of reality is that by which nature is a possible object of language or industry. Let us turn now towards another aspect of natural thought, to discover in it the germ of the necessary criticism. By the side of "common-sense," which is the first rough-draft of positive science, there is "good sense," which differs from it profoundly, and marks the beginning of what we shall later on call philosophic intuition. (Cf. an address on "Good Sense and Classical Studies", delivered by Mr Bergson at the Concours general prize distribution, 30th July 1895.) It is a sense of what is real, concrete, original, living, an art of equilibrium and precision, a fine touch for complexities, continually feeling like the antennae of some insects. It contains a certain distrust of the logical faculty in respect of itself; it wages incessant war upon intellectual automatism, upon ready-made ideas and linear deduction; above all, it is anxious to locate and to weigh, without any oversights; it arrests the development of every principle and every method at the precise point where too brutal an application would offend the delicacy of reality; at every moment it collects the whole of our experience and organises it in view of the present. It is, in a word, thought which keeps its freedom, activity which remains awake, suppleness of attitude, attention to life, an ever-renewed adjustment to suit ever-new situations. Its revealing virtue is derived from this moving contact with fact, and this living effort of sympathy. This is what we must tend to transpose from the practical to the speculative order. What, then, will be for us the beginning of philosophy? After taking cognisance of common utilitarianism, and to emerge from the relativity in which it buries us, we seek a departure-point, a criterion, something which decides the raising of inquiry. Where are we to find such a principle, except in the very action of thought; I mean, this time, its action of profound life independent of all practical aim? We shall thus only be imitating the example of Descartes when solving the problem of temporary doubt. What we shall term return to the immediate, the primitive, the pure fact, will be the taking of each perception considered as an act lived, a coloured moment of the Cogito, and this will be for us a criterion and departure-point. Let us specify this point. Immediate data or primitive data or pure data are apprehended by us under forms of disinterested action; I mean that they are first of all lived rather than conceived, that before becoming material for science, they appear as moments of life; in brief, that perception of them precedes their use.