Henri Bergson

In 1891, Henri Bergson married Louise Neuberger, a cousin of French novelist Marcel Proust. They had a daughter named Jeanne. Unfortunately she was born deaf.

Although born a Jewish he later thought of converting to Roman Catholic faith because in it he saw ‘complete fulfillment of Judaism’. However, he had an inkling about ‘a formidable wave of anti-Semitism about to break upon the world’. Since he wanted to be on the side of the persecuted he did not change his faith.

Moreover to make his point, he queued up to register as a Jew when the Vichy government made it mandatory. Although he was exempted from such enrolment he refused to take it.

Henri-Louis Bergson was born in Paris on October 18, 1859, in a famous Jewish entrepreneur family. Originally known as Berekson, they were of Polish descent. Henri’s father, Michal Bergson was Warsaw born composer and pianist of considerable repute.

His mother, Katherine Levison, had an Irish Jewish background. She was the daughter of a Jewish doctor from Yorkshire. Young Henri learned English from her. He also had a sister named Mina, who later married the English occult author Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers.

After his birth, the family moved to England; but returned to France when he was nine years old. In 1868, he was admitted to Lycée Condorcet in Paris and studied there till 1878. At school he was much appreciated for his knowledge of science and mathematics and won several prizes.

After graduating from school in 1878, he enrolled at École Normale Supérieure in Paris and to his teachers’ dismay opted for humanities. During this period, he came under the influence of philosophers like Spencer, Mill and Darwin. In addition, he also learned to appreciate Latin and Greek literature.

Henri Bergson passed out from École Normale Supérieure in 1881. In the same year he was appointed as a teacher at the lycée in Angers. Two years later, he joined Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand and taught there for five years.

Along with teaching, he continued with his studies and research work. His first work, ‘On Unconscious Simulation in States of Hypnosis’ was published in the Revue Philosophique in 1886. In this article, he had put down his observations at hypnosis session.

For his doctoral degree, he submitted a thesis on ‘Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience‘ (Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness) along with another short thesis on Aristotle, ‘Quid Aristoteles de loco senserit’ (On the Concept of Place in Aristotle), in Latin.

In 1888, he went back to Paris and for few months and taught at College Rollin. Later he joined Lycée Henri-IV as a teacher and taught there for eight years. In 1889, he was awarded his doctoral degree by University of Paris. His thesis ‘Time and Will’ was first published as a book in the same year.

His second major work, ‘Matière et mémoire’ (Matter and Memory) was published in 1896. The book was the result of a detailed research undertaken over a period of time.

‘L'Évolution créatrice’ (Creative Evolution), published in 1907, is the most popular among Bergson’s four major works. Through this book, Bergson proposed that the evolution is not a mechanical, but a creative process and it should be seen as a continued existence that constantly develop and generate new forms.

’Le rire’, Essai sur la signification du comique’ (Laughter, an essay on the meaning of the comic), published in 1900, is a collection of three essays through which he tried to determine the process of comic, not its effects. Though considered one of his minor works, it gives an insight into Bergson’s view about life.