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, October18, 1859. He entered the École normale in1878, and was admitted agrégé de philosophiein 1881 and docteur ès lettres in 1889. Afterholding professorships in various provincial andParisian lycées, he became maître de conférencesat the École normale supérieure in 1897, andsince 1900 has been professor at the Collège deFrance. In 1901 he became a member of theInstitute on his election to the Académie desSciences morales et politiques.
A full list of Professor Bergson's works is givenin the appended bibliography. In making thefollowing translation of his Essai sur les donnéesimmédiates de la conscience I have had the greatadvantage of his co-operation at every stage,and the aid which he has given has been mostgenerous and untiring. The book itself wasworked out and written during the years 1883to 1887 and was originally published in 1889.The foot-notes in the French edition contain acertain number of references to French translationsof English works. In the present translationI am responsible for citing these referencesfrom the original English. This will account[Pg vi]for the fact that editions are sometimes referredto which have appeared subsequently to 1889.I have also added fairly extensive marginalsummaries and a full index.
In France the Essai is already in its seventhedition. Indeed, one of the most striking factsabout Professor Bergson's works is the extentto which they have appealed not only to theprofessional philosophers, but also to the ordinarycultivated public. The method which he pursuesis not the conceptual and abstract method whichhas been the dominant tradition in philosophy.For him reality is not to be reached by anyelaborate construction of thought: it is givenin immediate experience as a flux, a continuousprocess of becoming, to be grasped by intuition,by sympathetic insight. Concepts break up thecontinuous flow of reality into parts external toone another, they further the interests of languageand social life and are useful primarily for practicalpurposes. But they give us nothing of thelife and movement of reality; rather, by substitutingfor this an artificial reconstruction, apatchwork of dead fragments, they lead to thedifficulties which have always beset the intellectualistphilosophy, and which on its premisesare insoluble. Instead of attempting a solutionin the intellectualist sense, Professor Bergsoncalls upon his readers to put these broken fragmentsof reality behind them, to immerse themselvesin the living stream of things and to[Pg vii]