Professional Documents
Culture Documents
KARIN STEPHEN
PREFATORY NOTE
Being an extract from a letter by Professor Henri Bergson
AYANT lu de pr`es le travail de Mrs. Stephen je le trouve interessant
au plus haut point. Cest une interpretation personelle et originale
de lensemble de mes vuesinterpretation qui vaut par elle-meme,
independamment de ce qui j ai ecrit. Lauteur sest assimile lesprit
del`a doctrine, puis, se degageant de la materialite du texte elle a
developpe `a sa mani`ere, dans la direction quelle avait choisi, des
idees qui lui paraissaient fondamentales. Grace `a la distinction
quelle etablit entre fact et matter, elle a pu ramener `a
lunite, et presenter avec une grande rigueur logique, des vues que
javais ete oblige, en raison de ma methode de recherche, disoler les
unes des autres. Bref, son travail a une grande valeur; il temoigne
dune rare force de pensee.
HENRI BERGSON.
PREFACE
THE immense popularity which Bergsons philosophy enjoys is sometimes
cast up against him, by those who do not agree with him, as a
reproach. It has been suggested that Berg-sons writings are welcomed
simply because they oer a theoretical justication for a tendency
which is natural in all of us but against which philosophy has always
fought, the tendency to throw reason overboard and just let ourselves
go. Bergson is regarded by rationalists almost as a traitor to
philosophy, or as a Bolshevik inciting the public to overthrow what it
has taken years of painful eort to build up.
It is possible that some people who do not understand this philosophy
may use Bergsons name as a cloak for giving up all self-direction and
letting themselves go intellectually to pieces, just as hooligans may
use a time of revolution to plunder in the name of the Red Guard. But
Bergsons philosophy is in reality as far from teaching mere laziness
as Communism is from being mere destruction of the old social order.
Bergson attacks the use to which we usually put our minds, but he most