining the absolute. But because we
fail to reconstruct the living reality with
stiff and ready-made concepts, it does not
follow that we cannot grasp it in some other
way. The demonstrations which have been
given of the relativity of our knowledge
are therefore tainted with an original vice;
they imply, like the dogmatism they attack,
that all knowledge must necessarily start
from concepts with fixed outlii^es, in order
Metaphysics 69
to clasp with them the reality which flows.
■^ VI. But the truth is that our intelligence ^
can follow the opposite method. It can
place itself within the mobile reality, and
adopt its ceaselessly changing direction; in
short, can grasp it by means of that intel- ^ .-
lectual sympathy which we call intuition./
This is extremely difficult. The mind has 'y^
to do violence to itself, has to reverse the
direction of the operation by which it habitu-
ally thinks, has perpetually to revise, or
rather to recast, all its categories. But in
this way it will attain to fluid concepts,
capable of following reality in all its sinu-
osities and of adopting the very movement
of the inward life of things. Only thus \j/
will a progressive philosophy be built up, ^
freed from the disputes which arise be-
tween the various schools, and able to
solve its problems naturally, because it will
be released from the artificial expression
in terms of which such problems are .
posited. To philosophize, therefore, is to
An Introduction to
invert the habitual direction of the work , of thought.
VII. This inversion has never been prac-
tiwd in a methodical manner; but a pro-
rotiQiIly t'onsidered history of hijman^
thought would show that we owe to f^^all
i.hat. is greatest in the sciences, as well as
all that is permanent in metaphysics. The
most powerful of the methods of investiga-
tion at the disposal of the hnman mind,
the iulluitesimal calculus, originated from
this wry tuveraion. Modem mathematics
Is precisely an eflfort to substitute the being
made for the irorfy made, to follow the
gi'Qomtiou of magnitudes, to grasp motion
no longer from nilhout and in its dis-
pUi,vnl result, but from nithtQ and in its '
temlency to chan^> ; in short, to adopt the
mobile continuity of the outlines of ihinga
It is trw? that it is «mtine«l to the outline^
being oulv the science of magnitudes. It
if true k1»o that it has only been able to
tow its manvU^s applications by tbe
mtioa of certain symboK and that if
wc
\M BOt
the intuition of which we have just spoken
lies at the origin of invention, it is the
symbol alone which is concerned in the
application. But metaphysics, which aims
at no application, can and usually must
abstain from converting intuition into sym- ,
bo Is. Liberated from the obligation of
working for practically useful results, it
ill indefinitely enlarge the domain of its
.Testigations. What it may lose in com-
parison with science in, utility and exacti-
tude, it will regain in range-and exteiisiot].
hough mathematicR is only the science of
ignitudes, though mathematical processes
applicable only to quantities, it must
be forgotten that quantity is always
quality in a nascent state; it is, we might ,.
say, the limiting case of quality. It is'
natural, then, that metaphysics should
adopt the generative idea of our mathe-
matics in order to extend it to all qualities;
that is, to reality in general. It will not,
by doing this, in any way be moving to-
wards universal mathematics, that chimera
An Introduction to
a^7t^^^|
of modern philosophy. On the contrary, 1
farther it goes, the more untranslatable
into eymbola will be the objects it en-
counters. But it will at least have begun
ty getting into contact with the continuity
and mobility of the real, just where this
contact can be most marvelously utilized.
It will have contemplated itself in a mirror
which reflects an image of itself, much
shrunken, no doubt, but for that reason
very luminous. It will have seen with
greater clearness what the mathematical
processes borrow from concrete reality, and
it will continue in the direction of concrete
reality, and not in that of mathematical
processes. Having then discounted before-
hand what is too modest, and at the same
time too ambitious, in the following