M. BERGSON AND A. CRITIC.* I. BERGSON'S brilliant and delightful
essay on the comic has proved the most widely popular of his works. It has all the familiar qualities of his genius such as superfine analysis sand grace of style, a grace, we may add, which has been wonderfully reproduced in Messrs. Brereton and Rothwell's 'version. M. Bergson here, as in other works, has been fortu- slate in his translators. The first thing that strikes the reader is that the word "comic " is limited for the purpose of the analysis. To an Englishman it seems to deal only with one variety of laughter, and to interpret even that one variety .somewhat narrowly. Again, it explains by giving the proximate rather than the ultimate cause—what is the comic rather than -why. M. Bergson repudiates any desire to define or discover a formula a priori. He begins with rudimentary instances and works his way towards the more complex, keeping a keen dook-out for common features. In the end lie finds a formula —or rather a number of formulas—which he throws out mi- dogmatically, not as full explanations, but as provisional theories to serve as milestones in the progress of the living spirit of comedy.
It would be an idle task to attempt to reproduce M. Bergson's delightful analysis, but we may glance at some of his conclusions. Arguing from elementary examples, he finds that the comic must concern something human, must concern that something human in its social aspects, and must
be wholly divorced from emotion, demanding, as he says, " a :momentary anaesthesia of the heart." A little further on, and we get the first formula—that the comic is anything which is .opposed to the elasticity and movement of life. It is "some- thing mechanical encrusted on the living "—an absent-minded
an who stumbles, a one-ideaed character, any case in which a living being approximates to a thing.
"Society . . , is suspicious of all inelasticity of character, "of mind, and even of body, because it is the possible sign of a slumbering activity as well as of an activity of separatist tendencies, that inclines to swerve from the common centre round -which society gravitates; in short, because it is the sign of an eccentricity."
'With this provisional definition he investigates, first of all, the comic forms. A caricature grimaces and is comic because it suggests rigidity—" the deep.seated recalcitrance of matter beneath the skin-deep harmony of form." Thence he passes to movements, which are laughable in so far as they remind us of a machine. Tartarin, for example, believed that all Switzerland was " choke-full of machinery like the basement of an opera." Comic, too, for the same reason, is any case where the body takes precedence of the soul, and matter ousts the spirit The essence of life is a continual change of aspect; the "opposite is anything mechanical, and beim° we get the familiar comic devices of repetition and inversion. So, too, with words. "We get a comic meaning when we fit an absurd idea into a swell-established phrase-form, and take literally an expression which is used figuratively.
" The rigid, the ready-made, the mechanical, in contrast with the supple, the ever-changing, and the living, absent-minded- mess in contrast with attention, in a word, automatism in contrast with free activity, such are the defects which laughter singles out and would fain correct."
Lastly, he analyses the comic in character, the essence of which is that it is out of accord with society and partakes of the nature of an automaton. Vanity is a favourite subject, 'for vanity is self-regarding, rigid, and fundamentally un- social, M. Bergson's illustrations are mainly drawn from the Trench drama, from Moliere to Labiche, and this fact gives
'us a key to his purpose. The comic which he analyses is -first and foremost the favourite French type—sharp, satirical, -a little harsh. Ho seems to us to leave out of account the element of joy and sympathy in laughter, the cases where we
laugh with the comic figure as well as at it. In a perfect 'society the comic on his definition would cease to exist.
'In the last few pages, indeed, he seems to be about to recognize the broader realm of laughter, for he sees in it a moment of relaxation, of positive friendliness rand abandon which "relieves us from the strain of living." But his explanation of this feature seems to us un-
"L'ughter : en Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. By Henri Bergson. Trans ted by Cloudesley Brereton and F. Bothwell. London: Macmillan Land Co. [3s. 6d. net.1—(2) d Critical Exposition of Borgson's Philosophy. By
J. MeliCellar Stewart. Same publishers. 15s. net.]
satisfactory, for he bases it on a resemb!ance to the topsy-turvy world of dreams. The truth seems to be that this type of the comic is just the opposite of rigidity—it is freedom as opposed to immutable laws o° nature and life. So it would seem as if the opposite of M. Bergson's formula were equally true. We laugh at rigidity in the midst of the flux of life; but what moves us to laughter is just as often the incon- sequent in the midst of life's orderliness. The first may give us an intellectual satisfaction or may perform a social service, but it is the second which gives us true " relaxation."
From the philosopher we turn to the critic. Mr. McKellar Stewart's acute and careful book appears at an opportune time, and will be welcomed by many students of the French thinker. For one thing it provides a most able exposition of M. Berg- son's by no means simple teaching. He points out that he is the last in a long line of thinkers who have shown a desire to set limits to conceptual knowledge. He shows his affinities with Sehelling through Ravaisson-Mollien, and very notably with Schopenhauer, who considered all great scientific dis- covery as the result of immediate apprehension by the uncles-7 standing. According to Bergson in perfect knowledge the distinction of subject and object vanishes. This was also Hegel's view, but for Hegel the end was attained by the "perfect synthesis of intellectual knowledge " ; to Bergson intuitive knowledge is super-conceptual, and arrived at by undoing the work of the intelligence. At the same time Mr. McKellar Stewart points out that Bergson never en- courages an intellectual scepticism. The intelligence gives us a genuine knowledge of reality ; only its range is limited; intuition comes in to complete the circle. The critic illus- trates very neatly the difficulty which Bergson feels in defining the intricate work of intuition by a comparison with Plotinus, who was also forced into an endless series of lull- Rant metaphors in his attempt to express the inexpressible, He considers that Bergson arbitrarily limits the sphere, of intelligence, and attacks his famous intuition of time and free- dom as the surrender of a true distinction and a step towards confusion. The method by which he reaches these conclusions —on which we have no space to comment—is a good example of how a philosophic analysis should be done. He makes some interesting general criticisms. Take this on Bergson's treatment of antinomies : " These antinomies rise within knowledge. They are problems of reason, and it is no satis- faction to reason to affirm that they can be solved by will or life." The intuitive method "involves the assumption that knowledge of reality as it is for itself is different in kind from knowledge of reality as it is for a knowing subject." Now it is one thing to maintain that reality cannot be exhausted by conceptual knowledge, but it is another to decry the relation between them. If we put too much on " insight" we condemn philosophy to remain inarticulate or to tie itself into eternal metaphorical knots. After all, reason is supreme in life ; whether we think, or feel, or will, we think, feel, and will as rational beings. The " intuitive method " is no method ; it is the exaltation of a part into the whole, the hypostatization of the "subjective function as such." The intellect, properly understood, combines understanding and sen- sibility, and the true idealism is that which admits that, " in the actual life of reason, concepts, whether in judgment or in deductive and inductive reasonings are ' supple,' not fixed; that they are incomplete indi- viduals, not empty forms." Mr. McKellar Stewart implores the French thinker to reconsider hie doctrine of the "intuitive method," the unnecessary opposition between two comple- mentary procedures of thought, because in his view it is not necessary for the validity of that metaphysical, doctrine which M. Bergson has preached so eloquently, " the fact that eetivity is an essential feature of reality, not merely that individuals are active, but that the whole must be interpreted in terms of activity." M. Bergson's style is apt to mesmerize his readers: they fall under its spell and do not force their minds to bite on his argument. Such a volume as this of sane and luminous criticism will be of high value, for a great thinker is best appreciated when be is questioned.
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