Note 386 — Chapter IX · PRAGMATISM AND IDEALISM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERGSON386

I had originally the idea of calling this chapter by the more modest title of a note upon “pragmatist elements” in the teaching of Bergson. I have allowed myself to call it a chapter partly for the sake of symmetry, and partly because the footnotes and the criticism (of his Idealism) have carried it beyond the limits of a note. I find, too, (as I have partly indicated in my preface) in the teaching of Bergson so many things that make up almost the very body of truth and fact upon which Pragmatism, and Humanism, and Idealism all repose (or ought to repose) that I quote them directly in my footnotes. They indicate to me the scope and the territory of my entire subject. And they are a confirmation to me of much that I had myself arrived at before I read a line of Bergson.