BERGSON'S THEORY OF FREEDOM

In thèse depths

we hâve no séries of moments, but prolongea and interpenetrating phases ; theîr séquence is not a substitution of one point for another, but rather resembles a musical resolution of harmony into harmony.^

Bergson bas pointed eut that the reason why ail previous arguments propounded to demonstrate the Freedom of the Will hâve failed is because the problem has been se stated as to ref er only to the superficial extemalized aspect of the selflife, the life as it is expressed in discrète and separate words and deeds. Freedom has been sought in this superficial life, our usual conamonplace Ufe, the life which, perhaps, for most men is the only one of which they are aware ; and freedom has not been demonstrated hère, for the simple reason that it is not hère, since it is in the very nature of this life at the circumf erence of the self that it is split up into fragmentary éléments which are determined by the world-environment at every point. Determinism consorts closely with self-consciousness. Freedom belongs to the centre, not to the circumference. Freedom lies where the personal life moves and expresses itself as a whole.

Freewill is the very nature of our lives as individual wholes, the expression of the individuality of life.^

To quote Bergson* s own words :

We are free when our acts proceed from our entire

* Le Roy, A New Philosophy, p. 8x.

» Mr. Wildon Carr. Bergson. Cf. Le Roy, pp. 82-8.

FREEDOM AND INDIVIDUALITY 101

personality, vrben tbey express it, wben tbey exhibit that jLnde&nable resemblanoe to it which we find oocasionally between the artist and Us work.^

The illustration suggested by the last sentence wiU repay a moments reflection. An artist has his more superficial Ufe like the rest of men, the life of ordinary intercourse with the world and his fellows ; freedom does not lie hère. In a good deal, maybe, of his work he is not free ; that is to say, he imitâtes some master, or synthesizes the ideas of some school, or does less self-expressive work to eam a living, or subserves the fashion and the taste of the time. ^bviously there is no freedom hère. But meanwhile something is growing up within him ; it is a profound inward movement of which only himself is aware ; it is the expansion and progress of his soûl ; it is the development of his individuality. To begin with it may be vague and undefined ; an obscure deep motion ; a faintly-marked point of view, of f eeble intensity. But with the passage of time it gathers strength. From ail the manifold expérience of life something enters into and becomes a part of this growing spiritual selfhood. It becomes more and more urgent. Its momentum and pressure increase. He comes to be in travail with it. It swells like a fertilized seed. It rises Uke a tide, He experiments; his experiments are failures, yet they count. The thing comes on in him, it lifts itself up like a wave. His whole being is

1 Btrgion, ImmeditU9 Daiit of Consciousness, p. 131,

102 CREATIVE ACTION

gathered into it. He knows that it is the reality of himself . At last it is ripe ; at last he can express himself, triumphantly transcending his materials ; he créâtes a new thing.

That, in Bergson' s view, is his free act. Such self-announcements, such self-incarnations, are the only free acts. " Freevdll is créative action." Freedom attaches to the spiritual Ufe. It is our constant potential as spiritual beings, but only rarely does it become actual.

That our s|Mritual life is genuine action, capable of independence, initiative, and irreducible novelty, not mère resuit produced from outside ; that it is so much ours as to oonstitute every moment, for him who can see, an essentiaUy incomparable and new invention, is exactly what represents for us the name of liberty. Understood thus, liberty is a profound thing ; we seek it only in those moments of high and solemn choice which come into our life, not in the petty familiar actions which their very insigniôcance submits to ail surrounding in-> fluences, to every wandering breeze. Liberty is rare; many live and die and hâve never known it. Liberty is a thing which contains an infinité number of degrees and shades ; it is measured by our capadty for the inner life. Liberty is a thing which gœs on in us unceasingly ; our liberty is potential rather than actual. The free act is the act which has long been preparing, the act which is heavy with our whole history, and Êdla like a ripe fruit from our past life.*

Stated from a.sUghtly différent angle, this is precisely Carpenter's doctrine. Freedom is consciousness in the second unity, the inward sensé

1 Le Roy, p. 84.