parently
relative to a science which is out of date, remain always living and
worthy of study.

What, then, is the original intuition of Mr Bergson's philosophy, the
creative intuition whence it comes forth? We cannot hesitate long: it
is the intuition of duration. That is the perspective centre to which we
must indefatigably return; that is the principle which we must labour
to expose in its full light; and that is, finally, the source of light
which will illumine us. Now a philosophy is not only an expressed
intuition; it is further and above all an acting intuition, gradually
determined and realised, and tested by its explanatory works; and it is
by its fruits that we can understand and judge it. Hence the review upon
which we are entering.

II. Immediacy.

The philosopher's first duty is in clear language to declare his
starting-point, with what a mathematician would call the "tangent to
the origin" of the path along which he is travelling, as afterwards
the critic's first duty is to describe this initial attitude. I have
therefore first of all to indicate the directing idea of the new
philosophy. But it is not a question of extracting a quintessence, or of
fencing the soul of doctrine within a few summary formulae. A system
is not to be resumed in a phrase, for every proposition isolated is
a proposition falsified. I wish merely to elucidate the methodical
principle which inspires the beginning of Mr Bergson's philosophy.

To philosophy itself falls the task and belongs the right to define
itself gradually as it becomes constituted. On this point, an
anticipation of experience seems hardly possible; here, as elsewhere,
the finding of a synthetic formula is a final rather than preliminary
question. However, we are obliged from the outset of the work to
determine the programme of the inquiry, if only to direct our research.
It is the same on the threshold of every science. There, it is true, the
analogy ceases. For in any science properly speaking the determination
of beginning consists in the indication of an object, and a matter, and
beyond that, to each new object a new science reciprocally corresponds,
the existence of the one involving the legitimacy of the other. But if
the various sciences--I mean the positive sciences--divide different
objects thus between them, philosophy cannot, in its turn, come forward
as a particular science, having a distinct object, the designation of
which would be sufficie