Editing Henri Bergson (section)

===Later years===
[[File:1917 Henri Bergson and daughter Jeanne Bergson.jpg|thumb|Bergson with his daughter, Jeanne, in 1917. [[Autochrome Lumière|Autochrome]] by [[The Archives of the Planet|Auguste Léon]]]]
In 1914, the Scottish universities arranged for Bergson to give the famous [[Gifford Lectures]], planning one course for the spring and another for the autumn. Bergson delivered the first course, consisting of 11 lectures, under the title ''The Problem of Personality'', at the [[University of Edinburgh]] in the spring of that year. The course of lectures planned for the autumn months had to be abandoned because of the outbreak of war.

Bergson was not silent during the conflict, and gave some inspiring addresses. As early as 4 November 1914, he wrote an article, "Wearing and Nonwearing Forces" (''La force qui s'use et celle qui ne s'use pas''), that appeared in a periodical of the ''[[poilu]]s'', ''Le Bulletin des Armées de la République Française''. A presidential address, "The Meaning of the War", was delivered in December 1914 to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques.

Bergson contributed also to the publication arranged by ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' in honour of King [[Albert I of Belgium]], ''King Albert's Book'' (Christmas, 1914).<ref>
{{Cite book
|title= King Albert's book: a tribute to the Belgian king and people from representative men and women throughout the world
|url= https://archive.org/details/kingalbertsbookt00lond
|year= 1914
|publisher= The Daily Telegraph
|location= London
|page= [https://archive.org/details/kingalbertsbookt00lond/page/187 187]
}}
</ref> In 1915, he was succeeded in the office of President of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques by [[Alexandre Ribot]], and then delivered a discourse on "The Evolution of German Imperialism". Meanwhile, he found time to issue at the Minister of Public Instruction's request a brief summary of French philosophy. Bergson did a large amount of traveling and lecturing in America during the war. He participated in the negotiations that led to the [[World War I#Entry of the United States|entry of the United States]] into the war. He was there when the French Mission under [[René Viviani]] paid a visit in April and May 1917 after America's entry into the conflict. Viviani's book ''La Mission française en Amérique'' (1917) has a preface by Bergson.

Early in 1918, the [[Académie française]] received Bergson officially when he took his seat among "The Select Forty" as successor to [[Emile Ollivier]] (the author of the historical work ''L'Empire libéral''). A session was held in January in his honour at which he delivered an address on Ollivier. In the war, Bergson saw the conflict of Mind and Matter, or rather of Life and Mechanism; and thus showed his philosophy's central idea in action.

As many of Bergson's contributions to French periodicals remained relatively inaccessible, he had them published in two volumes. The first of these was being planned when war broke out. The conclusion of strife was marked by the appearance of a delayed volume in 1919. It bears the title ''Spiritual Energy: Essays and Lectures'' (reprinted as ''Mind-Energy'' – ''L'Énergie spirituelle : essais et conférences''). The advocate of Bergson's philosophy in England, [[Wildon Carr]], prepared an English translation under the title ''Mind-Energy''. The volume opens with the Huxley Memorial Lecture of 1911, "Life and Consciousness", in a revised and developed form under the title "Consciousness and Life". Signs of Bergson's growing interest in social ethics and in the idea of a future life of personal survival are manifested. The lecture before the Society for Psychical Research is included, as is also the one given in France, ''L'Âme et le Corps'', which contains the substance of the four London lectures on the Soul. The seventh and last article is a reprint of Bergson's famous lecture to the Congress of Philosophy at Geneva in 1904, ''The Psycho-Physiological Paralogism'' (Le paralogisme psycho-physiologique), which now appears as ''Le cerveau et la pensée : une illusion philosophique''. Other articles are on the False Recognition, on Dreams, and Intellectual Effort. The volume is a most welcome production and serves to bring together what Bergson wrote on the concept of mental force, and on his view of "tension" and "detension" as applied to the relation of matter and mind.

In June 1920, the [[University of Cambridge]] honoured him with the degree of [[Doctor of Letters]]. In order that he might devote his full-time to the great new work he was preparing on ethics, religion, and sociology, the Collège de France relieved Bergson of the duties attached to the Chair of Modern Philosophy there. He retained the chair, but no longer delivered lectures, his place being taken by his disciple, the mathematician and philosopher [[Édouard Le Roy]], who supported a [[conventionalism|conventionalist]] stance on the [[foundations of mathematics]], which was adopted by Bergson.<ref name=TheCreativeEvolution>See Chapter III of [https://archive.org/stream/creativeevolu1st00berguoft#page/n7/mode/2up ''The Creative Evolution'']</ref> Le Roy, who also succeeded to Bergson at the Académie française and was a fervent Catholic, extended to [[Revelation|revealed truth]] his conventionalism, leading him to privilege faith, heart and sentiment to [[dogma]]s, speculative theology and abstract reasoning. Like Bergson's, his writings were placed on the Index by the Vatican.