Ebook The Misuse of Mind

Bergson attacks the use to which we usually put our minds, but he most certainly does not suggest that a philosopher should not use his mind at all; he is to use it for all it is worth, only differently, more efficiently for the purpose he has in View, the purpose of knowing for its own sake. There is, of course, a sense m which doing anything in the right way is simply letting one's self go, for after all it is easier to do a thing well than badly — it certainly takes much less effort to produce the same amount of result. 50 to know in the way which Bergson recommends does in a sense come more easily than attempting to get the knowledge we want by inappropriate methods. If this saving of waste effort is a fault, then Bergson must plead guilty. But as the field of knowledge open to us is far too wide for any one mind to explore, the new method of knowing, though it requires less effort than the old to produce the same result, does not thereby let us off more easily, for with a better instrument it becomes possible to work for a greater result.