Page:Bergson - Matter and Memory (1911).djvu/212

ing ample room for contingency, has not the character of a mathematical derivation;—but then, presentation in consciousness is perfect, an actual psychical state yielding the whole of its content in the act itself whereby we perceive it. On the contrary, if we are dealing with external objects it is the connexion which is perfect, since these objects obey necessary laws; but then the other condition, presentation in consciousness, is never more than partially fulfilled, for the material object, just because of the multitude of unperceived elements by which it is linked with all other objects, appears to enfold within itself and to hide behind it infinitely more than it allows to be seen.—We ought to say, then, that existence, in the empirical sense of the word, always implies conscious apprehension and regular connexion; both at the same time but in different degrees. But our intellect, of which the function is to establish clear-cut distinctions, does not so understand things. Rather than admit the presence in all cases of the two elements mingledThe fallacy consists in distinguishing two kinds of existence characterized the one by conscious apprehension, and the other by regular connexion. in varying proportions, it prefers to dissociate them, and thus attribute to external objects on the one hand, and to internal states on the other, two radically different modes of existence, each characterized by the exclusive presence of the condition which should be regarded as merely preponderating. Then the existence of psychical states is assumed to consist entirely in