establish itself in the object, follow its thousand turns and folds, obtain
from it a direct and immediate feeling, and penetrate right into the
concrete depths of its heart; it is not content with an analysis, but
demands an intuition.

Now there is one existence which, at the outset, we know better and more
surely than any other; there is a privileged case in which the effort of
sympathetic revelation is natural and almost easy to us; there is one
reality at least which we grasp from within, which we perceive in its deep
and internal content. This reality is ourselves. It is typical of all
reality, and our study may fitly begin here. Psychology puts us in direct
contact with it, and metaphysics attempt to generalise this contact. But
such a generalisation can only be attempted if, to begin with, we are
familiar with reality at the point where we have immediate access to it.

The path of thought which the philosopher must take is from the inner to
the outer being.


I.

"Know thyself": the old maxim has remained the motto of philosophy since
Socrates, the motto at least which marks its initial moment, when,
inclining towards the depth of the subject, it commences its true work of
penetration, whilst science continues to extend on the surface. Each
philosophy in turn has commented upon and applied this old motto. But Mr
Bergson, more than anyone else, has given it, as he does everything else he
takes up, a new and profound meaning. What was the current interpretation
before him? Speaking only of the last century, we may say that, under the
influence of Kant, criticism had till now been principally engaged in