and its independence relative to matter. Thus is
determined the relation of soul to body, the penetrating point which it
inserts and drives into the plane of action. "Mind borrows from matter
perceptions from which it derives its nourishment, and gives them back
to it in the form of movement, on which it has impressed its liberty."
("Matter and Memory", page 279.)

This, then, is how the cycle of research closes, by returning to the
initial problem, the problem of perception. In the two opposing systems
by which attempts have been made to solve it, Mr Bergson discovers a
common postulate, resulting in a common impotence. From the idealistic
point of view we do not succeed in explaining how a world is expressed
externally, nor from the realistic point of view how an ego is expressed
internally. And this double failure comes again from the underlying
hypothesis, according to which the duality of the subject and object is
conceived as primitive, radical, and static. Our duty is diametrically
opposed. We have to consider this duality as gradually elaborated, and
the problem concerning it must be first stated, and then solved as a
function of time rather than of space. Our representation begins by
being impersonal, and it is only later that it adopts our body as
centre. We emerge gradually from universal reality, and our realising
roots are always sunk in it. But this reality in itself is already
consciousness, and the first moment of perception always puts us back
into the initial state previous to the separation of the subject and
object. It is by the work of life, and by action, that this separation
is effected, created, accentuated, and fixed. And the common mistake of
realism and idealism is to believe it effected in advance, whereas it is
relatively second to perception.

Hence comes the absolute value of immediate intuition. For from what
source could an irreducible relativity be produced in it? It would be
absurd to make it depend on the constitution of our brain, since our
brain itself, so far as it is a group of images, is only a part of the
universe, presenting the same characteristics as the whole; and in so
far as it is a group of mechanisms become habits, is only a result of
the initial action of life, of original perceptive discernment. And, on
the other hand, no less absurd would be the fear that the subject
can ever be excluded or eliminated from its own knowledge, since, in
reality, the subject, like the