IN MEMORY OF HENRI BERGSON
19
of the house we bade our last farewell to the greatest philosopher of
our time.
He was the pride of our society. Whether or not we were at–
tracted to his philosophy, whether or not we followed him in the
profound quest to which he devoted
his
life, and in the truly creative
evolution of his thought-constantly maturing in boldness and free–
dom-we possessed in him a most authentic model of the highest
intellectual virtues. His name, universally recognized, carried a sort
of moral authority in things of the mind. France was able to appeal
to that name and to that authority under circumstances which I am
sure all of you well remember. He had many disciples, who followed
him with a fervor and almost a devotion which no one else in the
world of ideas has so far been able to arouse.
I do not intend to discuss his philosophy-this is not the time
for it. Any such estimate ought to be very profound, and
it
could only
be so if made
in
the light of clear days and
in
the fullness of intel–
lectual activity. The very old, and consequently very difficult, prob–
lems with which M. Bergson dealt, like those of time, of memory
and, chiefly of living development, were given new life by him-thus
curiously altering the situation in which philosophy found itself some
fifty years ago. At that time the powerful Kantian criticism, armed
with a formidable apparatus for the verification of knowledge and
with a very skillfully articulated abstract terminology, dominated edu–
cation and had even imposed itself upon politics, to the extent that
politics can have any contact with philosophy. M. Bergson was neither
won over nor intimidated by the harshness of this doctrine, which
laid down so imperatively the limits of thought. He undertook to
raise metaphysics from the kind of discredit and neglect
in
which he
found
it.
You know what reverberations were caused by certain lec–
tures he gave at the College of France and what renown
his
hypo–
theses and analyses achieved throughout the whole world. While the
philosophers of the eighteenth century had been, in the main, under
the. influence of physical-me'chanical conceptions, our illustrious col-
-t
league fortunately allowed himself to be attracted by the sciences
9f
life. He found his inspiration in biology. He thought of life, and un–
derstood it and conceived it as the bearer of spirit. He was not afraid
to pursue, during the observation of his own consciousness, certain
insights into problems that will never be solved. He had performed,
however, the essential task of restoring and vidicating the taste for a
