It is admittedly difficult to determine with very great definiteness what Bergson’s view of Intuition really is, for he has made many statements regarding it which appear at first sight irreconcilable and, in his earlier writings, has not been sufficiently careful when speaking of the distinction between Intelligence and Intuition.  Some of his early statements are reactionary and crude and give the impression of a purely anti-intellectualist position involving the condemnation of Intellect and all its work. [Footnote:  E.g., the statement “To philosophize is to invert the habitual direction of the work of thought”—­Introduction to Metaphysics p. 59.] In his later work, however, Bergson has made it more clear that he does not mean to throw Intellect overboard; it has its place, but is not final, nor is it the supreme human faculty which most philosophers have thought it to be.  It must be lamented, however, that Bergson’s language was ever so ill defined as to encourage the many varied and conflicting views which are held regarding his doctrine of Intuition.  Around this the greatest controversy has raged.  Little is to be gained by heeding the shouts of either those who acclaim Bergson as a revolutionary against all use of the Intellect, or of those who regard him as no purely anti-intellectualist at all.  We must turn to Bergson himself and study carefully what he has said and written, reserving our judgment until we have examined his own statements.

What is this “Intuition”?  In what is now a locus classicus [Footnote:  Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 7.] he says, “By Intuition is meant the kind of intellectual sympathy by which one places oneself within an object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible.  Analysis is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known, that is, to elements common to it and other objects.  To analyse, therefore, is to express a thing as a function of something other than itself.  All analysis is thus a translation, a development into symbols, a representation taken from successive points of view from which we note as many resemblances as possible between the new object which we are studying and others which we believe we know already.  In its eternally unsatisfied desire to embrace the object around which it is compelled to turn, analysis multiplies without end the number of its points of view in order to complete its always incomplete representation, and ceaselessly varies its symbols that it may perfect the always imperfect translation.  It goes on therefore to infinity.  But Intuition, if Intuition be possible, is a simple act.  It is an act directly opposed to analysis, for it is a viewing in totality, as an absolute; it is a synthesis, not an analysis, not an intellectual act, for it is an immediate, emotional synthesis.