Just so M. Bergson's achievements in
psychological fiction, to be so brilliantly executed as they are,
required all his learning. The history of philosophy, mathematics, and
physics, and above all natural history, had to supply him first with
suggestions; and if he is not really a master in any of those fields,
that is not to be wondered at. His heart is elsewhere. To write a
universal biological romance, such as he has sketched for us in his
system, he would ideally have required all scientific knowledge, but
only as Homer required the knowledge of seamanship, generalship,
statecraft, augury, and charioteering, in order to turn the aspects of
them into poetry, and not with that technical solidity which Plato
unjustly blames him for not possessing. Just so M. Bergson's proper
achievement begins where his science ends, and his philosophy lies
entirely beyond the horizon of possible discoveries or empirical
probabilities. In essence, it is myth or fable; but in the texture and
degree of its fabulousness it differs notably from the performances of
previous metaphysicians. Primitive poets, even ancient philosophers,
were not psychologists; their fables were compacted out of elements
found in practical life, and they reckoned in the units in which
language and passion reckon--wooing, feasting, fighting, vice, virtue,
happiness, justice.
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