Every philosophy has two faces, and must be studied in two movements--
method and teaching.

These are its two moments, its two aspects, no doubt co-ordinate and
mutually dependent, but none the less distinct.

We have just examined the method of the new philosophy inaugurated by Mr
Bergson. To what teaching has this method led us, and to what can we
foresee that it will lead us?

This is what we have still to find.



II. Teaching.

The sciences properly so called, those that are by agreement termed
positive, present themselves as so many external and circumferential points
from which we view reality. They leave us on the outside of things, and
confine themselves to investigating from a distance.

The views they give us resemble the brief perspectives of a town which we
obtain in looking at it from different angles on the surrounding hills.

Less even than that: for very soon, by increasing abstraction, the
coloured views give place to regular lines, and even to simple conventional
notes, which are more practical in use and waste less time. And so the
sciences remain prisoners of the symbol, and all the inevitable relativity
involved in its use. But philosophy claims to pierce within reality,