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    A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson

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    Chap­ter II devel­ops Hen­ri Bergson’s view of life as a for­ward-mov­ing force shaped not by mechan­i­cal causal­i­ty but by inner momen­tum toward nov­el­ty and trans­for­ma­tion. Progress, in this sense, is not dri­ven by rep­e­ti­tion or the weight of the past but by the draw of the future—what has not yet been real­ized but con­tin­u­al­ly emerges. This move­ment is not ran­dom; it fol­lows a rhythm of cre­ative exper­i­men­ta­tion and accu­mu­la­tion of past expe­ri­ences, always press­ing toward com­plex­i­ty and con­scious­ness. Such a view places life on a path that nat­u­ral­ly inclines toward high­er forms of expres­sion, not only bio­log­i­cal­ly but also moral­ly and social­ly. Rather than being sta­t­ic or neu­tral, life car­ries with it an implic­it orientation—a kind of inner ten­sion that pro­pels it for­ward in mean­ing and struc­ture. Bergson’s frame­work is not indif­fer­ent to ethics; it sug­gests that cre­ativ­i­ty itself invites respon­si­bil­i­ty.

    The charge that Bergson’s out­look leans too heav­i­ly on emo­tion or is roman­ti­cal­ly ide­al­is­tic mis­un­der­stands its core struc­ture. He does not ele­vate feel­ing above rea­son or intu­ition above intel­lect; instead, he shows how both are essen­tial. Intu­ition is the mode by which we grasp life’s flow­ing con­ti­nu­ity, while intel­lect orga­nizes and clar­i­fies that expe­ri­ence. These fac­ul­ties are not rivals but col­lab­o­ra­tors, each unlock­ing a dif­fer­ent dimen­sion of real­i­ty. Ratio­nal analy­sis offers struc­ture, but intu­ition gives depth and move­ment. Togeth­er, they form a more com­plete map of existence—one capa­ble of respond­ing to life’s unfold­ing nature. From this union emerges a fresh per­spec­tive on moral­i­ty, where eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples are not fixed com­mands but evolv­ing respons­es to a chang­ing world. Moral­i­ty, then, becomes a form of creativity—an ongo­ing act of inven­tion rather than a com­pli­ance with rules.

    Bergson’s con­cep­tion of moral­i­ty chal­lenges rigid frame­works by sug­gest­ing that eth­i­cal action must evolve with the life it seeks to guide. What is moral in one age may become restric­tive in anoth­er, not due to rel­a­tivism but because life itself has moved for­ward. In his view, moral prin­ci­ples can­not be imposed from out­side; they must grow organ­i­cal­ly out of a shared expe­ri­ence of life’s pos­si­bil­i­ties. This dynam­ic under­stand­ing does not lessen the impor­tance of moral reflection—it deep­ens it. Each choice becomes a cre­ative act, one that must be con­tin­u­al­ly reeval­u­at­ed in light of new con­di­tions and greater aware­ness. Berg­son invites us to think of ethics not as a con­straint, but as a can­vas on which life paints its unfold­ing val­ues.

    In a world where stag­na­tion is impos­si­ble, moral­i­ty must remain alive to remain rel­e­vant. Berg­son sees life as an open-end­ed process, and any moral sys­tem that attempts final­i­ty risks cut­ting itself off from that move­ment. Cre­ative evo­lu­tion offers a mod­el for how human val­ues might adapt—not by aban­don­ing prin­ci­ple, but by refin­ing it in step with the com­plex­i­ty of expe­ri­ence. This vision of ethics asks more of us, not less. It insists on atten­tive­ness, on respon­sive­ness, on the courage to change. In such a frame­work, to live well is not sim­ply to obey—it is to par­tic­i­pate active­ly in the shap­ing of a more mean­ing­ful world.

    To Berg­son, then, cre­ativ­i­ty is not just an aes­thet­ic or per­son­al ideal—it is an eth­i­cal imper­a­tive. Every act of thought, feel­ing, and choice con­tributes to the direc­tion of life’s move­ment. That con­tri­bu­tion mat­ters. Our aware­ness of this poten­tial gives rise to a sense of duty—not because it is imposed, but because it is rec­og­nized from with­in. The uni­verse, viewed through Bergson’s lens, is not a cold mech­a­nism but a liv­ing, breath­ing flow of becom­ing. In such a cos­mos, moral­i­ty aris­es not in spite of change, but because of it. Life, in push­ing for­ward, calls upon us to shape what comes next.

    Ulti­mate­ly, Bergson’s moral vision is one of deep engage­ment. It resists the rigid­i­ty of fixed dog­ma and the loose­ness of pure rel­a­tivism, offer­ing instead a path where prin­ci­ple and flex­i­bil­i­ty coex­ist. It is a vision that respects tra­di­tion but does not wor­ship it, that learns from the past but answers to the present. In his frame­work, the most moral act is one that aligns with the deep­er move­ment of life itself—creative, respon­sive, and awake. Such an eth­ic is not only pos­si­ble; it is nec­es­sary for a world that is nev­er fin­ished, always begin­ning again. Through this, Berg­son gives us not only a phi­los­o­phy of life but a way to live with greater imag­i­na­tion, clar­i­ty, and care.

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