detail, and am obliged to refer the reader to the fourth chapter of "Creative Evolution", where he will find the whole question dealt with.

One remark, however, has still to be made. Philosophy, according to Mr Bergson's conception, implies and demands time; it does not aim at completion all at once, for the mental reform in question is of the kind which requires gradual fulfilment. The truth which it involves does not set out to be a non-temporal essence, which a sufficiently powerful genius would be able, under pressure, to perceive in its entirety at one view; and that again seems to be very new.

I do not, of course, wish to abuse systems of philosophy. Each of them is an experience of thought, a moment in the life of thought, a method of exploring reality, a reagent which reveals an aspect. Truth undergoes analysis into systems as does light into colours.

But the mere name system calls up the static idea of a finished building. Here there is nothing of the kind. The new philosophy desires to be a proceeding as much as, and even more than, to be a system. It insists on being lived as well as thought. It demands that thought should work at living its true life, an inner life related to itself, effective, active, and creative, but not on that account directed towards external action. "And," says Mr Bergson, "it can only be constructed by the collective and progressive effort of many thinkers, and of many observers, completing, correcting, and righting one another." (Preface to "Creative Evolution".)

Let us see how it begins, and what is its generating act.

III.

How are we to attain the immediate? How are we to realise this perception of pure fact which we stated to be the philosopher's first step?

Unless we can clear up this doubt, the end proposed will remain to our gaze an abstract and lifeless ideal. This is, then, the point which requires instant explanation. For there is a serious difficulty in which the very employment of the word "immediate" might lead us astray.

The immediate, in the sense which concerns us, is not at all, or at least is no longer for us the passive experience, the indefinable something which we should inevitably receive, provided we opened our eyes and abstained from reflection.

As a matter of fact, we cannot abstain from reflection: reflection is today part of our very vision; it comes into play as soon as we open our eyes. So that, to come on the trail of the immediate, there must be effort and work. How are we to guide this effort? In what will this work consist? By what sign shall we be able to recognise that the result has been obtained?

These are the questions to be cleared up. Mr Bergson speaks of them chiefly in connection with the realities of consciousness, or, more generally speaking, of life. And it is here, in fact, that the consequences are most weighty and far-reaching. We shall need to refer to them again in detail. But to simplify my explanation, I will here choose another example: that of inert matter, of the perception on which the physical is based. It is in this case that the divergence between common perception and pure perception, however real it may be, assumes least proportions.

Therefore it appears most in place in the sketch I desire to trace of an exceedingly complex work, where I can only hope, evidently, to indicate the main lines and general direction.

We readily believe that when we cast our eyes upon surrounding objects, we enter into them unresistingly and apprehend them all at once in their intrinsic nature. Perception would thus be nothing but simple passive registration. But nothing could be more untrue, if we are speaking of the perception which we employ without profound criticism in the course of our daily life. What we here take to be pure fact is, on the contrary, the last term in a highly complicated series of mental operations. And this term contains as much of us as of things.

In fact, all concrete perception comes up for analysis as an indissoluble mixture of construction and fact, in which the fact is only revealed through the construction, and takes on its complexion. We all know by experience how incapable the uneducated person is of explaining the simple appearance of the least fact, without embodying a crowd of false interpretations. We know to a less extent, but it is also true, that the most enlightened and adroit person proceeds in just the same manner: his interpretation is better, but it is still interpretation.

That is why accurate observation is so difficult; we see or we do not see, we notice such and such an aspect, we read this or that, according to our state of consciousness at the time, according to the direction of the investigation on which we are engaged.

Who was it defined art as nature seen through a mind? Perception, too, is an art.

This art has its processes, its conventions, and its tools. Go into a laboratory and study one of those complex instruments which make our senses finer or more powerful; each of them is literally a sheaf of materialised theories, and by means of it all acquired science is brought to bear on each new observation of the student. In exactly the same way our organs of sense are actual instruments constructed by the unconscious work of the mind in the course of biological evolution; they too sum up and give concrete form and expression to a system of enlightening theories. But that is not all. The most elementary psychology shows us the amount of thought, in the correct sense of the term, recollection, or inference, which enters into what we should be tempted to call pure perception.

Establishment of fact is not the simple reception of the faithful imprint of that fact; it is invariably interpreted, systematised, and placed in pre-existing forms which constitute veritable theoretical frames. That is why the child has to learn to perceive. There is an education of the senses which he acquires by long training. One day, which aid of habit, he will almost cease to see things: a few lines, a few glimpses, a few simple signs noted in a brief passing glance, will enable him to recognise them; and he will hardly retain any more of reality than its schemes and symbols.

"Perception," says Mr Bergson on this subject, "becomes in the end only an opportunity of recollection." ("Matter and Memory", page 59.)

All concrete perception, it is true, is directed less upon the present than the past. The part of pure perception in it is small, and immediately covered and almost buried by the contribution of memory.

This infinitesimal part acts as a bait. It is a summons to recollection, challenging us to extract from our previous experience, and construct with our acquired wealth a system of images which permits us to read the experience of the moment.

With our scheme of interpretation thus constituted we encounter the few fugitive traits which we have actually perceived. If the theory we have elaborated adapts itself, and succeeds in accounting for, connecting, and making sense of these traits, we shall finally have a perception properly so called.

Perception then, in the usual sense of the word, is the resolution of a problem, the verification of a theory.

Thus are explained "errors of the senses," which are in reality errors of interpretation. Thus too, and in the same manner, we have the explanation of dreams.

Let us take a simple example. When you read a book, do you spell each syllable, one by one, to group the syllables afterwards into words, and the words into phrases, thus travelling from print to meaning? Not at all: you grasp a few letters accurately, a few downstrokes in their graphical outline; then you guess the remainder, travelling in the reverse direction, from a probable meaning to the print which you are interpreting. This is what causes mistakes in reading, and the well-known difficulty in seeing printing errors.

This observation is confirmed by curious experiments. Write some everyday phrase or other on a blackboard; let there be a few intentional