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MYSTICISM AND THE OPEN SOCIETY

which is, from this point of view, ‘‘against nature,’’ and whose only chance, politically, is,
precisely, to ‘‘fool nature.’’ (Bergson credits human beings for having developed very
quickly this capability to fool nature, by turning sexuality, for example, away from its
goal, the reproduction of the species.) Nonetheless, there is no break betweenCreative
EvolutionandThe Two Sources. The second source expresses an aspect of life, too, and its
capacity to ‘‘fool nature’’ is nothing but a way of linking up once more with the power of
life. And Bergson does not hesitate to invoke a philosopher otherwise not very dear to
him: Spinoza. Between the two sources, there is the same difference, and the same rela-
tion, as betweenNatura NaturansandNatura Naturata: ‘‘Hence in passing from social
solidarity to the brotherhood of men, we break with one particular nature, but not with
all nature. It might be said, by slightly distorting the terms of Spinoza, that it is to get
back to Natura Naturans that we break away from Natura Naturata.’’^24
To Bergson’s mind, we will never be able to pass from closed societies to the open
society by means of a progressive broadening. Dreamt of from time to time by some, as
he writes, the open society sometimes succeeds in tearing apart closures and in actualizing
something of itself before closing itself again in the network of habits, in the whole of
social obligation. What is at stake in these moments is thus a qualitative, not a quantita-
tive, leap. One could call these moments ‘‘progress’’ if one would like to believe that these
steps are all taken in the same direction. But that would once again be the retrospective
illusion of the possible because in reality there is no direction established in advance. If
that were the case, moral and political renovations would be foreseeable and there would
be no need to create, no need to produce or invent them.
Without being willing to subscribe to a philosophy of history or to a universalism of
pure reason, Bergson puts the emphasis on the new, the unforeseeable, which is never
contained in the past, not even as possible. He trusts the powers of time and of life, which
are nothing but a production of the new—all along knowing that these forces are fragile
and that nobody can guarantee us a better future.
Bergson’s political theology—if he has one, which is not certain—is an act of belief
in the moving and in change; an appeal to act in order to open up societies and institu-
tions, which by their very essence seek to freeze. But if there is no explicit teleology, is
there any finality to this mysticism of movement? Maybe there is, but it is a finality
without either form or content, a desire to break through the boundaries, to go beyond
that which presents itself as possible. It is in this sense that I would like to read the famous
and enigmatic claim with whichThe Two Sourcesends: ‘‘Theirs the responsibility, then,
for deciding if they want merely to live, or intend to make just the extra effort required
for fulfilling, even on their refractory planet, the essential function of the universe, which
is a machine for the making of gods.’’^25

—Translated by Nils F. Schott

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