Bergson’s account of perception differs from the account ordinarily given in that perception is not described as a relation which is supposed to hold between a subject and an object: for Bergson there is no “I,” distinct from what is perceived, standing to it in a relation of perception. For an object, to be perceived consists, not in being related to a perceiver, but in being combined in a new way with other objects. If an object is combined by synthesis with other objects then it is perceived and so becomes a fact. But there is no mind over and above the objects which perceives them by being related to them, or even by performing an act of synthesis upon them. To speak of “our” perceiving objects is a mere fiction: when objects are combined by synthesis they become perceptions, facts, and this is the same as saying that they are minds. For Bergson a mind is nothing but a synthesis of objects. This explains what he means by saying that in direct knowledge the perceiver is the object perceived.
Actually he thinks such notions as the perceiver and the object and the relation which unites them, or again matter and the act of synthesis which turns matter into fact, are nothing but abstractions: the only thing there really is is simply the fact itself. These abstractions, however, do somehow apply to the actual facts, and this brings us back to our problem as to how it is that the actual fact, which is in creative duration, lends itself to classification: how it is that general laws in terms of abstractions which can be repeated over and over again, can apply to the actual fact which does not contain repetitions?
Facts lend themselves to explanation when they are perceived as familiar. In this perceived familiarity, which is the basis of all abstraction, and so of all description and explanation, past as well as present is involved, the present owing its familiarity to our memory of past facts. The obvious explanation of perceived familiarity, would be, of course, to say that it results from our perceiving similar qualities shared by past and present facts, or relations of similarity holding between them. But Bergson must find some other explanation than this since he denies that there can be repetition in actual facts directly known.
Whenever there is actual fact there is memory, and memory creates duration which excludes repetition. Perceived familiarity depends upon memory but memory, according to Bergson, does not work by preserving a series of repetitions for future reference. If we say that memory connects “the past” with “the present” we must add that it destroys their logical distinctness. But of course this is putting it very badly: there is really no “logical distinctness” in the actual fact for memory to “destroy”: our language suggests that first there was matter, forming a logical series of distinct qualities recurring over and over, and then memory occurred and telescoped the series, squeezing “earlier” and “later” moments into one another to make a creative duration. Such a view is suggested by our strong bias towards regarding abstractions as having independent existence apart from the real fact from which they have been abstracted: if we can overcome this bias the description will do well enough.
According to Bergson, as we have just seen, every actual fact must contain some memory otherwise it would not be a fact but simply matter, since it is an act of memory that turns matter into perceived fact. Our ordinary more or less familiar facts, however, contain much more than this bare minimum. The facts of everyday life are perceived as familiar and classified from a vast number of points of view. When you look at a cherry you recognise its colour, shape, etc., you know it is edible, what it would taste like, whether it is ripe, and much more besides, all at a glance. All this knowledge depends on memory, memory gives meaning to what we might call bare sensation (which is the same thing as Bergson’s present matter) as opposed to the full familiar fact actually experienced. Now the meaning is ordinarily contained in the actual fact along with the bare sensation not as a multiplicity of memories distinct from the bare sensation, but, as we put it, at a glance. This peculiar flavour of a familiar fact can be analysed out as consisting of memories of this or that past experience, if we choose to treat it in that way, just as a fact can be analysed into qualities. According to Bergson this analysis of the meaning of a familiar fact into memories would have the same drawbacks as the analysis of a present fact into qualities: it would leave out much of the meaning and distort the rest. Bergson holds that wherever there is duration the past must be preserved since it is just the preservation of the past, the creation of fact by a synthesis of what, out of synthesis, would be past and present, which constitutes duration. The essential point about mental life is just the performing of this act of synthesis which makes duration: wherever there is mental life there is duration and so wherever there is mental life the past is preserved. “Above everything,” Bergson says, “consciousness signifies memory. At this moment as I discuss with you I pronounce the word “discussion.” It is clear that my consciousness grasps this word altogether; if not it would not see it as a unique word and would not make sense of it. And yet when I pronounce the last syllable of the word the two first ones have already been pronounced; relatively to this one, which must then be called present, they are past. But this last syllable “sion” was not pronounced instantaneously; the time, however short, during which I was saying it, can be split up into parts and these parts are past, relatively to the last of them, and this last one would be present if it were not that it too can be further split up: so that, do what you will, you cannot draw any line of demarcation between past and present, and so between memory and consciousness. Indeed when I pronounce the word “discussion” I have before my mind, not only the beginning, the middle and the end of the word, but also the preceding words, also the whole of the sentence which I have already spoken; if it were not so I should have lost the thread of my speech. Now if the punctuation of the speech had been different my sentence might have begun earlier; it might, for instance, have contained the previous sentence and my “present” would have been still further extended into the past. Let us push this reasoning to its conclusion: let us suppose that my speech has lasted for years, since the first awakening of my consciousness, that it has consisted of a single sentence, and that my consciousness has been sufficiently detached from the future, sufficiently disinterested to occupy itself exclusively in taking in the meaning of the sentence: in that case I should not look for any explanation of the total conservation of this sentence any more than I look for one of the survival of the first two syllables of the word “discussion” when I pronounce the last one. Well, I think that our whole inner life is like a single sentence, begun from the first awakening of consciousness, a sentence scattered with commas, but nowhere broken by a full stop. And so I think that our whole past is there, subconscious—I mean present to us in such a way that our consciousness, to become aware of it, need not go outside itself nor add anything foreign: to perceive clearly all that it contains, or rather all that it is, it has only to put aside an obstacle, to lift a veil.”[[5]]
[5] L’Energie Spirituelle—“L’Ame et le Corps,” pages 59 and 60.
If this theory of memory be correct, the occurrence of any present bare sensation itself suffices to recall, in some sense, the whole past. But this is no use for practical purposes, just as the whole of the fact given in present perception is useless for practical purposes until it has been analysed into qualities. According to Bergson we treat the material supplied by memory in much the same way as that supplied by perception. The whole field of the past which the present calls up is much wider than what we actually remember clearly: what we actually remember is arrived at by ignoring all the past except such scraps as appear to form useful precedents for behaviour in the present situation in which we find ourselves. Perhaps this explains why sometimes, at the point of death, when useful behaviour is no longer possible, this selection breaks down and the whole of the past floods back into memory. The brain, according to Bergson, is the organ whose function it is to perform this necessary work of selection out of the whole field of virtual memory of practically useful fragments, and so long as the brain is in order, only these are allowed to come through into consciousness as clear memories. The passage just quoted goes on to speak of “the part played by the brain in memory.” “The brain does not serve to preserve the past but primarily to obscure it, and then to let just so much as is practically useful slip through.”
But the setting of the whole past, though it is ignored for convenience, still makes itself felt in the peculiar qualitative flavour which belongs to every present fact by reason of its past. Even in the case of familiar facts this flavour is no mere repetition but is perpetually modified as the familiarity increases, and it is just in this progressively changing flavour that their familiarity consists.
An inspection of what we know directly, then, does not bear out the common sense theory that perceived familiarity, upon which abstraction and all description and explanation are based, consists in the perception of similar qualities shared by present matter and the matter retained by memory. A familiar fact appears to be, not a repetition, but a new fact. This new fact may be described as containing present and past bare sensations, but it must be added that these bare sensations do not remain distinct things but are synthesised by the act of perception into a fresh whole which is not the sum of the bare sensations which it may be described as containing. Such a perceived whole will be familiar, and so lend itself to abstraction and explanation, in so far as the present bare sensation which it contains, taken as mere matter (that is apart from the act of perception which turns it from mere matter into actual fact), would have been a repetition of some of the past bare sensations which go to form its meaning and combine with it to create the fact actually known. For bare sensation now may be a repetition of past bare sensation though the full fact will always be something fresh, its flavour changing as it grows more and more familiar by taking up into itself more and more bare sensation which, taken in abstraction, apart from the act of synthesis which turns it into actual fact, would be repetitions. To take the example which we have already used of perceiving first a rose and then a strawberry ice cream: let us suppose that the rose was the very first occasion on which you saw pink. The perceived fact on that occasion would, like all perceived facts, be a combination of / past and present bare sensations. It would I not be familiar because the elements of present bare sensation would not be repetitions of the elements of past bare sensation (always assuming, as we must for purposes of explanation, that past and present bare sensations ever could be isolated from the actual fact and still both exist, which, however, is not possible). But when you saw the strawberry ice cream the past perceived rose would be among the memories added to this bare sensation which constitute its meaning and, by forming a synthesis with it, turn it from mere matter into fact. The pink would now be perceived as familiar because the pink of the rose (which as bare sensation is similar to the bare sensation of strawberry-ice-cream-pink) would be included, along with the present bare sensation of pink, in the whole fact of the perception of strawberry ice cream.
Perceived fact, then, combines meaning and present bare sensation to form a whole with a qualitative flavour which is itself always unique, but which lends itself to abstraction in so far as the bare sensations, past and present, which go to produce it, would, as matter in isolation, be repetitions.