want to describe or explain. And he goes a step further. Not only do these methods fail to reveal the situation but the intellectual attitude of abstraction to which they accustom us seriously handicaps us when we want not merely to explain the situation but to know it. Now it is the business of science to explain situations in terms of general laws and so the intellectual method of abstract-ion is the right one for scientists to employ. Bergson claims, however, that philosophy has a task quite distinct from that of science. In whatever situation he finds himself a man may take up one of two attitudes, he may either adopt a practical attitude, in which case he will set to work to explain the situation in order that he may know what to do under the circumstances, or he may take a speculative interest in it and then he will devote himself to knowing it simply for the sake of knowing. It is only, according to Bergson, in the former case, when his interest is practical, that he will attain his object by using the intellectual method of abstraction which proceeds by analysis and classification. These intellectual operations have such prestige, however, they have proved so successful in discovering explanations, that we are apt to take it for granted that they must be the best way to set, to work whatever sort of knowledge we want: we might almost be tempted, off hand, to imagine that they were our only way of knowing at all, but a moment’s reflection will show that this, at any rate, would be going too far. Before we can analyse and classify and explain we must have something to analyse, some material to work upon: these operations, are based upon something which we know directly, what we see, for instance, or touch or feel. This something is the foundation of knowledge, the intellectual operations of analysis classification and the framing of general laws are simply an attempt to describe and explain it. It is the business of science to explain and intellectual methods are the appropriate ones for science to employ. But the business of philosophy, according to Bergson, is not to explain reality but to know it. For this a different kind of mental effort is required. Analysis and classification, instead of increasing our direct knowledge, tend rather to diminish it. They must always start from some direct knowledge, but they proceed, not by widening the field of this knowledge but by leaving out more and more of it. Moreover, unless we are constantly on the alert, the intellectual habit of using all our direct knowledge as material for analysis and classification ends by completely misleading us as to what it is that we do actually know. So that the better we explain the less, in the end, we know.