An Introduction to
preformed and even preformulated in
ture, as Aristotle believed; great discov-
eries, then, serve only to illuminate, point
Iiy point, the already drawn line of this
logio, immanent in things, just as on the
night of a f^te we light tip one by one the
rows of gas-jets which already outline
the shape of some building. And if meta-
physical knowledge is really what Kant
supposed, it is reduced to a choice between
two attitudes of the mind before all the
great problems, both equally possible ; its
manifestations are so many arbitrary and
always ephemeral choices between two solu-
tions, virtually formulated from all eter-
iiity ; it lives and dies by antinomies. But
the truth is that rai>dern science does not
present this unilinear simplicity, nor di
modern metaphysics present these ii
ducible oppositions.
Modern science is neither one nor simple.
It rests, I freely admit, on ideas which in
the end we find clear; but these idea,8 have
gradually become clear through the use
not inle. I
Metaphysics 87
made of them ; they owe most of their clear-
ness to the light which the facts, and the
applications to which they led, have by
reflection shed on them — the clearness of a
concept being scarcely anything more at
bottom than the certainty, at last obtained,
of manipulating the concept profitably. At
its origin, more than one of these concepts
must have appeared obscure, not easily
reconcilable with the concepts already ad-
mitted into science, and indeed very near
the border-line of absurdity. This means
that science does not proceed by an orderly
dovetailing together of concepts predestined
to fit each other exactly. True and fruitful
ideas are so many close contacts with cur-
rents of reality, which do not necessarily
converge on the same point. However, the
concepts in which they lodge themselves
manage somehow, by rubbing off each other's
comers, to settle down well enough together.
On the other hand, modem metaphysics
is not made up of solutions so radical that
they can culminate in irreducible oppo-
An Introduction to
sitions. It would be so, no doubt, if the
were no means of accepting at the i
time and on the same level the thesis i
the antithesis of the antinomies. Bnf '
philosophy consists precisely in this, that
by an effort of intuition one places oneself
within that concrete reality, of which l
Critique takes from without the two <
posed views, thesis and antithesis, 1 con]
never imagine how black and white inti
penetrate if I had never seen gray ; bot I
once I have seen gray I easily understand
how it can be considered from two points
of view, that of white and that of black.
Doctrines which have a certain basis of in-
tuition escape the Kantian criticism ex-
actly in so far as they are intuitive; and
these doctrines are the whole of meta-
physics, provided we ignore the metaphysics
which is fixed and dead in tkeaea^ and con-
sider only that which is living in philoao-A
pkera. The divergencies between the school!
— that is, broadly speaking, between,
groups of disciples formed roond
Metaphysics 89
great masters — ^are certainly striking. But
would we find them as marked between the
masters themselves? Something here domi-
nates the diversity of systems, something,
we repeat, which is simple and definite like
a sounding, about which one feels that it has
touched at greater or less depth the bottom of
the same ocean, though each time it brings up
to the surface very different materials. It is
on these materials that the disciples usually
work; in this lies the function of analy-
sis. And the master, in so far as he formu-
lates, develops, and translates into abstract
ideas what he brings, is already in a way
his own disciple. JBut the simple act which N
started the analysis^ anid^^which gpficeals^^
itself behind the analxsiSj, .proceeds from aj
faculty quite differen t from the analytical. /
TfiiOs, By If 8 vei^r deflnitign^intiiS^ [
In conclusion, we may remark that there
is nothing mysterious in this faculty.
Every one of us has had occasion to ex-
ercise it to a certain extent. Any one of
us, for instance, who has attempted literary
90 An Introduction to
cMDpositiOD, kBows that wheQ the subjel
hag been stadied at length, the materials
all collected, and the notes all made, some-
thing more is needed in order to set about
the work of composition itself, and that is
an often very painfal effort to place our-
Belvea directly at the heart of the subject,
and to seek as deeply as possible an im-
pulse, after which we need only let our-
selveB go. This impulse, once received,
starts the mind on a path where it re-
discovers all the information it had col-
lected, and a thousand other details besides ;
it develops aud analyzes itticlf into terms
which could be enumerated indefinitely.
The farther we go, the more terms we dis-
cover; we shall never say all that could be
said, and yet, if we turn back suddenly
upon the impulse that we feel behind uSi^
and try to seize it, it is gone; for it ^s&.
[not a thing, but the direction of a move-
ment, and though indefinitely extensible»_it
, is infinitely simple. Metaphysical inti
ition seems to be something of the i
Metaphysics 91
kind. What corresponds here to the docu-
ments and notes of literary composition is
the sum of observations and experiences,
gathered together by positive science. For ,
we do not obtain an intuition from reality
— that is, an intellectual sympathy with the
most intimate part of it — unless we have'
won its confidence by a long fellowship/ j
\idth its superficial manifestations. And it
is not merely a question of assimilating the
most conspicuous facts ; so immense a mass
of facts must be accumulated and fused to-
gether, that in this fusion all the precon-
ceived and premature ideas which observers
may unwittingly have put into their ob-
servations will be certain to neutralize each
other. In this way only can the bare ma-
teriality of the known facts be exposed to
view. Even in the simple and privileged
case which we have used as an example,
even for the direct contact of the self with
the self, the final effort of distinct intu-
ition would be impossible to any one who
had not combined and compared with each
^3 An Introduction to Metaphysics
other a very large number of psychological
analyses. The masters of modem phili
phy were men who had assimilated
the scientific knowledge of their time,
the partial eclipse of metaphysics for the
last half-century has evidently no other
cause than the extraordinary difBcull
which the philosopher finds to-day in gel
ting into touch with positive science, which
has become far too specialized. But meta-
physical intuition, although it can be ob-
tained only through material knowledge,
quite other than the mere summary or syn-
thesis of that knowledge. It is distin<
from these, we repeat, as the motor im-
pulse is distinct from the path traversed by
the moving body, as the tension of the
spring is distinct from the visible move-
ments of the pendulum. In this sense
I metaphysics has nothing in common with
i a generalization of facts, and nevertheless
i it might be defined as integral experience.
jgical ^1
iloBO^^I
3 ali^B
, and ^^\
the
her J
lich I
ta-
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is
■n. I
by n
Thb End
Ajjr 7 - 1916
M Selection from the Catalogue of
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