Page:Bergson - Matter and Memory (1911).djvu/34

 the relations which it maintains with all others, and owes each of its determinations, and consequently its very existence, to the place which it occupies in the universe as a whole? Let us no longer say, then, that our perceptions depend simply upon the molecular movements of the cerebral mass. We must say rather that they vary with them, but that these movements themselves remain inseparably bound up with the rest of the material world. The question, then, is not only how our perceptions are connected with the modifications of the grey matter. The problem widens, and can also be put in much clearer terms.

It might be stated as follows: Here is a system of images which I term my perception of the universe, and which may be entirely altered by a very slight change in a certain privileged image,—my body. This image occupies the centre; by it all the others are conditioned; at each of its movements everything changes, as though by a turn of a kaleidoscope. Here, on the other hand, are the same images, but referred each one to itself; influencing each other no doubt, but in such a manner that the effect is always in proportion to the cause: this is what I term the universe. The question is: how can these two systems co-exist, and why are the same images relatively invariable in the universe, and infinitely variable in perception? The problem at issue between realism and idealism, perhaps even be-