Part Two (pp. 440-474)

...But in the vitalist method the entelechies and dominants have nothing in common with

described elements: the ends cannot be described because they do not exist materially—at any

rate they do not yet exist, for they are in the

process of becoming, of a progressive realisa- tion.

Their influence is not perceptible to the senses. That is why it is more dangerous to turn to them in science than to turn to mechanical models—and the history of all the sciences proves it. The teleo- logical hypotheses by their very nature escape experimental control and can only be harmful if they are chimerical.

[216-218]...But it would be contrary to all the lessons of experience to assert that in the phenome- na of life everything can be reduced to physico- chemical laws and that mechanism in its whole scope has been verified experimentally. On the contrary, we know very little about life. Experi- mental biology has to its credit a number of im- portant results, if they are taken in themselves, but they are very insignificant when compared with all the results that we still have to obtain.

Why, then, concern ourselves with mechanist theories, one is led to think? Should not these very general hypotheses, the verification of which

presupposes the complete achievement of science, be banned from science? Here again we find an opinion that we have already seen expressed by a number of physicists regarding physics and, in particular, mechanistic theories in physics. Let us recall that some energeticists were in favour of

banning mechanist hypotheses from physics as

being unverifiable, useless and even dangerous generalisations. Among biologists, too, we find some scientists who adopt the same attitude and align themselves directly with these energetics physicists. In their opinion biology should be re-

stricted to a description of the phenomena of life, without going beyond what experience allows us to affirm. While using the energetistic scheme, it will restrict itself, when seeking general formulas for systematising its laws, to measuring exchanges of energy between the organism and its environ- ment in the performance of various organic func- tions, and to the enunciation of the laws governing these exchanges.

But is not this already an admission that there is a basic analogy between the physico-chemical sciences and biology, at any rate from the stand- point of the description of facts and experimental

verification? The energetics school in biology is less clearly differentiated from the mechanistic school than in physics. It is rather only a timid

aspect of mechanism, for it opposes teleology and

postulates a conformity between the phenomena of life and inorganic phenomena.

And this again brings us to our previous con- clusions: every time it is possible to make a scien- tific analysis of a biological phenomenon, we again find ourselves up against the relations be- tween biological activity and physico-chemical activity. Hence everything takes place as though, in connection with these facts, the mechanical hypothesis, or at least the physico-chemical theory of life, had been partially verified....

[223-224]...Living matter is clearly conditioned by habit and heredity: everything takes place as though it remembered all its preceding states. It is said, however, that inanimate matter never manifests this property. It would even be a con- tradiction to imagine anything of the kind. All material phenomena are reversible. All biological phenomena are irreversible.

In these conclusions one forgets that the second principle of thermodynamics could have been called the principle of evolution or heredity. One forgets about all the phenomena of “residual” electricity and hysteresis. One forgets that physics will not retreat even in the face of this conclusion: no phenomenon of reality is absolutely reversible, which, however, does not prevent this irreversibili- ty of partial systems, when transposed in the infinity of time and space, i.e., in the total uni- verse, from being conditioned by reversible phenome- na—just as chance and coincidence are, probably, only a sign of our ignorance of necessary, very complex laws. However that may be, and no matter which way one looks at irreversibility, heredity cannot be an insurmountable obstacle for mechanist biology.

...Scientific discipline tries primarily to find, beneath the appearances which our direct sensations of objects and living beings give us, the relations which link them together, the bonds of dependence which explain their appearance or disappearance, or their variations. The mechanistic theory of evolution is nothing but the effort to determine these relations of dependence as regards the aspects, forms and characters in which life and living beings appear to us.

Scientific discipline further tries to link every particular sphere it studies with the other spheres in which it is applied. Science cannot resolve to

consider as isolated for all time the various orders of facts for whose sake it is divided into particular sciences. This division has entirely subjective and anthropomorphic causes. It proceeds solely from the requirements of research which compel the

serialisation of questions, the concentration of attention on each of them separately, starting with the particular in order to arrive at the general.

Nature is of itself one whole.

[242-243] Although metaphysical rationalism constituted the great philosophical tradition, its ancient affirmations a priori could not fail to evoke objections from critical minds. Indeed, in all times we see philosophers trying to resist the

rationalist and metaphysical trends. These were in the first place the sensualists and materialists, then the associationists and phenomenists. In a general sense they may be called empiricists.

Instead of opposing mind to nature, they try anew to put mind in nature. Only they continue to understand mind in the same simplified and intellectualist manner as those whom they are combating....

...The empiricist theory regarded mind in approximately the same way as atomism regards matter. This is the psychological atomism in

which atoms are replaced by states of consciousness: sensations, ideas, feelings, emotions, sensations of pleasure and pain, movements, volitions, etc. ...

[245-246]...Thus our psychological states are only the sum-total of elementary consciousnesses, corresponding to the atoms of which our nerve centres are composed. Mind is parallel to matter. It expresses in its own form, in its own language, what matter, in turn, expresses in its own form,

and in a different language. Mind, on the one hand, matter on the other, are two mutually- reversible translations of one and the same text.

For the idealists, the original text is mind; for the materialists, it is matter; for the dualist-

spiritualists both texts are equally the original, since nature is written simultaneously in both languages; for the pure monists, we are concerned with two translations of an original text that eludes us....

[248-249]...When it is said that consciousness is one and continuous, one must beware of thinking that the theory of the unity and identity of the “Ego,” the corner-stone of ancient rationalism, is being revived. Consciousness is one, but it does not always remain identical with itself, as is the case, moreover, with all living beings. It is con- stantly changing; not as something created once and for all, which remains what it is, but as a being that is being constantly created: evolution is creative. There would only be a need for the notion of identity and permanence if it were neces- sary, in order to discover the real appearances, to impose the link of synthesis and unity on the multiple states which seem to be revealed behind these appearances. But if one supposes that reality is essentially continuous, and that the gaps in it are artificial, then there is no longer any need to appeal to the principle of unity and per- manence.

The theories of Anglo—American pragmatism are extremely close to these. These theories are very

diverse, particularly in the moral and logical applications that it has been sought to deduce from them. But what gives them their unity and allows us to group them together are precisely the general features of the solution they have given

to the problem of consciousness. William James, the great psychologist of pragmatism, gave this

solution its clearest and most complete form. His conception opposes at one and the same time, and for almost the same reasons, both the concep- tion of metaphysical rationalism and that of empiricism.

[251-252]...William James claims also that to arrive at this theory he needed only to follow

with the utmost rigour the teaching of experience: hence he calls it “the theory of radical empiricism” or of “pure experience.” For him the old empiricism

remained impregnated with metaphysical and rationalist illusions. He tried to free it from them completely.

Indubitably, these new theories of consciousness won very great favour in a very short space of time: the Englishmen—Schiller and Peirce, the Ameri-

cans—Dewey and Royce, scientists like Poincaré, Hertz, Mach and Ostwald in France and Germany, and, on the other hand, almost everyone who want- ed to reform Catholicism, while remaining faith- ful to it, could be associated with the trend of ideas which have been most systematically pre- sented by Bergson and James. It is also inconte-

stable that this favour seems to be largely merited.

[254-255]...True, rationalism claimed that empiricism, i.e., the explanation of the progress of the mind by experience alone, destroys all science or, if you prefer, all truth. The theory of innate or a priori reason was, above all, a legitimisation of the rights of science. We shall see, in connection

with the problem of knowledge and truth, that pragmatism has in fact often led to sceptical conclusions, but these conclusions are by no means necessary. James himself, who at times seems to

stand extremely close to sceptical irrationalism,

has pointed out that in a strict interpretation of experience it should not be considered as giving us only an idea of isolated facts, but as giving us in addition, and in particular, an idea of the relations existing between the facts.

But does it not then become impossible to say with the rationalists that the empiricists have no guarantee that tomorrow’s experience will be identical with yesterday’s or, in other words, that phenomena always follow one another in the same order since it is precisely the order of phenom- ena that is the subject of experience? When we come into contact with nature, the mind actually perceives not isolated phenomena, the terms between which it will later establish some relation or other, but the relations themselves, a definite continuity in which we then arbitrarily mark out the terms themselves, rather as we mark points on a line.

Thus, it seems that the new orientation which has appeared in philosophy and which has been given the name of pragmatism marks an indispu- table advance in the scientific and philosophical conceptions of the mind.

[256-258]...One would now have to establish accurately what constitutes the relations which form the psychological world and how they differ from the relations which comprise the rest of nature and experience. Perhaps the Viennese physicist, Mach, has made the clearest points on this sub- ject. In every experience that which is given depends on a multitude of relations which in the first place are divisible into two groups: those which have been verified in an identical way by all organisms externally analogous to our own, i.e., by all witnesses, and those which differ according to the witness. It is all the latter that are the subject of psychology and together they form what we call psychological activity. More

exactly, the former are independent of our orga- nism and biological activity. The latter do depend

on them, intimately and inevitably.

If we take a piece of sulphur, then the geometri- cal, mechanical, physical and chemical properties are relations which are independent of our orga- nism. Psychology has nothing to do with them. If a living being is concerned new relations are added to the previous ones: biological properties which, too, are independent of our organism. If it is a matter of our own organism itself, it also possesses properties which to a certain extent are independent of the conditions in which it is given to us in the experience; these are physico- chemical and biological properties. Mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry and biology are so many sciences, each of which takes a group of re- lations from the sum-total of relations included in the given thing, and which are independent and should be examined independently of our

organisation. These are objective relations, the subject of the natural science, the ideal of which is to exclude from what is given all relations which make this given dependent on our organ-

ism....

[259-261] Experience shows us the reciprocal influence of the biological and the psychological, the system of relations between them. Why should not each of these two orders of facts be regarded as two orders of facts of nature, which act and react on each other, like all the other orders of natural facts: heat, electrical, optical, chemical and other phenomena? There is no more and no less difference between all these orders than between the biological order and the psychological. All phenomena should be regarded on one and the same plane and as able to condition one another.

Against this conception the objection will

no doubt be raised that it fails to explain why there is experience, and knowledge by the organism of this experience. But does it not seem that one could and should reply that this question, like

all metaphysical questions, is badly framed, non-existent? It arises from an anthropomorphical illusion which always opposes mind to the universe.

One cannot say why there is experience, for expe- rience is a fact and as such imposes itself.

So as to depart from abstractions and generali- ties, let us try to develop in a more concrete form the definition of psychology that we have just given—and which appears to us the simplest and most scientific. Let us try to imagine the general conception of psychological activity to which it leads us.

Experience or, to use a less ambiguous term, the given, has up to now seemed to us to be de-

pendent on mathematical, mechanical, physical and other relations. When we analyse these condi- tions, it appears to us, in addition, to he dependent on certain relations concerning which one can say, in general, that they distort it according, to the individual to whom it is given: these distortions constitute the subjective, the psychological. Can we establish—of course very roughly and prelimi- narily—the general meaning of these new relations, of these distortions, i.e., the direction in which scientific analysis, in its progress through the centuries, dares to reveal the most general relations (principles) which they imply?

Why, in other words, is the given subjectively distorted, instead of being identical for all individ- uals, instead of being a direct datum, forming a single unity with the knowledge that we have of it? It is distorted to such a degree that a fairly large number of philosophers and common sense have gone so far as to smash the unity of experi- ence, and to advance the irreducible dualism of

things and the mind, which is nothing but the dualism of experience as had by all, to the extent that the sciences correct it, and experience as dis- torted in the individual consciousness....

[271-272]...Images are not identical with sensa- tions, as subjectivism has maintained, if this word, ambiguous in the scope of its meaning, is given the sense of immediate experiences. On this point Bergson’s analysis has been by no means fruitless. The image is the result of certain rela- tions already involved in immediate experience, i.e., in sensations. Only the latter involve quite a number of others. Let there be given only the relations which form the system of the “image” (a partial system, if compared with the whole system of sensations and immediate experience)— more exactly, let there be given only those rela- tions of the whole system which involve the de- pendence of what is given on the organism, and then we have precisely the image, the recollec- tion.

In defining recollection in this way we have done no more than express the latest results of experimental psychology as well as the older ideas of common sense: recollection is an organic habit. All that is common to recollection and primitive sensation are the organic conditions. The former

lacks all the extra-organic relations with what we call the external environment involved in sensa- tion.

This complete dependence of the image and partial dependence of sensations on organic condi- tions also enables one to understand illusions, errors of the senses, dreams and hallucinations, when relations with the external environment

are to some degree abnormally cut off, and expe- rience becomes reduced for the individual to that

which is taking place in his organism, i.e., to the relations which depend on the latter, hence to the purely psychological, the purely subjec- tive....

...Our life, fully conscious, is only an extremely limited part of the sum-total of our psychological activity. It is as it were the centre of an illuminated area, around which extends a much larger semi-shaded region that gradually passes into absolute darkness. Ancient psychology made a very serious mistake in regarding fully conscious activity alone as psychological activity.

Although it is difficult to exaggerate the extent of the unconscious in our organisation, one should

not, as is very frequently done by a certain kind of pragmatist psychology, exaggerate the qualita- tive importance of this unconscious.

According to some pragmatists, clear conscious- ness, intellectual and rational consciousness, is the most superficial and insignificant part of our activity....

[285-286]...To immediate and superficial obser- vation, the higher psychological life, of course, seems heavily stamped with final cause. In generalis- ing by a familiar procedure from the known to the unknown, one sees that from the earliest times attempts have equally been made at interpreting in a teleological way the entire lower psychological life. The simplest reflex, like blinking an eye when the light is too strong, the simplest physical pleasures and sufferings, the primitive emotions— do not all these facts appear to be required to maintain and advance the species, or to maintain and advance the individual? Beginning with the amoeba, that embryonic blob of protoplasm which stretches out to some light irradiations and tries to avoid others, has not all activity which can becalled conscious always belonged to the category of tendency, and is not tendency purpose in action?

Nor should one be surprised that James, Tarde and many others conclude from these facts that psychological laws have a totally different charac- ter from the other laws of nature. They are teleologi- laws....

The teleological conception of psychological law is in essence nothing but a scientific facing for metaphysical conceptions, which make ten-

dency, the will to live, instinct, the will, and action, the basis of everything that exists. Moreov- er, it has been accepted, elucidated and developed

by the pragmatists, the adherents of the primacy of action. For them functional psychology and teleological psychology are synonymous terms....

[294-296]...The antithesis of activity, reality, which cannot be analysed, on the one hand, and of relation on the other, disappears and, both as regards mind and niatter, should be left on the dump-heap of obsolete metaphysics. All the given is merely a synthesis, whose analysis is the concern of science, which traces it to its conditions and, further, resolves it into relations.

But in that case what becomes of the immortal- ity of the soul, particularly its personal immortal- ity, since for two thousand years now we have

valued this above everything. Not to follow the law of things, not to follow the law of everything living, not to disappear, not to be superseded by something else! To run this fine risk, belatedly invented by the bad gambler, that is man, the bad gambler who wants to win the prize and demands that the dice be loaded in his favour!

To be sure a system of relations can hardly seem

eternal or immortal. However, there is no absolute impossibility about it. Improbable—yes! Impos- sible—no! Only, on the ground on which we now

stand, it would be necessary for experience to de- stroy the improbability or, at any rate, to convert it into probability.

It would be necessary for experience to force us to discover, beyond the subjective, the condi- tions which would exist after the disappearance of the organism, the relations which would make it partially dependent on something other than that organism. It is for experience to decide. It alone is capable of dispelling doubts. A priori there is nothing to stop certain conditions, certain rela- tions, from being discovered which would involve— at least partially—the indestructibility of one part of what is given, for example, consciousness.

But need this be said? Experience has so far never shown us anything of the kind. I am aware that spiritualists claim the opposite. But that is mere assertion. Their experiments, at least those

that are not based on trickery or deception (and are not these a minority?), in the present state of things can at most induce us to think that there exist some forces of nature, some kinds of mechani- cal motion, of whose manifestations we know very little, and the conditions and laws—still less. It even seems probable that they depend on the human organism and are simply related to the unconscious psychological and biological activity.

Moreover, in the face of the poverty of the sham experimental verifications of the life beyond the grave, the theory of the immortality of the soul can only retain the form which Socrates and

Plato already gave it: it is a risk one has to take— it is an appeal to the unknown, and an appeal to which there hardly seems any chance of get- ting a reply....

[304-302]...The new philosophies are, therefore, primarily moral doctrines. And it appears that

these doctrines can be defined as: a mysticism of action. This attitude is not new. It was the attitude adopted by the sophists, for whom there was also neither truth nor error, but only success.

It was the attitude adopted by the post-Aristotelian probabilists and sceptics, the attitude of some nominalists at the time of scholasticism, the

attitude of the subjectivists of the eighteenth century, notably Berkeley.

The doctrines of the intellectual anarchists like Stirner and Nietzsche rest on these same premises.

Thus, in the stock of modern nominalism and pragmatism, the words are newer than the things....

...When some modernlsts, llke Le Roy, derive from pragmatism a justification for Catholi- cism, they perhaps do not derive from it what some philosophers—the founders of pragmatism—want- ed to obtain. But they draw from it conclusions which can legitimately he drawn and which, inci- dentally, were drawn or almost so, by outstanding pragmatists like William James and the philoso- phers of the Chicago school. I think I can say

even more than this. I believe that Le Roy draws the only conclusions that should legitimately be drawn from this way of thinking....

...It is characteristic of pragmatism that everything is true that succeeds and, in one way or another, is adapted to the moment: science, religion, morality, tradition, custom, routine. Everything must be taken seriously, and that

which realises an aim and permits one to act must he taken just as seriously....

[305-306]...What has caused the downfall of traditions and dogmas up to now? Science, or if one prefers to consider the instrument rather than the product—reason. Science lives by freedom; reason in the final analysis is nothing but free examination. Moreover, science and reason are, above all, revolutionary, and the Greco-Western civilisation founded on them was, is and will re- main a civilisation of men in revolt. Revolt has so far been our only means of liberation and the only form in which we have been able to get to know liberty. I have in mind the spiritual revolt of reason that is master of itself, and not the brutal revolt that has been only the covering— often useful, sometimes necessary—for the precious metal constituting the former.

Thus, the chief aid that can be given to tradi- tion, to the preservation of the ancient moral values, to use a fashionable term, is the depreciation of science. That is why pragmatism, nominalism, should have had as logical consequence—as was very well seen by the majority of those who adhered to it, with a rational understanding of the cause— the justification of certain motives of action: reli- gious, sentimental, instinctive, traditional. On the same plane as the motives of action borrowed from

scientific cognition or, still more logically, on a higher plane, for science aims only at industrial action, the new philosophy should have led to the legitimisation of an irrational morality: passionate impulses or submission to authority, mysticism or traditionalism. Traditionalism some-

times even goes so far that some (William James, for example) do not hesitate in regard to morality to return to the absolute of rationalist doctrines of morality....

...For this conception of morality as a rational art to be possible, it is clearly necessary that a science of morals should be possible. Here metaphysics renews its high hopes. In fact, so- ciology, of which this science of morals is only a section, has hardly come into being. Like psychol- ogy, only much less advanced than this, it is still in the period where it is necessary to argue against the metaphysicians concerning the method, the subject of science and its right to exist. It seems, however, that here as elsewhere the question will finally be decided in favour of scientific effort. One cannot prevent the metaphysicians from chattering, but one can allow them freedom of speech and action. And so sociology, thanks to the

work of Durkheim and his school, has been working and acting....

[325-326]...Actually, scientists, pure scientists, concern themselves very little with this question of truth. For them it is enough to arrive at state- ments which receive universal assent and which, therefore, appear to be necessary. For them every experiment methodically carried out and properly

controlled is true. Experimental verification— that, they say, is the criterion of truth. And the scientists are perfectly right, for practice has always justified this attitude. To suppose that

it will not always justify it would be to imagine the absurd, to doubt for the pleasure of doubt- ing....

[328-332]...The modern rationalists energeti- cally defended themselves against the attacks of

pragmatism, when the latter claimed that the reason of the rationalists amounted, in the final analysis, to guaranteeing to our mind a true copy of reality. And, indeed, pragmatism reproached

rationalism for dividing cognition into two syn- chronised parts: the objects or things-in-themselves and the ideas which the mind makes of them....

In the rationalism of the nineteenth century, as in evolutionary empiricism and also among the modern rationalists, we, of course, already find this idea that the mind is not a mirror, nor truth a faithful image of things. Usually it is claimed that truth is the result of the work of the mind on things. But this again means putting things in opposition to mind. Pragmatism goes further.

All experience, all knowledge, is at the same time action: to live means to act, and only to act. From which it follows—and it is this that caused the name of pragmatism to he given to this system, which essentially defines it in the general view— that truth is defined as a function of action, i.e., a function of its practical results. This is success. Every experiment that is successful, i.e., that allows the expected result to be achieved, determines a truth. In order to get away from philosophical abstractions, let us note that in the final analysis this conclusion is merely a generalised expression of the faith of scientists in experimentation. At what moment does the scientist say that the hypothesis advanced by him is true? The moment the result he expected to see in the operation undertaken by him is actually apparent. Since this operation corresponds to the hypothesis or, more correctly, to the chain of hypotheses which he had in his mind, and the result obtained cor- responds to the conclusion from this chain of hypotheses, his idea was successful; it has been verified by experiment.

To be sure, if one identifies success with experi- mental verification, then the pragmatist proposi- tion appears to be true; it merely conveys the essence of the experimental method. But the trouble is that the word success is used sometimes in this limited sense and sometimes in its broad, popular sense, depending on the occasion and the philosopher. This is particularly noticeable in the case of William James. He claims that truth ap- plies to everything that is verified experimentally, and, at other times, to everything that ensures any sort of success for our activity. Hence, if one adopts this latter proposition, one is almost neces- sarily brought to the conclusion that truth no longer exists. For what is successful today may not be successful tomorrow—a thing that often happens in practice, as proved by changes in laws and jurisprudence, moral rules and religious faiths, and scientific opinions. The truth of today is the error of tomorrow, truth on this side of the Pyrenees is error on the other side. The theme is commonplace. And these conclusions, which Peirce—the founder of pragmatism—firmly set

aside and combated, and from which the great pragmatist philosophers, William James in partic- ular, tried to escape by means of the most subtle

evasions, are in general accepted by the majority of the epigones. Moreover, in regard to the problem

of truth, pragmatism has become synonymous with scepticism, just as, in regard to morality or faith, it has become synonymous with irrational tradi-

tionalism.

And yet, as in all criticism, there is, of course, an element of truth in the pragmatist criticism of rationalism. One can say of it what frequently has to be said of critical theories: the destructive part is excellent, but the constructive part leaves

much to be desired. Certainly the theory of mind as a mirror of things, and of truth as a copy, is crudely superficial. The evolution of scientific

truths through all the mistakes which strew the path of science proves this.

On the other hand, when we regard ourselves as an organism operating in the environment of the universe, it is true that we cannot separate the realm of practice from that of truth for, in ac- cordance with all that we have said above, and in accordance with all the lessons of science, we cannot separate truth from experimental verifica- tion. Only those concepts that succeed are true.

But one has yet to discover whether they are true because they succeed or whether they succeed because they are true. Pragmatism is always

inclined to choose between these alternatives in favour of the first. Common sense, apparently, can only choose the second....

[332-334]... The given, the experience, is evi- dently that which is known. Consequently, it is necessary to assume complete unity between the given and the means by which it is cognised, to make a determined break with all dualism at the point of departure—but only at the point of departure. This is an important limitation. Does it not in itself already contain the key to the solution of the problem of truth?

At the point of departure the only possible method of cognition, i.e., the only method of discovery, is the experimental method, the elimina- tion of all a priori methods, all dialectical reason- ing.

Modern science fully confirms this proposition and thereby postulates the first statement which we have just advanced. The mathematical sciences themselves have experience for their point of departure; reasoning comes later, as we have seen, and always remains to a certain extent subordinate to experience.

But experience is not merely the immediate experience of the given; it includes also—and this in our view is James’ great philosophical innova- tion—the relations implied by the given, and which form a rigid fabric between all immediate experience and past or future experience. If expe- rience consisted only of immediate experience, we would have only sensations and not science; we would not even have perception in the full sense of the word. The object of science, and even of perception, is precisely to analyse immediate experience in order to arrive at the experience which has prepared it, or which prolongs it. To perceive and above all to note, to draw attention and to reflect—this is the beginning of this pro- tracted experience.

From this second remark we can draw the following conclusion: all knowledge that expe- rience gives us is interconnected and becomes systematised. But it does not become systematised, as in rationalism, as the result of an activity that is superior to it and which would impose its forms on it. While seeking to guarantee the stabil- ity of science, this concept on the contrary leads to scepticism, for it makes cognition a creation of the mind, and this dualism inevitably raises the question as to whether or not this creation of the

mind, cognition, distorts the given. Here, on the other hand, our knowledge becomes systematised in exactly the same way as it is given to us, and the relations of the given have the same value as the

given itself. In reality, the immediately given and the relations it involves form a unity and are indivisible. The acts of cognition are all of the same kind and of the same value....

[336-347]... In the |absolute realism| in which we have thus far been moving there is apparently no place for error. But let us recall that we made experience and cognition identical only at the point of departure. The time has come to show what this limitation implies.

It is a fact established by experience that cogni- tion by different individuals is not exactly the same. This can be explained in two ways: either there exist as many different realities as there are individuals (which is absurd: we should be falling into subjectivism), or—and we are consequently

forced to adopt this alternative since the given is unique and the same for all—the difference be-

tween the cognitions which individuals obtain about the given arises from the conditions in which they were and are situated, in other words, from certain individual relations which exist between them and the given, and which scientific analysis can reveal. This is the conclusion to which we were led by other considerations in connection

with the problem of consciousness. We saw that the given involved relations independent of the cognising individual— objective relations—and re-

lations in which the given depends on the cognising organism—subjective relations.

Once this is admitted, we see that in experience, and not now at the point of departure but in the

measure that we analyse it, bifurcation takes place between the cognising agent and the object of cognition. This relation, in accordance with

what we have said, has the same value as the given itself. It imposes itself on us with the same justification as does the given; from which it follows that the difference between the mind and the object should not be regarded as something primary, but as the product of analysis, as two very common relations which analysis discovers in the given (W. James); and this distinction derives its value from the value given at the outset to experience taken as a whole, single and indivi- sible experience.

But in that case mistakes and errors have a very natural explanation: they are the changes, the distortions, which depend on the individual and subjective conditions of cognition. While science, thanks to experience, makes an increas- ingly complete analysis of the given, it should, no matter how prolonged and arduous the task, gradually exclude all these “personal equations” which are far more complex than those which astronomers assign to the visual perceptions of the individual observer. It should draw a dividing line between objective and subjective relations. It was for just this purpose that it was created.

Do these considerations not lead us to a con- venient and practical definition of truth? Truth is the objective. The objective is the sum-total of the relations which are independent of the observer. In practice, it is that which everyone

admits, that which is the subject of universal experience, universal agreement, using these words in a scientific sense. In analysing the conditions

of this universal agreement, in seeking behind this fact the law it conceals, its cause, we arrive at this conclusion: scientific work aims to “de- subjectivise,” de-personalise, experience, methodi- cally prolonging and continuing it. Hence scientific experience is the continuation of crude experience, and there is no difference in character between a scientific fact and a crude fact.

It has sometimes been said that scientific truth is nothing but an abstraction. Of course it is only an abstraction if one is considering crude expe- rience, i.e., subjective and individual experience, for it excludes from this experience everything that depends solely on the individual who cognises through experience. But, on the other hand, this abstraction aims at discovering the given as it really is, independent of the individuals and circ-

umstances which change it; it aims at discover- ing the objective, the concrete par excellence, the real.

It would be interesting to try to verify this general theory by analysing some famous errors. Ptolemy’s system, for instance, shows us experience encumbered with individual ideas which depend on the terrestrial conditions of astronomical obser- vation: it is the stellar system as seen from the earth. The system of Copernicus and Galileo is much more objective, since it does away with the conditions which depend on the fact that the observer is situated on the earth. In a more general sense, Painlevé has pointed out that causality in mechanics, in the science of the Renaissance and in the science of our day, embraced the condi- tions of the appearance of phenomenon independent of space and time. But the point is that the condi- tions of the situation in space and time embrace, particularly in mechanics, almost the totality of the subjective conditions which are no longer sufficiently crude to be eliminated by summary consideration.

An important conclusion: error is not the abso- lute antithesis of truth. As very many philosophers have already claimed, it is not positive; on the contrary, it is negative and partial, it is in a sense a lesser truth. In ridding it—thanks to experi-

ence—of the subjective that it involves, we pro- gressively approach the truth. Once the truth has

been reached, it is in the full sense of the word absolute and a limit, for it is objective, necessary and universal. However, this limit is far removed

from us in almost all cases. It appears to us almost like a mathematical limit, which one approaches closer and closer without ever being able to reach. The history of science, moreover, shows us the truth in the becoming of development; the truth is

not yet formed, but is rather in the process of formation. |Perhaps| it never will be formed, but it will always be more and more formed.

A final question may perhaps be raised: Instead of being satisfied with what is, are we not still obsessed by the old metaphysical illusion of trying to discover why things exist? Why does experience

have subjective conditions? Why is its cognition not immediately one and the same for all? It would appear that we have the right to refuse

to reply; but here thanks to psychology it seems one could indicate in the positive. If full experience had to any degree knowledge of itself, like the god of the pantheists, this knowledge would indeed be immediately one and the same. But in expe-

rience, as it presents itself to us, the cognition of experience is given in a fragmentary way and it is only to those fragments of experience that we are ourselves.

Biology and psychology tell us that we are what we are, or rather have been shaped into (what we are, by adaptation, a continuous equilib- rium with the environment. From which, in) general, it can be concluded that our cognition should above all correspond to the requirements of organic life. Moreover, it is at first restricted, vague, extremely subjective, as in instinctive life. But once consciousness appears in the play of universal energies, it is preserved and strengthened because of its practical utility. Increasingly complex beings are evolved and develop. Consciousness becomes more exact, more precise. It becomes intelligence and reason. And at the same time

(adaptation, adequacy in relation to experience,) becomes more complete. Science is merely the

highest form of this process. Even if it never attains it, science has the right to hope for a cogni-

tion which will rather be at one with the given, which will be absolutely adequate to the object: objective, necessary and universal. Theoretically

its claim is justified, because it is in line with the evolution that has taken place up to now. In practice this claim will most probably never be satisfied, for it marks the limit of evolution, and to attain it would require a state of the universe quite different from that at present, and a kind of identification between the universe and the experience of cognition.

In any case, one conclusion impresses itself: scepticism in relation to science conceals the most complete and clearest metaphysical illusion that ever deceived philosophical thought. It consists in raising non-existent problems, in seeking a non- existent reality beyond reality in order to explain the latter. It is the result of the dualistic abstrac- tions in which philosophy has always been only too willing to engage.

In particular, is it not overthrowing all expe- rience to see in the embryonic, instinctive, vague, almost wholly subjective and instantaneous cogni- tion of awakening consciousness, original and real experience, as Bergson, Le Roy and some pragma- tists are inclined to do. Primitive experience, wholly stamped with subjectivity—yes, but also wholly stamped with error and unreality. This vague, nebulous experience is only the covering of experience. True experience of the real, on the contrary, is in the increasingly lucid limit towards which the human mind makes its way, and towards the increasingly rational form which it tends to adopt, towards reason. The most artificial of all abstractions is that which excludes from experience the results of rational labour and the progress of evolution.

This evolution has been definitely guided by practice and towards practice, for it is transmitted and realised owing to the constant adaptation of the being to its environment. Who would at- tempt to deny this today? That is one of the most decisive victories of pragmatism over a now fos-

silised rationalism. But it does not mean that truth is defined as a function of utility and success. On the contrary, it means that the utility and success are a consequence of the acquisition of truth. Why and how did cognition appear in

nature? Because some beings were incapable of acting blindly. They bad to know the circumstances of their action. And that is why, having taken from pragmatism everything that seemed to us to be excellent in its criticism of the old metaphysics, we resolutely turn our backs on it in the name of absolute positivism.

To express sensibly and accurately the relations between practice and truth, it seems, therefore, that one should not say that what is successful is true, but rather that which is true is successful,

i.e., what is in conformity with reality, insofar as it concerns attempted action. Direct action is the result of exact knowledge of realities, in the en-

vironment of which it takes place. We act cor- rectly in the measure that we know truly.

Everyone will agree, I think, that we affirm as true and objective that which is independent of the individual coefficient which is to be found in every individual in the act of cognition. But when diver- gencies appear it is a matter of saying at what moment the individual coefficient disappears. Confronted by any kind of experimental confirma- tion, can I draw a line between that which has been universally noted and that which has been noted only by me?

We said, in a general way, that the effort of science is in all cases directed precisely toward drawing this line. Basically, science has no other aim. It could be defined by this characteristic. In practice, then, we already have a primary

means of distinguishing what is true and objective from what is subjective and illusory. That which

has been acquired by means of rigorously applied scientific methods will be true. Scientists have the duty of elaborating, perfecting and defining these methods. This primary criterion is more

strict than the very vague rule given thus far: universal agreement. For universal agreement may

be only universal prejudice. And a priori there is nothing to bar the hypothesis that such preju- dices may exist in a truly universal manner during a particular period, although one could hardly cite any of them. But if we replace the expres- sion “universal agreement” by the expression scientific control, then the objection collapses, for, insofar as it is a question of prejudice, it is impos- sible to indicate the reasons for it, whereas scien- tific control only exists when these reasons are manifest. Obviously, we see scientific control only where hypotheses are excluded, and we admit that it can just as well establish the limits of an approximation as a strictly exact truth.

However, scientists will not engage in a search for any other criterion. And from the practical point of view they are perfectly right. But from the speculative and theoretical point of view one may find—and this is the opinion of all meta- physicians who have been engaged in creating a theory of knowledge—that the indicated criterion is unsufficient. Let us summarise in their crudest form all the objections that can be raised from this new point of view: is not all science, in its turn, with its methods and its control, a universal prejudice and, to use Bacon’s expression, an idola tribus? Indeed, one can imagine that no matter what efforts we make to draw a line be- tween the subjective and the objective, we always remain enclosed, at least to a certain extent, in the subjective. Our cognition would always depend on our individual structure and, consequently, would also always distort its object. Taking the psychological hypothesis which we advanced in connection with consciousness, can it not be said that since cognition is the result of the adaptation of our being to the actions which it has to carry out in its environment, all cognition will always be, without our being able to take this into account, a distortion of the environment in accordance with the structure and the requirements of the human race?

It seems one could certainly reply: yes. But precisely because we cannot take this into account, the problem is insoluble and futile. It must be

granted: the truth that man can attain is human truth. By this we do not mean to say that it is

relative in the sceptical sense of the word. But we do mean to say that it depends on the structure

of the human species, and is valid only for that

species. Here, with some correction, one must repeat the famous words of Gorgias: we know nothing that is not human. If by chance we were to know something that had nothing of the human in it, we would be unable to take account of it; and if, which is impossible, we were able to take account of it, then we would be unable to inform others of it. Consequently, in looking for a sign and definition of truth, it is not a question of finding a sign and definition that would be valid for anything other than the human race, but simply a sign and definition that would be abso- lutely and identically valid for all representatives of the human race. It is in this sense that the criterion already referred to—scientific control—is sufficient.

Moreover, once and for all an end must be put to certain sophisms: truth, valid for the whole human

race, human truth, is absolute truth for man, be-

cause if it is supposed, as the adherents of an

extra-human absolute suppose, that it is not a copy of the real, it is still, at any rate for man, the only possible exact translation, the absolute equivalent....

...Perhaps, those who try to find reasons for doubting scientific results may still say: we are ready to allow that properly controlled ex- perience gives us effectively and fully the trans- formation of a cause into a given effect and, it follows, an indubitable relation between the condi- tion and the conditioned. But what can prove to us that this relation will manifest itself identically in a second experience? Leibnitz claimed that all facts differ, if only a little, from one another be- cause we can distinguish them from one another (the principle of the indiscernible: in all the forests of the earth no two identical leaves are to be found). A modern scientist, Poincaré, claimed also that physics never deals with identical facts, but simply with facts that closely resemble one another. In that case, what use is science to us; for if it wants to be strictly exact, then every new fact requires a new law.

This objection is of the same character as the following: every fact embraces infinity. Conse-

quently, we would have to have complete science in order to have the very minimum exact knowl- edge of the smallest object. It is overcome in the same way and almost of itself....

...To sum up, the given is the subject of science, because it is analysable, and because this analysis reveals to us the conditions of its existence. Science is certain because every analysis it makes gradually brings us to experimental intuitions which have the same value as the given; hence science has the same degree of certainty as the

existence of the universe, which it explains, and my own existence, which is likewise known to me through experimental intuition.

[353-357]...Up to now philosophy has been above all a system of values, to use an expression now in vogue. It sought to establish a hierarchy of things and to make laws about the good, the true and the beautiful in the name of this hierarchy. In general, one can say that it never conceived natural facts on one and the same plane, impar- tially and objectively; on the contrary it arranged them on different planes in the name of wholly subjective personal preferences or collective preju- dices, human of course but equally subjective for that very reason.

All Greek philosophy and scholasticism, the heir of Aristotelianism, present us with typical scales by which the value of things is measured. Both the philosophy of the Renaissance and all modern philosophy, despite the isolated efforts of a Spino- za, were crystallised in one and the same mould. Moreover, leaving aside Spinoza’s system, since it represents an excellent attempt to conceive things from a viewpoint as little human and subjective as possible, we always find, from the very beginnings of Greek philosophical thought, the same two or three general orientations along

metaphysical lines. These are the orientations according to which all the textbooks still usually classify philosophical systems under the names of materialism, spiritualism and idealism.

In essence—considering things from the very general standpoint that we adopt here, i.e., the standpoint of the “particular scale of values” offered by each of these orientations—since spirit- ualism and idealism often present the closest

analogies, it can be said that metaphysics has always confronted us with two great scales of value: the materialist scale and the idealist- spiritualist scale. These two scales oppose each oth-

er and each is almost the reverse image of the other.

In the idealist-spiritualist scale, mind occupies the topmost position; it gives all the rest its sense and value either because, as in the case of idealism,

it represents the sole reality, material appearances being created by it or existing only through it or because, as in the case of spiritualism, it offers above material reality which is merely its support or its environment, the higher reality in which nature culminates and through which nature is

explained.—In the materialist scale, on the other hand, everything derives from matter and everything returns to it. It is the eternal and

|immutable| creator of all the spectacles of the universe, including the spectacle of life and of consciousness. Life is only one particular variety— among an infinite number of others—of the combi- nations which blind chance has evoked from the original matter. Consciousness, thought are only phenomena of life; the brain secretes them as the liver secretes bile. Basically, all the phenomena that we can observe—amber which electrifies, iron which heats, steam which vapourises, liquid which solidifies, light or sound, life or thought— are all nothing but the appearances embellished by the various combinations of vortices of a homo- geneous field which fills all space, or of the atoms which collide in the infinite void.

It seems to me that one could represent the manner in which spiritualism and idealism argue approximately in the same way: motion is incon- ceivable without a force to animate the moving body. Force is unintelligible except in relation to the effort we ourselves feel in muscular move- ment, in the tendency of life; it follows that effort presupposes life. But vital effort, in turn, is always directed to an end; bearing the stamp of purpose, it is conceivable only by the consciousness which directs it. Consequently, thought or, at least, something of the order of immaterial and free spirit is necessary both as the supreme principle of explanation and as the essential principle of existence and creation. Allow the spirit, and everything in nature becomes clear. Suppress it, and nature becomes incomprehensible. It vanishes into nothingness.

Materialism, on the other hand, claims—if I may use the same summary procedure—that every experiment that explains a psychological fact for us reduces it to organic facts. Organic matter comes closer and closer to inorganic matter. Force is nothing but a shock impulse; it is motion com-

bined with something else. Hence at the basis of things we find only sheer, blind motion.

And soon it will be three thousand years during

which these systems of value have been taken up by generation after generation, elaborated, some- times made more precise, and very often obscured by the subtleties of thought which is never ready to admit itself conquered. And we are hardly any further advanced than we were at the beginning.

Does this not mean, then, that the questions these conflicting systems are debating are idle ques- tions and badly formulated? Is not the desire to establish an explanatory hierarchy between things a purely anthropomorphic prejudice? And is not this prejudice derived much more from the aspira- tions of individual sentiment than from rational

discussion? Basically, it is for ends totally dif- ferent from objective cognition that these systems are put forward and opposed to one another, and concern for them has nothing in common with the impartial search for truth. Thus, since they are incompatible with a positive discussion, we shall not consider them any further.

Either I am greatly mistaken or modern philos-

ophy in its vital and powerful trends—positivism and pragmatism—is tending towards this conclu- sion....

[358-362]...Thus, all the preceding seems to show not only that contempomry philosophy is coming closer and closer to science and becoming an increasingly elegant part of it, but also that it is possible to arrive at a scientific conception of philosophy: it would be no more than the neces- sary complement to science. By setting aside the metaphysical poems of the individual imagina- tion, it would initiate the collective collaboration of scientists, historians and critics.

All facts are subject to scientific explanation; none of them can be cognised objectively, that is in truth, otherwise than through the sciences. Evidently, science is still very limited and very superficial, but it can only be developed by those who seek to know; without it all speculation is barren.

Is philosophy therefore condemned? Is it noth- ing but a word devoid of sense and content? A few years ago many scientists would have said so. And it is true to say that if we mean by philos- ophy those speculations which, beyond experience or on this side of it, seek the origin, end, and nature of things, the useless foundations of science or action, burdening everything immediately known by an unknowable, which ought to justify

it, if, in a word, we mean by it the old dialectics, whether rational or sceptical, idealist or material- ist, individualist or pantheist, then those scientists have apparently scored a victory. All this meta- physics has only an aesthetic interest which,

incidentally, can be a passionate one for those who have a predilection for it: it represents the individual dreams of lofty but hardly practical minds.

But as this philosophy began to find fewer and fewer adherents, scientists created from it something else or other, and in the past few years the most outstanding fact in the field of philo- sophical knowledge has been the appearance of a large number of philosophies drafted by scientists in connection with their science, with it and for it. It is true that there have been learned philosophers before. Almost all great systems of philosophy are their work. But particularly in their methods and conclusions these systems lagged considerably behind and stand apart from the scientific works of their authors. Contemporary scientists, on the contrary, instead of seeking a general conception of the world, simply seek to supplement and clarify scientific experience by partial hypotheses that are much more exact and closely linked with this experience.

So, in a different way but to achieve almost identical results, Comte’s idea is being vindicated: a section of scientific work is being collectively organised with the object of scientific generalisa- tion and the synthesis of the sciences.

The manner in which scientific work is con- ducted makes this conception of philosophy clearer and more exact. Science is composed at once of the totality of experimental results and of the theories of this totality which are always hypo- theses in one respect or another. But these hypo- theses are indispensable to science, because it is precisely by their anticipation of future experience and the unknown that science advances. They systematise all that is known in such a way as to

throw light on the unknown. Why should not phil- osophy, therefore, in the same way, be a gen- eral synthesis of all scientific knowledge, an effort to represent the unknown as a function of the known, in order to aid in discovering it and to keep the scientific spirit in its true orientation? It

would differ from science only in the greater general- ity of the hypothesis; instead of being the theory of a group of isolated and very circumscribed facts, philosophical theory would be the theory of

the totality of the facts that nature presents

us with, the system of nature, as it used to be called in the eighteenth century, or at any rate a direct contribution to a theory of this kind.

The philosophical standpoint is not opposed

to the scientific standpoint; it stands side by side with it. Even when a scientist is making every effort to attain positivity he is a philosopher, for positivity is itself a philosophy....

Science should not differ from philosophy either in subject (it is the same: to give an account of experience), or in method (it should be the same, for the scientific discipline is by its very defini- tion the only discipline which can satisfy our intelligence). No, the only difference between them is one of standpoint, and what distinguishes, and is the only thing that should distinguish, the scientific from the philosophical standpoint is that the latter is far more general and always appears

somewhat of an adventure....

[364-369]... History shows us that when science becomes too far removed from the most common human concerns, forming the basis of most philo- sophical questions, when it leaves the burden of replying to these concerns to various speculations or traditional beliefs, out of necessity or excessive prudence, it vegetates or begins to decline. It is necessary, absolutely necessary, therefore, for the

gains of science and the scientific spirit to be defended, in case of need in spite of themselves, against excessive presumption or adventurism,

when they overstep their rights. For excessive temerity—seen, for instance, in some materialist generalisations —is no less dangerous for science in the case of sane and straightforward minds, than is

timidity and lack of spirit in the case of ordinary people. Hence, one of the essential tasks of philos- ophy is to maintain the general atmosphere re- quired for the development of science, for the normal maintenance and dissemination of the scientific spirit....

But philosophy, of course, will only be able to fulfil the dual mission which we feel it is called upon to fulfil—to co-ordinate the efforts of scientists, to provide hypotheses which inspire discoveries, on the one hand, and, on the other, to create the necessary atmosphere for scientific advance—if it seeks to be nothing but the organising synthesis of the sciences, regarded and understood in the way scientists regard and understand them, in short, a synthesis established in an exclusively scientific spirit.

It is gratifying to see—to a lesser extent, of course, in pragmatism, but all the same to a suf-

ficiently great extent—that philosophical re- search today, having decisively broken away from

the metaphysical errors of the preceding period, is

extremely well informed regarding scientific works, seeks to conform to them and derives its inspiration

from them.

Without doubt, a very vital and pronounced scientific sentiment is taking shape today which, in some people, is developing parallel with religious and moral sentiments and, as it were, on a different plane where conflict is impossible, while in others it has replaced the religious sentiment and fully satisfies their needs. For these, as Renan has beauti- fully expressed it, science has provided a symbol and a law. They have adopted a truly positive attitude which retains from ancient rationalism

its unshakable faith in human reason, while at the same time acquiring from the incontestable triumph of the experimental method the incon-

testable conclusion that reason is nothing but the constant effort of the mind to adapt itself to experience and to cognise it more and more deeply,

the reciprocal penetration of objective reality and subjective thought.

I believe that the future of philosophy lies on this side, because it is on this side that truth is to be found. As in all prophecies, this is nothing but an act of faith. It is for the future to say

whether it will be justified or not. And as this is an act of faith, I consider legitimate all other acts of faith, on condition that the attitude of those who perform them is the same towards me. I even consider that it is fortunate that one ideological trend is confronted by trends of opposing ideas; it is by the criticism of its opponents that it is refined, developed, corrected and made precise.

The philosophical attitude which has been outlined in these brief studies could be called ra- tionalist positivism, absolute positivism or scien- tism. To avoid any ambiguity it would, perhaps, be better to call it experimentalism; this would indicate simultaneously that it rests wholly on

experience—but, contrary to the old empiricism,

on controlled experience, the fruit of scientific experiment—and that it refuses in its absolute realism and its experimental monism to go beyond the bounds of experience.

Experience is primarily and immediately the totality of our sensations, what we call phenomena.

But it begins with analysis of itself as soon as attention, thought is applied to it, for this totality of sensations is nothing but a crude and very superficial view of the given. Almost immediately there is to be discerned in it and beneath it some of the relations that it involves and which form its true basis. Science strives to carry this analysis progressively forward, penetrating ever more

deeply into the nature of the given. If the immedi- ate given is represented by a point then, in order to obtain a picture of the real given, one has to imagine that this point is merely a projection of the straight line extending beyond it. This straight

line can be broken up into several segments, each of which will embrace, without there being any impenetrable partitions between them, families of relations on which the immediate given depends. Each of these famines will be formed by virtue of a definition which will be based on the natural affinities by which these relations are joined together. These will be relations of number and position, mechanical, physical relations, etc., and, finally, psychological relations determined by their dependence on the organism to which the given is related. There will be as many particular sciences as there are such groups of relations.

Philosophy, on the other hand, tries to conceive the straight line in its entire length and continuity. But the line in its totality, just as much as the point which is the projection of it, the immediate

given, as also the relations which supplement it to the extent of its analysis, are of one and the same character.

These are the data of experience. And their

totality comprises a single experience: human experience. It is our psychological constitution, and not the nature of things, which distinguishes

the world from perception, the universe from science; and this distinction is temporary and contingent.

Experience, therefore, needs only to be explained. To explain it means simply to formulate the relations it involves, and which it itself brings to our attention if we know how to grasp its lessons. And science is

beginning to concern itself with them. But, being all reality, experience is not in need of justifi- cation: it exists.