Modern Science and the Illusions of Professor Bergson |
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absurdities affirms analogy animal appears Aristotle assume attack attempt Bacon belief body brain cause cerebral chapter congenital consciousness Creative Evolution Demokritus Descartes doctrine effort emotion Epikurus error ethics existence experience explain facts false favour further ground Hegel Herbert Spencer human Huxley hymenoptera hypothesis Ibid ideas images instance instinct intellect intelligence intuition Ionian school knowledge Lucretius machine materialism materialist matical matter and energy Matter and Memory means mechanical mechanistic ment mental meta metaphysicians metaphysics method molecules molluscs moral motion natural selection nature nervous never object obscurity organic origin perceive perception phenomena philo physical law physiological position possible principle Professor Bergson progress prove psychical psychology purely question RAY LANKESTER reality recognise refutation scepticism Scholasticism scientific sensations sense Sokrates sophy Spencer sphere spirit stream superstitions suppose tabula rasa teleological tendency theory things tion true truth Universe vertebrates vital impetus words
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Page 33 - All the living hold together and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity, in space and in time, is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us, in an overwhelming charge, able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death."* 1 Creative Evolution, p.
Page v - ... omne genus motus et coetus experiundo tandem deveniunt in talis disposituras, qualibus haec rerum consistit summa creata, et multos etiam magnos servata per annos ut semel in motus coniectast convenientis, 1030 efficit ut largis avidum mare fluminis undis integrent amnes et solis terra vapore fota novet fetus summissaque gens animantum floreat et vivant labentes aetheris ignes...
Page 21 - In such a doctrine, time is still spoken of: one pronounces the word, but one does not think of the thing. For time is here deprived of efficacy, and if it does nothing, it is nothing.
Page 58 - That there is a close connection between a state of consciousness and the brain we do not dispute. But there is also a close connection between a coat and the nail on which it hangs, for, if the nail is pulled out, the coat falls to the ground. Shall we say, then, that the shape of the nail gives us the shape of the coat, or in any way corresponds to it? No more are we entitled to conclude, because the physical fact is hung on to a cerebral state, that there is any parallelism between the two series...
Page 215 - Philosophers who have speculated on the significance of life and the destiny of man have not sufficiently remarked that Nature has taken pains to give us notice every time this destiny is accomplished ; she has set up a sign which apprises us every time our activity is in full expansion; this sign is joy; I do not say pleasure.
Page 227 - With dazzling cheats and dear devices Confines it in this cave of pain! Cursed be, at once, the high ambition Wherewith the mind itself deludes! Cursed be the glare of apparition That on the finer sense intrudes!
Page 18 - ... strung upon a solid make up that duration which flows. What we actually obtain in this way is an artificial imitation of the internal life, a static equivalent which will lend itself better to the requirements of logic and language, just because we have eliminated from it the element of real time. But, as regards the psychical life unfolding beneath the symbols which conceal it, we readily perceive that time is just the stuff it is made of.
Page 143 - Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science ; and hard and misapplied words, with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning, and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak, or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hinderance of true knowledge.
Page 51 - ... section of universal becoming. Either, then, you must suppose that this universe dies and is born again miraculously at each moment of duration, or you must attribute to it that continuity of existence which you deny to consciousness, and make of its past a reality which endures and is prolonged into its present. So that you have gained nothing by depositing the memories in matter, and you...
Page 40 - Representation is there, but always virtual — being neutralized, at the very moment when it might become actual, by the obligation to continue itself and to lose itself in something else. To obtain this conversion from the virtual to the actual it would be necessary, not to throw more light on the object, but on the contrary to obscure some of its aspects, to diminish it by the greater part of itself, so that the remainder, instead of being encased in its surroundings as a thing, should detach...