veil of
symbols which envelops our usual representation of the ego, and thus
conceals us from our own view, in order to find out what we are in
reality, immediately, in our inmost selves. This effort and this work
are necessary, because, "in order to contemplate the ego in its original
purity, psychology must eliminate or correct certain forms which bear
the visible mark of the outer world." ("Essay on the Immediate Data
of Consciousness", Conclusion.) What are these forms? Let us confine
ourselves to the most important. Things appear to us as numerable
units, placed side by side in space. They compose numerical and spatial
multiplicity, a dust of terms between which geometrical ties are
established.

But space and number are the two forms of immobility, the two schemes of
analysis, by which we must not let ourselves be obsessed. I do not say
that there is no place to give them, even in the internal world. But the
more deeply we enter into the heart of psychological life, the less they
are in place.

The fact is, there are several planes of consciousness, situated at
different depths, marking all the intervening degrees between pure
thought and bodily action, and each mental phenomenon interests all
these planes simultaneously, and is thus repeated in a thousand higher
tones, like the harmonies of one and the same note.

Or, if you prefer it, the life of the spirit is not the uniform
transparent surface of a mere; rather it is a gushing spring which,
at first pent in, spreads upwards and outwards, like a sheaf of corn,
passing through many different states, from the dark and concentrated
welling of the source to the gleam of the scattered tumbling spray; and
each of its moods presents in its turn a similar character, being itself
only a thread within the whole. Such without doubt is the central and
activating idea of the admirable book entitled "Matter and Memory". I
cannot possibly condense its substance here, or convey its astonishing
synthetic power, which succeeds in contracting a complete metaphysic,
and in gripping it so firmly that the examination ends by passing to
the discussion of a few humble facts relative to the philosophy of the
brain! But its technical severity and its very conciseness, combined
with the wealth it contains, render it irresumable; and I can only in a
few words indicate its conclusions.

First of all, however little we pride ourselves on positive method, we
must admit the existence of