certain trepidation, a certain suppressed instinct to snap at and
sting the hated oppressor, as if some desperate small being were at
bay before a horrible monster. M. Bergson is afraid of space, of
mathematics, of necessity, and of eternity; he is afraid of the
intellect and the possible discoveries of science; he is afraid of
nothingness and death. These fears may prevent him from being a
philosopher in the old and noble sense of the word; but they sharpen
his sense for many a psychological problem, and make him the spokesman
of many an inarticulate soul. Animal timidity and animal illusion are
deep in the heart of all of us. Practice may compel us to bow to the
conventions of the intellect, as to those of polite society; but
secretly, in our moments of immersion in ourselves, we may find them
a great nuisance, even a vain nightmare. Could we only listen
undisturbed to the beat of protoplasm in our hearts, would not that
oracle solve all the riddles of the universe, or at least avoid them?

To protect this inner conviction, however, it is necessary for the
mystic to sally forth and attack the enemy on his own ground. If he
refuted physics and mathematics simply out of his own faith, he might
be accused of ignorance of the subject. He will therefore study it
conscientiously, yet with a certain irritation and haste to be done
with it, somewhat as a Jesuit might study Protestant theology. Such a
student, however, is apt to lose his pains; for in retracing a free
inquiry in his servile spirit, he remains deeply ignorant, not indeed
of its form, but of its nature and value. Why, for instance, has M.
Bergson such a horror of mechanical physics? He seems to think it a
black art, dealing in unholy abstractions, and rather dangerous to
salvation, and he keeps his metaphysical exorcisms and antidotes
always at hand, to render it innocuous, at least to his own soul. But
physical science never solicited of anybody that he should be wholly