Text extracted from opening pages of book: HENRI BERGSON BY JACQUES
CHEVALIER BROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GRENOBLE
Translation by LILIAN A. CLAEE LONDON: RIDER AND CO. PATEBNOSTER
HOUSE, E. G. 1928 AH rights PKINTE0 IN THE UNITED STATES
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE THE translation here presented of the lectures on
Bergson and his doctrine given by Professor Chevalier at Grenoble
University during the spring months of 1926, has been undertaken
under his own eye and with his personal collaboration throughout.
Had this valuable help not been available, the difficulty of the
subject would have made it an impossible task for the present
translator, Professor Chevalier's familiarity with the English
language and his sym pathetic understanding of the aims and ideals
of the English-speaking races have often smoothed the way, and
given additional interest and pleasure to the work of translation.
Wherever reference has been made to already existing authorized
translations of Professor Berg son's work, the direct quotation has
been given, although this has now and then occasioned slight
differences in the interpretation of a terminology which the
philosopher has made his own. Through the author's personal
friendship and constantly maintained intercourse with his subject,
sources of information, hitherto untapped, have also been directly
available, The translation of Bergson's criticism of the Ein stein
theory of relativity has been very kindly undertaken by Professor
Chevalier's friend, Thomas Greenwood, MA, F. R. G. S., of the
University of London. vl TRANSLATOR'S NOTE It should be noted that
the term spiritualism is used throughout in its older and
philosophical sense, as denoting a systemwhich claims the inde
pendent existence of spirit as opposed to matter, A list of
Professor Bergson's works to which refer ence is made is appended.
In the footnotes they are referred to in an abbreviated form.
LILIAN A. CLARE. INTRODUCTION THE pages which follow do not in any
way aspire to be exhaustive, or even original, The circum stances
which gave rise to them will sufficiently account for this
characteristic, , and will serve the author at least he hopes soas
an excuse to those who may be inclined to reproach him on that
score. In the spring of 1924, a few weeks before the opening of the
holiday courses for foreign students given every year by the
Grenoble University, I was asked if I would devote six lectures to
the philosophy of Henri Bergson. I agreed, but as a matter of fact,
time was lacking to reread the philosopher's works in their
entirety. Nor was it possible to set forth, in six lectures of an
hour each, the intricacies of so vast a doctrine, the wealth of
proofs and analyses it contains, and the vistas it opens up in all
directions of human thought. For both these reasons I had to
practice intellectual asceticism, and felt constrained to omit a
very great deal By concentrating upon, I will not say essen tials,
but upon certain aspects of Bergson's philosophy which were most
familiar and congenial to me, because they had allowed of my
handling its substance and arriving at its core, I might hope that
my audience by pursuing the same path with me would reach it also*
I therefore sought, by a kind of reflective self-communion, to live
over again those vii viii INTRODUCTION trains of thought whose
vitalizing power and fer tility had been tested in the depths of my
own mindduring a period of twenty years. They were indeed the
foundations of the thought by which 1 had lived, and which I had
been reliving. Now it turned out that this sparse and summary
method of treating my subject, which circumstances had rendered
necessary, fulfilled the aim of my teaching, and enabled it to
touch, not merely the mind, but the heart. Hence arose the demand
to which this book is a. response. 1 I shall, therefore, endeavor
to do as I have been asked, and preserve in the written word the
original characteristics of freshness, spontaneity, and inward c
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