Bergson and Immateriality

A central thesis of Matter and Memory is that the Past does not cease to exist, rather, that it ceases to have present use, leading Bergson to conclude that Memory does not require any special storage facility. Now on the definition of 'material' as 'important', the Past is thus 'immaterial'. Thus, when he classifies Memory, the realm of the Past, as 'Spirit', he, perhaps unwittingly, refers it to a Practical, not to an Ontological, category, i. e. to 'Spirit' qua 'immaterial' = 'unimportant'. So, regardless of what he argues in other contexts, he here demonstrates that Spirit is derived from Matter.