real contingency, then his condemnation of intellect, and finally his account of the relations of
mind and matter.
Of course a large part of Bergson's philosophy, probably the part to which most of its popularity is
due, does not depend upon argument, and cannot be upset by argument. His imaginative picture of
the world, regarded as a poetic effort, is in the main not capable of either proof or disproof.
Shakespeare says life's but a walking shadow, Shelley says it is like a dome of many-coloured
glass, Bergson says it is a shell which bursts into parts that are again shells. If you like Bergson's
image better, it is just as legitimate.
The good which Bergson hopes to see realized in the world is action for the sake of action. All
pure contemplation he calls "dreaming," and condemns by a whole series of uncomplimentary
epithets: static, Platonic, mathematical, logical, intellectual. Those who desire some prevision of
the end which action is to achieve are told that an end foreseen would be nothing new, because
desire, like memory, is identified with its object. Thus we are condemned, in action, to be the
blind slaves of instinct: the life-force pushes us on from behind, restlessly and unceasingly. There
is no room in this philosophy for the moment of contemplative insight when, rising above the
animal life, we become conscious of the greater ends that redeem man from the life of the brutes.
Those to whom activity without purpose seems a sufficient good will find in Bergson's books a
pleasing picture of the universe. But those to whom action, if it is to be of any value, must be
inspired by some vision, by some imaginative foreshadowing of a world less painful, less unjust,
less full of strife than the world of our every-day life, those, in a word, whose action is built on
contemplation, will find in this philosophy nothing of what they seek, and will not regret that there
is no reason to think it true.
-810-CHAPTER XXIX WILLIAM JAMESWILLIAM JAMES ( 1842-1910)was primarily a psychologist, but was important in philosophy on
two accounts: he invented the. doctrine which he called "radical empiricism," and he was one of
the three protagonists of the theory called "pragmatism" or "instrumentalism." In later life he was,
as he deserved to be, the recognized leader of American philosophy. He was led by the study of
medicine to the consideration of psychology; his great book on the subject, published in 1890, had
the highest possible excellence. I shall not, however, deal with it, since it was a contribution to
science rather than to philosophy.
There were two sides to William James's philosophical interests, one scientific, the other
religious. On the scientific side, the study of medicine had given his thoughts a tendency towards
materialism, which, however, was held in check by his religious emotions. His religious feelings
were very Protestant, very democratic, and very full of a warmth of human kindness. He refused
altogether to follow his brother Henry into fastidious snobbishness. "The prince of darkness," he
said, "may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he
can surely be no gentleman." This is a very characteristic pronouncement.
His warm-heartedness and his delightful humour caused him to be almost universally beloved.
The only man I know of who did not feel any affection for him was Santayana, whose doctor's
thesis William James had described as "the perfection of rottenness." There was between these
two men a temperamental opposition which nothing could have overcome. Santayana also liked
religion, but in a very different way. He liked it aesthetically and historically, not as a help
towards a moral life; as was natural, he greatly preferred Catholicism to Protestantism. He did not
intellectually accept any of the Chrisdm