to restrain one's praise in speaking of the subtle and resourceful way
in which he handles this tantalizing and elusive question. It is a
stroke of genius. The student of Philosophy, of course, at once thinks
of Heraclitus; but Bergson is not merely another Heraclitus any more
than he is just an echo of Jacobi. He places Change in a new light,
enables us to grasp its character with a success which, if he had no
other claim to remembrance, would ensure for him an honourable place in
the History of Philosophy. In the process he makes but a mouthful of
Zeno and his eternal puzzles. But, as Mr. Gunn also points
out,[Footnote: See p. 142.] Change cannot be the last word in our
characterization of Reality. Pure Change is not only unthinkable--that
perhaps Bergson would allow--but it is something which cannot be
experienced. There must be points of reference--a starting point and an
ending point at least. Pure Change, as is the way with "pure" anything,
turns into its contradictory. Paradoxical though it may seem, it ends as
static. It becomes the One and Indivisible. This, at least, was
recognized by Heraclitus and is expressed by him in his figure of the
Great Year.

It is not my purpose, however, to usurp the function of the author of
this useful handbook to Bergson. The extent of my introductory remarks
is an almost involuntary tribute to the material and provocative nature
of Bergson's discussions, just as the frequent use by the author of this
book of the actual words of Bergson are a tribute to the excellence and
essential rightness of his style. The Frenchman, himself a free and
candid spirit, would be the last to require unquestioning docility in
others. He knows that thereby is the philosophic breath choked out of
us. If we read him in the spirit in which he would wish to be read, we
shall find, however much we may diverge from him on particular issues,
that our labour has been far from wasted. He undoubtedly calls for