The derivation of the three heterologies elucidated in the three chapters of the _Essai_, is the inevitable consequence of the fundamental heterology of an “absolutely” two-fold universe. The intensity of mental states could not be homogeneous, for Bergson, the variousness that belongs to them could not be plural, their organization could not be determinate, because then they would be objective, _by his definition_ of objectivity. But why may a subjective state not be an objective state? To the conceptualist, to whom these terms are abstract concepts, points of view, discursive contexts, there is no reason at all. To Professor Bergson, who does what he accuses conceptualism of doing, namely substituting concepts for concrete realities, it is a contradiction, for one concrete reality cannot be another. But a concrete reality which, for a certain purpose and in a certain context, one symbolizes by the term “subjective state,” may very well be the same concrete reality which, for another purpose, one symbolizes by the phrase “objective state.”
We have seen that intensity which is “pure,” pure quality, is pure nothing, being quality of nothing; since, if it is quality of anything, it has its quantitative coefficient, which destroys its purity. So variousness which is “pure” heterogeneity, is not even various, but “nothing” again. For it is “interpenetrating” instead of “juxtaposited” or impenetrable heterogeneity. But impenetrability is just identity, as Bergson remarks;[150] it is a logical principle rather than a physical law. That two bodies cannot occupy the same space and time means that they would therein not be two, or coexistent. Now, interpenetration in any rigorous sense, any but the loose colloquial sense of small division and uniform diffusion, is the mere contradiction of impenetrability or identity. It means that two bodies do occupy the same space at the same time. If, then, this law of interpenetration thus means to require (in the subject) the relation of coexistence, and also (in the predicate) to forbid it--in other words, if it is contradictory to itself--mental states can obey it no better than pebbles. And, finally, non-quantitative causality is a third contradiction, since its “pure” heterogeneity destroys its continuity in time as well as in space (cf. above, page 93).
