2, Péguy'8 influence is hare apparent but not acknowledged; see Note sur Descartes ... and Note conjointe sur Bergson ...
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would agree that intelligence makes its appearance on earth at a certain point in time, hut he difCcrs in describing intuition in terms of a syn thesis of instinct and intelligence^ rather than as a new faculty emerging with the passing of time. Man’s spiritual growth is not a temporal pheno menon at all; it is an individual moral choice. This becomes crystal
clear in Les Deux Sources (1932). There is no question of twentieth 4 century man being endowed with gifts not possessed by, for instance, the 4 Ancient Greeks or early mystics. Evolution, for Bergson, does not ultimately 4 take place in time, but in a man’s o\m inner life, which can be deepened
and extended spiritually.
If LeRoy does not develop his idea of evolution in as subtle a way as Bergson does, nevertheless he does elaborate upon Bergson's analysis of the mind. In his work on Bergson, subtitled Une philosophie nouvelle
(Alcan, 1912), he expounds more limpidly than before his ideas on the relation-,' 2
ship between mind and life . Much of this work is a straightforward and largely accurate account of Bergson's ideas,but a large section of the book is concerned to salvage Bergson's philosophy and his own. from the stigma of anti-intellectualism. LeRoy preoccupies himself with an expo sition of the roles of intelligence and intuition in Bergson's system and at last vindicates himself as an 'intellectualist' of the first order. The theme he adopts now is that of an enlarged intelligence enlightened by continuing reflection on experience. . In LeRoy's explanation, not only
1. See E.G., p. 645? "... l'intuition, je veux dire l'instinct devenu désintéressé, conscient de lui-même, capable de réfléchir sur son objet".
2. LeRoy also pays tribute to.his own debt to Bergson; "J'ai trouvé dans son oeuvre l'éclatante réalisation d'un'pressentiment et a'un désir" (p. iv). LeRoy states that he already had an affinity with such ideas before reading Bergson, however.
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does intuition complement intelligence, but it is seen as an extension ti
of the intelligence itself into the realm of real life. If we endeavour ^ -I to become conscious of the intelligence's normal obsession with practical f action, we can consciously reform and reorientate it: J
bref que, par un double effort de critique et d'élargissement, [l'esprit] dépasse le sens commun et l'entendement discursif pour revenir à l'intuition pure (p. 19).
It must be the case, argues LeRoy, that intelligence and intuition are different aspects of mind or,in Bergson's terminology, 'conscience'. This means, for LeRoy, that in Bergsonism:
nous avons ... le spectacle d'une pensée pure en face des choses. Mais c'est une pensée complète, non réduite à quelques fonctions partielles, une pensée assez sure de sa puissance critique pour ne sacrifier aucune de ses ressources (p. 102).
Ee describes 'intuition' in more detail in this way:
La tâche propre du philosophe serait de résorber - l'intelligence dans l'instinct ou plutôt de
réintégrer l'instinct dans l'intelligence, disons mieux: de reconquérir, du centre de l'intelligence,
tout ce que celle-ci a du sacrifier des ressources 4 initiales. En cela consiste le retour au primitif, .i; à l'immédiat, au réel, au vécu. En cela consiste
l’intuition (p. 10?).
LeRoy also éxplains defintively how he. views 'action' as the 'verification principle' for thought, making explicit what had been somewhat inchoate in
"Qu'est-ce qu'un dogme?":
II est certain que 1'intelligence discursive et critique, laissée à ses propres forces, demeure enfermée dans un cercle infranchissable. Hais l'action dénone le cercle, ... Et c'est l'action encore, sous le nom d'expérience, qui écarte le danger d'illusion ou de vertige, c'est l'action qui vérifie ... (p. 108),
For Bergson, action is normally associated with the discursive intellect and not with intuition. It seems to be the reverse in LeRoy's work, but,in
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spite of the confusion over vocabulary, Bergson's and LeRoy's ideas are alike. LeRoy conceived 'la pensée-discursive' as a narrow, limited way of thinking, whereas 'la pensée-action' envisages and interprets the continuing experiences in the mind which is constantly face to face with existence and re-creates it ideologically. So, for LeRoy, Bergson has contributed to a new intellectualism,because his method of returning to the source or origin of all thought by analyzing the raw data of consciousness is the basis for all sound philosophical method. LeRoy explains his opinion as follows:
La pensée qui préside spontanément à la perception sensible, à l'enquête scientifique, à la création d'art, à 1'organisation morale et sociale de la vie, est une pensée directe, naive, pratique, tournée vers les choses, amie des résultats qui part de principes adoptés d'instinct (La pensée intuitive, Boivin et Cie., 1929, pp. 8-9).
For this reason, as Un Bergson's system, science or experiment is essential to assist and guide the process of thought. For LeRoy, science is "un fruit de l'expérience fécondée par le raisonnement ... elle procède surtout par analyse" (pp. 11-12). This sentiment is echoed by Bergson in "La philosophie de Claude Bernard":
Le fait, plus ou moins clairement aperçu, suggère l'idée , d'une explication; cette idée, le savant demande à
l'expérience de la confirmer; mais, tout le temps que son expérience dure, il doit se tenir prêt à abandonner son hypothèse, ou à la remodeler sur les faits. la recherche scientifique est donc un dialogue entre l'esprit et la nature (P.M.. p, 1434).
In his later works, LeRoy dwells at length on the subject of intuition. For him, 'intuition' is a method which probes deep into the nature of exis tence through contemplation and action. He regards his own philosophy as a prolonged analysis of a primary intuition. LeRoy's simple spiritual insight is this: that through intuition our thought (enriched by action or experience) is in touch with the Tnought behind all creation. ,God is
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