But he
who lives in the past, for the mere pleasure of living there, and in
whom recollections emerge into the light of consciousness, without any
advantage for the present situation, is hardly better fitted for action;
here we have no man of impulse, but a dreamer. Between these two
extremes lies the happy disposition of a memory docile enough to follow
with precision all the outlines of the present situation, but energetic
enough to resist all other appeal. Good sense or practical sense, is
probably nothing but this."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 198 (Fr. pp.
166-167).]
In the paper L'Effort intellectuel, contributed in 1902 to the Revue
philosophique, and now reprinted in L'Energie spirituelle,[Footnote: Pp.
163-202. See also Mind-Energy.]Bergson gives an analysis of what is
involved in intellectual effort. There is at first, he shows, something
conceived quite generally, an idea vague and abstract, a schema which
has to be completed by distinct images. In thought there is a movement
of the mind from the plane of the schema to the plane of the concrete
image. Various images endeavour to fit themselves into the schema, or
the schema may adapt itself to the reception of the images. These double
efforts to secure adaptation and cooperation may both encounter
resistance from the other, a situation which is known to us as
hesitation, accompanied by the awareness of obstacles, thus involving
intellectual effort.
Memory then, Bergson wishes us to realize, in response to his treatment
of it, is no mere function of the brain; it is something infinitely more
subtle, infinitely more elusive, and more wondrous.
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