Nevertheless, William James hailed Bergson as an ally very
enthusiastically. Early in the century (1903) we find him remarking in
his correspondence: "I have been re-reading Bergson's books, and nothing
that I have read since years has so excited and stimulated my thoughts.
I am sure that that philosophy has a great future, it breaks through old
cadres and brings things into a solution from which new crystals can
be got." The most noteworthy tributes paid by him to Bergson were those
made in the Hibbert Lectures (A Pluralistic Universe), which James
gave at Manchester College, Oxford, shortly after he and Bergson met in
London. He there remarked upon the encouragement he had received from
Bergson's thought, and referred to the confidence he had in being "able
to lean on Bergson's authority." [Footnote: A Pluralistic Universe, pp.
214-15. Cf. the whole of Lecture V. The Compounding of Consciousness,
pp. 181-221, and Lecture VI. Bergson and His Critique of
Intellectualism, pp. 225-273.] "Open Bergson, and new horizons loom on
every page you read. It is like the breath of the morning and the song
of birds. It tells of reality itself, instead of merely reiterating
what dusty-minded professors have written about what other previous
professors have thought. Nothing in Bergson is shop-worn or at
second-hand." [Footnote: Lecture VI., p. 265.] The influence of Bergson
had led him "to renounce the intellectualist method and the current
notion that logic is an adequate measure of what can or cannot be."
[Footnote: A Pluralistic Universe, p. 212.] It had induced him, he
continued, "TO GIVE UP THE LOGIC, squarely and irrevocably" as a method,
for he found that "reality, life, experience, concreteness, immediacy,
use what word you will, exceeds our logic, overflows, and surrounds it."
[Footnote: A Pluralistic Universe, p. 212.]
Naturally, these remarks, which appeared in book form in 1909, directed
many English and American readers to an investigation of Bergson's
philosophy for themselves. A certain handicap existed in that his
greatest work had not then been translated into English. James, however,
encouraged and assisted Dr. Arthur Mitchell in his preparation of the
English translation of L'Evolution creatrice. In August of 1910 James
died. It was his intention, had he lived to see the completion of
the translation, to introduce it to the English reading public by a
prefatory note of appreciation. In the following year the translation
was completed and still greater interest in Bergson and his work was the
result. By a coincidence, in that same year (1911), Bergson penned
for the French translation of James' book, Pragmatism,[Footnote: Le
Pragmatisme: Translated by Le Brun. Paris, Flammarion.] a preface
of sixteen pages, entitled Verite et Realite. In it he expressed
sympathetic appreciation of James' work, coupled with certain important
reservations.
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