TIME
AND FREE WILL
An Essay on the Immediate Data
of Consciousness
BY
HENRI BERGSON
MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE
PROFESSOR AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE
Authorized Translation by
F. L. POGSON, M.A.
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY, LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 44 AND 45 RATHBONE PLACE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1913
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
[TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE]
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 list of Professor Bergson's works is given in the appended bibliography. In making the following translation of his Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience I have had the great advantage of his co-operation at every stage, and the aid which he has given has been most generous and untiring. The book itself was worked out and written during the years 1883 to 1887 and was originally published in 1889. The foot-notes in the French edition contain a certain number of references to French translations of English works. In the present translation I am responsible for citing these references from the original English. This will account for the fact that editions are sometimes referred to which have appeared subsequently to 1889. I have also added fairly extensive marginal summaries and a full index.
In France the Essai is already in its seventh edition. Indeed, one of the most striking facts about Professor Bergson's works is the extent to which they have appealed not only to the professional philosophers, but also to the ordinary cultivated public. The method which he pursues is not the conceptual and abstract method which has been the dominant tradition in philosophy. For him reality is not to be reached by any elaborate construction of thought: it is given in immediate experience as a flux, a continuous process of becoming, to be grasped by intuition, by sympathetic insight. Concepts break up the continuous flow of reality into parts external to one another, they further the interests of language and social life and are useful primarily for practical purposes. But they give us nothing of the life and movement of reality; rather, by substituting for this an artificial reconstruction, a patchwork of dead fragments, they lead to the difficulties which have always beset the intellectualist philosophy, and which on its premises are insoluble. Instead of attempting a solution in the intellectualist sense, Professor Bergson calls upon his readers to put these broken fragments of reality behind them, to immerse themselves in the living stream of things and to find their difficulties swept away in its resistless flow.
In the present volume Professor Bergson first deals with the intensity of conscious states. He shows that quantitative differences are applicable only to magnitudes, that is, in the last resort, to space, and that intensity in itself is purely qualitative. Passing then from the consideration of separate conscious states to their multiplicity, he finds that there are two forms of multiplicity: quantitative or discrete multiplicity involves the intuition of space, but the multiplicity of conscious states is wholly qualitative. This unfolding multiplicity constitutes duration, which is a succession without distinction, an interpenetration of elements so heterogeneous that former states can never recur. The idea of a homogeneous and measurable time is shown to be an artificial concept, formed by the intrusion of the idea of space into the realm of pure duration. Indeed, the whole of Professor Bergson's philosophy centres round his conception of real concrete duration and the specific feeling of duration which our consciousness has when it does away with convention and habit and gets back to its natural attitude. At the root of most errors in philosophy he finds a confusion between this concrete duration and the abstract time which mathematics, physics, and even language and common sense, substitute for it. Applying these results to the problem of free will, he shows that the difficulties arise from taking up one's stand after the act has been performed, and applying the conceptual method to it. From the point of view of the living, developing self these difficulties are shown to be illusory, and freedom, though not definable in abstract or conceptual terms, is declared to be one of the clearest facts established by observation.
It is no doubt misleading to attempt to sum up a system of philosophy in a sentence, but perhaps some part of the spirit of Professor Bergson's philosophy may be gathered from the motto which, with his permission, I have prefixed to this translation:—"If a man were to inquire of Nature the reason of her creative activity, and if she were willing to give ear and answer, she would say—'Ask me not, but understand in silence, even as I am silent and am not wont to speak.'"
F. L. POGSON.
OXFORD,
June,1910.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
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 of prizes at the lycée of Angers, Aug. 1882.)
De la simulation inconsciente dans l'état d'hypnotisme. Revue philosophique, Vol. 22, 1886, pp. 525-531. Le bon sens et les études classiques. (Address at the distribution of prizes at the "Concours général des lycées et collèges," 1895.)
Mémoire et reconnaissance. (Revue philos. Mar., Apr. 1896, pp. 225-248 and 380-399. Republished in Matière et Mémoire.)
Perception et matière. (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. May 1896, pp. 257-277. Republished in Matière et Mémoire.)
Note sur les origines psychologiques de notre croyance à la loi de causalité. (Lecture at the Philosophical Congress in Paris, 1900, published in the Bibliothèque du Congrès International de Philosophie; cf. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, Sept. 1900, pp. 655 ff.)
Le Rêve. (Lecture at the Institut psychologique international: published in the Bulletin de l'Institut psych. intern. May 1901; cf. Revue scientifique, 4e S., Vol. 15, June 8, 1901, pp. 705-713, and Revue de Philosophie, June 1901, pp. 486-488.)
Le Parallélisme psycho-physique et la métaphysique positive. Bulletin de la Société française de Philosophie, June 1901.
L'Effort intellectuel. Revue philosophique, Jan. 1902. Introduction à la métaphysique. Revue de Mét. et de Mor. Jan. 1903.
Le Paralogisme psycho-physiologique. (Lecture at the Philosophical Congress in Geneva, 1904, published in the Revue de Mét. et de Mor. Nov. 1904, pp. 895-908; see also pp. 1027-1036.)
L'Idée de néant, Rev. philos. Nov. 1906, pp. 449-466. (Part of Chap. 4 of L'Évolution créatrice.)
Notice sur la vie et les œuvres de M. Félix Ravaisson-Mollien. (Lecture before the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques: published in the Proceedings of the Academy, Vol. 25, pp. 1 ff. Paris, 1907.)
Le Souvenir du présent et la fausse reconnaissance. Rev. philos. Dec. 1908, pp. 561-593.
(c) Miscellaneous.
Lucrèce: Extraits ... avec une étude sur la poésie, la philosophie, la physique, le texte et la langue de Lucrèce. Paris, 1884.
Principes de métaphysique et de psychologie d'après M. Paul Janet. Revue philos., Vol. 44, Nov. 1897, pp. 525-551.
Collaboration au Vocabulaire philosophique, Bulletin de la Soc. fr. de Phil. July 1902, Aug. 1907, Aug. 1908, Aug. 1909.
Remarques sur la place et le caractère de la Philosophie dans l'Enseignement secondaire, Bulletin de la Soc. fr. de Phil. Feb. 1903, pp. 44 ff.
Remarques sur la notion de la liberté morale, Bulletin de la Soc. fr. de Phil. Apr. 1903, pp. 101-103.
Remarques à propos de la philosophie sociale de Cournot, Bulletin de la Soc. fr. de Phil. Aug. 1903, p. 229.
Préface de la Psychologie rationnelle de M. Lubac, Paris, Alcan, 1904.
Sur sa relation à W. James, Revue philosophique, Vol. 60, 1905, p. 229 f.
Sur sa théorie de la perception, Bulletin de la Soc. fr. de Philos. Mar. 1905, pp. 94 ff.
Rapport sur le concours pour le prix Bordin, 1905, ayant pour sujet Maine de Biran. (Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, Vol. 25, pp. 809 ff., Paris, 1907.)
Rapport sur le concours pour le prix Le Dissez de Penanrun, 1907. (Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences morales et politiques, Vol. 26, pp. 771 ff. Paris, 1909.)
Sur l'Êvolution créatrice, Revue du Mois, Sept. 1907, p. 351.
A propos de l'évolution de l'intelligence géométrique, Revue de Mét. et de Mor. Jan. 1908, pp. 28-33.
Sur l'influence de sa philosophie sur les élèves des lycées, Bulletin de la Soc. fr. de Philos., Jan. 1908, p. 21; cf. L'Année psychologique, 1908, pp. 229-231.
Réponse à une enquête sur la question religieuse (La Question religieuse par Frédéric Charpin, Paris, 1908).
Remarques sur l'organisation des Congrès de Philosophie. Bulletin de la Soc. fr. de Phil. Jan. 1909, p. 11 f.
Préface à un volume de la collection Les grands philosophes, (G. Tarde, par ses fils). Paris. Michaud, 1909.
Remarques à propos d'une thèse soutenue par M. Dwelshauvers "L'inconscient dans la vie mentale." Bulletin de la Soc. fr. de Phil., Feb. 1910.
A propos d'un article de Mr. W. B. Pitkin intitule "James and Bergson." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. VII, No. 14, July 7, 1910, pp. 385-388.
II. SELECT LIST OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES
DEALING IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITH BERGSON AND HIS PHILOSOPHY.
(Arranged alphabetically under each language.)
S. Alexander, Matière et Mémoire, (Mind, Oct. 1897, pp. 572-3).
B. H. Bode, L'Évolution créatrice, (Philosophical Review, 1908, pp. 84-89).
W. Boyd, L'Évolution créatrice, (Review of Theology and Philosophy, Oct. 1907, pp. 249-251).
H. Wildon Carr, Bergson's Theory of Knowledge, (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, London, 1909. New Series, Vol. IX, pp. 41-60).
H. Wildon Carr, Bergson's Theory of Instinct, (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, London, 1910, N.S., Vol. X).
H. Wildon Carr, The Philosophy of Bergson, (Hibbert Journal, July 1910, pp. 873-883).
W. J. Ferrar, L'Évolution créatrice, (Commonwealth, Dec. 1909, pp. 364-367).
H. N. Gardiner, Mémoire et reconnaissance, (Psychological Review, 1896, pp. 578-580).
T. E. Hulme, The New Philosophy, (New Age, July 1, 29, 1909).
William James, A Pluralistic Universe, London, 1909, pp. 225-273.
William James, The Philosophy of Bergson, (Hibbert Journal, April 1909, pp. 562-577. Reprinted in A Pluralistic Universe; see above).
William James, Bradley or Bergson? (Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. VII, No. 2, Jan. 20, 1910, pp. 29-33).
H. M. Kallen, James, Bergson and Mr. Pitkin, (Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, June 23, 1910, pp. 353-357).
A. Lalande, Philosophy in France, 1907, (Philosophical Review, May, 1908).
J. A. Leighton, On Continuity and Discreteness, (Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Apr. 28, 1910, pp. 231-238).
T. Loveday, L'Évolution créatrice, (Mind, July 1908, pp. 402-8).
A. O. Lovejoy, The Metaphysician of the Life-Force, (Nation, New York, Sept. 30, 1909).
A. Mitchell, L'Évolution créatrice, (Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. V, No. 22, Oct. 22, 1908, pp. 603-612).
W. Scott Palmer, Presence and Omnipresence, (Contemporary Review, June 1908, pp. 734-742).
W. Scott Palmer, Thought and Instinct, (Nation, June 5, 1909).
W. Scott Palmer, Life and the Brain, (Contemporary Review, Oct., 1909, pp. 474-484).
W. B. Pitkin, James and Bergson; or, Who is against Intellect? (Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Apr. 28, 1910, pp. 225-231).
G. R. T. Ross, A New Theory of Laughter, (Nation, Nov. 28, 1908).
G. R. T. Ross, The Philosophy of Vitalism, (Nation, Mar. 13, 1909)
J. Royce, The Reality of the Temporal, (Int. Journal of Ethics, Apr. 1910, pp. 257-271).
G. M. Sauvage, The New Philosophy in France, (Catholic University Bulletin, Washington, Apr. 1906, Mar. 1908).
Norman Smith, Subjectivism and Realism in Modern Philosophy, (Philosophical Review, Apr. 1908, pp. 138-148).
G. F. Stout, Free Will and Determinism, (Speaker, London, May 10, 1890).
J. H. Tufts, Humor, (Psychological Review, 1901, pp. 98-99).
G. Tyrrell, Creative Evolution, (Hibbert Journal, Jan. 1908, pp. 435-442).
T. Whittaker, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, (Mind, Apr. 1890, pp. 292-3).
G. Aimel, Individualisme et philosophie bergsonienne, (Revue de Philos., June 1908).
Balthasar, Le problème de Dieu d'après la philosophie nouvelle, (Revue néo-scolastique, Nov. 1907).
G. Batault, La philosophie de M. Bergson, (Mercure de France, Mar. 16, 1908, pp. 193-211).
G. Belot, Une théorie nouvelle de la liberté, (Revue philosophique, Vol. XXX, 1890, pp. 360-392).
G. Belot, Un nouveau spiritualisme, Matière et Mémoire, (Rev. philos. Vol. XLIV, 1897, pp. 183-199).
Jean Blum, La philosophie de M. Bergson et la poésie symboliste, (Mercure de France, Sept. 15, 1906).
C. Bougie, Syndicalistes et Bergsoniens, (Revue du Mois, Apr. 1909, pp. 403-416).
G. Cantecor, La philosophie nouvelle et la vie de l'esprit, (Rev. philos. Mar. 1903, pp. 252-277).
P. Cérésole, Le parallélisme psycho-physiologique et l'argument de M. Bergson, (Archives de Psychologie, Vol. V, Oct. 1905, pp. 112-120).
A. Chaumeix, La philosophie de M. Bergson, (Journal des Débats, May 24, 1908. Reprinted in Pragmatisme et Modernisme, Paris, Alcan, 1909).
A. Chaumeix, Les critiques du rationalisme, (Revue Hebdomadaire, Paris, Jan. I, 1910, pp. 1-33).
A. Chide, Le mobilisme moderne, Paris, Alcan, 1908. (See also Revue philos., Apr. 1908, Dec. 1909).
C. Coignet, Kant et Bergson, (Revue Chrétienne, July 1904).
C. Coignet, La vie d'après M. Bergson, (Bericht über den III Kongress für Philosophie, Heidelberg, 1909, pp. 358-364).
L. Constant, Cours de M. Bergson sur l'histoire de l'idée de temps, (Revue de Philos. Jan. 1904, pp. 105-111. Summary of lectures).
P. L. Couchoud, La métaphysique nouvelle, à propos de Matière et Mémoire de M. Bergson, (Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, Mar. 1902, pp. 225-243).
L. Couturat, La théorie du temps de Bergson, (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. 1896, pp. 646-669).
Léon Cristiani, Le problème de Dieu et le pragmatisme, Paris, Bloud et Cie., 1908.
F. Le Dantec, L'Évolution créatrice, (Revue du Mois, Aug. 1907. Reprinted in Science et Conscience, Paris, Flammarion, 1908).
L. Dauriac, Le Rire, (Revue philos. Dec. 1900, pp. 665-670).
V. Delbos, Matière et Mémoire, (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. May 1897, pp. 353-389).
G. L. Duprat, La spatialité des faits psychiques, (Rev. philos., May 1907, pp. 492-501).
G. Dwelshauvers, Raison et Intuition, Étude sur la philosophie de M. Bergson, (La Belgique artistique et littéraire, Nov. Dec. 1905, Apr. 1906).
G. Dwelshauvers, M. Bergson et la méthode intuitive, (Revue du Mois, Sept. 1907, pp. 336-350).
G. Dwelshauvers, De l'intuition dans l'acte de l'esprit, (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. Jan. 1908, pp. 55-65).
A. Farges, Le problème de la contingence d'après M. Bergson, (Revue pratique d'apologétique, Apr. 15, 1909).
A. Farges, L'erreur fondamentale de la philosophie nouvelle, (Revue thomiste, May-June, 1909).
A. Farges, Théorie fondamentale de l'acte, avec la critique de la philosophie nouvelle de M. Bergson, Paris, Berche et Tralin, 1909.
Alfred Fouillée, Le mouvement idéaliste et la réaction contre la science positive, Paris, Alcan, 1896, pp. 198-206.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, Le sens commun, la philosophie de l'être et les formules dogmatiques, Paris, Beauchesne, 1909.
Jules de Gaultier, Le réalisme du continu, (Revue philos., Jan. 1910, pp. 39-64).
René Gillouin, Henri Bergson, Paris, 1910. (A volume in the series Les grands philosophes).
A. Hollard, L'Évolution créatrice, (Foi et Vie, Sept. 16, 1907, pp. 545-550).
B. Jacob, La philosophie d'hier et celle d'aujourd'hui, (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. Mar. 1898, pp. 170-201).
G. Lechalas, Le nombre et le temps dans leurs rapports avec l'espace, (Ann. de Phil, chrét. N.S. Vol. 22, 1890, pp. 516-540).
G. Lechalas, Matière et Mémoire, (Ann. de Phil. chrét. N.S. Vol. 36, 1897, pp. 149-164 and 314-334)
A. Joussain, Romantisme et Religion, Paris, Alcan, 1910.
Legendre, M. Bergson et son Évolution créatrice, (Bulletin de la Semaine, May 6, 1908).
Lenoble, L'Évolution créatrice, (Revue du Clergé français, Jan., 1908).
E. Le Roy, Science et Philosophie, (A Series of articles in the Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. 1899 and 1900).
L. Lévy-Bruhl, L'Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, (Rev. philos., Vol. 29, 1890, pp. 519-538).
G. H. Luquet, Idées générales de psychologie, Paris, 1906.
J. Lux, Nos philosophes, M. Henri Bergson, (Revue Bleue, Dec. 1, 1906).
X. Moisant, La notion de multiplicité dans la philosophie de M. Bergson, (Revue de Philos., June, 1902).
X. Moisant, Dieu dans la philosophie de M. Bergson, (Revue de Philos., May, 1905).
G. Mondain, Remarques sur la théorie matérialiste, (Foi et Vie, June 15, 1908, pp. 369-373).
D. Parodi, Le Rire, par H. Bergson, (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. Mar. 1901, pp. 224-236).
T. M. Pègues, L'Évolution créatrice (Revue thomiste, May-June 1908, pp. 137-163).
C. Piat, De l'insuffisance des philosophies de l'intuition, Paris, 1908.
Maurice Pradines, Principes de toute philosophie de l'action, Paris, 1910.
G. Rageot, L'Évolution créatrice, (Rev. philos., July 1907). Reprinted and enlarged in Les savants et la philosophie, Paris, Alcan, 1907.
F. Rauh, La conscience du devenir, (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. Nov. 1897, pp. 659-681, and Jan. 1898, pp. 38-60).
F. Rauh, Sur la position du problème du libre arbitre, (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. Nov. 1904, pp. 977-1006).
P. P. Raymond, La philosophie de l'intuition et la philosophie du concept, (Études franciscaines, June 1909).
E. Seillière, L'Allemagne et la philosophie bergsonienne, (L'Opinion, July 3, 1909).
G. Sorel, L'Évolution créatrice, (Le Mouvement socialiste, Oct. Dec. 1907, Jan. Mar. Apr. 1908).
T. Steeg, Henri Bergson: Notice biographique avec portrait, (Revue universelle, Jan. 1902, pp. 15-16).
J. de Tonquébec, La notion de la vérité dans la philosophie nouvelle, Paris, 1908.
J. de Tonquébec, Comment interpréter l'ordre du monde à propos du dernier ouvrage de M. Bergson, Paris, Beauchesne, 1908.
H. Trouche, L'Évolution créatrice, (Revue de Philos. Nov. 1908).
H. Villassère, L'Évolution créatrice, (Bulletin critique, Sept. 1908, pp. 392-411.)
Tancrède de Visan, La philosophie de M. Bergson et le lyrisme contemporain, (Vers et Prose, Vol. XXI, 1910, pp. 125-140).
L. Weber, L'Évolution créatrice, (Rev. de Mét. et de Mor. Sept. 1907, pp. 620-670).
V. Wilbois, L'esprit positif, (A series of articles in the Rev. de Mét. et de Mor.1900 and 1901).
I. Benrubi, Henri Bergson, (Die Zukunft, June 4, 1910).
K. Bornhausen, Die Philosophie Henri Bergsons und ihre Bedeutung für den Religionsbegriff, (Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Tübingen, Jahrg. XX, Heft I 1910, pp. 39-77.)
O. Braun, Materie und Gedächtnis, (Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie, Vol. 15, 1909, Heft 4, pp. 13-15).
Hans Driesch, H. Bergson, der biologische Philosoph., (Zeitschrift für den Ausbau der Entwickelungslehre, Jahrg. II, Heft 1/2, Stuttgart, 1908).
V. Eschbach, Henri Bergson, (Kölnische Volkszeitung, Jan. 20, 1910).
Giessler, Le Rêve, (Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, Vol. 29, 1902, p. 231).
J. Goldstein, Henri Bergson und der Zeitlosigkeitsidealismus, (Frankfurter Zeitung, May 2, 1909).
J. Goldstein, Henri Bergson und die Sozialwissenschaft, (Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, Bd. XXXI, Heft 1, July 1910, pp. 1-22).
A. Gurewitsch, Die französische Metaphysik der Gegenwart (Archiv für system. Philos. Bd. IX, Heft 4, Nov. 1903, pp. 462-490).
Heymans, Le Rire, (Zeitsch. f. Psychol, u. Physiol. d. Sinnesorgane, Vol. 25, 1901, pp. 155-6).
K. Joël, Neues Denken, (Neue Rundschau, Apr. 1910, pp. 549-558).
H. von Keyserling, Bergson, (Allgemeine Zeitung, München, Nov. 28, 1908).
R. Kroner, Henri Bergson, (Logos, Bd. I, Heft 1, Tübingen, 1910).
A. Lasson, H. Bergson, (Deutsche Literaturzeitung, May 28, 1910).
R. Müller-Freienfels, Materie und Gedächtnis, (Zeitsch. f. Psychol. u. Physiol. d. Sinnesorgane, May 1910, Vol. 56, Heft 1/2, pp. 126-129).
Α. Pilzecker, Mémoire et reconnaissance, (Zeitsch. f. Psychol. u. Physiol. d. Sinnesorgane, Vol. 13, 1897, pp. 229-232).
Hans Prager, Henri Bergsons metaphysische Grundanschauung, (Archiv für system. Philos. 1910, Bd. XVI, Heft 3, pp. 310-320).
G. Seliber, Der Pragmatismus und seine Gegner, (Archiv für system. Philos. 1909, pp. 287-298).
A. Steenbergen, Henri Bergsons Intuitive Philosophie, Jena, 1909.
W. Windelband, Preface to Materie und Gedächtnis, Jena, 1908, pp. I-XV.
Th. Ziehen, Matière et Mémoire, (Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philos. Kritik, Dec. 1898, pp. 295-299).
Roberto Ardigò, Una pretesa pregiudiziale contro il positivismo, (Rivista di Filosofia e Scienze affini, Jan.-Feb., Mar.-Apr. 1908. Reprinted in Collected Works, Vol. 10).
A. Crespi, La metafisica di H. Bergson, (Coenobium, July-Aug. 1908).
L. Ferri, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, (Rivista Italiana di Filosofia, Mar.-Apr. 1890, pp. 248-9).
A. Levi, Sulle ultime forme dell' indeterminismo francese, Firenze, Civelli, 1903.
A. Levi, L'Indeterminismo nella filosofia francese contemporanea, Firenze, Seeber, 1905.
F. Masci, L'idealismo indeterminista, Napoli, 1899.
E. Morselli, Un nuovo idealismo, (H. Bergson), Udine, Tosolini, 1900.
I. Petrone, Sui limiti del determinismo scientifico, Modena, 1900; Roma, 1903.
G. Prezzolini, Del linguaggio come causa di errore, (H. Bergson), Firenze, Spinelli, 1904.
G. Prezzolini, La filosofia di H. Bergson, (in La Teoria Sindacalista, Napoli, Perrella, 1909, pp. 283-335).
F. de Sarlo, Le correnti filosofiche del secolo XIX, (Flegrea, III 6; Sept. 20, 1901, pp. 531-554).
G. Tarozzi, Della necessità nel fatto naturale ed umano, Torino, Loescher, 1896-97.
B. Varisco, La filosofia della contingenza, (Rivista filosofica, Vol. VIII, 1905, pp. 1-37).
B. Varisco, La Creazione, (Rivista filosofica, Mar.-Apr. 1908, pp. 149-180).
C. Antoniade, Filosofia lui Henri Bergson, (Studii filosofice, Bucarest, 1908, Vol. II, pp. 161-192 and 259-278).
F. Garcia Calderôn, Dos filosofos franceses, Bergson y Boutroux, (El Comercio, Lima, May 5, 1907).
E. Duprat, Estudios de Filosofia contemporanea: la Filosofia de H. Bergson, (Cultura Espanola, Madrid, 1908, pp. 185-202 and 567-584).
Silberstein, L'Évolution créatrice, (Przeglad Filozoficzny, 1908).
Michal Sobeski, H. Bergson, (Kurier Warszawski, 20, stycznia, 1910).
[AUTHOR'S PREFACE]
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 side in space phenomena which do not occupy space, and whether, by merely getting rid of the clumsy symbols round which we are fighting, we might not bring the fight to an end. When an illegitimate translation of the unextended into the extended, of quality into quantity, has introduced contradiction into the very heart of the question, contradiction must, of course, recur in the answer.
The problem which I have chosen is one which is common to metaphysics and psychology, the problem of free will. What I attempt to prove is that all discussion between the determinists and their opponents implies a previous confusion of duration with extensity, of succession with simultaneity, of quality with quantity: this confusion once dispelled, we may perhaps witness the disappearance of the objections raised against free will, of the definitions given of it, and, in a certain sense, of the problem of free will itself. To prove this is the object of the third part of the present volume: the first two chapters, which treat of the conceptions of intensity and duration, have been written as an introduction to the third.
H. BERGSON.
February, 1888.
[CONTENTS]
CHAPTER I
THE INTENSITY OF PSYCHIC STATES
Quantitative differences applicable to magnitudes but not to intensities, [1]-[4]; Attempt to estimate intensities by objective causes or atomic movements, [4]-[7]; Different kinds of intensities, [7]; Deep-seated psychic states: desire, [8], hope, [9], joy and sorrow, [10]; Aesthetic feelings, [11]-[18]: grace, [12], beauty, [14]-[18], music, poetry, art, [15]-[18]; Moral feelings, pity, [19]; Conscious states involving physical symptoms, [20]: muscular effort, [21]-[26], attention and muscular tension, [27]-[28]; Violent emotions, 29-[31]: rage, [29], fear, [30]; Affective sensations, [32]-[39]: pleasure and pain, [33]-[39], disgust, [36]; Representative sensations, [39]-[60]: and external causes, [42], sensation of sound, [43], intensity, pitch and muscular effort, [45]-[46], sensations of heat and cold, [46]-[47], sensations of pressure and weight, [47]-[50], sensation of light, [50]-[60], photometric experiments, [52]-[60], Delbœuf's experiments, [56]-[60]; Psychophysics, [60]-[72]: Weber and Fechner, [61]-[65], Delbœuf, [67]-[70], the mistake of regarding sensations as magnitudes, [70]-[72]; Intensity in (1) representative, (2) affective states, intensity and multiplicity, [72]-[74].
CHAPTER II
THE MULTIPLICITY OF CONSCIOUS STATES
THE IDEA OF DURATION
Number and its units, [75]-[77], number and accompanying intuition of space, [78]-[85]; Two kinds of multiplicity, of material objects and conscious states, [85]-[87], impenetrability of matter, [88]-[89], homogeneous time and pure duration, [90]-[91]; Space and its contents, [92], empirical theories of space, [93]-[94], intuition of empty homogeneous medium peculiar to man, [95]-[97], time as homogeneous medium reducible to space, [98]-[99]; Duration, succession and space, [100]-[104], pure duration, [105]-[106]; Is duration measurable? [107]-[110]; Is motion measurable? [111]-[112]; Paradox of the Eleatics, [113]-[115]; Duration and simultaneity, [115]-[116]; Velocity and simultaneity, [117]-[119]; Space alone homogeneous, duration and succession belong to conscious mind, [120]-[121]; Two kinds of multiplicity, qualitative and quantitative, [121]-[123], superficial psychic states invested with discontinuity of their external causes, [124]-[126], these eliminated, real duration is felt as a quality, [127]-[128]; The two aspects of the self, on the surface well-defined conscious states, deeper down states which interpenetrate and form organic whole, [129]-[139], solidifying influence of language on sensation, [129]-[132], analysis distorts the feelings, [132]-[134], deeper conscious states forming a part of ourselves, [134]-[136]; Problems soluble only by recourse to the concrete and living self, [137]-[139].
CHAPTER III
THE ORGANIZATION OF CONSCIOUS STATES
FREE WILL
Dynamism and mechanism, [140]-[142]; Two kinds of determinism, [142]; Physical determinism, [143]-[155]: and molecular theory of matter, [143], and conservation of energy, [144], if conservation universal, physiological and nervous phenomena necessitated, but perhaps not conscious states, [145]-[148], but is principle of conversation universal? [149], it may not apply to living beings and conscious states, [150]-[154], idea of its universality depends on confusion between concrete duration and abstract time, [154]-[155]; Psychological determinism, [155]-[163]: implies associationist conception of mind, [155]-[158], this involves defective conception of self, [159]-[163]; The free act: freedom as expressing the fundamental self, [165]-[170]; Real duration and contingency, [172]-[182]: could our act have been different? [172]-[175], geometrical representation of process of coming to a decision, [175]-[178], the fallacies to which it leads determinists and libertarians, [179]-[183]; Real duration and prediction, [183]-[198]: conditions of Paul's prediction of Peter's action (1) being Peter (2) knowing already his final act, [184]-[189], the three fallacies involved, [190]-[192], astronomical prediction depends on hypothetical acceleration of movements, [193]-[195], duration cannot be thus accelerated, [196]-[198]; Real duration and causality, [199]-[221]: the law "same antecedents, same consequents," [199]-[201], causality as regular succession, [202]-[203], causality as prefiguring: two kinds (1) prefiguring as mathematical pre-existence; implies non-duration, but we endure and therefore may be free, [204]-[210], (2) prefiguring as having idea of future act to be realized by effort; does not involve determinism, [211]-[214], determinism results from confusing these two senses, [215]-[218]; Freedom real but indefinable, [219]-[221].
CONCLUSION
States of self perceived through forms borrowed from external world, [223]; Intensity as quality, [225]; Duration as qualitative multiplicity, [226]; No duration in the external world, [227]; Extensity and duration must be separated, [229]; Only the fundamental self free, [231]; Kant's mistaken idea of time as homogeneous, [232], hence he put the self which is free outside both space and time, [233]; Duration is heterogeneous, relation of psychic state to act is unique, and act is free, [235]-[240].
[CHAPTER I]
THE INTENSITY OF PSYCHIC STATES
Can there be quantitative differences in conscious states?
It is usually admitted that states of consciousness, sensations, feelings, passions, efforts, are capable of growth and diminution; we are even told that a sensation can be said to be twice, thrice, four times as intense as another sensation of the same kind. This latter thesis, which is maintained by psychophysicists, we shall examine later; but even the opponents of psychophysics do not see any harm in speaking of one sensation as being more intense than another, of one effort as being greater than another, and in thus setting up differences of quantity between purely internal states. Common sense, moreover, has not the slightest hesitation in giving its verdict on this point; people say they are more or less warm, or more or less sad, and this distinction of more and less, even when it is carried over to the region of subjective facts and unextended objects, surprises nobody. But this involves a very obscure point and a much more important problem than is usually supposed.
When we assert that one number is greater than another number or one body greater than another body, we know very well what we mean.
Such differences applicable to magnitudes but not to intensities.
For in both cases we allude to unequal spaces, as shall be shown in detail a little further on, and we call that space the greater which contains the other. But how can a more intense sensation contain one of less intensity? Shall we say that the first implies the second, that we reach the sensation of higher intensity only on condition of having first passed through the less intense stages of the same sensation, and that in a certain sense we are concerned, here also, with the relation of container to contained? This conception of intensive magnitude seems, indeed, to be that of common sense, but we cannot advance it as a philosophical explanation without becoming involved in a vicious circle. For it is beyond doubt that, in the natural series of numbers, the later number exceeds the earlier, but the very possibility of arranging the numbers in ascending order arises from their having to each other relations of container and contained, so that we feel ourselves able to explain precisely in what sense one is greater than the other. The question, then, is how we succeed in forming a series of this kind with intensities, which cannot be superposed on each other, and by what sign we recognize that the members of this series increase, for example, instead of diminishing: but this always comes back to the inquiry, why an intensity can be assimilated to a magnitude.
Alleged distinction between two kinds of quantity: extensive and intensive magnitude.
It is only to evade the difficulty to distinguish, as is usually done, between two species of quantity, the first extensive and measurable, the second intensive and not admitting of measure, but of which it can nevertheless be said that it is greater or less than another intensity. For it is recognized thereby that there is something common to these two forms of magnitude, since they are both termed magnitudes and declared to be equally capable of increase and diminution. But, from the point of view of magnitude, what can there be in common between the extensive and the intensive, the extended and the unextended? If, in the first case, we call that which contains the other the greater quantity, why go on speaking of quantity and magnitude when there is no longer a container or a contained? If a quantity can increase and diminish, if we perceive in it, so to speak, the less inside the more, is not such a quantity on this very account divisible, and thereby extended? Is it not then a contradiction to speak of an inextensive quantity? But yet common sense agrees with the philosophers in setting up a pure intensity as a magnitude, just as if it were something extended. And not only do we use the same word, but whether we think of a greater intensity or a greater extensity, we experience in both cases an analogous impression; the terms "greater" and "less" call up in both cases the same idea. If we now ask ourselves in what does this idea consist, our consciousness still offers us the image of a container and a contained. We picture to ourselves, for example, a greater intensity of effort as a greater length of thread rolled up, or as a spring which, in unwinding, will occupy a greater space. In the idea of intensity, and even in the word which expresses it, we shall find the image of a present contraction and consequently a future expansion, the image of something virtually extended, and, if we may say so, of a compressed space. We are thus led to believe that we translate the intensive into the extensive, and that we compare two intensities, or at least express the comparison, by the confused intuition of a relation between two extensities. But it is just the nature of this operation which it is difficult to determine.
Attempt to distinguish intensities by objective causes. But we judge of intensity without knowing magnitude or nature of the cause.
The solution which occurs immediately to the mind, once it has entered upon this path, consists in defining the intensity of a sensation, or of any state whatever of the ego, by the number and magnitude of the objective, and therefore measurable, causes which have given rise to it. Doubtless, a more intense sensation of light is the one which has been obtained, or is obtainable, by means of a larger number of luminous sources, provided they be at the same distance and identical with one another. But, in the immense majority of cases, we decide about the intensity of the effect without even knowing the nature of the cause, much less its magnitude: indeed, it is the very intensity of the effect which often leads us to venture an hypothesis as to the number and nature of the causes, and thus to revise the judgment of our senses, which at first represented them as insignificant. And it is no use arguing that we are then comparing the actual state of the ego with some previous state in which the cause was perceived in its entirety at the same time as its effect was experienced. No doubt this is our procedure in a fairly large number of cases; but we cannot then explain the differences of intensity which we recognize between deep-seated psychic phenomena, the cause of which is within us and not outside. On the other hand, we are never so bold in judging the intensity of a psychic state as when the subjective aspect of the phenomenon is the only one to strike us, or when the external cause to which we refer it does not easily admit of measurement. Thus it seems evident that we experience a more intense pain at the pulling out of a tooth than of a hair; the artist knows without the possibility of doubt that the picture of a master affords him more intense pleasure than the signboard of a shop; and there is not the slightest need ever to have heard of forces of cohesion to assert that we expend less effort in bending a steel blade than a bar of iron. Thus the comparison of two intensities is usually made without the least appreciation of the number of causes, their mode of action or their extent.
Attempt to distinguish intensities by atomic movements. But it is the sensation which is given in consciousness, and not the movement.
There is still room, it is true, for an hypothesis of the same nature, but more subtle. We know that mechanical, and especially kinetic, theories aim at explaining the visible and sensible properties of bodies by well defined movements of their ultimate parts, and many of us foresee the time when the intensive differences of qualities, that is to say, of our sensations, will be reduced to extensive differences between the changes taking place behind them. May it not be maintained that, without knowing these theories, we have a vague surmise of them, that behind the more intense sound we guess the presence of ampler vibrations which are propagated in the disturbed medium, and that it is with a reference to this mathematical relation, precise in itself though confusedly perceived, that we assert the higher intensity of a particular sound? Without even going so far, could it not be laid down that every state of consciousness corresponds to a certain disturbance of the molecules and atoms of the cerebral substance, and that the intensity of a sensation measures the amplitude, the complication or the extent of these molecular movements? This last hypothesis is at least as probable as the other, but it no more solves the problem. For, quite possibly, the intensity of a sensation bears witness to a more or less considerable work accomplished in our organism; but it is the sensation which is given to us in consciousness, and not this mechanical work. Indeed, it is by the intensity of the sensation that we judge of the greater or less amount of work accomplished: intensity then remains, at least apparently, a property of sensation. And still the same question recurs: why do we say of a higher intensity that it is greater? Why do we think of a greater quantity or a greater space?
[Sidenote: Different kinds of intensities. (1) deep-seated psychic statese (2)muscular effort. Intensity is more easily definable in the former case.
Perhaps the difficulty of the problem lies chiefly in the fact that we call by the same name, and picture to ourselves in the same way, intensities which are very different in nature, e.g. the intensity of a feeling and that of a sensation or an effort.
The effort is accompanied by a muscular sensation, and the sensations themselves are connected with certain physical conditions which probably count for something in the estimate of their intensity: we have here to do with phenomena which take place on the surface of consciousness, and which are always connected, as we shall see further on, with the perception of a movement or of an external object. But certain states of the soul seem to us, rightly or wrongly, to be self-sufficient, such as deep joy or sorrow, a reflective passion or an aesthetic emotion. Pure intensity ought to be more easily definable in these simple cases, where no extensive element seems to be involved. We shall see, in fact, that it is reducible here to a certain quality or shade which spreads over a more or less considerable mass of psychic states, or, if the expression be preferred, to the larger or smaller number of simple states which make up the fundamental emotion.
Take, for example, the progress of a desire.
For example, an obscure desire gradually becomes a deep passion. Now, you will see that thee feeble intensity of this desire consisted at first in its appearing to be isolated and, as it were, foreign to the remainder of your inner life. But little by little it permeates a larger number of psychic elements, tingeing them, so to speak, with its own colour: and lo! your outlook on the whole of your surroundings seems now to have changed radically. How do you become aware of a deep passion, once it has taken hold of you, if not by perceiving that the same objects no longer impress you in the same manner? All your sensations and all your ideas seem to brighten up: it is like childhood back again. We experience something of the kind in certain dreams, in which we do not imagine anything out of the ordinary, and yet through which there resounds an indescribable note of originality. The fact is that, the further we penetrate into the depths of consciousness, the less right we have to treat psychic phenomena as things which are set side by side. When it is said that an object occupies a large space in the soul or even that it fills it entirely, we ought to understand by this simply that its image has altered the shade of a thousand perceptions or memories, and that in this sense it pervades them, although it does not itself come into view. But this wholly dynamic way of looking at things is repugnant to the reflective consciousness, because the latter delights in clean cut distinctions, which are easily expressed in words, and in things with well-defined outlines, like those which are perceived in space. It will assume then that, everything else remaining identical, such and such a desire has gone up a scale of magnitudes, as though it were permissible still to speak of magnitude where there is neither multiplicity nor space! But just as consciousness (as will be shown later on) concentrates on a given point of the organism the increasing number of muscular contractions which take place on the surface of the body, thus converting them into one single feeling of effort, of growing intensity, so it will hypostatize under the form of a growing desire the gradual alterations which take place in the confused heap of co-existing psychic states. But that is a change of quality rather than of magnitude.
What makes hope such an intense pleasure is the fact that the future, which we dispose of to our liking, appears to us at the same time under a multitude of forms, equally attractive and equally possible. Even if the most coveted of these becomes realized, it will be necessary to give up the others, and we shall have lost a great deal. The idea of the future, pregnant with an infinity of possibilities, is thus more fruitful than the future itself, and this is why we find more charm in hope than in possession, in dreams than in reality.
The emotions of joy and sorrow. Their successive stages correspond to qualitative changes in the whole of our psychic states.
Let us try to discover the nature of an increasing intensity of joy or sorrow in the exceptional cases where no physical symptom intervenes. Neither inner joy nor passion is an isolated inner state which at first occupies a corner of the soul and gradually spreads. At its lowest level it is very like a turning of our states of consciousness towards the future. Then, as if their weight were diminished by this attraction, our ideas and sensations succeed one another with greater rapidity; our movements no longer cost us the same effort. Finally, in cases of extreme joy, our perceptions and memories become tinged with an indefinable quality, as with a kind of heat or light, so novel that now and then, as we stare at our own self, we wonder how it can really exist. Thus there are several characteristic forms of purely inward joy, all of which are successive stages corresponding to qualitative alterations in the whole of our psychic states. But the number of states which are concerned with each of these alterations is more or less considerable, and, without explicitly counting them, we know very well whether, for example, our joy pervades all the impressions which we receive in the course of the day or whether any escape from its influence. We thus set up points of division in the interval which separates two successive forms of joy, and this gradual transition from one to the other makes them appear in their turn as different intensities of one and the same feeling, which is thus supposed to change in magnitude. It could be easily shown that the different degrees of sorrow also correspond to qualitative changes. Sorrow begins by being nothing more than a facing towards the past, an impoverishment of our sensations and ideas, as if each of them were now contained entirely in the little which it gives out, as if the future were in some way stopped up. And it ends with an impression of crushing failure, the effect of which is that we aspire to nothingness, while every new misfortune, by making us understand better the uselessness of the struggle, causes us a bitter pleasure.
The aesthetic feelings. Their increasing intensities are really different feelings.
The aesthetic feelings offer us a still more striking example of this progressive stepping in of new elements, which can be detected in the fundamental emotion and which seem to increase its magnitude, although in reality they do nothing more than alter its nature. Let us consider the simplest of them, the feeling of grace. At first it is only the perception of a certain ease, a certain facility in the outward movements. And as those movements are easy which prepare the way for others, we are led to find a superior ease in the movements which can be foreseen, in the present attitudes in which future attitudes are pointed out and, as it were, prefigured. If jerky movements are wanting in grace, the reason is that each of them is self-sufficient and does not announce those which are to follow. If curves are more graceful than broken lines, the reason is that, while a curved line changes its direction at every moment, every new direction is indicated in the preceding one. Thus the perception of ease in motion passes over into the pleasure of mastering the flow of time and of holding the future in the present. A third element comes in when the graceful movements submit to a rhythm and are accompanied by music. For the rhythm and measure, by allowing us to foresee to a still greater extent the movements of the dancer, make us believe that we now control them. As we guess almost the exact attitude which the dancer is going to take, he seems to obey us when he really takes it: the regularity of the rhythm establishes a kind of communication between him and us, and the periodic returns of the measure are like so many invisible threads by means of which we set in motion this imaginary puppet. Indeed, if it stops for an instant, our hand in its impatience cannot refrain from making a movement, as though to push it, as though to replace it in the midst of this movement, the rhythm of which has taken complete possession of our thought and will. Thus a kind of physical sympathy enters into the feeling of grace. Now, in analysing the charm of this sympathy, you will find that it pleases you through its affinity with moral sympathy, the idea of which it subtly suggests. This last element, in which the others are merged after having in a measure ushered it in, explains the irresistible attractiveness of grace. We could hardly make out why it affords us such pleasure if it were nothing but a saving of effort, as Spencer maintains.[1] But the truth is that in anything which we call very graceful we imagine ourselves able to detect, besides the lightness which is a sign of mobility, some suggestion of a possible movement towards ourselves, of a virtual and even nascent sympathy. It is this mobile sympathy, always ready to offer itself, which is just the essence of higher grace. Thus the increasing intensities of aesthetic feeling are here resolved into as many different feelings, each one of which, already heralded by its predecessor, becomes perceptible in it and then completely eclipses it. It is this qualitative progress which we interpret as a change of magnitude, because we like simple thoughts and because our language is ill-suited to render the subtleties of psychological analysis.
The feeling of beauty: art puts to sleep our active and resistant powers and makes us responsive to suggestion.
To understand how the feeling of the beautiful itself admits of degrees, we should have to submit it to a minute analysis. Perhaps the difficulty which we experience in defining: it is largely owing to the fact that we look upon the beauties of nature as anterior to those of art: the processes of art are thus supposed to be nothing more than means by which the artist expresses the beautiful, and the essence of the beautiful remains unexplained. But we might ask ourselves whether nature is beautiful otherwise than through meeting by chance certain processes of our art, and whether, in a certain sense, art is not prior to nature. Without even going so far, it seems more in conformity with the rules of a sound method to study the beautiful first in the works in which it has been produced by a conscious effort, and then to pass on by imperceptible steps from art to nature, which may be looked upon as an artist in its own way. By placing ourselves at this point of view, we shall perceive that the object of art is to put to sleep the active or rather resistant powers of our personality, and thus to bring us into a state of perfect responsiveness, in which we realize the idea that is suggested to us and sympathize with the feeling that is expressed. In the processes of art we shall find, in a weakened form, a refined and in some measure spiritualized version of the processes commonly used to induce the state of hypnosis. Thus, in music, the rhythm and measure suspend the normal flow of our sensations and ideas by causing our attention to swing to and fro between fixed points, and they take hold of us with such force that even the faintest imitation of a groan will suffice to fill us with the utmost sadness. If musical sounds affect us more powerfully than the sounds of nature, the reason is that nature confines itself to expressing feelings, whereas music suggests them to us. Whence indeed comes the charm of poetry? The poet is he with whom feelings develop into images, and the images themselves into words which translate them while obeying the laws of rhythm. In seeing these images pass before our eyes we in our turn experience the feeling which was, so to speak, their emotional equivalent: but we should never realize these images so strongly without the regular movements of the rhythm by which our soul is lulled into self-forgetfulness, and, as in a dream, thinks and sees with the poet. The plastic arts obtain an effect of the same kind by the fixity which they suddenly impose upon life, and which a physical contagion carries over to the attention of the spectator. While the works of ancient sculpture express faint emotions which play upon them like a passing breath, the pale immobility of the stone causes the feeling expressed or the movement just begun to appear as if they were fixed for ever, absorbing our thought and our will in their own eternity. We find in architecture, in the very midst of this startling immobility, certain effects analogous to those of rhythm. The symmetry of form, the indefinite repetition of the same architectural motive, causes our faculty of perception to oscillate between the same and the same again, and gets rid of those customary incessant changes which in ordinary life bring us back without ceasing to the consciousness of our personality: even the faint suggestion of an idea will then be enough to make the idea fill the whole of our mind. Thus art aims at impressing feelings on us rather than expressing them; it suggests them to us, and willingly dispenses with the imitation of nature when it finds some more efficacious means. Nature, like art, proceeds by suggestion, but does not command the resources of rhythm. It supplies the deficiency by the long comradeship, based on influences received in common by nature and by ourselves, of which the effect is that the slightest indication by nature of a feeling arouses sympathy in our minds, just as a mere gesture on the part of the hypnotist is enough to force the intended suggestion upon a subject accustomed to his control. And this sympathy is shown in particular when nature displays to us beings of normal proportions, so that our attention is distributed equally over all the parts of the figure without being fixed on any one of them: our perceptive faculty then finds itself lulled and soothed by this harmony, and nothing hinders any longer the free play of sympathy, which is ever ready to come forward as soon as the obstacle in its path is removed.
Stages in the aesthetic emotion.
It follows from this analysis that the feeling of the beautiful is no specific feeling, but that every feeling experienced by us will assume an aesthetic character, provided that it has been suggested, and not caused. It will now be understood why the aesthetic emotion seems to us to admit of degrees of intensity, and also of degrees of elevation. Sometimes the feeling which is suggested scarcely makes a break in the compact texture of psychic phenomena of which our history consists; sometimes it draws our attention from them, but not so that they become lost to sight; sometimes, finally, it puts itself in their place, engrosses us and completely monopolizes our soul. There are thus distinct phases in the progress of an aesthetic feeling, as in the state of hypnosis; and these phases correspond less to variations of degree than to differences of state or of nature. But the merit of a work of art is not measured so much by the power with which the suggested feeling takes hold of us as by the richness of this feeling itself: in other words, besides degrees of intensity we instinctively distinguish degrees of depth or elevation. If this last concept be analysed, it will be seen that the feelings and thoughts which the artist suggests to us express and sum up a more or less considerable part of his history. If the art which gives only sensations is an inferior art, the reason is that analysis often fails to discover in a sensation anything beyond the sensation itself. But the greater number of emotions are instinct with a thousand sensations, feelings or ideas which pervade them: each one is then a state unique of its kind and indefinable, and it seems that we should have to re-live the life of the subject who experiences it if we wished to grasp it in its original complexity. Yet the artist aims at giving us a share in this emotion, so rich, so personal, so novel, and at enabling us to experience what he cannot make us understand. This he will bring about by choosing, among the outward signs of his emotions, those which our body is likely to imitate mechanically, though slightly, as soon as it perceives them, so as to transport us all at once into the indefinable psychological state which called them forth. Thus will be broken down the barrier interposed by time and space between his consciousness and ours: and the richer in ideas and the more pregnant with sensations and emotions is the feeling within whose limits the artist has brought us, the deeper and the higher shall we find the beauty thus expressed. The successive intensities of the aesthetic feeling thus correspond to changes of state occurring in us, and the degrees of depth to the larger or smaller number of elementary psychic phenomena which we dimly discern in the fundamental emotion.
The moral feelings. Pity. Its increasing intensity is a qualitative progress.
The moral feelings might be studied in the same way. Let us take pity as an example. It consists in the first place in putting oneself mentally in the place of others, in suffering their pain. But if it were nothing more, as some have maintained, it would inspire us with the idea of avoiding the wretched rather than helping them, for pain is naturally abhorrent to us. This feeling of horror may indeed be at the root of pity; but a new element soon comes in, the need of helping our fellow-men and of alleviating their suffering. Shall we say with La Rochefoucauld that this so-called sympathy is a calculation, "a shrewd insurance against evils to come"? Perhaps a dread of some future evil to ourselves does hold a place in our compassion for other people's evil. These however are but lower forms of pity. True pity consists not so much in fearing suffering as in desiring it. The desire is a faint one and we should hardly wish to see it realized; yet we form it in spite of ourselves, as if Nature were committing some great injustice and it were necessary to get rid of all suspicion of complicity with her. The essence of pity is thus a need for self-abasement, an aspiration downwards. This painful aspiration nevertheless has a charm about it, because it raises us in our own estimation and makes us feel superior to those sensuous goods from which our thought is temporarily detached. The increasing intensity of pity thus consists in a qualitative progress, in a transition from repugnance to fear, from fear to sympathy, and from sympathy itself to humility.
Conscious states connected with external causes or involving psychical symptoms.
We do not propose to carry this analysis any further. The psychic states whose intensity we have just defined are deep-seated states which do not seem to have any close relation to their external cause or to involve the perception of muscular contraction. But such states are rare. There is hardly any passion or desire, any joy or sorrow, which is not accompanied by physical symptoms; and, where these symptoms occur, they probably count for something in the estimate of intensities. As for the sensations properly so called, they are manifestly connected with their external cause, and though the intensity of the sensation cannot be defined by the magnitude of its cause, there undoubtedly exists some relation between these two terms. In some of its manifestations consciousness even appears to spread outwards, as if intensity were being developed into extensity, e.g. in the case of muscular effort. Let us face this last phenomenon at once: we shall thus be transported at a bound to the opposite extremity of the series of psychic phenomena.
Muscular effort seems at first sight to be quantitative.
If there is a phenomenon which seems to be presented immediately to consciousness under the form of quantity or at least of magnitude, it is undoubtedly muscular effort. We picture to our minds a psychic force imprisoned in the soul like the winds in the cave of Aeolus, and only waiting for an opportunity to burst forth: our will is supposed to watch over this force and from time to time to open a passage for it, regulating the outflow by the effect which it is desired to produce. If we consider the matter carefully, we shall see that this somewhat crude conception of effort plays a large part in our belief in intensive magnitudes. Muscular force, whose sphere of action is space and which manifests itself in phenomena admitting of measure, seems to us to have existed previous to its manifestations, but in smaller volume, and, so to speak, in a compressed state: hence we do not hesitate to reduce this volume more and more, and finally we believe that we can understand how a purely psychic state, which does not occupy space, can nevertheless possess magnitude. Science, too, tends to strengthen the illusion of common sense with regard to this point. Bain, for example, declares that "the sensibility accompanying muscular movement coincides with the outgoing stream of nervous energy:"[2] it is thus just the emission of nervous force which consciousness perceives. Wundt also speaks of a sensation, central in its origin, accompanying the voluntary innervation of the muscles, and quotes the example of the paralytic "who has a very distinct sensation of the force which he employs in the effort to raise his leg, although it remains motionless."[3] Most of the authorities adhere to this opinion, which would be the unanimous view of positive science were it not that several years ago Professor William James drew the attention of physiologists to certain phenomena which had been but little remarked, although they were very remarkable.
The feeling of effort. We are conscious not of an expenditure of force but of the resulting muscular movement.
When a paralytic strives to raise his useless limb, he certainly does not execute this movement, but, with or without his will, he executes another. Some movement is carried out somewhere: otherwise there is no sensation of effort.[4] Vulpian had already called attention to the fact that if a man affected with hemiplegia is told to clench his paralysed fist, he unconsciously carries out this action with the fist which is not affected. Ferrier described a still more curious phenomenon.[5] Stretch out your arm while slightly bending your forefinger, as if you were going to press the trigger of a pistol; without moving the finger, without contracting any muscle of the hand, without producing any apparent movement, you will yet be able to feel that you are expending energy. On a closer examination, however, you will perceive that this sensation of effort coincides with the fixation of the muscles of your chest, that you keep your glottis closed and actively contract your respiratory muscles. As soon as respiration resumes its normal course the consciousness of effort vanishes, unless you really move your finger. These facts already seemed to show that we are conscious, not of an expenditure of force, but of the movement of the muscles which results from it. The new feature in Professor James's investigation is that he has verified the hypothesis in the case of examples which seemed to contradict it absolutely. Thus when the external rectus muscle of the right eye is paralysed, the patient tries in vain to turn his eye towards the right; yet objects seem to him to recede towards the right, and since the act of volition has produced no effect, it follows, said Helmholtz,[6] that he is conscious of the effort of volition. But, replies Professor James, no account has been taken of what goes on in the other eye. This remains covered during the experiments; nevertheless it moves and there is not much trouble in proving that it does. It is the movement of the left eye, perceived by consciousness, which produces the sensation of effort together with the impression that the objects perceived by the right eye are moving. These and similar observations lead Professor James to assert that the feeling of effort is centripetal and not centrifugal. We are not conscious of a force which we are supposed to launch upon our organism: our feeling of muscular energy at work "is a complex afferent sensation, which comes from contracted muscles, stretched ligaments, compressed joints, an immobilized chest, a closed glottis, a knit brow, clenched jaws," in a word, from all the points of the periphery where the effort causes an alteration.
Intensity of feeling of effort proportional to extent of our body affected.
It is not for us to take a side in the dispute. After all, the question with which we have to deal is nοt whether the feeling of effort comes from the centre or the periphery, but in what does our perception of its intensity exactly consist? Now, it is sufficient to observe oneself attentively to reach a conclusion on this point which Professor James has not formulated, but which seems to us quite in accord with the spirit of his teaching. We maintain that the more a given effort seems to us to increase, the greater is the number of muscles which contract in sympathy with it, and that the apparent consciousness of a greater intensity of effort at a given point of the organism is reducible, in reality, to the perception of a larger surface of the body being affected.
Our consciousness of an increase of muscular effort consists in the perception of (1) a greater number of peripheral sensations (2) a qualitative change in some of them.
Try, for example, to clench the fist with increasing force. You will have the impression of a sensation of effort entirely localized in your hand and running up a scale of magnitudes. In reality, what you experience in your hand remains the same, but the sensation which was at first localized there has affected your arm and ascended to the shoulder; finally, the other arm stiffens, both legs do the same, the respiration is checked; it is the whole body which is at work. But you fail to notice distinctly all these concomitant movements unless you are warned of them: till then you thought you were dealing with a single state of consciousness which changed in magnitude. When you press your lips more and more tightly against one another, you believe that you are experiencing in your lips one and the same sensation which is continually increasing in strength: here again further reflection will show you that this sensation remains identical, but that certain muscles of the face and the head and then of all the rest of the body have taken part in the operation. You felt this gradual encroachment, this increase of the surface affected, which is in truth a change of quantity; but, as your attention was concentrated on your closed lips, you localized the increase there and you made the psychic force there expended into a magnitude, although it possessed no extensity. Examine carefully somebody who is lifting heavier and heavier weights: the muscular contraction gradually spreads over his whole body. As for the special sensation which he experiences in the arm which is at work, it remains constant for a very long time and hardly changes except in quality, the weight becoming at a certain moment fatigue, and the fatigue pain. Yet the subject will imagine that he is conscious of a continual increase in the psychic force flowing into his arm. He will not recognize his mistake unless he is warned of it, so inclined is he to measure a given psychic state by the conscious movements which accompany it! From these facts and from many others of the same kind we believe we can deduce the following conclusion: our consciousness of an increase of muscular effort is reducible to the twofold perception of a greater number of peripheral sensations, and of a qualitative change occurring in some of them.
The same definition of intensity applies to superficial efforts, deep-seated feelings and states intermediate between the two.
We are thus led to define the intensity of a superficial effort in the same way as that of a cases there is a qualitative progress and an increasing complexity, indistinctly perceived. But consciousness, accustomed to think in terms of space and to translate its thoughts into words, will denote the feeling by a single word and will localize the effort at the exact point where it yields a useful result: it will then become aware of an effort which is always of the same nature and increases at the spot assigned to it, and a feeling which, retaining the same name, grows without changing its nature. Now, the same illusion of consciousness is likely to be met with again in the case of the states which are intermediate between superficial efforts and deep-seated feelings. A large number of psychic states are accompanied, in fact, by muscular contractions and peripheral sensations. Sometimes these superficial elements are co-ordinated by a purely speculative idea, sometimes by an idea of a practical order. In the first case there is intellectual effort or attention; in the second we have the emotions which may be called violent or acute: anger, terror, and certain varieties of joy, sorrow, passion and desire. Let us show briefly that the same definition of intensity applies to these intermediate states.
The intermediate states. Attention and its relation to muscular contraction.
Attention is not a purely physiological phenomenon, but we cannot deny that it is accompanied by movements. These movements are neither the cause nor the result of the phenomenon; they are part of it, they express it in terms of space, as Ribot has so remarkably proved.[7] Fechner had already reduced the effort of attention in a sense-organ to the muscular feeling "produced by putting in motion, by a sort of reflex action, the muscles which are correlated with the different sense organs." He had noticed the very distinct sensation of tension and contraction of the scalp, the pressure from without inwards over the whole skull, which we experience when we make a great effort to recall something. Ribot has studied more closely the movements which are characteristic of voluntary attention. "Attention contracts the frontal muscle: this muscle ... draws the eyebrow towards itself, raises it and causes transverse wrinkles on the forehead.... In extreme cases the mouth is opened wide. With children and with many adults eager attention gives rise to a protrusion of the lips, a kind of pout." Certainly, a purely psychic factor will always enter into voluntary attention, even if it be nothing more than the exclusion by the will of all ideas foreign to the one with which the subject wishes to occupy himself. But, once this exclusion is made, we believe that we are still conscious of a growing tension of soul, of an immaterial effort which increases. Analyse this impression and you will find nothing but the feeling of a muscular contraction which spreads over a wider surface or changes its nature, so that the tension becomes pressure, fatigue and pain.
The intensity of violent emotions as muscular tension.
Now, we do not see any essential difference between the effort of attention and what may be The intensity called the effort of psychic tension: acute desire, uncontrolled anger, passionate love, violent hatred. Each of these states may be reduced, we believe, to a system of muscular contractions co-ordinated by an idea; but in the case of attention, it is the more or less reflective idea of knowing; in the case of emotion, the unreflective idea of acting. The intensity of these violent emotions is thus likely to be nothing but the muscular tension which accompanies them. Darwin has given a remarkable description of the physiological symptoms of rage. "The action of the heart is much accelerated.... The face reddens or may turn deadly pale. The respiration is laboured, the chest heaves, and the dilated nostrils quiver. The whole body often trembles. The voice is affected. The teeth are clenched or ground together and the muscular system is commonly stimulated to violent, almost frantic action. The gestures ... represent more or less plainly the act of striking or fighting with an enemy."[8] We shall not go so far as to maintain, with Professor James,[9] that the emotion of rage is reducible to the sum of these organic sensations: there will always be an irreducible psychic element in anger, if this be only the idea of striking or fighting, of which Darwin speaks, and which gives a common direction to so many diverse movements. But, though this idea determines the direction of the emotional state and the accompanying movements, the growing intensity of the state itself is, we believe, nothing but the deeper and deeper disturbance of the organism, a disturbance which consciousness has no difficulty in measuring by the number and extent of the bodily surfaces concerned. It will be useless to assert that there is a restrained rage which is all the more intense. The reason is that, where emotion has free play, consciousness does not dwell on the details of the accompanying movements, but it does dwell upon them and is concentrated upon them when its object is to conceal them. Eliminate, in short, all trace of organic disturbance, all tendency towards muscular contraction, and all that will be left of anger will be the idea, or, if you still insist on making it an emotion, you will be unable to assign it any intensity.
Intensity and reflex movements. No essential difference between intensity of deep-seated feelings and that of violent emotions.
"Fear, when strong," says Herbert Spencer, "expresses itself in cries, in efforts to escape, in palpitations, in tremblings."[10] We go further, and maintain that these movements form part of the terror itself: by their means the terror becomes an emotion capable of passing through different degrees of intensity. Suppress them entirely, and the more or less intense state of terror will be succeeded by an idea of terror, the wholly intellectual representation of a danger which it concerns us to avoid. There are also high degrees of joy and sorrow, of desire, aversion and even shame, the height of which will be found to be nothing but the reflex movements begun by the organism and perceived by consciousness. "When lovers meet," says Darwin, "we know that their hearts beat quickly, their breathing is hurried and their faces flushed."[11] Aversion is marked by movements of repugnance which we repeat without noticing when we think of the object of our dislike. We blush and involuntarily clench the fingers when we feel shame, even if it be retrospective. The acuteness of these emotions is estimated by the number and nature of the peripheral sensations which accompany them. Little by little, and in proportion as the emotional state loses its violence and gains in depth, the peripheral sensations will give place to inner states; it will be no longer our outward movements but our ideas, our memories, our states of consciousness of every description, which will turn in larger or smaller numbers in a definite direction. There is, then, no essential difference from the point of view of intensity between the deep-seated feelings, of which we spoke at the beginning, and the acute or violent emotions which we have just passed in review. To say that love, hatred, desire, increase in violence is to assert that they are projected outwards, that they radiate to the surface, that peripheral sensations are substituted for inner states: but superficial or deep-seated, violent or reflective, the intensity of these feelings always consists in the multiplicity of simple states which consciousness dimly discerns in them.
Magnitude of sensations. Affective and representative sensations.
We have hitherto confined ourselves to feelings and efforts, complex states the intensity of which does not absolutely depend on an external cause. But sensations seem to us simple states: in what will their magnitude consist? The intensity of sensations varies with the external cause of which they are said to be the conscious equivalent: how shall we explain the presence of quantity in an effect which is inextensive, and in this case indivisible? To answer this question, we must first distinguish between the so-called affective and the representative sensations. There is no doubt that we pass gradually from the one to the other and that some affective element enters into the majority of our simple representations. But nothing prevents us from isolating this element and inquiring separately, in what does the intensity of an affective sensation, a pleasure or a pain, consist?
Affective sensations and organic disturbance.
Perhaps the difficulty of the latter problem is principally due to the fact that we are unwilling to see in the affective state anything but the conscious expression of an organic disturbance, the inward echo of an outward cause. We notice that a more intense sensation generally corresponds to a greater nervous disturbance; but inasmuch as these disturbances are unconscious as movements, since they come before consciousness in the guise of a sensation which has no resemblance at all to motion, we do not see how they could transmit to the sensation anything of their own magnitude. For there is nothing in common, we repeat, between superposable magnitudes such as, for example, vibration-amplitudes, and sensations which do not occupy space. If the more intense sensation seems to us to contain the less intense, if it assumes for us, like the physical impression itself, the form of a magnitude, the reason probably is that it retains something of the physical impression to which it corresponds. And it will retain nothing of it if it is merely the conscious translation of a movement of molecules; for, just because this movement is translated into the sensation of pleasure or pain, it remains unconscious as molecular movement.
Pleasure and pain as signs of the future reaction rather than psychic translations of the past stimulus.
But it might be asked whether pleasure and pain, instead of expressing only what has just occurred, or what is actually occurring, in the organism, as is usually believed, could not also point out what is going to, or what is tending to take place. It seems indeed somewhat improbable that nature, so profoundly utilitarian, should have here assigned to consciousness the merely scientific task of informing us about the past or the present, which no longer depend upon us. It must be noticed in addition that we rise by imperceptible stages from automatic to free movements, and that the latter differ from the former principally in introducing an affective sensation between the external action which occasions them and the volitional reaction which ensues. Indeed, all our actions might have been automatic, and we can surmise that there are many organized beings in whose case an external stimulus causes a definite reaction without calling up consciousness as an intermediate agent. If pleasure and pain make their appearance in certain privileged beings, it is probably to call forth a resistance to the automatic reaction which would have taken place: either sensation has nothing to do, or it is nascent freedom. But how would it enable us to resist the reaction which is in preparation if it did not acquaint us with the nature of the latter by some definite sign? And what can this sign be except the sketching, and, as it were, the prefiguring of the future automatic movements in the very midst of the sensation which is being experienced? The affective state must then correspond not merely to the physical disturbances, movements or phenomena which have taken place, but also, and especially, to those which are in preparation, those which are getting ready to be.
Intensity of affective sensations would then be our consciousness of the involuntary movements tending to follow the stimulus.
It is certainly not obvious at first sight how this hypothesis simplifies the problem. For we are trying to find what there can be in common, from the point of view of magnitude, between a physical phenomenon and a state of consciousness, and we seem to have merely turned the difficulty round by making the present state of consciousness a sign of the future reaction, rather than a psychic translation of the past stimulus. But the difference between the two hypotheses is considerable. For the molecular disturbances which were mentioned just now are necessarily unconscious, since no trace of the movements themselves can be actually perceived in the sensation which translates them. But the automatic movements which tend to follow the stimulus as its natural outcome are likely to be conscious as movements: or else the sensation itself, whose function is to invite us to choose between this automatic reaction and other possible movements, would be of no avail. The intensity of affective sensations might thus be nothing more than our consciousness of the involuntary movements which are being begun and outlined, so to speak, within these states, and which would have gone on in their own way if nature had made us automata instead of conscious beings.
Intensity of a pain estimated by extent of organism affected.
If such be the case, we shall not compare a pain of increasing intensity to a note which grows louder and louder, but rather to a symphony, in which an increasing number of instruments make themselves heard. Within the characteristic sensation, which gives the tone to all the others, consciousness distinguishes a larger or smaller number of sensations arising at different points of the periphery, muscular contractions, organic movements of every kind: the choir of these elementary psychic states voices the new demands of the organism, when confronted by a new situation. In other words, we estimate the intensity of a pain by the larger or smaller part of the organism which takes interest in it. Richet[12] has observed that the slighter the pain, the more precisely is it referred to a particular spot; if it becomes more intense, it is referred to the whole of the member affected. And he concludes by saying that "the pain spreads in proportion as it is more intense."[13] We should rather reverse the sentence, and define the intensity of the pain by the very number and extent of the parts of the body which sympathize with it and react, and whose reactions are perceived by consciousness. To convince ourselves of this, it will be enough to read the remarkable description of disgust given by the same author: "If the stimulus is slight there may be neither nausea nor vomiting.... If the stimulus is stronger, instead of being confined to the pneumo-gastric nerve, it spreads and affects almost the whole organic system. The face turns pale, the smooth muscles of the skin contract, the skin is covered with a cold perspiration, the heart stops beating: in a word there is a general organic disturbance following the stimulation of the medulla oblongata, and this disturbance is the supreme expression of disgust."[14] But is it nothing more than its expression? In what will the general sensation of disgust consist, if not in the sum of these elementary sensations? And what can we understand here by increasing intensity, if it is not the constantly increasing number of sensations which join in with the sensations already experienced? Darwin has drawn a striking picture of the reactions following a pain which becomes more and more acute. "Great pain urges all animals ... to make the most violent and diversified efforts to escape from the cause of suffering.... With men the mouth may be closely compressed, or more commonly the lips are retracted with the teeth clenched or ground together.... The eyes stare wildly
... or the brows are heavily contracted.
Perspiration bathes the body.... The circulation and respiration are much affected."[15] Now, is it not by this very contraction of the muscles affected that we measure the intensity of a pain? Analyse your idea of any suffering which you call extreme: do you not mean that it is unbearable, that is to say, that it urges the organism to a thousand different actions in order to escape from it? I can picture to myself a nerve transmitting a pain which is independent of all automatic reaction; and I can equally understand that stronger or weaker stimulations influence this nerve differently. But I do not see how these differences of sensation would be interpreted by our consciousness as differences of quantity unless we connected them with the reactions which usually accompany them, and which are more or less extended and more or less important. Without these subsequent reactions, the intensity of the pain would be a quality, and not a magnitude.
Pleasures compared by bodily inclination.
We have hardly any other means of comparing several pleasures with one another. What do we mean by a greater pleasure except a pleasure that is preferred? And what can our preference be, except a certain disposition of our organs, the effect of which is that, when two pleasures are offered simultaneously to our mind, our body inclines towards one of them? Analyse this inclination itself and you will find a great many little movements which begin and become perceptible in the organs concerned, and even in the rest of the body, as if the organism were coming forth to meet the pleasure as soon as it is pictured. When we define inclination as a movement, we are not using a metaphor. When confronted by several pleasures pictured by our mind, our body turns towards one of them spontaneously, as though by a reflex action. It rests with us to check it, but the attraction of the pleasure is nothing but this movement that is begun, and the very keenness of the pleasure, while we enjoy it, is merely the inertia of the organism, which is immersed in it and rejects every other sensation. Without this vis inertiae of which we become conscious by the very resistance which we offer to anything that might distract us, pleasure would be a state, but no longer a magnitude. In the moral as in the physical world, attraction serves to define movement rather than to produce it.
The intensity of representative sensations. Many also affective and intensity is measured by reaction called forth. In others a new element enters.
We have studied the affective sensations separately, but we must now notice that many representative sensations possess an affective character, and thus call forth a reaction on our part which we take into account in estimating their intensity. A considerable increase of light is represented for us by a characteristic sensation which is not yet pain, but which is analogous to dazzling. In proportion as the amplitude of sound-vibrations increases, our head and then our body seem to us to vibrate or to receive a shock. Certain representative sensations, those of taste, smell and temperature, have a fixed character of pleasantness or unpleasantness. Between flavours which are more or less bitter you will hardly distinguish anything but differences of quality; they are like different shades of one and the same colour. But these differences of quality are at once interpreted as differences of quantity, because of their affective character and the more or less pronounced movements of reaction, pleasure or repugnance, which they suggest to us. Besides, even when the sensation remains purely representative, its external cause cannot exceed a certain degree of strength or weakness without inciting us to movements which enable us to measure it. Sometimes indeed we have to make an effort to perceive this sensation, as if it were trying to escape notice; sometimes on the other hand it obsesses us, forces itself upon us and engrosses us to such an extent that we make every effort to escape from it and to remain ourselves. In the former case the sensation is said to be of slight intensity, and in the latter case very intense. Thus, in order to perceive a distant sound, to distinguish what we call a faint smell or a dim light, we strain all our faculties, we "pay attention." And it is just because the smell and the light thus require to be reinforced by our efforts that they seem to us feeble. And, inversely, we recognize a sensation of extreme intensity by the irresistible reflex movements to which it incites us, or by the powerlessness with which it affects us. When a cannon is fired off close to our ears or a dazzling light suddenly flares up, we lose for an instant the consciousness of our personality; this state may even last some time in the case of a very nervous subject. It must be added that, even within the range of the so-called medium intensities, when we are dealing on even terms with a representative sensation, we often estimate its importance by comparing it with another which it drives away, or by taking account of the persistence with which it returns. Thus the ticking of a watch seems louder at night because it easily monopolizes a consciousness almost empty of sensations and ideas. Foreigners talking to one another in a language which we do not understand seem to us to speak very loudly, because their words no longer call up any ideas in our mind, and thus break in upon a kind of intellectual silence and monopolize our attention like the ticking of a watch at night. With these so-called medium sensations, however, we approach a series of psychic states, the intensity of which is likely to possess a new meaning. For, in most cases, the organism hardly reacts at all, at least in a way that can be perceived; and yet we still make a magnitude out of the pitch of a sound, the intensity of a light, the saturation of a colour. Doubtless, a closer observation of what takes place in the whole of the organism when we hear such and such a note or perceive such and such a colour has more than one surprise in store for us. Has not C. Féré shown that every sensation is accompanied by an increase in muscular force which can be measured by the dynamometer?[16] But of an increase of this kind there is hardly any consciousness at all, and if we reflect on the precision with which we distinguish sounds and colours, nay, even weights and temperatures, we shall easily guess that some new element must come into play in our estimate of them.
The purely representative sensations are measured by external causes.
Now, the nature of this element is easy to determine. For, in proportion as a sensation loses its affective character and becomes representative, the reactions which it called forth on our part tend to disappear, but at the same time we perceive the external object which is its cause, or if we do not now perceive it, we have perceived it, and we think of it. Now, this cause is extensive and therefore measurable: a constant experience, which began with the first glimmerings of consciousness and which continues throughout the whole of our life, shows us a definite shade of sensation corresponding to a definite amount of stimulation. We thus associate the idea of a certain quantity of cause with a certain quality of effect; and finally, as happens in the case of every acquired perception, we transfer the idea into the sensation, the quantity of the cause into the quality of the effect. At this very moment the intensity, which was nothing but a certain shade or quality of the sensation, becomes a magnitude. We shall easily understand this process if, for example, we hold a pin in our right hand and prick our left hand more and more deeply. At first we shall feel as it were a tickling, then a touch which is succeeded by a prick, then a pain localized at a point, and finally the spreading of this pain over the surrounding zone. And the more we reflect on it, the more clearly shall we see that we are here dealing with so many qualitatively distinct sensations, so many varieties of a single species. But yet we spoke at first of one and the same sensation which spread further and further, of one prick which increased in intensity. The reason is that, without noticing it, we localized in the sensation of the left hand, which is pricked, the progressive effort of the right hand, which pricks. We thus introduced the cause into the effect, and unconsciously interpreted quality as quantity, intensity as magnitude. Now, it is easy to see that the intensity of every representative sensation ought to be understood in the same way.
The sensations of sound. Intensity measured by effort necessary to produce a similar sound.
The sensations of sound display well marked degrees of intensity. We have already spoken of the necessity of taking into account the affective character of these sensations, the shock received by the whole of the organism. We have shown that a very intense sound is one which engrosses our attention, which supplants all the others. But take away the shock, the well-marked vibration, which you sometimes feel in your head or even throughout your body: take away the clash which takes place between sounds heard simultaneously: what will be left except an indefinable quality of the sound which is heard? But this quality is immediately interpreted as quantity because you have obtained it yourself a thousand times, e.g. by striking some object and thus expending a definite quantity of effort. You know, too, how far you would have to raise your voice to produce a similar sound, and the idea of this effort immediately comes into your mind when you transform the intensity of the sound into a magnitude. Wundt[17] has drawn attention to the quite special connexions of vocal and auditory nervous filaments which are met with in the human brain. And has it not been said that to hear is to speak to oneself? Some neuropaths cannot be present at a conversation without moving their lips; this is only an exaggeration of what takes place in the case of every one of us. How will the expressive or rather suggestive power of music be explained, if not by admitting that we repeat to ourselves the sounds heard, so as to carry ourselves back into the psychic state out of which they emerged, an original state, which nothing will express, but which something may suggest, viz., the very motion and attitude which the sound imparts to our body?
Intensity and pitch. The part played by muscular effort.
Thus, when we speak of the intensity of a sound of medium force as a magnitude, we allude principally to the greater or less effort which we should have ourselves to expend in order to summon, by our own effort, the same auditory sensation.
Now, besides the intensity, we distinguish another characteristic property of the sound, its pitch. Are the differences in pitch, such as our ear perceives, quantitative differences? I grant that a sharper sound calls up the picture of a higher position in space. But does it follow from this that the notes of the scale, as auditory sensations, differ otherwise than in quality? Forget what you have learnt from physics, examine carefully your idea of a higher or lower note, and see whether you do not think simply of the greater or less effort which the tensor muscle of your vocal chords has to make in order to produce the note? As the effort by which your voice passes from one note to another is discontinuous, you picture to yourself these successive notes as points in space, to be reached by a series of sudden jumps, in each of which you cross an empty separating interval: this is why you establish intervals between the notes of the scale. Now, why is the line along which we dispose them vertical rather than horizontal, and why do we say that the sound ascends in some cases and descends in others? It must be remembered that the high notes seem to us to produce some sort of resonance in the head and the deep notes in the thorax: this perception, whether real or illusory, has undoubtedly had some effect in making us reckon the intervals vertically. But we must also notice that the greater the tension of the vocal chords in the chest voice, the greater is the surface of the body affected, if the singer is inexperienced; this is just the reason why the effort is felt by him as more intense. And as he breathes out the air upwards, he will attribute the same direction to the sound produced by the current of air; hence the sympathy of a larger part of the body with the vocal muscles will be represented by a movement upwards. We shall thus say that the note is higher because the body makes an effort as though to reach an object which is more elevated in space. In this way it became customary to assign a certain height to each note of the scale, and as soon as the physicist was able to define it by the number of vibrations in a given time to which it corresponds, we no longer hesitated to declare that our ear perceived differences of quantity directly. But the sound would remain a pure quality if we did not bring in the muscular effort which produces it or the vibrations which explain it.
The sensations of heat and cold. These soon become affective and are measured by reactions called forth.
The experiments of Blix, Goldscheider and Donaldson[18] have shown that the points on the surface of the body which feel cold are not the same as those which feel heat. Physiology is thus disposed to set up a distinction of nature, and not merely of degree, between the sensations of heat and cold. But psychological observation goes further, for close attention can easily discover specific differences between the different sensations of heat, as also between the sensations of cold. A more intense heat is really another kind of heat. We call it more intense because we have experienced this same change a thousand times when we approached nearer and nearer a source of heat, or when a growing surface of our body was affected by it. Besides, the sensations of heat and cold very quickly become affective and incite us to more or less marked reactions by which we measure their external cause: hence, we are inclined to set up similar quantitative differences among the sensations which correspond to lower intensities of the cause. But I shall not insist any further; every one must question himself carefully on this point, after making a clean sweep of everything which his past experience has taught him about the cause of his sensations and coming face to face with the sensations themselves. The result of this examination is likely to be as follows: it will be perceived that the magnitude of a representative sensation depends on the cause having been put into the effect, while the intensity of the affective element depends on the more or less important reactions which prolong the external stimulations and find their way into the sensation itself.
The sensation of pressure and weight measured by extent of organism affected.