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Indian Business Case Studies
 Indian Business
Case Studies
Volume II

V P PAWA R
B HAG YA SH R E E K U N T E
SR I N I VA S T UM U LU R I

Indian Case Studies in Business Management

 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© ASM Group of Institutes, Pune, India 2022
The moral rights of the authors‌have been asserted
First Edition published in 2022
Impression: 1
DISCLAIMER: ASM Group of Institutes and the Series Editors including the Individual Volume
Authors of the Title Indian Business Studies Volumes hereby declare that the business Case Studies
in the title are developed and as included in this Case Volume are based on Information, event details
and the names of protagonists, issues, the tables and graphic representations are from published
data available in public domain as appearing in daily national and/or regional news media. There
are no sensitive issues included in the contents of the Titles and there are no Intensions to hurt any
Professional/Business/Religious/Social sentiments of individuals, society or organizations and any
regulative machinery.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022938091
ISBN 978–​0–​19–​286938–​8
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780192869388.001.0001
Printed in India by
Rakmo Press Pvt. Ltd.
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
 Dr R.R. Pachpande
[1947–​2009]

‘Education is the Soul of our society’

The series editors and the volume authors of the case volumes titled as
‘Indian Business Case Studies’ published by Oxford University Press have
a deep sense of gratefulness while dedicating these case volumes to the
memory of Dr Raghunath R. Pachpande, the founder of ASM Group of
Institutes Pune, India.

It was with the untiring efforts and strategic vision of Dr R.R. (as he was
known to his close friends and colleagues) which has been instrumental in
ASM group adopting case methodology as a unique element in its pedagogy
which motivated the faculty and students of ASM group of institutes to
develop business case studies on Indian Businesses and use them to teach
management subjects in all branches of Business Management studies.

Dr R.R. Pachpande was a leader beyond parlance and ahead of time in

establishing educational institutes more so in higher studies in business
management specifically in the industrial belts in the state of Maharashtra
with a view to providing best of experiential learning to its students
through closer interactions with business Units around.
Today ASM Group continues the great legacy of Dr R.R. Pachpande under
the leadership of his successors and who have succeeded in taking ASM
Group to global recognition as a unique group of institutes offering world-​
class education in all branches of Business Management.

This case volume is dedicated to the memories of late Dr R.R. Pachpande.

 Contents

Preface  xiii
Acknowledgements xvii
About the Series Editors  xix
About the Volume Authors  xxi
The How and Why of Case Methodology  xxv

SE C T IO N I : C A SE ST U D I E S I N
H UM A N R E S OU R C E S
1. The Culture vs Strategy  3
Learning Objectives  3
Synopsis  4
About Bosch  4
Bosch Company History  5
About Bosch in India  5
Bosch Strike: Talks with Management on 17 September 2014
to Resolve Issues  7
Striking Bosch Workers in India Defy State Government
Ban in October 2014  7
Conclusions  13
Case Questions  13
2. Tata’s Air India ‘Take Over to Take Off ’—​A Cultural
Conundrum  15
Learning Objectives  15
Synopsis  15
Case Details  16
The Hunt for Talent (Change of Guards)  16
The Attitudinal Change  19
Service Standards  20
Inflight Refreshments  21
The Urgent Renovations  21
The Legacy  21
A Major Handicap  22
Engineering Services  22
Mounting Operational Losses  23
viii Contents
Conclusions  23
Case Questions  24
3. Beyond the Bootstrap  25
Learning Objectives  25
Synopsis  25
Case Details: Kurlekar Precision Engineering Pvt Ltd  26
Industry Shift from Mumbai to Pune  27
Internal Chaos and Consequences  28
Conclusions  33
Case Questions  34
4. Starbucks—​The ‘Coffee House’ Experts  35
Learning Objectives  35
Synopsis  35
The History of Starbucks  36
Motivation  37
Equal Treatment  38
Listen to Employees  39
Good Welfare Measures  39
Teamwork  40
The Strategies to Keep Well Relationship  40
A Goal of Public Welfare  41
Conclusions  41
Case Questions  42
5. Great Thought—​Difficult for Business  43
Learning Objectives  43
Synopsis  43
What Vedanta Claims  44
Our Approach  44
Our Strategy  45
Our Sustainability Model  45
Community at the Centre  46
A Fresh Perspective  47
Some Food for Thoughts on Sustainable Management  49
Costs of the Conflict  49
Free Prior and Informed Consent  50
Coexistence and Benefit-​Sharing  51
Case Questions  52
 Contents ix
SE C T IO N I I : C A SE ST U D I E S I N
F I NA N C E M A NAG E M E N T
6. Turmoil in the Banking Landscape  55
Learning Objectives  55
Synopsis  55
Introduction  56
Changing Scenario  57
Talent to Compete  57
Legacy Drag  58
Baby Steps  59
Future Imperfect  61
Conclusions  61
Case Questions  62
7. Information Technology and Banking Industry  63
Learning Objectives  63
Synopsis  63
Use of Information Assets in Strategic Decision Making  65
The Future Imperfect  65
Conclusions  66
Case Questions  66
8. ING Vysya Bank vs Kotak Mahindra Bank  67
Learning Objectives  67
Synopsis  67
Case Details  68
Indian Banking Industry  69
M&A Activity in Indian Banking Sector  69
About Kotak  70
Kotak Mahindra Bank  70
About ING  71
Merger Deal  71
Questions to Discuss  74
9. The Ghost of NPAs  75
Synopsis  75
The Case Background  76
How Grim Is the Situation?  76
What Possibly Led to This Situation?  77
The Path Followed  77
Stressed Assets  78
The Reality  79
Effects of Inadequate Capital  79
Effects of NPA’s  80
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x Contents
Conclusions  80
Case Questions  80

SE C T IO N I I I : C A SE ST U D I E S I N
M U LT I D I S C I P L I NA RY A R E A S I N M A R K E T I N G ,
S T R AT E G Y, A N D O P E R AT IO N S
10. ‘Innovation and the Entrepreneurial Urge’  85
Learning Objectives  85
Synopsis  85
Case Facts  86
Entrepreneurs—​Take the Bull by the Horn Attitude  86
The Test of Uncertain Times  87
The Track Record 1996–​2004  87
The Organizational Structure  88
The Product  89
The Process  89
The Market  90
The Strategic Plans  90
The Challenges  90
Conclusions  91
Case Questions  91
11. Chasing the ‘Long Tail’  93
Learning Objectives  93
Synopsis  93
Product Is the Hero  94
Kitsch Is the King  95
Conclusions  97
Case Questions  98
12. The Price of Owning a ‘Cheetah’ (The Jaguar)  99
Learning Objectives  99
Synopsis  99
The Tata’s Status  101
Critical Appraisal of the Takeover of JLR by Tata Motors  102
For the Ford Motors  102
For Tata Motors Ltd  103
Where Are the Synergies?  104
The Ambiguities in the Deal  105
Case Questions  105
13. Liar, Liar—​Is ‘Apple’ on Fire?  107
Learning Objectives  107
 Contents xi
Synopsis  107
Case Details  108
Apple and Microsoft  109
Burying the Hatchets  111
Steve Jobs Era  112
Post-​Steve Jobs Era  114
The Criticism on Apple  115
Apple’s Strategy to Re-​Establish Customer’s Satisfaction  116
Is It Enough?  118
Conclusions  118
Case Questions  119
14. The Indian Telecom Distress  121
Learning Objectives  121
Synopsis  121
Case Details  122
Moratorium Not Enough  123
Rare Situation  124
Conclusions  125
Case Questions  126
15. Who Created the Mess?  127
Learning Objectives  127
Synopsis  127
Indian Automobile Industry  129
Mahindra Takes Control of Reva Cars  129
There Are Lot of Development Was Done in the Year 2017  131
Response from Automobile Sector  131
Fact Lies in Electrification  132
Company Strategies  133
Case Questions  134
16. Coca-​Cola: ‘Taste the Controversy’  135
Learning Objectives  135
Synopsis  135
Rumours, Myths, and Truth  136
Ethical Waters  137
Drinking Obesity?  140
Creating Doubt: Comparisons with Big Tobacco  142
The End of the Coke Era?  143
‘The Days of Coke Being the World’s Biggest Brand
Are over Forever’  145
The Move to Master the Brand  146
Case Questions  149
xii Contents
17. Holding On and Letting It Go  151
Learning Objectives  151
Case details  151
Infosys India’s Most Admired Company  152
Mr Vishal Sikka Became the CEO  152
Conflict between Narayana Murthy and Vishal Sikka  154
Back to Mr Salil Parekh in His Office  155
Case Questions  156
18. Microsoft’s Acquisition of Nokia  157
Learning Objectives  157
Synopsis  157
Strategic Imperatives for M&A  158
Microsoft’s Story towards Acquisition of Nokia  158
Failure of Microsoft and Nokia M&A  160
Future Prospects of Nokia  161
Case Questions  162
19. The Pains of Separation  163
Learning Objectives  163
Synopsis  163
Back to Basics  164
Look before You Split  167
Conclusions  168
Case Questions  169
20. What Went Wrong?  171
Learning Objectives  171
Synopsis  171
Implementation Details  172
Customer Expectations  174
Reputation  175
Meeting Standards  175
Costs  175
Why Is Branding Important?  176
Conclusions  177
Case Questions  177
 Preface

Many universities and management institutes across the globe have

adopted the case study methodology for teaching almost all branches of
management studies since several decades. This trend has been seen in
India also, wherein the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and pro-
gressive management institutes in private sector have implemented case
methodology as an important pedagogical tool in business management
education.
However, there is a severe shortage in Indian business case studies
faced by the B-​schools in India and those global institutes associated with
Indian academia. Majority of the case studies studied at IIMs and other
A-​grade B-​schools in India are from situations in industries in foreign
countries and have very little or no relevance to Indian business situ-
ations. This acts as a major gap for faculty and students engagement in
business management studies both at UG and masters level (PG) studies,
where in for clarification of theoretical concepts is possible mainly
through use of case methodology which enables insight into business
real-​life business situations.
Besides, the objectives and purposes for which case studies are de-
veloped abroad are much different from course of studies in Indian B-​
schools. Therefore, the dependence on foreign case studies for Indian
students does not provide any real situational insight on Indian business.
Although the curriculum requires taking the students through case study
methodology, there are not many Indian case studies for this purpose.
The main objectives of using case-​based teaching as a major pedagog-
ical tool in B-​schools are as follows:

1. To facilitate students’ concept development capabilities through ex-

posure to real-​life problems in industries.
2. To enable students to correlate theoretical topics with the tech-
niques used in analysing complex issues in business situations.
xiv Preface

3. To develop skills using which students can develop application ma-

trix for the theoretical topics for real-​life problem analysis and reso-
lution techniques.
4. Help the students of B-​schools to develop orientation towards the
important attributes and attitudinal requirements for effective
handling of complex situations at the workplace.
5. To develop a clear understanding of the techniques used for
problem analysis, situation analysis, and decision analysis and ap-
propriate understanding of the difference between problems and
situations in management.
6. To develop the group-​based approaches to solving problems and
challenges at the workplace by appropriate coordination of and col-
laboration with all related aspects of a situation.
7. To develop a reference manual for recording the problems tackled
and the essential lessons learnt from past incidences for use in fu-
ture eventualities of recurrence of issues.
8. To develop the preventive steps that must be initiated to ensure the
problems resolved once do not recur in the immediate future.

Business case studies are basically oriented towards developing the eval-
uative and analytical skills of students towards industry situations. Such
case studies draw the attention of participants of the case resolution
methodology on the in-​depth correlative evaluation of the issues in the
case study with the various related topics that the students have to study
about in their classrooms. These case studies could be on issues related
to human resources, industrial relations, product and process, marketing
and finance management areas in business management.
The academic environment across the world too is facing a major dis-
ruption on account of the global pandemic Covid-​19 forcing the offline
education system to switch over to online/​blended versions of teaching
and learning process. And use of case methodology and simulation exer-
cises are the main in gradients for sustaining effective ways of delivering
experiential learning through use of case and case lets in an online mode
of teaching ensuring student engagements and online interactive ways of
knowledge dissemination.
Oxford University Press in association with ASM Group of Institutes
Pune, India is publishing for the first time a comprehensive case volumes
 Preface xv

as series of eight volumes with case studies on Indian businesses selected

from all aspects of business functions like HR, finance marketing, and
operations providing an exciting and long waited opportunity to fac-
ulty and students across the globe to access Indian business case studies
through these case volumes.
We are very confident that the case volumes will receive very good re-
sponse and will be of utmost use to the readers.
 Acknowledgements

The series editors wish to acknowledge with thanks the contribution of

data for the case studies from ASM’s Academic Associates the CETYS
University Mexico—​Dr Francisco Velez, Dean of Colleges and Dr Faviola
Villegas Prof in marketing for case studies on Apple and Coca Cola as
also several senior faculty from ASM Group of Institutes for their help in
proofreading and editing of the case studies.
We also acknowledge the numerous reporters and of daily newspapers
in business and economics scenarios in India which have been rich and
authentic secondary data sources for design and development of case
studies for the case volumes.
 About the Series Editors

Dr Sandeep Pachpande, Chairman,

ASM Group of Institutes, Pune, India
Prof J.A. Kulkarni, Professor,
ASM Group of Institutes, Pune, India
Both the series editors have decades of experience in business case design and
development and also implementation of case methodology of teaching for the
faculty and students of business schools in India and abroad.
The series editors have to their credit of authoring three major
books on business case studies published by globally known publishers
and in conducting workshops for case design and development.
The series editors have a very good network with leaders and stalwarts in
business management studies across the globe and popular as keynote
speakers in many national and international conferences. They have a very
rich experience in organizing national and international conferences and case
competitions.
Currently the series editors are busy completing a unique case
analysis and resolution methodology programme which is under copyright
considerations.

Dr Sandeep Pachpande
Prof J.A. Kulkarni
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Exploring the Variety of Random
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since freedom must be sought in a certain shade or quality of the
action itself and not in the relation of this act to what it is not or to
what it might have been. All the difficulty arises from the fact that
both parties picture the deliberation under the form of an oscillation
in space, while it really consists in a dynamic progress in which the
self and its motives, like real living beings, are in a constant state of
becoming. The self, infallible when it affirms its immediate
experiences, feels itself free and says so; but, as soon as it tries to
explain its freedom to itself, it no longer perceives itself except by a
kind of refraction through space. Hence a symbolism of a mechanical
kind, equally incapable of proving, disproving, or illustrating free will.

But determinism will not admit itself beaten, and, Is prediction of an

putting the question in a new form, it will say: "Let act possible?
us leave aside actions already performed: let us Probable
infallible
and

consider only actions that are to come. The conclusions.

question is whether, knowing from now onwards all
the future antecedents, some higher intelligence would not be able
to predict with absolute certainty the decision which will result." —
We gladly agree to the question being put in these terms: it will give
us a chance of stating our own theory with greater precision. But we
shall first draw a distinction between those who think that the
knowledge of antecedents would enable us to state a probable
conclusion and those who speak of an infallible foresight. To say that
a certain friend, under certain circumstances, will very probably act
in a certain way, is not so much to predict the future conduct of our
friend as to pass a judgment on his present character, that is to say,
on his past. Although our feelings, our ideas, our character, are
constantly altering, a sudden change is seldom observed; and it is
still more seldom that we cannot say of a person whom we know
that certain actions seem to accord fairly well with his nature and
that certain others are absolutely inconsistent with it. All
philosophers will agree on this point; for to say that a given action is
consistent or inconsistent with the present character of a person
whom one knows is not to bind the future to the present. But the
determinist goes much further: he asserts that our solution is
provisional simply because we never know all the conditions of the
problem: that our forecast would gain in probability in proportion as
we were provided with a larger number of these conditions; that,
therefore, complete and perfect knowledge of all the antecedents
without any exception would make our forecast infallibly true. Such,
then, is the hypothesis which we have to examine.
For the sake of greater definiteness, let us imagine
a person called upon to make a seemingly free To know
completely the
decision under serious circumstances: we shall call antecedents and
him Peter. The question is whether a philosopher conditions of an
Paul, living at the same period as Peter, or, if you action is to be
actually
prefer, a few centuries before, would have been performing it.
able, knowing all the conditions under which Peter
acts, to foretell with certainty the choice which Peter made.
There are several ways of picturing the mental condition of a person
at a given moment. We try to do it when e.g. we read a novel; but
whatever care the author may have taken in depicting the feelings of
his hero, and even in tracing back his history, the end, foreseen or
unforeseen, will add something to the idea which we had formed of
the character: the character, therefore, was only imperfectly known
to us. In truth, the deeper psychic states, those which are translated
by free acts, express and sum up the whole of our past history: if
Paul knows all the conditions under which Peter acts, we must
suppose that no detail of Peter's life escapes him, and that his
imagination reconstructs and even lives over again Peter's history.
But we must here make a vital distinction. When I myself pass
through a certain psychic state, I know exactly the intensity of this
state and its importance in relation to the others, not by
measurement or comparison, but because the intensity of e.g. a
deep-seated feeling is nothing else than the feeling itself. On the
other hand, if I try to give you an account of this psychic state, I
shall be unable to make you realize its intensity except by some
definite sign of a mathematical kind: I shall have to measure its
importance, compare it with what goes before and what follows, in
short determine the part which it plays in the final act. And I shall
say that it is more or less intense, more or less important, according
as the final act is explained by it or apart from it. On the other hand,
for my own consciousness, which perceived this inner state, there
was no need of a comparison of this kind: the intensity was given to
it as an inexpressible quality of the state itself. In other words, the
intensity of a psychic state is not given to consciousness as a special
sign accompanying this state and denoting its power, like an
exponent in algebra; we have shown above that it expresses rather
its shade, its characteristic colouring, and that, if it is a question of a
feeling, for example, its intensity consists in being felt. Hence we
have to distinguish two ways of assimilating the conscious states of
other people: the one dynamic, which consists in experiencing them
oneself; the other static, which consists in substituting for the
consciousness of these states their image or rather their intellectual
symbol, their idea. In this case the conscious states are imagined
instead of being reproduced; but, then, to the image of the psychic
states themselves some indication of their intensity should be added,
since they no longer act on the person in whose mind they are
pictured and the latter has no longer any chance of experiencing
their force by actually feeling them. Now, this indication itself will
necessarily assume a quantitative character: it will be pointed out,
for example, that a certain feeling has more strength than another
feeling, that it is necessary to take more account of it, that it has
played a greater part; and how could this be known unless the later
history of the person were known in advance, with the precise
actions in which this multiplicity of states or inclinations has issued?
Therefore, if Paul is to have an adequate idea of Peter's state at any
moment of his history, there are only two courses open; either, like a
novelist who knows whither he is conducting his characters, Paul
must already know Peter's final act, and must thus be able to
supplement his mental image of the successive states through which
Peter is going to pass by some indication of their value in relation to
the whole of Peter's history; or he must make up his mind to pass
through these different states, not in imagination, but in reality. The
former hypothesis must be put on one side since the very point at
issue is whether, the antecedents alone being given, Paul will be able
to foresee the final act. We find ourselves compelled, therefore, to
alter radically the idea which we had formed of Paul: he is not, as
we had thought at first, a spectator whose eyes pierce the future,
but an actor who plays Peter's part in advance. And notice that you
cannot exempt him from any detail of this part, for the most
common-place events have their importance in a life-story; and even
supposing that they have not, you cannot decide that they are
insignificant except in relation to the final act, which, by hypothesis,
is not given. Neither have you the right to cut short—were it only by
a second—the different states of consciousness through which Paul
is going to pass before Peter; for the effects of the same feeling, for
example, go on accumulating at every moment of duration, and the
sum total of these effects could not be realized all at once unless
one knew the importance of the feeling, taken in its totality, in
relation to the final act, which is the very thing that is supposed to
remain unknown. But if Peter and Paul have experienced the same
feelings in the same order, if their minds have the same history, how
will you distinguish one from the other? Will it be by the body in
which they dwell? They would then always differ in some respect,
viz., that at no moment of their history would they have a mental
picture of the same body. Will it be by the place which they occupy
in time? In that case they would no longer be present at the same
events: now, by hypothesis, they have the same past and the same
present, having the same experience. You must now make up your
mind about it: Peter and Paul are one and the same person, whom
you call Peter when he acts and Paul when you recapitulate his
history. The more complete you made the sum of the conditions
which, when known, would have enabled you to predict Peter's
future action, the closer became your grasp of his existence and the
nearer you came to living his life over again down to its smallest
details: you thus reached the very moment when, the action taking
place, there was no longer anything to be foreseen, but only
something to be done. Here again any attempt to reconstruct ideally
an act really willed ends in the mere witnessing of the act whilst it is
being performed or when it is already done.
Hence it is a question devoid of meaning to ask:
Could or could not the act be foreseen, given the Hence
meaningless to
sum total of its antecedents? For there are two ask whether an
ways of assimilating these antecedents, the one act can be
dynamic the other static. In the first case we shall foreseen when all
its antecedents
be led by imperceptible steps to identify ourselves are given.
with the person we are dealing with, to pass
through the same series of states, and thus to get back to the very
moment at which the act is performed; hence there can no longer
be any question of foreseeing it. In the second case, we presuppose
the final act by the mere fact of annexing to the qualitative
description of the previous states the quantitative appreciation of
their importance. Here again the one party is led merely to realize
that the act is not yet performed when it is to be performed, and the
other, that when performed it is performed. This, like the previous
discussion, leaves the question of freedom exactly where it was to
begin with.
By going deeper into this twofold argument, we
shall find, at its very root, the two fundamental The two fallacies
involved: (1)
illusions of the reflective consciousness. The first regarding
consists in regarding: intensity as a mathematical intensity as a
property of psychic states and not, as we said at magnitude, not a
quality; (2)
the beginning of this essay, as a special quality, as substituting
a particular shade of these various states. The material symbol
second consists in substituting for the concrete for dynamic
process.
reality or dynamic progress, which consciousness
perceives, the material symbol of this progress when it has already
reached its end, that is to say, of the act already accomplished
together with the series of its antecedents. Certainly, once the final
act is completed, I can ascribe to all the antecedents their proper
value, and picture the interplay of these various elements as a
conflict or a composition of forces. But to ask whether, the
antecedents being known as well as their value, one could foretell
the final act, is to beg the question; it is to forget that we cannot
know the value of the antecedents without knowing the final act,
which is the very thing that is not yet known; it is to suppose
wrongly that the symbolical diagram which we draw in our own way
for representing the action when completed has been drawn by the
action itself whilst progressing, and drawn by it in an automatic
manner.
Now, in these two illusions themselves a third one
is involved, and you will see that the question Claiming to
foresee an action
whether the act could or could not be foreseen always comes
always comes back to this: Is time space? You back to confusing
begin by setting side by side in some ideal space time with space.
the conscious states which succeed one another in
Peter's mind, and you perceive his life as a kind of path Μ Ο X Y
traced out by a moving body M in space. You then blot out in
thought the part Ο X Y of this curve, and you inquire whether,
knowing Μ Ο, you would have been able to determine the portion Ο
X of the curve which the moving body describes beyond O.
Such is, in the main, the question which
you put when you bring in a philosopher
Paul, who lives before Peter and has to
picture to himself the conditions under
which Peter will act. You thus materialize these conditions; you make
the time to come into a road already marked out across the plain,
which we can contemplate from the top of the mountain, even if we
have not traversed it and are never to do so. But, now, you soon
notice that the knowledge of the part Μ Ο of the curve would not be
enough, unless you were shown the position of the points of this
line, not only in relation to one another, but also in relation to the
points of the whole line Μ O X Y; which would amount to being given
in advance the very elements which have to be determined. So you
then alter your hypothesis; you realize that time does not require to
be seen, but to be lived; and hence you conclude that, if your
knowledge of the line Μ Ο was not a sufficient datum, the reason
must have been that you looked at it from the outside instead of
identifying yourself with the point M, which describes not only Μ Ο
but also the whole curve, and thus making its movement your own.
Therefore, you persuade Paul to come and coincide with Peter; and
naturally, then, it is the line Μ Ο X Y which Paul traces out in space,
since, by hypothesis, Peter describes this line. But in no wise do you
prove thus that Paul foresaw Peter's action; you only show that Peter
acted in the way he did, since Paul became Peter. It is true that you
then come back, unwittingly, to your former hypothesis, because you
continually confuse the line Μ Ο X Y in its tracing with the line Μ Ο X
Y already traced, that is to say, time with space. After causing Paul
to come down and identify himself with Peter as long as was
required, you let him go up again and resume his former post of
observation. No wonder if he then perceives the line Μ Ο X Y
complete: he himself has just been completing it.
What makes the confusion a natural and almost an
unavoidable one is that science seems to point to Confusion arising
from prediction of
many cases where we do anticipate the future. Do astronomical
we not determine beforehand the conjunctions of phenomena.
heavenly bodies, solar and lunar eclipses, in short
the greater number of astronomical phenomena? Does not, then,
the human intellect embrace in the present moment immense
intervals of duration still to come? No doubt it does; but an
anticipation of this kind has not the slightest resemblance to the
anticipation of a voluntary act. Indeed, as we shall see, the reasons
which render it possible to foretell an astronomical phenomenon are
the very ones which prevent us from determining in advance an act
which springs from our free activity. For the future of the material
universe, although contemporaneous with the future of a conscious
being, has no analogy to it.
In order to put our finger on this vital difference,
let us assume for a moment that some mischievous Illustration from
hypothetical
illustration genius, more powerful still than the acceleration of
mischievous genius conjured up by Descartes physical
decreed that all the movements of the universe movements.
should go twice as fast. There would be no change
in astronomical phenomena, or at any rate in the equations which
enable us to foresee them, for in these equations the symbol t does
not stand for a duration, but for a relation between two durations,
for a certain number of units of time, in short, for a certain number
of simultaneities: these simultaneities, these coincidences would still
take place in equal number: only the intervals which separate them
would have diminished, but these intervals never make their
appearance in our calculations. Now these intervals are just duration
lived, duration which our consciousness perceives, and our
consciousness would soon inform us of a shortening of the day if we
had not experienced the usual amount of duration between sunrise
and sunset. No doubt it would not measure this shortening, and
perhaps it would not even perceive it immediately as a change of
quantity; but it would realize in some way or other a decline in the
usual storing up of experience, a change in the progress usually
accomplished between sunrise and sunset.
Now, when an astronomer foretells e.g. a lunar
eclipse, he merely exercises in his own way the Astronomical
prophecy such as
power which we have ascribed to our mischievous acceleration.
genius. He decrees that time shall go ten times, a
hundred times, a thousand times as fast, and he has a right to do
so, since all that he thus changes is the nature of the conscious
intervals, and since these intervals, by hypothesis, do not enter into
the calculations. Therefore, into a psychological duration of a few
seconds he may put several years, even several centuries of
astronomical time: that is his procedure when he traces in advance
the path of a heavenly body or represents it by an equation. What
he does is nothing but establishing a series of relations of position
between this body and other given bodies, a series of simultaneities
and coincidences, a series of numerical relations: as for duration
properly so called, it remains outside the calculation and could only
be perceived by a consciousness capable of living through the
intervals and, in fact, living the intervals themselves, instead of
merely perceiving their extremities. Indeed it is even conceivable
that this consciousness could live so slow and lazy a life as to take in
the whole path of the heavenly body in a single perception, just as
we do when we perceive the successive positions of a shooting star
as one line of fire. Such a consciousness would find itself really in
the same conditions in which the astronomer places himself ideally;
it would see in the present what the astronomer perceives in the
future. In truth, if the latter foresees a future phenomenon, it is only
on condition of making it to a certain extent a present phenomenon,
or at least of enormously reducing the interval which separates us
from it. In short, the time of which we speak in astronomy is a
number, and the nature of the units of this number cannot be
specified in our calculations; we may therefore assume them to be
as small as we please, provided that the same hypothesis is
extended to the whole series of operations, and that the successive
relations of position in space are thus preserved. We shall then be
present in imagination at the phenomenon we wish to foretell; we
shall know exactly at what point in space and after how many units
of time this phenomenon takes place; if we then restore to these
units their psychical nature, we shall thrust the event again into the
future and say that we have foreseen it, when in reality we have
seen it.
But these units of time which make up living
duration, and which the astronomer can dispose of In dealing with
states of
as he pleases because they give no handle to consciousness we
science, are just what concern the psychologist, for cannot vary their
psychology deals with the intervals themselves and duration without
altering their
not with their extremities. Certainly pure nature.
consciousness does not perceive time as a sum of
units of duration: left to itself, it has no means and even no reason
to measure time; but a feeling which lasted only half the number of
days, for example, would no longer be the same feeling for it; it
would lack thousands of impressions which gradually thickened its
substance and altered its colour. True, when we give this feeling a
certain name, when we treat it as a thing, we believe that we can
diminish its duration by half, for example, and also halve the
duration of all the rest of our history: it seems that it would still be
the same life, only on a reduced scale. But we forget that states of
consciousness are processes, and not things; that if we denote them
each by a single word, it is for the convenience of language; that
they are alive and therefore constantly changing; that, in
consequence, it is impossible to cut off a moment from them without
making them poorer by the loss of some impression, and thus
altering their quality. I quite understand that the orbit of a planet
might be perceived all at once or in a very short time, because its
successive positions or the results of its movement are the only
things that matter, and not the duration of the equal intervals which
separate them. But when we have to do with a feeling, it has no
precise result except its having been felt; and, to estimate this result
adequately, it would be necessary to have gone through all the
phases of the feeling itself and to have taken up the same duration.
Even if this feeling has finally issued in some definite action, which
might be compared to the definite position of a planet in space, the
knowledge of this act will hardly enable us to estimate the influence
of the feeling on the whole of a life-story, and it is this very influence
which we want to know. All foreseeing is in reality seeing, and this
seeing takes place when we can reduce as much as we please an
interval of future time while preserving the relation of its parts to
one another, as happens in the case of astronomical predictions. But
what does reducing an interval of time mean, except emptying or
impoverishing the conscious states which fill it? And does not the
very possibility of seeing an astronomical period in miniature thus
imply the impossibility of modifying a psychological series in the
same way, since it is only by taking this psychological series as an
invariable basis that we shall be able to make an astronomical period
vary arbitrarily as regards the unit of duration?
Thus, when we ask whether a future action could
have been foreseen, we unwittingly identify that Difference
between past and
time with which we have to do in the exact future duration in
sciences, and which is reducible to a number, with this respect.
real duration, whose so-called quantity is really a
quality, and which we cannot curtail by an instant without altering
the nature of the facts which fill it. No doubt the identification is
made easier by the fact that in a large number of cases we are
justified in dealing with real duration as with astronomical time.
Thus, when we call to mind the past, i.e. a series of deeds done, we
always shorten it, without however distorting the nature of the event
which interests us. The reason is that we know it already; for the
psychic state, when it reaches the end of the progress which
constitutes its very existence, becomes a thing which one can
picture to oneself all at once. Here we find ourselves in the same
position as the astronomer, when he takes in at a glance the orbit
which a planet will need several years to traverse. In fact,
astronomical prediction should be compared with the recollection of
the past state of consciousness, not with the anticipation of the
future one. But when we have to determine a future state of
consciousness, however superficial it may be, we can no longer view
the antecedents in a static condition as things; we must view them
in a dynamic condition as processes, since we are concerned with
their influence alone. Now their duration is this very influence.
Therefore it will no longer do to shorten future duration in order to
picture its parts beforehand; one is bound to live this duration whilst
it is unfolding. As far as deep-seated psychic states are concerned,
there is no perceptible difference between foreseeing, seeing, and
acting.
Only one course will remain open to the
determinist. He will probably give up asserting the The determinist
argument that
possibility of foreseeing a certain future act or state psychic
of consciousness, but will maintain that every act is phenomena are
determined by its psychic antecedents, or, in other subject to the law
"same
words, that the facts of consciousness, went, the antecedents,
phenomena of nature, are subject to laws. This same
way of arguing means, at bottom, that he will leave consequent."
out the particular features of the concrete psychic
states, lest he find himself confronted by phenomena which defy all
symbolical representation and therefore all anticipation. The
particular nature of these phenomena is thus thrust out of sight, but
it is asserted that, being phenomena, they must remain subject to
the law of causality. Now, it is argued, this law means that every
phenomenon is determined by its conditions, or, in other words, that
the same causes produce the same effects. Either, then, the act is
inseparably bound to its antecedents, or the principle of causality
admits of an incomprehensible exception.
This last form of the determinist argument differs
less than might be thought from all the others But as regards
inner states the
which have been examined above. To say that the same antecedents
same inner causes will reproduce the same effects will never recur.
is to assume that the same cause can appear a
second time on the stage of consciousness. Now, if duration is what
we say, deep-seated psychic states are radically heterogeneous to
each other, and it is impossible that any two of them should be quite
alike, since they are two different moments of a life-story. While the
external object does not bear the mark of the time that has elapsed
and thus, in spite of the difference of time, the physicist can again
encounter identical elementary conditions, duration is something real
for the consciousness which preserves the trace of it, and we cannot
here speak of identical conditions, because the same moment does
not occur twice. It is no use arguing that, even if there are no two
deep-seated psychic states which are altogether alike, yet analysis
would resolve these different states into more general and
homogeneous elements which might be compared with each other.
This would be to forget that even the simplest psychic elements
possess a personality and a life of their own, however superficial
they may be; they are in a constant state of becoming, and the
same feeling, by the mere fact of being repeated, is a new feeling.
Indeed, we have no reason for calling it by its former name save
that it corresponds to the same external cause or projects itself
outwardly into similar attitudes: hence it would simply be begging
the question to deduce from the so-called likeness of two conscious
states that the same cause produces the same effect. In short, if the
causal relation still holds good in the realm of inner states, it cannot
resemble in any way what we call causality in nature. For the
physicist, the same cause always produces the same effect: for a
psychologist who does not let himself be misled by merely apparent
analogies, a deep-seated inner cause produces its effect once for all
and will never reproduce it. And if it is now asserted that this effect
was inseparably bound up with this particular cause, such an
assertion will mean one of two things: either that, the antecedents
being given, the future action might have been foreseen; or that, the
action having once been performed, any other actionals seen, under
the given conditions, to have been impossible. Now we saw that
both these assertions were equally meaningless, and that they also
involved a false conception of duration.
Nevertheless it will be worth while to dwell on this
latter form of the determinist argument, even Analysis οf the
conception of
though it be only to explain from our point of view cause, which
the meaning of the two words "determination" and underlies the
"causality." In vain do we argue that there cannot whole determinist
argument.
be any question either of foreseeing a future action
in the way that an astronomical phenomenon is foreseen, or of
asserting, when once an action is done, that any other action would
have been impossible under the given conditions. In vain do we add
that, even when it takes this form: "The same causes produce the
same effects," the principle of universal determination loses every
shred of meaning in the inner world of conscious states. The
determinist will perhaps yield to our arguments on each of these
three points in particular, will admit that in the psychical field one
cannot ascribe any of these three meanings to the word
determination, will probably fail to discover a fourth meaning, and
yet will go on repeating that the act is inseparably bound up with its
antecedents. We thus find ourselves here confronted by so deep-
seated a misapprehension and so obstinate a prejudice that we
cannot get the better of them without attacking them at their root,
which is the principle of causality. By analysing the concept of cause,
we shall show the ambiguity which it involves, and, though not
aiming at a formal definition of freedom, we shall perhaps get
beyond the purely negative idea of it which we have framed up to
the present.
We perceive physical phenomena, and these
phenomena obey laws. This means: (i) that Causality as
"regular
phenomena a, b, c, d, previously perceived, can succession" does
occur again in the same shape; (2) that a certain not apply to
phenomenon P, which appeared after the conscious states
and cannot
conditions a, b, c, d, and after these conditions disprove free will.
only, will not fail to recur as soon as the same
conditions are again present. If the principle of causality told us
nothing more, as the empiricists claim, we should willingly grant
these philosophers that their principle is derived from experience;
but it would no longer prove anything against our freedom. For it
would then be understood that definite antecedents give rise to a
definite consequent wherever experience shows us this regular
succession; but the question is whether this regularity is found in the
domain of consciousness too, and that is the whole problem of free
will. We grant you for a moment that the principle of causality is
nothing but the summing up of the uniform and unconditional
successions observed in the past: by what right, then, do you apply
it to those deep-seated states of consciousness in which no regular
succession has yet been discovered, since the attempt to foresee
them ever fails? And how can you base on this principle your
argument to prove the determinism of inner states, when, according
to you, the determinism of observed facts is the sole source of the
principle itself? In truth, when the empiricists make use of the
principle of causality to disprove human freedom, they take the word
cause in a new meaning, which is the very meaning given to it by
common sense.
To assert the regular succession of two phenomena is, indeed, to
recognize that, the first being given, we already catch sight of the
second. But this wholly subjective connexion between two ideas is
not enough for common sense. It seems to common sense that, if
the idea of the second phenomenon is already implied in that of the
first, the second phenomenon itself must exist objectively, in some
way or other, within the first phenomenon. And common sense was
bound to come to this conclusion, because to distinguish exactly
between an objective connexion of phenomena and a subjective
association between their ideas presupposes a fairly high degree of
philosophical culture. We thus pass imperceptibly from the first
meaning to the second, and we picture the causal relation as a kind
of prefiguring of the future phenomenon in its present conditions.
Now this prefiguring can be understood in two very different ways,
and it is just here that the ambiguity begins.
In the first place, mathematics furnishes us with
one type of this kind of prefiguring. The very Causality, as the
prefiguring of the
movement by which we draw the circumference of future
a circle on a sheet of paper generates all the phenomenon in
mathematical properties of this figure: in this sense its present
conditions, in one
an unlimited number of theorems can be said to form destroys
pre-exist within the definition, although they will be concrete
spread out in duration for the mathematician who phenomena.
deduces them. It is true that we are here in the
realm of pure quantity and that, as geometrical properties can be
expressed in the form of equations, it is easy to understand how the
original equation, expressing the fundamental property of the figure,
is transformed into an unlimited number of new ones, all virtually
contained in the first. On the contrary, physical phenomena, which
succeed one another and are perceived by our senses, are
distinguished by quality not less than by quantity, so that there
would be some difficulty in at once declaring them equivalent to one
another. But, just because they are perceived through our sense-
organs, we seem justified in ascribing their qualitative differences to
the impression which they make on us and in assuming, behind the
heterogeneity of our sensations, a homogeneous physical universe.
Thus, we shall strip matter of the concrete qualities with which our
senses clothe it, colour, heat, resistance, even weight, and we shall
finally find ourselves confronted with homogeneous extensity, space
without body. The only step then remaining will be to describe
figures in space, to make them move according to mathematically
formulated laws, and to explain the apparent qualities of matter by
the shape, position, and motion of these geometrical figures. Now,
position is given by a system of fixed magnitudes and motion is
expressed by a law, i.e. by a constant relation between variable
magnitudes; but shape is a mental image, and, however tenuous,
however transparent we assume it to be, it still constitutes, in so far
as our imagination has, so to speak, the visual perception of it, a
concrete and therefore irreducible quality of matter. It will therefore
be necessary to make a clean sweep of this image itself and replace
it by the abstract formula of the movement which gives rise to the
figure. Picture then algebraical relations getting entangled in one
another, becoming objective by this very entanglement, and
producing, by the mere effect of their complexity, concrete, visible,
and tangible reality,—you will be merely drawing the consequences
of the principle of causality, understood in the sense of an actual
prefiguring of the future in the present. The scientists of our time do
not seem, indeed, to have carried abstraction so far, except perhaps
Lord Kelvin. This acute and profound physicist assumed that space is
filled with a homogeneous and incompressible fluid in which vortices
move, thus producing the properties of matter: these vortices are
the constituent elements of bodies; the atom thus becomes a
movement, and physical phenomena are reduced to regular
movements taking place within an incompressible fluid. But, if you
will notice that this fluid is perfectly homogeneous, that between its
parts there is neither an empty interval which separates them nor
any difference whatever by which they can be distinguished, you will
see that all movement taking place within this fluid is really
equivalent to absolute immobility, since before, during, and after the
movement nothing changes and nothing has changed in the whole.
The movement which is here spoken of is thus not a movement
which actually takes place, but only a movement which is pictured
mentally: it is a relation between relations. It is implicitly supposed,
though perhaps not actually realized, that motion has something to
do with consciousness, that in space there are only simultaneities,
and that the business of the physicist is to provide us with the
means of calculating these relations of simultaneity for any moment
of our duration. Nowhere has mechanism been carried further than
in this system, since the very shape of the ultimate elements of
matter is here reduced to a movement. But the Cartesian physics
already anticipated this interpretation; for if matter is nothing, as
Descartes claimed, but homogeneous extensity, the movements of
the parts of this extensity can be conceived through the abstract law
which governs them or through an algebraical equation between
variable magnitudes, but cannot be represented under the concrete
form of an image. And it would not be difficult to prove that the
more the progress of mechanical explanations enables us to develop
this conception of causality and therefore to relieve the atom of the
weight of its sensible qualities, the more the concrete existence of
the phenomena of nature tends to vanish into algebraical smoke.
Thus understood, the relation of causality is a
necessary relation in the sense that it will It thus leads to
Descartes' physics
indefinitely approach the relation of identity, as a and Spinoza's
curve approaches its asymptote. The Principle of metaphysics, but
identity is the absolute law of our consciousness: it cannot bind future
to present without
asserts that what is thought is thought at the neglecting
moment when we think it: and what gives this duration.
principle its absolute necessity is that it does not
bind the future to the present, but only the present to the present: it
expresses the unshakable confidence that consciousness feels in
itself, so long as, faithful to its duty, it confines itself to declaring the
apparent present state of the mind. But the principle of causality, in
so far as it is supposed to bind the future to the present, could never
take the form of a necessary principle; for the successive moments
of real time are not bound up with one another, and no effort of
logic will succeed in proving that what has been will be or will
continue to be, that the same antecedents will always give rise to
identical consequents. Descartes understood this so well that he
attributed the regularity of the physical world and the continuation
of the same effects to the constantly renewed grace of Providence;
he built up, as it were, an instantaneous physics, intended for a
universe the whole duration of which might as well be confined to
the present moment. And Spinoza maintained that the indefinite
series of phenomena, which takes for us the form of a succession in
time, was equivalent, in the absolute, to the divine unity: he thus
assumed, on the one hand, that the relation of apparent causality
between phenomena melted away into a relation of identity in the
absolute, and, on the other, that the indefinite duration of things was
all contained in a single moment, which is eternity. In short, whether
we study Cartesian physics, Spinozistic metaphysics, or the scientific
theories of our own time, we shall find everywhere the same anxiety
to establish a relation of logical necessity between cause and effect,
and we shall see that this anxiety shows itself in a tendency to
transform relations of succession into relations of inherence, to do
away with active duration, and to substitute for apparent causality a
fundamental identity.
Now, if the development of the notion of causality,
understood in the sense of necessary connexion, The necessary
determination of
leads to the Spinozistic or Cartesian conception of phenomena
nature, inversely, all relation of necessary implies non-
determination established between successive duration; but we
endure and are
phenomena may be supposed to arise from our therefore free.
perceiving, in a confused form, some mathematical
mechanism behind their heterogeneity. We do not claim that
common sense has any intuition of the kinetic theories of matter, still
less perhaps of a Spinozistic mechanism; but it will be seen that the
more the effect seems necessarily bound up with the cause, the
more we tend to put it in the cause itself, as a mathematical
consequence in its principle, and thus to cancel the effect of
duration. That under the influence of the same external conditions I
do not behave to-day as I behaved yesterday is not at all surprising,
because I change, because I endure. But things considered apart
from our perception do not seem to endure; and the more
thoroughly we examine this idea, the more absurd it seems to us to
suppose that the same cause should not produce to-day the effect
which it produced yesterday. We certainly feel, it is true, that
although things do not endure as we do ourselves, nevertheless
there must be some reason why phenomena are seen to succeed
one another instead of being set out all at once. And this is why the
notion of causality, although it gets indefinitely near that of identity,
will never seem to us to coincide with it, unless we conceive clearly
the idea of a mathematical mechanism or unless some subtle
metaphysics removes our very legitimate scruples on the point. It is
no less obvious that our belief in the necessary determination of
phenomena by one another becomes stronger in proportion as we
are more inclined to regard duration as a subjective form of our
consciousness. In other words, the more we tend to set up the
causal relation as a relation of necessary determination, the more
we assert thereby that things do not endure like ourselves. This
amounts to saying that the more we strengthen the principle of
causality, the more we emphasize the difference between a physical
series and a psychical one. Whence, finally, it would result (however
paradoxical the opinion may seem) that the assumption of a relation
of mathematical inherence between external phenomena ought to
bring with it, as a natural or at least as a plausible consequence, the
belief in human free will. But this last consequence will not concern
us for the moment: we are merely trying here to trace out the first
meaning of the word causality, and we think we have shown that the
prefiguring of the future in the present is easily conceived under a
mathematical form, thanks to a certain conception of duration which,
without seeming to be so, is fairly familiar to common sense.
But there is a prefiguring of another kind, still more
familiar to our mind, because immediate Prefiguring, as
having an idea of
prefiguring, as consciousness gives us the type of a future act which
it. We go, in fact, through successive states of we cannot realize
consciousness, and although the later was not without effort,
does not involve
contained in the earlier, we had before us at the necessary
time a more or less confused idea of it. The actual determination.
realization of this idea, however, did not appear as
certain but merely as possible. Yet, between the idea and the action,
some hardly perceptible intermediate processes come in, the whole
mass of which takes for us a form sui generis, which is called the
feeling of effort. And from the idea to the effort, from the effort to
the act, the progress has been so continuous that we cannot say
where the idea and the effort end, and where the act begins. Hence
we see that in a certain sense we may still say here that the future
was prefigured in the present; but it must be added that this
prefiguring is very imperfect, since the future action of which we
have the present idea is conceived as realizable but not as realized,
and since, even when we plan the effort necessary to accomplish it,
we feel that there is still time to stop. If, then, we decide to picture
the causal relation in this second form, we can assert a priori that
there will no longer be a relation of necessary determination
between the cause and the effect, for the effect will no longer be
given in the cause. It will be there only in the state of pure
possibility and as a vague idea which perhaps will not be followed by
the corresponding action. But we shall not be surprised that this
approximation is enough for common sense if we think of the
readiness with which children and primitive people accept the idea of
a whimsical Nature, in which caprice plays a part no less important
than necessity. Nay, this way of conceiving causality will be more
easily understood by the general run of people, since it does not
demand any effort of abstraction and only implies a certain analogy
between the outer and the inner world, between the succession of
objective phenomena and that of our subjective states.
In truth, this second way of conceiving the relation
of cause to effect is more natural than the first in This second
conception of
that it immediately satisfies the need of a mental causality leads to
image. If we look for the phenomenon Β within the Leibniz as the first
phenomenon A, which regularly precedes it, the led to Spinoza.
reason is that the habit of associating the two
images ends in giving us the idea of the second phenomenon
wrapped up, as it were, in that of the first. It is natural, then, that
we should push this objectification to its furthest limit and that we
should make the phenomenon A itself into a psychic state, in which
the phenomenon Β is supposed to be contained as a very vague
idea. We simply suppose, thereby, that the objective connexion of
the two phenomena resembles the subjective association which
suggested the idea of it to us. The qualities of things are thus set up
as actual states, somewhat analogous to those of our own self; the
material universe is credited with a vague personality which is
diffused through space and which, although not exactly endowed
with a conscious will, is led on from one state to another by an inner
impulse, a kind of effort. Such was ancient hylozoism, a half-hearted
and even contradictory hypothesis, which left matter its extensity
although attributing to it real conscious states, and which spread the
qualities of matter throughout extensity while treating these qualities
as inner i.e. simple states. It was reserved for Leibniz to do away
with this contradiction and to show that, if the succession of external
qualities or phenomena is understood as the succession of our own
ideas, these qualities must be regarded as simple states or
perceptions, and the matter which supports them as an unextended
monad, analogous to our soul. But, if such be the case, the
successive states of matter cannot be perceived from the outside
any more than our own psychic states; the hypothesis of pre-
established harmony must be introduced in order to explain how
these inner states are representative of one another. Thus, with our
second conception of the relation of causality we reach Leibniz, as
with the first we reached Spinoza. And in both cases we merely push
to their extreme limit or formulate with greater precision two half-
hearted and confused ideas of common sense.
Now it is obvious that the relation of causality,
understood in this second way, does not involve It does not
involve necessary
the necessary determination of the effect by the determination.
cause. History indeed proves it. We see ancient
hylozoism, the first outcome of this conception of causality,
explained the regular succession of causes and effects by a real deus
ex machina: sometimes it was a Necessity external to things and
hovering over them, sometimes an inner Reason acting by rules
somewhat similar to those which govern our own conduct. Nor do
the perceptions of Leibniz's monad necessitate one another; God has
to regulate their order in advance. In fact, Leibniz's determinism
does not spring from his conception of the monad, but from the fact
that he builds up the universe with monads only. Having denied all
mechanical influence of substances on one another, he had to
explain how it happens that their states correspond. Hence a
determinism which arises from the necessity of positing a pre-
established harmony, and not at all from the dynamic conception of
the relation of causality. But let us leave history aside. Consciousness
itself testifies that the abstract idea of force is that of indeterminate
effort, that of an effort which has not yet issued in an act and in
which the act is still only at the stage of an idea. In other words, the
dynamic conception of the causal relation ascribes to things a
duration absolutely like our own, whatever may be the nature of this
duration; to picture in this way the relation of cause to effect is to
assume that the future is not more closely bound up with the
present in the external world than it is in our own inner life.
It follows from this twofold analysis that the
principle of causality involves two contradictory Each of these
contradictory
conceptions of duration, two mutually exclusive interpretations of
ways of prefiguring the future in the present. causality and
Sometimes all phenomena, physical or psychical, duration by itself
safeguards
are pictured as enduring in the same way, and freedom; taken
therefore in the way that we do: in this case the together they
future will exist in the present only as an idea, and destroy it.
the passing from the present to the future will take
the form of an effort which does not always lead to the realization of
the idea conceived. Sometimes, on the other hand, duration is
regarded as the characteristic form of conscious states; in this case,
things are no longer supposed to endure as we do, and a
mathematical pre-existence of their future in their present is
admitted. Now, each of these two hypotheses, when taken by itself,
safeguards human freedom; for the first would lead to the result
that even the phenomena of nature were contingent, and the
second, by attributing the necessary determination of physical
phenomena to the fact that things do not endure as we do, invites
us to regard the self which is subject to duration as a free force.
Therefore, every clear conception of causality, where we know our
own meaning, leads to the idea of human freedom as a natural
consequence. Unfortunately, the habit has grown up of taking the
principle of causality in both senses at the same time, because the
one is more flattering to our imagination and the other is more
favourable to mathematical reasoning. Sometimes we think
particularly of the regular succession of physical phenomena and of
the kind of inner effort by which one becomes another; sometimes
we fix our mind on the absolute regularity of these phenomena, and
from the idea of regularity we pass by imperceptible steps to that of
mathematical necessity, which excludes duration understood in the
first way. And we do not see any harm in letting these two
conceptions blend into one another, and in assigning greater
importance to the one or the other according as we are more or less
concerned with the interests of science. But to apply the principle of
causality, in this ambiguous form, to the succession of conscious
states, is uselessly and wantonly to run into inextricable difficulties.
The idea of force, which really excludes that of necessary
determination, has got into the habit, so to speak, of amalgamating
with that of necessity, in consequence of the very use which we
make of the principle of causality in nature. On the one hand, we
know force only through the witness of consciousness, and
consciousness does not assert, does not even understand, the
absolute determination, now, of actions that are still to come: that is
all that experience teaches us, and if we hold by experience we
should say that we feel ourselves free, that we perceive force, rightly
or wrongly, as a free spontaneity. But, on the other hand, this idea
of force, carried over into nature, travelling there side by side with
the idea of necessity, has got corrupted before it returns from the
journey. It returns impregnated with the idea of necessity: and in
the light of the rôle which we have made it play in the external
world, we regard force as determining with strict necessity the
effects which flow from it. Here again the mistake made by
consciousness arises from the fact that it looks at the self, not
directly, but by a kind of refraction through the forms which it has
lent to external perception, and which the latter does not give back
without having left its mark on them. A compromise, as it were, has
been brought about between the idea of force and that of necessary
determination. The wholly mechanical determination of two external
phenomena by one another now assumes in our eyes the same form
as the dynamic relation of our exertion of force to the act which
springs from it: but, in return, this latter relation takes the form of a
mathematical derivation, the human action being supposed to issue
mechanically, and therefore necessarily, from the force which
produces it. There is no doubt that this mingling of two different and
almost opposite ideas offers advantages to common sense, since it
enables us to picture in the same way, and denote by one and the
same word, both the relation which exists between two moments of
our life and that which binds together the successive moments of
the external world. We have seen that, though our deepest
conscious states exclude numerical multiplicity, yet we break them
up into parts external to one another; that though the elements of
concrete duration permeate one another, duration expressing itself in
extensity exhibits moments as distinct as the bodies scattered in
space. Is it surprising, then, that between the moments of our life,
when it has been, so to speak, objectified, we set up a relation
analogous to the objective relation of causality, and that an
exchange, which again may be compared to the phenomenon of
endosmosis, takes place between the dynamic idea of free effort and
the mathematical concept of necessary determination?
But the sundering of these two ideas is an
accomplished fact in the natural sciences. The Though united in
popular thought,
physicist may speak of forces, and even picture the ideas of free
their mode of action by analogy with an inner effort and
effort, but he will never introduce this hypothesis necessary
determination are
into a scientific explanation. Even those who, with kept apart by
Faraday, replace the extended atoms by dynamic physical science.
points, will treat the centres of force and the lines
of force mathematically, without troubling about force itself
considered as an activity or an effort. It thus comes to be
understood that the relation of external causality is purely
mathematical, and has no resemblance to the relation between
psychical force and the act which springs from it.
It is now time to add that the relation of inner
causality is purely dynamic, and has no analogy They should be
kept apart too by
with the relation of two external phenomena which psychology.
condition one another. For as the latter are capable
of recurring in a homogeneous space, their relation can be
expressed in terms of a law, whereas deep-seated psychic states
occur once in consciousness and will never occur again. A careful
analysis of the psychological phenomenon led us to this conclusion
in the beginning: the study of the notions of causality and duration,
viewed in themselves, has merely confirmed it.
We can now formulate our conception of freedom.
Freedom is the relation of the concrete self to the Freedom real but
indefineable.
act which it performs. This relation is indefinable,
just because we are free. For we can analyse a thing, but not a
process; we can break up extensity, but not duration. Or, if we
persist in analysing it, we unconsciously transform the process into a
thing and duration into extensity. By the very fact of breaking up
concrete time we set out its moments in homogeneous space; in
place of the doing we put the already done; and, as we have begun
by, so to speak, stereotyping the activity of the self, we see
spontaneity settle down into inertia and freedom into necessity.
Thus, any positive definition of freedom will ensure the victory of
determinism.
Shall we define the free act by saying of this act, when it is once
done, that it might have been left undone? But this assertion, as also
its opposite, implies the idea of an absolute equivalence between
concrete duration and its spatial symbol: and as soon as we admit
this equivalence, we are led on, by the very development of the
formula which we have just set forth, to the most rigid determinism.
Shall we define the free act as "that which could not be foreseen,
even when all the conditions were known in advance?" But to
conceive all the conditions as given, is, when dealing with concrete
duration, to place oneself at the very moment at which the act is
being performed. Or else it is admitted that the matter of psychic
duration can be pictured symbolically in advance, which amounts, as
we said, to treating time as a homogeneous medium, and to
reasserting in new words the absolute equivalence of duration with
its symbol. A closer study of this second definition of freedom will
thus bring us once more to determinism.
Shall we finally define the free act by saying that it is not necessarily
determined by its cause? But either these words lose their meaning
or we understand by them that the same inner causes will not
always call forth the same effects. We admit, then, that the psychic
antecedents of a free act can be repeated, that freedom is displayed
in a duration whose moments resemble one another, and that time is
a homogeneous medium, like space. We shall thus be brought back
to the idea of an equivalence between duration and its spatial
symbol; and by pressing the definition of freedom which we have
laid down, we shall once more get determinism out of it.
To sum up; every demand for explanation in regard to freedom
comes back, without our suspecting it, to the following question:
"Can time be adequately represented by space?" To which we
answer: Yes, if you are dealing with time flown; No, if you speak of
time flowing. Now, the free act takes place in time which is flowing
and not in time which has already flown. Freedom is therefore a
fact, and among the facts which we observe there is none clearer. All
the difficulties of the problem, and the problem itself, arise from the
desire to endow duration with the same attributes as extensity, to
interpret a succession by a simultaneity, and to express the idea of
freedom in a language into which it is obviously untranslatable.

CONCLUSION

To sum up the foregoing discussion, we shall put

aside for the present Kant's terminology and also Modern
psychology holds
his doctrine, to which we shall return later, and we hat we perceive
shall take the point of view of common sense. things through
forms borrowed
Modern psychology seems to us particularly from our own
concerned to prove that we perceive things constitution.
through the medium of certain forms, borrowed
from our own constitution. This tendency has become more and
more marked since Kant: while the German philosopher drew a
sharp line of separation between time and space, the extensive and
the intensive, and, as we should say to-day, consciousness and
external perception, the empirical school, carrying analysis still
further, tries to reconstruct the extensive out of the intensive, space
out of duration, and externality out of inner states. Physics,
moreover, comes in to complete the work of psychology in this
respect: it shows that, if we wish to forecast phenomena, we must
make a clean sweep of the impression which they produce on
consciousness and treat sensations as signs of reality, not as reality
itself.
It seemed to us that there was good reason to set
ourselves the opposite problem and to ask whether But are not the
states of the self
the most obvious states of the ego itself, which we perceived through
believe that we grasp directly, are not mostly forms borrowed
perceived through the medium of certain forms from the external
world?
borrowed from the external world, which thus gives
us back what we have lent it. A priori it seems fairly probable that
this is what happens. For, assuming that the forms alluded to, into
which we fit matter, come entirely from the mind, it seems difficult
to apply them constantly to objects without the latter soon leaving a
mark on them: by then using these forms to gain a knowledge of
our own person we run the risk of mistaking for the colouring of the
self the reflection of the frame in which we place it, i.e. the external
world. But one can go further still and assert that forms applicable to
things cannot be entirely our own work, that they must result from a
compromise between matter and mind, that if we give much to
matter we probably receive something from it, and that thus, when
we try to grasp ourselves after an excursion into the external world,
we no longer have our hands free.
Now just as, in order to ascertain the real relations
of physical phenomena to one another, we abstract To understand the
intensity, duration
whatever obviously clashes with them in our way and voluntary
of perceiving and thinking, so, in order to view the determination of
self in its original purity, psychology ought to psychic states, we
must eliminate
eliminate or correct certain forms which bear the the idea of space.
obvious mark of the external world. What are these
forms? When isolated from one another and regarded as so many
distinct units, psychic states seem to be more or less intense. Next,
looked at in their multiplicity, they unfold in time and constitute
duration. Finally, in their relations to one another, and in so far as a
certain unity is preserved throughout their multiplicity, they seem to
determine one another. Intensity, duration, voluntary determination,
these are the three ideas which had to be clarified by ridding them
of all that they owe to the intrusion of the sensible world and, in a
word, to the obsession of the idea of space.
Examining the first of these ideas, we found that
psychic phenomena were in themselves pure Intensity is quality
and not quantity
quality or qualitative multiplicity, and that, on the or magnitude.
other hand, their cause situated in space was
quantity. In so far as this quality becomes the sign of the quantity
and we suspect the presence of the latter behind the former, we call
it intensity. The intensity of a simple state, therefore, is not quantity
but its qualitative sign. You will find that it arises from a compromise
between pure quality, which is the state of consciousness, and pure
quantity, which is necessarily space. Now you give up this
compromise without the least scruple when you study external
things, since you then leave aside the forces themselves, assuming
that they exist, and consider only their measurable and extended
effects. Why, then, do you keep to this hybrid concept when you
analyse in its turn the state of consciousness? If magnitude, outside
you, is never intensive, intensity, within you, is never magnitude. It
is through having overlooked this that philosophers have been
compelled to distinguish two kinds of quantity, the one extensive,
the other intensive, without ever succeeding in explaining what they
had in common or how the same words "increase" and "decrease"
could be used for things so unlike. In the same way they are
responsible for the exaggerations of psychophysics, for as soon as
the power of increasing in magnitude is attributed to sensation in
any other than a metaphorical sense, we are invited to find out by
how much it increases. And, although consciousness does not
measure intensive quantity, it does not follow that science may not
succeed indirectly in doing so, if it be a magnitude. Hence, either a
psychophysical formula is possible or the intensity of a simple
psychic state is pure quality.
Turning then to the concept of multiplicity, we saw
that to construct a number we must first have the Our conscious
states not a
intuition of a homogeneous medium, viz. space, in discreet
which terms distinct from one another could be set multiplicity.
out in line, and, secondly, a process of permeation
and organization by which these units are dynamically added
together and form what we called a qualitative multiplicity. It is
owing to this dynamic process that the units get added, but it is
because of their presence in space that they remain distinct. Hence
number or discrete multiplicity also results from a compromise. Now,
when we consider material objects in themselves, we give up this
compromise, since we regard them as impenetrable and divisible,
i.e. endlessly distinct from one another. Therefore, we must give it
up, too, when we study our own selves. It is through having failed to
do so that associationism has made many mistakes, such as trying
to reconstruct a psychic state by the addition of distinct states of
consciousness, thus substituting the symbol of the ego for the ego
itself.
These preliminary considerations enabled us to approach the
principal object of this work, the analysis of the ideas of duration
and voluntary determination.
What is duration within us? A qualitative
multiplicity, with no likeness to number; an organic Inner duration is
a qualitative
evolution which is yet not an increasing quantity; a multiplicity.
pure heterogeneity within which there are no distinct qualities. In a
word, the moments of inner duration are not external to one
another.
What duration is there existing outside us? The
present only, or, if we prefer the expression, In the external we
find not duration
simultaneity. No doubt external things change, but but simultaneity.
their moments do not succeed one another, if we
retain the ordinary meaning of the word, except for a consciousness
which keeps them in mind. We observe outside us at a given
moment a whole system of simultaneous positions; of the
simultaneities which have preceded them nothing remains. To put
duration in space is really to contradict oneself and place succession
within simultaneity. Hence we must not say that external things
endure, but rather that there is in them some inexpressible reason in
virtue of which we cannot examine them at successive moments of
our own duration without observing that they have changed. But this
change does not involve succession unless the word is taken in a
new meaning: on this point we have noted the agreement of science
and common sense.
Thus in consciousness we find states which succeed, without being
distinguished from one another; and in space simultaneities which,
without succeeding, are distinguished from one another, in the sense
that one has ceased to exist when the other appears. Outside us,
mutual externality without succession; within us, succession without
mutual externality.
Here again a compromise comes in. To the
simultaneities, which constitute the external world, The idea of a
measurable time
and, although distinct, succeed one another for our arises from
consciousness, we attribute succession in compromise
themselves. Hence the idea that things endure as between ideas of
succession and
we do ourselves and that time may be brought externality.
within space. But while our consciousness thus
introduces succession into external things, inversely these things
themselves externalize the successive moments of our inner duration
in relation to one another. The simultaneities of physical phenomena,
absolutely distinct in the sense that the one has ceased to be when
the other takes place, cut up into portions, which are also distinct
and external to one another, an inner life in which succession implies
interpenetration, just as the pendulum of a clock cuts up into distinct
fragments and spreads out, so to speak, lengthwise, the dynamic
and undivided tension of the spring. Thus, by a real process of
endosmosis we get the mixed idea of a measurable time, which is
space in so far as it is homogeneity, and duration in so far as it is
succession, that is to say, at bottom, the contradictory idea of
succession in simultaneity.
Now, these two elements, extensity and duration,
science tears asunder when it undertakes the close As science
eliminates
study of external things. For we have pointed out duration from the
that science retains nothing of duration but outer, philosophy
simultaneity, and nothing of motion itself position must eliminate
space from the
of the moving body, i.e. immobility. A very sharp inner world.
separation is here made and space gets the best of
it.
Therefore the same separation will have to be made again, but this
time to the advantage of duration, when inner phenomena are
studied, —not inner phenomena once developed, to be sure, or after
the discursive reason has separated them and set them out in a
homogeneous medium in order to understand them, but inner
phenomena in their developing, and in so far as they make up, by
their interpenetration, the continuous evolution of a free person.
Duration, thus restored to its original purity, will appear as a wholly
qualitative multiplicity, an absolute heterogeneity of elements which
pass over into one another.
Now it is because they have neglected to make this
necessary separation that one party has been led The neglect to
separate extensity
to deny freedom and the other to define it, and and duration
thereby, involuntarily, to deny it too. They ask in leads one party to
fact whether the act could or could not be deny freedom and
the other to
foreseen, the whole of its conditions being given; define it.
and whether they assert it or deny it, they admit
that this totality of conditions could be conceived as given in
advance: which amounts, as we have shown, to treating duration as
a homogeneous thing and intensities as magnitudes. They will either
say that the act is determined by its conditions, without perceiving
that they are playing on the double sense of the word causality, and
that they are thus giving to duration at the same time two forms
which are mutually exclusive. Or else they will appeal to the principle
of the conservation of energy, without asking whether this principle
is equally applicable to the moments of the external world, which are
equivalent to one another, and to the moments of a living and
conscious being, which acquire a richer and richer content. In
whatever way, in a word, freedom is viewed, it cannot be denied
except on condition of identifying time with space; it cannot be
defined except on condition of demanding that space should
adequately represent time; it cannot be argued about in one sense
or the other except on condition of previously confusing succession
and simultaneity. All determinism will thus be refuted by experience,
but every attempt to define freedom will open the way to
determinism.
Inquiring then why this separation of duration and
extensity, which science carries out so naturally in This separation
favourable to
the external world, demands such an effort and physical science,
rouses so much repugnance when it is a question but against the
of inner states, we were not long in perceiving the interests of
language and
reason. The main object of science is to forecast social life.
and measure: now we cannot forecast physical
phenomena except on condition that we assume that they do not
endure as we do; and, on the other hand, the only thing we are able
to measure is space. Hence the breach here comes about of itself
between quality and quantity, between true duration and pure
extensity. But when we turn to our conscious states, we have
everything to gain by keeping up the illusion through which we make
them share in the reciprocal externality of outer things, because this
distinctness, and at the same time this solidification, enables us to
give them fixed names in spite of their instability, and distinct ones
in spite of their interpenetration. It enables us to objectify them, to
throw them out into the current of social life.
Hence there are finally two different selves, one of
which is, as it were, the external projection of the Hence two
different selves:
other, its spatial and, so to speak, social (1) the
representation. We reach the former by deep fundamental self;
introspection, which leads us to grasp our inner (2) its spatial and
social
states as living things, constantly becoming, as representation:
states not amenable to measure, which permeate
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