"In spite of sceptics and empiricists, in spite of Protagoras, Hume, and James Mill, rationalism has never been seriously questioned, for its sharpest critics have always had a tender place for it in their hearts, and have obeyed some of its mandates. They have not been consistent, they have played fast and loose with the enemy, and Bergson alone has been radical."[56]
Bergson's philosophy is, in fact, a reaction against intellectualism or rationalism; by which is meant the theory that pure reason is competent by its nature to give a complete and exhaustive account of reality.
But according to Bergson, intellect, which is a faculty developed to enable men to subdue and turn to advantage their material environment, and which is, as it were, "fascinated by the contemplation of inert matter," will not reveal the true meaning and nature of existence; it gives us "a translation of life in terms of inertia," and can do no more.
This criticism of the intellect (if it be sound), though it does not invalidate the work of that faculty in its own proper sphere, necessarily involves its discredit as a key to the unlocking of the final mysteries of life and of being. These things lie outside its province. "Whether it wants to treat of the life of the body, or the life of the mind, it proceeds with the rigour, the stiffness, and the brutality of an instrument not designed for such use."[57]
Intellect and Instinct.—Since intellect, by its methods, has induced men to turn their backs on reality, and to look on abstractions instead, the only hope of reaching reality is through an entire change of method and direction. There is, according to Bergson, a non-intellectual variety of knowledge, which (from his point of view) it was a kind of original sin ever to depart from; an original sin which has vitiated all our philosophic thinking from the days of Plato.
This variety of knowledge is more original and fundamental than any which the processes of the intellect, vitiated as these are by certain inherent perversions, can give us. Intellect cannot correct itself; we must call in the aid of some other faculty if we would understand reality.
Bergson finds this faculty in what he calls "instinct." According to him, consciousness has developed in two divergent directions—instinct and intellect; and the difference between these is not one of intensity or degree, but of kind.[58]
They are two divergent developments of the same original consciousness, of which common origin they both retain traces, for they are not entirely dissimilar, nor is either of them ever found in a pure state.
Intellect is characteristic of man. Instinct is most highly developed among certain insects, notably the hymenopterae (i.e., bees and ants).[59]
Blindness of Intellect.—And the difficulty of the philosophical problem for man arises from the anomalies of his own constitution (as interpreted by Bergson in the light of his theory of instinct and intellect). As he puts it: