MIND - ENERGY LECTURES AND ESSAYS HENRI BERG: SON TRANSLATED BY H. WILDON CARR G PD GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut * LondonCopyright © 1920 by Henry Holt and Company Al rights reserved. No portion ofthis book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. ISBN: 0-8371-7931-9 Reprinted in 1975 by Greenwood Press ‘An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 www. greenwood.com Printed inthe United States of America ‘The paper used in thi Permanent Paper Information Stan 100k complies with the nda issued by the National rds Organization (239.48-1984), 109876543 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE Tams volume of Lectures and Essays is an English edition of L’Energie spirituelle. It is not simply an approved and authorized translation, for M. Bergson ‘has gone carefully with me into details of meaning and expression in order to give it the same authority as the original French, The separate articles here collected and selected are, partly lectures in exposition of philosophical theory, partly detailed psychological investigation and metaphysical research. The publication of the vol- ume was in preparation when the war broke out and interrupted the work. The principle on which the articles are selected is indicated in the title, Mind- Energy. They are chosen by M. Bergson with the view of illustrating his concept that reality is fundamentally a spiritual activity. A second series is to follow illustrating his theory of philosophic method. The subject title, Mind-Energy, will recall the title, MindStuff, which W. K. Clifford in a lecture many years ago employed to denote a new theory of consciousness. Since that day a change almost amount- ing to a revolution has overtaken the general conceptvi PREFACE of the nature of physical reality. This is due to the development of the electro-magnetic theory of matter. In modern physics we may say that the old concept of stuff has been completely displaced by the new concept of radiant energy. An analogous chance has gradu- ally meanwhile pervaded the whole science of psy- chology. In recent years we have witnessed the open- ing up of a new and long-unsuspected realm of fact to scientific investigation, the unconscious mind. The very term seemed to the older philosophy to imply a latent contradiction, today it is a simple general de- scription of recognized phenomena. Just as a dyna- mic concept of physical reality has replaced the older static concept in the mathematical sciences, and as this has long found expression in the term energy, 80 a dynamic concept of psychical reality has replaced the older concept of mind which identified it with aware- ness or consciousness, and the physical analogy suggests energy as the most expressive term for it. In affirm- ing Mind-Energy the intention is not to include the activity of mind in the system of radiant energy which constitutes the science of physics. On the contrary, what is intended is that the science of mind, quite as much as the science of matter, can only be constituted by means of a concept which allows of the formulation of a law of conservation. Mind is not a phenomenon which flares up out of nothing and relapses into noth- ing, it can only be understood when it is conceived as PREFACE a continuity of existence, and it can only be conceived as a continuity of existence when its actuality is cor- related with its virtuality. Or, to express this in terms more consonant with the method of philosophy, the special phenomena which are manifestations of mind can only be systematized as a science of mind when they are interpreted as the expression of an activity. ‘Activity seeking expression is the concept of Mind- Energy. But although the term Mind-Energy does not, and is not intended to, imply a physical concept of mind, yet it is meant to imply, and it does depend upon, a metaphysical concept. Mind is not a vis vitae con- yertible into a vis inertiae. Equally impossible is it to conceive an ultimate dualism,— mind and matter as the co-existence of two independent realms of reality. Mind and matter are divergent tendencies; they point to an original and necessary dichotomy; they are op- posite in direction; but they are mutually complement ary and imply the unity of an original impulse. The new concept therefore is of a reality with which life and consciousness are identical, as distinct from the concept of a reality independent of life and condition- ing it, and upon which it depends. This new concept in its turn suggests a new working principle in the biological and psychological sciences. The principle is that the great factor in evolution is @ kind of un- consciousness. Such unconsciousness, however, is not