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
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
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. 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
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
detaphysi^^
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. 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.
By choosing images as dissimilar as pos-
sible, we shall prevent any one of them
from usurping the place of the intuition it
is intended to call up, since it would then
be driven away at once by its rivals. By
providing that, in spite of their differences f
of aspect, they all require from the mindi
the same kind of attention, and in somei
sort the same degree of tension, we shall
gradually accustom consciousness to a par-
Metaphysics
Hcnlar and clearly-defined disposition — that
precisely which it must adopt in order to
appear to itself as it really is, without any
veil. But, then, consciouenefis must at
least consent to make the effort. For it
will have been shown nothing ; it will
simply have been placed in the attitude it
must take up in order to make the de-
sired effort, and so come by itself to the
intuition. Concepts on the contrary —
especially if they are simple — have the
disadvantage of being in reality symbols
substituted for the object they symbolize,
and demand no effort on our part. Ex-
amined closely, each of them, it would be
^Eteen, retains only that part of the object
^Khich is common to it and to others, and
^"fecpresBes, still more than the image does,
a comparison between the object and others'
w hich resemble it. But as the comparison
^8 made manifest a resemblance, as the
lemblance is a property of the object, and
(I a pi-operty has every appearance of being
Lparf of the object which possesses it, we
1 8 An Introduction to
easily persuade ourselves that by setting
concept beside concept we are reconstruct-
ing the whole of the object with its parts,
thus obtaining, so to speak, its intellectual
equivalenti'-'ni this way we believe that we
^ can form a faithful representation of dura-
j tion by setting in line the concepts of
\ unity, multiplicity, continuity, finite or in-
\\ finite divisibility, etc. There precisely is
\ the illusion. There also is the danger.
Just in so far as abstract ideas can render
service to analysis, that is, to the scientific
study of the object in its relations to other
objects, so far are they incapable of replac-
. ing intuition, that is, the metaphysical in-
vestigation of what is essential and unique
in the object. For on the one hand these
concepts, laid side by side, never actually
give us more than an artificial reconstruc-
tion of the object, of which they can only
' symbolize certain general, and, in a way, .
impersonal aspects; it is therefore useless
! to believe that with them we can seize a
reality of which they present to us the
Metaphysics 19
shadow alone. And, on the other hand,
besides the illusion there is also a very
serious danger. For the concept general-
izes at the same time as it abstracts. The
concept can only symbolize a particular
property by making it common to an in-
finity of things. It thei'cfore always more
or less deforms the property by the exten-
sion it gives to it. Replaced in the meta-
physical object to which it belongs, a
property coincides with the object, or at least
moulds itself on it, and adopts the same
outline. Extracted from the metaphysical
object, and presented in a concept, it grows
indefinitely larger, and goes beyond the
object itself, since henceforth it has to con-
tain it, along with a number of other objects.
Thus the different concepts that we form of
the properties of a thing inscribe round it
so many circles, each much too large and
none of them fitting it exactly. And yet,
in the thing itself the properties coincided
with the thing, and coincided consequently
with one another. So that if we are bent
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on reconstructing the object with concepts,
some artifice must be sought whereby this
coincidence of the object and its properties
can be brought about. For example, we
may choose one of the concepts and try,
starting from it, to get round to the others.
But we shall then soon discover that ac-
cording as we start from one concept or
another, the meeting and combination of
the concepts will take place in an altogether
different way. According as we start, for
example, from unity or from multiplicity,
we shall have to conceive differently the
multiple unity of duration. Everything
will depend on the weight we attribute to
this or that concept, and this weight will
always be arbitrary, since the concept ex-
tracted from the object has no weight, being
only the shadow of a body. In this way,
as many different systems will spring up
as there are external points of view from
which the reality can be examined, or larger
circles in which it can he enclosed. Himple
concepts have, then, not only the incon-
Metaphysics 21
venience of dividing the concrete unity of
the object into so many symbolical expres-
sions; they also divide philosophy into dis-
tinct schools, each of which takes its seat,
chooses its counters, and carries on with
the others a game that will never end.
Either metaB hJaica. is only this play of
ideas, or else, if it is a serious occupation
of the mind, if it is a science and not simply
an exercise, it must transcend concepts in
order to reach intuition. Certainly, con^/
cepts are necessary to it, for all the other
sciences work as a rule with concepts, and
metaphysics cannot dispense with the other
sciences. But it is only truly itself when
it goes beyond the concept, or at least when
it frees itself from rigid and ready-made
concepts in order to create a kind very dif-
ferent from those which we habitually use;
I mean supple, mobile, and almost fluid
representations, always ready to mould
themselves on the fleeting forms of intui-
tion. We shall return later to this import-
ant point. .Let it suffice us for the moment