entirely new moral codes. Sorel justifies violence to be used against
the existing order, but says he wishes to avoid unnecessary blood-shed
or brutality. [Footnote: Reflections on Violence. It is interesting to
note that Bergson refers briefly to Sorel as an original thinker whom it
is impossible to place in any category or class, in La Philosophie, p.
13.] He remarks however, in this connexion, that ancient society, with
all its brutality, compares favourably with modern society which has
replaced ferocity by cunning. The ancient peoples had less hypocrisy
than we have; this, in his opinion, justifies violence in the overthrow
of the modern system and the creation of a nobler ethic than that on
which the modern State is based. For this reason, he disagrees with most
of his Syndicalist colleagues, and condemns sabotage and also the ca
canny policy, both of which are a kind of revenge upon the employer,
based on the principle of "bad work for bad pay." He would have the
workers produce well now, and urges that moral progress is to be aimed
at no less than material progress.
It certainly seems, however, that the Syndicalists are making an unfair
use of Bergson. They have got hold of three or four points rather out of
relation to their context, and are making the most of them. These points
are, chiefly, his remarks against the Intellect, his appreciation
of Instinct and Intuition, his insistence on Freedom and on the
Indeterminateness of the Future. In the hands of the Syndicalists these
become in effect: "Never mind what you think, rouse up your feeling
intensely; act as you feel and then see what you think." Briefly
this amounts to saying: "Act on impulse, behave instinctively and not
rationally." In too many cases, as we know, this is equivalent to a
merely selfish "Down tools if you feel like it." Now so far from Bergson
really giving any countenance to capricious behaviour, or mere impulse,
he expressly condemns such action. Although the future is being made, he
does not admit that it will be merely CAPRICIOUSLY made, and he condemns
the man of mere impulse along with the dreamer, in a fine passage
where he speaks of the value of an intelligent memory in practical
life.[Footnote: See p. 48 of the present work.] When the Syndicalists
assert that elan, instinct, impulse, or intuition are a better guide
than intelligence and reasoned principles, and cite Bergson as their
authority, they omit an important qualification which upsets their
theory entirely, for Bergson's anti-intellectualism is not at all of the
type which they advocate. He does not intend to rule Intellect out of
practical affairs. Indeed it is just the opposite that he asserts, for,
in his view, the Intellect is pre-eminently fitted for practical life,
for action, and it is for this very reason that he maintains it does not
give us insight into reality itself, which Intuition alone can do. He
does not wish, however, to decrease the small element of rationality
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