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1in psychology, Taine and Stuart Mill, for example. Psy- chologists in the method they apply, they have remained metaphysicians in the object they set before themselves. They desire an intuition, and by a strange inconsistency ) they seek this intuition in analysis, which/ is the very negation of it. "I They look for' the ego, and they claim to find it in psy- chical states, though this diversity of states has itself only been obtained, and could only be obtained, by transporting oneself outside the ego altogether, so as to make a series of sketches, notes, and more or less symbolic and schematic diagrams. Thus, however much they place the states side by side, 32 \n Introduction to mijltiplying points of contact and exploring the intervals, the ego always escapes them, so that they finish by seeing in it nothing bnt a vain phantom. We might as well deny that the Iliad had a meaning, on the ground that we had looked in vain for that meaning in the intervals between the letters jof which it is composed. ;' Philosophical empiricism is born here, jthen, of a confusion between the point of , /view of intuition and that of analysis. Seeldng for the original in the translation, where naturally it cannot be, it denies the existence of the original on the ground that it is not found in the translation. It leada of necessity to negations ; but on examining the matter closely, we perceive that these negations simply mean that analysis is not intuition, which is self-evident. From the original, and, one must add, very indistinct intuition which gives positive science its material, science passes immediately to analysis, which multiplies to infinity its observations of this material from outside Metaphysics 33 points of view. It soon comes to believe that by putting together all these diagrams it can reconstitute the object itself. No wonder, then, that it sees this object fly be- fore it, like a child that would like to make a solid plaything out of the shadows out- lined along the wall! But rationalism is the dupe of the same illusion. It starts out from the same con- fusion as empiricism, and remains equally powerless to reach the inner self. Like empiricism, it considers psychical states as so many fragments detached from an egoi that hinds them together. Like empiricism, it tries to join these fragments together in ■order to re-create the unity of the self. Kke empiricism, finally, it sees this unity Bf the self, in the continually renewed effort It makes to clasp it, steal away indefinitely pke a phantom. But whilst empiricism,; ■freary of the struggle, ends by declaring) that there ia nothing else but the multi-( plicity of psychical states, rationalism per-) 3tB in affirming the "unity of the person.^ 34 An Introduction to It is true that, seeking this unity on the level of the psychical states themselves, and obliged, besides, to put down to the account of these states all the qualities and deter- minations that it finds by
2tates, rationalism per-) 3tB in affirming the "unity of the person.^ 34 An Introduction to It is true that, seeking this unity on the level of the psychical states themselves, and obliged, besides, to put down to the account of these states all the qualities and deter- minations that it finds by analysis (since analysis by its very definition leads always to states ) , nothing is left to it, for the unity of personality, but something purely nega- tive, the absence of all determination. The psychical states having necessarily in this analysis taken and kept for themselves everything that can serve as matter, the ; " unity of the ego " can never be more than a form without content. It will be abso- lutely indeterminate and absolutely void. To these detached psychical states, to these shadows of the ego, the sum of which was for the empiricists the equivalent of the self, rationalism, in order to reconstitute personality, adds something still more un- real, the void in which these shadows move — a place for shadows, one might say. How could this " form," which is,4tf truth form- less, serve to characterize a living, active, Metaphysics 35 concrete personality, op to distinguish Peter from Paul? Is it astonishing that the philosophers who have isolated this " form " of personality should, then, find it insuf- ficient to characterize a definite person, and that they should be gradually led to make their empty ego a kind of bottomless re- ceptacle, which belongs no more to Peter than to Paul, and in which there is room, according to our preference, for entire hu- manity, for God, or for existence in general? I see in this matter only one difference '^^ between empiricism and rationalism. The former, seeking the unity of the ego in the gaps, as it were, between the psychi- cal states, is led to fill the gaps with other states, and so on indefinitely, so that the ego, compressed in a constantly narrowing interval, tends towards zero, as analysis is pushed farther and farther; whilst rationalism, making the ego the place where mental states are lodged, is confronted with an empty space which we have no rea- son to limit here rather than there, which '*• / 36 An Introduction to goes beyond each of the successive bou! daries that we try to assign to it, which constantly grows larger, and which tends to lose itself no longer in zero, but in the infinite. The distance, then, between a so-called " empiriciam " like that of Taine and the most transcendental speculations of certain German pantheists is very much less than is generally supposed. The method is analo- gous in both cases; it consists in reason- ing about the elements of a translation as , y if they were parts of the original.
3led " empiriciam " like that of Taine and the most transcendental speculations of certain German pantheists is very much less than is generally supposed. The method is analo- gous in both cases; it consists in reason- ing about the elements of a translation as , y if they were parts of the original. But a true empiricism is that which proposes to get as near to the original itself as pos- sible, to search deeply into its life, and so, I by a kind of intellectual auscultation, to feel the throbbinga of its soul; and this tnie empiricism is the true metaphysics. It is true that the task is an extremely diffi- cult one, for none of the ready-made concep- tions which thought employs in its daily operations can be of any use. Nothing is mure easy than to aay that the ego is multi- Metaphysics 37 Iplieity, or that it is unity, or that it is tlie byntheslB of both. Unity and multiplicity iare liere representations that we have no need to cut out on tlie model of the object ; they are found i-eady-made, and have only I to be chosen from a heap. Thoy are stock- l.flize clothes which do just as well for Peter [ as for Paul, for they set ofE the form of neither. But an empiricism worthy of the name, an empiriciBm which works only to I measure, is obliged for each new object that it studies to make an absolutely fresh effort. It cuts out for the object a concept which ■ IB appropriate to that object alone, a con- Pcept which can as yet hardly be called a concept, since it applies to this one thing. It does not proceed by combining current ideas like unity and multiplicity; hut it leads us, on the contrary, to a simple, unique representation, which, however once vformed, enables us to understand easily how pt is that we can place it in the frames fcnity, multiplicity, etc., all much larger an itself. In short, philosophy thus de-^ An Introduction to fined does not consist in the choice of cer-J tain concepts, and in taking sides with i Bchool, but in the search for a unique intui- 1 tion from which we can descend with equal-l ease to different concepts, because we arftl placed above the divisions of the school8.'J ,/ That personality has unity cannot be c ^ nied; but such an affirmation teaches cm nothing about the extraordinary nature o^ I the particular unity presented by per8on,4 ' ality. That our self is multiple I i agree, but then it must be understood 1 it is a multiplicity which has nothing ' common with any other multiplicity. Whi is really important for philosophy is tori know exactly what unity, what multiplicity, and what reality superior both to abstract unity and multiplicity the multiple unity of the self actually is. Now philosopl^ will know this only when it recovers poi session of the simple intuition of the 8ell| ■ by the self.
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.
1in psychology, Taine and Stuart Mill, for example. Psy- chologists in the method they apply, they have remained metaphysicians in the object they set before themselves. They desire an intuition, and by a strange inconsistency ) they seek this intuition in analysis, which/ is the very negation of it. "I They look for' the ego, and they claim to find it in psy- chical states, though this diversity of states has itself only been obtained, and could only be obtained, by transporting oneself outside the ego altogether, so as to make a series of sketches, notes, and more or less symbolic and schematic diagrams. Thus, however much they place the states side by side, 32 \n Introduction to mijltiplying points of contact and exploring the intervals, the ego always escapes them, so that they finish by seeing in it nothing bnt a vain phantom. We might as well deny that the Iliad had a meaning, on the ground that we had looked in vain for that meaning in the intervals between the letters jof which it is composed. ;' Philosophical empiricism is born here, jthen, of a confusion between the point of , /view of intuition and that of analysis. Seeldng for the original in the translation, where naturally it cannot be, it denies the existence of the original on the ground that it is not found in the translation. It leada of necessity to negations ; but on examining the matter closely, we perceive that these negations simply mean that analysis is not intuition, which is self-evident. From the original, and, one must add, very indistinct intuition which gives positive science its material, science passes immediately to analysis, which multiplies to infinity its observations of this material from outside Metaphysics 33 points of view. It soon comes to believe that by putting together all these diagrams it can reconstitute the object itself. No wonder, then, that it sees this object fly be- fore it, like a child that would like to make a solid plaything out of the shadows out- lined along the wall! But rationalism is the dupe of the same illusion. It starts out from the same con- fusion as empiricism, and remains equally powerless to reach the inner self. Like empiricism, it considers psychical states as so many fragments detached from an egoi that hinds them together. Like empiricism, it tries to join these fragments together in ■order to re-create the unity of the self. Kke empiricism, finally, it sees this unity Bf the self, in the continually renewed effort It makes to clasp it, steal away indefinitely pke a phantom. But whilst empiricism,; ■freary of the struggle, ends by declaring) that there ia nothing else but the multi-( plicity of psychical states, rationalism per-) 3tB in affirming the "unity of the person.^ 34 An Introduction to It is true that, seeking this unity on the level of the psychical states themselves, and obliged, besides, to put down to the account of these states all the qualities and deter- minations that it finds by
2tates, rationalism per-) 3tB in affirming the "unity of the person.^ 34 An Introduction to It is true that, seeking this unity on the level of the psychical states themselves, and obliged, besides, to put down to the account of these states all the qualities and deter- minations that it finds by analysis (since analysis by its very definition leads always to states ) , nothing is left to it, for the unity of personality, but something purely nega- tive, the absence of all determination. The psychical states having necessarily in this analysis taken and kept for themselves everything that can serve as matter, the ; " unity of the ego " can never be more than a form without content. It will be abso- lutely indeterminate and absolutely void. To these detached psychical states, to these shadows of the ego, the sum of which was for the empiricists the equivalent of the self, rationalism, in order to reconstitute personality, adds something still more un- real, the void in which these shadows move — a place for shadows, one might say. How could this " form," which is,4tf truth form- less, serve to characterize a living, active, Metaphysics 35 concrete personality, op to distinguish Peter from Paul? Is it astonishing that the philosophers who have isolated this " form " of personality should, then, find it insuf- ficient to characterize a definite person, and that they should be gradually led to make their empty ego a kind of bottomless re- ceptacle, which belongs no more to Peter than to Paul, and in which there is room, according to our preference, for entire hu- manity, for God, or for existence in general? I see in this matter only one difference '^^ between empiricism and rationalism. The former, seeking the unity of the ego in the gaps, as it were, between the psychi- cal states, is led to fill the gaps with other states, and so on indefinitely, so that the ego, compressed in a constantly narrowing interval, tends towards zero, as analysis is pushed farther and farther; whilst rationalism, making the ego the place where mental states are lodged, is confronted with an empty space which we have no rea- son to limit here rather than there, which '*• / 36 An Introduction to goes beyond each of the successive bou! daries that we try to assign to it, which constantly grows larger, and which tends to lose itself no longer in zero, but in the infinite. The distance, then, between a so-called " empiriciam " like that of Taine and the most transcendental speculations of certain German pantheists is very much less than is generally supposed. The method is analo- gous in both cases; it consists in reason- ing about the elements of a translation as , y if they were parts of the original.
3led " empiriciam " like that of Taine and the most transcendental speculations of certain German pantheists is very much less than is generally supposed. The method is analo- gous in both cases; it consists in reason- ing about the elements of a translation as , y if they were parts of the original. But a true empiricism is that which proposes to get as near to the original itself as pos- sible, to search deeply into its life, and so, I by a kind of intellectual auscultation, to feel the throbbinga of its soul; and this tnie empiricism is the true metaphysics. It is true that the task is an extremely diffi- cult one, for none of the ready-made concep- tions which thought employs in its daily operations can be of any use. Nothing is mure easy than to aay that the ego is multi- Metaphysics 37 Iplieity, or that it is unity, or that it is tlie byntheslB of both. Unity and multiplicity iare liere representations that we have no need to cut out on tlie model of the object ; they are found i-eady-made, and have only I to be chosen from a heap. Thoy are stock- l.flize clothes which do just as well for Peter [ as for Paul, for they set ofE the form of neither. But an empiricism worthy of the name, an empiriciBm which works only to I measure, is obliged for each new object that it studies to make an absolutely fresh effort. It cuts out for the object a concept which ■ IB appropriate to that object alone, a con- Pcept which can as yet hardly be called a concept, since it applies to this one thing. It does not proceed by combining current ideas like unity and multiplicity; hut it leads us, on the contrary, to a simple, unique representation, which, however once vformed, enables us to understand easily how pt is that we can place it in the frames fcnity, multiplicity, etc., all much larger an itself. In short, philosophy thus de-^ An Introduction to fined does not consist in the choice of cer-J tain concepts, and in taking sides with i Bchool, but in the search for a unique intui- 1 tion from which we can descend with equal-l ease to different concepts, because we arftl placed above the divisions of the school8.'J ,/ That personality has unity cannot be c ^ nied; but such an affirmation teaches cm nothing about the extraordinary nature o^ I the particular unity presented by per8on,4 ' ality. That our self is multiple I i agree, but then it must be understood 1 it is a multiplicity which has nothing ' common with any other multiplicity. Whi is really important for philosophy is tori know exactly what unity, what multiplicity, and what reality superior both to abstract unity and multiplicity the multiple unity of the self actually is. Now philosopl^ will know this only when it recovers poi session of the simple intuition of the 8ell| ■ by the self.
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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