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1e, confine themfielves to the visible form of living beings, their organs and anatomical elements. They make comparisons between these forms, they i-educe the more complex Metaphysics 9 to the more simple; in short, they study the workings of life in what is, so to speak, only its visual symbol. If there exists any means of possessing a reality absolutely in- stead of knowing it relatively, of placing oneself within it instead of looking at it from outside points of view, of having the intuition instead of making the analysis: in short, of seizing it without any expres- sion, translation, or symbolic representation — metaphysics is that means. Metaphysics^ theriy is the science which claims to dispense with symbols. There is one reality, at least, which we \ all seize from within, by intuition and not by simple analysis. It is our own person- | / ality in its flowing through time — our self' which endures. We may sympathize in- tellectually with nothing else, but we certainly sympathize with our own selves. When I direct my attention inward to contemplate my own self (supposed for the / J » 10 An Introduction to moment to be inactive), I perceive at first, a» a crust solidified on the surface, all the perceptions which come to it from the material world. These perceptions are clear. distinct, juxtaposed or jiistaposable one with another; they tend to group them- selves into objects. Next, I notice the memories which more or less adhere to these perceptions and which serve to in- terpret them. These memories have been detached, as it were, from the depth of my jKjrsonality, drawn to the surface by the perceptions which I'esemble them ; they rest on the surface of my mind without being absolutely myself. I-astly, I feel the stir of tendencies and motor habits — a crowd of virtual actions, more or less firmly bound to these perceptions and memories. ' All these clearly defined elements appear more distinct from me, the more distinct they are from each other. Radiating, as they do, from within outwards, they form, col- lectively, the surface of a sphere which tends to grow larger and lose itself in the A J Metaphysics 1 1 exterior world. But if I draw myself in 1 from the periphery towards the centre, if I i search in the depth of my being that which is most uniformly, most constantly, and j most enduringly myself, I find an altogether different thing. There is, beneath these sharply cut crys- tals and this frozen surface, a continuous flux which is not comparable to any flux I^v, have ever seen. There is a succession of states, each of which announces that which follows and contains that which precedes it. They can, properly speaking, only be said to form multiple states when I have already passed them and turn back to ob- serve their track.
2s not comparable to any flux I^v, have ever seen. There is a succession of states, each of which announces that which follows and contains that which precedes it. They can, properly speaking, only be said to form multiple states when I have already passed them and turn back to ob- serve their track. Whilst I was experien- cing them they were so solidly organized, so profoundly animated with a common life, that I could not have said where any one of them finished or where another com- menced. In reality no one of them begins or ends, but all extend into each other. -f This inner life may be compared to the /^ unrolling of a coil, for there is no living 12 An Introduction to being who does not feeT Limself gradually to the end of his rdle; and to live is to grow old. But it may just as well be compared to a continual rolling np, like that of a thread on a ball, for our past follows us, it swells incessantly with the, present that it picks up on ils way; ai consciousness means memory. But actually it is neither an unrolling nor a rolling up, for these two similes evoke the idea of lines and surfaces whose parts are homogeneous and superposable on one another? Now, there are no two ideutical ■ moments in the life of the same conscious being. Take the simplest sensation, sup- pose it constant, absorb in it the entire personality: the consciousness which will accompany this sensation cannot remain identical with itself for two consecutive momenta, because the second moment al- ways contains, over and above the first, the memory that the first has bequeathed to it. A consciousueas which could experience two identical moments would be a consciousness the 1 J detaphysi^^ 13 it. without memory. It would die and be bom again continually. In what other way could one represent unconsciousness? It would be better, then, to use as a \w.J comparison the myriad-tinted spectrum, / 1 with its insensible gradations leading from/ ' one shade to another. A current of feeling which passed along the spectrum, asnuming in turn the tint of each of its shades, would experience a aeries of gradual changes, each of which would announce the one to follow and would sum up those which preceded Yet even here the successive shades of le spectrum always remain external one another. They are juxtaposed ; they occupy space. But pure duration, on the contrary, excludes all idea of juxtaposition, |. liprocal externality, and extension. ' Let us, then, rather, imagine an infinitely \ I lall elastic body, contracted, if it were ^ J is&ible, to a mathematical point. Ijet this drawn out gradually in such a manner ihat from the point comes a constantly lengthening line. Let us fix our attention 14 An Introduction to not on the line as a line, but on the action by which it is traced.
3lastic body, contracted, if it were ^ J is&ible, to a mathematical point. Ijet this drawn out gradually in such a manner ihat from the point comes a constantly lengthening line. Let us fix our attention 14 An Introduction to not on the line as a line, but on the action by which it is traced. Let us bear in mind that this action, in spite of its duration, is indivisible if accomplished with- out stopping, that if a stopping-point is in- serted, we have two actions instead of one, that each of these separate actions is then the indivisible operation of which we speak, and that it is not the moving action itself which is divisible, but, rather, the station- ary line it leaves behind it as its track in space. Finally, let us free ourselves from the space which underlies the movement in order to consider only the movement itself, the act of tension or extension; in short, pure mobility. We shall have this time a more faithful image of the development of our self in duration. ^ However, even this image is incomplete, and, indeed, every comparison will be in- . sufficient, because the unrolling of our / duration resembles in some of its aspects \ the unity of an advancing movement and \in others the multiplicity of expanding Metaphysics 15 states; and, clearly, no metaphor can ex- ^ press one of these two aspects without sacrificing the other. If I use the com- parison of the spectrum with its thousand shades, I have before me a thing already made, whilst duration is continually in the \ making. If I think of an elastic which is being stretched, or of a spring which is extended or relaxed, I forget the richness of color, characteristic of duration that is lived, to see only the simple movement by which consciousness passes from one shade to another. The inner life is all this „ at once: variety of qualities, continuity of progress, and unity of direction. It cannot be represented by images. But it is even less possible to represent. \ it by concepts^ that is by abstract, general, / or simple ideas. It is true that no image can reproduce exactly the original feeling I have of the flow of my own conscious life. But it is not even necessary that I should attempt to render it. If a man is incapable of getting for himself the intuition of the An Introduction to constitutive duration of his own being, nothing will ever give it to him, concepts po more than images. Here the single aim /of the philosopher should be to promote a t certain effort, which in most men is usually \ fettered by habits of mind more useful to 'ilife. Now the image has at least this ad- Wantage, that it keeps us in the concrete. i>Io image can replace the intuition of dura- tion, Tjut many diverse images, borrowed from very different orders of things, may, by the convergence of their action, direct, consciousness to the precise point where there is a certain intuition to be seized.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1e, confine themfielves to the visible form of living beings, their organs and anatomical elements. They make comparisons between these forms, they i-educe the more complex Metaphysics 9 to the more simple; in short, they study the workings of life in what is, so to speak, only its visual symbol. If there exists any means of possessing a reality absolutely in- stead of knowing it relatively, of placing oneself within it instead of looking at it from outside points of view, of having the intuition instead of making the analysis: in short, of seizing it without any expres- sion, translation, or symbolic representation — metaphysics is that means. Metaphysics^ theriy is the science which claims to dispense with symbols. There is one reality, at least, which we \ all seize from within, by intuition and not by simple analysis. It is our own person- | / ality in its flowing through time — our self' which endures. We may sympathize in- tellectually with nothing else, but we certainly sympathize with our own selves. When I direct my attention inward to contemplate my own self (supposed for the / J » 10 An Introduction to moment to be inactive), I perceive at first, a» a crust solidified on the surface, all the perceptions which come to it from the material world. These perceptions are clear. distinct, juxtaposed or jiistaposable one with another; they tend to group them- selves into objects. Next, I notice the memories which more or less adhere to these perceptions and which serve to in- terpret them. These memories have been detached, as it were, from the depth of my jKjrsonality, drawn to the surface by the perceptions which I'esemble them ; they rest on the surface of my mind without being absolutely myself. I-astly, I feel the stir of tendencies and motor habits — a crowd of virtual actions, more or less firmly bound to these perceptions and memories. ' All these clearly defined elements appear more distinct from me, the more distinct they are from each other. Radiating, as they do, from within outwards, they form, col- lectively, the surface of a sphere which tends to grow larger and lose itself in the A J Metaphysics 1 1 exterior world. But if I draw myself in 1 from the periphery towards the centre, if I i search in the depth of my being that which is most uniformly, most constantly, and j most enduringly myself, I find an altogether different thing. There is, beneath these sharply cut crys- tals and this frozen surface, a continuous flux which is not comparable to any flux I^v, have ever seen. There is a succession of states, each of which announces that which follows and contains that which precedes it. They can, properly speaking, only be said to form multiple states when I have already passed them and turn back to ob- serve their track.
2s not comparable to any flux I^v, have ever seen. There is a succession of states, each of which announces that which follows and contains that which precedes it. They can, properly speaking, only be said to form multiple states when I have already passed them and turn back to ob- serve their track. Whilst I was experien- cing them they were so solidly organized, so profoundly animated with a common life, that I could not have said where any one of them finished or where another com- menced. In reality no one of them begins or ends, but all extend into each other. -f This inner life may be compared to the /^ unrolling of a coil, for there is no living 12 An Introduction to being who does not feeT Limself gradually to the end of his rdle; and to live is to grow old. But it may just as well be compared to a continual rolling np, like that of a thread on a ball, for our past follows us, it swells incessantly with the, present that it picks up on ils way; ai consciousness means memory. But actually it is neither an unrolling nor a rolling up, for these two similes evoke the idea of lines and surfaces whose parts are homogeneous and superposable on one another? Now, there are no two ideutical ■ moments in the life of the same conscious being. Take the simplest sensation, sup- pose it constant, absorb in it the entire personality: the consciousness which will accompany this sensation cannot remain identical with itself for two consecutive momenta, because the second moment al- ways contains, over and above the first, the memory that the first has bequeathed to it. A consciousueas which could experience two identical moments would be a consciousness the 1 J detaphysi^^ 13 it. without memory. It would die and be bom again continually. In what other way could one represent unconsciousness? It would be better, then, to use as a \w.J comparison the myriad-tinted spectrum, / 1 with its insensible gradations leading from/ ' one shade to another. A current of feeling which passed along the spectrum, asnuming in turn the tint of each of its shades, would experience a aeries of gradual changes, each of which would announce the one to follow and would sum up those which preceded Yet even here the successive shades of le spectrum always remain external one another. They are juxtaposed ; they occupy space. But pure duration, on the contrary, excludes all idea of juxtaposition, |. liprocal externality, and extension. ' Let us, then, rather, imagine an infinitely \ I lall elastic body, contracted, if it were ^ J is&ible, to a mathematical point. Ijet this drawn out gradually in such a manner ihat from the point comes a constantly lengthening line. Let us fix our attention 14 An Introduction to not on the line as a line, but on the action by which it is traced.
3lastic body, contracted, if it were ^ J is&ible, to a mathematical point. Ijet this drawn out gradually in such a manner ihat from the point comes a constantly lengthening line. Let us fix our attention 14 An Introduction to not on the line as a line, but on the action by which it is traced. Let us bear in mind that this action, in spite of its duration, is indivisible if accomplished with- out stopping, that if a stopping-point is in- serted, we have two actions instead of one, that each of these separate actions is then the indivisible operation of which we speak, and that it is not the moving action itself which is divisible, but, rather, the station- ary line it leaves behind it as its track in space. Finally, let us free ourselves from the space which underlies the movement in order to consider only the movement itself, the act of tension or extension; in short, pure mobility. We shall have this time a more faithful image of the development of our self in duration. ^ However, even this image is incomplete, and, indeed, every comparison will be in- . sufficient, because the unrolling of our / duration resembles in some of its aspects \ the unity of an advancing movement and \in others the multiplicity of expanding Metaphysics 15 states; and, clearly, no metaphor can ex- ^ press one of these two aspects without sacrificing the other. If I use the com- parison of the spectrum with its thousand shades, I have before me a thing already made, whilst duration is continually in the \ making. If I think of an elastic which is being stretched, or of a spring which is extended or relaxed, I forget the richness of color, characteristic of duration that is lived, to see only the simple movement by which consciousness passes from one shade to another. The inner life is all this „ at once: variety of qualities, continuity of progress, and unity of direction. It cannot be represented by images. But it is even less possible to represent. \ it by concepts^ that is by abstract, general, / or simple ideas. It is true that no image can reproduce exactly the original feeling I have of the flow of my own conscious life. But it is not even necessary that I should attempt to render it. If a man is incapable of getting for himself the intuition of the An Introduction to constitutive duration of his own being, nothing will ever give it to him, concepts po more than images. Here the single aim /of the philosopher should be to promote a t certain effort, which in most men is usually \ fettered by habits of mind more useful to 'ilife. Now the image has at least this ad- Wantage, that it keeps us in the concrete. i>Io image can replace the intuition of dura- tion, Tjut many diverse images, borrowed from very different orders of things, may, by the convergence of their action, direct, consciousness to the precise point where there is a certain intuition to be seized.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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