It requires a profound observation and reflection to recognise that matter and consciousness are not really hostile elements, that they appear as the external object and the internal subject respectively when the latter is confined to individual psychological functioning, and that ultimately they form the two phases in which the Absolute manifests itself as the universe. The existence of matter cannot be known unless there is a relation between matter and consciousness. The admission of such a relation would be to accept a unitary being underlying the two. Matter to Bergson appears as an entity second to consciousness because he is unwillingly identifying Reality with subjective mind, though he thinks that it is true objectively also, merely because it is seen working in everyone outside. It has been already pointed out that metaphysical Reality is not what is merely subjectively felt, though it may be felt thus by all individuals.
Reality has a non-relative existence transcending subjectivity.
Bergson's consciousness evolves because it is the individual mind moving with the operations of matter in a world of space and time. Evolution is impossible without space-time relations, for evolution is causation, whether we conceive it as linear or organic. And space and time are phenomenal forms, they cannot be equated with Reality. Bergson unnecessarily emphasises the importance of time and makes it non-spatial, calling it an eternal duration which he identifies with Reality. It is impossible to conceive of time without space, and time does not cease to be a relative phenomenon merely because another word, viz., duration, is substituted for it.