Abstract

Victor Egger (1848-1909), the first theorist of interior monologue, opens his systematic discussion in "La parole intérieure" (1881) by suggesting that internal and external speech are substantially alike. This paper takes as its starting point a historiographical and theoretical reconstruction of Bergson's debt to Egger in order to highlight the link between "La parole intérieure" and the "Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience". Next, by considering Bergson's other works, it proposes an interpretation of "Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion", with a particular focus on the connection between the historical action of moral personality and open society. This allows to suggest where to place a crucial point of distance between the two: the interpretation of pure duration as history.