In his brilliant paper L'Intuition philosophique Bergson shows us, by
a splendid study of Berkeley and Spinoza, that the great Intuition
underlying the thought of a philosopher is of more worth to the world
than the logic and dialectic through the aid of which it is made
manifest, and elaborated. [Footnote: He makes this clear in a letter to
Dr. Mitchell in the latter's Studies in Bergson's Philosophy, p. 31.]
Then in the Lectures La Perception du Changement and in his little work
on Laughter he sets forth the meaning of Intuition in relation to Art.
From time to time Nature raises up souls more or less detached from
practical life, seers of visions and dreamers of dreams, men of
Intuition, with powers of great poetry, great music, or great painting.
The clearest evidence of Intuition comes to us from the works of these
great artists. What is it that we call the "genius" of great painters,
great musicians, and great poets? It is simply the power they have of
seeing more than we see and of enabling us, by their expressions, to
penetrate further into reality ourselves. What makes the picture is the
artist's vision, his entry into the subject by sympathy or Intuition,
and however imperfectly he expresses this, yet he reveals to us more
than we could otherwise have perceived.
The original form of consciousness, Bergson asserts, was nearer to
Intuition than to Intelligence. But man has found Intellect the more
valuable faculty for practical use and so has used it for the solution
of questions it was never intended to solve, by reason of its nature
and origin. Yet "Intuition is there, but vague and, above all,
discontinuous. It is a lamp almost extinguished which only glimmers now
and then for a few moments at most. But it glimmers whenever a vital
interest is at stake. On our personality, on our liberty, on the place
we occupy in the whole of Nature, on our origin, and perhaps also on our
destiny, it throws a light, feeble and vacillating, but which, none the
less, pierces the darkness of the night in which the Intellect leaves
us." [Footnote: Creative Evolution, p. 282 (Fr. p. 290).]
Science promises us well-being, or, at the most, pleasure, but
philosophy, through the Intuition to which it leads us, is capable
of bestowing upon us Joy. The future belongs to such an intuitive
philosophy, Bergson holds, for he considers that the whole progress of
Evolution is towards the creation of a type of being whose Intuition
will be equal to his Intelligence. Finally, by Intuition we shall find
ourselves in--to invent a word--"intunation" with the elan vital,
with the Evolution of the whole universe, and this absolute feeling of
"at-one-ment" with the universe will result in that emotional synthesis
which is deep Joy, which Wordsworth describes as:
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