Having first shown what attitude Bergson requires us to adopt I have
gone on to describe what he thinks this new way of looking at reality
will reveal. This at once involves me in the difficulty with which
Bergson wrestles in all his attempts to describe reality, the
difficulty which arises from the fundamental discrepancy between what
he sees the actual fact to be and the abstract notions which are all
he has with which to describe it. I have attempted to show how it
comes about that we are in fact able to perform this apparently
impossible feat of describing the indescribable, using Bergson's
descriptions of sensible perception and the relations of matter and
memory to illustrate my point. If we succeed in ridding ourselves of
our common-sense preconceptions, Bergson tells us that we may expect
to know the old facts in a new way, face to face, as it were, instead
of seeing them through a web of our own intellectual interpretations.
I have not attempted to offer any proof whether or not Bergson's
description of reality is in fact true: having understood the meaning
of the description it remains for each of us to decide for himself
whether or not it fits the facts.

KARIN STEPHEN.

Cambridge, January, 1922.




International Library of Psychology
Philosophy and Scientific Method