Thus when it comes to conduct and the question of choice the kind
of "imperative" issued by conscience has been already profoundly
changed. It is still the mandate of conscience. But it is the mandate
of a conscience whose search-light has been taken possession of
by the aesthetic sense and has been fed by imagination, instinct
and intuition.
It must be understood when we speak of these various "aspects" or
"attributes" of the human soul we do not imply that they exist as
separable faculties independently of the unity of the soul which
possesses them.
The soul is an integral and indivisible monad and throws its whole
strength along each of these lines of contact with the world. As
will, the soul flings itself upon the world in the form of choice
between opposite valuations. As conscience, it flings itself upon
the world in the form of motive force of opposite valuations. As
the aesthetic sense, it flings itself upon the world in the form of yet
another motive-force of opposite valuations. As imagination, it
half-creates and half-discovers the atmospheric climate, so to
speak, of this valuation. As intuition, it feels itself to be in
possession of a super-terrestrial, super-human authority which
gives objective definiteness and security to this valuation. As
instinct, it feels its way by an innate clairvoyance into the organic
or biological vibrations of this valuation.
Thus we return to the point from which we started, namely that the
whole problem of philosophy is the problem of valuation. And this
is the same thing as saying that philosophy, considered in its
essential nature, is nothing less than art--the art of flinging itself
upon the world with all the potentialities of the soul functioning in
rhythmic harmony.
When Bergson talks of the "élan vital" and suggests that the acts
of choice of the human personality are made as naturally and
inevitably, under the pressure of the "shooting out" of the spirit, as
leaves grow upon the tree, he is falling into the old traditional
blunder of all pantheistic and monistic thinkers, the blunder
namely of attributing to a universal "God" or "life-force" or
"stream of tendency" the actual personal achievements of
individual souls.
Bergson's "apologia" for free-will is therefore rendered ineffective
by reason of the fact that it does not really leave the individual
free. The only "free" thing is the aboriginal "spirit," pouring forth
in its "durational" stream, and moulding bodies and brains as it
goes along.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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