In discussing the relation of such Time to the conception
of God, he says, "I think I may fairly claim to have anticipated him
(Bergson) to some extent. In 1886 I had written a long paragraph on this
topic." [Footnote: See The Realm of Ends' foot-note on pp. 306-7. Ward
is referring to his famous article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
eleventh edition, Psychology, p. 577 (now revised and issued in book
form as Psychological Principles).] Be this as it may, no philosopher
has made so much of this view of Time as Bergson. One might say it is
the corner-stone of his philosophy, for practically the whole of it is
built upon his conception of Time. His first large work, Essai sur les
donnees immediates de la conscience, or, to give it its better title, in
English, Time and Free Will, appeared in 1889.
Our ordinary conception of Time, that which comes to us from the
physical sciences, is, Bergson maintains, a false one. It is false
because so far from being temporal in character, it is spatial. We look
upon space as a homogeneous medium without boundaries; yet we look on
Time too, as just such another medium, homogeneous and unlimited. Now
here is an obvious difficulty, for since homogeneity consists in being
without qualities, it is difficult to see how one homogeneity can be
distinguished from another. This difficulty is usually avoided by the
assertion that homogeneity takes two forms, one in which its contents
co-exist, and another in which they follow one another.
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