they were condensed
some way back after the third chapter of the "Essay on the Immediate
Data". But I will borrow from Mr Bergson himself a few complementary
explanations, in order, as far as possible, to forestall any
misunderstanding. "The word liberty," he says, "has for me a sense
intermediate between those which we assign as a rule to the two terms
liberty and free-will. On one hand, I believe that liberty consists
in being entirely oneself, in acting in conformity with oneself; it
is then, to a certain degree, the 'moral liberty' of philosophers, the
independence of the person with regard to everything other than
itself. But that is not quite this liberty, since the independence I
am describing has not always a moral character. Further, it does not
consist in depending on oneself as an effect depends on the cause which
of necessity determines it. In this, I should come back to the sense of
'free-will.' And yet I do not accept this sense completely either,
since free-will, in the usual meaning of the term, implies the equal
possibility of two contraries, and on my theory we cannot formulate, or
even conceive in this case the thesis of the equal possibility of the
two contraries, without falling into grave error about the nature of
time. I might say then, that the object of my thesis, on this particular
point, has been precisely to find a position intermediate between 'moral
liberty' and 'free-will.' Liberty, such as I understand it, is situated
between these two terms, but not at equal distances from both. If I were
obliged to blend it with one of the two, I should select 'free-will.'"
("Report of the French Philosophical Society", philosophical vocabulary,
article "Liberty".)

After all, when we place ourselves in the perspective of homogeneous
time; that is to say, when we substitute for the real and profound ego
its image refracted through space, the act necessarily appears either
as the resultant of a mechanical composition of elements, or as an
incomprehensible creation ex nihilo.

"We have supposed that there is a third course to pursue; that is, to
place ourselves back in pure duration...Then we seemed to see action
arise from its antecedents by an evolution sui generis, in such a way
that we discover in this action the antecedents which explain it, while
at the same time it adds something absolutely new to them, being an
advance upon them as the fruit upon the flower. Liberty is in no way
reduced thereby,