oes not aim at a goal of disinterested
knowledge, but one of practical utility, or rather, if it is knowledge,
it is only knowledge elaborated in view of action and speech.

Need we repeat here the proofs by which we have already established in
the most positive manner that such is really the meaning of ordinary
perception, the underlying reason which causes it to take the place of
pure perception? We perceive by habit only what is useful to us, what
interests us practically; very often, too, we think we are perceiving
when we are merely inferring, as for example when we seem to see a
distance in depth, a succession of planes, of which in reality we judge
by differences of colouring or relief.

Our senses supplement one another. A slow education has gradually taught
us to co-ordinate their impressions, especially those of touch to those
of vision. (H. Bergson, "Note on the Psychological Origins of Our Belief
in the Law of Causality". Vol. i. of the "Library of the International
Philosophical Congress", 1900.)

Theoretical forms come between nature and us: a veil of symbols envelops
reality; thus, finally, we no longer see things themselves, we are
content to read the labels on them.

Moreover, our perception appears to analysis completely saturated with
memories, and that in view of our practical insertion in the present. I
will not come back to this point which has been so lucidly explained
by Mr Bergson in a lecture on "Dream" ("Report of the International
Psychological Institute", May 1901.) and an article on "Intellectual
Effort", ("Philosophical Review", January 1902.) the reading of which
cannot be too strongly recommended as an introduction to the first
chapter of "Matter and Memory", in which further arguments are to be
found. I will only add one remark, following Mr Bergson, as always:
perception is not simply contemplation, but consciousness of an original
visual emotion combined with a complete group of actions in embryo,
gestures in outline, and the graze of movement within, by which we
prepare to grasp the object, describe its lines, test its functions,
sound it, move it, and handle it in a thousand ways. (This is attested
by the facts of apraxia or psychic blindness. Cf. "Matter and Memory",
chapter ii.)

From the preceding observations springs the utilitarian and practical
nature of common perception. Let us attempt now to see of what the
elaboration which it makes reality undergo consists. This time