That is to say, it is stated to be the philosopher's duty from the outset
to renounce the usual forms of analytic and synthetic thought, and to
achieve a direct intuitional effort which shall put him in immediate
contact with reality. Without doubt it is this question of method which
demands our first attention. It is the leading question. Mr Bergson
himself presents his works as "essays" which do not aim at "solving the
greatest problems all at once," but seek merely "to define the method and
disclose the possibility of applying it on some essential points."
(Preface to "Creative Evolution".) It is also a delicate question, for it
dominates all the rest, and decides whether we shall fully understand what
is to follow.

We must therefore pause here a moment. To direct us in this preliminary
study we have an admirable "Introduction to Metaphysis", which appeared as
an article in the "Metaphysical and Moral Review" (January 1903): a short
but marvellously suggestive memoire, constituting the best preface to the
reading of the books themselves. We may say in passing, that we should be
grateful to Mr Bergson if he would have it bound in volume form, along with
some other articles which are scarcely to be had at all today.


II.

Every philosophy, prior to taking shape in a group of co-ordinated theses,
presents itself, in its initial stage, as an attitude, a frame of mind, a
method. Nothing can be more important than to study this starting-point,
this elementary act of direction and movement, if we wish afterwards to
arrive at the precise shade of meaning of the subsequent teaching. Here is
really the fountain-head of thought; it is here that the form of the future