Morality in Evolution: The Moral Philosophy of Henri Bergson (review)

410 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY fully evaluated). Also, a clear recognition of Kant's distinction between "reproductive" and "productive" imagination would have been helpful to Uehling's argument. Statements such as: "The imagination works according to rules, which rules are the categories" (56), and "imagination... is merely one name of the activity of the understanding" (59), might then have been avoided, and Kant's statement that, "in the judgment of taste," imagination is "productive and exerting an activity of its own" (V, 240) the product of which although without reference to a "definite concept" of an object, "can consist with the free conformity to law of the understanding" (V, 241), would then become clear; and even the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime would then take on a meaning of more significance than that given to it by Uehling. Finally, when reflective judgments are seen as related to productive rather than to reproductive imagination--the Kantian position-then it is obvious that, for Kant, art is creative of beautiful, natural forms but does not imitate or copy things found in nature. Uehling's correct assertion would thus find its rational ground in the nature of reflective judgments itself. Why Meredith's atrocious translation of Zweckmiissigkeit as "finality" should be accepted as standard is beyond me. In fact, Meredith's translation of the third Critique should simply be thrown out. Its infelicities are intolerable. Kant's BrieJwechsel is, in effect, a reprint of the 1924 edition. However, letters which have come to light since 1924 have now been included in a Nachtrag (925-950), and an informative Introduction by Rudolf Malter and Joachim Kopper has been added (xix-lxxi). Based upon the diplomatic texts of the Akademie Ausgabe, this selection of letters contains all letters written by Kant but only the most important ones (or parts of them) addressed to him. The collection covers the period from August 1749 to April 1803. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized, but the text is otherwise unchanged. That this one-volume collection is a handy and very useful tool for Kant scholars is beyond question. That it does not supersede the collection of letters of the Akademie Ausgabe is also clear. The new edition of the Brie/wechsel is available also in paperback. W. H. WERKMEISTER The Florida State University Morality in Evolution: The Moral Philosophy of Henri Bergson. By Idella J. Gallagher. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970. Pp. 112) Since his first book was published in 1889 and his last ones in the early 'thirties, where is the true place of Henri Bergson in the evolution of French philosophy between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries? Is Andr6 Gide right when he says in his Journal that the enormous success of Bergson in his lifetime comes from his "complacency" with current clich6s of the French cultural milieu at the beginning of our century? Or should we consider Bergson as the leading French philosopher after a disappointing and "stupid" nineteenth century? Or should we simply say with Etienne Gilson, quoted by Gallagher, that "one must have lived through those years to realize what a liberation the teaching of Bergson was"? For we who have not lived those extraordinary years when the giants of our century were coming into the cultural arena, what can we get from Bergson, if we are looking for more than a polite acknowledgement? This new book of Idella J. Gallagher can help us to answer that final question. Morality in Evolution, as a study of the moral philosophy of Henri Bergson, is an excellent introduction , not only to Bergson's solution to universal problems of ethics, but also to his philosophy as a whole, because Mrs. Gallagher is right when she states that "The Two BOOK REVIEWS 411 Sources represents the culmination and full flowering of Bergson's thought." The book is divided into eight chapters plus a conclusion, the first four analyzing the intuition of duration, intuition as a new method of philosophy, and the "evolutionary background of morality." Then in four chapters Mrs. Gallagher gives a rich, detailed and objective interpretation of Bergson's solution of the moral and social problems of action, especially those difficult questions of...