CREATIVE EVOLUTION

BY HENRI BERGSON

MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE PROFESSOR AT THE COLLEGE DE FRANCE

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY ARTHUR MITCHELL, PH. D. 

NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1911

COPYRIGHT, 1911, by

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

CAMELOT PRESS, 18-20 OAK STREET, NEW YORK

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

In the writing of this English translation of Professor Bergson's mostimportant work, I was helped by the friendly interest of ProfessorWilliam James, to whom I owe the illumination of much that was dark tome as well as the happy rendering of certain words and phrases for whichan English equivalent was difficult to find. His sympatheticappreciation of Professor Bergson's thought is well known, and he hasexpressed his admiration for it in one of the chapters of _A PluralisticUniverse_. It was his intention, had he lived to see the completion ofthis translation, himself to introduce it to English readers in aprefatory note. 

I wish to thank my friend, Dr. George Clarke Cox, for many valuablesuggestions. 

I have endeavored to follow the text as closely as possible, and at thesame time to preserve the living union of diction and thought. ProfessorBergson has himself carefully revised the whole work. We both of us wishto acknowledge the great assistance of Miss Millicent Murby. She haskindly studied the translation phrase by phrase, weighing each word, andher revision has resulted in many improvements. 

But above all we must express our acknowledgment to Mr. H. Wildon Carr, the Honorary Secretary of the Aristotelian Society of London, and thewriter of several studies of "Evolution Creatrice. "[1] We asked him tobe kind enough to revise the proofs of our work. He has done much morethan revise them: they have come from his hands with his personal markin many places. We cannot express all that the present work owes to him. 

ARTHUR MITCHELL

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

CONTENTS

 PAGE

INTRODUCTION ix

CHAPTER I

THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE--MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY

Of duration in general--Unorganized bodies and abstracttime--Organized bodies and real duration--Individuality andthe process of growing old 1

Of transformism and the different ways of interpreting it--Radicalmechanism and real duration: the relation of biology tophysics and chemistry--Radical finalism and real duration:the relation of biology to philosophy 23

The quest of a criterion--Examination of the various theorieswith regard to a particular example--Darwin and insensiblevariation--De Vries and sudden variation--Eimer andorthogenesis--Neo-Lamarckism and the hereditability ofacquired characters 59

Result of the inquiry--The _vital impetus_ 87

CHAPTER II

THE DIVERGENT DIRECTIONS OF THE EVOLUTION OFLIFE--TORPOR, INTELLIGENCE, INSTINCT

General idea of the evolutionary process--Growth--Divergentand complementary tendencies--The meaning of progress and ofadaptation 98

The relation of the animal to the plant--General tendency ofanimal life--The development of animal life 105

The main directions of the evolution of life: torpor, intelligence, instinct 135

The nature of the intellect 151

The nature of instinct 165

Life and consciousness--The apparent place of man in nature 176

CHAPTER III

ON THE MEANING OF LIFE--THE ORDER OF NATUREAND THE FORM OF INTELLIGENCE

Relation of the problem of life to the problem of knowledge--Themethod of philosophy--Apparent vicious circle of the methodproposed--Real vicious circle of the opposite method 186

Simultaneous genesis of matter and intelligence--Geometryinherent in matter--Geometrical tendency of the intellect--Geometryand deduction--Geometry and induction--Physical laws 199

Sketch of a theory of knowledge based on the analysis of theidea of Disorder--Two opposed forms of order: the problemof _genera_ and the problem of _laws_--The idea of"disorder" an oscillation of the intellect between the twokinds of order 220

Creation and evolution--Ideal genesis of matter--The originand function of life--The essential and the accidental in thevital process and in the evolutionary movement--Mankind--Thelife of the body and the life of the spirit 236

CHAPTER IV

THE CINEMATOGRAPHICAL MECHANISM OF THOUGHT AND THEMECHANISTIC ILLUSION--A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY OFSYSTEMS--REAL BECOMING AND FALSE EVOLUTIONISM

Sketch of a criticism of philosophical systems, based on theanalysis of the idea of Immutability and of the idea of"Nothing"--Relation of metaphysical problems to the ideaof "Nothing"--Real meaning of this idea 272

Form and Becoming 298

The philosophy of Forms and its conception of Becoming--Platoand Aristotle--The natural trend of the intellect 304

Becoming in modern science: two views of Time 329

The metaphysical interpretation of modern science: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz 345

The Criticism of Kant 356

The evolutionism of Spencer 363

INDEX 371

INTRODUCTION

The history of the evolution of life, incomplete as it yet is, alreadyreveals to us how the intellect has been formed, by an uninterruptedprogress, along a line which ascends through the vertebrate series up toman. It shows us in the faculty of understanding an appendage of thefaculty of acting, a more and more precise, more and more complex andsupple adaptation of the consciousness of living beings to theconditions of existence that are made for them. Hence should result thisconsequence that our intellect, in the narrow sense of the word, isintended to secure the perfect fitting of our body to its environment, to represent the relations of external things among themselves--inshort, to think matter. Such will indeed be one of the conclusions ofthe present essay. We shall see that the human intellect feels at homeamong inanimate objects, more especially among solids, where our actionfinds its fulcrum and our industry its tools; that our concepts havebeen formed on the model of solids; that our logic is, pre-eminently, the logic of solids; that, consequently, our intellect triumphs ingeometry, wherein is revealed the kinship of logical thought withunorganized matter, and where the intellect has only to follow itsnatural movement, after the lightest possible contact with experience, in order to go from discovery to discovery, sure that experience isfollowing behind it and will justify it invariably. 

But from this it must also follow that our thought, in its purelylogical form, is incapable of presenting the true nature of life, thefull meaning of the evolutionary movement. Created by life, in definitecircumstances, to act on definite things, how can it embrace life, ofwhich it is only an emanation or an aspect? Deposited by theevolutionary movement in the course of its way, how can it be applied tothe evolutionary movement itself? As well contend that the part is equalto the whole, that the effect can reabsorb its cause, or that the pebbleleft on the beach displays the form of the wave that brought it there. In fact, we do indeed feel that not one of the categories of ourthought--unity, multiplicity, mechanical causality, intelligentfinality, etc. --applies exactly to the things of life: who can say whereindividuality begins and ends, whether the living being is one or many, whether it is the cells which associate themselves into the organism orthe organism which dissociates itself into cells? In vain we force theliving into this or that one of our molds. All the molds crack. They aretoo narrow, above all too rigid, for what we try to put into them. Ourreasoning, so sure of itself among things inert, feels ill at ease onthis new ground. It would be difficult to cite a biological discoverydue to pure reasoning. And most often, when experience has finally shownus how life goes to work to obtain a certain result, we find its way ofworking is just that of which we should never have thought. 

Yet evolutionist philosophy does not hesitate to extend to the things oflife the same methods of explanation which have succeeded in the case ofunorganized matter. It begins by showing us in the intellect a localeffect of evolution, a flame, perhaps accidental, which lights up thecoming and going of living beings in the narrow passage open to theiraction; and lo! forgetting what it has just told us, it makes of thislantern glimmering in a tunnel a Sun which can illuminate the world. Boldly it proceeds, with the powers of conceptual thought alone, to theideal reconstruction of all things, even of life. True, it hurtles inits course against such formidable difficulties, it sees its logic endin such strange contradictions, that it very speedily renounces itsfirst ambition. "It is no longer reality itself, " it says, "that it willreconstruct, but only an imitation of the real, or rather a symbolicalimage; the essence of things escapes us, and will escape us always; wemove among relations; the absolute is not in our province; we arebrought to a stand before the Unknowable. "--But for the human intellect, after too much pride, this is really an excess of humility. If theintellectual form of the living being has been gradually modeled on thereciprocal actions and reactions of certain bodies and their materialenvironment, how should it not reveal to us something of the veryessence of which these bodies are made? Action cannot move in theunreal. A mind born to speculate or to dream, I admit, might remainoutside reality, might deform or transform the real, perhaps even createit--as we create the figures of men and animals that our imaginationcuts out of the passing cloud. But an intellect bent upon the act to beperformed and the reaction to follow, feeling its object so as to getits mobile impression at every instant, is an intellect that touchessomething of the absolute. Would the idea ever have occurred to us todoubt this absolute value of our knowledge if philosophy had not shownus what contradictions our speculation meets, what dead-locks it endsin? But these difficulties and contradictions all arise from trying toapply the usual forms of our thought to objects with which our industryhas nothing to do, and for which, therefore, our molds are not made. Intellectual knowledge, in so far as it relates to a certain aspect ofinert matter, ought, on the contrary, to give us a faithful imprint ofit, having been stereotyped on this particular object. It becomesrelative only if it claims, such as it is, to present to us life--thatis to say, the maker of the stereotype-plate. 

 * * * * *

Must we then give up fathoming the depths of life? Must we keep to thatmechanistic idea of it which the understanding will always give us--anidea necessarily artificial and symbolical, since it makes the totalactivity of life shrink to the form of a certain human activity which isonly a partial and local manifestation of life, a result or by-productof the vital process? We should have to do so, indeed, if life hademployed all the psychical potentialities it possesses in producing pureunderstandings--that is to say, in making geometricians. But the line ofevolution that ends in man is not the only one. On other paths, divergent from it, other forms of consciousness have been developed, which have not been able to free themselves from external constraints orto regain control over themselves, as the human intellect has done, butwhich, none the less, also express something that is immanent andessential in the evolutionary movement. Suppose these other forms ofconsciousness brought together and amalgamated with intellect: would notthe result be a consciousness as wide as life? And such a consciousness, turning around suddenly against the push of life which it feels behind, would have a vision of life complete--would it not?--even though thevision were fleeting. 

It will be said that, even so, we do not transcend our intellect, for itis still with our intellect, and through our intellect, that we see theother forms of consciousness. And this would be right if we were pureintellects, if there did not remain, around our conceptual and logicalthought, a vague nebulosity, made of the very substance out of which hasbeen formed the luminous nucleus that we call the intellect. Thereinreside certain powers that are complementary to the understanding, powers of which we have only an indistinct feeling when we remain shutup in ourselves, but which will become clear and distinct when theyperceive themselves at work, so to speak, in the evolution of nature. They will thus learn what sort of effort they must make to beintensified and expanded in the very direction of life. 

 * * * * *

This amounts to saying that _theory of knowledge_ and _theory of life_seem to us inseparable. A theory of life that is not accompanied by acriticism of knowledge is obliged to accept, as they stand, the conceptswhich the understanding puts at its disposal: it can but enclose thefacts, willing or not, in pre-existing frames which it regards asultimate. It thus obtains a symbolism which is convenient, perhaps evennecessary to positive science, but not a direct vision of its object. Onthe other hand, a theory of knowledge which does not replace theintellect in the general evolution of life will teach us neither how theframes of knowledge have been constructed nor how we can enlarge or gobeyond them. It is necessary that these two inquiries, theory ofknowledge and theory of life, should join each other, and, by a circularprocess, push each other on unceasingly. 

Together, they may solve by a method more sure, brought nearer toexperience, the great problems that philosophy poses. For, if theyshould succeed in their common enterprise, they would show us theformation of the intellect, and thereby the genesis of that matter ofwhich our intellect traces the general configuration. They would dig tothe very root of nature and of mind. They would substitute for the falseevolutionism of Spencer--which consists in cutting up present reality, already evolved, into little bits no less evolved, and then recomposingit with these fragments, thus positing in advance everything that is tobe explained--a true evolutionism, in which reality would be followed inits generation and its growth. 

But a philosophy of this kind will not be made in a day. Unlike thephilosophical systems properly so called, each of which was theindividual work of a man of genius and sprang up as a whole, to be takenor left, it will only be built up by the collective and progressiveeffort of many thinkers, of many observers also, completing, correctingand improving one another. So the present essay does not aim atresolving at once the greatest problems. It simply desires to define themethod and to permit a glimpse, on some essential points, of thepossibility of its application. 

Its plan is traced by the subject itself. In the first chapter, we tryon the evolutionary progress the two ready-made garments that ourunderstanding puts at our disposal, mechanism and finality;[2] we showthat they do not fit, neither the one nor the other, but that one ofthem might be recut and resewn, and in this new form fit less badly thanthe other. In order to transcend the point of view of the understanding, we try, in our second chapter, to reconstruct the main lines ofevolution along which life has traveled by the side of that which hasled to the human intellect. The intellect is thus brought back to itsgenerating cause, which we then have to grasp in itself and follow inits movement. It is an effort of this kind that we attempt--incompletelyindeed--in our third chapter. A fourth and last part is meant to showhow our understanding itself, by submitting to a certain discipline, might prepare a philosophy which transcends it. For that, a glance overthe history of systems became necessary, together with an analysis ofthe two great illusions to which, as soon as it speculates on reality ingeneral, the human understanding is exposed. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society_, vols. Ix. Andx. , and _Hibbert Journal_ for July, 1910. ]

[Footnote 2: The idea of regarding life as transcending teleology aswell as mechanism is far from being a new idea. Notably in threearticles by Ch. Dunan on "Le problème de la vie" (_Revue philosophique_, 1892) it is profoundly treated. In the development of this idea, weagree with Ch. Dunan on more than one point. But the views we arepresenting on this matter, as on the questions attaching to it, arethose that we expressed long ago in our _Essai sur les donnéesimmédiates de la conscience_ (Paris, 1889). One of the principal objectsof that essay was, in fact, to show that the psychical life is neitherunity nor multiplicity, that it transcends both the _mechanical_ and the_intellectual_, mechanism and finalism having meaning only where thereis "distinct multiplicity, " "spatiality, " and consequently assemblage ofpre-existing parts: "real duration" signifies both undivided continuityand creation. In the present work we apply these same ideas to life ingeneral, regarded, moreover, itself from the psychological point ofview. ]

CHAPTER I

THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE--MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY

The existence of which we are most assured and which we know best isunquestionably our own, for of every other object we have notions whichmay be considered external and superficial, whereas, of ourselves, ourperception is internal and profound. What, then, do we find? In thisprivileged case, what is the precise meaning of the word "exist"? Let usrecall here briefly the conclusions of an earlier work. 

I find, first of all, that I pass from state to state. I am warm orcold, I am merry or sad, I work or I do nothing, I look at what isaround me or I think of something else. Sensations, feelings, volitions, ideas--such are the changes into which my existence is divided and whichcolor it in turns. I change, then, without ceasing. But this is notsaying enough. Change is far more radical than we are at first inclinedto suppose. 

For I speak of each of my states as if it formed a block and were aseparate whole. I say indeed that I change, but the change seems to meto reside in the passage from one state to the next: of each state, taken separately, I am apt to think that it remains the same during allthe time that it prevails. Nevertheless, a slight effort of attentionwould reveal to me that there is no feeling, no idea, no volition whichis not undergoing change every moment: if a mental state ceased to vary, its duration would cease to flow. Let us take the most stable ofinternal states, the visual perception of a motionless external object. The object may remain the same, I may look at it from the same side, atthe same angle, in the same light; nevertheless the vision I now have ofit differs from that which I have just had, even if only because the oneis an instant older than the other. My memory is there, which conveyssomething of the past into the present. My mental state, as it advanceson the road of time, is continually swelling with the duration which itaccumulates: it goes on increasing--rolling upon itself, as a snowballon the snow. Still more is this the case with states more deeplyinternal, such as sensations, feelings, desires, etc. , which do notcorrespond, like a simple visual perception, to an unvarying externalobject. But it is expedient to disregard this uninterrupted change, andto notice it only when it becomes sufficient to impress a new attitudeon the body, a new direction on the attention. Then, and then only, wefind that our state has changed. The truth is that we change withoutceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change. 

This amounts to saying that there is no essential difference betweenpassing from one state to another and persisting in the same state. Ifthe state which "remains the same" is more varied than we think, on theother hand the passing from one state to another resembles, more than weimagine, a single state being prolonged; the transition is continuous. But, just because we close our eyes to the unceasing variation of everypsychical state, we are obliged, when the change has become soconsiderable as to force itself on our attention, to speak as if a newstate were placed alongside the previous one. Of this new state weassume that it remains unvarying in its turn, and so on endlessly. Theapparent discontinuity of the psychical life is then due to ourattention being fixed on it by a series of separate acts: actually thereis only a gentle slope; but in following the broken line of our acts ofattention, we think we perceive separate steps. True, our psychic lifeis full of the unforeseen. A thousand incidents arise, which seem to becut off from those which precede them, and to be disconnected from thosewhich follow. Discontinuous though they appear, however, in point offact they stand out against the continuity of a background on which theyare designed, and to which indeed they owe the intervals that separatethem; they are the beats of the drum which break forth here and there inthe symphony. Our attention fixes on them because they interest it more, but each of them is borne by the fluid mass of our whole psychicalexistence. Each is only the best illuminated point of a moving zonewhich comprises all that we feel or think or will--all, in short, thatwe are at any given moment. It is this entire zone which in realitymakes up our state. Now, states thus defined cannot be regarded asdistinct elements. They continue each other in an endless flow. 

But, as our attention has distinguished and separated them artificially, it is obliged next to reunite them by an artificial bond. It imagines, therefore, a formless _ego_, indifferent and unchangeable, on which itthreads the psychic states which it has set up as independent entities. Instead of a flux of fleeting shades merging into each other, itperceives distinct and, so to speak, _solid_ colors, set side by sidelike the beads of a necklace; it must perforce then suppose a thread, also itself solid, to hold the beads together. But if this colorlesssubstratum is perpetually colored by that which covers it, it is for us, in its indeterminateness, as if it did not exist, since we only perceivewhat is colored, or, in other words, psychic states. As a matter offact, this substratum has no reality; it is merely a symbol intended torecall unceasingly to our consciousness the artificial character of theprocess by which the attention places clean-cut states side by side, where actually there is a continuity which unfolds. If our existencewere composed of separate states with an impassive ego to unite them, for us there would be no duration. For an ego which does not change doesnot _endure_, and a psychic state which remains the same so long as itis not replaced by the following state does not _endure_ either. Vain, therefore, is the attempt to range such states beside each other on theego supposed to sustain them: never can these solids strung upon a solidmake up that duration which flows. What we actually obtain in this wayis an artificial imitation of the internal life, a static equivalentwhich will lend itself better to the requirements of logic and language, just because we have eliminated from it the element of real time. But, as regards the psychical life unfolding beneath the symbols whichconceal it, we readily perceive that time is just the stuff it is madeof. 

There is, moreover, no stuff more resistant nor more substantial. Forour duration is not merely one instant replacing another; if it were, there would never be anything but the present--no prolonging of the pastinto the actual, no evolution, no concrete duration. Duration is thecontinuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and whichswells as it advances. And as the past grows without ceasing, so alsothere is no limit to its preservation. Memory, as we have tried toprove, [3] is not a faculty of putting away recollections in a drawer, orof inscribing them in a register. There is no register, no drawer; thereis not even, properly speaking, a faculty, for a faculty worksintermittently, when it will or when it can, whilst the piling up of thepast upon the past goes on without relaxation. In reality, the past ispreserved by itself, automatically. In its entirety, probably, itfollows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willedfrom our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which isabout to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness thatwould fain leave it outside. The cerebral mechanism is arranged just soas to drive back into the unconscious almost the whole of this past, andto admit beyond the threshold only that which can cast light on thepresent situation or further the action now being prepared--in short, only that which can give _useful_ work. At the most, a few superfluousrecollections may succeed in smuggling themselves through the half-opendoor. These memories, messengers from the unconscious, remind us of whatwe are dragging behind us unawares. But, even though we may have nodistinct idea of it, we feel vaguely that our past remains present tous. What are we, in fact, what is our _character_, if not thecondensation of the history that we have lived from our birth--nay, evenbefore our birth, since we bring with us prenatal dispositions?Doubtless we think with only a small part of our past, but it is withour entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that wedesire, will and act. Our past, then, as a whole, is made manifest to usin its impulse; it is felt in the form of tendency, although a smallpart of it only is known in the form of idea. 

From this survival of the past it follows that consciousness cannot gothrough the same state twice. The circumstances may still be the same, but they will act no longer on the same person, since they find him at anew moment of his history. Our personality, which is being built up eachinstant with its accumulated experience, changes without ceasing. Bychanging, it prevents any state, although superficially identical withanother, from ever repeating it in its very depth. That is why ourduration is irreversible. We could not live over again a single moment, for we should have to begin by effacing the memory of all that hadfollowed. Even could we erase this memory from our intellect, we couldnot from our will. 

Thus our personality shoots, grows and ripens without ceasing. Each ofits moments is something new added to what was before. We may gofurther: it is not only something new, but something unforeseeable. Doubtless, my present state is explained by what was in me and by whatwas acting on me a moment ago. In analyzing it I should find no otherelements. But even a superhuman intelligence would not have been able toforesee the simple indivisible form which gives to these purely abstractelements their concrete organization. For to foresee consists ofprojecting into the future what has been perceived in the past, or ofimagining for a later time a new grouping, in a new order, of elementsalready perceived. But that which has never been perceived, and which isat the same time simple, is necessarily unforeseeable. Now such is thecase with each of our states, regarded as a moment in a history that isgradually unfolding: it is simple, and it cannot have been alreadyperceived, since it concentrates in its indivisibility all that has beenperceived and what the present is adding to it besides. It is anoriginal moment of a no less original history. 

The finished portrait is explained by the features of the model, by thenature of the artist, by the colors spread out on the palette; but, evenwith the knowledge of what explains it, no one, not even the artist, could have foreseen exactly what the portrait would be, for to predictit would have been to produce it before it was produced--an absurdhypothesis which is its own refutation. Even so with regard to themoments of our life, of which we are the artisans. Each of them is akind of creation. And just as the talent of the painter is formed ordeformed--in any case, is modified--under the very influence of theworks he produces, so each of our states, at the moment of its issue, modifies our personality, being indeed the new form that we are justassuming. It is then right to say that what we do depends on what weare; but it is necessary to add also that we are, to a certain extent, what we do, and that we are creating ourselves continually. Thiscreation of self by self is the more complete, the more one reasons onwhat one does. For reason does not proceed in such matters as ingeometry, where impersonal premisses are given once for all, and animpersonal conclusion must perforce be drawn. Here, on the contrary, thesame reasons may dictate to different persons, or to the same person atdifferent moments, acts profoundly different, although equallyreasonable. The truth is that they are not quite the same reasons, sincethey are not those of the same person, nor of the same moment. That iswhy we cannot deal with them in the abstract, from outside, as ingeometry, nor solve for another the problems by which he is faced inlife. Each must solve them from within, on his own account. But we neednot go more deeply into this. We are seeking only the precise meaningthat our consciousness gives to this word "exist, " and we find that, fora conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, tomature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. Should the same be saidof existence in general?

 * * * * *

A material object, of whatever kind, presents opposite characters tothose which we have just been describing. Either it remains as it is, orelse, if it changes under the influence of an external force, our ideaof this change is that of a displacement of parts which themselves donot change. If these parts took to changing, we should split them up intheir turn. We should thus descend to the molecules of which thefragments are made, to the atoms that make up the molecules, to thecorpuscles that generate the atoms, to the "imponderable" within whichthe corpuscle is perhaps a mere vortex. In short, we should push thedivision or analysis as far as necessary. But we should stop only beforethe unchangeable. 

Now, we say that a composite object changes by the displacement of itsparts. But when a part has left its position, there is nothing toprevent its return to it. A group of elements which has gone through astate can therefore always find its way back to that state, if not byitself, at least by means of an external cause able to restoreeverything to its place. This amounts to saying that any state of thegroup may be repeated as often as desired, and consequently that thegroup does not grow old. It has no history. 

Thus nothing is created therein, neither form nor matter. What the groupwill be is already present in what it is, provided "what it is" includesall the points of the universe with which it is related. A superhumanintellect could calculate, for any moment of time, the position of anypoint of the system in space. And as there is nothing more in the formof the whole than the arrangement of its parts, the future forms of thesystem are theoretically visible in its present configuration. 

All our belief in objects, all our operations on the systems thatscience isolates, rest in fact on the idea that time does not bite intothem. We have touched on this question in an earlier work, and shallreturn to it in the course of the present study. For the moment, we willconfine ourselves to pointing out that the abstract time _t_ attributedby science to a material object or to an isolated system consists onlyin a certain number of simultaneities or more generally ofcorrespondences, and that this number remains the same, whatever be thenature of the intervals between the correspondences. With theseintervals we are never concerned when dealing with inert matter; or, ifthey are considered, it is in order to count therein freshcorrespondences, between which again we shall not care what happens. Common sense, which is occupied with detached objects, and also science, which considers isolated systems, are concerned only with the ends ofthe intervals and not with the intervals themselves. Therefore the flowof time might assume an infinite rapidity, the entire past, present, andfuture of material objects or of isolated systems might be spread outall at once in space, without there being anything to change either inthe formulae of the scientist or even in the language of common sense. The number _t_ would always stand for the same thing; it would stillcount the same number of correspondences between the states of theobjects or systems and the points of the line, ready drawn, which wouldbe then the "course of time. "

Yet succession is an undeniable fact, even in the material world. Thoughour reasoning on isolated systems may imply that their history, past, present, and future, might be instantaneously unfurled like a fan, thishistory, in point of fact, unfolds itself gradually, as if it occupied aduration like our own. If I want to mix a glass of sugar and water, Imust, willy nilly, wait until the sugar melts. This little fact is bigwith meaning. For here the time I have to wait is not that mathematicaltime which would apply equally well to the entire history of thematerial world, even if that history were spread out instantaneously inspace. It coincides with my impatience, that is to say, with a certainportion of my own duration, which I cannot protract or contract as Ilike. It is no longer something _thought_, it is something _lived_. Itis no longer a relation, it is an absolute. What else can this mean thanthat the glass of water, the sugar, and the process of the sugar'smelting in the water are abstractions, and that the Whole within whichthey have been cut out by my senses and understanding progresses, it maybe in the manner of a consciousness?

Certainly, the operation by which science isolates and closes a systemis not altogether artificial. If it had no objective foundation, wecould not explain why it is clearly indicated in some cases andimpossible in others. We shall see that matter has a tendency toconstitute _isolable_ systems, that can be treated geometrically. Infact, we shall define matter by just this tendency. But it is only atendency. Matter does not go to the end, and the isolation is nevercomplete. If science does go to the end and isolate completely, it isfor convenience of study; it is understood that the so-called isolatedsystem remains subject to certain external influences. Science merelyleaves these alone, either because it finds them slight enough to benegligible, or because it intends to take them into account later on. Itis none the less true that these influences are so many threads whichbind up the system to another more extensive, and to this a third whichincludes both, and so on to the system most objectively isolated andmost independent of all, the solar system complete. But, even here, theisolation is not absolute. Our sun radiates heat and light beyond thefarthest planet. And, on the other hand, it moves in a certain fixeddirection, drawing with it the planets and their satellites. The threadattaching it to the rest of the universe is doubtless very tenuous. Nevertheless it is along this thread that is transmitted down to thesmallest particle of the world in which we live the duration immanent tothe whole of the universe. 

The universe _endures_. The more we study the nature of time, the morewe shall comprehend that duration means invention, the creation offorms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new. The systemsmarked off by science _endure_ only because they are bound upinseparably with the rest of the universe. It is true that in theuniverse itself two opposite movements are to be distinguished, as weshall see later on, "descent" and "ascent. " The first only unwinds aroll ready prepared. In principle, it might be accomplished almostinstantaneously, like releasing a spring. But the ascending movement, which corresponds to an inner work of ripening or creating, _endures_essentially, and imposes its rhythm on the first, which is inseparablefrom it. 

There is no reason, therefore, why a duration, and so a form ofexistence like our own, should not be attributed to the systems thatscience isolates, provided such systems are reintegrated into the Whole. But they must be so reintegrated. The same is even more obviously trueof the objects cut out by our perception. The distinct outlines which wesee in an object, and which give it its individuality, are only thedesign of a certain kind of _influence_ that we might exert on a certainpoint of space: it is the plan of our eventual actions that is sent backto our eyes, as though by a mirror, when we see the surfaces and edgesof things. Suppress this action, and with it consequently those maindirections which by perception are traced out for it in the entanglementof the real, and the individuality of the body is reabsorbed in theuniversal interaction which, without doubt, is reality itself. 

Now, we have considered material objects generally. Are there not someobjects privileged? The bodies we perceive are, so to speak, cut out ofthe stuff of nature by our _perception_, and the scissors follow, insome way, the marking of lines along which _action_ might be taken. Butthe body which is to perform this action, the body which marks out uponmatter the design of its eventual actions even before they are actual, the body that has only to point its sensory organs on the flow of thereal in order to make that flow crystallize into definite forms and thusto create all the other bodies--in short, the _living_ body--is this abody as others are?

Doubtless it, also, consists in a portion of extension bound up with therest of extension, an intimate part of the Whole, subject to the samephysical and chemical laws that govern any and every portion of matter. But, while the subdivision of matter into separate bodies is relative toour perception, while the building up of closed-off systems of materialpoints is relative to our science, the living body has been separatedand closed off by nature herself. It is composed of unlike parts thatcomplete each other. It performs diverse functions that involve eachother. It is an _individual_, and of no other object, not even of thecrystal, can this be said, for a crystal has neither difference of partsnor diversity of functions. No doubt, it is hard to decide, even in theorganized world, what is individual and what is not. The difficulty isgreat, even in the animal kingdom; with plants it is almostinsurmountable. This difficulty is, moreover, due to profound causes, onwhich we shall dwell later. We shall see that individuality admits ofany number of degrees, and that it is not fully realized anywhere, evenin man. But that is no reason for thinking it is not a characteristicproperty of life. The biologist who proceeds as a geometrician is tooready to take advantage here of our inability to give a precise andgeneral definition of individuality. A perfect definition applies onlyto a _completed_ reality; now, vital properties are never entirelyrealized, though always on the way to become so; they are not so much_states_ as _tendencies_. And a tendency achieves all that it aims atonly if it is not thwarted by another tendency. How, then, could thisoccur in the domain of life, where, as we shall show, the interaction ofantagonistic tendencies is always implied? In particular, it may be saidof individuality that, while the tendency to individuate is everywherepresent in the organized world, it is everywhere opposed by the tendencytowards reproduction. For the individuality to be perfect, it would benecessary that no detached part of the organism could live separately. But then reproduction would be impossible. For what is reproduction, butthe building up of a new organism with a detached fragment of the old?Individuality therefore harbors its enemy at home. Its very need ofperpetuating itself in time condemns it never to be complete in space. The biologist must take due account of both tendencies in everyinstance, and it is therefore useless to ask him for a definition ofindividuality that shall fit all cases and work automatically. 

But too often one reasons about the things of life in the same way asabout the conditions of crude matter. Nowhere is the confusion soevident as in discussions about individuality. We are shown the stumpsof a Lumbriculus, each regenerating its head and living thence-forwardas an independent individual; a hydra whose pieces become so many freshhydras; a sea-urchin's egg whose fragments develop complete embryos:where then, we are asked, was the individuality of the egg, the hydra, the worm?--But, because there are several individuals now, it does notfollow that there was not a single individual just before. No doubt, when I have seen several drawers fall from a chest, I have no longer theright to say that the article was all of one piece. But the fact is thatthere can be nothing more in the present of the chest of drawers thanthere was in its past, and if it is made up of several different piecesnow, it was so from the date of its manufacture. Generally speaking, unorganized bodies, which are what we have need of in order that we mayact, and on which we have modelled our fashion of thinking, areregulated by this simple law: _the present contains nothing more thanthe past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause_. Butsuppose that the distinctive feature of the organized body is that itgrows and changes without ceasing, as indeed the most superficialobservation testifies, there would be nothing astonishing in the factthat it was _one_ in the first instance, and afterwards _many_. Thereproduction of unicellular organisms consists in just this--the livingbeing divides into two halves, of which each is a complete individual. True, in the more complex animals, nature localizes in the almostindependent sexual cells the power of producing the whole anew. Butsomething of this power may remain diffused in the rest of the organism, as the facts of regeneration prove, and it is conceivable that incertain privileged cases the faculty may persist integrally in a latentcondition and manifest itself on the first opportunity. In truth, that Imay have the right to speak of individuality, it is not necessary thatthe organism should be without the power to divide into fragments thatare able to live. It is sufficient that it should have presented acertain systematization of parts before the division, and that the samesystematization tend to be reproduced in each separate portionafterwards. Now, that is precisely what we observe in the organicworld. We may conclude, then, that individuality is never perfect, andthat it is often difficult, sometimes impossible, to tell what is anindividual, and what is not, but that life nevertheless manifests asearch for individuality, as if it strove to constitute systemsnaturally isolated, naturally closed. 

 * * * * *

By this is a living being distinguished from all that our perception orour science isolates or closes artificially. It would therefore be wrongto compare it to an _object_. Should we wish to find a term ofcomparison in the inorganic world, it is not to a determinate materialobject, but much rather to the totality of the material universe that weought to compare the living organism. It is true that the comparisonwould not be worth much, for a living being is observable, whilst thewhole of the universe is constructed or reconstructed by thought. But atleast our attention would thus have been called to the essentialcharacter of organization. Like the universe as a whole, like eachconscious being taken separately, the organism which lives is a thingthat _endures_. Its past, in its entirety, is prolonged into itspresent, and abides there, actual and acting. How otherwise could weunderstand that it passes through distinct and well-marked phases, thatit changes its age--in short, that it has a history? If I consider mybody in particular, I find that, like my consciousness, it matureslittle by little from infancy to old age; like myself, it grows old. Indeed, maturity and old age are, properly speaking, attributes only ofmy body; it is only metaphorically that I apply the same names to thecorresponding changes of my conscious self. Now, if I pass from the topto the bottom of the scale of living beings, from one of the most to oneof the least differentiated, from the multicellular organism of man tothe unicellular organism of the Infusorian, I find, even in this simplecell, the same process of growing old. The Infusorian is exhausted atthe end of a certain number of divisions, and though it may be possible, by modifying the environment, to put off the moment when a rejuvenationby conjugation becomes necessary, this cannot be indefinitelypostponed. [4] It is true that between these two extreme cases, in whichthe organism is completely individualized, there might be found amultitude of others in which the individuality is less well marked, andin which, although there is doubtless an ageing somewhere, one cannotsay exactly what it is that grows old. Once more, there is no universalbiological law which applies precisely and automatically to every livingthing. There are only _directions_ in which life throws out species ingeneral. Each particular species, in the very act by which it isconstituted, affirms its independence, follows its caprice, deviatesmore or less from the straight line, sometimes even remounts the slopeand seems to turn its back on its original direction. It is easy enoughto argue that a tree never grows old, since the tips of its branches arealways equally young, always equally capable of engendering new trees bybudding. But in such an organism--which is, after all, a society ratherthan an individual--_something_ ages, if only the leaves and theinterior of the trunk. And each cell, considered separately, evolves ina specific way. _Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, aregister in which time is being inscribed. _

This, it will be said, is only a metaphor. --It is of the very essence ofmechanism, in fact, to consider as metaphorical every expression whichattributes to time an effective action and a reality of its own. In vaindoes immediate experience show us that the very basis of our consciousexistence is memory, that is to say, the prolongation of the past intothe present, or, in a word, _duration_, acting and irreversible. In vaindoes reason prove to us that the more we get away from the objects cutout and the systems isolated by common sense and by science and thedeeper we dig beneath them, the more we have to do with a reality whichchanges as a whole in its inmost states, as if an accumulative memory ofthe past made it impossible to go back again. The mechanistic instinctof the mind is stronger than reason, stronger than immediate experience. The metaphysician that we each carry unconsciously within us, and thepresence of which is explained, as we shall see later on, by the veryplace that man occupies amongst the living beings, has its fixedrequirements, its ready-made explanations, its irreducible propositions:all unite in denying concrete duration. Change _must_ be reducible to anarrangement or rearrangement of parts; the irreversibility of time_must_ be an appearance relative to our ignorance; the impossibility ofturning back _must_ be only the inability of man to put things in placeagain. So growing old can be nothing more than the gradual gain or lossof certain substances, perhaps both together. Time is assumed to havejust as much reality for a living being as for an hour-glass, in whichthe top part empties while the lower fills, and all goes where it wasbefore when you turn the glass upside down. 

True, biologists are not agreed on what is gained and what is lostbetween the day of birth and the day of death. There are those who holdto the continual growth in the volume of protoplasm from the birth ofthe cell right on to its death. [5] More probable and more profound isthe theory according to which the diminution bears on the quantity ofnutritive substance contained in that "inner environment" in which theorganism is being renewed, and the increase on the quantity of unexcretedresidual substances which, accumulating in the body, finally "crust itover. "[6] Must we however--with an eminent bacteriologist--declare anyexplanation of growing old insufficient that does not take account ofphagocytosis?[7] We do not feel qualified to settle the question. Butthe fact that the two theories agree in affirming the constant accumulationor loss of a certain kind of matter, even though they have little in commonas to what is gained and lost, shows pretty well that the frame of theexplanation has been furnished _a priori_. We shall see this more and moreas we proceed with our study: it is not easy, in thinking of time, toescape the image of the hour-glass. 

The cause of growing old must lie deeper. We hold that there is unbrokencontinuity between the evolution of the embryo and that of the completeorganism. The impetus which causes a living being to grow larger, todevelop and to age, is the same that has caused it to pass through thephases of the embryonic life. The development of the embryo is aperpetual change of form. Any one who attempts to note all itssuccessive aspects becomes lost in an infinity, as is inevitable indealing with a continuum. Life does but prolong this prenatal evolution. The proof of this is that it is often impossible for us to say whetherwe are dealing with an organism growing old or with an embryo continuingto evolve; such is the case, for example, with the larvae of insectsand crustacea. On the other hand, in an organism such as our own, criseslike puberty or the menopause, in which the individual is completelytransformed, are quite comparable to changes in the course of larval orembryonic life--yet they are part and parcel of the process of ourageing. Although they occur at a definite age and within a time that maybe quite short, no one would maintain that they appear then _exabrupto_, from without, simply because a certain age is reached, just asa legal right is granted to us on our one-and-twentieth birthday. It isevident that a change like that of puberty is in course of preparationat every instant from birth, and even before birth, and that the ageingup to that crisis consists, in part at least, of this gradualpreparation. In short, what is properly vital in growing old is theinsensible, infinitely graduated, continuance of the change of form. Now, this change is undoubtedly accompanied by phenomena of organicdestruction: to these, and to these alone, will a mechanisticexplanation of ageing be confined. It will note the facts of sclerosis, the gradual accumulation of residual substances, the growing hypertrophyof the protoplasm of the cell. But under these visible effects an innercause lies hidden. The evolution of the living being, like that of theembryo, implies a continual recording of duration, a persistence of thepast in the present, and so an appearance, at least, of organic memory. 

The present state of an unorganized body depends exclusively on whathappened at the previous instant; and likewise the position of thematerial points of a system defined and isolated by science isdetermined by the position of these same points at the momentimmediately before. In other words, the laws that govern unorganizedmatter are expressible, in principle, by differential equations inwhich time (in the sense in which the mathematician takes this word)would play the rôle of independent variable. Is it so with the laws oflife? Does the state of a living body find its complete explanation inthe state immediately before? Yes, if it is agreed _a priori_ to likenthe living body to other bodies, and to identify it, for the sake of theargument, with the artificial systems on which the chemist, physicist, and astronomer operate. But in astronomy, physics, and chemistry theproposition has a perfectly definite meaning: it signifies that certainaspects of the present, important for science, are calculable asfunctions of the immediate past. Nothing of the sort in the domain oflife. Here calculation touches, at most, certain phenomena of organic_destruction_. Organic _creation_, on the contrary, the evolutionaryphenomena which properly constitute life, we cannot in any way subjectto a mathematical treatment. It will be said that this impotence is dueonly to our ignorance. But it may equally well express the fact that thepresent moment of a living body does not find its explanation in themoment immediately before, that _all_ the past of the organism must beadded to that moment, its heredity--in fact, the whole of a very longhistory. In the second of these two hypotheses, not in the first, isreally expressed the present state of the biological sciences, as wellas their direction. As for the idea that the living body might betreated by some superhuman calculator in the same mathematical way asour solar system, this has gradually arisen from a metaphysic which hastaken a more precise form since the physical discoveries of Galileo, butwhich, as we shall show, was always the natural metaphysic of the humanmind. Its apparent clearness, our impatient desire to find it true, theenthusiasm with which so many excellent minds accept it withoutproof--all the seductions, in short, that it exercises on our thought, should put us on our guard against it. The attraction it has for usproves well enough that it gives satisfaction to an innate inclination. But, as will be seen further on, the intellectual tendencies innateto-day, which life must have created in the course of its evolution, arenot at all meant to supply us with an explanation of life: they havesomething else to do. 

Any attempt to distinguish between an artificial and a natural system, between the dead and the living, runs counter to this tendency at once. Thus it happens that we find it equally difficult to imagine that theorganized has duration and that the unorganized has not. When we saythat the state of an artificial system depends exclusively on its stateat the moment before, does it not seem as if we were bringing time in, as if the system had something to do with real duration? And, on theother hand, though the whole of the past goes into the making of theliving being's present moment, does not organic memory press it into themoment immediately before the present, so that the moment immediatelybefore becomes the sole cause of the present one?--To speak thus is toignore the cardinal difference between _concrete_ time, along which areal system develops, and that _abstract_ time which enters into ourspeculations on artificial systems. What does it mean, to say that thestate of an artificial system depends on what it was at the momentimmediately before? There is no instant immediately before anotherinstant; there could not be, any more than there could be onemathematical point touching another. The instant "immediately before"is, in reality, that which is connected with the present instant by theinterval _dt_. All that you mean to say, therefore, is that the presentstate of the system is defined by equations into which differentialcoefficients enter, such as _ds_|_dt_, _dv_|_dt_, that is to say, atbottom, _present_ velocities and _present_ accelerations. You aretherefore really speaking only of the present--a present, it is true, considered along with its _tendency_. The systems science works withare, in fact, in an instantaneous present that is always being renewed;such systems are never in that real, concrete duration in which the pastremains bound up with the present. When the mathematician calculates thefuture state of a system at the end of a time _t_, there is nothing toprevent him from supposing that the universe vanishes from this momenttill that, and suddenly reappears. It is the _t_-th moment only thatcounts--and that will be a mere instant. What will flow on in theinterval--that is to say, real time--does not count, and cannot enterinto the calculation. If the mathematician says that he puts himselfinside this interval, he means that he is placing himself at a certainpoint, at a particular moment, therefore at the extremity again of acertain time _t'_; with the interval up to _T'_ he is not concerned. Ifhe divides the interval into infinitely small parts by considering thedifferential _dt_, he thereby expresses merely the fact that he willconsider accelerations and velocities--that is to say, numbers whichdenote tendencies and enable him to calculate the state of the system ata given moment. But he is always speaking of a given moment--a staticmoment, that is--and not of flowing time. In short, _the world themathematician deals with is a world that dies and is reborn at everyinstant--the world which Descartes was thinking of when he spoke ofcontinued creation_. But, in time thus conceived, how could evolution, which is the very essence of life, ever take place? Evolution implies areal persistence of the past in the present, a duration which is, as itwere, a hyphen, a connecting link. In other words, to know a livingbeing or _natural system_ is to get at the very interval of duration, while the knowledge of an _artificial_ or _mathematical system_ appliesonly to the extremity. 

Continuity of change, preservation of the past in the present, realduration--the living being seems, then, to share these attributes withconsciousness. Can we go further and say that life, like consciousactivity, is invention, is unceasing creation?

 * * * * *

It does not enter into our plan to set down here the proofs oftransformism. We wish only to explain in a word or two why we shallaccept it, in the present work, as a sufficiently exact and preciseexpression of the facts actually known. The idea of transformism isalready in germ in the natural classification of organized beings. Thenaturalist, in fact, brings together the organisms that are like eachother, then divides the group into sub-groups within which the likenessis still greater, and so on: all through the operation, the charactersof the group appear as general themes on which each of the sub-groupsperforms its particular variation. Now, such is just the relation wefind, in the animal and in the vegetable world between the generator andthe generated: on the canvas which the ancestor passes on, and which hisdescendants possess in common, each puts his own original embroidery. True, the differences between the descendant and the ancestor areslight, and it may be asked whether the same living matter presentsenough plasticity to take in turn such different forms as those of afish, a reptile and a bird. But, to this question, observation gives aperemptory answer. It shows that up to a certain period in itsdevelopment the embryo of the bird is hardly distinguishable from thatof the reptile, and that the individual develops, throughout theembryonic life in general, a series of transformations comparable tothose through which, according to the theory of evolution, one speciespasses into another. A single cell, the result of the combination of twocells, male and female, accomplishes this work by dividing. Every day, before our eyes, the highest forms of life are springing from a veryelementary form. Experience, then, shows that the most complex has beenable to issue from the most simple by way of evolution. Now, has itarisen so, as a matter of fact? Paleontology, in spite of theinsufficiency of its evidence, invites us to believe it has; for, whereit makes out the order of succession of species with any precision, thisorder is just what considerations drawn from embryogeny and comparativeanatomy would lead any one to suppose, and each new paleontologicaldiscovery brings transformism a new confirmation. Thus, the proof drawnfrom mere observation is ever being strengthened, while, on the otherhand, experiment is removing the objections one by one. The recentexperiments of H. De Vries, for instance, by showing that importantvariations can be produced suddenly and transmitted regularly, haveoverthrown some of the greatest difficulties raised by the theory. Theyhave enabled us greatly to shorten the time biological evolution seemsto demand. They also render us less exacting toward paleontology. Sothat, all things considered, the transformist hypothesis looks more andmore like a close approximation to the truth. It is not rigorouslydemonstrable; but, failing the certainty of theoretical or experimentaldemonstration, there is a probability which is continually growing, dueto evidence which, while coming short of direct proof, seems to pointpersistently in its direction: such is the kind of probability that thetheory of transformism offers. 

Let us admit, however, that transformism may be wrong. Let us supposethat species are proved, by inference or by experiment, to have arisenby a discontinuous process, of which to-day we have no idea. Would thedoctrine be affected in so far as it has a special interest orimportance for us? Classification would probably remain, in its broadlines. The actual data of embryology would also remain. Thecorrespondence between comparative embryogeny and comparative anatomywould remain too. Therefore biology could and would continue toestablish between living forms the same relations and the same kinshipas transformism supposes to-day. It would be, it is true, an _ideal_kinship, and no longer a _material_ affiliation. But, as the actual dataof paleontology would also remain, we should still have to admit that itis successively, not simultaneously, that the forms between which wefind an ideal kinship have appeared. Now, the evolutionist theory, sofar as it has any importance for philosophy, requires no more. Itconsists above all in establishing relations of ideal kinship, and inmaintaining that wherever there is this relation of, so to speak, _logical_ affiliation between forms, there is also a relation of_chronological_ succession between the species in which these forms arematerialized. Both arguments would hold in any case. And hence, anevolution _somewhere_ would still have to be supposed, whether in acreative Thought in which the ideas of the different species aregenerated by each other exactly as transformism holds that speciesthemselves are generated on the earth; or in a plan of vitalorganization immanent in nature, which gradually works itself out, inwhich the relations of logical and chronological affiliation betweenpure forms are just those which transformism presents as relations ofreal affiliation between living individuals; or, finally, in someunknown cause of life, which develops its effects _as if_ they generatedone another. Evolution would then simply have been _transposed_, madeto pass from the visible to the invisible. Almost all that transformismtells us to-day would be preserved, open to interpretation in anotherway. Will it not, therefore, be better to stick to the letter oftransformism as almost all scientists profess it? Apart from thequestion to what extent the theory of evolution describes the facts andto what extent it symbolizes them, there is nothing in it that isirreconcilable with the doctrines it has claimed to replace, even withthat of special creations, to which it is usually opposed. For thisreason we think the language of transformism forces itself now upon allphilosophy, as the dogmatic affirmation of transformism forces itselfupon science. 

But then, we must no longer speak of _life in general_ as anabstraction, or as a mere heading under which all living beings areinscribed. At a certain moment, in certain points of space, a visiblecurrent has taken rise; this current of life, traversing the bodies ithas organized one after another, passing from generation to generation, has become divided amongst species and distributed amongst individualswithout losing anything of its force, rather intensifying in proportionto its advance. It is well known that, on the theory of the "continuityof the germ-plasm, " maintained by Weismann, the sexual elements of thegenerating organism pass on their properties directly to the sexualelements of the organism engendered. In this extreme form, the theoryhas seemed debatable, for it is only in exceptional cases that there areany signs of sexual glands at the time of segmentation of the fertilizedegg. But, though the cells that engender the sexual elements do notgenerally appear at the beginning of the embryonic life, it is none theless true that they are always formed out of those tissues of the embryowhich have not undergone any particular functional differentiation, andwhose cells are made of unmodified protoplasm. [8] In other words, thegenetic power of the fertilized ovum weakens, the more it is spread overthe growing mass of the tissues of the embryo; but, while it is beingthus diluted, it is concentrating anew something of itself on a certainspecial point, to wit, the cells, from which the ova or spermatozoa willdevelop. It might therefore be said that, though the germ-plasm is notcontinuous, there is at least continuity of genetic energy, this energybeing expended only at certain instants, for just enough time to givethe requisite impulsion to the embryonic life, and being recouped assoon as possible in new sexual elements, in which, again, it bides itstime. Regarded from this point of view, _life is like a current passingfrom germ to germ through the medium of a developed organism_. It is asif the organism itself were only an excrescence, a bud caused to sproutby the former germ endeavoring to continue itself in a new germ. Theessential thing is the _continuous progress_ indefinitely pursued, aninvisible progress, on which each visible organism rides during theshort interval of time given it to live. 

Now, the more we fix our attention on this continuity of life, the morewe see that organic evolution resembles the evolution of aconsciousness, in which the past presses against the present and causesthe upspringing of a new form of consciousness, incommensurable with itsantecedents. That the appearance of a vegetable or animal species is dueto specific causes, nobody will gainsay. But this can only mean that if, after the fact, we could know these causes in detail, we could explainby them the form that has been produced; foreseeing the form is out ofthe question. [9] It may perhaps be said that the form could be foreseenif we could know, in all their details, the conditions under which itwill be produced. But these conditions are built up into it and are partand parcel of its being; they are peculiar to that phase of its historyin which life finds itself at the moment of producing the form: howcould we know beforehand a situation that is unique of its kind, thathas never yet occurred and will never occur again? Of the future, onlythat is foreseen which is like the past or can be made up again withelements like those of the past. Such is the case with astronomical, physical and chemical facts, with all facts which form part of a systemin which elements supposed to be unchanging are merely put together, inwhich the only changes are changes of position, in which there is notheoretical absurdity in imagining that things are restored to theirplace; in which, consequently, the same total phenomenon, or at leastthe same elementary phenomena, can be repeated. But an originalsituation, which imparts something of its own originality to itselements, that is to say, to the partial views that are taken of it, howcan such a situation be pictured as given before it is actuallyproduced?[10] All that can be said is that, once produced, it will beexplained by the elements that analysis will then carve out of it. Now, what is true of the production of a new species is also true of theproduction of a new individual, and, more generally, of any moment ofany living form. For, though the variation must reach a certainimportance and a certain generality in order to give rise to a newspecies, it is being produced every moment, continuously and insensibly, in every living being. And it is evident that even the sudden"mutations" which we now hear of are possible only if a process ofincubation, or rather of maturing, is going on throughout a series ofgenerations that do not seem to change. In this sense it might be saidof life, as of consciousness, that at every moment it is creatingsomething. [11]

But against this idea of the absolute originality and unforeseeabilityof forms our whole intellect rises in revolt. The essential function ofour intellect, as the evolution of life has fashioned it, is to be alight for our conduct, to make ready for our action on things, toforesee, for a given situation, the events, favorable or unfavorable, which may follow thereupon. Intellect therefore instinctively selects ina given situation whatever is like something already known; it seeksthis out, in order that it may apply its principle that "like produceslike. " In just this does the prevision of the future by common senseconsist. Science carries this faculty to the highest possible degree ofexactitude and precision, but does not alter its essential character. Like ordinary knowledge, in dealing with things science is concernedonly with the aspect of _repetition_. Though the whole be original, science will always manage to analyze it into elements or aspects whichare approximately a reproduction of the past. Science can work only onwhat is supposed to repeat itself--that is to say, on what is withdrawn, by hypothesis, from the action of real time. Anything that isirreducible and irreversible in the successive moments of a historyeludes science. To get a notion of this irreducibility andirreversibility, we must break with scientific habits which are adaptedto the fundamental requirements of thought, we must do violence to themind, go counter to the natural bent of the intellect. But that is justthe function of philosophy. 

In vain, therefore, does life evolve before our eyes as a continuouscreation of unforeseeable form: the idea always persists that form, unforeseeability and continuity are mere appearance--the outwardreflection of our own ignorance. What is presented to the senses as acontinuous history would break up, we are told, into a series ofsuccessive states. "What gives you the impression of an original stateresolves, upon analysis, into elementary facts, each of which is therepetition of a fact already known. What you call an unforeseeable formis only a new arrangement of old elements. The elementary causes, whichin their totality have determined this arrangement, are themselves oldcauses repeated in a new order. Knowledge of the elements and of theelementary causes would have made it possible to foretell the livingform which is their sum and their resultant. When we have resolved thebiological aspect of phenomena into physico-chemical factors, we willleap, if necessary, over physics and chemistry themselves; we will gofrom masses to molecules, from molecules to atoms, from atoms tocorpuscles: we must indeed at last come to something that can be treatedas a kind of solar system, astronomically. If you deny it, you opposethe very principle of scientific mechanism, and you arbitrarily affirmthat living matter is not made of the same elements as othermatter. "--We reply that we do not question the fundamental identity ofinert matter and organized matter. The only question is whether thenatural systems which we call living beings must be assimilated to theartificial systems that science cuts out within inert matter, or whetherthey must not rather be compared to that natural system which is thewhole of the universe. That life is a kind of mechanism I cordiallyagree. But is it the mechanism of parts artificially isolated within thewhole of the universe, or is it the mechanism of the real whole? Thereal whole might well be, we conceive, an indivisible continuity. Thesystems we cut out within it would, properly speaking, not then be_parts_ at all; they would be _partial views_ of the whole. And, withthese partial views put end to end, you will not make even a beginningof the reconstruction of the whole, any more than, by multiplyingphotographs of an object in a thousand different aspects, you willreproduce the object itself. So of life and of the physico-chemicalphenomena to which you endeavor to reduce it. Analysis will undoubtedlyresolve the process of organic creation into an ever-growing number ofphysico-chemical phenomena, and chemists and physicists will have to do, of course, with nothing but these. But it does not follow that chemistryand physics will ever give us the key to life. 

A very small element of a curve is very near being a straight line. Andthe smaller it is, the nearer. In the limit, it may be termed a part ofthe curve or a part of the straight line, as you please, for in each ofits points a curve coincides with its tangent. So likewise "vitality" istangent, at any and every point, to physical and chemical forces; butsuch points are, as a fact, only views taken by a mind which imaginesstops at various moments of the movement that generates the curve. Inreality, life is no more made of physico-chemical elements than a curveis composed of straight lines. 

In a general way, the most radical progress a science can achieve isthe working of the completed results into a new scheme of the whole, byrelation to which they become instantaneous and motionless views takenat intervals along the continuity of a movement. Such, for example, isthe relation of modern to ancient geometry. The latter, purely static, worked with figures drawn once for all; the former studies the varyingof a function--that is, the continuous movement by which the figure isdescribed. No doubt, for greater strictness, all considerations ofmotion may be eliminated from mathematical processes; but theintroduction of motion into the genesis of figures is nevertheless theorigin of modern mathematics. We believe that if biology could ever getas close to its object as mathematics does to its own, it would become, to the physics and chemistry of organized bodies, what the mathematicsof the moderns has proved to be in relation to ancient geometry. Thewholly superficial displacements of masses and molecules studied inphysics and chemistry would become, by relation to that inner vitalmovement (which is transformation and not translation) what the positionof a moving object is to the movement of that object in space. And, sofar as we can see, the procedure by which we should then pass from thedefinition of a certain vital action to the system of physico-chemicalfacts which it implies would be like passing from the function to itsderivative, from the equation of the curve (_i. E. _ the law of thecontinuous movement by which the curve is generated) to the equation ofthe tangent giving its instantaneous direction. Such a science would bea _mechanics of transformation_, of which our _mechanics of translation_would become a particular case, a simplification, a projection on theplane of pure quantity. And just as an infinity of functions have thesame differential, these functions differing from each other by aconstant, so perhaps the integration of the physico-chemical elementsof properly vital action might determine that action only in part--apart would be left to indetermination. But such an integration can be nomore than dreamed of; we do not pretend that the dream will ever berealized. We are only trying, by carrying a certain comparison as far aspossible, to show up to what point our theory goes along with puremechanism, and where they part company. 

Imitation of the living by the unorganized may, however, go a good way. Not only does chemistry make organic syntheses, but we have succeeded inreproducing artificially the external appearance of certain facts oforganization, such as indirect cell-division and protoplasmiccirculation. It is well known that the protoplasm of the cell effectsvarious movements within its envelope; on the other hand, indirectcell-division is the outcome of very complex operations, some involvingthe nucleus and others the cytoplasm. These latter commence by thedoubling of the centrosome, a small spherical body alongside thenucleus. The two centrosomes thus obtained draw apart, attract thebroken and doubled ends of the filament of which the original nucleusmainly consisted, and join them to form two fresh nuclei about which thetwo new cells are constructed which will succeed the first. Now, intheir broad lines and in their external appearance, some at least ofthese operations have been successfully imitated. If some sugar or tablesalt is pulverized and some very old oil is added, and a drop of themixture is observed under the microscope, a froth of alveolar structureis seen whose configuration is like that of protoplasm, according tocertain theories, and in which movements take place which are decidedlylike those of protoplasmic circulation. [12] If, in a froth of the samekind, the air is extracted from an alveolus, a cone of attraction isseen to form, like those about the centrosomes which result in thedivision of the nucleus. [13] Even the external motions of a unicellularorganism--of an amoeba, at any rate--are sometimes explainedmechanically. The displacements of an amoeba in a drop of water would becomparable to the motion to and fro of a grain of dust in a draughtyroom. Its mass is all the time absorbing certain soluble matterscontained in the surrounding water, and giving back to it certainothers; these continual exchanges, like those between two vesselsseparated by a porous partition, would create an everchanging vortexaround the little organism. As for the temporary prolongations orpseudopodia which the amoeba seems to make, they would be not so muchgiven out by it as attracted from it by a kind of inhalation or suctionof the surrounding medium. [14] In the same way we may perhaps come toexplain the more complex movements which the Infusorian makes with itsvibratory cilia, which, moreover, are probably only fixed pseudopodia. 

But scientists are far from agreed on the value of explanations andschemas of this sort. Chemists have pointed out that even in theorganic--not to go so far as the organized--science has reconstructedhitherto nothing but waste products of vital activity; the peculiarlyactive plastic substances obstinately defy synthesis. One of the mostnotable naturalists of our time has insisted on the opposition of twoorders of phenomena observed in living tissues, _anagenesis_ and_katagenesis_. The rôle of the anagenetic energies is to raise theinferior energies to their own level by assimilating inorganicsubstances. They _construct_ the tissues. On the other hand, the actualfunctioning of life (excepting, of course, assimilation, growth, andreproduction) is of the katagenetic order, exhibiting the fall, not therise, of energy. It is only with these facts of katagenetic order thatphysico-chemistry deals--that is, in short, with the dead and not withthe living. [15] The other kind of facts certainly seem to defyphysico-chemical analysis, even if they are not anagenetic in the propersense of the word. As for the artificial imitation of the outwardappearance of protoplasm, should a real theoretic importance be attachedto this when the question of the physical framework of protoplasm is notyet settled? We are still further from compounding protoplasmchemically. Finally, a physico-chemical explanation of the motions ofthe amoeba, and _a fortiori_ of the behavior of the Infusoria, seemsimpossible to many of those who have closely observed these rudimentaryorganisms. Even in these humblest manifestations of life they discovertraces of an effective psychological activity. [16] But instructive aboveall is the fact that the tendency to explain everything by physics andchemistry is discouraged rather than strengthened by deep study ofhistological phenomena. Such is the conclusion of the truly admirablebook which the histologist E. B. Wilson has devoted to the developmentof the cell: "The study of the cell has, on the whole, seemed to widenrather than to narrow the enormous gap that separates even the lowestforms of life from the inorganic world. [17]"

To sum up, those who are concerned only with the functional activity ofthe living being are inclined to believe that physics and chemistry willgive us the key to biological processes. [18] They have chiefly to do, asa fact, with phenomena that are _repeated_ continually in the livingbeing, as in a chemical retort. This explains, in some measure, themechanistic tendencies of physiology. On the contrary, those whoseattention is concentrated on the minute structure of living tissues, ontheir genesis and evolution, histologists and embryogenists on the onehand, naturalists on the other, are interested in the retort itself, notmerely in its contents. They find that this retort creates its own formthrough a _unique_ series of acts that really constitute a _history_. Thus, histologists, embryogenists, and naturalists believe far lessreadily than physiologists in the physico-chemical character of vitalactions. 

The fact is, neither one nor the other of these two theories, neitherthat which affirms nor that which denies the possibility of chemicallyproducing an elementary organism, can claim the authority of experiment. They are both unverifiable, the former because science has not yetadvanced a step toward the chemical synthesis of a living substance, thesecond because there is no conceivable way of proving experimentally theimpossibility of a fact. But we have set forth the theoretical reasonswhich prevent us from likening the living being, a system closed off bynature, to the systems which our science isolates. These reasons haveless force, we acknowledge, in the case of a rudimentary organism likethe amoeba, which hardly evolves at all. But they acquire more when weconsider a complex organism which goes through a regular cycle oftransformations. The more duration marks the living being with itsimprint, the more obviously the organism differs from a mere mechanism, over which duration glides without penetrating. And the demonstrationhas most force when it applies to the evolution of life as a whole, fromits humblest origins to its highest forms, inasmuch as this evolutionconstitutes, through the unity and continuity of the animated matterwhich supports it, a single indivisible history. Thus viewed, theevolutionist hypothesis does not seem so closely akin to the mechanisticconception of life as it is generally supposed to be. Of thismechanistic conception we do not claim, of course, to furnish amathematical and final refutation. But the refutation which we draw fromthe consideration of real time, and which is, in our opinion, the onlyrefutation possible, becomes the more rigorous and cogent the morefrankly the evolutionist hypothesis is assumed. We must dwell a gooddeal more on this point. But let us first show more clearly the notionof life to which we are leading up. 

The mechanistic explanations, we said, hold good for the systems thatour thought artificially detaches from the whole. But of the wholeitself and of the systems which, within this whole, seem to take afterit, we cannot admit _a priori_ that they are mechanically explicable, for then time would be useless, and even unreal. The essence ofmechanical explanation, in fact, is to regard the future and the past ascalculable functions of the present, and thus to claim that _all isgiven_. On this hypothesis, past, present and future would be open at aglance to a superhuman intellect capable of making the calculation. Indeed, the scientists who have believed in the universality andperfect objectivity of mechanical explanations have, consciously orunconsciously, acted on a hypothesis of this kind. Laplace formulated itwith the greatest precision: "An intellect which at a given instant knewall the forces with which nature is animated, and the respectivesituations of the beings that compose nature--supposing the saidintellect were vast enough to subject these data to analysis--wouldembrace in the same formula the motions of the greatest bodies in theuniverse and those of the slightest atom: nothing would be uncertain forit, and the future, like the past, would be present to its eyes. "[19]And Du Bois-Reymond: "We can imagine the knowledge of nature arrived ata point where the universal process of the world might be represented bya single mathematical formula, by one immense system of simultaneousdifferential equations, from which could be deduced, for each moment, the position, direction, and velocity of every atom of the world. "[20]Huxley has expressed the same idea in a more concrete form: "If thefundamental proposition of evolution is true, that the entire world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules ofwhich the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed, it is noless certain that the existing world lay, potentially, in the cosmicvapor, and that a sufficient intellect could, from a knowledge of theproperties of the molecules of that vapor, have predicted, say the stateof the Fauna of Great Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one cansay what will happen to the vapor of the breath in a cold winter's day. "In such a doctrine, time is still spoken of: one pronounces the word, but one does not think of the thing. For time is here deprived ofefficacy, and if it _does_ nothing, it _is_ nothing. Radical mechanismimplies a metaphysic in which the totality of the real is postulatedcomplete in eternity, and in which the apparent duration of thingsexpresses merely the infirmity of a mind that cannot know everything atonce. But duration is something very different from this for ourconsciousness, that is to say, for that which is most indisputable inour experience. We perceive duration as a stream against which we cannotgo. It is the foundation of our being, and, as we feel, the verysubstance of the world in which we live. It is of no use to hold upbefore our eyes the dazzling prospect of a universal mathematic; wecannot sacrifice experience to the requirements of a system. That is whywe reject radical mechanism. 

 * * * * *

But radical finalism is quite as unacceptable, and for the same reason. The doctrine of teleology, in its extreme form, as we find it in Leibnizfor example, implies that things and beings merely realize a programmepreviously arranged. But if there is nothing unforeseen, no invention orcreation in the universe, time is useless again. As in the mechanistichypothesis, here again it is supposed that _all is given_. Finalism thusunderstood is only inverted mechanism. It springs from the samepostulate, with this sole difference, that in the movement of our finiteintellects along successive things, whose successiveness is reduced to amere appearance, it holds in front of us the light with which it claimsto guide us, instead of putting it behind. It substitutes the attractionof the future for the impulsion of the past. But succession remains nonethe less a mere appearance, as indeed does movement itself. In thedoctrine of Leibniz, time is reduced to a confused perception, relativeto the human standpoint, a perception which would vanish, like a risingmist, for a mind seated at the centre of things. 

Yet finalism is not, like mechanism, a doctrine with fixed rigidoutlines. It admits of as many inflections as we like. The mechanisticphilosophy is to be taken or left: it must be left if the least grain ofdust, by straying from the path foreseen by mechanics, should show theslightest trace of spontaneity. The doctrine of final causes, on thecontrary, will never be definitively refuted. If one form of it be putaside, it will take another. Its principle, which is essentiallypsychological, is very flexible. It is so extensible, and thereby socomprehensive, that one accepts something of it as soon as one rejectspure mechanism. The theory we shall put forward in this book willtherefore necessarily partake of finalism to a certain extent. For thatreason it is important to intimate exactly what we are going to take ofit, and what we mean to leave. 

Let us say at once that to thin out the Leibnizian finalism by breakingit into an infinite number of pieces seems to us a step in the wrongdirection. This is, however, the tendency of the doctrine of finality. It fully realizes that if the universe as a whole is the carrying out ofa plan, this cannot be demonstrated empirically, and that even of theorganized world alone it is hardly easier to prove all harmonious: factswould equally well testify to the contrary. Nature sets living beings atdiscord with one another. She everywhere presents disorder alongside oforder, retrogression alongside of progress. But, though finality cannotbe affirmed either of the whole of matter or of the whole of life, mightit not yet be true, says the finalist, of each organism takenseparately? Is there not a wonderful division of labor, a marvelloussolidarity among the parts of an organism, perfect order in infinitecomplexity? Does not each living being thus realize a plan immanent inits substance?--This theory consists, at bottom, in breaking up theoriginal notion of finality into bits. It does not accept, indeed itridicules, the idea of an _external_ finality, according to which livingbeings are ordered with regard to each other: to suppose the grass madefor the cow, the lamb for the wolf--that is all acknowledged to beabsurd. But there is, we are told, an _internal_ finality: each being ismade for itself, all its parts conspire for the greatest good of thewhole and are intelligently organized in view of that end. Such is thenotion of finality which has long been classic. Finalism has shrunk tothe point of never embracing more than one living being at a time. Bymaking itself smaller, it probably thought it would offer less surfacefor blows. 

The truth is, it lay open to them a great deal more. Radical as our owntheory may appear, finality is external or it is nothing at all. 

Consider the most complex and the most harmonious organism. All theelements, we are told, conspire for the greatest good of the whole. Verywell, but let us not forget that each of these elements may itself be anorganism in certain cases, and that in subordinating the existence ofthis small organism to the life of the great one we accept the principleof an _external_ finality. The idea of a finality that is _always_internal is therefore a self-destructive notion. An organism is composedof tissues, each of which lives for itself. The cells of which thetissues are made have also a certain independence. Strictly speaking, ifthe subordination of all the elements of the individual to theindividual itself were complete, we might contend that they are notorganisms, reserve the name organism for the individual, and recognizeonly internal finality. But every one knows that these elements maypossess a true autonomy. To say nothing of phagocytes, which pushindependence to the point of attacking the organism that nourishes them, or of germinal cells, which have their own life alongside the somaticcells--the facts of regeneration are enough: here an element or a groupof elements suddenly reveals that, however limited its normal space andfunction, it can transcend them occasionally; it may even, in certaincases, be regarded as the equivalent of the whole. 

There lies the stumbling-block of the vitalistic theories. We shall notreproach them, as is ordinarily done, with replying to the question bythe question itself: the "vital principle" may indeed not explain much, but it is at least a sort of label affixed to our ignorance, so as toremind us of this occasionally, [21] while mechanism invites us to ignorethat ignorance. But the position of vitalism is rendered very difficultby the fact that, in nature, there is neither purely internal finalitynor absolutely distinct individuality. The organized elements composingthe individual have themselves a certain individuality, and each willclaim its vital principle if the individual pretends to have its own. But, on the other hand, the individual itself is not sufficientlyindependent, not sufficiently cut off from other things, for us to allowit a "vital principle" of its own. An organism such as a highervertebrate is the most individuated of all organisms; yet, if we takeinto account that it is only the development of an ovum forming part ofthe body of its mother and of a spermatozoon belonging to the body ofits father, that the egg (_i. E. _ the ovum fertilized) is a connectinglink between the two progenitors since it is common to their twosubstances, we shall realize that every individual organism, even thatof a man, is merely a bud that has sprouted on the combined body of bothits parents. Where, then, does the vital principle of the individualbegin or end? Gradually we shall be carried further and further back, upto the individual's remotest ancestors: we shall find him solidary witheach of them, solidary with that little mass of protoplasmic jelly whichis probably at the root of the genealogical tree of life. Being, to acertain extent, one with this primitive ancestor, he is also solidarywith all that descends from the ancestor in divergent directions. Inthis sense each individual may be said to remain united with thetotality of living beings by invisible bonds. So it is of no use to tryto restrict finality to the individuality of the living being. If thereis finality in the world of life, it includes the whole of life in asingle indivisible embrace. This life common to all the livingundoubtedly presents many gaps and incoherences, and again it is not somathematically _one_ that it cannot allow each being to becomeindividualized to a certain degree. But it forms a single whole, nonethe less; and we have to choose between the out-and-out negation offinality and the hypothesis which co-ordinates not only the parts of anorganism with the organism itself, but also each living being with thecollective whole of all others. 

Finality will not go down any easier for being taken as a powder. Eitherthe hypothesis of a finality immanent in life should be rejected as awhole, or it must undergo a treatment very different from pulverization. 

 * * * * *

The error of radical finalism, as also that of radical mechanism, is toextend too far the application of certain concepts that are natural toour intellect. Originally, we think only in order to act. Our intellecthas been cast in the mold of action. Speculation is a luxury, whileaction is a necessity. Now, in order to act, we begin by proposing anend; we make a plan, then we go on to the detail of the mechanism whichwill bring it to pass. This latter operation is possible only if we knowwhat we can reckon on. We must therefore have managed to extractresemblances from nature, which enable us to anticipate the future. Thuswe must, consciously or unconsciously, have made use of the law ofcausality. Moreover, the more sharply the idea of efficient causality isdefined in our mind, the more it takes the form of a _mechanical_causality. And this scheme, in its turn, is the more mathematicalaccording as it expresses a more rigorous necessity. That is why we haveonly to follow the bent of our mind to become mathematicians. But, onthe other hand, this natural mathematics is only the rigid unconsciousskeleton beneath our conscious supple habit of linking the same causesto the same effects; and the usual object of this habit is to guideactions inspired by intentions, or, what comes to the same, to directmovements combined with a view to reproducing a pattern. We are bornartisans as we are born geometricians, and indeed we are geometriciansonly because we are artisans. Thus the human intellect, inasmuch as itis fashioned for the needs of human action, is an intellect whichproceeds at the same time by intention and by calculation, by adaptingmeans to ends and by thinking out mechanisms of more and moregeometrical form. Whether nature be conceived as an immense machineregulated by mathematical laws, or as the realization of a plan, thesetwo ways of regarding it are only the consummation of two tendencies ofmind which are complementary to each other, and which have their originin the same vital necessities. 

For that reason, radical finalism is very near radical mechanism on manypoints. Both doctrines are reluctant to see in the course of thingsgenerally, or even simply in the development of life, an unforeseeablecreation of form. In considering reality, mechanism regards only theaspect of similarity or repetition. It is therefore dominated by thislaw, that in nature there is only _like_ reproducing _like_. The morethe geometry in mechanism is emphasized, the less can mechanism admitthat anything is ever created, even pure form. In so far as we aregeometricians, then, we reject the unforeseeable. We might accept it, assuredly, in so far as we are artists, for art lives on creation andimplies a latent belief in the spontaneity of nature. But disinterestedart is a luxury, like pure speculation. Long before being artists, weare artisans; and all fabrication, however rudimentary, lives onlikeness and repetition, like the natural geometry which serves as itsfulcrum. Fabrication works on models which it sets out to reproduce; andeven when it invents, it proceeds, or imagines itself to proceed, by anew arrangement of elements already known. Its principle is that "wemust have like to produce like. " In short, the strict application of theprinciple of finality, like that of the principle of mechanicalcausality, leads to the conclusion that "all is given. " Both principlessay the same thing in their respective languages, because they respondto the same need. 

That is why again they agree in doing away with time. Real duration isthat duration which gnaws on things, and leaves on them the mark of itstooth. If everything is in time, everything changes inwardly, and thesame concrete reality never recurs. Repetition is therefore possibleonly in the abstract: what is repeated is some aspect that our senses, and especially our intellect, have singled out from reality, justbecause our action, upon which all the effort of our intellect isdirected, can move only among repetitions. Thus, concentrated on thatwhich repeats, solely preoccupied in welding the same to the same, intellect turns away from the vision of time. It dislikes what is fluid, and solidifies everything it touches. We do not _think_ real time. Butwe _live_ it, because life transcends intellect. The feeling we have ofour evolution and of the evolution of all things in pure duration isthere, forming around the intellectual concept properly so-called anindistinct fringe that fades off into darkness. Mechanism and finalismagree in taking account only of the bright nucleus shining in thecentre. They forget that this nucleus has been formed out of the rest bycondensation, and that the whole must be used, the fluid as well as andmore than the condensed, in order to grasp the inner movement of life. 

Indeed, if the fringe exists, however delicate and indistinct, it shouldhave more importance for philosophy than the bright nucleus itsurrounds. For it is its presence that enables us to affirm that thenucleus is a nucleus, that pure intellect is a contraction, bycondensation, of a more extensive power. And, just because this vagueintuition is of no help in directing our action on things, which actiontakes place exclusively on the surface of reality, we may presume thatit is to be exercised not merely on the surface, but below. 

As soon as we go out of the encasings in which radical mechanism andradical finalism confine our thought, reality appears as a ceaselessupspringing of something new, which has no sooner arisen to make thepresent than it has already fallen back into the past; at this exactmoment it falls under the glance of the intellect, whose eyes are everturned to the rear. This is already the case with our inner life. Foreach of our acts we shall easily find antecedents of which it may insome sort be said to be the mechanical resultant. And it may equallywell be said that each action is the realization of an intention. Inthis sense mechanism is everywhere, and finality everywhere, in theevolution of our conduct. But if our action be one that involves thewhole of our person and is truly ours, it could not have been foreseen, even though its antecedents explain it when once it has beenaccomplished. And though it be the realizing of an intention, itdiffers, as a present and _new_ reality, from the intention, which cannever aim at anything but recommencing or rearranging the past. Mechanism and finalism are therefore, here, only external views of ourconduct. They extract its intellectuality. But our conduct slips betweenthem and extends much further. Once again, this does not mean that freeaction is capricious, unreasonable action. To behave according tocaprice is to oscillate mechanically between two or more ready-madealternatives and at length to settle on one of them; it is no realmaturing of an internal state, no real evolution; it is merely--howeverparadoxical the assertion may seem--bending the will to imitate themechanism of the intellect. A conduct that is truly our own, on thecontrary, is that of a will which does not try to counterfeit intellect, and which, remaining itself--that is to say, evolving--ripens graduallyinto acts which the intellect will be able to resolve indefinitely intointelligible elements without ever reaching its goal. The free act isincommensurable with the idea, and its "rationality" must be defined bythis very incommensurability, which admits the discovery of as muchintelligibility within it as we will. Such is the character of our ownevolution; and such also, without doubt, that of the evolution of life. 

Our reason, incorrigibly presumptuous, imagines itself possessed, byright of birth or by right of conquest, innate or acquired, of all theessential elements of the knowledge of truth. Even where it confessesthat it does not know the object presented to it, it believes that itsignorance consists only in not knowing which one of its time-honoredcategories suits the new object. In what drawer, ready to open, shall weput it? In what garment, already cut out, shall we clothe it? Is itthis, or that, or the other thing? And "this, " and "that, " and "theother thing" are always something already conceived, already known. Theidea that for a new object we might have to create a new concept, perhaps a new method of thinking, is deeply repugnant to us. The historyof philosophy is there, however, and shows us the eternal conflict ofsystems, the impossibility of satisfactorily getting the real into theready-made garments of our ready-made concepts, the necessity of makingto measure. But, rather than go to this extremity, our reason prefers toannounce once for all, with a proud modesty, that it has to do only withthe relative, and that the absolute is not in its province. Thispreliminary declaration enables it to apply its habitual method ofthought without any scruple, and thus, under pretense that it does nottouch the absolute, to make absolute judgments upon everything. Platowas the first to set up the theory that to know the real consists infinding its Idea, that is to say, in forcing it into a pre-existingframe already at our disposal--as if we implicitly possessed universalknowledge. But this belief is natural to the human intellect, alwaysengaged as it is in determining under what former heading it shallcatalogue any new object; and it may be said that, in a certain sense, we are all born Platonists. 

Nowhere is the inadequacy of this method so obvious as in theories oflife. If, in evolving in the direction of the vertebrates in general, ofman and intellect in particular, life has had to abandon by the way manyelements incompatible with this particular mode of organization andconsign them, as we shall show, to other lines of development, it is thetotality of these elements that we must find again and rejoin to theintellect proper, in order to grasp the true nature of vital activity. And we shall probably be aided in this by the fringe of vague intuitionthat surrounds our distinct--that is, intellectual--representation. Forwhat can this useless fringe be, if not that part of the evolvingprinciple which has not shrunk to the peculiar form of our organization, but has settled around it unasked for, unwanted? It is there, accordingly, that we must look for hints to expand the intellectual formof our thought; from there shall we derive the impetus necessary to liftus above ourselves. To form an idea of the whole of life cannot consistin combining simple ideas that have been left behind in us by lifeitself in the course of its evolution. How could the part be equivalentto the whole, the content to the container, a by-product of the vitaloperation to the operation itself? Such, however, is our illusion whenwe define the evolution of life as a "passage from the homogeneous tothe heterogeneous, " or by any other concept obtained by puttingfragments of intellect side by side. We place ourselves in one of thepoints where evolution comes to a head--the principal one, no doubt, butnot the only one; and there we do not even take all we find, for of theintellect we keep only one or two of the concepts by which it expressesitself; and it is this part of a part that we declare representative ofthe whole, of something indeed which goes beyond the concrete whole, Imean of the evolution movement of which this "whole" is only the presentstage! The truth is, that to represent this the entire intellect wouldnot be too much--nay, it would not be enough. It would be necessary toadd to it what we find in every other terminal point of evolution. Andthese diverse and divergent elements must be considered as so manyextracts which are, or at least which were, in their humblest form, mutually complementary. Only then might we have an inkling of the realnature of the evolution movement; and even then we should fail to graspit completely, for we should still be dealing only with the evolved, which is a result, and not with evolution itself, which is the act bywhich the result is obtained. 

Such is the philosophy of life to which we are leading up. It claims totranscend both mechanism and finalism; but, as we announced at thebeginning, it is nearer the second doctrine than the first. It will notbe amiss to dwell on this point, and show more precisely how far thisphilosophy of life resembles finalism and wherein it is different. 

Like radical finalism, although in a vaguer form, our philosophyrepresents the organized world as a harmonious whole. But this harmonyis far from being as perfect as it has been claimed to be. It admits ofmuch discord, because each species, each individual even, retains only acertain impetus from the universal vital impulsion and tends to use thisenergy in its own interest. In this consists _adaptation_. The speciesand the individual thus think only of themselves--whence arises apossible conflict with other forms of life. Harmony, therefore, doesnot exist in fact; it exists rather in principle; I mean that theoriginal impetus is a _common_ impetus, and the higher we ascend thestream of life the more do diverse tendencies appear complementary toeach other. Thus the wind at a street-corner divides into divergingcurrents which are all one and the same gust. Harmony, or rather"complementarity, " is revealed only in the mass, in tendencies ratherthan in states. Especially (and this is the point on which finalism hasbeen most seriously mistaken) harmony is rather behind us than before. It is due to an identity of impulsion and not to a common aspiration. Itwould be futile to try to assign to life an end, in the human sense ofthe word. To speak of an end is to think of a pre-existing model whichhas only to be realized. It is to suppose, therefore, that all is given, and that the future can be read in the present. It is to believe thatlife, in its movement and in its entirety, goes to work like ourintellect, which is only a motionless and fragmentary view of life, andwhich naturally takes its stand outside of time. Life, on the contrary, progresses and _endures_ in time. Of course, when once the road has beentraveled, we can glance over it, mark its direction, note this inpsychological terms and speak as if there had been pursuit of an end. Thus shall we speak ourselves. But, of the road which was going to betraveled, the human mind could have nothing to say, for the road hasbeen created _pari passu_ with the act of traveling over it, beingnothing but the direction of this act itself. At every instant, then, evolution must admit of a psychological interpretation which is, fromour point of view, the best interpretation; but this explanation hasneither value nor even significance except retrospectively. Never couldthe finalistic interpretation, such as we shall propose it, be taken foran anticipation of the future. It is a particular mode of viewing thepast in the light of the present. In short, the classic conception offinality postulates at once too much and too little: it is both too wideand too narrow. In explaining life by intellect, it limits too much themeaning of life: intellect, such at least as we find it in ourselves, has been fashioned by evolution during the course of progress; it is cutout of something larger, or, rather, it is only the projection, necessarily on a plane, of a reality that possesses both relief anddepth. It is this more comprehensive reality that true finalism ought toreconstruct, or, rather, if possible, embrace in one view. But, on theother hand, just because it goes beyond intellect--the faculty ofconnecting the same with the same, of perceiving and also of producingrepetitions--this reality is undoubtedly creative, _i. E. _ productive ofeffects in which it expands and transcends its own being. These effectswere therefore not given in it in advance, and so it could not take themfor ends, although, when once produced, they admit of a rationalinterpretation, like that of the manufactured article that hasreproduced a model. In short, the theory of final causes does not go farenough when it confines itself to ascribing some intelligence to nature, and it goes too far when it supposes a pre-existence of the future inthe present in the form of idea. And the second theory, which sins byexcess, is the outcome of the first, which sins by defect. In place ofintellect proper must be substituted the more comprehensive reality ofwhich intellect is only the contraction. The future then appears asexpanding the present: it was not, therefore, contained in the presentin the form of a represented end. And yet, once realized, it willexplain the present as much as the present explains it, and even more;it must be viewed as an end as much as, and more than, a result. Ourintellect has a right to consider the future abstractly from itshabitual point of view, being itself an abstract view of the cause ofits own being. 

It is true that the cause may then seem beyond our grasp. Already thefinalist theory of life eludes all precise verification. What if we gobeyond it in one of its directions? Here, in fact, after a necessarydigression, we are back at the question which we regard as essential:can the insufficiency of mechanism be proved by facts? We said that ifthis demonstration is possible, it is on condition of frankly acceptingthe evolutionist hypothesis. We must now show that if mechanism isinsufficient to account for evolution, the way of proving thisinsufficiency is not to stop at the classic conception of finality, still less to contract or attenuate it, but, on the contrary, to gofurther. 

Let us indicate at once the principle of our demonstration. We said oflife that, from its origin, it is the continuation of one and the sameimpetus, divided into divergent lines of evolution. Something has grown, something has developed by a series of additions which have been so manycreations. This very development has brought about a dissociation oftendencies which were unable to grow beyond a certain point withoutbecoming mutually incompatible. Strictly speaking, there is nothing toprevent our imagining that the evolution of life might have taken placein one single individual by means of a series of transformations spreadover thousands of ages. Or, instead of a single individual, any numbermight be supposed, succeeding each other in a unilinear series. In bothcases evolution would have had, so to speak, one dimension only. Butevolution has actually taken place through millions of individuals, ondivergent lines, each ending at a crossing from which new paths radiate, and so on indefinitely. If our hypothesis is justified, if theessential causes working along these diverse roads are of psychologicalnature, they must keep something in common in spite of the divergence oftheir effects, as school-fellows long separated keep the same memoriesof boyhood. Roads may fork or by-ways be opened along which dissociatedelements may evolve in an independent manner, but nevertheless it is invirtue of the primitive impetus of the whole that the movement of theparts continues. Something of the whole, therefore, must abide in theparts; and this common element will be evident to us in some way, perhaps by the presence of identical organs in very different organisms. Suppose, for an instant, that the mechanistic explanation is the trueone: evolution must then have occurred through a series of accidentsadded to one another, each new accident being preserved by selection ifit is advantageous to that sum of former advantageous accidents whichthe present form of the living being represents. What likelihood isthere that, by two entirely different series of accidents being addedtogether, two entirely different evolutions will arrive at similarresults? The more two lines of evolution diverge, the less probabilityis there that accidental outer influences or accidental inner variationsbring about the construction of the same apparatus upon them, especiallyif there was no trace of this apparatus at the moment of divergence. Butsuch similarity of the two products would be natural, on the contrary, on a hypothesis like ours: even in the latest channel there would besomething of the impulsion received at the source. _Pure mechanism, then, would be refutable, and finality, in the special sense in which weunderstand it, would be demonstrable in a certain aspect, if it could beproved that life may manufacture the like apparatus, by unlike means, ondivergent lines of evolution; and the strength of the proof would beproportional both to the divergency between the lines of evolution thuschosen and to the complexity of the similar structures found in them. _

It will be said that resemblance of structure is due to sameness of thegeneral conditions in which life has evolved, and that these permanentouter conditions may have imposed the same direction on the forcesconstructing this or that apparatus, in spite of the diversity oftransient outer influences and accidental inner changes. We are not, ofcourse, blind to the rôle which the concept of _adaptation_ plays in thescience of to-day. Biologists certainly do not all make the same use ofit. Some think the outer conditions capable of causing change inorganisms in a _direct_ manner, in a definite direction, throughphysico-chemical alterations induced by them in the living substance;such is the hypothesis of Eimer, for example. Others, more faithful tothe spirit of Darwinism, believe the influence of conditions works_indirectly_ only, through favoring, in the struggle for life, thoserepresentatives of a species which the chance of birth has best adaptedto the environment. In other words, some attribute a _positive_influence to outer conditions, and say that they actually _give rise to_variations, while the others say these conditions have only a _negative_influence and merely _eliminate_ variations. But, in both cases, theouter conditions are supposed to bring about a precise adjustment of theorganism to its circumstances. Both parties, then, will attempt toexplain mechanically, by adaptation to similar conditions, thesimilarities of structure which we think are the strongest argumentagainst mechanism. So we must at once indicate in a general way, beforepassing to the detail, why explanations from "adaptation" seem to usinsufficient. 

Let us first remark that, of the two hypotheses just described, thelatter is the only one which is not equivocal. The Darwinian idea ofadaptation by automatic elimination of the unadapted is a simple andclear idea. But, just because it attributes to the outer cause whichcontrols evolution a merely negative influence, it has great difficultyin accounting for the progressive and, so to say, rectilineardevelopment of complex apparatus such as we are about to examine. Howmuch greater will this difficulty be in the case of the similarstructure of two extremely complex organs on two entirely differentlines of evolution! An accidental variation, however minute, implies theworking of a great number of small physical and chemical causes. Anaccumulation of accidental variations, such as would be necessary toproduce a complex structure, requires therefore the concurrence of analmost infinite number of infinitesimal causes. Why should these causes, entirely accidental, recur the same, and in the same order, at differentpoints of space and time? No one will hold that this is the case, andthe Darwinian himself will probably merely maintain that identicaleffects may arise from different causes, that more than one road leadsto the same spot. But let us not be fooled by a metaphor. The placereached does not give the form of the road that leads there; while anorganic structure is just the accumulation of those small differenceswhich evolution has had to go through in order to achieve it. Thestruggle for life and natural selection can be of no use to us insolving this part of the problem, for we are not concerned here withwhat has perished, we have to do only with what has survived. Now, wesee that identical structures have been formed on independent lines ofevolution by a gradual accumulation of effects. How can accidentalcauses, occurring in an accidental order, be supposed to have repeatedlycome to the same result, the causes being infinitely numerous and theeffect infinitely complicated?

The principle of mechanism is that "the same causes produce the sameeffects. " This principle, of course, does not always imply that the sameeffects must have the same causes; but it does involve this consequencein the particular case in which the causes remain visible in the effectthat they produce and are indeed its constitutive elements. That twowalkers starting from different points and wandering at random shouldfinally meet, is no great wonder. But that, throughout their walk, theyshould describe two identical curves exactly superposable on each other, is altogether unlikely. The improbability will be the greater, the morecomplicated the routes; and it will become impossibility, if the zigzagsare infinitely complicated. Now, what is this complexity of zigzags ascompared with that of an organ in which thousands of different cells, each being itself a kind of organism, are arranged in a definite order?

Let us turn, then, to the other hypothesis, and see how it would solvethe problem. Adaptation, it says, is not merely elimination of theunadapted; it is due to the positive influence of outer conditions thathave molded the organism on their own form. This time, similarity ofeffects will be explained by similarity of cause. We shall remain, apparently, in pure mechanism. But if we look closely, we shall see thatthe explanation is merely verbal, that we are again the dupes of words, and that the trick of the solution consists in taking the term"adaptation" in two entirely different senses at the same time. 

If I pour into the same glass, by turns, water and wine, the two liquidswill take the same form, and the sameness in form will be due to thesameness in adaptation of content to container. Adaptation, here, reallymeans mechanical adjustment. The reason is that the form to which thematter has adapted itself was there, ready-made, and has forced its ownshape on the matter. But, in the adaptation of an organism to thecircumstances it has to live in, where is the pre-existing form awaitingits matter? The circumstances are not a mold into which life is insertedand whose form life adopts: this is indeed to be fooled by a metaphor. There is no form yet, and the life must create a form for itself, suitedto the circumstances which are made for it. It will have to make thebest of these circumstances, neutralize their inconveniences and utilizetheir advantages--in short, respond to outer actions by building up amachine which has no resemblance to them. Such adapting is not_repeating_, but _replying_, --an entirely different thing. If there isstill adaptation, it will be in the sense in which one may say of thesolution of a problem of geometry, for example, that it is adapted tothe conditions. I grant indeed that adaptation so understood explainswhy different evolutionary processes result in similar forms: the sameproblem, of course, calls for the same solution. But it is necessarythen to introduce, as for the solution of a problem of geometry, anintelligent activity, or at least a cause which behaves in the same way. This is to bring in finality again, and a finality this time more thanever charged with anthropomorphic elements. In a word, if the adaptationis passive, if it is mere repetition in the relief of what theconditions give in the mold, it will build up nothing that one tries tomake it build; and if it is active, capable of responding by acalculated solution to the problem which is set out in the conditions, that is going further than we do--too far, indeed, in our opinion--inthe direction we indicated in the beginning. But the truth is that thereis a surreptitious passing from one of these two meanings to the other, a flight for refuge to the first whenever one is about to be caught _inflagrante delicto_ of finalism by employing the second. It is reallythe second which serves the usual practice of science, but it is thefirst that generally provides its philosophy. In any _particular_ caseone talks as if the process of adaptation were an effort of the organismto build up a machine capable of turning external circumstances to thebest possible account: then one speaks of adaptation _in general_ as ifit were the very impress of circumstances, passively received by anindifferent matter. 

But let us come to the examples. It would be interesting first toinstitute here a general comparison between plants and animals. Onecannot fail to be struck with the parallel progress which has beenaccomplished, on both sides, in the direction of sexuality. Not only isfecundation itself the same in higher plants and in animals, since itconsists, in both, in the union of two nuclei that differ in theirproperties and structure before their union and immediately after becomeequivalent to each other; but the preparation of sexual elements goes onin both under like conditions: it consists essentially in the reductionof the number of chromosomes and the rejection of a certain quantity ofchromatic substance. [22] Yet vegetables and animals have evolved onindependent lines, favored by unlike circumstances, opposed by unlikeobstacles. Here are two great series which have gone on diverging. Oneither line, thousands and thousands of causes have combined todetermine the morphological and functional evolution. Yet theseinfinitely complicated causes have been consummated, in each series, inthe same effect. And this effect, could hardly be called a phenomenon of"adaptation": where is the adaptation, where is the pressure of externalcircumstances? There is no striking utility in sexual generation; ithas been interpreted in the most diverse ways; and some very acuteenquirers even regard the sexuality of the plant, at least, as a luxurywhich nature might have dispensed with. [23] But we do not wish to dwellon facts so disputed. The ambiguity of the term "adaptation, " and thenecessity of transcending both the point of view of mechanical causalityand that of anthropomorphic finality, will stand out more clearly withsimpler examples. At all times the doctrine of finality has laid muchstress on the marvellous structure of the sense-organs, in order toliken the work of nature to that of an intelligent workman. Now, sincethese organs are found, in a rudimentary state, in the lower animals, and since nature offers us many intermediaries between the pigment-spotof the simplest organisms and the infinitely complex eye of thevertebrates, it may just as well be alleged that the result has beenbrought about by natural selection perfecting the organ automatically. In short, if there is a case in which it seems justifiable to invokeadaptation, it is this particular one. For there may be discussion aboutthe function and meaning of such a thing as sexual generation, in so faras it is related to the conditions in which it occurs; but the relationof the eye to light is obvious, and when we call this relation anadaptation, we must know what we mean. If, then, we can show, in thisprivileged case, the insufficiency of the principles invoked on bothsides, our demonstration will at once have reached a high degree ofgenerality. 

Let us consider the example on which the advocates of finality havealways insisted: the structure of such an organ as the human eye. Theyhave had no difficulty in showing that in this extremely complicatedapparatus all the elements are marvelously co-ordinated. In order thatvision shall operate, says the author of a well-known book on _FinalCauses_, "the sclerotic membrane must become transparent in one point ofits surface, so as to enable luminous rays to pierce it;. .. The corneamust correspond exactly with the opening of the socket;. .. Behind thistransparent opening there must be refracting media;. .. There must be aretina[24] at the extremity of the dark chamber;. .. Perpendicular to theretina there must be an innumerable quantity of transparent conespermitting only the light directed in the line of their axes to reachthe nervous membrane, "[25] etc. Etc. In reply, the advocate of finalcauses has been invited to assume the evolutionist hypothesis. Everything is marvelous, indeed, if one consider an eye like ours, inwhich thousands of elements are coördinated in a single function. Buttake the function at its origin, in the Infusorian, where it is reducedto the mere impressionability (almost purely chemical) of a pigment-spotto light: this function, possibly only an accidental fact in thebeginning, may have brought about a slight complication of the organ, which again induced an improvement of the function. It may have donethis either directly, through some unknown mechanism, or indirectly, merely through the effect of the advantages it brought to the livingbeing and the hold it thus offered to natural selection. Thus theprogressive formation of an eye as well contrived as ours would beexplained by an almost infinite number of actions and reactions betweenthe function and the organ, without the intervention of other thanmechanical causes. 

The question is hard to decide, indeed, when put directly between thefunction and the organ, as is done in the doctrine of finality, as alsomechanism itself does. For organ and function are terms of differentnature, and each conditions the other so closely that it is impossibleto say _a priori_ whether in expressing their relation we should beginwith the first, as does mechanism, or with the second, as finalismrequires. But the discussion would take an entirely different turn, wethink, if we began by comparing together two terms of the same nature, an organ with an organ, instead of an organ with its function. In thiscase, it would be possible to proceed little by little to a solutionmore and more plausible, and there would be the more chance of asuccessful issue the more resolutely we assumed the evolutionisthypothesis. 

Let us place side by side the eye of a vertebrate and that of a molluscsuch as the common Pecten. We find the same essential parts in each, composed of analogous elements. The eye of the Pecten presents a retina, a cornea, a lens of cellular structure like our own. There is even thatpeculiar inversion of retinal elements which is not met with, ingeneral, in the retina of the invertebrates. Now, the origin of molluscsmay be a debated question, but, whatever opinion we hold, all are agreedthat molluscs and vertebrates separated from their common parent-stemlong before the appearance of an eye so complex as that of the Pecten. Whence, then, the structural analogy?

Let us question on this point the two opposed systems of evolutionistexplanation in turn--the hypothesis of purely accidental variations, andthat of a variation directed in a definite way under the influence ofexternal conditions. 

The first, as is well known, is presented to-day in two quite differentforms. Darwin spoke of very slight variations being accumulated bynatural selection. He was not ignorant of the facts of sudden variation;but he thought these "sports, " as he called them, were onlymonstrosities incapable of perpetuating themselves; and he accounted forthe genesis of species by an accumulation of _insensible_variations. [26] Such is still the opinion of many naturalists. It istending, however, to give way to the opposite idea that a new speciescomes into being all at once by the simultaneous appearance of severalnew characters, all somewhat different from the previous ones. Thislatter hypothesis, already proposed by various authors, notably byBateson in a remarkable book, [27] has become deeply significant andacquired great force since the striking experiments of Hugo de Vries. This botanist, working on the _OEnothera Lamarckiana_, obtained at theend of a few generations a certain number of new species. The theory hededuces from his experiments is of the highest interest. Species passthrough alternate periods of stability and transformation. When theperiod of "mutability" occurs, unexpected forms spring forth in a greatnumber of different directions. [28]--We will not attempt to take sidesbetween this hypothesis and that of insensible variations. Indeed, perhaps both are partly true. We wish merely to point out that if thevariations invoked are accidental, they do not, whether small or great, account for a similarity of structure such as we have cited. 

Let us assume, to begin with, the Darwinian theory of insensiblevariations, and suppose the occurrence of small differences due tochance, and continually accumulating. It must not be forgotten that allthe parts of an organism are necessarily coördinated. Whether thefunction be the effect of the organ or its cause, it matters little; onepoint is certain--the organ will be of no use and will not giveselection a hold unless it functions. However the minute structure ofthe retina may develop, and however complicated it may become, suchprogress, instead of favoring vision, will probably hinder it if thevisual centres do not develop at the same time, as well as several partsof the visual organ itself. If the variations are accidental, how canthey ever agree to arise in every part of the organ at the same time, insuch way that the organ will continue to perform its function? Darwinquite understood this; it is one of the reasons why he regardedvariation as insensible. [29] For a difference which arises accidentallyat one point of the visual apparatus, if it be very slight, will nothinder the functioning of the organ; and hence this first accidentalvariation can, in a sense, _wait for_ complementary variations toaccumulate and raise vision to a higher degree of perfection. Granted;but while the insensible variation does not hinder the functioning ofthe eye, neither does it help it, so long as the variations that arecomplementary do not occur. How, in that case, can the variation beretained by natural selection? Unwittingly one will reason as if theslight variation were a toothing stone set up by the organism andreserved for a later construction. This hypothesis, so littleconformable to the Darwinian principle, is difficult enough to avoideven in the case of an organ which has been developed along one singlemain line of evolution, _e. G. _ the vertebrate eye. But it is absolutelyforced upon us when we observe the likeness of structure of thevertebrate eye and that of the molluscs. How could the same smallvariations, incalculable in number, have ever occurred in the sameorder on two independent lines of evolution, if they were purelyaccidental? And how could they have been preserved by selection andaccumulated in both cases, the same in the same order, when each ofthem, taken separately, was of no use?

Let us turn, then, to the hypothesis of sudden variations, and seewhether it will solve the problem. It certainly lessens the difficultyon one point, but it makes it much worse on another. If the eye of themollusc and that of the vertebrate have both been raised to theirpresent form by a relatively small number of sudden leaps, I have lessdifficulty in understanding the resemblance of the two organs than ifthis resemblance were due to an incalculable number of infinitesimalresemblances acquired successively: in both cases it is chance thatoperates, but in the second case chance is not required to work themiracle it would have to perform in the first. Not only is the number ofresemblances to be added somewhat reduced, but I can also understandbetter how each could be preserved and added to the others; for theelementary variation is now considerable enough to be an advantage tothe living being, and so to lend itself to the play of selection. Buthere there arises another problem, no less formidable, viz. , how do allthe parts of the visual apparatus, suddenly changed, remain so wellcoördinated that the eye continues to exercise its function? For thechange of one part alone will make vision impossible, unless this changeis absolutely infinitesimal. The parts must then all change at once, each consulting the others. I agree that a great number of uncoördinatedvariations may indeed have arisen in less fortunate individuals, thatnatural selection may have eliminated these, and that only thecombination fit to endure, capable of preserving and improving vision, has survived. Still, this combination had to be produced. And, supposingchance to have granted this favor once, can we admit that it repeats theself-same favor in the course of the history of a species, so as to giverise, every time, all at once, to new complications marvelouslyregulated with reference to each other, and so related to formercomplications as to go further on in the same direction? How, especially, can we suppose that by a series of mere "accidents" thesesudden variations occur, the same, in the same order, --involving in eachcase a perfect harmony of elements more and more numerous andcomplex--along two independent lines of evolution?

The law of correlation will be invoked, of course; Darwin himselfappealed to it. [30] It will be alleged that a change is not localized ina single point of the organism, but has its necessary recoil on otherpoints. The examples cited by Darwin remain classic: white cats withblue eyes are generally deaf; hairless dogs have imperfect dentition, etc. --Granted; but let us not play now on the word "correlation. " Acollective whole of _solidary_ changes is one thing, a system of_complementary_ changes--changes so coördinated as to keep up and evenimprove the functioning of an organ under more complicatedconditions--is another. That an anomaly of the pilous system should beaccompanied by an anomaly of dentition is quite conceivable without ourhaving to call for a special principle of explanation; for hair andteeth are similar formations, [31] and the same chemical change of thegerm that hinders the formation of hair would probably obstruct that ofteeth: it may be for the same sort of reason that white cats with blueeyes are deaf. In these different examples the "correlative" changes areonly _solidary_ changes (not to mention the fact that they are really_lesions_, namely, diminutions or suppressions, and not additions, whichmakes a great difference). But when we speak of "correlative" changesoccurring suddenly in the different parts of the eye, we use the word inan entirely new sense: this time there is a whole set of changes notonly simultaneous, not only bound together by community of origin, butso coördinated that the organ keeps on performing the same simplefunction, and even performs it better. That a change in the germ, whichinfluences the formation of the retina, may affect at the same time alsothe formation of the cornea, the iris, the lens, the visual centres, etc. , I admit, if necessary, although they are formations that differmuch more from one another in their original nature than do probablyhair and teeth. But that all these simultaneous changes should occur insuch a way as to improve or even merely maintain vision, this is what, in the hypothesis of sudden variation, I cannot admit, unless amysterious principle is to come in, whose duty it is to watch over theinterest of the function. But this would be to give up the idea of"accidental" variation. In reality, these two senses of the word"correlation" are often interchanged in the mind of the biologist, justlike the two senses of the word "adaptation. " And the confusion isalmost legitimate in botany, that science in which the theory of theformation of species by sudden variation rests on the firmestexperimental basis. In vegetables, function is far less narrowly boundto form than in animals. Even profound morphological differences, suchas a change in the form of leaves, have no appreciable influence on theexercise of function, and so do not require a whole system ofcomplementary changes for the plant to remain fit to survive. But it isnot so in the animal, especially in the case of an organ like the eye, avery complex structure and very delicate function. Here it is impossibleto identify changes that are simply solidary with changes which are alsocomplementary. The two senses of the word "correlation" must becarefully distinguished; it would be a downright paralogism to adopt oneof them in the premisses of the reasoning, and the other in theconclusion. And this is just what is done when the principle ofcorrelation is invoked in explanations of _detail_ in order to accountfor complementary variations, and then correlation _in general_ isspoken of as if it were any group of variations provoked by anyvariation of the germ. Thus, the notion of correlation is first used incurrent science as it might be used by an advocate of finality; it isunderstood that this is only a convenient way of expressing oneself, that one will correct it and fall back on pure mechanism when explainingthe nature of the principles and turning from science to philosophy. Andone does then come back to pure mechanism, but only by giving a newmeaning to the word "correlation"--a meaning which would now makecorrelation inapplicable to the detail it is called upon to explain. 

To sum up, if the accidental variations that bring about evolution areinsensible variations, some good genius must be appealed to--the geniusof the future species--in order to preserve and accumulate thesevariations, for selection will not look after this. If, on the otherhand, the accidental variations are sudden, then, for the previousfunction to go on or for a new function to take its place, all thechanges that have happened together must be complementary. So we have tofall back on the good genius again, this time to obtain the_convergence_ of _simultaneous_ changes, as before to be assured of the_continuity of direction_ of _successive_ variations. But in neithercase can parallel development of the same complex structures onindependent lines of evolution be due to a mere accumulation ofaccidental variations. So we come to the second of the two greathypotheses we have to examine. Suppose the variations are due, not toaccidental and inner causes, but to the direct influence of outercircumstances. Let us see what line we should have to take, on thishypothesis, to account for the resemblance of eye-structure in twoseries that are independent of each other from the phylogenetic point ofview. 

Though molluscs and vertebrates have evolved separately, both haveremained exposed to the influence of light. And light is a physicalcause bringing forth certain definite effects. Acting in a continuousway, it has been able to produce a continuous variation in a constantdirection. Of course it is unlikely that the eye of the vertebrate andthat of the mollusc have been built up by a series of variations due tosimple chance. Admitting even that light enters into the case as aninstrument of selection, in order to allow only useful variations topersist, there is no possibility that the play of chance, even thussupervised from without, should bring about in both cases the samejuxtaposition of elements coördinated in the same way. But it would bedifferent supposing that light acted directly on the organized matter soas to change its structure and somehow adapt this structure to its ownform. The resemblance of the two effects would then be explained by theidentity of the cause. The more and more complex eye would be somethinglike the deeper and deeper imprint of light on a matter which, beingorganized, possesses a special aptitude for receiving it. 

But can an organic structure be likened to an imprint? We have alreadycalled attention to the ambiguity of the term "adaptation. " The gradualcomplication of a form which is being better and better adapted to themold of outward circumstances is one thing, the increasingly complexstructure of an instrument which derives more and more advantage fromthese circumstances is another. In the former case, the matter merelyreceives an imprint; in the second, it reacts positively, it solves aproblem. Obviously it is this second sense of the word "adapt" that isused when one says that the eye has become better and better adapted tothe influence of light. But one passes more or less unconsciously fromthis sense to the other, and a purely mechanistic biology will strive tomake the _passive_ adaptation of an inert matter, which submits to theinfluence of its environment, mean the same as the _active_ adaptationof an organism which derives from this influence an advantage it canappropriate. It must be owned, indeed, that Nature herself appears toinvite our mind to confuse these two kinds of adaptation, for sheusually begins by a passive adaptation where, later on, she will buildup a mechanism for active response. Thus, in the case before us, it isunquestionable that the first rudiment of the eye is found in thepigment-spot of the lower organisms; this spot may indeed have beenproduced physically, by the mere action of light, and there are a greatnumber of intermediaries between the simple spot of pigment and acomplicated eye like that of the vertebrates. --But, from the fact thatwe pass from one thing to another by degrees, it does not follow thatthe two things are of the same nature. From the fact that an oratorfalls in, at first, with the passions of his audience in order to makehimself master of them, it will not be concluded that to _follow_ is thesame as to _lead_. Now, living matter seems to have no other means ofturning circumstances to good account than by adapting itself to thempassively at the outset. Where it has to direct a movement, it begins byadopting it. Life proceeds by insinuation. The intermediate degreesbetween a pigment-spot and an eye are nothing to the point: howevernumerous the degrees, there will still be the same interval between thepigment-spot and the eye as between a photograph and a photographicapparatus. Certainly the photograph has been gradually turned into aphotographic apparatus; but could light alone, a physical force, everhave provoked this change, and converted an impression left by it into amachine capable of using it?

It may be claimed that considerations of utility are out of place here;that the eye is not made to see, but that we see because we have eyes;that the organ is what it is, and "utility" is a word by which wedesignate the functional effects of the structure. But when I say thatthe eye "makes use of" light, I do not merely mean that the eye iscapable of seeing; I allude to the very precise relations that existbetween this organ and the apparatus of locomotion. The retina ofvertebrates is prolonged in an optic nerve, which, again, is continuedby cerebral centres connected with motor mechanisms. Our eye makes useof light in that it enables us to utilize, by movements of reaction, theobjects that we see to be advantageous, and to avoid those which we seeto be injurious. Now, of course, as light may have produced apigment-spot by physical means, so it can physically determine themovements of certain organisms; ciliated Infusoria, for instance, reactto light. But no one would hold that the influence of light hasphysically caused the formation of a nervous system, of a muscularsystem, of an osseous system, all things which are continuous with theapparatus of vision in vertebrate animals. The truth is, when onespeaks of the gradual formation of the eye, and, still more, when onetakes into account all that is inseparably connected with it, one bringsin something entirely different from the direct action of light. Oneimplicitly attributes to organized matter a certain capacity _suigeneris_, the mysterious power of building up very complicated machinesto utilize the simple excitation that it undergoes. 

But this is just what is claimed to be unnecessary. Physics andchemistry are said to give us the key to everything. Eimer's great workis instructive in this respect. It is well known what persevering effortthis biologist has devoted to demonstrating that transformation isbrought about by the influence of the external on the internal, continuously exerted in the same direction, and not, as Darwin held, byaccidental variations. His theory rests on observations of the highestinterest, of which the starting-point was the study of the coursefollowed by the color variation of the skin in certain lizards. Beforethis, the already old experiments of Dorfmeister had shown that the samechrysalis, according as it was submitted to cold or heat, gave rise tovery different butterflies, which had long been regarded as independentspecies, _Vanessa levana_ and _Vanessa prorsa_: an intermediatetemperature produces an intermediate form. We might class with thesefacts the important transformations observed in a little crustacean, _Artemia salina_, when the salt of the water it lives in is increased ordiminished. [32] In these various experiments the external agent seems toact as a cause of transformation. But what does the word "cause" meanhere? Without undertaking an exhaustive analysis of the idea ofcausality, we will merely remark that three very different meanings ofthis term are commonly confused. A cause may act by _impelling_, _releasing_, or _unwinding_. The billiard-ball, that strikes another, determines its movement by _impelling_. The spark that explodes thepowder acts by _releasing_. The gradual relaxing of the spring, thatmakes the phonograph turn, _unwinds_ the melody inscribed on thecylinder: if the melody which is played be the effect, and the relaxingof the spring the cause, we must say that the cause acts by _unwinding_. What distinguishes these three cases from each other is the greater orless solidarity between the cause and the effect. In the first, thequantity and quality of the effect vary with the quantity and quality ofthe cause. In the second, neither quality nor quantity of the effectvaries with quality and quantity of the cause: the effect is invariable. In the third, the quantity of the effect depends on the quantity of thecause, but the cause does not influence the quality of the effect: thelonger the cylinder turns by the action of the spring, the more of themelody I shall hear, but the nature of the melody, or of the part heard, does not depend on the action of the spring. Only in the first case, really, does cause _explain_ effect; in the others the effect is more orless given in advance, and the antecedent invoked is--in differentdegrees, of course--its occasion rather than its cause. Now, in sayingthat the saltness of the water is the cause of the transformations ofArtemia, or that the degree of temperature determines the color andmarks of the wings which a certain chrysalis will assume on becoming abutterfly, is the word "cause" used in the first sense? Obviously not:causality has here an intermediary sense between those of unwinding andreleasing. Such, indeed, seems to be Eimer's own meaning when he speaksof the "kaleidoscopic" character of the variation, [33] or when he saysthat the variation of organized matter works in a definite way, just asinorganic matter crystallizes in definite directions. [34] And it may begranted, perhaps, that the process is a merely physical and chemical onein the case of the color-changes of the skin. But if this sort ofexplanation is extended to the case of the gradual formation of the eyeof the vertebrate, for instance, it must be supposed that thephysico-chemistry of living bodies is such that the influence of lighthas caused the organism to construct a progressive series of visualapparatus, all extremely complex, yet all capable of seeing, and ofseeing better and better. [35] What more could the most confirmedfinalist say, in order to mark out so exceptional a physico-chemistry?And will not the position of a mechanistic philosophy become still moredifficult, when it is pointed out to it that the egg of a mollusc cannothave the same chemical composition as that of a vertebrate, that theorganic substance which evolved toward the first of these two formscould not have been chemically identical with that of the substancewhich went in the other direction, and that, nevertheless, under theinfluence of light, the same organ has been constructed in the one caseas in the other?

The more we reflect upon it, the more we shall see that this productionof the same effect by two different accumulations of an enormous numberof small causes is contrary to the principles of mechanistic philosophy. We have concentrated the full force of our discussion upon an exampledrawn from phylogenesis. But ontogenesis would have furnished us withfacts no less cogent. Every moment, right before our eyes, naturearrives at identical results, in sometimes neighboring species, byentirely different embryogenic processes. Observations of"heteroblastia" have multiplied in late years, [36] and it has beennecessary to reject the almost classical theory of the specificity ofembryonic gills. Still keeping to our comparison between the eye ofvertebrates and that of molluscs, we may point out that the retina ofthe vertebrate is produced by an expansion in the rudimentary brain ofthe young embryo. It is a regular nervous centre which has moved towardthe periphery. In the mollusc, on the contrary, the retina is derivedfrom the ectoderm directly, and not indirectly by means of the embryonicencephalon. Quite different, therefore, are the evolutionary processeswhich lead, in man and in the Pecten, to the development of a likeretina. But, without going so far as to compare two organisms so distantfrom each other, we might reach the same conclusion simply by looking atcertain very curious facts of regeneration in one and the same organism. If the crystalline lens of a Triton be removed, it is regenerated by theiris. [37] Now, the original lens was built out of the ectoderm, whilethe iris is of mesodermic origin. What is more, in the _Salamandramaculata_, if the lens be removed and the iris left, the regeneration ofthe lens takes place at the upper part of the iris; but if this upperpart of the iris itself be taken away, the regeneration takes place inthe inner or retinal layer of the remaining region. [38] Thus, partsdifferently situated, differently constituted, meant normally fordifferent functions, are capable of performing the same duties and evenof manufacturing, when necessary, the same pieces of the machine. Herewe have, indeed, the same effect obtained by different combinations ofcauses. 

Whether we will or no, we must appeal to some inner directing principlein order to account for this convergence of effects. Such convergencedoes not appear possible in the Darwinian, and especially theneo-Darwinian, theory of insensible accidental variations, nor in thehypothesis of sudden accidental variations, nor even in the theory thatassigns definite directions to the evolution of the various organs by akind of mechanical composition of the external with the internal forces. So we come to the only one of the present forms of evolution whichremains for us to mention, viz. , neo-Lamarckism. 

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It is well known that Lamarck attributed to the living being the powerof varying by use or disuse of its organs, and also of passing on thevariation so acquired to its descendants. A certain number of biologistshold a doctrine of this kind to-day. The variation that results in a newspecies is not, they believe, merely an accidental variation inherent inthe germ itself, nor is it governed by a determinism _sui generis_ whichdevelops definite characters in a definite direction, apart from everyconsideration of utility. It springs from the very effort of the livingbeing to adapt itself to the circumstances of its existence. The effortmay indeed be only the mechanical exercise of certain organs, mechanically elicited by the pressure of external circumstances. But itmay also imply consciousness and will, and it is in this sense that itappears to be understood by one of the most eminent representatives ofthe doctrine, the American naturalist Cope. [39] Neo-Lamarckism istherefore, of all the later forms of evolutionism, the only one capableof admitting an internal and psychological principle of development, although it is not bound to do so. And it is also the only evolutionismthat seems to us to account for the building up of identical complexorgans on independent lines of development. For it is quite conceivablethat the same effort to turn the same circumstances to good accountmight have the same result, especially if the problem put by thecircumstances is such as to admit of only one solution. But the questionremains, whether the term "effort" must not then be taken in a deepersense, a sense even more psychological than any neo-Lamarckian supposes. 

For a mere variation of size is one thing, and a change of form isanother. That an organ can be strengthened and grow by exercise, nobodywill deny. But it is a long way from that to the progressive developmentof an eye like that of the molluscs and of the vertebrates. If thisdevelopment be ascribed to the influence of light, long continued butpassively received, we fall back on the theory we have just criticized. If, on the other hand, an internal activity is appealed to, then it mustbe something quite different from what we usually call an effort, fornever has an effort been known to produce the slightest complication ofan organ, and yet an enormous number of complications, all admirablycoördinated, have been necessary to pass from the pigment-spot of theInfusorian to the eye of the vertebrate. But, even if we accept thisnotion of the evolutionary process in the case of animals, how can weapply it to plants? Here, variations of form do not seem to imply, noralways to lead to, functional changes; and even if the cause of thevariation is of a psychological nature, we can hardly call it an effort, unless we give a very unusual extension to the meaning of the word. Thetruth is, it is necessary to dig beneath the effort itself and look fora deeper cause. 

This is especially necessary, we believe, if we wish to get at a causeof regular hereditary variations. We are not going to enter here intothe controversies over the transmissibility of acquired characters;still less do we wish to take too definite a side on this question, which is not within our province. But we cannot remain completelyindifferent to it. Nowhere is it clearer that philosophers can notto-day content themselves with vague generalities, but must follow thescientists in experimental detail and discuss the results with them. IfSpencer had begun by putting to himself the question of thehereditability of acquired characters, his evolutionism would no doubthave taken an altogether different form. If (as seems probable to us) ahabit contracted by the individual were transmitted to its descendantsonly in very exceptional cases, all the Spencerian psychology would needremaking, and a large part of Spencer's philosophy would fall to pieces. Let us say, then, how the problem seems to us to present itself, and inwhat direction an attempt might be made to solve it. 

After having been affirmed as a dogma, the transmissibility of acquiredcharacters has been no less dogmatically denied, for reasons drawn _apriori_ from the supposed nature of germinal cells. It is well known howWeismann was led, by his hypothesis of the continuity of the germ-plasm, to regard the germinal cells--ova and spermatozoa--as almost independentof the somatic cells. Starting from this, it has been claimed, and isstill claimed by many, that the hereditary transmission of an acquiredcharacter is inconceivable. But if, perchance, experiment should showthat acquired characters are transmissible, it would prove thereby thatthe germ-plasm is not so independent of the somatic envelope as has beencontended, and the transmissibility of acquired characters would become_ipso facto_ conceivable; which amounts to saying that conceivabilityand inconceivability have nothing to do with the case, and thatexperience alone must settle the matter. But it is just here that thedifficulty begins. The acquired characters we are speaking of aregenerally habits or the effects of habit, and at the root of most habitsthere is a natural disposition. So that one can always ask whether it isreally the habit acquired by the soma of the individual that istransmitted, or whether it is not rather a natural aptitude, whichexisted prior to the habit. This aptitude would have remained inherentin the germ-plasm which the individual bears within him, as it was inthe individual himself and consequently in the germ whence he sprang. Thus, for instance, there is no proof that the mole has become blindbecause it has formed the habit of living underground; it is perhapsbecause its eyes were becoming atrophied that it condemned itself to alife underground. [40] If this is the case, the tendency to lose thepower of vision has been transmitted from germ to germ without anythingbeing acquired or lost by the soma of the mole itself. From the factthat the son of a fencing-master has become a good fencer much morequickly than his father, we cannot infer that the habit of the parenthas been transmitted to the child; for certain natural dispositions incourse of growth may have passed from the plasma engendering the fatherto the plasma engendering the son, may have grown on the way by theeffect of the primitive impetus, and thus assured to the son a greatersuppleness than the father had, without troubling, so to speak, aboutwhat the father did. So of many examples drawn from the progressivedomestication of animals: it is hard to say whether it is the acquiredhabit that is transmitted or only a certain natural tendency--that, indeed, which has caused such and such a particular species or certainof its representatives to be specially chosen for domestication. Thetruth is, when every doubtful case, every fact open to more than oneinterpretation, has been eliminated, there remains hardly a singleunquestionable example of acquired and transmitted peculiarities, beyondthe famous experiments of Brown-Séquard, repeated and confirmed by otherphysiologists. [41] By cutting the spinal cord or the sciatic nerve ofguinea-pigs, Brown-Séquard brought about an epileptic state which wastransmitted to the descendants. Lesions of the same sciatic nerve, ofthe restiform body, etc. , provoked various troubles in the guinea-pigwhich its progeny inherited sometimes in a quite different form:exophthalmia, loss of toes, etc. But it is not demonstrated that inthese different cases of hereditary transmission there had been a realinfluence of the soma of the animal on its germ-plasm. Weismann at onceobjected that the operations of Brown-Séquard might have introducedcertain special microbes into the body of the guinea-pig, which hadfound their means of nutrition in the nervous tissues and transmittedthe malady by penetrating into the sexual elements. [42] This objectionhas been answered by Brown-Séquard himself;[43] but a more plausibleone might be raised. Some experiments of Voisin and Peron have shownthat fits of epilepsy are followed by the elimination of a toxic bodywhich, when injected into animals, [44] is capable of producingconvulsive symptoms. Perhaps the trophic disorders following the nervelesions made by Brown-Séquard correspond to the formation of preciselythis convulsion-causing poison. If so, the toxin passed from theguinea-pig to its spermatozoon or ovum, and caused in the development ofthe embryo a general disturbance, which, however, had no visible effectsexcept at one point or another of the organism when developed. In thatcase, what occurred would have been somewhat the same as in theexperiments of Charrin, Delamare, and Moussu, where guinea-pigs ingestation, whose liver or kidney was injured, transmitted the lesion totheir progeny, simply because the injury to the mother's organ had givenrise to specific "cytotoxins" which acted on the corresponding organ ofthe foetus. [45] It is true that, in these experiments, as in a formerobservation of the same physiologists, [46] it was the already formedfoetus that was influenced by the toxins. But other researches ofCharrin have resulted in showing that the same effect may be produced, by an analogous process, on the spermatozoa and the ova. [47] Toconclude, then: the inheritance of an acquired peculiarity in theexperiments of Brown-Séquard can be explained by the effect of a toxinon the germ. The lesion, however well localized it seems, is transmittedby the same process as, for instance, the taint of alcoholism. But mayit not be the same in the case of every acquired peculiarity that hasbecome hereditary?

There is, indeed, one point on which both those who affirm and those whodeny the transmissibility of acquired characters are agreed, namely, that certain influences, such as that of alcohol, can affect at the sametime both the living being and the germ-plasm it contains. In such case, there is inheritance of a defect, and the result is _as if_ the soma ofthe parent had acted on the germ-plasm, although in reality soma andplasma have simply both suffered the action of the same cause. Now, suppose that the soma can influence the germ-plasm, as those believe whohold that acquired characters are transmissible. Is not the most naturalhypothesis to suppose that things happen in this second case as in thefirst, and that the direct effect of the influence of the soma is a_general_ alteration of the germ-plasm? If this is the case, it is byexception, and in some sort by accident, that the modification of thedescendant is the same as that of the parent. It is like thehereditability of the alcoholic taint: it passes from father tochildren, but it may take a different form in each child, and in none ofthem be like what it was in the father. Let the letter C represent thechange in the plasm, C being either positive or negative, that is tosay, showing either the gain or loss of certain substances. The effectwill not be an exact reproduction of the cause, nor will the change inthe germ-plasm, provoked by a certain modification of a certain part ofthe soma, determine a similar modification of the corresponding part ofthe new organism in process of formation, unless all the other nascentparts of this organism enjoy a kind of immunity as regards C: the samepart will then undergo alteration in the new organism, because ithappens that the development of this part is alone subject to the newinfluence. And, even then, the part might be altered in an entirelydifferent way from that in which the corresponding part was altered inthe generating organism. 

We should propose, then, to introduce a distinction between thehereditability of _deviation_ and that of _character_. An individualwhich acquires a new character thereby _deviates_ from the form itpreviously had, which form the germs, or oftener the half-germs, itcontains would have reproduced in their development. If thismodification does not involve the production of substances capable ofchanging the germ-plasm, or does not so affect nutrition as to deprivethe germ-plasm of certain of its elements, it will have no effect on theoffspring of the individual. This is probably the case as a rule. If, onthe contrary, it has some effect, this is likely to be due to a chemicalchange which it has induced in the germ-plasm. This chemical changemight, by exception, bring about the original modification again in theorganism which the germ is about to develop, but there are as many andmore chances that it will do something else. In this latter case, thegenerated organism will perhaps deviate from the normal type _as muchas_ the generating organism, but it will do so _differently_. It willhave inherited deviation and not character. In general, therefore, thehabits formed by an individual have probably no echo in its offspring;and when they have, the modification in the descendants may have novisible likeness to the original one. Such, at least, is the hypothesiswhich seems to us most likely. In any case, in default of proof to thecontrary, and so long as the decisive experiments called for by aneminent biologist[48] have not been made, we must keep to the actualresults of observation. Now, even if we take the most favorable view ofthe theory of the transmissibility of acquired characters, and assumethat the ostensible acquired character is not, in most cases, the moreor less tardy development of an innate character, facts show us thathereditary transmission is the exception and not the rule. How, then, shall we expect it to develop an organ such as the eye? When we think ofthe enormous number of variations, all in the same direction, that wemust suppose to be accumulated before the passage from the pigment-spotof the Infusorian to the eye of the mollusc and of the vertebrate ispossible, we do not see how heredity, as we observe it, could ever havedetermined this piling-up of differences, even supposing that individualefforts could have produced each of them singly. That is to say thatneo-Lamarckism is no more able than any other form of evolutionism tosolve the problem. 

 * * * * *

In thus submitting the various present forms of evolutionism to a commontest, in showing that they all strike against the same insurmountabledifficulty, we have in no wise the intention of rejecting themaltogether. On the contrary, each of them, being supported by aconsiderable number of facts, must be true in its way. Each of them mustcorrespond to a certain aspect of the process of evolution. Perhaps evenit is necessary that a theory should restrict itself exclusively to aparticular point of view, in order to remain scientific, _i. E. _ to givea precise direction to researches into detail. But the reality of whicheach of these theories takes a partial view must transcend them all. Andthis reality is the special object of philosophy, which is notconstrained to scientific precision because it contemplates nopractical application. Let us therefore indicate in a word or two thepositive contribution that each of the three present forms ofevolutionism seems to us to make toward the solution of the problem, what each of them leaves out, and on what point this threefold effortshould, in our opinion, converge in order to obtain a morecomprehensive, although thereby of necessity a less definite, idea ofthe evolutionary process. 

The neo-Darwinians are probably right, we believe, when they teach thatthe essential causes of variation are the differences inherent in thegerm borne by the individual, and not the experiences or behavior of theindividual in the course of his career. Where we fail to follow thesebiologists, is in regarding the differences inherent in the germ aspurely accidental and individual. We cannot help believing that thesedifferences are the development of an impulsion which passes from germto germ across the individuals, that they are therefore not pureaccidents, and that they might well appear at the same time, in the sameform, in all the representatives of the same species, or at least in acertain number of them. Already, in fact, the theory of _mutations_ ismodifying Darwinism profoundly on this point. It asserts that at a givenmoment, after a long period, the entire species is beset with a tendencyto change. The _tendency to change_, therefore, is not accidental. True, the change itself would be accidental, since the mutation works, according to De Vries, in different directions in the differentrepresentatives of the species. But, first we must see if the theory isconfirmed by many other vegetable species (De Vries has verified it onlyby the _OEnothera Lamarckiana_), [49] and then there is thepossibility, as we shall explain further on, that the part played bychance is much greater in the variation of plants than in that ofanimals, because, in the vegetable world, function does not depend sostrictly on form. Be that as it may, the neo-Darwinians are inclined toadmit that the periods of mutation are determinate. The direction of themutation may therefore be so as well, at least in animals, and to theextent we shall have to indicate. 

We thus arrive at a hypothesis like Eimer's, according to which thevariations of different characters continue from generation togeneration in definite directions. This hypothesis seems plausible tous, within the limits in which Eimer himself retains it. Of course, theevolution of the organic world cannot be predetermined as a whole. Weclaim, on the contrary, that the spontaneity of life is manifested by acontinual creation of new forms succeeding others. But thisindetermination cannot be complete; it must leave a certain part todetermination. An organ like the eye, for example, must have been formedby just a continual changing in a definite direction. Indeed, we do notsee how otherwise to explain the likeness of structure of the eye inspecies that have not the same history. Where we differ from Eimer is inhis claim that combinations of physical and chemical causes are enoughto secure the result. We have tried to prove, on the contrary, by theexample of the eye, that if there is "orthogenesis" here, apsychological cause intervenes. 

Certain neo-Lamarckians do indeed resort to a cause of a psychologicalnature. There, to our thinking, is one of the most solid positions ofneo-Lamarckism. But if this cause is nothing but the conscious effort ofthe individual, it cannot operate in more than a restricted number ofcases--at most in the animal world, and not at all in the vegetablekingdom. Even in animals, it will act only on points which are under thedirect or indirect control of the will. And even where it does act, itis not clear how it could compass a change so profound as an increase ofcomplexity: at most this would be conceivable if the acquired characterswere regularly transmitted so as to be added together; but thistransmission seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Ahereditary change in a definite direction, which continues to accumulateand add to itself so as to build up a more and more complex machine, must certainly be related to some sort of effort, but to an effort offar greater depth than the individual effort, far more independent ofcircumstances, an effort common to most representatives of the samespecies, inherent in the germs they bear rather than in their substancealone, an effort thereby assured of being passed on to theirdescendants. 

 * * * * *

So we come back, by a somewhat roundabout way, to the idea we startedfrom, that of an _original impetus_ of life, passing from one generationof germs to the following generation of germs through the developedorganisms which bridge the interval between the generations. Thisimpetus, sustained right along the lines of evolution among which itgets divided, is the fundamental cause of variations, at least of thosethat are regularly passed on, that accumulate and create new species. Ingeneral, when species have begun to diverge from a common stock, theyaccentuate their divergence as they progress in their evolution. Yet, incertain definite points, they may evolve identically; in fact, they mustdo so if the hypothesis of a common impetus be accepted. This is justwhat we shall have to show now in a more precise way, by the sameexample we have chosen, the formation of the eye in molluscs andvertebrates. The idea of an "original impetus, " moreover, will thus bemade clearer. 

Two points are equally striking in an organ like the eye: the complexityof its structure and the simplicity of its function. The eye is composedof distinct parts, such as the sclerotic, the cornea, the retina, thecrystalline lens, etc. In each of these parts the detail is infinite. The retina alone comprises three layers of nervous elements--multipolarcells, bipolar cells, visual cells--each of which has its individualityand is undoubtedly a very complicated organism: so complicated, indeed, is the retinal membrane in its intimate structure, that no simpledescription can give an adequate idea of it. The mechanism of the eyeis, in short, composed of an infinity of mechanisms, all of extremecomplexity. Yet vision is one simple fact. As soon as the eye opens, thevisual act is effected. Just because the act is simple, the slightestnegligence on the part of nature in the building of the infinitelycomplex machine would have made vision impossible. This contrast betweenthe complexity of the organ and the unity of the function is what givesus pause. 

A mechanistic theory is one which means to show us the gradualbuilding-up of the machine under the influence of external circumstancesintervening either directly by action on the tissues or indirectly bythe selection of better-adapted ones. But, whatever form this theory maytake, supposing it avails at all to explain the detail of the parts, itthrows no light on their correlation. 

Then comes the doctrine of finality, which says that the parts have beenbrought together on a preconceived plan with a view to a certain end. Inthis it likens the labor of nature to that of the workman, who alsoproceeds by the assemblage of parts with a view to the realization of anidea or the imitation of a model. Mechanism, here, reproaches finalismwith its anthropomorphic character, and rightly. But it fails to seethat itself proceeds according to this method--somewhat mutilated! True, it has got rid of the end pursued or the ideal model. But it also holdsthat nature has worked like a human being by bringing parts together, while a mere glance at the development of an embryo shows that life goesto work in a very different way. _Life does not proceed by theassociation and addition of elements, but by dissociation and division. _

We must get beyond both points of view, both mechanism and finalismbeing, at bottom, only standpoints to which the human mind has been ledby considering the work of man. But in what direction can we go beyondthem? We have said that in analyzing the structure of an organ, we cango on decomposing for ever, although the function of the whole is asimple thing. This contrast between the infinite complexity of the organand the extreme simplicity of the function is what should open our eyes. 

In general, when the same object appears in one aspect and in another asinfinitely complex, the two aspects have by no means the sameimportance, or rather the same degree of reality. In such cases, thesimplicity belongs to the object itself, and the infinite complexity tothe views we take in turning around it, to the symbols by which oursenses or intellect represent it to us, or, more generally, to elements_of a different order_, with which we try to imitate it artificially, but with which it remains incommensurable, being of a different nature. An artist of genius has painted a figure on his canvas. We can imitatehis picture with many-colored squares of mosaic. And we shall reproducethe curves and shades of the model so much the better as our squares aresmaller, more numerous and more varied in tone. But an infinity ofelements infinitely small, presenting an infinity of shades, would benecessary to obtain the exact equivalent of the figure that the artisthas conceived as a simple thing, which he has wished to transport as awhole to the canvas, and which is the more complete the more it strikesus as the projection of an indivisible intuition. Now, suppose our eyesso made that they cannot help seeing in the work of the master a mosaiceffect. Or suppose our intellect so made that it cannot explain theappearance of the figure on the canvas except as a work of mosaic. Weshould then be able to speak simply of a collection of little squares, and we should be under the mechanistic hypothesis. We might add that, beside the materiality of the collection, there must be a plan on whichthe artist worked; and then we should be expressing ourselves asfinalists. But in neither case should we have got at the real process, for there are no squares brought together. It is the picture, _i. E. _ thesimple act, projected on the canvas, which, by the mere fact of enteringinto our perception, is _de_composed before our eyes into thousands andthousands of little squares which present, as _re_composed, a wonderfularrangement. So the eye, with its marvelous complexity of structure, maybe only the simple act of vision, divided _for us_ into a mosaic ofcells, whose order seems marvelous to us because we have conceived thewhole as an assemblage. 

If I raise my hand from A to B, this movement appears to me under twoaspects at once. Felt from within, it is a simple, indivisible act. Perceived from without, it is the course of a certain curve, AB. In thiscurve I can distinguish as many positions as I please, and the lineitself might be defined as a certain mutual coördination of thesepositions. But the positions, infinite in number, and the order in whichthey are connected, have sprung automatically from the indivisible actby which my hand has gone from A to B. Mechanism, here, would consistin seeing only the positions. Finalism would take their order intoaccount. But both mechanism and finalism would leave on one side themovement, which is reality itself. In one sense, the movement is _more_than the positions and than their order; for it is sufficient to make itin its indivisible simplicity to secure that the infinity of thesuccessive positions as also their order be given at once--withsomething else which is neither order nor position but which isessential, the mobility. But, in another sense, the movement is _less_than the series of positions and their connecting order; for, to arrangepoints in a certain order, it is necessary first to conceive the orderand then to realize it with points, there must be the work of assemblageand there must be intelligence, whereas the simple movement of the handcontains nothing of either. It is not intelligent, in the human sense ofthe word, and it is not an assemblage, for it is not made up ofelements. Just so with the relation of the eye to vision. There is invision _more_ than the component cells of the eye and their mutualcoördination: in this sense, neither mechanism nor finalism go farenough. But, in another sense, mechanism and finalism both go too far, for they attribute to Nature the most formidable of the labors ofHercules in holding that she has exalted to the simple act of vision aninfinity of infinitely complex elements, whereas Nature has had no moretrouble in making an eye than I have in lifting my hand. Nature's simpleact has divided itself automatically into an infinity of elements whichare then found to be coördinated to one idea, just as the movement of myhand has dropped an infinity of points which are then found to satisfyone equation. 

We find it very hard to see things in that light, because we cannothelp conceiving organization as manufacturing. But it is one thing tomanufacture, and quite another to organize. Manufacturing is peculiar toman. It consists in assembling parts of matter which we have cut out insuch manner that we can fit them together and obtain from them a commonaction. The parts are arranged, so to speak, around the action as anideal centre. To manufacture, therefore, is to work from the peripheryto the centre, or, as the philosophers say, from the many to the one. Organization, on the contrary, works from the centre to the periphery. It begins in a point that is almost a mathematical point, and spreadsaround this point by concentric waves which go on enlarging. The work ofmanufacturing is the more effective, the greater the quantity of matterdealt with. It proceeds by concentration and compression. The organizingact, on the contrary, has something explosive about it: it needs at thebeginning the smallest possible place, a minimum of matter, as if theorganizing forces only entered space reluctantly. The spermatozoon, which sets in motion the evolutionary process of the embryonic life, isone of the smallest cells of the organism; and it is only a small partof the spermatozoon which really takes part in the operation. 

But these are only superficial differences. Digging beneath them, wethink, a deeper difference would be found. 

A manufactured thing delineates exactly the form of the work ofmanufacturing it. I mean that the manufacturer finds in his productexactly what he has put into it. If he is going to make a machine, hecuts out its pieces one by one and then puts them together: the machine, when made, will show both the pieces and their assemblage. The whole ofthe result represents the whole of the work; and to each part of thework corresponds a part of the result. 

Now I recognize that positive science can and should proceed as iforganization was like making a machine. Only so will it have any hold onorganized bodies. For its object is not to show us the essence ofthings, but to furnish us with the best means of acting on them. Physicsand chemistry are well advanced sciences, and living matter lends itselfto our action only so far as we can treat it by the processes of ourphysics and chemistry. Organization can therefore only be studiedscientifically if the organized body has first been likened to amachine. The cells will be the pieces of the machine, the organism theirassemblage, and the elementary labors which have organized the partswill be regarded as the real elements of the labor which has organizedthe whole. This is the standpoint of science. Quite different, in ouropinion, is that of philosophy. 

For us, the whole of an organized machine may, strictly speaking, represent the whole of the organizing work (this is, however, onlyapproximately true), yet the parts of the machine do not correspond toparts of the work, because _the materiality of this machine does notrepresent a sum of means employed, but a sum of obstacles avoided_: itis a negation rather than a positive reality. So, as we have shown in aformer study, vision is a power which should attain _by right_ aninfinity of things inaccessible to our eyes. But such a vision would notbe continued into action; it might suit a phantom, but not a livingbeing. The vision of a living being is an _effective_ vision, limited toobjects on which the being can act: it is a vision that is _canalized_, and the visual apparatus simply symbolizes the work of canalizing. Therefore the creation of the visual apparatus is no more explained bythe assembling of its anatomic elements than the digging of a canalcould be explained by the heaping up of the earth which might haveformed its banks. A mechanistic theory would maintain that the earthhad been brought cart-load by cart-load; finalism would add that it hadnot been dumped down at random, that the carters had followed a plan. But both theories would be mistaken, for the canal has been made inanother way. 

With greater precision, we may compare the process by which natureconstructs an eye to the simple act by which we raise the hand. But wesupposed at first that the hand met with no resistance. Let us nowimagine that, instead of moving in air, the hand has to pass throughiron filings which are compressed and offer resistance to it inproportion as it goes forward. At a certain moment the hand will haveexhausted its effort, and, at this very moment, the filings will bemassed and coördinated in a certain definite form, to wit, that of thehand that is stopped and of a part of the arm. Now, suppose that thehand and arm are invisible. Lookers-on will seek the reason of thearrangement in the filings themselves and in forces within the mass. Some will account for the position of each filing by the action exertedupon it by the neighboring filings: these are the mechanists. Otherswill prefer to think that a plan of the whole has presided over thedetail of these elementary actions: they are the finalists. But thetruth is that there has been merely one indivisible act, that of thehand passing through the filings: the inexhaustible detail of themovement of the grains, as well as the order of their final arrangement, expresses negatively, in a way, this undivided movement, being theunitary form of a resistance, and not a synthesis of positive elementaryactions. For this reason, if the arrangement of the grains is termed an"effect" and the movement of the hand a "cause, " it may indeed be saidthat the whole of the effect is explained by the whole of the cause, butto parts of the cause parts of the effect will in no wise correspond. In other words, neither mechanism nor finalism will here be in place, and we must resort to an explanation of a different kind. Now, in thehypothesis we propose, the relation of vision to the visual apparatuswould be very nearly that of the hand to the iron filings that follow, canalize and limit its motion. 

The greater the effort of the hand, the farther it will go into thefilings. But at whatever point it stops, instantaneously andautomatically the filings coördinate and find their equilibrium. So withvision and its organ. According as the undivided act constituting visionadvances more or less, the materiality of the organ is made of a more orless considerable number of mutually coördinated elements, but the orderis necessarily complete and perfect. It could not be partial, because, once again, the real process which gives rise to it has no parts. Thatis what neither mechanism nor finalism takes into account, and it iswhat we also fail to consider when we wonder at the marvelous structureof an instrument such as the eye. At the bottom of our wondering isalways this idea, that it would have been possible for _a part only_ ofthis coördination to have been realized, that the complete realizationis a kind of special favor. This favor the finalists consider asdispensed to them all at once, by the final cause; the mechanists claimto obtain it little by little, by the effect of natural selection; butboth see something positive in this coördination, and consequentlysomething fractionable in its cause, --something which admits of everypossible degree of achievement. In reality, the cause, though more orless intense, cannot produce its effect except in one piece, andcompletely finished. According as it goes further and further in thedirection of vision, it gives the simple pigmentary masses of a lowerorganism, or the rudimentary eye of a Serpula, or the slightlydifferentiated eye of the Alciope, or the marvelously perfected eye ofthe bird; but all these organs, unequal as is their complexity, necessarily present an equal coördination. For this reason, no matterhow distant two animal species may be from each other, if the progresstoward vision has gone equally far in both, there is the same visualorgan in each case, for the form of the organ only expresses the degreein which the exercise of the function has been obtained. 

But, in speaking of a progress toward vision, are we not coming back tothe old notion of finality? It would be so, undoubtedly, if thisprogress required the conscious or unconscious idea of an end to beattained. But it is really effected in virtue of the original impetus oflife; it is implied in this movement itself, and that is just why it isfound in independent lines of evolution. If now we are asked why and howit is implied therein, we reply that life is, more than anything else, atendency to act on inert matter. The direction of this action is notpredetermined; hence the unforeseeable variety of forms which life, inevolving, sows along its path. But this action always presents, to someextent, the character of contingency; it implies at least a rudiment ofchoice. Now a choice involves the anticipatory idea of several possibleactions. Possibilities of action must therefore be marked out for theliving being before the action itself. Visual perception is nothingelse:[50] the visible outlines of bodies are the design of our eventualaction on them. Vision will be found, therefore, in different degrees inthe most diverse animals, and it will appear in the same complexity ofstructure wherever it has reached the same degree of intensity. 

We have dwelt on these resemblances of structure in general, and on theexample of the eye in particular, because we had to define our attitudetoward mechanism on the one hand and finalism on the other. It remainsfor us to describe it more precisely in itself. This we shall now do byshowing the divergent results of evolution not as presenting analogies, but as themselves mutually complementary. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: _Matière et mémoire_, Paris, 1896, chaps. Ii. And iii. ]

[Footnote 4: Calkins, _Studies on the Life History of Protozoa (Archivf. Entwicklungsmechanik_, vol. Xv. , 1903, pp. 139-186). ]

[Footnote 5: Sedgwick Minot, _On Certain Phenomena of Growing Old_(_Proc. Amer. Assoc. For the Advancement of Science_, 39th Meeting, Salem, 1891, pp. 271-288). ]

[Footnote 6: Le Dantec, _L'Individualité et l'erreur individualiste_, Paris, 1905, pp. 84 ff. ]

[Footnote 7: Metchnikoff, _La Dégénérescence sénile_ (_Annéebiologique_, iii. , 1897, pp. 249 ff. ). Cf. By the same author, _LaNature humaine_, Paris, 1903, pp. 312 ff. ]

[Footnote 8: Roule, _L'Embryologie générale_, Paris, 1893, p. 319. ]

[Footnote 9: The irreversibility of the series of living beings has beenwell set forth by Baldwin (_Development and Evolution_, New York, 1902;in particular p. 327). ]

[Footnote 10: We have dwelt on this point and tried to make it clear inthe _Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience_, pp. 140-151. ]

[Footnote 11: In his fine work on _Genius in Art_ (_Le Génie dansl'art_), M. Séailles develops this twofold thesis, that art is acontinuation of nature and that life is creation. We should willinglyaccept the second formula; but by creation must we understand, as theauthor does, a _synthesis_ of elements? Where the elements pre-exist, the synthesis that will be made is virtually given, being only one ofthe possible arrangements. This arrangement a superhuman intellect couldhave perceived in advance among all the possible ones that surround it. We hold, on the contrary, that in the domain of life the elements haveno real and separate existence. They are manifold mental views of anindivisible process. And for that reason there is radical contingency inprogress, incommensurability between what goes before and whatfollows--in short, duration. ]

[Footnote 12: Bütschli, _Untersuchungen über mikroskopische Schäume unddas Protoplasma_, Leipzig, 1892, First Part. ]

[Footnote 13: Rhumbler, _Versuch einer mechanischen Erklärung derindirekten Zell-und Kernteilung_ (_Roux's Archiv_, 1896). ]

[Footnote 14: Berthold, _Studien über Protoplasmamechanik_, Leipzig, 1886, p. 102. Cf. The explanation proposed by Le Dantec, _Théorienouvelle de la vie_, Paris, 1896, p. 60. ]

[Footnote 15: Cope, _The Primary Factors of Organic Evolution_, Chicago, 1896, pp. 475-484. ]

[Footnote 16: Maupas, "Etude des infusoires ciliés" (_Arch. De zoologieexpérimentale_, 1883, pp. 47, 491, 518, 549, in particular). P. Vignon, _Recherches de cytologie générale sur les épithéliums_, Paris, 1902, p. 655. A profound study of the motions of the Infusoria and a verypenetrating criticism of the idea of tropism have been made recently byJennings (_Contributions to the Study of the Behavior of LowerOrganisms_, Washington, 1904). The "type of behavior" of these lowerorganisms, as Jennings defines it (pp. 237-252), is unquestionably ofthe psychological order. ]

[Footnote 17: E. B. Wilson, _The Cell in Development and Inheritance_, New York, 1897, p. 330. ]

[Footnote 18: Dastre, _La Vie et la mort_, p. 43. ]

[Footnote 19: Laplace, _Introduction à la théorie analytique desprobabilités_ (_OEuvres complètes_, vol. Vii. , Paris, 1886, p. Vi. ). ]

[Footnote 20: Du Bois-Reymond, _Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens_, Leipzig, 1892. ]

[Footnote 21: There are really two lines to follow in contemporaryneo-vitalism: on the one hand, the assertion that pure mechanism isinsufficient, which assumes great authority when made by such scientistsas Driesch or Reinke, for example; and, on the other hand, thehypotheses which this vitalism superposes on mechanism (the"entelechies" of Driesch, and the "dominants" of Reinke, etc. ). Of thesetwo parts, the former is perhaps the more interesting. See the admirablestudies of Driesch--_Die Lokalisation morphogenetischer Vorgänge_, Leipzig, 1899; _Die organischen Regulationen_, Leipzig, 1901;_Naturbegriffe und Natururteile_, Leipzig, 1904; _Der Vitalismus alsGeschichte und als Lehre_, Leipzig, 1905; and of Reinke--_Die Welt alsTat_, Berlin, 1899; _Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie_, Berlin, 1901; _Philosophie der Botanik_, Leipzig, 1905. ]

[Footnote 22: P. Guérin, _Les Connaissances actuelles sur la fécondationchez les phanérogames_, Paris, 1904, pp. 144-148. Cf. Delage, _L'Hérédité_, 2nd edition, 1903, pp. 140 ff. ]

[Footnote 23: Möbius, _Beiträge zur Lehre von der Fortpflanzung derGewächse_, Jena, 1897, pp. 203-206 in particular. Cf. Hartog, "Sur lesphénomènes de reproduction" (_Année biologique_, 1895, pp. 707-709). ]

[Footnote 24: Paul Janet, _Les Causes finales_, Paris, 1876, p. 83. ]

[Footnote 25: _Ibid. _ p. 80. ]

[Footnote 26: Darwin, _Origin of Species_, chap. Ii. ]

[Footnote 27: Bateson, _Materials for the Study of Variation_, London, 1894, especially pp. 567 ff. Cf. Scott, "Variations and Mutations"(_American Journal of Science_, Nov. 1894). ]

[Footnote 28: De Vries, _Die Mutationstheorie_, Leipzig, 1901-1903. Cf. , by the same author, _Species and Varieties_, Chicago, 1905. ]

[Footnote 29: Darwin, _Origin of Species_, chap. Vi. ]

[Footnote 30: Darwin, _Origin of Species_, chap. I. ]

[Footnote 31: On this homology of hair and teeth, see Brandt, "Über . .. Eine mutmassliche Homologie der Haare und Zahne" (_Biol. Centralblatt_, vol. Xviii. , 1898, especially pp. 262 ff. ). ]

[Footnote 32: It seems, from later observations, that the transformationof Artemia is a more complex phenomenon than was first supposed. See onthis subject Samter and Heymons, "Die Variation bei Artemia Salina"(_Anhang zu den Abhandlungen der k. Preussischen Akad. DerWissenschaften_, 1902). ]

[Footnote 33: Eimer, _Orthogenesis der Schmetterlinge_, Leipzig, 1897, p. 24. Cf. _Die Entstehung der Arten_, p. 53. ]

[Footnote 34: Eimer, _Die Entstehung der Arten_, Jena, 1888, p. 25. ]

[Footnote 35: _Ibid. _ pp. 165 ff. ]

[Footnote 36: Salensky, "Heteroblastie" (_Proc. Of the FourthInternational Congress of Zoology_, London, 1899, pp. 111-118). Salenskyhas coined this word to designate the cases in which organs that areequivalent, but of different embryological origin, are formed at thesame points in animals related to each other. ]

[Footnote 37: Wolff, "Die Regeneration der Urodelenlinse" (_Arch. F. Entwicklungsmechanik_, i. , 1895, pp. 380 ff. ). ]

[Footnote 38: Fischel, "Über die Regeneration der Linse" (_Anat. Anzeiger_, xiv. , 1898, pp. 373-380). ]

[Footnote 39: Cope, _The Origin of the Fittest_, 1887; _The PrimaryFactors of Organic Evolution_, 1896. ]

[Footnote 40: Cuénot, "La Nouvelle Théorie transformiste" (_Revuegénérale des sciences_, 1894). Cf. Morgan, _Evolution and Adaptation_, London, 1903, p. 357. ]

[Footnote 41: Brown-Séquard, "Nouvelles recherches sur l'épilepsie due àcertaines lésions de la moelle épiniéere et des nerfs rachidiens"(_Arch. De physiologie_, vol. Ii. , 1866, pp. 211, 422, and 497). ]

[Footnote 42: Weismann, _Aufsätze über Vererbung_, Jena, 1892, pp. 376-378, and also _Vorträge über Descendenztheorie_, Jena, 1902, vol. Ii. , p. 76. ]

[Footnote 43: Brown-Séquard, "Hérédité d'une affection due à une causeaccidentelle" (_Arch. De physiologie_, 1892, pp. 686 ff. ). ]

[Footnote 44: Voisin and Peron, "Recherches sur la toxicité urinairechez les épileptiques" (_Arch. De neurologie_, vol. Xxiv. , 1892, andxxv. , 1893. Cf. The work of Voisin, _L'Épilepsie_, Paris, 1897, pp. 125-133). ]

[Footnote 45: Charrin, Delamare and Moussu, "Transmission expérimentaleaux descendants de lésions développées chez les ascendants" (_C. R. Del'Acad. Des sciences_, vol. Cxxxv. , 1902, p. 191). Cf. Morgan, _Evolution and Adaptation_, p. 257, and Delage, _L'Hérédité_, 2ndedition, p. 388. ]

[Footnote 46: Charrin and Delamare, "Hérédité cellulaire" (_C. R. Del'Acad. Des sciences_, vol. Cxxxiii. , 1901, pp. 69-71). ]

[Footnote 47: Charrin, "L'Hérédité pathologique" (_Revue générale dessciences_, 15 janvier 1896). ]

[Footnote 48: Giard, _Controverses transformistes_, Paris, 1904, p. 147. ]

[Footnote 49: Some analogous facts, however, have been noted, all in thevegetable world. See Blaringhem, "La Notion d'espèce et la théorie de lamutation" (_Année psychologique_, vol. Xii. , 1906, pp. 95 ff. ), and DeVries, _Species and Varieties_, p. 655. ]

[Footnote 50: See, on this subject, _Matière et mémoire_, chap. I. ]

CHAPTER II

THE DIVERGENT DIRECTIONS OF THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE. TORPOR, INTELLIGENCE, INSTINCT

The evolution movement would be a simple one, and we should soon havebeen able to determine its direction, if life had described a singlecourse, like that of a solid ball shot from a cannon. But it proceedsrather like a shell, which suddenly bursts into fragments, whichfragments, being themselves shells, burst in their turn into fragmentsdestined to burst again, and so on for a time incommensurably long. Weperceive only what is nearest to us, namely, the scattered movements ofthe pulverized explosions. From them we have to go back, stage by stage, to the original movement. 

When a shell bursts, the particular way it breaks is explained both bythe explosive force of the powder it contains and by the resistance ofthe metal. So of the way life breaks into individuals and species. Itdepends, we think, on two series of causes: the resistance life meetsfrom inert matter, and the explosive force--due to an unstable balanceof tendencies--which life bears within itself. 

The resistance of inert matter was the obstacle that had first to beovercome. Life seems to have succeeded in this by dint of humility, bymaking itself very small and very insinuating, bending to physical andchemical forces, consenting even to go a part of the way with them, likethe switch that adopts for a while the direction of the rail it isendeavoring to leave. Of phenomena in the simplest forms of life, it ishard to say whether they are still physical and chemical or whether theyare already vital. Life had to enter thus into the habits of inertmatter, in order to draw it little by little, magnetized, as it were, toanother track. The animate forms that first appeared were therefore ofextreme simplicity. They were probably tiny masses of scarcelydifferentiated protoplasm, outwardly resembling the amoeba observableto-day, but possessed of the tremendous internal push that was to raisethem even to the highest forms of life. That in virtue of this push thefirst organisms sought to grow as much as possible, seems likely. Butorganized matter has a limit of expansion that is very quickly reached;beyond a certain point it divides instead of growing. Ages of effort andprodigies of subtlety were probably necessary for life to get past thisnew obstacle. It succeeded in inducing an increasing number of elements, ready to divide, to remain united. By the division of labor it knottedbetween them an indissoluble bond. The complex and quasi-discontinuousorganism is thus made to function as would a continuous living masswhich had simply grown bigger. 

But the real and profound causes of division were those which life borewithin its bosom. For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency isto develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided. This we observein ourselves, in the evolution of that special tendency which we callour character. Each of us, glancing back over his history, will findthat his child-personality, though indivisible, united in itself diverspersons, which could remain blended just because they were in theirnascent state: this indecision, so charged with promise, is one of thegreatest charms of childhood. But these interwoven personalities becomeincompatible in course of growth, and, as each of us can live but onelife, a choice must perforce be made. We choose in reality withoutceasing; without ceasing, also, we abandon many things. The route wepursue in time is strewn with the remains of all that we began to be, ofall that we might have become. But nature, which has at command anincalculable number of lives, is in no wise bound to make suchsacrifices. She preserves the different tendencies that have bifurcatedwith their growth. She creates with them diverging series of speciesthat will evolve separately. 

These series may, moreover, be of unequal importance. The author whobegins a novel puts into his hero many things which he is obliged todiscard as he goes on. Perhaps he will take them up later in otherbooks, and make new characters with them, who will seem like extractsfrom, or rather like complements of, the first; but they will almostalways appear somewhat poor and limited in comparison with the originalcharacter. So with regard to the evolution of life. The bifurcations onthe way have been numerous, but there have been many blind alleys besidethe two or three highways; and of these highways themselves, only one, that which leads through the vertebrates up to man, has been wide enoughto allow free passage to the full breath of life. We get this impressionwhen we compare the societies of bees and ants, for instance, with humansocieties. The former are admirably ordered and united, but stereotyped;the latter are open to every sort of progress, but divided, andincessantly at strife with themselves. The ideal would be a societyalways in progress and always in equilibrium, but this ideal is perhapsunrealizable: the two characteristics that would fain complete eachother, which do complete each other in their embryonic state, can nolonger abide together when they grow stronger. If one could speak, otherwise than metaphorically, of an impulse toward social life, itmight be said that the brunt of the impulse was borne along the line ofevolution ending at man, and that the rest of it was collected on theroad leading to the hymenoptera: the societies of ants and bees wouldthus present the aspect complementary to ours. But this would be only amanner of expression. There has been no particular impulse towardssocial life; there is simply the general movement of life, which ondivergent lines is creating forms ever new. If societies should appearon two of these lines, they ought to show divergence of paths at thesame time as community of impetus. They will thus develop two classes ofcharacteristics which we shall find vaguely complementary of each other. 

So our study of the evolution movement will have to unravel a certainnumber of divergent directions, and to appreciate the importance of whathas happened along each of them--in a word, to determine the nature ofthe dissociated tendencies and estimate their relative proportion. Combining these tendencies, then, we shall get an approximation, orrather an imitation, of the indivisible motor principle whence theirimpetus proceeds. Evolution will thus prove to be something entirelydifferent from a series of adaptations to circumstances, as mechanismclaims; entirely different also from the realization of a plan of thewhole, as maintained by the doctrine of finality. 

 * * * * *

That adaptation to environment is the necessary condition of evolutionwe do not question for a moment. It is quite evident that a specieswould disappear, should it fail to bend to the conditions of existencewhich are imposed on it. But it is one thing to recognize that outercircumstances are forces evolution must reckon with, another to claimthat they are the directing causes of evolution. This latter theory isthat of mechanism. It excludes absolutely the hypothesis of an originalimpetus, I mean an internal push that has carried life, by more and morecomplex forms, to higher and higher destinies. Yet this impetus isevident, and a mere glance at fossil species shows us that life need nothave evolved at all, or might have evolved only in very restrictedlimits, if it had chosen the alternative, much more convenient toitself, of becoming anchylosed in its primitive forms. CertainForaminifera have not varied since the Silurian epoch. Unmoved witnessesof the innumerable revolutions that have upheaved our planet, theLingulae are to-day what they were at the remotest times of thepaleozoic era. 

The truth is that adaptation explains the sinuosities of the movement ofevolution, but not its general directions, still less the movementitself. [51] The road that leads to the town is obliged to follow the upsand downs of the hills; it _adapts itself_ to the accidents of theground; but the accidents of the ground are not the cause of the road, nor have they given it its direction. At every moment they furnish itwith what is indispensable, namely, the soil on which it lies; but if weconsider the whole of the road, instead of each of its parts, theaccidents of the ground appear only as impediments or causes of delay, for the road aims simply at the town and would fain be a straight line. Just so as regards the evolution of life and the circumstances throughwhich it passes--with this difference, that evolution does not mark outa solitary route, that it takes directions without aiming at ends, andthat it remains inventive even in its adaptations. 

But, if the evolution of life is something other than a series ofadaptations to accidental circumstances, so also it is not therealization of a plan. A plan is given in advance. It is represented, orat least representable, before its realization. The complete executionof it may be put off to a distant future, or even indefinitely; but theidea is none the less formulable at the present time, in terms actuallygiven. If, on the contrary, evolution is a creation unceasingly renewed, it creates, as it goes on, not only the forms of life, but the ideasthat will enable the intellect to understand it, the terms which willserve to express it. That is to say that its future overflows itspresent, and can not be sketched out therein in an idea. 

There is the first error of finalism. It involves another, yet moreserious. 

If life realizes a plan, it ought to manifest a greater harmony thefurther it advances, just as the house shows better and better the ideaof the architect as stone is set upon stone. If, on the contrary, theunity of life is to be found solely in the impetus that pushes it alongthe road of time, the harmony is not in front, but behind. The unity isderived from a _vis a tergo_: it is given at the start as an impulsion, not placed at the end as an attraction. In communicating itself, theimpetus splits up more and more. Life, in proportion to its progress, isscattered in manifestations which undoubtedly owe to their common originthe fact that they are complementary to each other in certain aspects, but which are none the less mutually incompatible and antagonistic. Sothe discord between species will go on increasing. Indeed, we have asyet only indicated the essential cause of it. We have supposed, for thesake of simplicity, that each species received the impulsion in order topass it on to others, and that, in every direction in which lifeevolves, the propagation is in a straight line. But, as a matter offact, there are species which are arrested; there are some thatretrogress. Evolution is not only a movement forward; in many cases weobserve a marking-time, and still more often a deviation or turningback. It must be so, as we shall show further on, and the same causesthat divide the evolution movement often cause life to be diverted fromitself, hypnotized by the form it has just brought forth. Thence resultsan increasing disorder. No doubt there is progress, if progress mean acontinual advance in the general direction determined by a firstimpulsion; but this progress is accomplished only on the two or threegreat lines of evolution on which forms ever more and more complex, evermore and more high, appear; between these lines run a crowd of minorpaths in which, on the contrary, deviations, arrests, and set-backs, aremultiplied. The philosopher, who begins by laying down as a principlethat each detail is connected with some general plan of the whole, goesfrom one disappointment to another as soon as he comes to examine thefacts; and, as he had put everything in the same rank, he finds that, asthe result of not allowing for accident, he must regard everything asaccidental. For accident, then, an allowance must first be made, and avery liberal allowance. We must recognize that all is not coherent innature. By so doing, we shall be led to ascertain the centres aroundwhich the incoherence crystallizes. This crystallization itself willclarify the rest; the main directions will appear, in which life ismoving whilst developing the original impulse. True, we shall notwitness the detailed accomplishment of a plan. Nature is more and betterthan a plan in course of realization. A plan is a term assigned to alabor: it closes the future whose form it indicates. Before theevolution of life, on the contrary, the portals of the future remainwide open. It is a creation that goes on for ever in virtue of aninitial movement. This movement constitutes the unity of the organizedworld--a prolific unity, of an infinite richness, superior to any thatthe intellect could dream of, for the intellect is only one of itsaspects or products. 

But it is easier to define the method than to apply it. The completeinterpretation of the evolution movement in the past, as we conceive it, would be possible only if the history of the development of theorganized world were entirely known. Such is far from being the case. The genealogies proposed for the different species are generallyquestionable. They vary with their authors, with the theoretic viewsinspiring them, and raise discussions to which the present state ofscience does not admit of a final settlement. But a comparison of thedifferent solutions shows that the controversy bears less on the mainlines of the movement than on matters of detail; and so, by followingthe main lines as closely as possible, we shall be sure of not goingastray. Moreover, they alone are important to us; for we do not aim, like the naturalist, at finding the order of succession of differentspecies, but only at defining the principal directions of theirevolution. And not all of these directions have the same interest forus: what concerns us particularly is the path that leads to man. Weshall therefore not lose sight of the fact, in following one directionand another, that our main business is to determine the relation of manto the animal kingdom, and the place of the animal kingdom itself in theorganized world as a whole. 

 * * * * *

To begin with the second point, let us say that no definitecharacteristic distinguishes the plant from the animal. Attempts todefine the two kingdoms strictly have always come to naught. There isnot a single property of vegetable life that is not found, in somedegree, in certain animals; not a single characteristic feature of theanimal that has not been seen in certain species or at certain momentsin the vegetable world. Naturally, therefore, biologists enamored ofclean-cut concepts have regarded the distinction between the twokingdoms as artificial. They would be right, if definition in this casemust be made, as in the mathematical and physical sciences, according tocertain statical attributes which belong to the object defined and arenot found in any other. Very different, in our opinion, is the kind ofdefinition which befits the sciences of life. There is no manifestationof life which does not contain, in a rudimentary state--either latent orpotential, --the essential characters of most other manifestations. Thedifference is in the proportions. But this very difference of proportionwill suffice to define the group, if we can establish that it is notaccidental, and that the group as it evolves, tends more and more toemphasize these particular characters. In a word, _the group must not bedefined by the possession of certain characters, but by its tendency toemphasize them_. From this point of view, taking tendencies rather thanstates into account, we find that vegetables and animals may beprecisely defined and distinguished, and that they correspond to twodivergent developments of life. 

This divergence is shown, first, in the method of alimentation. We knowthat the vegetable derives directly from the air and water and soil theelements necessary to maintain life, especially carbon and nitrogen, which it takes in mineral form. The animal, on the contrary, cannotassimilate these elements unless they have already been fixed for it inorganic substances by plants, or by animals which directly or indirectlyowe them to plants; so that ultimately the vegetable nourishes theanimal. True, this law allows of many exceptions among vegetables. We donot hesitate to class amongst vegetables the Drosera, the Dionaea, thePinguicula, which are insectivorous plants. On the other hand, thefungi, which occupy so considerable a place in the vegetable world, feedlike animals: whether they are ferments, saprophytes or parasites, it isto already formed organic substances that they owe their nourishment. Itis therefore impossible to draw from this difference any _static_definition such as would automatically settle in any particular case thequestion whether we are dealing with a plant or an animal. But thedifference may provide the beginning of a _dynamic_ definition of thetwo kingdoms, in that it marks the two divergent directions in whichvegetables and animals have taken their course. It is a remarkable factthat the fungi, which nature has spread all over the earth in suchextraordinary profusion, have not been able to evolve. Organically theydo not rise above tissues which, in the higher vegetables, are formed inthe embryonic sac of the ovary, and precede the germinative developmentof the new individual. [52] They might be called the abortive children ofthe vegetable world. Their different species are like so many blindalleys, as if, by renouncing the mode of alimentation customary amongstvegetables, they had been brought to a standstill on the highway ofvegetable evolution. As to the Drosera, the Dionaea, and insectivorousplants in general, they are fed by their roots, like other plants; theytoo fix, by their green parts, the carbon of the carbonic acid in theatmosphere. Their faculty of capturing, absorbing and digesting insectsmust have arisen late, in quite exceptional cases where the soil was toopoor to furnish sufficient nourishment. In a general way, then, if weattach less importance to the presence of special characters than totheir tendency to develop, and if we regard as essential that tendencyalong which evolution has been able to continue indefinitely, we may saythat vegetables are distinguished from animals by their power ofcreating organic matter out of mineral elements which they draw directlyfrom the air and earth and water. But now we come to another difference, deeper than this, though not unconnected with it. 

The animal, being unable to fix directly the carbon and nitrogen whichare everywhere to be found, has to seek for its nourishment vegetableswhich have already fixed these elements, or animals which have takenthem from the vegetable kingdom. So the animal must be able to move. From the amoeba, which thrusts out its pseudopodia at random to seizethe organic matter scattered in a drop of water, up to the higheranimals which have sense-organs with which to recognize their prey, locomotor organs to go and seize it, and a nervous system to coördinatetheir movements with their sensations, animal life is characterized, inits general direction, by mobility in space. In its most rudimentaryform, the animal is a tiny mass of protoplasm enveloped at most in athin albuminous pellicle which allows full freedom for change of shapeand movement. The vegetable cell, on the contrary, is surrounded by amembrane of cellulose, which condemns it to immobility. And, from thebottom to the top of the vegetable kingdom, there are the same habitsgrowing more and more sedentary, the plant having no need to move, andfinding around it, in the air and water and soil in which it is placed, the mineral elements it can appropriate directly. It is true thatphenomena of movement are seen in plants. Darwin has written awell-known work on the movements of climbing plants. He studied also thecontrivances of certain insectivorous plants, such as the Drosera andthe Dionaea, to seize their prey. The leaf-movements of the acacia, thesensitive plant, etc. , are well known. Moreover, the circulation of thevegetable protoplasm within its sheath bears witness to its relationshipto the protoplasm of animals, whilst in a large number of animal species(generally parasites) phenomena of fixation, analogous to those ofvegetables, can be observed. [53] Here, again, it would be a mistake toclaim that fixity and mobility are the two characters which enable us todecide, by simple inspection alone, whether we have before us a plant oran animal. But fixity, in the animal, generally seems like a torpor intowhich the species has fallen, a refusal to evolve further in a certaindirection; it is closely akin to parasitism and is accompanied byfeatures that recall those of vegetable life. On the other hand, themovements of vegetables have neither the frequency nor the variety ofthose of animals. Generally, they involve only part of the organism andscarcely ever extend to the whole. In the exceptional cases in which avague spontaneity appears in vegetables, it is as if we beheld theaccidental awakening of an activity normally asleep. In short, althoughboth mobility and fixity exist in the vegetable as in the animal world, the balance is clearly in favor of fixity in the one case and ofmobility in the other. These two opposite tendencies are so plainlydirective of the two evolutions that the two kingdoms might almost bedefined by them. But fixity and mobility, again, are only superficialsigns of tendencies that are still deeper. 

Between mobility and consciousness there is an obvious relationship. Nodoubt, the consciousness of the higher organisms seems bound up withcertain cerebral arrangements. The more the nervous system develops, the more numerous and more precise become the movements among which itcan choose; the clearer, also, is the consciousness that accompaniesthem. But neither this mobility nor this choice nor consequently thisconsciousness involves as a necessary condition the presence of anervous system; the latter has only canalized in definite directions, and brought up to a higher degree of intensity, a rudimentary and vagueactivity, diffused throughout the mass of the organized substance. Thelower we descend in the animal series, the more the nervous centres aresimplified, and the more, too, they separate from each other, tillfinally the nervous elements disappear, merged in the mass of a lessdifferentiated organism. But it is the same with all the otherapparatus, with all the other anatomical elements; and it would be asabsurd to refuse consciousness to an animal because it has no brain asto declare it incapable of nourishing itself because it has no stomach. The truth is that the nervous system arises, like the other systems, from a division of labor. It does not create the function, it onlybrings it to a higher degree of intensity and precision by giving it thedouble form of reflex and voluntary activity. To accomplish a truereflex movement, a whole mechanism is necessary, set up in the spinalcord or the medulla. To choose voluntarily between several definitecourses of action, cerebral centres are necessary, that is, crosswaysfrom which paths start, leading to motor mechanisms of diverse form butequal precision. But where nervous elements are not yet canalized, stillless concentrated into a system, there is something from which, by akind of splitting, both the reflex and the voluntary will arise, something which has neither the mechanical precision of the former northe intelligent hesitations of the latter, but which, partaking of bothit may be infinitesimally, is a reaction simply undecided, and thereforevaguely conscious. This amounts to saying that the humblest organism isconscious in proportion to its power to move _freely_. Is consciousnesshere, in relation to movement, the effect or the cause? In one sense itis the cause, since it has to direct locomotion. But in another sense itis the effect; for it is the motor activity that maintains it, and, oncethis activity disappears, consciousness dies away or rather fallsasleep. In crustaceans such as the rhizocephala, which must formerlyhave shown a more differentiated structure, fixity and parasitismaccompany the degeneration and almost complete disappearance of thenervous system. Since, in such a case, the progress of organization musthave localized all the conscious activity in nervous centres, we mayconjecture that consciousness is even weaker in animals of this kindthan in organisms much less differentiated, which have never had nervouscentres but have remained mobile. 

How then could the plant, which is fixed in the earth and finds its foodon the spot, have developed in the direction of conscious activity? Themembrane of cellulose, in which the protoplasm wraps itself up, not onlyprevents the simplest vegetable organism from moving, but screens italso, in some measure, from those outer stimuli which act on thesensibility of the animal as irritants and prevent it from going tosleep. [54] The plant is therefore unconscious. Here again, however, wemust beware of radical distinctions. "Unconscious" and "conscious" arenot two labels which can be mechanically fastened, the one on everyvegetable cell, the other on all animals. While consciousness sleeps inthe animal which has degenerated into a motionless parasite, it probablyawakens in the vegetable that has regained liberty of movement, andawakens in just the degree to which the vegetable has reconquered thisliberty. Nevertheless, consciousness and unconsciousness mark thedirections in which the two kingdoms have developed, in this sense, thatto find the best specimens of consciousness in the animal we must_ascend_ to the highest representatives of the series, whereas, to findprobable cases of vegetable consciousness, we must _descend_ as low aspossible in the scale of plants--down to the zoospores of the algae, forinstance, and, more generally, to those unicellular organisms which maybe said to hesitate between the vegetable form and animality. From thisstandpoint, and in this measure, we should define the animal bysensibility and awakened consciousness, the vegetable by consciousnessasleep and by insensibility. 

To sum up, the vegetable manufactures organic substances directly withmineral substances; as a rule, this aptitude enables it to dispense withmovement and so with feeling. Animals, which are obliged to go in searchof their food, have evolved in the direction of locomotor activity, andconsequently of a consciousness more and more distinct, more and moreample. 

 * * * * *

Now, it seems to us most probable that the animal cell and the vegetablecell are derived from a common stock, and that the first livingorganisms oscillated between the vegetable and animal form, participating in both at once. Indeed, we have just seen that thecharacteristic tendencies of the evolution of the two kingdoms, althoughdivergent, coexist even now, both in the plant and in the animal. Theproportion alone differs. Ordinarily, one of the two tendencies coversor crushes down the other, but in exceptional circumstances thesuppressed one starts up and regains the place it had lost. Themobility and consciousness of the vegetable cell are not so sound asleepthat they cannot rouse themselves when circumstances permit or demandit; and, on the other hand, the evolution of the animal kingdom hasalways been retarded, or stopped, or dragged back, by the tendency ithas kept toward the vegetative life. However full, however overflowingthe activity of an animal species may appear, torpor and unconsciousnessare always lying in wait for it. It keeps up its rôle only by effort, atthe price of fatigue. Along the route on which the animal has evolved, there have been numberless shortcomings and cases of decay, generallyassociated with parasitic habits; they are so many shuntings on to thevegetative life. Thus, everything bears out the belief that vegetableand animal are descended from a common ancestor which united thetendencies of both in a rudimentary state. 

But the two tendencies mutually implied in this rudimentary form becamedissociated as they grew. Hence the world of plants with its fixity andinsensibility, hence the animals with their mobility and consciousness. There is no need, in order to explain this dividing into two, to bringin any mysterious force. It is enough to point out that the living beingleans naturally toward what is most convenient to it, and thatvegetables and animals have chosen two different kinds of convenience inthe way of procuring the carbon and nitrogen they need. Vegetablescontinually and mechanically draw these elements from an environmentthat continually provides it. Animals, by action that is discontinuous, concentrated in certain moments, and conscious, go to find these bodiesin organisms that have already fixed them. They are two different waysof being industrious, or perhaps we may prefer to say, of being idle. For this very reason we doubt whether nervous elements, howeverrudimentary, will ever be found in the plant. What corresponds in it tothe directing will of the animal is, we believe, the direction in whichit bends the energy of the solar radiation when it uses it to break theconnection of the carbon with the oxygen in carbonic acid. Whatcorresponds in it to the sensibility of the animal is theimpressionability, quite of its kind, of its chlorophyl light. Now, anervous system being pre-eminently a mechanism which serves asintermediary between sensations and volitions, the true "nervous system"of the plant seems to be the mechanism or rather chemicism _sui generis_which serves as intermediary between the impressionability of itschlorophyl to light and the producing of starch: which amounts to sayingthat the plant can have no nervous elements, and that _the same impetusthat has led the animal to give itself nerves and nerve centres musthave ended, in the plant, in the chlorophyllian function_. [55]

 * * * * *

This first glance over the organized world will enable us to ascertainmore precisely what unites the two kingdoms, and also what separatesthem. 

Suppose, as we suggested in the preceding chapter, that at the root oflife there is an effort to engraft on to the necessity of physicalforces the largest possible amount of _indetermination_. This effortcannot result in the creation of energy, or, if it does, the quantitycreated does not belong to the order of magnitude apprehended by oursenses and instruments of measurement, our experience and science. Allthat the effort can do, then, is to make the best of a pre-existingenergy which it finds at its disposal. Now, it finds only one way ofsucceeding in this, namely, to secure such an accumulation of potentialenergy from matter, that it can get, at any moment, the amount of workit needs for its action, simply by pulling a trigger. The effort itselfpossesses only that power of releasing. But the work of releasing, although always the same and always smaller than any given quantity, will be the more effective the heavier the weight it makes fall and thegreater the height--or, in other words, the greater the sum of potentialenergy accumulated and disposable. As a matter of fact, the principalsource of energy usable on the surface of our planet is the sun. So theproblem was this: to obtain from the sun that it should partially andprovisionally suspend, here and there, on the surface of the earth, itscontinual outpour of usable energy, and store a certain quantity of it, in the form of unused energy, in appropriate reservoirs, whence it couldbe drawn at the desired moment, at the desired spot, in the desireddirection. The substances forming the food of animals are just suchreservoirs. Made of very complex molecules holding a considerable amountof chemical energy in the potential state, they are like explosiveswhich only need a spark to set free the energy stored within them. Now, it is probable that life tended at the beginning to compass at one andthe same time both the manufacture of the explosive and the explosion bywhich it is utilized. In this case, the same organism that had directlystored the energy of the solar radiation would have expended it in freemovements in space. And for that reason we must presume that the firstliving beings sought on the one hand to accumulate, without ceasing, energy borrowed from the sun, and on the other hand to expend it, in adiscontinuous and explosive way, in movements of locomotion. Evento-day, perhaps, a chlorophyl-bearing Infusorian such as the Euglena maysymbolize this primordial tendency of life, though in a mean form, incapable of evolving. Is the divergent development of the two kingdomsrelated to what one may call the oblivion of each kingdom as regards oneof the two halves of the programme? Or rather, which is more likely, wasthe very nature of the matter, that life found confronting it on ourplanet, opposed to the possibility of the two tendencies evolving veryfar together in the same organism? What is certain is that the vegetablehas trended principally in the first direction and the animal in thesecond. But if, from the very first, in making the explosive, nature hadfor object the explosion, then it is the evolution of the animal, ratherthan that of the vegetable, that indicates, on the whole, thefundamental direction of life. 

The "harmony" of the two kingdoms, the complementary characters theydisplay, might then be due to the fact that they develop two tendencieswhich at first were fused in one. The more the single original tendencygrows, the harder it finds it to keep united in the same living beingthose two elements which in the rudimentary state implied each other. Hence a parting in two, hence two divergent evolutions; hence also twoseries of characters opposed in certain points, complementary in others, but, whether opposed or complementary, always preserving an appearanceof kinship. While the animal evolved, not without accidents along theway, toward a freer and freer expenditure of discontinuous energy, theplant perfected rather its system of accumulation without moving. Weshall not dwell on this second point. Suffice it to say that the plantmust have been greatly benefited, in its turn, by a new division, analogous to that between plants and animals. While the primitivevegetable cell had to fix by itself both its carbon and its nitrogen, itbecame able almost to give up the second of these two functions as soonas microscopic vegetables came forward which leaned in this directionexclusively, and even specialized diversely in this still complicatedbusiness. The microbes that fix the nitrogen of the air and those whichconvert the ammoniacal compounds into nitrous ones, and these again intonitrates, have, by the same splitting up of a tendency primitively one, rendered to the whole vegetable world the same kind of service as thevegetables in general have rendered to animals. If a special kingdomwere to be made for these microscopic vegetables, it might be said thatin the microbes of the soil, the vegetables and the animals, we havebefore us the _analysis_, carried out by the matter that life found atits disposal on our planet, of all that life contained, at the outset, in a state of reciprocal implication. Is this, properly speaking, a"division of labor"? These words do not give the exact idea ofevolution, such as we conceive it. Wherever there is division of labor, there is _association_ and also _convergence_ of effort. Now, theevolution we are speaking of is never achieved by means of association, but by _dissociation_; it never tends toward convergence, but toward_divergence_ of efforts. The harmony between terms that are mutuallycomplementary in certain points is not, in our opinion, produced, incourse of progress, by a reciprocal adaptation; on the contrary, it iscomplete only at the start. It arises from an original identity, fromthe fact that the evolutionary process, splaying out like a sheaf, sunders, in proportion to their simultaneous growth, terms which atfirst completed each other so well that they coalesced. 

Now, the elements into which a tendency splits up are far frompossessing the same importance, or, above all, the same power to evolve. We have just distinguished three different kingdoms, if one may soexpress it, in the organized world. While the first comprises onlymicroorganisms which have remained in the rudimentary state, animals andvegetables have taken their flight toward very lofty fortunes. Such, indeed, is generally the case when a tendency divides. Among thedivergent developments to which it gives rise, some go on indefinitely, others come more or less quickly to the end of their tether. Theselatter do not issue directly from the primitive tendency, but from oneof the elements into which it has divided; they are residualdevelopments made and left behind on the way by some truly elementarytendency which continues to evolve. Now, these truly elementarytendencies, we think, bear a mark by which they may be recognized. 

This mark is like a trace, still visible in each, of what was in theoriginal tendency of which they represent the elementary directions. Theelements of a tendency are not like objects set beside each other inspace and mutually exclusive, but rather like psychic states, each ofwhich, although it be itself to begin with, yet partakes of others, andso virtually includes in itself the whole personality to which itbelongs. There is no real manifestation of life, we said, that does notshow us, in a rudimentary or latent state, the characters of othermanifestations. Conversely, when we meet, on one line of evolution, arecollection, so to speak, of what is developed along other lines, wemust conclude that we have before us dissociated elements of one and thesame original tendency. In this sense, vegetables and animals representthe two great divergent developments of life. Though the plant isdistinguished from the animal by fixity and insensibility, movement andconsciousness sleep in it as recollections which may waken. But, besidethese normally sleeping recollections, there are others awake andactive, just those, namely, whose activity does not obstruct thedevelopment of the elementary tendency itself. We may then formulatethis law: _When a tendency splits up in the course of its development, each of the special tendencies which thus arise tries to preserve anddevelop everything in the primitive tendency that is not incompatiblewith the work for which it is specialized. _ This explains precisely thefact we dwelt on in the preceding chapter, viz. , the formation ofidentical complex mechanisms on independent lines of evolution. Certaindeep-seated analogies between the animal and the vegetable have probablyno other cause: sexual generation is perhaps only a luxury for theplant, but to the animal it was a necessity, and the plant must havebeen driven to it by the same impetus which impelled the animal thereto, a primitive, original impetus, anterior to the separation of the twokingdoms. The same may be said of the tendency of the vegetable towardsa growing complexity. This tendency is essential to the animal kingdom, ever tormented by the need of more and more extended and effectiveaction. But the vegetable, condemned to fixity and insensibility, exhibits the same tendency only because it received at the outset thesame impulsion. Recent experiments show that it varies at random whenthe period of "mutation" arrives; whereas the animal must have evolved, we believe, in much more definite directions. But we will not dwellfurther on this original doubling of the modes of life. Let us come tothe evolution of animals, in which we are more particularly interested. 

What constitutes animality, we said, is the faculty of utilizing areleasing mechanism for the conversion of as much stored-up potentialenergy as possible into "explosive" actions. In the beginning theexplosion is haphazard, and does not choose its direction. Thus theamoeba thrusts out its pseudopodic prolongations in all directions atonce. But, as we rise in the animal scale, the form of the body itselfis observed to indicate a certain number of very definite directionsalong which the energy travels. These directions are marked by so manychains of nervous elements. Now, the nervous element has graduallyemerged from the barely differentiated mass of organized tissue. It may, therefore, be surmised that in the nervous element, as soon as itappears, and also in its appendages, the faculty of suddenly freeing thegradually stored-up energy is concentrated. No doubt, every living cellexpends energy without ceasing, in order to maintain its equilibrium. The vegetable cell, torpid from the start, is entirely absorbed in thiswork of maintenance alone, as if it took for end what must at first havebeen only a means. But, in the animal, all points to action, that is, tothe utilization of energy for movements from place to place. True, everyanimal cell expends a good deal--often the whole--of the energy at itsdisposal in keeping itself alive; but the organism as a whole tries toattract as much energy as possible to those points where the locomotivemovements are effected. So that where a nervous system exists, with itscomplementary sense-organs and motor apparatus, everything should happenas if the rest of the body had, as its essential function, to preparefor these and pass on to them, at the moment required, that force whichthey are to liberate by a sort of explosion. 

The part played by food amongst the higher animals is, indeed, extremely complex. In the first place it serves to repair tissues, thenit provides the animal with the heat necessary to render it asindependent as possible of changes in external temperature. Thus itpreserves, supports, and maintains the organism in which the nervoussystem is set and on which the nervous elements have to live. But thesenervous elements would have no reason for existence if the organism didnot pass to them, and especially to the muscles they control, a certainenergy to expend; and it may even be conjectured that there, in themain, is the essential and ultimate destination of food. This does notmean that the greater part of the food is used in this work. A state mayhave to make enormous expenditure to secure the return of taxes, and thesum which it will have to dispose of, after deducting the cost ofcollection, will perhaps be very small: that sum is, none the less, thereason for the tax and for all that has been spent to obtain its return. So it is with the energy which the animal demands of its food. 

Many facts seem to indicate that the nervous and muscular elements standin this relation towards the rest of the organism. Glance first at thedistribution of alimentary substances among the different elements ofthe living body. These substances fall into two classes, one thequaternary or albuminoid, the other the ternary, including thecarbohydrates and the fats. The albuminoids are properly plastic, destined to repair the tissues--although, owing to the carbon theycontain, they are capable of providing energy on occasion. But thefunction of supplying energy has devolved more particularly on thesecond class of substances: these, being deposited in the cell ratherthan forming part of its substance, convey to it, in the form ofchemical potential, an expansive energy that may be directly convertedinto either movement or heat. In short, the chief function of thealbuminoids is to repair the machine, while the function of the otherclass of substances is to supply power. It is natural that thealbuminoids should have no specially allotted destination, since everypart of the machine has to be maintained. But not so with the othersubstances. The carbohydrates are distributed very unequally, and thisinequality of distribution seems to us in the highest degreeinstructive. 

Conveyed by the arterial blood in the form of glucose, these substancesare deposited, in the form of glycogen, in the different cells formingthe tissues. We know that one of the principal functions of the liver isto maintain at a constant level the quantity of glucose held by theblood, by means of the reserves of glycogen secreted by the hepaticcells. Now, in this circulation of glucose and accumulation of glycogen, it is easy to see that the effect is as if the whole effort of theorganism were directed towards providing with potential energy theelements of both the muscular and the nervous tissues. The organismproceeds differently in the two cases, but it arrives at the sameresult. In the first case, it provides the muscle-cell with a largereserve deposited in advance: the quantity of glycogen contained in themuscles is, indeed, enormous in comparison with what is found in theother tissues. In the nervous tissue, on the contrary, the reserve issmall (the nervous elements, whose function is merely to liberate thepotential energy stored in the muscle, never have to furnish much workat one time); but the remarkable thing is that this reserve is restoredby the blood at the very moment that it is expended, so that the nerveis instantly recharged with potential energy. Muscular tissue andnervous tissue are, therefore, both privileged, the one in that it isstocked with a large reserve of energy, the other in that it is alwaysserved at the instant it is in need and to the exact extent of itsrequirements. 

More particularly, it is from the sensori-motor system that the call forglycogen, the potential energy, comes, as if the rest of the organismwere simply there in order to transmit force to the nervous system andto the muscles which the nerves control. True, when we think of the partplayed by the nervous system (even the sensori-motor system) asregulator of the organic life, it may well be asked whether, in thisexchange of good offices between it and the rest of the body, thenervous system is indeed a master that the body serves. But we shallalready incline to this hypothesis when we consider, even in the staticstate only, the distribution of potential energy among the tissues; andwe shall be entirely convinced of it when we reflect upon the conditionsin which the energy is expended and restored. For suppose thesensori-motor system is a system like the others, of the same rank asthe others. Borne by the whole of the organism, it will wait until anexcess of chemical potential is supplied to it before it performs anywork. In other words, it is the production of glycogen which willregulate the consumption by the nerves and muscles. On the contrary, ifthe sensori-motor system is the actual master, the duration and extentof its action will be independent, to a certain extent at least, of thereserve of glycogen that it holds, and even of that contained in thewhole of the organism. It will perform work, and the other tissues willhave to arrange as they can to supply it with potential energy. Now, this is precisely what does take place, as is shown in particular by theexperiments of Morat and Dufourt. [56] While the glycogenic function ofthe liver depends on the action of the excitory nerves which control it, the action of these nerves is subordinated to the action of those whichstimulate the locomotor muscles--in this sense, that the muscles beginby expending without calculation, thus consuming glycogen, impoverishingthe blood of its glucose, and finally causing the liver, which has hadto pour into the impoverished blood some of its reserve of glycogen, tomanufacture a fresh supply. From the sensori-motor system, then, everything starts; on that system everything converges; and we may say, without metaphor, that the rest of the organism is at its service. 

Consider again what happens in a prolonged fast. It is a remarkable factthat in animals that have died of hunger the brain is found to be almostunimpaired, while the other organs have lost more or less of theirweight and their cells have undergone profound changes. [57] It seems asthough the rest of the body had sustained the nervous system to the lastextremity, treating itself simply as the means of which the nervoussystem is the end. 

To sum up: if we agree, in short, to understand by "the sensori-motorsystem" the cerebro-spinal nervous system together with the sensorialapparatus in which it is prolonged and the locomotor muscles itcontrols, we may say that a higher organism is essentially asensori-motor system installed on systems of digestion, respiration, circulation, secretion, etc. , whose function it is to repair, cleanseand protect it, to create an unvarying internal environment for it, andabove all to pass it potential energy to convert into locomotivemovement. [58] It is true that the more the nervous function isperfected, the more must the functions required to maintain it develop, and the more exacting, consequently, they become for themselves. As thenervous activity has emerged from the protoplasmic mass in which it wasalmost drowned, it has had to summon around itself activities of allkinds for its support. These could only be developed on otheractivities, which again implied others, and so on indefinitely. Thus itis that the complexity of functioning of the higher organisms goes on toinfinity. The study of one of these organisms therefore takes us roundin a circle, as if everything was a means to everything else. But thecircle has a centre, none the less, and that is the system of nervouselements stretching between the sensory organs and the motor apparatus. 

We will not dwell here on a point we have treated at length in a formerwork. Let us merely recall that the progress of the nervous system hasbeen effected both in the direction of a more precise adaptation ofmovements and in that of a greater latitude left to the living being tochoose between them. These two tendencies may appear antagonistic, andindeed they are so; but a nervous chain, even in its most rudimentaryform, successfully reconciles them. On the one hand, it marks awell-defined track between one point of the periphery and another, theone sensory, the other motor. It has therefore canalized an activitywhich was originally diffused in the protoplasmic mass. But, on theother hand, the elements that compose it are probably discontinuous; atany rate, even supposing they anastomose, they exhibit a _functional_discontinuity, for each of them ends in a kind of cross-road whereprobably the nervous current may choose its course. From the humblestMonera to the best endowed insects, and up to the most intelligentvertebrates, the progress realized has been above all a progress of thenervous system, coupled at every stage with all the new constructionsand complications of mechanism that this progress required. As weforeshadowed in the beginning of this work, the rôle of life is toinsert some _indetermination_ into matter. Indeterminate, _i. E. _unforeseeable, are the forms it creates in the course of its evolution. More and more indeterminate also, more and more free, is the activity towhich these forms serve as the vehicle. A nervous system, with neuronesplaced end to end in such wise that, at the extremity of each, manifoldways open in which manifold questions present themselves, is a veritable_reservoir of indetermination_. That the main energy of the vitalimpulse has been spent in creating apparatus of this kind is, webelieve, what a glance over the organized world as a whole easily shows. But concerning the vital impulse itself a few explanations arenecessary. 

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It must not be forgotten that the force which is evolving throughout theorganized world is a limited force, which is always seeking to transcenditself and always remains inadequate to the work it would fain produce. The errors and puerilities of radical finalism are due to themisapprehension of this point. It has represented the whole of theliving world as a construction, and a construction analogous to a humanwork. All the pieces have been arranged with a view to the best possiblefunctioning of the machine. Each species has its reason for existence, its part to play, its allotted place; and all join together, as it were, in a musical concert, wherein the seeming discords are really meant tobring out a fundamental harmony. In short, all goes on in nature as inthe works of human genius, where, though the result may be trifling, there is at least perfect adequacy between the object made and the workof making it. 

Nothing of the kind in the evolution of life. There, the disproportionis striking between the work and the result. From the bottom to the topof the organized world we do indeed find one great effort; but mostoften this effort turns short, sometimes paralyzed by contrary forces, sometimes diverted from what it should do by what it does, absorbed bythe form it is engaged in taking, hypnotized by it as by a mirror. Evenin its most perfect works, though it seems to have triumphed overexternal resistances and also over its own, it is at the mercy of themateriality which it has had to assume. It is what each of us mayexperience in himself. Our freedom, in the very movements by which it isaffirmed, creates the growing habits that will stifle it if it fails torenew itself by a constant effort: it is dogged by automatism. The mostliving thought becomes frigid in the formula that expresses it. The wordturns against the idea. 

The letter kills the spirit. And our most ardent enthusiasm, as soon asit is externalized into action, is so naturally congealed into the coldcalculation of interest or vanity, the one takes so easily the shape ofthe other, that we might confuse them together, doubt our ownsincerity, deny goodness and love, if we did not know that the deadretain for a time the features of the living. 

The profound cause of this discordance lies in an irremediabledifference of rhythm. Life in general is mobility itself; particularmanifestations of life accept this mobility reluctantly, and constantlylag behind. It is always going ahead; they want to mark time. Evolutionin general would fain go on in a straight line; each special evolutionis a kind of circle. Like eddies of dust raised by the wind as itpasses, the living turn upon themselves, borne up by the great blast oflife. They are therefore relatively stable, and counterfeit immobilityso well that we treat each of them as a _thing_ rather than as a_progress_, forgetting that the very permanence of their form is onlythe outline of a movement. At times, however, in a fleeting vision, theinvisible breath that bears them is materialized before our eyes. Wehave this sudden illumination before certain forms of maternal love, sostriking, and in most animals so touching, observable even in thesolicitude of the plant for its seed. This love, in which some have seenthe great mystery of life, may possibly deliver us life's secret. Itshows us each generation leaning over the generation that shall follow. It allows us a glimpse of the fact that the living being is above all athoroughfare, and that the essence of life is in the movement by whichlife is transmitted. 

This contrast between life in general, and the forms in which it ismanifested, has everywhere the same character. It might be said thatlife tends toward the utmost possible action, but that each speciesprefers to contribute the slightest possible effort. Regarded in whatconstitutes its true essence, namely, as a transition from species tospecies, life is a continually growing action. But each of the species, through which life passes, aims only at its own convenience. It goesfor that which demands the least labor. Absorbed in the form it is aboutto take, it falls into a partial sleep, in which it ignores almost allthe rest of life; it fashions itself so as to take the greatest possibleadvantage of its immediate environment with the least possible trouble. Accordingly, the act by which life goes forward to the creation of a newform, and the act by which this form is shaped, are two different andoften antagonistic movements. The first is continuous with the second, but cannot continue in it without being drawn aside from its direction, as would happen to a man leaping, if, in order to clear the obstacle, hehad to turn his eyes from it and look at himself all the while. 

Living forms are, by their very definition, forms that are able to live. In whatever way the adaptation of the organism to its circumstances isexplained, it has necessarily been sufficient, since the species hassubsisted. In this sense, each of the successive species thatpaleontology and zoology describes was a _success_ carried off by life. But we get a very different impression when we refer each species to themovement that has left it behind on its way, instead of to theconditions into which it has been set. Often this movement has turnedaside; very often, too, it has stopped short; what was to have been athoroughfare has become a terminus. From this new point of view, failureseems the rule, success exceptional and always imperfect. We shall seethat, of the four main directions along which animal life bent itscourse, two have led to blind alleys, and, in the other two, the efforthas generally been out of proportion to the result. 

Documents are lacking to reconstruct this history in detail, but we canmake out its main lines. We have already said that animals andvegetables must have separated soon from their common stock, thevegetable falling asleep in immobility, the animal, on the contrary, becoming more and more awake and marching on to the conquest of anervous system. Probably the effort of the animal kingdom resulted increating organisms still very simple, but endowed with a certain freedomof action, and, above all, with a shape so undecided that it could lenditself to any future determination. These animals may have resembledsome of our worms, but with this difference, however, that the wormsliving to-day, to which they could be compared, are but the empty andfixed examples of infinitely plastic forms, pregnant with an unlimitedfuture, the common stock of the echinoderms, molluscs, arthropods, andvertebrates. 

One danger lay in wait for them, one obstacle which might have stoppedthe soaring course of animal life. There is one peculiarity with whichwe cannot help being struck when glancing over the fauna of primitivetimes, namely, the imprisonment of the animal in a more or less solidsheath, which must have obstructed and often even paralyzed itsmovements. The molluscs of that time had a shell more universally thanthose of to-day. The arthropods in general were provided with acarapace; most of them were crustaceans. The more ancient fishes had abony sheath of extreme hardness. [59] The explanation of this generalfact should be sought, we believe, in a tendency of soft organisms todefend themselves against one another by making themselves, as far aspossible, undevourable. Each species, in the act by which it comes intobeing, trends towards that which is most expedient. Just as amongprimitive organisms there were some that turned towards animal life byrefusing to manufacture organic out of inorganic material and takingorganic substances ready made from organisms that had turned toward thevegetative life, so, among the animal species themselves, many contrivedto live at the expense of other animals. For an organism that is animal, that is to say mobile, can avail itself of its mobility to go in searchof defenseless animals, and feed on them quite as well as on vegetables. So, the more species became mobile, the more they became voracious anddangerous to one another. Hence a sudden arrest of the entire animalworld in its progress towards higher and higher mobility; for the hardand calcareous skin of the echinoderm, the shell of the mollusc, thecarapace of the crustacean and the ganoid breast-plate of the ancientfishes probably all originated in a common effort of the animal speciesto protect themselves against hostile species. But this breast-plate, behind which the animal took shelter, constrained it in its movementsand sometimes fixed it in one place. If the vegetable renouncedconsciousness in wrapping itself in a cellulose membrane, the animalthat shut itself up in a citadel or in armor condemned itself to apartial slumber. In this torpor the echinoderms and even the molluscslive to-day. Probably arthropods and vertebrates were threatened with ittoo. They escaped, however, and to this fortunate circumstance is duethe expansion of the highest forms of life. 

In two directions, in fact, we see the impulse of life to movementgetting the upper hand again. The fishes exchanged their ganoidbreast-plate for scales. Long before that, the insects had appeared, also disencumbered of the breast-plate that had protected theirancestors. Both supplemented the insufficiency of their protectivecovering by an agility that enabled them to escape their enemies, andalso to assume the offensive, to choose the place and the moment ofencounter. We see a progress of the same kind in the evolution of humanarmaments. The first impulse is to seek shelter; the second, which isthe better, is to become as supple as possible for flight and above allfor attack--attack being the most effective means of defense. So theheavy hoplite was supplanted by the legionary; the knight, clad inarmor, had to give place to the light free-moving infantryman; and in ageneral way, in the evolution of life, just as in the evolution of humansocieties and of individual destinies, the greatest successes have beenfor those who have accepted the heaviest risks. 

Evidently, then, it was to the animal's interest to make itself moremobile. As we said when speaking of adaptation in general, anytransformation of a species can be explained by its own particularinterest. This will give the immediate cause of the variation, but oftenonly the most superficial cause. The profound cause is the impulse whichthrust life into the world, which made it divide into vegetables andanimals, which shunted the animal on to suppleness of form, and which, at a certain moment, in the animal kingdom threatened with torpor, secured that, on some points at least, it should rouse itself up andmove forward. 

On the two paths along which the vertebrates and arthropods haveseparately evolved, development (apart from retrogressions connectedwith parasitism or any other cause) has consisted above all in theprogress of the sensori-motor nervous system. Mobility and supplenesswere sought for, and also--through many experimental attempts, and notwithout a tendency to excess of substance and brute force at thestart--variety of movements. But this quest itself took place indivergent directions. A glance at the nervous system of the arthropodsand that of the vertebrates shows us the difference. In the arthropods, the body is formed of a series more or less long of rings set together;motor activity is thus distributed amongst a varying--sometimes aconsiderable--number of appendages, each of which has its specialfunction. In the vertebrates, activity is concentrated in two pairs ofmembers only, and these organs perform functions which depend much lessstrictly on their form. [60] The independence becomes complete in man, whose hand is capable of any kind of work. 

That, at least, is what we see. But behind what is seen there is whatmay be surmised--two powers, immanent in life and originallyintermingled, which were bound to part company in course of growth. 

To define these powers, we must consider, in the evolution both of thearthropods and the vertebrates, the species which mark the culminatingpoint of each. How is this point to be determined? Here again, to aim atgeometrical precision will lead us astray. There is no single simplesign by which we can recognize that one species is more advanced thananother on the same line of evolution. There are manifold characters, that must be compared and weighed in each particular case, in order toascertain to what extent they are essential or accidental and how farthey must be taken into account. 

It is unquestionable, for example, that _success_ is the most generalcriterion of superiority, the two terms being, up to a certain point, synonymous. By success must be understood, so far as the living being isconcerned, an aptitude to develop in the most diverse environments, through the greatest possible variety of obstacles, so as to cover thewidest possible extent of ground. A species which claims the entireearth for its domain is truly a dominating and consequently superiorspecies. Such is the human species, which represents the culminatingpoint of the evolution of the vertebrates. But such also are, in theseries of the articulate, the insects and in particular certainhymenoptera. It has been said of the ants that, as man is lord of thesoil, they are lords of the sub-soil. 

On the other hand, a group of species that has appeared late may be agroup of degenerates; but, for that, some special cause of retrogressionmust have intervened. By right, this group should be superior to thegroup from which it is derived, since it would correspond to a moreadvanced stage of evolution. Now man is probably the latest comer of thevertebrates;[61] and in the insect series no species is later than thehymenoptera, unless it be the lepidoptera, which are probablydegenerates, living parasitically on flowering plants. 

So, by different ways, we are led to the same conclusion. The evolutionof the arthropods reaches its culminating point in the insect, and inparticular in the hymenoptera, as that of the vertebrates in man. Now, since instinct is nowhere so developed as in the insect world, and in nogroup of insects so marvelously as in the hymenoptera, it may be saidthat the whole evolution of the animal kingdom, apart fromretrogressions towards vegetative life, has taken place on two divergentpaths, one of which led to instinct and the other to intelligence. 

Vegetative torpor, instinct, and intelligence--these, then, are theelements that coincided in the vital impulsion common to plants andanimals, and which, in the course of a development in which they weremade manifest in the most unforeseen forms, have been dissociated by thevery fact of their growth. _The cardinal error which, from Aristotleonwards, has vitiated most of the philosophies of nature, is to see invegetative, instinctive and rational life, three successive degrees ofthe development of one and the same tendency, whereas they are threedivergent directions of an activity that has split up as it grew. _ Thedifference between them is not a difference of intensity, nor, moregenerally, of degree, but of kind. 

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It is important to investigate this point. We have seen in the case ofvegetable and animal life how they are at once mutually complementaryand mutually antagonistic. Now we must show that intelligence andinstinct also are opposite and complementary. But let us first explainwhy we are generally led to regard them as activities of which one issuperior to the other and based upon it, whereas in reality they are notthings of the same order: they have not succeeded one another, nor canwe assign to them different grades. 

It is because intelligence and instinct, having originally beeninterpenetrating, retain something of their common origin. Neither isever found in a pure state. We said that in the plant the consciousnessand mobility of the animal, which lie dormant, can be awakened; and thatthe animal lives under the constant menace of being drawn aside to thevegetative life. The two tendencies--that of the plant and that of theanimal--were so thoroughly interpenetrating, to begin with, that therehas never been a complete severance between them: they haunt each othercontinually; everywhere we find them mingled; it is the proportion thatdiffers. So with intelligence and instinct. There is no intelligence inwhich some traces of instinct are not to be discovered, more especiallyno instinct that is not surrounded with a fringe of intelligence. It isthis fringe of intelligence that has been the cause of so manymisunderstandings. From the fact that instinct is always more or lessintelligent, it has been concluded that instinct and intelligence arethings of the same kind, that there is only a difference of complexityor perfection between them, and, above all, that one of the two isexpressible in terms of the other. In reality, they accompany each otheronly because they are complementary, and they are complementary onlybecause they are different, what is instinctive in instinct beingopposite to what is intelligent in intelligence. 

We are bound to dwell on this point. It is one of the utmost importance. 

Let us say at the outset that the distinctions we are going to make willbe too sharply drawn, just because we wish to define in instinct what isinstinctive, and in intelligence what is intelligent, whereas allconcrete instinct is mingled with intelligence, as all real intelligenceis penetrated by instinct. Moreover, neither intelligence nor instinctlends itself to rigid definition: they are tendencies, and not things. Also, it must not be forgotten that in the present chapter we areconsidering intelligence and instinct as going out of life whichdeposits them along its course. Now the life manifested by an organismis, in our view, a certain effort to obtain certain things from thematerial world. No wonder, therefore, if it is the diversity of thiseffort that strikes us in instinct and intelligence, and if we see inthese two modes of psychical activity, above all else, two differentmethods of action on inert matter. This rather narrow view of them hasthe advantage of giving us an objective means of distinguishing them. Inreturn, however, it gives us, of intelligence in general and of instinctin general, only the mean position above and below which both constantlyoscillate. For that reason the reader must expect to see in what followsonly a diagrammatic drawing, in which the respective outlines ofintelligence and instinct are sharper than they should be, and in whichthe shading-off which comes from the indecision of each and from theirreciprocal encroachment on one another is neglected. In a matter soobscure, we cannot strive too hard for clearness. It will always be easyafterwards to soften the outlines and to correct what is too geometricalin the drawing--in short, to replace the rigidity of a diagram by thesuppleness of life. 

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To what date is it agreed to ascribe the appearance of man on the earth?To the period when the first weapons, the first tools, were made. Thememorable quarrel over the discovery of Boucher de Perthes in the quarryof Moulin-Quignon is not forgotten. The question was whether realhatchets had been found or merely bits of flint accidentally broken. Butthat, supposing they were hatchets, we were indeed in the presence ofintelligence, and more particularly of _human_ intelligence, no onedoubted for an instant. Now let us open a collection of anecdotes on theintelligence of animals: we shall see that besides many acts explicableby imitation or by the automatic association of images, there are somethat we do not hesitate to call intelligent: foremost among them arethose that bear witness to some idea of manufacture, whether the animallife succeeds in fashioning a crude instrument or uses for its profit anobject made by man. The animals that rank immediately after man in thematter of intelligence, the apes and elephants, are those that can usean artificial instrument occasionally. Below, but not very far fromthem, come those that _recognize_ a constructed object: for example, thefox, which knows quite well that a trap is a trap. No doubt, there isintelligence wherever there is inference; but inference, which consistsin an inflection of past experience in the direction of presentexperience, is already a beginning of invention. Invention becomescomplete when it is materialized in a manufactured instrument. Towardsthat achievement the intelligence of animals tends as towards an ideal. And though, ordinarily, it does not yet succeed in fashioning artificialobjects and in making use of them, it is preparing for this by the veryvariations which it performs on the instincts furnished by nature. Asregards human intelligence, it has not been sufficiently noted thatmechanical invention has been from the first its essential feature, thateven to-day our social life gravitates around the manufacture and use ofartificial instruments, that the inventions which strew the road ofprogress have also traced its direction. This we hardly realize, becauseit takes us longer to change ourselves than to change our tools. Ourindividual and even social habits survive a good while the circumstancesfor which they were made, so that the ultimate effects of an inventionare not observed until its novelty is already out of sight. A centuryhas elapsed since the invention of the steam-engine, and we are onlyjust beginning to feel the depths of the shock it gave us. But therevolution it has effected in industry has nevertheless upset humanrelations altogether. New ideas are arising, new feelings are on the wayto flower. In thousands of years, when, seen from the distance, only thebroad lines of the present age will still be visible, our wars and ourrevolutions will count for little, even supposing they are rememberedat all; but the steam-engine, and the procession of inventions of everykind that accompanied it, will perhaps be spoken of as we speak of thebronze or of the chipped stone of prehistoric times: it will serve todefine an age. [62] If we could rid ourselves of all pride, if, to defineour species, we kept strictly to what the historic and the prehistoricperiods show us to be the constant characteristic of man and ofintelligence, we should say not _Homo sapiens_, but _Homo faber_. Inshort, _intelligence, considered in what seems to be its originalfeature, is the faculty of manufacturing artificial objects, especiallytools to make tools, and of indefinitely varying the manufacture_. 

Now, does an unintelligent animal also possess tools or machines? Yes, certainly, but here the instrument forms a part of the body that usesit; and, corresponding to this instrument, there is an _instinct_ thatknows how to use it. True, it cannot be maintained that _all_ instinctsconsist in a natural ability to use an inborn mechanism. Such adefinition would not apply to the instincts which Romanes called"secondary"; and more than one "primary" instinct would not come underit. But this definition, like that which we have provisionally given ofintelligence, determines at least the ideal limit toward which the verynumerous forms of instinct are traveling. Indeed, it has often beenpointed out that most instincts are only the continuance, or rather theconsummation, of the work of organization itself. Where does theactivity of instinct begin? and where does that of nature end? We cannottell. In the metamorphoses of the larva into the nymph and into theperfect insect, metamorphoses that often require appropriate action anda kind of initiative on the part of the larva, there is no sharp line ofdemarcation between the instinct of the animal and the organizing workof living matter. We may say, as we will, either that instinct organizesthe instruments it is about to use, or that the process of organizationis continued in the instinct that has to use the organ. The mostmarvelous instincts of the insect do nothing but develop its specialstructure into movements: indeed, where social life divides the laboramong different individuals, and thus allots them different instincts, acorresponding difference of structure is observed: the polymorphism ofants, bees, wasps and certain pseudoneuroptera is well known. Thus, ifwe consider only those typical cases in which the complete triumph ofintelligence and of instinct is seen, we find this essential differencebetween them: _instinct perfected is a faculty of using and even ofconstructing organized instruments; intelligence perfected is thefaculty of making and using unorganized instruments_. 

The advantages and drawbacks of these two modes of activity are obvious. Instinct finds the appropriate instrument at hand: this instrument, which makes and repairs itself, which presents, like all the works ofnature, an infinite complexity of detail combined with a marveloussimplicity of function, does at once, when required, what it is calledupon to do, without difficulty and with a perfection that is oftenwonderful. In return, it retains an almost invariable structure, since amodification of it involves a modification of the species. Instinct istherefore necessarily specialized, being nothing but the utilization ofa specific instrument for a specific object. The instrument constructedintelligently, on the contrary, is an imperfect instrument. It costs aneffort. It is generally troublesome to handle. But, as it is made ofunorganized matter, it can take any form whatsoever, serve any purpose, free the living being from every new difficulty that arises and bestowon it an unlimited number of powers. Whilst it is inferior to thenatural instrument for the satisfaction of immediate wants, itsadvantage over it is the greater, the less urgent the need. Above all, it reacts on the nature of the being that constructs it; for in callingon him to exercise a new function, it confers on him, so to speak, aricher organization, being an artificial organ by which the naturalorganism is extended. For every need that it satisfies, it creates a newneed; and so, instead of closing, like instinct, the round of actionwithin which the animal tends to move automatically, it lays open toactivity an unlimited field into which it is driven further and further, and made more and more free. But this advantage of intelligence overinstinct only appears at a late stage, when intelligence, having raisedconstruction to a higher degree, proceeds to construct constructivemachinery. At the outset, the advantages and drawbacks of the artificialinstrument and of the natural instrument balance so well that it is hardto foretell which of the two will secure to the living being the greaterempire over nature. 

We may surmise that they began by being implied in each other, that theoriginal psychical activity included both at once, and that, if we wentfar enough back into the past, we should find instincts more nearlyapproaching intelligence than those of our insects, intelligence nearerto instinct than that of our vertebrates, intelligence and instinctbeing, in this elementary condition, prisoners of a matter which theyare not yet able to control. If the force immanent in life were anunlimited force, it might perhaps have developed instinct andintelligence together, and to any extent, in the same organisms. Buteverything seems to indicate that this force is limited, and that itsoon exhausts itself in its very manifestation. It is hard for it to gofar in several directions at once: it must choose. Now, it has thechoice between two modes of acting on the material world: it can eithereffect this action _directly_ by creating an _organized_ instrument towork with; or else it can effect it _indirectly_ through an organismwhich, instead of possessing the required instrument naturally, willitself construct it by fashioning inorganic matter. Hence intelligenceand instinct, which diverge more and more as they develop, but whichnever entirely separate from each other. On the one hand, the mostperfect instinct of the insect is accompanied by gleams of intelligence, if only in the choice of place, time and materials of construction: thebees, for example, when by exception they build in the open air, inventnew and really intelligent arrangements to adapt themselves to such newconditions. [63] But, on the other hand, intelligence has even more needof instinct than instinct has of intelligence; for the power to giveshape to crude matter involves already a superior degree oforganization, a degree to which the animal could not have risen, save onthe wings of instinct. So, while nature has frankly evolved in thedirection of instinct in the arthropods, we observe in almost all thevertebrates the striving after rather than the expansion ofintelligence. It is instinct still which forms the basis of theirpsychical activity; but intelligence is there, and would fain supersedeit. Intelligence does not yet succeed in inventing instruments; but atleast it tries to, by performing as many variations as possible on theinstinct which it would like to dispense with. It gains completeself-possession only in man, and this triumph is attested by the veryinsufficiency of the natural means at man's disposal for defense againsthis enemies, against cold and hunger. This insufficiency, when we striveto fathom its significance, acquires the value of a prehistoricdocument; it is the final leave-taking between intelligence andinstinct. But it is no less true that nature must have hesitated betweentwo modes of psychical activity--one assured of immediate success, butlimited in its effects; the other hazardous, but whose conquests, if itshould reach independence, might be extended indefinitely. Here again, then, the greatest success was achieved on the side of the greatestrisk. _Instinct and intelligence therefore represent two divergentsolutions, equally fitting, of one and the same problem. _

There ensue, it is true, profound differences of internal structurebetween instinct and intelligence. We shall dwell only on those thatconcern our present study. Let us say, then, that instinct andintelligence imply two radically different kinds of knowledge. But someexplanations are first of all necessary on the subject of consciousnessin general. 

It has been asked how far instinct is conscious. Our reply is that thereare a vast number of differences and degrees, that instinct is more orless conscious in certain cases, unconscious in others. The plant, as weshall see, has instincts; it is not likely that these are accompanied byfeeling. Even in the animal there is hardly any complex instinct that isnot unconscious in some part at least of its exercise. But here we mustpoint out a difference, not often noticed, between two kinds ofunconsciousness, viz. , that in which consciousness is _absent_, and thatin which consciousness is _nullified_. Both are equal to zero, but inone case the zero expresses the fact that there is nothing, in the otherthat we have two equal quantities of opposite sign which compensate andneutralize each other. The unconsciousness of a falling stone is of theformer kind: the stone has no feeling of its fall. Is it the same withthe unconsciousness of instinct, in the extreme cases in which instinctis unconscious? When we mechanically perform an habitual action, whenthe somnambulist automatically acts his dream, unconsciousness may beabsolute; but this is merely due to the fact that the representation ofthe act is held in check by the performance of the act itself, whichresembles the idea so perfectly, and fits it so exactly, thatconsciousness is unable to find room between them. _Representation isstopped up by action. _ The proof of this is, that if the accomplishmentof the act is arrested or thwarted by an obstacle, consciousness mayreappear. It was there, but neutralized by the action which fulfilledand thereby filled the representation. The obstacle creates nothingpositive; it simply makes a void, removes a stopper. This inadequacy ofact to representation is precisely what we here call consciousness. 

If we examine this point more closely, we shall find that consciousnessis the light that plays around the zone of possible actions or potentialactivity which surrounds the action really performed by the livingbeing. It signifies hesitation or choice. Where many equally possibleactions are indicated without there being any real action (as in adeliberation that has not come to an end), consciousness is intense. Where the action performed is the only action possible (as in activityof the somnambulistic or more generally automatic kind), consciousnessis reduced to nothing. Representation and knowledge exist none the lessin the case if we find a whole series of systematized movements the lastof which is already pre-figured in the first, and if, besides, consciousness can flash out of them at the shock of an obstacle. Fromthis point of view, _the consciousness of a living being may be definedas an arithmetical difference between potential and real activity_. _Itmeasures the interval between representation and action. _

It may be inferred from this that intelligence is likely to pointtowards consciousness, and instinct towards unconsciousness. For, wherethe implement to be used is organized by nature, the material furnishedby nature, and the result to be obtained willed by nature, there islittle left to choice; the consciousness inherent in the representationis therefore counterbalanced, whenever it tends to disengage itself, bythe performance of the act, identical with the representation, whichforms its counterweight. Where consciousness appears, it does not somuch light up the instinct itself as the thwartings to which instinct issubject; it is the _deficit_ of instinct, the distance, between the actand the idea, that becomes consciousness so that consciousness, here, isonly an accident. Essentially, consciousness only emphasizes thestarting-point of instinct, the point at which the whole series ofautomatic movements is released. Deficit, on the contrary, is the normalstate of intelligence. Laboring under difficulties is its very essence. Its original function being to construct unorganized instruments, itmust, in spite of numberless difficulties, choose for this work theplace and the time, the form and the matter. And it can never satisfyitself entirely, because every new satisfaction creates new needs. Inshort, while instinct and intelligence both involve knowledge, thisknowledge is rather _acted_ and unconscious in the case of instinct, _thought_ and conscious in the case of intelligence. But it is adifference rather of degree than of kind. So long as consciousness isall we are concerned with, we close our eyes to what is, from thepsychological point of view, the cardinal difference between instinctand intelligence. 

In order to get at this essential difference we must, without stoppingat the more or less brilliant light which illumines these two modes ofinternal activity, go straight to the two _objects_, profoundlydifferent from each other, upon which instinct and intelligence aredirected. 

When the horse-fly lays its eggs on the legs or shoulders of the horse, it acts as if it knew that its larva has to develop in the horse'sstomach and that the horse, in licking itself, will convey the larvainto its digestive tract. When a paralyzing wasp stings its victim onjust those points where the nervous centres lie, so as to render itmotionless without killing it, it acts like a learned entomologist and askilful surgeon rolled into one. But what shall we say of the littlebeetle, the Sitaris, whose story is so often quoted? This insect laysits eggs at the entrance of the underground passages dug by a kind ofbee, the Anthophora. Its larva, after long waiting, springs upon themale Anthophora as it goes out of the passage, clings to it, and remainsattached until the "nuptial flight, " when it seizes the opportunity topass from the male to the female, and quietly waits until it lays itseggs. It then leaps on the egg, which serves as a support for it in thehoney, devours the egg in a few days, and, resting on the shell, undergoes its first metamorphosis. Organized now to float on the honey, it consumes this provision of nourishment, and becomes a nymph, then aperfect insect. Everything happens _as if_ the larva of the Sitaris, from the moment it was hatched, knew that the male Anthophora wouldfirst emerge from the passage; that the nuptial flight would give it themeans of conveying itself to the female, who would take it to a store ofhoney sufficient to feed it after its transformation; that, until thistransformation, it could gradually eat the egg of the Anthophora, insuch a way that it could at the same time feed itself, maintain itselfat the surface of the honey, and also suppress the rival that otherwisewould have come out of the egg. And equally all this happens _as if_ theSitaris itself knew that its larva would know all these things. Theknowledge, if knowledge there be, is only implicit. It is reflectedoutwardly in exact movements instead of being reflected inwardly inconsciousness. It is none the less true that the behavior of the insectinvolves, or rather evolves, the idea of definite things existing orbeing produced in definite points of space and time, which the insectknows without having learned them. 

Now, if we look at intelligence from the same point of view, we findthat it also knows certain things without having learned them. But theknowledge in the two cases is of a very different order. We must becareful here not to revive again the old philosophical dispute on thesubject of innate ideas. So we will confine ourselves to the point onwhich every one is agreed, to wit, that the young child understandsimmediately things that the animal will never understand, and that inthis sense intelligence, like instinct, is an inherited function, therefore an innate one. But this innate intelligence, although it is afaculty of knowing, knows no object in particular. When the new-bornbabe seeks for the first time its mother's breast, so showing that ithas knowledge (unconscious, no doubt) of a thing it has never seen, wesay, just because the innate knowledge is in this case of a definiteobject, that it belongs to _instinct_ and not to _intelligence_. Intelligence does not then imply the innate knowledge of any object. Andyet, if intelligence knows nothing by nature, it has nothing innate. What, then, if it be ignorant of all things, can it know? Besides_things_, there are _relations_. The new-born child, so far asintelligent, knows neither definite objects nor a definite property ofany object; but when, a little later on, he will hear an epithet beingapplied to a substantive, he will immediately understand what it means. The relation of attribute to subject is therefore seized by himnaturally, and the same might be said of the general relation expressedby the verb, a relation so immediately conceived by the mind thatlanguage can leave it to be understood, as is instanced in rudimentarylanguages which have no verb. Intelligence, therefore, naturally makesuse of relations of like with like, of content to container, of cause toeffect, etc. , which are implied in every phrase in which there is asubject, an attribute and a verb, expressed or understood. May one saythat it has _innate_ knowledge of each of these relations in particular?It is for logicians to discover whether they are so many irreduciblerelations, or whether they can be resolved into relations still moregeneral. But, in whatever way we make the analysis of thought, we alwaysend with one or several general categories, of which the mind possessesinnate knowledge since it makes a natural use of them. Let us say, therefore, that _whatever, in instinct and intelligence, is innateknowledge, bears in the first case on_ things _and in the second on_relations. 

Philosophers distinguish between the matter of our knowledge and itsform. The matter is what is given by the perceptive faculties taken inthe elementary state. The form is the totality of the relations set upbetween these materials in order to constitute a systematic knowledge. Can the form, without matter, be an object of knowledge? Yes, withoutdoubt, provided that this knowledge is not like a thing we possess somuch as like a habit we have contracted, --a direction rather than astate: it is, if we will, a certain natural bent of attention. Theschoolboy, who knows that the master is going to dictate a fraction tohim, draws a line before he knows what numerator and what denominatorare to come; he therefore has present to his mind the general relationbetween the two terms although he does not know either of them; he knowsthe form without the matter. So is it, prior to experience, with thecategories into which our experience comes to be inserted. Let us adoptthen words sanctioned by usage, and give the distinction betweenintelligence and instinct this more precise formula: _Intelligence, inso far as it is innate, is the knowledge of a_ form; _instinct impliesthe knowledge of a_ matter. 

From this second point of view, which is that of knowledge instead ofaction, the force immanent in life in general appears to us again as alimited principle, in which originally two different and even divergentmodes of knowing coexisted and intermingled. The first gets at definiteobjects immediately, in their materiality itself. It says, "This is whatis. " The second gets at no object in particular; it is only a naturalpower of relating an object to an object, or a part to a part, or anaspect to an aspect--in short, of drawing conclusions when in possessionof the premisses, of proceeding from what has been learnt to what isstill unknown. It does not say, "This _is_;" it says only that "_if_ theconditions are such, such will be the conditioned. " In short, the firstkind of knowledge, the instinctive, would be formulated in whatphilosophers call _categorical_ propositions, while the second kind, theintellectual, would always be expressed _hypothetically_. Of these twofaculties, the former seems, at first, much preferable to the other. Andit would be so, in truth, if it extended to an endless number ofobjects. But, in fact, it applies only to one special object, and indeedonly to a restricted part of that object. Of this, at least, itsknowledge is intimate and full; not explicit, but implied in theaccomplished action. The intellectual faculty, on the contrary, possesses naturally only an external and empty knowledge; but it hasthereby the advantage of supplying a frame in which an infinity ofobjects may find room in turn. It is as if the force evolving in livingforms, being a limited force, had had to choose between two kinds oflimitation in the field of natural or innate knowledge, one applying tothe _extension_ of knowledge, the other to its _intension_. In the firstcase, the knowledge may be packed and full, but it will then be confinedto one specific object; in the second, it is no longer limited by itsobject, but that is because it contains nothing, being only a formwithout matter. The two tendencies, at first implied in each other, hadto separate in order to grow. They both went to seek their fortune inthe world, and turned out to be instinct and intelligence. 

Such, then, are the two divergent modes of knowledge by whichintelligence and instinct must be defined, from the standpoint ofknowledge rather than that of action. But knowledge and action are hereonly two aspects of one and the same faculty. It is easy to see, indeed, that the second definition is only a new form of the first. 

If instinct is, above all, the faculty of using an organized naturalinstrument, it must involve innate knowledge (potential or unconscious, it is true), both of this instrument and of the object to which it isapplied. Instinct is therefore innate knowledge of a _thing_. Butintelligence is the faculty of constructing unorganized--that is to sayartificial--instruments. If, on its account, nature gives up endowingthe living being with the instruments that may serve him, it is in orderthat the living being may be able to vary his construction according tocircumstances. The essential function of intelligence is therefore tosee the way out of a difficulty in any circumstances whatever, to findwhat is most suitable, what answers best the question asked. Hence itbears essentially on the relations between a given situation and themeans of utilizing it. What is innate in intellect, therefore, is thetendency to establish relations, and this tendency implies the naturalknowledge of certain very general relations, a kind of stuff that theactivity of each particular intellect will cut up into more specialrelations. Where activity is directed toward manufacture, therefore, knowledge necessarily bears on relations. But this entirely _formal_knowledge of intelligence has an immense advantage over the _material_knowledge of instinct. A form, just because it is empty, may be filledat will with any number of things in turn, even with those that are ofno use. So that a formal knowledge is not limited to what is practicallyuseful, although it is in view of practical utility that it has made itsappearance in the world. An intelligent being bears within himself themeans to transcend his own nature. 

He transcends himself, however, less than he wishes, less also than heimagines himself to do. The purely formal character of intelligencedeprives it of the ballast necessary to enable it to settle itself onthe objects that are of the most powerful interest to speculation. Instinct, on the contrary, has the desired materiality, but it isincapable of going so far in quest of its object; it does not speculate. Here we reach the point that most concerns our present inquiry. Thedifference that we shall now proceed to denote between instinct andintelligence is what the whole of this analysis was meant to bring out. We formulate it thus: _There are things that intelligence alone is ableto seek, but which, by itself, it will never find. These things instinctalone could find; but it will never seek them. _

It is necessary here to consider some preliminary details that concernthe mechanism of intelligence. We have said that the function ofintelligence is to establish relations. Let us determine more preciselythe nature of these relations. On this point we are bound to be eithervague or arbitrary so long as we see in the intellect a faculty intendedfor pure speculation. We are then reduced to taking the general framesof the understanding for something absolute, irreducible andinexplicable. The understanding must have fallen from heaven with itsform, as each of us is born with his face. This form may be defined, ofcourse, but that is all; there is no asking why it is what it is ratherthan anything else. Thus, it will be said that the function of theintellect is essentially unification, that the common object of all itsoperations is to introduce a certain unity into the diversity ofphenomena, and so forth. But, in the first place, "unification" is avague term, less clear than "relation" or even "thought, " and saysnothing more. And, moreover, it might be asked if the function ofintelligence is not to divide even more than to unite. Finally, if theintellect proceeds as it does because it wishes to unite, and if itseeks unification simply because it has need of unifying, the whole ofour knowledge becomes relative to certain requirements of the mind thatprobably might have been entirely different from what they are: for anintellect differently shaped, knowledge would have been different. Intellect being no longer dependent on anything, everything becomesdependent on it; and so, having placed the understanding too high, weend by putting too low the knowledge it gives us. Knowledge becomesrelative, as soon as the intellect is made a kind of absolute. --Weregard the human intellect, on the contrary, as relative to the needs ofaction. Postulate action, and the very form of the intellect can bededuced from it. This form is therefore neither irreducible norinexplicable. And, precisely because it is not independent, knowledgecannot be said to depend on it: knowledge ceases to be a product of theintellect and becomes, in a certain sense, part and parcel of reality. 

Philosophers will reply that action takes place in an _ordered_ world, that this order is itself thought, and that we beg the question when weexplain the intellect by action, which presupposes it. They would beright if our point of view in the present chapter was to be our finalone. We should then be dupes of an illusion like that of Spencer, whobelieved that the intellect is sufficiently explained as the impressionleft on us by the general characters of matter: as if the order inherentin matter were not intelligence itself! But we reserve for the nextchapter the question up to what point and with what method philosophycan attempt a real genesis of the intellect at the same time as ofmatter. For the moment, the problem that engages our attention is of apsychological order. We are asking what is the portion of the materialworld to which our intellect is specially adapted. To reply to thisquestion, there is no need to choose a system of philosophy: it isenough to take up the point of view of common sense. 

Let us start, then, from action, and lay down that the intellect aims, first of all, at constructing. This fabrication is exercised exclusivelyon inert matter, in this sense, that even if it makes use of organizedmaterial, it treats it as inert, without troubling about the life whichanimated it. And of inert matter itself, fabrication deals only with thesolid; the rest escapes by its very fluidity. If, therefore, thetendency of the intellect is to fabricate, we may expect to find thatwhatever is fluid in the real will escape it in part, and whatever islife in the living will escape it altogether. _Our intelligence, as itleaves the hands of nature, has for its chief object the unorganizedsolid. _

When we pass in review the intellectual functions, we see that theintellect is never quite at its ease, never entirely at home, exceptwhen it is working upon inert matter, more particularly upon solids. What is the most general property of the material world? It is extended:it presents to us objects external to other objects, and, in theseobjects, parts external to parts. No doubt, it is useful to us, in viewof our ulterior manipulation, to regard each object as divisible intoparts arbitrarily cut up, each part being again divisible as we like, and so on _ad infinitum_. But it is above all necessary, for our presentmanipulation, to regard the real object in hand, or the real elementsinto which we have resolved it, as _provisionally final_, and to treatthem as so many _units_. To this possibility of decomposing matter asmuch as we please, and in any way we please, we allude when we speak ofthe _continuity_ of material extension; but this continuity, as we seeit, is nothing else but our ability, an ability that matter allows to usto choose the mode of discontinuity we shall find in it. It is always, in fact, the mode of discontinuity once chosen that appears to us as theactually real one and that which fixes our attention, just because itrules our action. Thus discontinuity is thought for itself; it isthinkable in itself; we form an idea of it by a positive act of ourmind; while the intellectual representation of continuity is negative, being, at bottom, only the refusal of our mind, before any actuallygiven system of decomposition, to regard it as the only possible one. _Of the discontinuous alone does the intellect form a clear idea. _

On the other hand, the objects we act on are certainly mobile objects, but the important thing for us to know is _whither_ the mobile object isgoing and _where_ it is at any moment of its passage. In other words, our interest is directed, before all, to its actual or future positions, and not to the _progress_ by which it passes from one position toanother, progress which is the movement itself. In our actions, whichare systematized movements, what we fix our mind on is the end ormeaning of the movement, its design as a whole--in a word, the immobileplan of its execution. That which really moves in action interests usonly so far as the whole can be advanced, retarded, or stopped by anyincident that may happen on the way. From mobility itself our intellectturns aside, because it has nothing to gain in dealing with it. If theintellect were meant for pure theorizing, it would take its place withinmovement, for movement is reality itself, and immobility is always onlyapparent or relative. But the intellect is meant for somethingaltogether different. Unless it does violence to itself, it takes theopposite course; it always starts from immobility, as if this were theultimate reality: when it tries to form an idea of movement, it does soby constructing movement out of immobilities put together. Thisoperation, whose illegitimacy and danger in the field of speculation weshall show later on (it leads to dead-locks, and creates artificiallyinsoluble philosophical problems), is easily justified when we refer itto its proper goal. Intelligence, in its natural state, aims at apractically useful end. When it substitutes for movement immobilitiesput together, it does not pretend to reconstitute the movement such asit actually is; it merely replaces it with a practical equivalent. It isthe philosophers who are mistaken when they import into the domain ofspeculation a method of thinking which is made for action. But of thismore anon. Suffice it now to say that to the stable and unchangeable ourintellect is attached by virtue of its natural disposition. _Ofimmobility alone does the intellect form a clear idea. _

Now, fabricating consists in carving out the form of an object inmatter. What is the most important is the form to be obtained. As tothe matter, we choose that which is most convenient; but, in order tochoose it, that is to say, in order to go and seek it among many others, we must have tried, in imagination at least, to endow every kind ofmatter with the form of the object conceived. In other words, anintelligence which aims at fabricating is an intelligence which neverstops at the actual form of things nor regards it as final, but, on thecontrary, looks upon all matter as if it were carvable at will. Platocompares the good dialectician to the skilful cook who carves the animalwithout breaking its bones, by following the articulations marked out bynature. [64] An intelligence which always proceeded thus would really bean intelligence turned toward speculation. But action, and in particularfabrication, requires the opposite mental tendency: it makes us considerevery actual form of things, even the form of natural things, asartificial and provisional; it makes our thought efface from the objectperceived, even though organized and living, the lines that outwardlymark its inward structure; in short, it makes us regard its matter asindifferent to its form. The whole of matter is made to appear to ourthought as an immense piece of cloth in which we can cut out what wewill and sew it together again as we please. Let us note, in passing, that it is this power that we affirm when we say that there is a_space_, that is to say, a homogeneous and empty medium, infinite andinfinitely divisible, lending itself indifferently to any mode ofdecomposition whatsoever. A medium of this kind is never perceived; itis only conceived. What is perceived is extension colored, resistant, divided according to the lines which mark out the boundaries of realbodies or of their real elements. But when we think of our power overthis matter, that is to say, of our faculty of decomposing andrecomposing it as we please, we project the whole of these possibledecompositions and recompositions behind real extension in the form of ahomogeneous space, empty and indifferent, which is supposed to underlieit. This space is therefore, pre-eminently, the plan of our possibleaction on things, although, indeed, things have a natural tendency, aswe shall explain further on, to enter into a frame of this kind. It is aview taken by mind. The animal has probably no idea of it, even when, like us, it perceives extended things. It is an idea that symbolizes thetendency of the human intellect to fabrication. But this point must notdetain us now. Suffice it to say that _the intellect is characterized bythe unlimited power of decomposing according to any law and ofrecomposing into any system_. 

We have now enumerated a few of the essential features of humanintelligence. But we have hitherto considered the individual inisolation, without taking account of social life. In reality, man is abeing who lives in society. If it be true that the human intellect aimsat fabrication, we must add that, for that as well as for otherpurposes, it is associated with other intellects. Now, it is difficultto imagine a society whose members do not communicate by signs. Insectsocieties probably have a language, and this language must be adapted, like that of man, to the necessities of life in common. By languagecommunity of action is made possible. But the requirements of jointaction are not at all the same in a colony of ants and in a humansociety. In insect societies there is generally polymorphism, thesubdivision of labor is natural, and each individual is riveted by itsstructure to the function it performs. In any case, these societies arebased on instinct, and consequently on certain actions or fabricationsthat are more or less dependent on the form of the organs. So if theants, for instance, have a language, the signs which compose it must bevery limited in number, and each of them, once the species is formed, must remain invariably attached to a certain object or a certainoperation: the sign is adherent to the thing signified. In humansociety, on the contrary, fabrication and action are of variable form, and, moreover, each individual must learn his part, because he is notpreordained to it by his structure. So a language is required whichmakes it possible to be always passing from what is known to what is yetto be known. There must be a language whose signs--which cannot beinfinite in number--are extensible to an infinity of things. Thistendency of the sign to transfer itself from one object to another ischaracteristic of human language. It is observable in the little childas soon as he begins to speak. Immediately and naturally he extends themeaning of the words he learns, availing himself of the most accidentalconnection or the most distant analogy to detach and transfer elsewherethe sign that had been associated in his hearing with a particularobject. "Anything can designate anything;" such is the latent principleof infantine language. This tendency has been wrongly confused with thefaculty of generalizing. The animals themselves generalize; and, moreover, a sign--even an instinctive sign--always to some degreerepresents a genus. But what characterizes the signs of human languageis not so much their generality as their mobility. _The instinctive signis_ adherent, _the intelligent sign is_ mobile. 

Now, this mobility of words, that makes them able to pass from one thingto another, has enabled them to be extended from things to ideas. Certainly, language would not have given the faculty of reflecting to anintelligence entirely externalized and incapable of turning homeward. An intelligence which reflects is one that originally had a surplus ofenergy to spend, over and above practically useful efforts. It is aconsciousness that has virtually reconquered itself. But still thevirtual has to become actual. Without language, intelligence wouldprobably have remained riveted to the material objects which it wasinterested in considering. It would have lived in a state ofsomnambulism, outside itself, hypnotized on its own work. Language hasgreatly contributed to its liberation. The word, made to pass from onething to another, is, in fact, by nature transferable and free. It cantherefore be extended, not only from one perceived thing to another, buteven from a perceived thing to a recollection of that thing, from theprecise recollection to a more fleeting image, and finally from an imagefleeting, though still pictured, to the picturing of the act by whichthe image is pictured, that is to say, to the idea. Thus is revealed tothe intelligence, hitherto always turned outwards, a whole internalworld--the spectacle of its own workings. It required only thisopportunity, at length offered by language. It profits by the fact thatthe word is an external thing, which the intelligence can catch hold ofand cling to, and at the same time an immaterial thing, by means ofwhich the intelligence can penetrate even to the inwardness of its ownwork. Its first business was indeed to make instruments, but thisfabrication is possible only by the employment of certain means whichare not cut to the exact measure of their object, but go beyond it andthus allow intelligence a supplementary--that is to say disinterestedwork. From the moment that the intellect, reflecting upon its owndoings, perceives itself as a creator of ideas, as a faculty ofrepresentation in general, there is no object of which it may not wishto have the idea, even though that object be without direct relation topractical action. That is why we said there are things that intellectalone can seek. Intellect alone, indeed, troubles itself about theory;and its theory would fain embrace everything--not only inanimate matter, over which it has a natural hold, but even life and thought. 

By what means, what instruments, in short by what method it willapproach these problems, we can easily guess. Originally, it wasfashioned to the form of matter. Language itself, which has enabled itto extend its field of operations, is made to designate things, andnought but things: it is only because the word is mobile, because itflies from one thing to another, that the intellect was sure to take it, sooner or later, on the wing, while it was not settled on anything, andapply it to an object which is not a thing and which, concealed tillthen, awaited the coming of the word to pass from darkness to light. Butthe word, by covering up this object, again converts it into a thing. Sointelligence, even when it no longer operates upon its own object, follows habits it has contracted in that operation: it applies formsthat are indeed those of unorganized matter. It is made for this kind ofwork. With this kind of work alone is it fully satisfied. And that iswhat intelligence expresses by saying that thus only it arrives at_distinctness_ and _clearness_. 

It must, therefore, in order to think itself clearly and distinctly, perceive itself under the form of discontinuity. Concepts, in fact, areoutside each other, like objects in space; and they have the samestability as such objects, on which they have been modeled. Takentogether, they constitute an "intelligible world, " that resembles theworld of solids in its essential characters, but whose elements arelighter, more diaphanous, easier for the intellect to deal with than theimage of concrete things: they are not, indeed, the perception itselfof things, but the representation of the act by which the intellect isfixed on them. They are, therefore, not images, but symbols. Our logicis the complete set of rules that must be followed in using symbols. Asthese symbols are derived from the consideration of solids, as the rulesfor combining these symbols hardly do more than express the most generalrelations among solids, our logic triumphs in that science which takesthe solidity of bodies for its object, that is, in geometry. Logic andgeometry engender each other, as we shall see a little further on. It isfrom the extension of a certain natural geometry, suggested by the mostgeneral and immediately perceived properties of solids, that naturallogic has arisen; then from this natural logic, in its turn, has sprungscientific geometry, which extends further and further the knowledge ofthe external properties of solids. [65] Geometry and logic are strictlyapplicable to matter; in it they are at home, and in it they can proceedquite alone. But, outside this domain, pure reasoning needs to besupervised by common sense, which is an altogether different thing. 

Thus, all the elementary forces of the intellect tend to transformmatter into an instrument of action, that is, in the etymological senseof the word, into an _organ_. Life, not content with producingorganisms, would fain give them as an appendage inorganic matter itself, converted into an immense organ by the industry of the living being. Such is the initial task it assigns to intelligence. That is why theintellect always behaves as if it were fascinated by the contemplationof inert matter. It is life looking outward, putting itself outsideitself, adopting the ways of unorganized nature in principle, in orderto direct them in fact. Hence its bewilderment when it turns to theliving and is confronted with organization. It does what it can, itresolves the organized into the unorganized, for it cannot, withoutreversing its natural direction and twisting about on itself, think truecontinuity, real mobility, reciprocal penetration--in a word, thatcreative evolution which is life. 

Consider continuity. The aspect of life that is accessible to ourintellect--as indeed to our senses, of which our intellect is theextension--is that which offers a hold to our action. Now, to modify anobject, we have to perceive it as divisible and discontinuous. From thepoint of view of positive science, an incomparable progress was realizedwhen the organized tissues were resolved into cells. The study of thecell, in its turn, has shown it to be an organism whose complexity seemsto grow, the more thoroughly it is examined. The more science advances, the more it sees the number grow of heterogeneous elements which areplaced together, outside each other, to make up a living being. Doesscience thus get any nearer to life? Does it not, on the contrary, findthat what is really life in the living seems to recede with every stepby which it pushes further the detail of the parts combined? There isindeed already among scientists a tendency to regard the substance ofthe organism as continuous, and the cell as an artificial entity. [66]But, supposing this view were finally to prevail, it could only lead, ondeeper study, to some other mode of analyzing of the living being, andso to a new discontinuity--although less removed, perhaps, from the realcontinuity of life. The truth is that this continuity cannot be thoughtby the intellect while it follows its natural movement. It implies atonce the multiplicity of elements and the interpenetration of all byall, two conditions that can hardly be reconciled in the field in whichour industry, and consequently our intellect, is engaged. 

Just as we separate in space, we fix in time. The intellect is not madeto think _evolution_, in the proper sense of the word--that is to say, the continuity of a change that is pure mobility. We shall not dwellhere on this point, which we propose to study in a special chapter. Suffice it to say that the intellect represents _becoming_ as a seriesof _states_, each of which is homogeneous with itself and consequentlydoes not change. Is our attention called to the internal change of oneof these states? At once we decompose it into another series of stateswhich, reunited, will be supposed to make up this internal modification. Each of these new states must be invariable, or else their internalchange, if we are forced to notice it, must be resolved again into afresh series of invariable states, and so on to infinity. Here again, thinking consists in reconstituting, and, naturally, it is with _given_elements, and consequently with _stable_ elements, that we reconstitute. So that, though we may do our best to imitate the mobility of becomingby an addition that is ever going on, becoming itself slips through ourfingers just when we think we are holding it tight. 

Precisely because it is always trying to reconstitute, and toreconstitute with what is given, the intellect lets what is _new_ ineach moment of a history escape. It does not admit the unforeseeable. Itrejects all creation. That definite antecedents bring forth a definiteconsequent, calculable as a function of them, is what satisfies ourintellect. That a definite end calls forth definite means to attain it, is what we also understand. In both cases we have to do with the knownwhich is combined with the known, in short, with the old which isrepeated. Our intellect is there at its ease; and, whatever be theobject, it will abstract, separate, eliminate, so as to substitute forthe object itself, if necessary, an approximate equivalent in whichthings will happen in this way. But that each instant is a freshendowment, that the new is ever upspringing, that the form just comeinto existence (although, _when once produced_, it may be regarded as aneffect determined by its causes) could never have been foreseen--becausethe causes here, unique in their kind, are part of the effect, have comeinto existence with it, and are determined by it as much as theydetermine it--all this we can feel within ourselves and also divine, bysympathy, outside ourselves, but we cannot think it, in the strict senseof the word, nor express it in terms of pure understanding. No wonder atthat: we must remember what our intellect is meant for. The causality itseeks and finds everywhere expresses the very mechanism of our industry, in which we go on recomposing the same whole with the same parts, repeating the same movements to obtain the same result. The finality itunderstands best is the finality of our industry, in which we work on amodel given in advance, that is to say, old or composed of elementsalready known. As to invention properly so called, which is, however, the point of departure of industry itself, our intellect does notsucceed in grasping it in its _upspringing_, that is to say, in itsindivisibility, nor in its _fervor_, that is to say, in itscreativeness. Explaining it always consists in resolving it, it theunforeseeable and new, into elements old or known, arranged in adifferent order. The intellect can no more admit complete novelty thanreal becoming; that is to say, here again it lets an essential aspect oflife escape, as if it were not intended to think such an object. 

All our analyses bring us to this conclusion. But it is hardly necessaryto go into such long details concerning the mechanism of intellectualworking; it is enough to consider the results. We see that theintellect, so skilful in dealing with the inert, is awkward the momentit touches the living. Whether it wants to treat the life of the body orthe life of the mind, it proceeds with the rigor, the stiffness and thebrutality of an instrument not designed for such use. The history ofhygiene or of pedagogy teaches us much in this matter. When we think ofthe cardinal, urgent and constant need we have to preserve our bodiesand to raise our souls, of the special facilities given to each of us, in this field, to experiment continually on ourselves and on others, ofthe palpable injury by which the wrongness of a medical or pedagogicalpractise is both made manifest and punished at once, we are amazed atthe stupidity and especially at the persistence of errors. We may easilyfind their origin in the natural obstinacy with which we treat theliving like the lifeless and think all reality, however fluid, under theform of the sharply defined solid. We are at ease only in thediscontinuous, in the immobile, in the dead. _The intellect ischaracterized by a natural inability to comprehend life. _

 * * * * *

Instinct, on the contrary, is molded on the very form of life. Whileintelligence treats everything mechanically, instinct proceeds, so tospeak, organically. If the consciousness that slumbers in it shouldawake, if it were wound up into knowledge instead of being wound offinto action, if we could ask and it could reply, it would give up to usthe most intimate secrets of life. For it only carries out further thework by which life organizes matter--so that we cannot say, as has oftenbeen shown, where organization ends and where instinct begins. When thelittle chick is breaking its shell with a peck of its beak, it is actingby instinct, and yet it does but carry on the movement which has borneit through embryonic life. Inversely, in the course of embryonic lifeitself (especially when the embryo lives freely in the form of a larva), many of the acts accomplished must be referred to instinct. The mostessential of the primary instincts are really, therefore, vitalprocesses. The potential consciousness that accompanies them isgenerally actualized only at the outset of the act, and leaves the restof the process to go on by itself. It would only have to expand morewidely, and then dive into its own depth completely, to be one with thegenerative force of life. 

When we see in a living body thousands of cells working together to acommon end, dividing the task between them, living each for itself atthe same time as for the others, preserving itself, feeding itself, reproducing itself, responding to the menace of danger by appropriatedefensive reactions, how can we help thinking of so many instincts? Andyet these are the natural functions of the cell, the constitutiveelements of its vitality. On the other hand, when we see the bees of ahive forming a system so strictly organized that no individual can liveapart from the others beyond a certain time, even though furnished withfood and shelter, how can we help recognizing that the hive is really, and not metaphorically, a single organism, of which each bee is a cellunited to the others by invisible bonds? The instinct that animates thebee is indistinguishable, then, from the force that animates the cell, or is only a prolongation of that force. In extreme cases like this, instinct coincides with the work of organization. 

Of course there are degrees of perfection in the same instinct. Betweenthe humble-bee, and the honey-bee, for instance, the distance is great;and we pass from one to the other through a great number ofintermediaries, which correspond to so many complications of the sociallife. But the same diversity is found in the functioning ofhistological elements belonging to different tissues more or less akin. In both cases there are manifold variations on one and the same theme. The constancy of the theme is manifest, however, and the variations onlyfit it to the diversity of the circumstances. 

Now, in both cases, in the instinct of the animal and in the vitalproperties of the cell, the same knowledge and the same ignorance areshown. All goes on as if the cell knew, of the other cells, whatconcerns itself; as if the animal knew, of the other animals, what itcan utilize--all else remaining in shade. It seems as if life, as soonas it has become bound up in a species, is cut off from the rest of itsown work, save at one or two points that are of vital concern to thespecies just arisen. Is it not plain that life goes to work here exactlylike consciousness, exactly like memory? We trail behind us, unawares, the whole of our past; but our memory pours into the present only theodd recollection or two that in some way complete our present situation. Thus the instinctive knowledge which one species possesses of another ona certain particular point has its root in the very unity of life, whichis, to use the expression of an ancient philosopher, a "wholesympathetic to itself. " It is impossible to consider some of the specialinstincts of the animal and of the plant, evidently arisen inextraordinary circumstances, without relating them to thoserecollections, seemingly forgotten, which spring up suddenly under thepressure of an urgent need. 

No doubt many secondary instincts, and also many varieties of primaryinstinct, admit of a scientific explanation. Yet it is doubtful whetherscience, with its present methods of explanation, will ever succeed inanalyzing instinct completely. The reason is that instinct andintelligence are two divergent developments of one and the sameprinciple, which in the one case remains within itself, in the othersteps out of itself and becomes absorbed in the utilization of inertmatter. This gradual divergence testifies to a radical incompatibility, and points to the fact that it is impossible for intelligence toreabsorb instinct. That which is instinctive in instinct cannot beexpressed in terms of intelligence, nor, consequently, can it beanalyzed. 

A man born blind, who had lived among others born blind, could not bemade to believe in the possibility of perceiving a distant objectwithout first perceiving all the objects in between. Yet vision performsthis miracle. In a certain sense the blind man is right, since vision, having its origin in the stimulation of the retina, by the vibrations ofthe light, is nothing else, in fact, but a retinal touch. Such is indeedthe _scientific_ explanation, for the function of science is just toexpress all perceptions in terms of touch. But we have shown elsewherethat the philosophical explanation of perception (if it may still becalled an explanation) must be of another kind. [67] Now instinct also isa knowledge at a distance. It has the same relation to intelligence thatvision has to touch. Science cannot do otherwise than express it interms of intelligence; but in so doing it constructs an imitation ofinstinct rather than penetrates within it. 

Any one can convince himself of this by studying the ingenious theoriesof evolutionist biology. They may be reduced to two types, which areoften intermingled. One type, following the principles of neo-Darwinism, regards instinct as a sum of accidental differences preserved byselection: such and such a useful behavior, naturally adopted by theindividual in virtue of an accidental predisposition of the germ, hasbeen transmitted from germ to germ, waiting for chance to add freshimprovements to it by the same method. The other type regards instinctas lapsed intelligence: the action, found useful by the species or bycertain of its representatives, is supposed to have engendered a habit, which, by hereditary transmission, has become an instinct. Of these twotypes of theory, the first has the advantage of being able to bring inhereditary transmission without raising grave objection; for theaccidental modification which it places at the origin of the instinct isnot supposed to have been acquired by the individual, but to have beeninherent in the germ. But, on the other hand, it is absolutely incapableof explaining instincts as sagacious as those of most insects. Theseinstincts surely could not have attained, all at once, their presentdegree of complexity; they have probably evolved; but, in a hypothesislike that of the neo-Darwinians, the evolution of instinct could havecome to pass only by the progressive addition of new pieces which, insome way, by happy accidents, came to fit into the old. Now it isevident that, in most cases, instinct could not have perfected itself bysimple accretion: each new piece really requires, if all is not to bespoiled, a complete recasting of the whole. How could mere chance work arecasting of the kind? I agree that an accidental modification of thegerm may be passed on hereditarily, and may somehow wait for freshaccidental modifications to come and complicate it. I agree also thatnatural selection may eliminate all those of the more complicated formsof instinct that are not fit to survive. Still, in order that the lifeof the instinct may evolve, complications fit to survive have to beproduced. Now they will be produced only if, in certain cases, theaddition of a new element brings about the correlative change of all theold elements. No one will maintain that chance could perform such amiracle: in one form or another we shall appeal to intelligence. Weshall suppose that it is by an effort, more or less conscious, that theliving being develops a higher instinct. But then we shall have to admitthat an acquired habit can become hereditary, and that it does soregularly enough to ensure an evolution. The thing is doubtful, to putit mildly. Even if we could refer the instincts of animals to habitsintelligently acquired and hereditarily transmitted, it is not clear howthis sort of explanation could be extended to the vegetable world, whereeffort is never intelligent, even supposing it is sometimes conscious. And yet, when we see with what sureness and precision climbing plantsuse their tendrils, what marvelously combined manoeuvres the orchidsperform to procure their fertilization by means of insects, [68] how canwe help thinking that these are so many instincts?

This is not saying that the theory of the neo-Darwinians must bealtogether rejected, any more than that of the neo-Lamarckians. Thefirst are probably right in holding that evolution takes place from germto germ rather than from individual to individual; the second are rightin saying that at the origin of instinct there is an effort (although itis something quite different, we believe, from an _intelligent_ effort). But the former are probably wrong when they make the evolution ofinstinct an _accidental_ evolution, and the latter when they regard theeffort from which instinct proceeds as an _individual_ effort. Theeffort by which a species modifies its instinct, and modifies itself aswell, must be a much deeper thing, dependent solely neither oncircumstances nor on individuals. It is not purely accidental, althoughaccident has a large place in it; and it does not depend solely on theinitiative of individuals, although individuals collaborate in it. 

Compare the different forms of the same instinct in different species ofhymenoptera. The impression derived is not always that of an increasingcomplexity made of elements that have been added together one after theother. Nor does it suggest the idea of steps up a ladder. Rather do wethink, in many cases at least, of the circumference of a circle, fromdifferent points of which these different varieties have started, allfacing the same centre, all making an effort in that direction, but eachapproaching it only to the extent of its means, and to the extent alsoto which this central point has been illumined for it. In other words, instinct is everywhere complete, but it is more or less simplified, and, above all, simplified _differently_. On the other hand, in cases wherewe do get the impression of an ascending scale, as if one and the sameinstinct had gone on complicating itself more and more in one directionand along a straight line, the species which are thus arranged by theirinstincts into a linear series are by no means always akin. Thus, thecomparative study, in recent years, of the social instinct in thedifferent apidae proves that the instinct of the meliponines isintermediary in complexity between the still rudimentary tendency of thehumble bees and the consummate science of the true bees; yet there canbe no kinship between the bees and the meliponines. [69] Most likely, thedegree of complexity of these different societies has nothing to do withany greater or smaller number of added elements. We seem rather to bebefore a _musical theme_, which had first been transposed, the theme asa whole, into a certain number of tones and on which, still the wholetheme, different variations had been played, some very simple, othersvery skilful. As to the original theme, it is everywhere and nowhere. It is in vain that we try to express it in terms of any idea: it musthave been, originally, _felt_ rather than _thought_. We get the sameimpression before the paralyzing instinct of certain wasps. We know thatthe different species of hymenoptera that have this paralyzing instinctlay their eggs in spiders, beetles or caterpillars, which, having firstbeen subjected by the wasp to a skilful surgical operation, will go onliving motionless a certain number of days, and thus provide the larvaewith fresh meat. In the sting which they give to the nerve-centres oftheir victim, in order to destroy its power of moving without killingit, these different species of hymenoptera take into account, so tospeak, the different species of prey they respectively attack. TheScolia, which attacks a larva of the rose-beetle, stings it in one pointonly, but in this point the motor ganglia are concentrated, and thoseganglia alone: the stinging of other ganglia might cause death andputrefaction, which it must avoid. [70] The yellow-winged Sphex, whichhas chosen the cricket for its victim, knows that the cricket has threenerve-centres which serve its three pairs of legs--or at least it actsas if it knew this. It stings the insect first under the neck, thenbehind the prothorax, and then where the thorax joins the abdomen. [71]The Ammophila Hirsuta gives nine successive strokes of its sting uponnine nerve-centres of its caterpillar, and then seizes the head andsqueezes it in its mandibles, enough to cause paralysis withoutdeath. [72] The general theme is "the necessity of paralyzing withoutkilling"; the variations are subordinated to the structure of the victimon which they are played. No doubt the operation is not always perfect. It has recently been shown that the Ammophila sometimes kills thecaterpillar instead of paralyzing it, that sometimes also it paralyzesit incompletely. [73] But, because instinct is, like intelligence, fallible, because it also shows individual deviations, it does not atall follow that the instinct of the Ammophila has been acquired, as hasbeen claimed, by tentative intelligent experiments. Even supposing thatthe Ammophila has come in course of time to recognize, one afteranother, by tentative experiment, the points of its victim which must bestung to render it motionless, and also the special treatment that mustbe inflicted on the head to bring about paralysis without death, how canwe imagine that elements so special of a knowledge so precise have beenregularly transmitted, one by one, by heredity? If, in all our presentexperience, there were a single indisputable example of a transmissionof this kind, the inheritance of acquired characters would be questionedby no one. As a matter of fact, the hereditary transmission of acontracted habit is effected in an irregular and far from precisemanner, supposing it is ever really effected at all. 

But the whole difficulty comes from our desire to express the knowledgeof the hymenoptera in terms of intelligence. It is this that compels usto compare the Ammophila with the entomologist, who knows thecaterpillar as he knows everything else--from the outside, and withouthaving on his part a special or vital interest. The Ammophila, weimagine, must learn, one by one, like the entomologist, the positions ofthe nerve-centres of the caterpillar--must acquire at least thepractical knowledge of these positions by trying the effects of itssting. But there is no need for such a view if we suppose a _sympathy_(in the etymological sense of the word) between the Ammophila and itsvictim, which teaches it from within, so to say, concerning thevulnerability of the caterpillar. This feeling of vulnerability mightowe nothing to outward perception, but result from the mere presencetogether of the Ammophila and the caterpillar, considered no longer astwo organisms, but as two activities. It would express, in a concreteform, the _relation_ of the one to the other. Certainly, a scientifictheory cannot appeal to considerations of this kind. It must not putaction before organization, sympathy before perception and knowledge. But, once more, either philosophy has nothing to see here, or its rôlebegins where that of science ends. 

Whether it makes instinct a "compound reflex, " or a habit formedintelligently that has become automatism, or a sum of small accidentaladvantages accumulated and fixed by selection, in every case scienceclaims to resolve instinct completely either into _intelligent_ actions, or into mechanisms built up piece by piece like those combined by our_intelligence_. I agree indeed that science is here within its function. It gives us, in default of a real analysis of the object, a translationof this object in terms of intelligence. But is it not plain thatscience itself invites philosophy to consider things in another way? Ifour biology was still that of Aristotle, if it regarded the series ofliving beings as unilinear, if it showed us the whole of life evolvingtowards intelligence and passing, to that end, through sensibility andinstinct, we should be right, we, the intelligent beings, in turningback towards the earlier and consequently inferior manifestations oflife and in claiming to fit them, without deforming them, into the moldsof our understanding. But one of the clearest results of biology hasbeen to show that evolution has taken place along divergent lines. It isat the extremity of two of these lines--the two principal--that we findintelligence and instinct in forms almost pure. Why, then, shouldinstinct be resolvable into intelligent elements? Why, even, into termsentirely intelligible? Is it not obvious that to think here of theintelligent, or of the absolutely intelligible, is to go back to theAristotelian theory of nature? No doubt it is better to go back to thatthan to stop short before instinct as before an unfathomable mystery. But, though instinct is not within the domain of intelligence, it is notsituated beyond the limits of mind. In the phenomena of feeling, inunreflecting sympathy and antipathy, we experience in ourselves--thoughunder a much vaguer form, and one too much penetrated withintelligence--something of what must happen in the consciousness of aninsect acting by instinct. Evolution does but sunder, in order todevelop them to the end, elements which, at their origin, interpenetrated each other. More precisely, intelligence is, beforeanything else, the faculty of relating one point of space to another, one material object to another; it applies to all things, but remainsoutside them; and of a deep cause it perceives only the effects spreadout side by side. Whatever be the force that is at work in the genesisof the nervous system of the caterpillar, to our eyes and ourintelligence it is only a juxtaposition of nerves and nervous centres. It is true that we thus get the whole outer effect of it. The Ammophila, no doubt, discerns but a very little of that force, just what concernsitself; but at least it discerns it from within, quite otherwise than bya process of knowledge--by an intuition (_lived_ rather than_represented_), which is probably like what we call divining sympathy. 

A very significant fact is the swing to and fro of scientific theoriesof instinct, from regarding it as intelligent to regarding it as simplyintelligible, or, shall I say, between likening it to an intelligence"lapsed" and reducing it to a pure mechanism. [74] Each of these systemsof explanation triumphs in its criticism of the other, the first when itshows us that instinct cannot be a mere reflex, the other when itdeclares that instinct is something different from intelligence, evenfallen into unconsciousness. What can this mean but that they are twosymbolisms, equally acceptable in certain respects, and, in otherrespects, equally inadequate to their object? The concrete explanation, no longer scientific, but metaphysical, must be sought along quiteanother path, not in the direction of intelligence, but in that of"sympathy. "

 * * * * *

Instinct is sympathy. If this sympathy could extend its object and alsoreflect upon itself, it would give us the key to vital operations--justas intelligence, developed and disciplined, guides us into matter. For--we cannot too often repeat it--intelligence and instinct are turnedin opposite directions, the former towards inert matter, the lattertowards life. Intelligence, by means of science, which is its work, willdeliver up to us more and more completely the secret of physicaloperations; of life it brings us, and moreover only claims to bring us, a translation in terms of inertia. It goes all round life, taking fromoutside the greatest possible number of views of it, drawing it intoitself instead of entering into it. But it is to the very inwardness oflife that _intuition_ leads us--by intuition I mean instinct that hasbecome disinterested, self-conscious, capable of reflecting upon itsobject and of enlarging it indefinitely. 

That an effort of this kind is not impossible, is proved by theexistence in man of an aesthetic faculty along with normal perception. Our eye perceives the features of the living being, merely as assembled, not as mutually organized. The intention of life, the simple movementthat runs through the lines, that binds them together and gives themsignificance, escapes it. This intention is just what the artist triesto regain, in placing himself back within the object by a kind ofsympathy, in breaking down, by an effort of intuition, the barrier thatspace puts up between him and his model. It is true that this aestheticintuition, like external perception, only attains the individual. But wecan conceive an inquiry turned in the same direction as art, which wouldtake life _in general_ for its object, just as physical science, infollowing to the end the direction pointed out by external perception, prolongs the individual facts into general laws. No doubt thisphilosophy will never obtain a knowledge of its object comparable tothat which science has of its own. Intelligence remains the luminousnucleus around which instinct, even enlarged and purified intointuition, forms only a vague nebulosity. But, in default of knowledgeproperly so called, reserved to pure intelligence, intuition may enableus to grasp what it is that intelligence fails to give us, and indicatethe means of supplementing it. On the one hand, it will utilize themechanism of intelligence itself to show how intellectual molds cease tobe strictly applicable; and on the other hand, by its own work, it willsuggest to us the vague feeling, if nothing more, of what must take theplace of intellectual molds. Thus, intuition may bring the intellect torecognize that life does not quite go into the category of the many noryet into that of the one; that neither mechanical causality nor finalitycan give a sufficient interpretation of the vital process. Then, by thesympathetic communication which it establishes between us and the restof the living, by the expansion of our consciousness which it bringsabout, it introduces us into life's own domain, which is reciprocalinterpenetration, endlessly continued creation. But, though it therebytranscends intelligence, it is from intelligence that has come the pushthat has made it rise to the point it has reached. Without intelligence, it would have remained in the form of instinct, riveted to the specialobject of its practical interest, and turned outward by it intomovements of locomotion. 

How theory of knowledge must take account of these two faculties, intellect and intuition, and how also, for want of establishing asufficiently clear distinction between them, it becomes involved ininextricable difficulties, creating phantoms of ideas to which therecling phantoms of problems, we shall endeavor to show a little furtheron. We shall see that the problem of knowledge, from this point of view, is one with the metaphysical problem, and that both one and the otherdepend upon experience. On the one hand, indeed, if intelligence ischarged with matter and instinct with life, we must squeeze them both inorder to get the double essence from them; metaphysics is thereforedependent upon theory of knowledge. But, on the other hand, ifconsciousness has thus split up into intuition and intelligence, it isbecause of the need it had to apply itself to matter at the same time asit had to follow the stream of life. The double form of consciousness isthen due to the double form of the real, and theory of knowledge must bedependent upon metaphysics. In fact, each of these two lines of thoughtleads to the other; they form a circle, and there can be no other centreto the circle but the empirical study of evolution. It is only in seeingconsciousness run through matter, lose itself there and find itselfthere again, divide and reconstitute itself, that we shall form an ideaof the mutual opposition of the two terms, as also, perhaps, of theircommon origin. But, on the other hand, by dwelling on this opposition ofthe two elements and on this identity of origin, perhaps we shall bringout more clearly the meaning of evolution itself. 

Such will be the aim of our next chapter. But the facts that we havejust noticed must have already suggested to us the idea that life isconnected either with consciousness or with something that resembles it. 

Throughout the whole extent of the animal kingdom, we have said, consciousness seems proportionate to the living being's power of choice. It lights up the zone of potentialities that surrounds the act. It fillsthe interval between what is done and what might be done. Looked at fromwithout, we may regard it as a simple aid to action, a light that actionkindles, a momentary spark flying up from the friction of real actionagainst possible actions. But we must also point out that things wouldgo on in just the same way if consciousness, instead of being theeffect, were the cause. We might suppose that consciousness, even in themost rudimentary animal, covers by right an enormous field, but iscompressed in fact in a kind of vise: each advance of the nervouscentres, by giving the organism a choice between a larger number ofactions, calls forth the potentialities that are capable of surroundingthe real, thus opening the vise wider and allowing consciousness to passmore freely. In this second hypothesis, as in the first, consciousnessis still the instrument of action; but it is even more true to say thataction is the instrument of consciousness; for the complicating ofaction with action, and the opposing of action to action, are for theimprisoned consciousness the only possible means to set itself free. How, then, shall we choose between the two hypotheses? If the first istrue, consciousness must express exactly, at each instant, the state ofthe brain; there is strict parallelism (so far as intelligible) betweenthe psychical and the cerebral state. On the second hypothesis, on thecontrary, there is indeed solidarity and interdependence between thebrain and consciousness, but not parallelism: the more complicated thebrain becomes, thus giving the organism greater choice of possibleactions, the more does consciousness outrun its physical concomitant. Thus, the recollection of the same spectacle probably modifies in thesame way a dog's brain and a man's brain, if the perception has been thesame; yet the recollection must be very different in the man'sconsciousness from what it is in the dog's. In the dog, the recollectionremains the captive of perception; it is brought back to consciousnessonly when an analogous perception recalls it by reproducing the samespectacle, and then it is manifested by the recognition, _acted_ ratherthan _thought_, of the present perception much more than by an actualreappearance of the recollection itself. Man, on the contrary, iscapable of calling up the recollection at will, at any moment, independently of the present perception. He is not limited to _playing_his past life again; he _represents_ and _dreams_ it. The localmodification of the brain to which the recollection is attached beingthe same in each case, the psychological difference between the tworecollections cannot have its ground in a particular difference ofdetail between the two cerebral mechanisms, but in the differencebetween the two brains taken each as a whole. The more complex of thetwo, in putting a greater number of mechanisms in opposition to oneanother, has enabled consciousness to disengage itself from therestraint of one and all and to reach independence. That things dohappen in this way, that the second of the two hypotheses is that whichmust be chosen, is what we have tried to prove, in a former work, bythe study of facts that best bring into relief the relation of theconscious state to the cerebral state, the facts of normal andpathological recognition, in particular the forms of aphasia. [75] But itcould have been proved by pure reasoning, before even it was evidencedby facts. We have shown on what self-contradictory postulate, on whatconfusion of two mutually incompatible symbolisms, the hypothesis ofequivalence between the cerebral state and the psychic state rests. [76]

The evolution of life, looked at from this point, receives a clearermeaning, although it cannot be subsumed under any actual _idea_. It isas if a broad current of consciousness had penetrated matter, loaded, asall consciousness is, with an enormous multiplicity of interwovenpotentialities. It has carried matter along to organization, but itsmovement has been at once infinitely retarded and infinitely divided. Onthe one hand, indeed, consciousness has had to fall asleep, like thechrysalis in the envelope in which it is preparing for itself wings;and, on the other hand, the manifold tendencies it contained have beendistributed among divergent series of organisms which, moreover, expressthese tendencies outwardly in movements rather than internally inrepresentations. In the course of this evolution, while some beings havefallen more and more asleep, others have more and more completelyawakened, and the torpor of some has served the activity of others. Butthe waking could be effected in two different ways. Life, that is to sayconsciousness launched into matter, fixed its attention either on itsown movement or on the matter it was passing through; and it has thusbeen turned either in the direction of intuition or in that ofintellect. Intuition, at first sight, seems far preferable to intellect, since in it life and consciousness remain within themselves. But aglance at the evolution of living beings shows us that intuition couldnot go very far. On the side of intuition, consciousness found itself sorestricted by its envelope that intuition had to shrink into instinct, that is, to embrace only the very small portion of life that interestedit; and this it embraces only in the dark, touching it while hardlyseeing it. On this side, the horizon was soon shut out. On the contrary, consciousness, in shaping itself into intelligence, that is to say inconcentrating itself at first on matter, seems to externalize itself inrelation to itself; but, just because it adapts itself thereby toobjects from without, it succeeds in moving among them and in evadingthe barriers they oppose to it, thus opening to itself an unlimitedfield. Once freed, moreover, it can turn inwards on itself, and awakenthe potentialities of intuition which still slumber within it. 

From this point of view, not only does consciousness appear as themotive principle of evolution, but also, among conscious beingsthemselves, man comes to occupy a privileged place. Between him and theanimals the difference is no longer one of degree, but of kind. We shallshow how this conclusion is arrived at in our next chapter. Let us nowshow how the preceding analyses suggest it. 

A noteworthy fact is the extraordinary disproportion between theconsequences of an invention and the invention itself. We have said thatintelligence is modeled on matter and that it aims in the first place atfabrication. But does it fabricate in order to fabricate or does it notpursue involuntarily, and even unconsciously, something entirelydifferent? Fabricating consists in shaping matter, in making it suppleand in bending it, in converting it into an instrument in order tobecome master of it. It is this _mastery_ that profits humanity, muchmore even than the material result of the invention itself. Though wederive an immediate advantage from the thing made, as an intelligentanimal might do, and though this advantage be all the inventor sought, it is a slight matter compared with the new ideas and new feelings thatthe invention may give rise to in every direction, as if the essentialpart of the effect were to raise us above ourselves and enlarge ourhorizon. Between the effect and the cause the disproportion is so greatthat it is difficult to regard the cause as _producer_ of its effect. Itreleases it, whilst settling, indeed, its direction. Everything happensas though the grip of intelligence on matter were, in its mainintention, to _let something pass_ that matter is holding back. 

The same impression arises when we compare the brain of man with that ofthe animals. The difference at first appears to be only a difference ofsize and complexity. But, judging by function, there must be somethingelse besides. In the animal, the motor mechanisms that the brainsucceeds in setting up, or, in other words, the habits contractedvoluntarily, have no other object nor effect than the accomplishment ofthe movements marked out in these habits, stored in these mechanisms. But, in man, the motor habit may have a second result, out of proportionto the first: it can hold other motor habits in check, and thereby, inovercoming automatism, set consciousness free. We know what vast regionsin the human brain language occupies. The cerebral mechanisms thatcorrespond to the words have this in particular, that they can be madeto grapple with other mechanisms, those, for instance, that correspondto the things themselves, or even be made to grapple with one another. Meanwhile consciousness, which would have been dragged down and drownedin the accomplishment of the act, is restored and set free. [77]

The difference must therefore be more radical than a superficialexamination would lead us to suppose. It is the difference between amechanism which engages the attention and a mechanism from which it canbe diverted. The primitive steam-engine, as Newcomen conceived it, required the presence of a person exclusively employed to turn on andoff the taps, either to let the steam into the cylinder or to throw thecold spray into it in order to condense the steam. It is said that a boyemployed on this work, and very tired of having to do it, got the ideaof tying the handles of the taps, with cords, to the beam of the engine. Then the machine opened and closed the taps itself; it worked all alone. Now, if an observer had compared the structure of this second machinewith that of the first without taking into account the two boys left towatch over them, he would have found only a slight difference ofcomplexity. That is, indeed, all we can perceive when we look only atthe machines. But if we cast a glance at the two boys, we shall see thatwhilst one is wholly taken up by the watching, the other is free to goand play as he chooses, and that, from this point of view, thedifference between the two machines is radical, the first holding theattention captive, the second setting it at liberty. A difference of thesame kind, we think, would be found between the brain of an animal andthe human brain. 

If, now, we should wish to express this in terms of finality, we shouldhave to say that consciousness, after having been obliged, in order toset itself free, to divide organization into two complementary parts, vegetables on one hand and animals on the other, has sought an issue inthe double direction of instinct and of intelligence. It has not foundit with instinct, and it has not obtained it on the side of intelligenceexcept by a sudden leap from the animal to man. So that, in the lastanalysis, man might be considered the reason for the existence of theentire organization of life on our planet. But this would be only amanner of speaking. There is, in reality, only a current of existenceand the opposing current; thence proceeds the whole evolution of life. We must now grasp more closely the opposition of these two currents. Perhaps we shall thus discover for them a common source. By this weshall also, no doubt, penetrate the most obscure regions of metaphysics. However, as the two directions we have to follow are clearly marked, inintelligence on the one hand, in instinct and intuition on the other, weare not afraid of straying. A survey of the evolution of life suggeststo us a certain conception of knowledge, and also a certain metaphysics, which imply each other. Once made clear, this metaphysics and thiscritique may throw some light, in their turn, on evolution as a whole. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 51: This view of adaptation has been noted by M. F. Marin in aremarkable article on the origin of species, "L'Origine des espèces"(_Revue scientifique_, Nov. 1901, p. 580). ]

[Footnote 52: De Saporta and Marion, _L'Évolution des cryptogames_, 1881, p. 37. ]

[Footnote 53: On fixation and parasitism in general, see the work ofHoussay, _La Forme et la vie_, Paris, 1900, pp. 721-807. ]

[Footnote 54: Cope, _op. Cit. _ p. 76. ]

[Footnote 55: Just as the plant, in certain cases, recovers the facultyof moving actively which slumbers in it, so the animal, in exceptionalcircumstances, can replace itself in the conditions of the vegetativelife and develop in itself an equivalent of the chlorophyllian function. It appears, indeed, from recent experiments of Maria von Linden, thatthe chrysalides and the caterpillars of certain lepidoptera, under theinfluence of light, fix the carbon of the carbonic acid contained in theatmosphere (M. Von Linden, "L'Assimilation de l'acide carbonique par leschrysalides de Lépidoptères, " _C. R. De la Soc. De biologie_, 1905, pp. 692 ff. ). ]

[Footnote 56: _Archives de physiologie_, 1892. ]

[Footnote 57: De Manacéine, "Quelques observations expérimentales surl'influence de l'insomnie absolue" (_Arch. Ital. De biologie_, t. Xxi. , 1894, pp. 322 ff. ). Recently, analogous observations have been made on aman who died of inanition after a fast of thirty-five days. See, on thissubject, in the _Année biologique_ of 1898, p. 338, the résumé of anarticle (in Russian) by Tarakevitch and Stchasny. ]

[Footnote 58: Cuvier said: "The nervous system is, at bottom, the wholeanimal; the other systems are there only to serve it. " ("Sur un nouveaurapprochement à établir entre les classes qui composent le regneanimal, " _Arch. Du Muséum d'histoire naturelle_, Paris, 1812, pp. 73-84. ) Of course, it would be necessary to apply a great manyrestrictions to this formula--for example, to allow for the cases ofdegradation and retrogression in which the nervous system passes intothe background. And, moreover, with the nervous system must be includedthe sensorial apparatus on the one hand and the motor on the other, between which it acts as intermediary. Cf. Foster, art. "Physiology, " inthe _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, Edinburgh, 1885, p. 17. ]

[Footnote 59: See, on these different points, the work of Gaudry, _Essaide paléontologie philosophique_, Paris, 1896, pp. 14-16 and 78-79. ]

[Footnote 60: See, on this subject, Shaler, _The Individual_, New York, 1900, pp. 118-125. ]

[Footnote 61: This point is disputed by M. René Quinton, who regards thecarnivorous and ruminant mammals, as well as certain birds, assubsequent to man (R. Quinton, _L'Eau de mer milieu organique_, Paris, 1904, p. 435). We may say here that our general conclusions, althoughvery different from M. Quinton's, are not irreconcilable with them; forif evolution has really been such as we represent it, the vertebratesmust have made an effort to maintain themselves in the most favorableconditions of activity--the very conditions, indeed, which life hadchosen in the beginning. ]

[Footnote 62: M. Paul Lacombe has laid great stress on the importantinfluence that great inventions have exercised on the evolution ofhumanity (P. Lacombe, _De l'histoire considérée comme science_, Paris, 1894. See, in particular, pp. 168-247). ]

[Footnote 63: Bouvier, "La Nidification des abeilles à l'air libre"(_C. R. De l'Ac. Des sciences_, 7 mai 1906). ]

[Footnote 64: Plato, _Phaedrus_, 265 E. ]

[Footnote 65: We shall return to these points in the next chapter. ]

[Footnote 66: We shall return to this point in chapter iii. , p. 259. ]

[Footnote 67: _Matière et mémoire_, chap. I. ]

[Footnote 68: See the two works of Darwin, _Climbing Plants_ and _TheFertilization of Orchids by Insects_. ]

[Footnote 69: Buttel-Reepen, "Die phylogenetische Entstehung desBienenstaates" (_Biol. Centralblatt_, xxiii. 1903), p. 108 inparticular. ]

[Footnote 70: Fabre, _Souvenirs entomologiques_, 3^e série, Paris, 1890, pp. 1-69. ]

[Footnote 71: Fabre, _Souvenirs entomologiques_, 1^{re} série, Paris, 3^e édition, Paris, 1894, pp. 93 ff. ]

[Footnote 72: Fabre, _Nouveaux souvenirs entomologiques_, Paris, 1882, pp. 14 ff. ]

[Footnote 73: Peckham, _Wasps, Solitary and Social_, Westminster, 1905, pp. 28 ff. ]

[Footnote 74: See, in particular, among recent works, Bethe, "Dürfen wirden Ameisen und Bienen psychische Qualitäten zuschreiben?" (_Arch. F. D. Ges. Physiologie_, 1898), and Forel, "Un Aperçu de psychologie comparée"(_Année psychologique_, 1895). ]

[Footnote 75: _Matière et mémoire_, chaps. Ii. And iii. ]

[Footnote 76: "Le Paralogisme psycho-physiologique" (_Revue demétaphysique_, Nov. 1904). ]

[Footnote 77: A geologist whom we have already had occasion to cite, N. S. Shaler, well says that "when we come to man, it seems as if we findthe ancient subjection of mind to body abolished, and the intellectualparts develop with an extraordinary rapidity, the structure of the bodyremaining identical in essentials" (Shaler, _The Interpretation ofNature_, Boston, 1899, p. 187). ]

CHAPTER III

ON THE MEANING OF LIFE--THE ORDER OF NATURE AND THE FORM OF INTELLIGENCE

In the course of our first chapter we traced a line of demarcationbetween the inorganic and the organized, but we pointed out that thedivision of unorganized matter into separate bodies is relative to oursenses and to our intellect, and that matter, looked at as an undividedwhole, must be a flux rather than a thing. In this we were preparing theway for a reconciliation between the inert and the living. 

On the other side, we have shown in our second chapter that the sameopposition is found again between instinct and intelligence, the oneturned to certain determinations of life, the other molded on theconfiguration of matter. But instinct and intelligence, we have alsosaid, stand out from the same background, which, for want of a bettername, we may call consciousness in general, and which must becoextensive with universal life. In this way, we have disclosed thepossibility of showing the genesis of intelligence in setting out fromgeneral consciousness, which embraces it. 

We are now, then, to attempt a genesis of intellect at the same time asa genesis of material bodies--two enterprises that are evidentlycorrelative, if it be true that the main lines of our intellect mark outthe general form of our action on matter, and that the detail of matteris ruled by the requirements of our action. Intellectuality andmateriality have been constituted, in detail, by reciprocal adaptation. Both are derived from a wider and higher form of existence. It is therethat we must replace them, in order to see them issue forth. 

Such an attempt may appear, at first, more daring than the boldestspeculations of metaphysicians. It claims to go further than psychology, further than cosmology, further than traditional metaphysics; forpsychology, cosmology and metaphysics take intelligence, in all that isessential to it, as given, instead of, as we now propose, engendering itin its form and in its matter. The enterprise is in reality much moremodest, as we are going to show. But let us first say how it differsfrom others. 

To begin with psychology, we are not to believe that it _engenders_intelligence when it follows the progressive development of it throughthe animal series. Comparative psychology teaches us that the more ananimal is intelligent, the more it tends to reflect on the actions bywhich it makes use of things, and thus to approximate to man. But itsactions have already by themselves adopted the principal lines of humanaction; they have made out the same general directions in the materialworld as we have; they depend upon the same objects bound together bythe same relations; so that animal intelligence, although it does notform concepts properly so called, already moves in a conceptualatmosphere. Absorbed at every instant by the actions it performs and theattitudes it must adopt, drawn outward by them and so externalized inrelation to itself, it no doubt plays rather than thinks its ideas; thisplay none the less already corresponds, in the main, to the general planof human intelligence. [78] To explain the intelligence of man by that ofthe animal consists then simply in following the development of anembryo of humanity into complete humanity. We show how a certaindirection has been followed further and further by beings more and moreintelligent. But the moment we admit the direction, intelligence isgiven. 

In a cosmogony like that of Spencer, intelligence is taken for granted, as matter also at the same time. We are shown matter obeying laws, objects connected with objects and facts with facts by constantrelations, consciousness receiving the imprint of these relations andlaws, and thus adopting the general configuration of nature and shapingitself into intellect. But how can we fail to see that intelligence issupposed when we admit objects and facts? _A priori_ and apart from anyhypothesis on the nature of the matter, it is evident that themateriality of a body does not stop at the point at which we touch it: abody is present wherever its influence is felt; its attractive force, tospeak only of that, is exerted on the sun, on the planets, perhaps onthe entire universe. The more physics advances, the more it effaces theindividuality of bodies and even of the particles into which thescientific imagination began by decomposing them: bodies and corpusclestend to dissolve into a universal interaction. Our perceptions give usthe plan of our eventual action on things much more than that of thingsthemselves. The outlines we find in objects simply mark what we canattain and modify in them. The lines we see traced through matter arejust the paths on which we are called to move. Outlines and paths havedeclared themselves in the measure and proportion that consciousness hasprepared for action on unorganized matter--that is to say, in themeasure and proportion that intelligence has been formed. It is doubtfulwhether animals built on a different plan--a mollusc or an insect, forinstance--cut matter up along the same articulations. It is not indeednecessary that they should separate it into bodies at all. In order tofollow the indications of instinct, there is no need to perceive_objects_, it is enough to distinguish _properties_. Intelligence, onthe contrary, even in its humblest form, already aims at getting matterto act on matter. If on one side matter lends itself to a division intoactive and passive bodies, or more simply into coexistent and distinctfragments, it is from this side that intelligence will regard it; andthe more it busies itself with dividing, the more it will spread out inspace, in the form of extension adjoining extension, a matter thatundoubtedly itself has a tendency to spatiality, but whose parts are yetin a state of reciprocal implication and interpenetration. Thus the samemovement by which the mind is brought to form itself into intellect, that is to say, into distinct concepts, brings matter to break itself upinto objects excluding one another. _The more consciousness isintellectualized, the more is matter spatialized. _ So that theevolutionist philosophy, when it imagines in space a matter cut up onthe very lines that our action will follow, has given itself in advance, ready made, the intelligence of which it claims to show the genesis. 

Metaphysics applies itself to a work of the same kind, though subtlerand more self-conscious, when it deduces _a priori_ the categories ofthought. It compresses intellect, reduces it to its quintessence, holdsit tight in a principle so simple that it can be thought empty: fromthis principle we then draw out what we have virtually put into it. Inthis way we may no doubt show the coherence of intelligence, defineintellect, give its formula, but we do not trace its genesis. Anenterprise like that of Fichte, although more philosophical than that ofSpencer, in that it pays more respect to the true order of things, hardly leads us any further. Fichte takes thought in a concentratedstate, and expands it into reality; Spencer starts from externalreality, and condenses it into intellect. But, in the one case as in theother, the intellect must be taken at the beginning as given--eithercondensed or expanded, grasped in itself by a direct vision or perceivedby reflection in nature, as in a mirror. 

The agreement of most philosophers on this point comes from the factthat they are at one in affirming the unity of nature, and inrepresenting this unity under an abstract and geometrical form. Betweenthe organized and the unorganized they do not see and they will not seethe cleft. Some start from the inorganic, and, by compounding it withitself, claim to form the living; others place life first, and proceedtowards matter by a skilfully managed _decrescendo_; but, for both, there are only differences of _degree_ in nature--degrees of complexityin the first hypothesis, of intensity in the second. Once this principleis admitted, intelligence becomes as vast as reality; for it isunquestionable that whatever is geometrical in things is entirelyaccessible to human intelligence, and if the continuity between geometryand the rest is perfect, all the rest must indeed be equallyintelligible, equally intelligent. Such is the postulate of mostsystems. Any one can easily be convinced of this by comparing doctrinesthat seem to have no common point, no common measure, those of Fichteand Spencer for instance, two names that we happen to have just broughttogether. 

At the root of these speculations, then, there are the two convictionscorrelative and complementary, that nature is one and that the functionof intellect is to embrace it in its entirety. The faculty of knowingbeing supposed coextensive with the whole of experience, there can nolonger be any question of engendering it. It is already given, and wemerely have to use it, as we use our sight to take in the horizon. Itis true that opinions differ as to the value of the result. For some, itis reality itself that the intellect embraces; for others, it is only aphantom. But, phantom or reality, what intelligence grasps is thought tobe all that can be attained. 

Hence the exaggerated confidence of philosophy in the powers of theindividual mind. Whether it is dogmatic or critical, whether it admitsthe relativity of our knowledge or claims to be established within theabsolute, a philosophy is generally the work of a philosopher, a singleand unitary vision of the whole. It is to be taken or left. 

More modest, and also alone capable of being completed and perfected, isthe philosophy we advocate. Human intelligence, as we represent it, isnot at all what Plato taught in the allegory of the cave. Its functionis not to look at passing shadows nor yet to turn itself round andcontemplate the glaring sun. It has something else to do. Harnessed, like yoked oxen, to a heavy task, we feel the play of our muscles andjoints, the weight of the plow and the resistance of the soil. To actand to know that we are acting, to come into touch with reality and evento live it, but only in the measure in which it concerns the work thatis being accomplished and the furrow that is being plowed, such is thefunction of human intelligence. Yet a beneficent fluid bathes us, whencewe draw the very force to labor and to live. From this ocean of life, inwhich we are immersed, we are continually drawing something, and we feelthat our being, or at least the intellect that guides it, has beenformed therein by a kind of local concentration. Philosophy can only bean effort to dissolve again into the Whole. Intelligence, reabsorbedinto its principle, may thus live back again its own genesis. But theenterprise cannot be achieved in one stroke; it is necessarilycollective and progressive. It consists in an interchange of impressionswhich, correcting and adding to each other, will end by expanding thehumanity in us and making us even transcend it. 

But this method has against it the most inveterate habits of the mind. It at once suggests the idea of a vicious circle. In vain, we shall betold, you claim to go beyond intelligence: how can you do that except byintelligence? All that is clear in your consciousness is intelligence. You are inside your own thought; you cannot get out of it. Say, if youlike, that the intellect is capable of progress, that it will see moreand more clearly into a greater and greater number of things; but do notspeak of engendering it, for it is with your intellect itself that youwould have to do the work. 

The objection presents itself naturally to the mind. But the samereasoning would prove also the impossibility of acquiring any new habit. It is of the essence of reasoning to shut us up in the circle of thegiven. But action breaks the circle. If we had never seen a man swim, wemight say that swimming is an impossible thing, inasmuch as, to learn toswim, we must begin by holding ourselves up in the water and, consequently, already know how to swim. Reasoning, in fact, always nailsus down to the solid ground. But if, quite simply, I throw myself intothe water without fear, I may keep myself up well enough at first bymerely struggling, and gradually adapt myself to the new environment: Ishall thus have learnt to swim. So, in theory, there is a kind ofabsurdity in trying to know otherwise than by intelligence; but if therisk be frankly accepted, action will perhaps cut the knot thatreasoning has tied and will not unloose. 

Besides, the risk will appear to grow less, the more our point of viewis adopted. We have shown that intellect has detached itself from avastly wider reality, but that there has never been a clean cut betweenthe two; all around conceptual thought there remains an indistinctfringe which recalls its origin. And further we compared the intellectto a solid nucleus formed by means of condensation. This nucleus doesnot differ radically from the fluid surrounding it. It can only bereabsorbed in it because it is made of the same substance. He who throwshimself into the water, having known only the resistance of the solidearth, will immediately be drowned if he does not struggle against thefluidity of the new environment: he must perforce still cling to thatsolidity, so to speak, which even water presents. Only on this conditioncan he get used to the fluid's fluidity. So of our thought, when it hasdecided to make the leap. 

But leap it must, that is, leave its own environment. Reason, reasoningon its powers, will never succeed in extending them, though theextension would not appear at all unreasonable once it wereaccomplished. Thousands and thousands of variations on the theme ofwalking will never yield a rule for swimming: come, enter the water, andwhen you know how to swim, you will understand how the mechanism ofswimming is connected with that of walking. Swimming is an extension ofwalking, but walking would never have pushed you on to swimming. So youmay speculate as intelligently as you will on the mechanism ofintelligence; you will never, by this method, succeed in going beyondit. You may get something more complex, but not something higher noreven something different. You must take things by storm: you must thrustintelligence outside itself by an act of will. 

So the vicious circle is only apparent. It is, on the contrary, real, wethink, in every other method of philosophy. This we must try to show ina few words, if only to prove that philosophy cannot and must notaccept the relation established by pure intellectualism between thetheory of knowledge and the theory of the known, between metaphysics andscience. 

 * * * * *

At first sight, it may seem prudent to leave the consideration of factsto positive science, to let physics and chemistry busy themselves withmatter, the biological and psychological sciences with life. The task ofthe philosopher is then clearly defined. He takes facts and laws fromthe scientists' hand; and whether he tries to go beyond them in order toreach their deeper causes, or whether he thinks it impossible to gofurther and even proves it by the analysis of scientific knowledge, inboth cases he has for the facts and relations, handed over by science, the sort of respect that is due to a final verdict. To this knowledge headds a critique of the faculty of knowing, and also, if he thinksproper, a metaphysic; but the _matter_ of knowledge he regards as theaffair of science and not of philosophy. 

But how does he fail to see that the real result of this so-calleddivision of labor is to mix up everything and confuse everything? Themetaphysic or the critique that the philosopher has reserved for himselfhe has to receive, ready-made, from positive science, it being alreadycontained in the descriptions and analyses, the whole care of which heleft to the scientists. For not having wished to intervene, at thebeginning, in questions of fact, he finds himself reduced, in questionsof principle, to formulating purely and simply in more precise terms theunconscious and consequently inconsistent metaphysic and critique whichthe very attitude of science to reality marks out. Let us not bedeceived by an apparent analogy between natural things and human things. Here we are not in the judiciary domain, where the description of factand the judgment on the fact are two distinct things, distinct for thevery simple reason that above the fact, and independent of it, there isa law promulgated by a legislator. Here the laws are internal to thefacts and relative to the lines that have been followed in cutting thereal into distinct facts. We cannot describe the outward appearance ofthe object without prejudging its inner nature and its organization. Form is no longer entirely isolable from matter, and he who has begun byreserving to philosophy questions of principle, and who has therebytried to put philosophy above the sciences, as a "court of cassation" isabove the courts of assizes and of appeal, will gradually come to makeno more of philosophy than a registration court, charged at most withwording more precisely the sentences that are brought to it, pronouncedand irrevocable. 

Positive science is, in fact, a work of pure intellect. Now, whether ourconception of the intellect be accepted or rejected, there is one pointon which everybody will agree with us, and that is that the intellect isat home in the presence of unorganized matter. This matter it makes useof more and more by mechanical inventions, and mechanical inventionsbecome the easier to it the more it thinks matter as mechanism. Theintellect bears within itself, in the form of natural logic, a latentgeometrism that is set free in the measure and proportion that theintellect penetrates into the inner nature of inert matter. Intelligenceis in tune with this matter, and that is why the physics and metaphysicsof inert matter are so near each other. Now, when the intellectundertakes the study of life, it necessarily treats the living like theinert, applying the same forms to this new object, carrying over intothis new field the same habits that have succeeded so well in the old;and it is right to do so, for only on such terms does the living offerto our action the same hold as inert matter. But the truth we thusarrive at becomes altogether relative to our faculty of action. It is nomore than a _symbolic_ verity. It cannot have the same value as thephysical verity, being only an extension of physics to an object whichwe are _a priori_ agreed to look at only in its external aspect. Theduty of philosophy should be to intervene here actively, to examine theliving without any reservation as to practical utility, by freeingitself from forms and habits that are strictly intellectual. Its ownspecial object is to speculate, that is to say, to see; its attitudetoward the living should not be that of science, which aims only ataction, and which, being able to act only by means of inert matter, presents to itself the rest of reality in this single respect. What mustthe result be, if it leave biological and psychological facts topositive science alone, as it has left, and rightly left, physicalfacts? It will accept _a priori_ a mechanistic conception of all nature, a conception unreflected and even unconscious, the outcome of thematerial need. It will _a priori_ accept the doctrine of the simpleunity of knowledge and of the abstract unity of nature. 

The moment it does so, its fate is sealed. The philosopher has no longerany choice save between a metaphysical dogmatism and a metaphysicalskepticism, both of which rest, at bottom, on the same postulate, andneither of which adds anything to positive science. He may hypostasizethe unity of nature, or, what comes to the same thing, the unity ofscience, in a being who is nothing since he does nothing, an ineffectualGod who simply sums up in himself all the given; or in an eternal Matterfrom whose womb have been poured out the properties of things and thelaws of nature; or, again, in a pure Form which endeavors to seize anunseizable multiplicity, and which is, as we will, the form of natureor the form of thought. All these philosophies tell us, in theirdifferent languages, that science is right to treat the living as theinert, and that there is no difference of value, no distinction to bemade between the results which intellect arrives at in applying itscategories, whether it rests on inert matter or attacks life. 

In many cases, however, we feel the frame cracking. But as we did notbegin by distinguishing between the inert and the living, the oneadapted in advance to the frame in which we insert it, the otherincapable of being held in the frame otherwise than by a conventionwhich eliminates from it all that is essential, we find ourselves, inthe end, reduced to regarding everything the frame contains with equalsuspicion. To a metaphysical dogmatism, which has erected into anabsolute the factitious unity of science, there succeeds a skepticism ora relativism that universalizes and extends to all the results ofscience the artificial character of some among them. So philosophyswings to and fro between the doctrine that regards absolute reality asunknowable and that which, in the idea it gives us of this reality, saysnothing more than science has said. For having wished to prevent allconflict between science and philosophy, we have sacrificed philosophywithout any appreciable gain to science. And for having tried to avoidthe seeming vicious circle which consists in using the intellect totranscend the intellect, we find ourselves turning in a real circle, that which consists in laboriously rediscovering by metaphysics a unitythat we began by positing _a priori_, a unity that we admitted blindlyand unconsciously by the very act of abandoning the whole of experienceto science and the whole of reality to the pure understanding. 

Let us begin, on the contrary, by tracing a line of demarcation betweenthe inert and the living. We shall find that the inert enters naturallyinto the frames of the intellect, but that the living is adapted tothese frames only artificially, so that we must adopt a special attitudetowards it and examine it with other eyes than those of positivescience. Philosophy, then, invades the domain of experience. She busiesherself with many things which hitherto have not concerned her. Science, theory of knowledge, and metaphysics find themselves on the same ground. At first there may be a certain confusion. All three may think they havelost something. But all three will profit from the meeting. 

Positive science, indeed, may pride itself on the uniform valueattributed to its affirmations in the whole field of experience. But, ifthey are all placed on the same footing, they are all tainted with thesame relativity. It is not so, if we begin by making the distinctionwhich, in our view, is forced upon us. The understanding is at home inthe domain of unorganized matter. On this matter human action isnaturally exercised; and action, as we said above, cannot be set inmotion in the unreal. Thus, of physics--so long as we are consideringonly its general form and not the particular cutting out of matter inwhich it is manifested--we may say that it touches the absolute. On thecontrary, it is by accident--chance or convention, as you please--thatscience obtains a hold on the living analogous to the hold it has onmatter. Here the use of conceptual frames is no longer natural. I do notwish to say that it is not legitimate, in the scientific meaning of theterm. If science is to extend our action on things, and if we can actonly with inert matter for instrument, science can and must continue totreat the living as it has treated the inert. But, in doing so, it mustbe understood that the further it penetrates the depths of _life_, themore symbolic, the more relative to the contingencies of action, theknowledge it supplies to us becomes. On this new ground philosophy oughtthen to follow science, in order to superpose on scientific truth aknowledge of another kind, which may be called metaphysical. Thuscombined, all our knowledge, both scientific and metaphysical, isheightened. In the absolute we live and move and have our being. Theknowledge we possess of it is incomplete, no doubt, but not external orrelative. It is reality itself, in the profoundest meaning of the word, that we reach by the combined and progressive development of science andof philosophy. 

Thus, in renouncing the factitious unity which the understanding imposeson nature from outside, we shall perhaps find its true, inward andliving unity. For the effort we make to transcend the pure understandingintroduces us into that more vast something out of which ourunderstanding is cut, and from which it has detached itself. And, asmatter is determined by intelligence, as there is between them anevident agreement, we cannot make the genesis of the one without makingthe genesis of the other. An identical process must have cut out matterand the intellect, at the same time, from a stuff that contained both. Into this reality we shall get back more and more completely, inproportion as we compel ourselves to transcend pure intelligence. 

 * * * * *

Let us then concentrate attention on that which we have that is at thesame time the most removed from externality and the least penetratedwith intellectuality. Let us seek, in the depths of our experience, thepoint where we feel ourselves most intimately within our own life. It isinto pure duration that we then plunge back, a duration in which thepast, always moving on, is swelling unceasingly with a present that isabsolutely new. But, at the same time, we feel the spring of our willstrained to its utmost limit. We must, by a strong recoil of ourpersonality on itself, gather up our past which is slipping away, inorder to thrust it, compact and undivided, into a present which it willcreate by entering. Rare indeed are the moments when we areself-possessed to this extent: it is then that our actions are trulyfree. And even at these moments we do not completely possess ourselves. Our feeling of duration, I should say the actual coinciding of ourselfwith itself, admits of degrees. But the more the feeling is deep and thecoincidence complete, the more the life in which it replaces us absorbsintellectuality by transcending it. For the natural function of theintellect is to bind like to like, and it is only facts that can berepeated that are entirely adaptable to intellectual conceptions. Now, our intellect does undoubtedly grasp the real moments of real durationafter they are past; we do so by reconstituting the new state ofconsciousness out of a series of views taken of it from the outside, each of which resembles as much as possible something already known; inthis sense we may say that the state of consciousness containsintellectuality implicitly. Yet the state of consciousness overflows theintellect; it is indeed incommensurable with the intellect, being itselfindivisible and new. 

Now let us relax the strain, let us interrupt the effort to crowd asmuch as possible of the past into the present. If the relaxation werecomplete, there would no longer be either memory or will--which amountsto saying that, in fact, we never do fall into this absolute passivity, any more than we can make ourselves absolutely free. But, in the limit, we get a glimpse of an existence made of a present which recommencesunceasingly--devoid of real duration, nothing but the instantaneouswhich dies and is born again endlessly. Is the existence of matter ofthis nature? Not altogether, for analysis resolves it into elementaryvibrations, the shortest of which are of very slight duration, almostvanishing, but not nothing. It may be presumed, nevertheless, thatphysical existence inclines in this second direction, as psychicalexistence in the first. 

Behind "spirituality" on the one hand, and "materiality" withintellectuality on the other, there are then two processes opposite intheir direction, and we pass from the first to the second by way ofinversion, or perhaps even by simple interruption, if it is true thatinversion and interruption are two terms which in this case must be heldto be synonymous, as we shall show at more length later on. Thispresumption is confirmed when we consider things from the point of viewof extension, and no longer from that of duration alone. 

The more we succeed in making ourselves conscious of our progress inpure duration, the more we feel the different parts of our being enterinto each other, and our whole personality concentrate itself in apoint, or rather a sharp edge, pressed against the future and cuttinginto it unceasingly. It is in this that life and action are free. Butsuppose we let ourselves go and, instead of acting, dream. At once theself is scattered; our past, which till then was gathered together intothe indivisible impulsion it communicated to us, is broken up into athousand recollections made external to one another. They give upinterpenetrating in the degree that they become fixed. Our personalitythus descends in the direction of space. It coasts around it continuallyin sensation. We will not dwell here on a point we have studiedelsewhere. Let us merely recall that extension admits of degrees, thatall sensation is extensive in a certain measure, and that the idea ofunextended sensations, artificially localized in space, is a mere viewof the mind, suggested by an unconscious metaphysic much more than bypsychological observation. 

No doubt we make only the first steps in the direction of the extended, even when we let ourselves go as much as we can. But suppose for amoment that matter consists in this very movement pushed further, andthat physics is simply psychics inverted. We shall now understand whythe mind feels at its ease, moves about naturally in space, when mattersuggests the more distinct idea of it. This space it already possessedas an implicit idea in its own eventual _detension_, that is to say, ofits own possible _extension_. The mind finds space in things, but couldhave got it without them if it had had imagination strong enough to pushthe inversion of its own natural movement to the end. On the other hand, we are able to explain how matter accentuates still more itsmateriality, when viewed by the mind. Matter, at first, aided mind torun down its own incline; it gave the impulsion. But, the impulsion oncereceived, mind continues its course. The idea that it forms of _pure_space is only the _schema_ of the limit at which this movement wouldend. Once in possession of the form of space, mind uses it like a netwith meshes that can be made and unmade at will, which, thrown overmatter, divides it as the needs of our action demand. Thus, the space ofour geometry and the spatiality of things are mutually engendered by thereciprocal action and reaction of two terms which are essentially thesame, but which move each in the direction inverse of the other. Neitheris space so foreign to our nature as we imagine, nor is matter ascompletely extended in space as our senses and intellect represent it. 

We have treated of the first point elsewhere. As to the second, we willlimit ourselves to pointing out that perfect spatiality would consist ina perfect externality of parts in their relation to one another, that isto say, in a complete reciprocal independence. Now, there is no materialpoint that does not act on every other material point. When we observethat a thing really is there where it _acts_, we shall be led to say (asFaraday[79] was) that all the atoms interpenetrate and that each of themfills the world. On such a hypothesis, the atom or, more generally, thematerial point, becomes simply a view of the mind, a view which we cometo take when we continue far enough the work (wholly relative to ourfaculty of acting) by which we subdivide matter into bodies. Yet it isundeniable that matter lends itself to this subdivision, and that, insupposing it breakable into parts external to one another, we areconstructing a science sufficiently representative of the real. It isundeniable that if there be no entirely isolated system, yet sciencefinds means of cutting up the universe into systems relativelyindependent of each other, and commits no appreciable error in doing so. What else can this mean but that matter _extends_ itself in spacewithout being absolutely _extended_ therein, and that in regardingmatter as decomposable into isolated systems, in attributing to it quitedistinct elements which change in relation to each other withoutchanging in themselves (which are "displaced, " shall we say, withoutbeing "altered"), in short, in conferring on matter the properties ofpure space, we are transporting ourselves to the terminal point of themovement of which matter simply indicates the direction?

What the _Transcendental Aesthetic_ of Kant appears to have establishedonce for all is that extension is not a material attribute of the samekind as others. We cannot reason indefinitely on the notions of heat, color, or weight: in order to know the modalities of weight or of heat, we must have recourse to experience. Not so of the notion of space. Supposing even that it is given empirically by sight and touch (and Kanthas not questioned the fact) there is this about it that is remarkablethat our mind, speculating on it with its own powers alone, cuts out init, _a priori_, figures whose properties we determine _a priori_:experience, with which we have not kept in touch, yet follows us throughthe infinite complications of our reasonings and invariably justifiesthem. That is the fact. Kant has set it in clear light. But theexplanation of the fact, we believe, must be sought in a differentdirection to that which Kant followed. 

Intelligence, as Kant represents it to us, is bathed in an atmosphere ofspatiality to which it is as inseparably united as the living body tothe air it breathes. Our perceptions reach us only after having passedthrough this atmosphere. They have been impregnated in advance by ourgeometry, so that our faculty of thinking only finds again in matter themathematical properties which our faculty of perceiving has alreadydeposed there. We are assured, therefore, of seeing matter yield itselfwith docility to our reasonings; but this matter, in all that it hasthat is intelligible, is our own work; of the reality "in itself" weknow nothing and never shall know anything, since we only get itsrefraction through the forms of our faculty of perceiving. So that if weclaim to affirm something of it, at once there rises the contraryaffirmation, equally demonstrable, equally plausible. The ideality ofspace is proved directly by the analysis of knowledge indirectly by theantinomies to which the opposite theory leads. Such is the governingidea of the Kantian criticism. It has inspired Kant with a peremptoryrefutation of "empiricist" theories of knowledge. It is, in our opinion, definitive in what it denies. But, in what it affirms, does it give usthe solution of the problem?

With Kant, space is given as a ready-made form of our perceptivefaculty--a veritable _deus ex machina_, of which we see neither how itarises, nor why it is what it is rather than anything else. "Things-in-themselves" are also given, of which he claims that we canknow nothing: by what right, then, can he affirm their existence, evenas "problematic"? If the unknowable reality projects into our perceptivefaculty a "sensuous manifold" capable of fitting into it exactly, is itnot, by that very fact, in part known? And when we examine this exactfitting, shall we not be led, in one point at least, to suppose apre-established harmony between things and our mind--an idle hypothesis, which Kant was right in wishing to avoid? At bottom, it is for nothaving distinguished degrees in spatiality that he has had to take spaceready-made as given--whence the question how the "sensuous manifold" isadapted to it. It is for the same reason that he has supposed matterwholly developed into parts absolutely external to one another;--whenceantinomies, of which we may plainly see that the thesis and antithesissuppose the perfect coincidence of matter with geometrical space, butwhich vanish the moment we cease to extend to matter what is true onlyof pure space. Whence, finally, the conclusion that there are threealternatives, and three only, among which to choose a theory ofknowledge: either the mind is determined by things, or things aredetermined by the mind, or between mind and things we must suppose amysterious agreement. 

But the truth is that there is a fourth, which does not seem to haveoccurred to Kant--in the first place because he did not think that themind overflowed the intellect, and in the second place (and this is atbottom the same thing) because he did not attribute to duration anabsolute existence, having put time, _a priori_, on the same plane asspace. This alternative consists, first of all, in regarding theintellect as a special function of the mind, essentially turned towardinert matter; then in saying that neither does matter determine the formof the intellect, nor does the intellect impose its form on matter, norhave matter and intellect been regulated in regard to one another by weknow not what pre-established harmony, but that intellect and matterhave progressively adapted themselves one to the other in order toattain at last a common form. _This adaptation has, moreover, beenbrought about quite naturally, because it is the same inversion of thesame movement which creates at once the intellectuality of mind and themateriality of things. _

From this point of view the knowledge of matter that our perception onone hand and science on the other give to us appears, no doubt, asapproximative, but not as relative. Our perception, whose rôle it is tohold up a light to our actions, works a dividing up of matter that isalways too sharply defined, always subordinated to practical needs, consequently always requiring revision. Our science, which aspires tothe mathematical form, over-accentuates the spatiality of matter; itsformulae are, in general, too precise, and ever need remaking. For ascientific theory to be final, the mind would have to embrace thetotality of things in block and place each thing in its exact relationto every other thing; but in reality we are obliged to consider problemsone by one, in terms which are, for that very reason, provisional, sothat the solution of each problem will have to be correctedindefinitely by the solution that will be given to the problems thatwill follow: thus, science as a whole is relative to the particularorder in which the problems happen to have been put. It is in thismeaning, and to this degree, that science must be regarded asconventional. But it is a conventionality of fact so to speak, and notof right. In principle, positive science bears on reality itself, provided it does not overstep the limits of its own domain, which isinert matter. 

Scientific knowledge, thus regarded, rises to a higher plane. In return, the theory of knowledge becomes an infinitely difficult enterprise, andwhich passes the powers of the intellect alone. It is not enough todetermine, by careful analysis, the categories of thought; we mustengender them. As regards space, we must, by an effort of mind _suigeneris_, follow the progression or rather the regression of theextra-spatial degrading itself into spatiality. When we make ourselvesself-conscious in the highest possible degree and then let ourselvesfall back little by little, we get the feeling of extension: we have anextension of the self into recollections that are fixed and external toone another, in place of the tension it possessed as an indivisibleactive will. But this is only a beginning. Our consciousness, sketchingthe movement, shows us its direction and reveals to us the possibilityof continuing it to the end; but consciousness itself does not go sofar. Now, on the other hand, if we consider matter, which seems to us atfirst coincident with space, we find that the more our attention isfixed on it, the more the parts which we said were laid side by sideenter into each other, each of them undergoing the action of the whole, which is consequently somehow present in it. Thus, although matterstretches itself out in the direction of space, it does not completelyattain it; whence we may conclude that it only carries very muchfurther the movement that consciousness is able to sketch within us inits nascent state. We hold, therefore, the two ends of the chain, thoughwe do not succeed in seizing the intermediate links. Will they alwaysescape us? We must remember that philosophy, as we define it, has notyet become completely conscious of itself. Physics understands its rôlewhen it pushes matter in the direction of spatiality; but hasmetaphysics understood its rôle when it has simply trodden in the stepsof physics, in the chimerical hope of going further in the samedirection? Should not its own task be, on the contrary, to remount theincline that physics descends, to bring back matter to its origins, andto build up progressively a cosmology which would be, so to speak, areversed psychology? All that which seems _positive_ to the physicistand to the geometrician would become, from this new point of view, aninterruption or inversion of the true positivity, which would have to bedefined in psychological terms. 

 * * * * *

When we consider the admirable order of mathematics, the perfectagreement of the objects it deals with, the immanent logic in numbersand figures, our certainty of always getting the same conclusion, however diverse and complex our reasonings on the same subject, wehesitate to see in properties apparently so positive a system ofnegations, the absence rather than the presence of a true reality. Butwe must not forget that our intellect, which finds this order andwonders at it, is directed in the same line of movement that leads tothe materiality and spatiality of its object. The more complexity theintellect puts into its object by analyzing it, the more complex is theorder it finds there. And this order and this complexity necessarilyappear to the intellect as a positive reality, since reality andintellectuality are turned in the same direction. 

When a poet reads me his verses, I can interest myself enough in him toenter into his thought, put myself into his feelings, live over againthe simple state he has broken into phrases and words. I sympathize thenwith his inspiration, I follow it with a continuous movement which is, like the inspiration itself, an undivided act. Now, I need only relax myattention, let go the tension that there is in me, for the sounds, hitherto swallowed up in the sense, to appear to me distinctly, one byone, in their materiality. For this I have not to do anything; it isenough to withdraw something. In proportion as I let myself go, thesuccessive sounds will become the more individualized; as the phraseswere broken into words, so the words will scan in syllables which Ishall perceive one after another. Let me go farther still in thedirection of dream: the letters themselves will become loose and will beseen to dance along, hand in hand, on some fantastic sheet of paper. Ishall then admire the precision of the interweavings, the marvelousorder of the procession, the exact insertion of the letters into thesyllables, of the syllables into the words and of the words into thesentences. The farther I pursue this quite negative direction ofrelaxation, the more extension and complexity I shall create; and themore the complexity in its turn increases, the more admirable will seemto be the order which continues to reign, undisturbed, among theelements. Yet this complexity and extension represent nothing positive;they express a deficiency of will. And, on the other hand, the ordermust grow with the complexity, since it is only an aspect of it. Themore we perceive, symbolically, parts in an indivisible whole, the morethe number of the relations that the parts have between themselvesnecessarily increases, since the same undividedness of the real wholecontinues to hover over the growing multiplicity of the symbolicelements into which the scattering of the attention has decomposed it. Acomparison of this kind will enable us to understand, in some measure, how the same suppression of positive reality, the same inversion of acertain original movement, can create at once extension in space and theadmirable order which mathematics finds there. There is, of course, thisdifference between the two cases, that words and letters have beeninvented by a positive effort of humanity, while space arisesautomatically, as the remainder of a subtraction arises once the twonumbers are posited. [80] But, in the one case as in the other, theinfinite complexity of the parts and their perfect coördination amongthemselves are created at one and the same time by an inversion whichis, at bottom, an interruption, that is to say, a diminution of positivereality. 

 * * * * *

All the operations of our intellect tend to geometry, as to the goalwhere they find their perfect fulfilment. But, as geometry isnecessarily prior to them (since these operations have not as their endto construct space and cannot do otherwise than take it as given) it isevident that it is a latent geometry, immanent in our idea of space, which is the main spring of our intellect and the cause of its working. We shall be convinced of this if we consider the two essential functionsof intellect, the faculty of deduction and that of induction. 

Let us begin with deduction. The same movement by which I trace a figurein space engenders its properties: they are visible and tangible in themovement itself; I feel, I see in space the relation of the definitionto its consequences, of the premisses to the conclusion. All the otherconcepts of which experience suggests the idea to me are only in partconstructible _a priori_; the definition of them is therefore imperfect, and the deductions into which these concepts enter, however closely theconclusion is linked to the premisses, participate in this imperfection. But when I trace roughly in the sand the base of a triangle, as I beginto form the two angles at the base, I know positively, and understandabsolutely, that if these two angles are equal the sides will be equalalso, the figure being then able to be turned over on itself withoutthere being any change whatever. I know it before I have learntgeometry. Thus, prior to the science of geometry, there is a naturalgeometry whose clearness and evidence surpass the clearness and evidenceof other deductions. Now, these other deductions bear on qualities, andnot on magnitudes purely. They are, then, likely to have been formed onthe model of the first, and to borrow their force from the fact that, behind quality, we see magnitude vaguely showing through. We may notice, as a fact, that questions of situation and of magnitude are the firstthat present themselves to our activity, those which intelligenceexternalized in action resolves even before reflective intelligence hasappeared. The savage understands better than the civilized man how tojudge distances, to determine a direction, to retrace by memory theoften complicated plan of the road he has traveled, and so to return ina straight line to his starting-point. [81] If the animal does not deduceexplicitly, if he does not form explicit concepts, neither does he formthe idea of a homogeneous space. You cannot present this space toyourself without introducing, in the same act, a virtual geometry whichwill, of itself, degrade itself into logic. All the repugnance thatphilosophers manifest towards this manner of regarding things comes fromthis, that the logical work of the intellect represents to their eyes apositive spiritual effort. But, if we understand by spirituality aprogress to ever new creations, to conclusions incommensurable with thepremisses and indeterminable by relation to them, we must say of an ideathat moves among relations of necessary determination, through premisseswhich contain their conclusion in advance, that it follows the inversedirection, that of materiality. What appears, from the point of view ofthe intellect, as an effort, is in itself a letting go. And while, fromthe point of view of the intellect, there is a _petitio principii_ inmaking geometry arise automatically from space, and logic fromgeometry--on the contrary, if space is the ultimate goal of the mind'smovement of _detension_, space cannot be given without positing alsologic and geometry, which are along the course of the movement of whichpure spatial intuition is the goal. 

It has not been enough noticed how feeble is the reach of deduction inthe psychological and moral sciences. From a proposition verified byfacts, verifiable consequences can here be drawn only up to a certainpoint, only in a certain measure. Very soon appeal has to be made tocommon sense, that is to say, to the continuous experience of the real, in order to inflect the consequences deduced and bend them along thesinuosities of life. Deduction succeeds in things moral onlymetaphorically, so to speak, and just in the measure in which the moralis transposable into the physical, I should say translatable intospatial symbols. The metaphor never goes very far, any more than a curvecan long be confused with its tangent. Must we not be struck by thisfeebleness of deduction as something very strange and even paradoxical?Here is a pure operation of the mind, accomplished solely by the powerof the mind. It seems that, if anywhere it should feel at home andevolve at ease, it would be among the things of the mind, in the domainof the mind. Not at all; it is there that it is immediately at the endof its tether. On the contrary, in geometry, in astronomy, in physics, where we have to do with things external to us, deduction isall-powerful! Observation and experience are undoubtedly necessary inthese sciences to arrive at the principle, that is, to discover theaspect under which things must be regarded; but, strictly speaking, wemight, by good luck, have hit upon it at once; and, as soon as wepossess this principle, we may draw from it, at any length, consequenceswhich experience will always verify. Must we not conclude, therefore, that deduction is an operation governed by the properties of matter, molded on the mobile articulations of matter, implicitly given, in fact, with the space that underlies matter? As long as it turns upon space orspatialized time, it has only to let itself go. It is _duration_ thatputs spokes in its wheels. 

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Deduction, then, does not work unless there be spatial intuition behindit. But we may say the same of induction. It is not necessary indeed tothink geometrically, nor even to think at all, in order to expect fromthe same conditions a repetition of the same fact. The consciousness ofthe animal already does this work, and indeed, independently of allconsciousness, the living body itself is so constructed that it canextract from the successive situations in which it finds itself thesimilarities which interest it, and so respond to the stimuli byappropriate reactions. But it is a far cry from a mechanical expectationand reaction of the body, to induction properly so called, which is anintellectual operation. Induction rests on the belief that there arecauses and effects, and that the same effects follow the same causes. Now, if we examine this double belief, this is what we find. It implies, in the first place, that reality is decomposable into groups, which canbe practically regarded as isolated and independent. If I boil water ina kettle on a stove, the operation and the objects that support it are, in reality, bound up with a multitude of other objects and a multitudeof other operations; in the end, I should find that our entire solarsystem is concerned in what is being done at this particular point ofspace. But, in a certain measure, and for the special end I am pursuing, I may admit that things happen as if the group _water-kettle-stove_ werean independent microcosm. That is my first affirmation. Now, when I saythat this microcosm will always behave in the same way, that the heatwill necessarily, at the end of a certain time, cause the boiling of thewater, I admit that it is sufficient that a certain number of elementsof the system be given in order that the system should be complete; itcompletes itself automatically, I am not free to complete it in thoughtas I please. The stove, the kettle and the water being given, with acertain interval of duration, it seems to me that the boiling, whichexperience showed me yesterday to be the only thing wanting to completethe system, will complete it to-morrow, no matter when to-morrow may be. What is there at the base of this belief? Notice that the belief is moreor less assured, according as the case may be, but that it is forcedupon the mind as an absolute necessity when the microcosm consideredcontains only magnitudes. If two numbers be given, I am not free tochoose their difference. If two sides of a triangle and the containedangle are given, the third side arises of itself and the trianglecompletes itself automatically. I can, it matters not where and itmatters not when, trace the same two sides containing the same angle: itis evident that the new triangles so formed can be superposed on thefirst, and that consequently the same third side will come to completethe system. Now, if my certitude is perfect in the case in which Ireason on pure space determinations, must I not suppose that, in theother cases, the certitude is greater the nearer it approaches thisextreme case? Indeed, may it not be the limiting case which is seenthrough all the others and which colors them, accordingly as they aremore or less transparent, with a more or less pronounced tinge ofgeometrical necessity?[82] In fact, when I say that the water on thefire will boil to-day as it did yesterday, and that this is an absolutenecessity, I feel vaguely that my imagination is placing the stove ofyesterday on that of to-day, kettle on kettle, water on water, durationon duration, and it seems then that the rest must coincide also, for thesame reason that, when two triangles are superposed and two of theirsides coincide, their third sides coincide also. But my imagination actsthus only because it shuts its eyes to two essential points. For thesystem of to-day actually to be superimposed on that of yesterday, thelatter must have waited for the former, time must have halted, andeverything become simultaneous: that happens in geometry, but ingeometry alone. Induction therefore implies first that, in the world ofthe physicist as in that of the geometrician, time does not count. Butit implies also that qualities can be superposed on each other likemagnitudes. If, in imagination, I place the stove and fire of to-day onthat of yesterday, I find indeed that the form has remained the same; itsuffices, for that, that the surfaces and edges coincide; but what isthe coincidence of two qualities, and how can they be superposed one onanother in order to ensure that they are identical? Yet I extend to thesecond order of reality all that applies to the first. The physicistlegitimates this operation later on by reducing, as far as possible, differences of quality to differences of magnitude; but, prior to allscience, I incline to liken qualities to quantities, as if I perceivedbehind the qualities, as through a transparency, a geometricalmechanism. [83] The more complete this transparency, the more it seems tome that in the same conditions there must be a repetition of the samefact. Our inductions are certain, to our eyes, in the exact degree inwhich we make the qualitative differences melt into the homogeneity ofthe space which subtends them, so that geometry is the ideal limit ofour inductions as well as of our deductions. The movement at the end ofwhich is spatiality lays down along its course the faculty of inductionas well as that of deduction, in fact, intellectuality entire. 

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It creates them in the mind. But it creates also, in things, the "order"which our induction, aided by deduction, finds there. This order, onwhich our action leans and in which our intellect recognizes itself, seems to us marvelous. Not only do the same general causes alwaysproduce the same general effects, but beneath the visible causes andeffects our science discovers an infinity of infinitesimal changes whichwork more and more exactly into one another, the further we push theanalysis: so much so that, at the end of this analysis, matter becomes, it seems to us, geometry itself. Certainly, the intellect is right inadmiring here the growing order in the growing complexity; both the oneand the other must have a positive reality for it, since it looks uponitself as positive. But things change their aspect when we consider thewhole of reality as an undivided advance forward to successivecreations. It seems to us, then, that the complexity of the materialelements and the mathematical order that binds them together must ariseautomatically when within the whole a partial interruption or inversionis produced. Moreover, as the intellect itself is cut out of mind by aprocess of the same kind, it is attuned to this order and complexity, and admires them because it recognizes itself in them. But what isadmirable _in itself_, what really deserves to provoke wonder, is theever-renewed creation which reality, whole and undivided, accomplishesin advancing; for no complication of the mathematical order with itself, however elaborate we may suppose it, can introduce an atom of noveltyinto the world, whereas this power of creation once given (and itexists, for we are conscious of it in ourselves, at least when we actfreely) has only to be diverted from itself to relax its tension, onlyto relax its tension to extend, only to extend for the mathematicalorder of the elements so distinguished and the inflexible determinismconnecting them to manifest the interruption of the creative act: infact, inflexible determinism and mathematical order are one with thisvery interruption. 

It is this merely negative tendency that the particular laws of thephysical world express. None of them, taken separately, has objectivereality; each is the work of an investigator who has regarded thingsfrom a certain bias, isolated certain variables, applied certainconventional units of measurement. And yet there is an orderapproximately mathematical immanent in matter, an objective order, whichour science approaches in proportion to its progress. For if matter is arelaxation of the inextensive into the extensive and, thereby, ofliberty into necessity, it does not indeed wholly coincide with purehomogeneous space, yet is constituted by the movement which leads tospace, and is therefore on the way to geometry. It is true that laws ofmathematical form will never apply to it completely. For that, it wouldhave to be pure space and step out of duration. 

We cannot insist too strongly that there is something artificial in themathematical form of a physical law, and consequently in our scientificknowledge of things. [84] Our standards of measurement are conventional, and, so to say, foreign to the intentions of nature: can we suppose thatnature has related all the modalities of heat to the expansion of thesame mass of mercury, or to the change of pressure of the same mass ofair kept at a constant volume? But we may go further. In a general way, _measuring_ is a wholly human operation, which implies that we really orideally superpose two objects one on another a certain number of times. Nature did not dream of this superposition. It does not measure, nordoes it count. Yet physics counts, measures, relates "quantitative"variations to one another to obtain laws, and it succeeds. Its successwould be inexplicable, if the movement which constitutes materialitywere not the same movement which, prolonged by us to its end, that is tosay, to homogeneous space, results in making us count, measure, followin their respective variations terms that are functions one of another. To effect this prolongation of the movement, our intellect has only tolet itself go, for it runs naturally to space and mathematics, intellectuality and materiality being of the same nature and having beenproduced in the same way. 

If the mathematical order were a positive thing, if there were, immanentin matter, laws comparable to those of our codes, the success of ourscience would have in it something of the miraculous. What chancesshould we have indeed of finding the standard of nature and of isolatingexactly, in order to determine their reciprocal relations, the veryvariables which nature has chosen? But the success of a science ofmathematical form would be no less incomprehensible, if matter did notalready possess everything necessary to adapt itself to our formulae. One hypothesis only, therefore, remains plausible, namely, that themathematical order is nothing positive, that it is the form toward whicha certain _interruption_ tends of itself, and that materiality consistsprecisely in an interruption of this kind. We shall understand then whyour science is contingent, relative to the variables it has chosen, relative to the order in which it has successively put the problems, andwhy nevertheless it succeeds. It might have been, as a whole, altogetherdifferent, and yet have succeeded. This is so, just because there is nodefinite system of mathematical laws, at the base of nature, and becausemathematics in general represents simply the side to which matterinclines. Put one of those little cork dolls with leaden feet in anyposture, lay it on its back, turn it up on its head, throw it into theair: it will always stand itself up again, automatically. So likewisewith matter: we can take it by any end and handle it in any way, it willalways fall back into some one of our mathematical formulae, because itis weighted with geometry. 

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But the philosopher will perhaps refuse to found a theory of knowledgeon such considerations. They will be repugnant to him, because themathematical order, being order, will appear to him to contain somethingpositive. It is in vain that we assert that this order produces itselfautomatically by the interruption of the inverse order, that it is thisvery interruption. The idea persists, none the less, that _there mightbe no order at all_, and that the mathematical order of things, being aconquest over disorder, possesses a positive reality. In examining thispoint, we shall see what a prominent part the idea of _disorder_ playsin problems relative to the theory of knowledge. It does not appearexplicitly, and that is why it escapes our attention. It is, however, with the criticism of this idea that a theory of knowledge ought tobegin, for if the great problem is to know why and how reality submitsitself to an order, it is because the absence of every kind of orderappears possible or conceivable. It is this absence of order thatrealists and idealists alike believe they are thinking of--the realistwhen he speaks of the regularity that "objective" laws actually imposeon a virtual disorder of nature, the idealist when he supposes a"sensuous manifold" which is coördinated (and consequently itselfwithout order) under the organizing influence of our understanding. Theidea of disorder, in the sense of _absence of order_, is then what mustbe analyzed first. Philosophy borrows it from daily life. And it isunquestionable that, when ordinarily we speak of disorder, we arethinking of something. But of what?

It will be seen in the next chapter how hard it is to determine thecontent of a negative idea, and what illusions one is liable to, whathopeless difficulties philosophy falls into, for not having undertakenthis task. Difficulties and illusions are generally due to this, that weaccept as final a manner of expression essentially provisional. They aredue to our bringing into the domain of speculation a procedure made forpractice. If I choose a volume in my library at random, I may put itback on the shelf after glancing at it and say, "This is not verse. " Isthis what I have really seen in turning over the leaves of the book?Obviously not. I have not seen, I never shall see, an absence of verse. I have seen prose. But as it is poetry I want, I express what I find asa function of what I am looking for, and instead of saying, "This isprose, " I say, "This is not verse. " In the same way, if the fancy takesme to read prose, and I happen on a volume of verse, I shall say, "Thisis not prose, " thus expressing the data of my perception, which shows meverse, in the language of my expectation and attention, which are fixedon the idea of prose and will hear of nothing else. Now, if Mons. Jourdain heard me, he would infer, no doubt, from my two exclamationsthat prose and poetry are two forms of language reserved for books, andthat these learned forms have come and overlaid a language which wasneither prose nor verse. Speaking of this thing which is neither versenor prose, he would suppose, moreover, that he was thinking of it: itwould be only a pseudo-idea, however. Let us go further still: thepseudo-idea would create a pseudo-problem, if M. Jourdain were to askhis professor of philosophy how the prose form and the poetry form havebeen superadded to that which possessed neither the one nor the other, and if he wished the professor to construct a theory of the impositionof these two forms upon this formless matter. His question would beabsurd, and the absurdity would lie in this, that he was hypostasizingas the substratum of prose and poetry the simultaneous negation of both, forgetting that the negation of the one consists in the affirmation ofthe other. 

Now, suppose that there are two species of order, and that these twoorders are two contraries within one and the same genus. Suppose alsothat the idea of disorder arises in our mind whenever, seeking one ofthe two kinds of order, we find the other. The idea of disorder wouldthen have a clear meaning in the current practice of life: it wouldobjectify, for the convenience of language, the disappointment of a mindthat finds before it an order different from what it wants, an orderwith which it is not concerned at the moment, and which, in this sense, does not exist for it. But the idea would not admit a theoretical use. So if we claim, notwithstanding, to introduce it into philosophy, weshall inevitably lose sight of its true meaning. It denotes the absenceof a certain order, but _to the profit of another_ (with which we arenot concerned); only, as it applies to each of the two in turn, and asit even goes and comes continually between the two, we take it on theway, or rather on the wing, like a shuttlecock between two battledores, and treat it as if it represented, not the absence of the one or otherorder as the case may be, but the absence of both together--a thing thatis neither perceived nor conceived, a simple verbal entity. So therearises the problem how order is imposed on disorder, form on matter. Inanalyzing the idea of disorder thus subtilized, we shall see that itrepresents nothing at all, and at the same time the problems that havebeen raised around it will vanish. 

It is true that we must begin by distinguishing, and even by opposingone to the other, two kinds of order which we generally confuse. Asthis confusion has created the principal difficulties of the problem ofknowledge, it will not be useless to dwell once more on the marks bywhich the two orders are distinguished. 

In a general way, reality is _ordered_ exactly to the degree in which itsatisfies our thought. Order is therefore a certain agreement betweensubject and object. It is the mind finding itself again in things. Butthe mind, we said, can go in two opposite ways. Sometimes it follows itsnatural direction: there is then progress in the form of tension, continuous creation, free activity. Sometimes it inverts it, and thisinversion, pushed to the end, leads to extension, to the necessaryreciprocal determination of elements externalized each by relation tothe others, in short, to geometrical mechanism. Now, whether experienceseems to us to adopt the first direction or whether it is drawn in thedirection of the second, in both cases we say there is order, for in thetwo processes the mind finds itself again. The confusion between them istherefore natural. To escape it, different names would have to be givento the two kinds of order, and that is not easy, because of the varietyand variability of the forms they take. The order of the second kind maybe defined as geometry, which is its extreme limit; more generally, itis that kind of order that is concerned whenever a relation of necessarydetermination is found between causes and effects. It evokes ideas ofinertia, of passivity, of automatism. As to the first kind of order, itoscillates no doubt around finality; and yet we cannot define it asfinality, for it is sometimes above, sometimes below. In its highestforms, it is more than finality, for of a free action or a work of artwe may say that they show a perfect order, and yet they can only beexpressed in terms of ideas approximately, and after the event. Life inits entirety, regarded as a creative evolution, is something analogous;it transcends finality, if we understand by finality the realization ofan idea conceived or conceivable in advance. The category of finality istherefore too narrow for life in its entirety. It is, on the other hand, often too wide for a particular manifestation of life taken separately. Be that as it may, it is with the _vital_ that we have here to do, andthe whole present study strives to prove that the vital is in thedirection of the voluntary. We may say then that this first kind oforder is that of the _vital_ or of the _willed_, in opposition to thesecond, which is that of the _inert_ and the _automatic_. Common senseinstinctively distinguishes between the two kinds of order, at least inthe extreme cases; instinctively, also, it brings them together. We sayof astronomical phenomena that they manifest an admirable order, meaningby this that they can be foreseen mathematically. And we find an orderno less admirable in a symphony of Beethoven, which is genius, originality, and therefore unforeseeability itself. 

But it is exceptional for order of the first kind to take so distinct aform. Ordinarily, it presents features that we have every interest inconfusing with those of the opposite order. It is quite certain, forinstance, that if we could view the evolution of life in its entirety, the spontaneity of its movement and the unforeseeability of itsprocedures would thrust themselves on our attention. But what we meet inour daily experience is a certain determinate living being, certainspecial manifestations of life, which repeat, _almost_, forms and factsalready known; indeed, the similarity of structure that we findeverywhere between what generates and what is generated--a similaritythat enables us to include any number of living individuals in the samegroup--is to our eyes the very type of the _generic_: the inorganicgenera seem to us to take living genera as models. Thus the vital order, such as it is offered to us piecemeal in experience, presents the samecharacter and performs the same function as the physical order: bothcause experience to _repeat itself_, both enable our mind to_generalize_. In reality, this character has entirely different originsin the two cases, and even opposite meanings. In the second case, thetype of this character, its ideal limit, as also its foundation, is thegeometrical necessity in virtue of which the same components give thesame resultant. In the first case, this character involves, on thecontrary, the intervention of something which manages to obtain the sametotal effect although the infinitely complex elementary causes may bequite different. We insisted on this last point in our first chapter, when we showed how identical structures are to be met with onindependent lines of evolution. But, without looking so far, we maypresume that the reproduction only of the type of the ancestor by hisdescendants is an entirely different thing from the repetition of thesame composition of forces which yields an identical resultant. When wethink of the infinity of infinitesimal elements and of infinitesimalcauses that concur in the genesis of a living being, when we reflectthat the absence or the deviation of one of them would spoil everything, the first impulse of the mind is to consider this army of little workersas watched over by a skilled foreman, the "vital principle, " which isever repairing faults, correcting effects of neglect orabsentmindedness, putting things back in place: this is how we try toexpress the difference between the physical and the vital order, theformer making the same combination of causes give the same combinedeffect, the latter securing the constancy of the effect even when thereis some wavering in the causes. But that is only a comparison; onreflection, we find that there can be no foreman, for the very simplereason that there are no workers. The causes and elements thatphysico-chemical analysis discovers are real causes and elements, nodoubt, as far as the facts of organic destruction are concerned; theyare then limited in number. But vital phenomena, properly so called, orfacts of organic creation open up to us, when we analyze them, theperspective of an analysis passing away to infinity: whence it may beinferred that the manifold causes and elements are here only views ofthe mind, attempting an ever closer and closer imitation of theoperation of nature, while the operation imitated is an indivisible act. The likeness between individuals of the same species has thus anentirely different meaning, an entirely different origin, to that of thelikeness between complex effects obtained by the same composition of thesame causes. But in the one case as in the other, there is _likeness_, and consequently possible generalization. And as that is all thatinterests us in practice, since our daily life is and must be anexpectation of the same things and the same situations, it is naturalthat this common character, essential from the point of view of ouraction, should bring the two orders together, in spite of a merelyinternal diversity between them which interests speculation only. Hencethe idea of a _general order of nature_, everywhere the same, hoveringover life and over matter alike. Hence our habit of designating by thesame word and representing in the same way the existence of _laws_ inthe domain of inert matter and that of _genera_ in the domain of life. 

Now, it will be found that this confusion is the origin of most of thedifficulties raised by the problem of knowledge, among the ancients aswell as among the moderns. The generality of laws and that of generahaving been designated by the same word and subsumed under the sameidea, the geometrical order and the vital order are accordingly confusedtogether. According to the point of view, the generality of laws isexplained by that of genera, or that of genera by that of laws. Thefirst view is characteristic of ancient thought; the second belongs tomodern philosophy. But in both ancient and modern philosophy the idea of"generality" is an equivocal idea, uniting in its denotation and in itsconnotation incompatible objects and elements. In both there are groupedunder the same concept two kinds of order which are alike only in thefacility they give to our action on things. We bring together the twoterms in virtue of a quite external likeness, which justifies no doubttheir designation by the same word for practice, but which does notauthorize us at all, in the speculative domain, to confuse them in thesame definition. 

The ancients, indeed, did not ask why nature submits to laws, but why itis ordered according to genera. The idea of genus corresponds moreespecially to an objective reality in the domain of life, where itexpresses an unquestionable fact, heredity. Indeed, there can only begenera where there are individual objects; now, while the organizedbeing is cut out from the general mass of matter by his veryorganization, that is to say naturally, it is our perception which cutsinert matter into distinct bodies. It is guided in this by the interestsof action, by the nascent reactions that our body indicates--that is, aswe have shown elsewhere, [85] by the potential genera that are trying togain existence. In this, then, genera and individuals determine oneanother by a semi-artificial operation entirely relative to our futureaction on things. Nevertheless the ancients did not hesitate to put allgenera in the same rank, to attribute the same absolute existence toall of them. Reality thus being a system of genera, it is to thegenerality of the genera (that is, in effect, to the generalityexpressive of the vital order) that the generality of laws itself had tobe brought. It is interesting, in this respect, to compare theAristotelian theory of the fall of bodies with the explanation furnishedby Galileo. Aristotle is concerned solely with the concepts "high" and"low, " "own proper place" as distinguished from "place occupied, ""natural movement" and "forced movement;"[86] the physical law in virtueof which the stone falls expresses for him that the stone regains the"natural place" of all stones, to wit, the earth. The stone, in hisview, is not quite stone so long as it is not in its normal place; infalling back into this place it aims at completing itself, like a livingbeing that grows, thus realizing fully the essence of the genusstone. [87] If this conception of the physical law were exact, the lawwould no longer be a mere relation established by the mind; thesubdivision of matter into bodies would no longer be relative to ourfaculty of perceiving; all bodies would have the same individuality asliving bodies, and the laws of the physical universe would expressrelations of real kinship between real genera. We know what kind ofphysics grew out of this, and how, for having believed in a scienceunique and final, embracing the totality of the real and at one with theabsolute, the ancients were confined, in fact, to a more or less clumsyinterpretation of the physical in terms of the vital. 

But there is the same confusion in the moderns, with this difference, however, that the relation between the two terms is inverted: laws areno longer reduced to genera, but genera to laws; and science, stillsupposed to be uniquely one, becomes altogether relative, instead ofbeing, as the ancients wished, altogether at one with the absolute. Anoteworthy fact is the eclipse of the problem of genera in modernphilosophy. Our theory of knowledge turns almost entirely on thequestion of laws: genera are left to make shift with laws as best theycan. The reason is, that modern philosophy has its point of departure inthe great astronomical and physical discoveries of modern times. Thelaws of Kepler and of Galileo have remained for it the ideal and uniquetype of all knowledge. Now, a law is a relation between things orbetween facts. More precisely, a law of mathematical form expresses thefact that a certain magnitude is a function of one or several othervariables appropriately chosen. Now, the choice of the variablemagnitudes, the distribution of nature into objects and into facts, hasalready something of the contingent and the conventional. But, admittingthat the choice is hinted at, if not prescribed, by experience, the lawremains none the less a relation, and a relation is essentially acomparison; it has objective reality only for an intelligence thatrepresents to itself several terms at the same time. This intelligencemay be neither mine nor yours: a science which bears on laws maytherefore be an objective science, which experience contains in advanceand which we simply make it disgorge; but it is none the less true thata comparison of some kind must be effected here, impersonally if not byany one in particular, and that an experience made of laws, that is, ofterms _related_ to other terms, is an experience made of comparisons, which, before we receive it, has already had to pass through anatmosphere of intellectuality. The idea of a science and of anexperience entirely relative to the human understanding was thereforeimplicitly contained in the conception of a science one and integral, composed of laws: Kant only brought it to light. But this conception isthe result of an arbitrary confusion between the generality of laws andthat of genera. Though an intelligence be necessary to condition termsby relation to each other, we may conceive that in certain cases theterms themselves may exist independently. And if, beside relations ofterm to term, experience also presents to us independent terms, theliving genera being something quite different from systems of laws, onehalf, at least, of our knowledge bears on the "thing-in-itself, " thevery reality. This knowledge may be very difficult, just because it nolonger builds up its own object and is obliged, on the contrary, tosubmit to it; but, however little it cuts into its object, it is intothe absolute itself that it bites. We may go further: the other half ofknowledge is no longer so radically, so definitely relative as certainphilosophers say, if we can establish that it bears on a reality ofinverse order, a reality which we always express in mathematical laws, that is to say in relations that imply comparisons, but which lendsitself to this work only because it is weighted with spatiality andconsequently with geometry. Be that as it may, it is the confusion oftwo kinds of order that lies behind the relativism of the moderns, as itlay behind the dogmatism of the ancients. 

We have said enough to mark the origin of this confusion. It is due tothe fact that the "vital" order, which is essentially creation, ismanifested to us less in its essence than in some of its accidents, those which _imitate_ the physical and geometrical order; like it, theypresent to us repetitions that make generalization possible, and in thatwe have all that interests us. There is no doubt that life as a whole isan evolution, that is, an unceasing transformation. But life canprogress only by means of the living, which are its depositaries. Innumerable living beings, almost alike, have to repeat each other inspace and in time for the novelty they are working out to grow andmature. It is like a book that advances towards a new edition by goingthrough thousands of reprints with thousands of copies. There is, however, this difference between the two cases, that the successiveimpressions are identical, as well as the simultaneous copies of thesame impression, whereas representatives of one and the same species arenever entirely the same, either in different points of space or atdifferent moments of time. Heredity does not only transmit characters;it transmits also the impetus in virtue of which the characters aremodified, and this impetus is vitality itself. That is why we say thatthe repetition which serves as the base of our generalizations isessential in the physical order, accidental in the vital order. Thephysical order is "automatic;" the vital order is, I will not sayvoluntary, but analogous to the order "willed. "

Now, as soon as we have clearly distinguished between the order that is"willed" and the order that is "automatic, " the ambiguity that underliesthe idea of _disorder_ is dissipated, and, with it, one of the principaldifficulties of the problem of knowledge. 

The main problem of the theory of knowledge is to know how science ispossible, that is to say, in effect, why there is order and not disorderin things. That order exists is a _fact_. But, on the other hand, disorder, _which appears to us to be less than order_, is, it seems, of_right_. The existence of order is then a mystery to be cleared up, atany rate a problem to be solved. More simply, when we undertake to foundorder, we regard it as contingent, if not in things, at least as viewedby the mind: of a thing that we do not judge to be contingent we do notrequire an explanation. If order did not appear to us as a conquest oversomething, or as an addition to something (which something is thought tobe the "absence of order"), ancient realism would not have spoken of a"matter" to which the Idea superadded itself, nor would modern idealismhave supposed a "sensuous manifold" that the understanding organizesinto nature. Now, it is unquestionable that all order is contingent, andconceived as such. But contingent in relation to what?

The reply, to our thinking, is not doubtful. An order is contingent, andseems so, in relation to the inverse order, as verse is contingent inrelation to prose and prose in relation to verse. But, just as allspeech which is not prose is verse and necessarily conceived as verse, just as all speech which is not verse is prose and necessarily conceivedas prose, so any state of things that is not one of the two orders isthe other and is necessarily conceived as the other. But it may happenthat we do not realize what we are actually thinking of, and perceivethe idea really present to our mind only through a mist of affectivestates. Any one can be convinced of this by considering the use we makeof the idea of disorder in daily life. When I enter a room and pronounceit to be "in disorder, " what do I mean? The position of each object isexplained by the automatic movements of the person who has slept in theroom, or by the efficient causes, whatever they may be, that have causedeach article of furniture, clothing, etc. , to be where it is: the order, in the second sense of the word, is perfect. But it is order of thefirst kind that I am expecting, the order that a methodical personconsciously puts into his life, the willed order and not the automatic:so I call the absence of this order "disorder. " At bottom, all there isthat is real, perceived and even conceived, in this absence of one ofthe two kinds of order, is the presence of the other. But the second isindifferent to me, _I am interested only in the first_, and I expressthe presence of the second as a function of the first, instead ofexpressing it, so to speak, as a function of itself, by saying it is_disorder_. Inversely, when we affirm that we are imagining a chaos, that is to say a state of things in which the physical world no longerobeys laws, what are we thinking of? We imagine facts that appear anddisappear _capriciously_. First we think of the physical universe as weknow it, with effects and causes well proportioned to each other; then, by a series of arbitrary decrees, we augment, diminish, suppress, so asto obtain what we call disorder. In reality we have substituted _will_for the mechanism of nature; we have replaced the "automatic order" by amultitude of elementary wills, just to the extent that we imagine theapparition or vanishing of phenomena. No doubt, for all these littlewills to constitute a "willed order, " they must have accepted thedirection of a higher will. But, on looking closely at them, we see thatthat is just what they do: our own will is there, which objectifiesitself in each of these capricious wills in turn, and takes good carenot to connect the same with the same, nor to permit the effect to beproportional to the cause--in fact makes one simple intention hover overthe whole of the elementary volitions. Thus, here again, the absence ofone of the two orders consists in the presence of the other. Inanalyzing the idea of chance, which is closely akin to the idea ofdisorder, we find the same elements. When the wholly mechanical play ofthe causes which stop the wheel on a number makes me win, andconsequently acts like a good genius, careful of my interests, or whenthe wholly mechanical force of the wind tears a tile off the roof andthrows it on to my head, that is to say acts like a bad genius, conspiring against my person: in both cases I find a mechanism where Ishould have looked for, where, indeed, it seems as if I ought to havefound, an intention. That is what I express in speaking of _chance_. Andof an anarchical world, in which phenomena succeed each othercapriciously, I should say again that it is a realm of chance, meaningthat I find before me wills, or rather _decrees_, when what I amexpecting is mechanism. Thus is explained the singular vacillation ofthe mind when it tries to define chance. Neither efficient cause norfinal cause can furnish the definition sought. The mind swings to andfro, unable to rest, between the idea of an absence of final cause andthat of an absence of efficient cause, each of these definitions sendingit back to the other. The problem remains insoluble, in fact, so long asthe idea of chance is regarded as a pure idea, without mixture offeeling. But, in reality, chance merely objectifies the state of mind ofone who, expecting one of the two kinds of order, finds himselfconfronted with the other. Chance and disorder are therefore necessarilyconceived as relative. So if we wish to represent them to ourselves asabsolute, we perceive that we are going to and fro like a shuttlebetween the two kinds of order, passing into the one just at the momentat which we might catch ourself in the other, and that the supposedabsence of all order is really the presence of both, with, besides, theswaying of a mind that cannot rest finally in either. Neither in thingsnor in our idea of things can there be any question of presenting thisdisorder as the substratum of order, since it implies the two kinds oforder and is made of their combination. 

But our intelligence is not stopped by this. By a simple _sic jubeo_ itposits a disorder which is an "absence of order. " In so doing it thinksa word or a set of words, nothing more. If it seeks to attach an ideato the word, it finds that disorder may indeed be the negation of order, but that this negation is then the implicit affirmation of the presenceof the opposite order, which we shut our eyes to because it does notinterest us, or which we evade by denying the second order in itsturn--that is, at bottom, by re-establishing the first. How can wespeak, then, of an incoherent diversity which an understandingorganizes? It is no use for us to say that no one supposes thisincoherence to be realized or realizable: when we speak of it, webelieve we are thinking of it; now, in analyzing the idea actuallypresent, we find, as we said before, only the disappointment of the mindconfronted with an order that does not interest it, or a swaying of themind between two kinds of order, or, finally, the idea pure and simpleof the empty word that we have created by joining a negative prefix to aword which itself signifies something. But it is this analysis that weneglect to make. We omit it, precisely because it does not occur to usto distinguish two kinds of order that are irreducible to one another. 

We said, indeed, that all order necessarily appears as contingent. Ifthere are two kinds of order, this contingency of order is explained:one of the forms is contingent in relation to the other. Where I findthe geometrical order, the vital was possible; where the order is vital, it might have been geometrical. But suppose that the order is everywhereof the same kind, and simply admits of degrees which go from thegeometrical to the vital: if a determinate order still appears to me tobe contingent, and can no longer be so by relation to an order ofanother kind, I shall necessarily believe that the order is contingentby relation to an _absence of itself_, that is to say by relation to astate of things "in which there is no order at all. " And this state ofthings I shall believe that I am thinking of, because it is implied, itseems, in the very contingency of order, which is an unquestionablefact. I shall therefore place at the summit of the hierarchy the vitalorder; then, as a diminution or lower complication of it, thegeometrical order; and finally, at the bottom of all, an absence oforder, incoherence itself, on which order is superposed. This is whyincoherence has the effect on me of a word behind which there must besomething real, if not in things, at least in thought. But if I observethat the state of things implied by the contingency of a determinateorder is simply the presence of the contrary order, and if by this veryfact I posit two kinds of order, each the inverse of the other, Iperceive that no intermediate degrees can be imagined between the twoorders, and that there is no going down from the two orders to the"incoherent. " Either the incoherent is only a word, devoid of meaning, or, if I give it a meaning, it is on condition of putting incoherencemidway between the two orders, and not below both of them. There is notfirst the incoherent, then the geometrical, then the vital; there isonly the geometrical and the vital, and then, by a swaying of the mindbetween them, the idea of the incoherent. To speak of an uncoördinateddiversity to which order is superadded is therefore to commit averitable _petitio principii_; for in imagining the uncoördinated wereally posit an order, or rather two. 

 * * * * *

This long analysis was necessary to show how the real can pass fromtension to extension and from freedom to mechanical necessity by way ofinversion. It was not enough to prove that this relation between the twoterms is suggested to us, at once, by consciousness and by sensibleexperience. It was necessary to prove that the geometrical order has noneed of explanation, being purely and simply the suppression of theinverse order. And, for that, it was indispensable to prove thatsuppression is always a substitution and is even necessarily conceivedas such: it is the requirements of practical life alone that suggest tous here a way of speaking that deceives us both as to what happens inthings and as to what is present to our thought. We must now examinemore closely the inversion whose consequences we have just described. What, then, is the principle that has only to let go its tension--may wesay to _detend_--in order to _extend_, the interruption of the causehere being equivalent to a reversal of the effect?

For want of a better word we have called it consciousness. But we do notmean the narrowed consciousness that functions in each of us. Our ownconsciousness is the consciousness of a certain living being, placed ina certain point of space; and though it does indeed move in the samedirection as its principle, it is continually drawn the opposite way, obliged, though it goes forward, to look behind. This retrospectivevision is, as we have shown, the natural function of the intellect, andconsequently of distinct consciousness. In order that our consciousnessshall coincide with something of its principle, it must detach itselffrom the _already-made_ and attach itself to the _being-made_. It needsthat, turning back on itself and twisting on itself, the faculty of_seeing_ should be made to be one with the act of _willing_--a painfuleffort which we can make suddenly, doing violence to our nature, butcannot sustain more than a few moments. In free action, when we contractour whole being in order to thrust it forward, we have the more or lessclear consciousness of motives and of impelling forces, and even, atrare moments, of the becoming by which they are organized into an act:but the pure willing, the current that runs through this matter, communicating life to it, is a thing which we hardly feel, which at mostwe brush lightly as it passes. Let us try, however, to instal ourselveswithin it, if only for a moment; even then it is an individual andfragmentary will that we grasp. To get to the principle of all life, asalso of all materiality, we must go further still. Is it impossible? No, by no means; the history of philosophy is there to bear witness. Thereis no durable system that is not, at least in some of its parts, vivified by intuition. Dialectic is necessary to put intuition to theproof, necessary also in order that intuition should break itself upinto concepts and so be propagated to other men; but all it does, oftenenough, is to develop the result of that intuition which transcends it. The truth is, the two procedures are of opposite direction: the sameeffort, by which ideas are connected with ideas, causes the intuitionwhich the ideas were storing up to vanish. The philosopher is obliged toabandon intuition, once he has received from it the impetus, and to relyon himself to carry on the movement by pushing the concepts one afteranother. But he soon feels he has lost foothold; he must come into touchwith intuition again; he must undo most of what he has done. In short, dialectic is what ensures the agreement of our thought with itself. Butby dialectic--which is only a relaxation of intuition--many differentagreements are possible, while there is only one truth. Intuition, if itcould be prolonged beyond a few instants, would not only make thephilosopher agree with his own thought, but also all philosophers witheach other. Such as it is, fugitive and incomplete, it is, in eachsystem, what is worth more than the system and survives it. The objectof philosophy would be reached if this intuition could be sustained, generalized and, above all, assured of external points of reference inorder not to go astray. To that end a continual coming and going isnecessary between nature and mind. 

When we put back our being into our will, and our will itself into theimpulsion it prolongs, we understand, we feel, that reality is aperpetual growth, a creation pursued without end. Our will alreadyperforms this miracle. Every human work in which there is invention, every voluntary act in which there is freedom, every movement of anorganism that manifests spontaneity, brings something new into theworld. True, these are only creations of form. How could they beanything else? We are not the vital current itself; we are this currentalready loaded with matter, that is, with congealed parts of its ownsubstance which it carries along its course. In the composition of awork of genius, as in a simple free decision, we do, indeed, stretch thespring of our activity to the utmost and thus create what no mereassemblage of materials could have given (what assemblage of curvesalready known can ever be equivalent to the pencil-stroke of a greatartist?) but there are, none the less, elements here that pre-exist andsurvive their organization. But if a simple arrest of the action thatgenerates form could constitute matter (are not the original lines drawnby the artist themselves already the fixation and, as it were, congealment of a movement?), a creation of matter would be neitherincomprehensible nor inadmissible. For we seize from within, we live atevery instant, a creation of form, and it is just in those cases inwhich the form is pure, and in which the creative current is momentarilyinterrupted, that there is a creation of matter. Consider the letters ofthe alphabet that enter into the composition of everything that has everbeen written: we do not conceive that new letters spring up and come tojoin themselves to the others in order to make a new poem. But that thepoet creates the poem and that human thought is thereby made richer, weunderstand very well: this creation is a simple act of the mind, andaction has only to make a pause, instead of continuing into a newcreation, in order that, of itself, it may break up into words whichdissociate themselves into letters which are added to all the lettersthere are already in the world. Thus, that the number of atoms composingthe material universe at a given moment should increase runs counter toour habits of mind, contradicts the whole of our experience; but that areality of quite another order, which contrasts with the atom as thethought of the poet with the letters of the alphabet, should increase bysudden additions, is not inadmissible; and the reverse of each additionmight indeed be a world, which we then represent to ourselves, symbolically, as an assemblage of atoms. 

The mystery that spreads over the existence of the universe comes ingreat part from this, that we want the genesis of it to have beenaccomplished at one stroke or the whole of matter to be eternal. Whetherwe speak of creation or posit an uncreated matter, it is the totality ofthe universe that we are considering at once. At the root of this habitof mind lies the prejudice which we will analyze in our next chapter, the idea, common to materialists and to their opponents, that there isno really acting duration, and that the absolute--matter or mind--canhave no place in concrete time, in the time which we feel to be the verystuff of our life. From which it follows that everything is given oncefor all, and that it is necessary to posit from all eternity eithermaterial multiplicity itself, or the act creating this multiplicity, given in block in the divine essence. Once this prejudice is eradicated, the idea of creation becomes more clear, for it is merged in that ofgrowth. But it is no longer then of the universe in its totality that wemust speak. 

Why should we speak of it? The universe is an assemblage of solarsystems which we have every reason to believe analogous to our own. Nodoubt they are not absolutely independent of one another. Our sunradiates heat and light beyond the farthest planet, and, on the otherhand, our entire solar system is moving in a definite direction as if itwere drawn. There is, then, a bond between the worlds. But this bond maybe regarded as infinitely loose in comparison with the mutual dependencewhich unites the parts of the same world among themselves; so that it isnot artificially, for reasons of mere convenience, that we isolate oursolar system: nature itself invites us to isolate it. As living beings, we depend on the planet on which we are, and on the sun that providesfor it, but on nothing else. As thinking beings, we may apply the lawsof our physics to our own world, and extend them to each of the worldstaken separately; but nothing tells us that they apply to the entireuniverse, nor even that such an affirmation has any meaning; for theuniverse is not made, but is being made continually. It is growing, perhaps indefinitely, by the addition of new worlds. 

Let us extend, then, to the whole of our solar system the two mostgeneral laws of our science, the principle of conservation of energy andthat of its degradation--limiting them, however, to this relativelyclosed system and to other systems relatively closed. Let us see whatwill follow. We must remark, first of all, that these two principleshave not the same metaphysical scope. The first is a quantitative law, and consequently relative, in part, to our methods of measurement. Itsays that, in a system presumed to be closed, the total energy, that isto say the sum of its kinetic and potential energy, remains constant. Now, if there were only kinetic energy in the world, or even if therewere, besides kinetic energy, only one single kind of potential energy, but no more, the artifice of measurement would not make the lawartificial. The law of the conservation of energy would express indeedthat _something_ is preserved in constant quantity. But there are, infact, energies of various kinds, [88] and the measurement of each of themhas evidently been so chosen as to justify the principle of conservationof energy. Convention, therefore, plays a large part in this principle, although there is undoubtedly, between the variations of the differentenergies composing one and the same system, a mutual dependence which isjust what has made the extension of the principle possible bymeasurements suitably chosen. If, therefore, the philosopher appliesthis principle to the solar system complete, he must at least soften itsoutlines. The law of the conservation of energy cannot here express theobjective permanence of a certain quantity of a certain thing, butrather the necessity for every change that is brought about to becounterbalanced in some way by a change in an opposite direction. Thatis to say, even if it governs the whole of our solar system, the law ofthe conservation of energy is concerned with the relationship of afragment of this world to another fragment rather than with the natureof the whole. 

It is otherwise with the second principle of thermodynamics. The law ofthe degradation of energy does not bear essentially on magnitudes. Nodoubt the first idea of it arose, in the thought of Carnot, out ofcertain quantitative considerations on the yield of thermic machines. Unquestionably, too, the terms in which Clausius generalized it weremathematical, and a calculable magnitude, "entropy, " was, in fact, thefinal conception to which he was led. Such precision is necessary forpractical applications. But the law might have been vaguely conceived, and, if absolutely necessary, it might have been roughly formulated, even though no one had ever thought of measuring the different energiesof the physical world, even though the concept of energy had not beencreated. Essentially, it expresses the fact that all physical changeshave a tendency to be degraded into heat, and that heat tends to bedistributed among bodies in a uniform manner. In this less precise form, it becomes independent of any convention; it is the most metaphysical ofthe laws of physics since it points out without interposed symbols, without artificial devices of measurements, the direction in which theworld is going. It tells us that changes that are visible andheterogeneous will be more and more diluted into changes that areinvisible and homogeneous, and that the instability to which we owe therichness and variety of the changes taking place in our solar systemwill gradually give way to the relative stability of elementaryvibrations continually and perpetually repeated. Just so with a man whokeeps up his strength as he grows old, but spends it less and less inactions, and comes, in the end, to employ it entirely in making hislungs breathe and his heart beat. 

From this point of view, a world like our solar system is seen to beever exhausting something of the mutability it contains. In thebeginning, it had the maximum of possible utilization of energy: thismutability has gone on diminishing unceasingly. Whence does it come? Wemight at first suppose that it has come from some other point of space, but the difficulty is only set back, and for this external source ofmutability the same question springs up. True, it might be added thatthe number of worlds capable of passing mutability to each other isunlimited, that the sum of mutability contained in the universe isinfinite, that there is therefore no ground on which to seek its originor to foresee its end. A hypothesis of this kind is as irrefutable as itis indemonstrable; but to speak of an infinite universe is to admit aperfect coincidence of matter with abstract space, and consequently anabsolute externality of all the parts of matter in relation to oneanother. We have seen above what we must think of this theory, and howdifficult it is to reconcile with the idea of a reciprocal influence ofall the parts of matter on one another, an influence to which indeed ititself makes appeal. Again it might be supposed that the generalinstability has arisen from a general state of stability; that theperiod in which we now are, and in which the utilizable energy isdiminishing, has been preceded by a period in which the mutability wasincreasing, and that the alternations of increase and diminution succeedeach other for ever. This hypothesis is theoretically conceivable, ashas been demonstrated quite recently; but, according to the calculationsof Boltzmann, the mathematical improbability of it passes allimagination and practically amounts to absolute impossibility. [89] Inreality, the problem remains insoluble as long as we keep on the groundof physics, for the physicist is obliged to attach energy to extendedparticles, and, even if he regards the particles only as reservoirs ofenergy, he remains in space: he would belie his rôle if he sought theorigin of these energies in an extra-spatial process. It is there, however, in our opinion, that it must be sought. 

Is it extension in general that we are considering _in abstracto_?_Extension_, we said, appears only as a _tension_ which is interrupted. Or, are we considering the concrete reality that fills this extension?The order which reigns there, and which is manifested by the laws ofnature, is an order which must be born of itself when the inverse orderis suppressed; a detension of the will would produce precisely thissuppression. Lastly, we find that the direction, which this realitytakes, suggests to us the idea of a thing _unmaking itself_; such, nodoubt, is one of the essential characters of materiality. Whatconclusion are we to draw from all this, if not that the process bywhich this thing _makes itself_ is directed in a contrary way to that ofphysical processes, and that it is therefore, by its very definition, immaterial? The vision we have of the material world is that of a weightwhich falls: no image drawn from matter, properly so called, will evergive us the idea of the weight rising. But this conclusion will comehome to us with still greater force if we press nearer to the concretereality, and if we consider, no longer only matter in general, but, within this matter, living bodies. 

All our analyses show us, in life, an effort to remount the incline thatmatter descends. In that, they reveal to us the possibility, thenecessity even of a process the inverse of materiality, creative ofmatter by its interruption alone. The life that evolves on the surfaceof our planet is indeed attached to matter. If it were pureconsciousness, _a fortiori_ if it were supra-consciousness, it would bepure creative activity. In fact, it is riveted to an organism thatsubjects it to the general laws of inert matter. But everything happensas if it were doing its utmost to set itself free from these laws. Ithas not the power to reverse the direction of physical changes, such asthe principle of Carnot determines it. It does, however, behaveabsolutely as a force would behave which, left to itself, would work inthe inverse direction. Incapable of _stopping_ the course of materialchanges downwards, it succeeds in _retarding_ it. The evolution of lifereally continues, as we have shown, an initial impulsion: thisimpulsion, which has determined the development of the chlorophyllianfunction in the plant and of the sensori-motor system in the animal, brings life to more and more efficient acts by the fabrication and useof more and more powerful explosives. Now, what do these explosivesrepresent if not a storing-up of the solar energy, the degradation ofwhich energy is thus provisionally suspended on some of the points whereit was being poured forth? The usable energy which the explosiveconceals will be expended, of course, at the moment of the explosion;but it would have been expended sooner if an organism had not happenedto be there to arrest its dissipation, in order to retain it and save itup. As we see it to-day, at the point to which it was brought by ascission of the mutually complementary tendencies which it containedwithin itself, life is entirely dependent on the chlorophyllian functionof the plant. This means that, looked at in its initial impulsion, before any scission, life was a tendency to accumulate in a reservoir, as do especially the green parts of vegetables, with a view to aninstantaneous effective discharge, like that which an animal bringsabout, something that would have otherwise flowed away. It is like aneffort to raise the weight which falls. True, it succeeds only inretarding the fall. But at least it can give us an idea of what theraising of the weight was. [90]

Let us imagine a vessel full of steam at a high pressure, and here andthere in its sides a crack through which the steam is escaping in a jet. The steam thrown into the air is nearly all condensed into little dropswhich fall back, and this condensation and this fall represent simplythe loss of something, an interruption, a deficit. But a small part ofthe jet of steam subsists, uncondensed, for some seconds; it is makingan effort to raise the drops which are falling; it succeeds at most inretarding their fall. So, from an immense reservoir of life, jets mustbe gushing out unceasingly, of which each, falling back, is a world. Theevolution of living species within this world represents what subsistsof the primitive direction of the original jet, and of an impulsionwhich continues itself in a direction the inverse of materiality. Butlet us not carry too far this comparison. It gives us but a feeble andeven deceptive image of reality, for the crack, the jet of steam, theforming of the drops, are determined necessarily, whereas the creationof a world is a free act, and the life within the material worldparticipates in this liberty. Let us think rather of an action like thatof raising the arm; then let us suppose that the arm, left to itself, falls back, and yet that there subsists in it, striving to raise it upagain, something of the will that animates it. In this image of a_creative action which unmakes itself_ we have already a more exactrepresentation of matter. In vital activity we see, then, that whichsubsists of the direct movement in the inverted movement, _a realitywhich is making itself in a reality which is unmaking itself_. 

Everything is obscure in the idea of creation if we think of _things_which are created and a _thing_ which creates, as we habitually do, asthe understanding cannot help doing. We shall show the origin of thisillusion in our next chapter. It is natural to our intellect, whosefunction is essentially practical, made to present to us things andstates rather than changes and acts. But things and states are onlyviews, taken by our mind, of becoming. There are no things, there areonly actions. More particularly, if I consider the world in which welive, I find that the automatic and strictly determined evolution ofthis well-knit whole is action which is unmaking itself, and that theunforeseen forms which life cuts out in it, forms capable of beingthemselves prolonged into unforeseen movements, represent the actionthat is making itself. Now, I have every reason to believe that theother worlds are analogous to ours, that things happen there in the sameway. And I know they were not all constructed at the same time, sinceobservation shows me, even to-day, nebulae in course of concentration. Now, if the same kind of action is going on everywhere, whether it isthat which is unmaking itself or whether it is that which is striving toremake itself, I simply express this probable similitude when I speak ofa centre from which worlds shoot out like rockets in a fireworksdisplay--provided, however, that I do not present this centre as a_thing_, but as a continuity of shooting out. God thus defined, hasnothing of the already made; He is unceasing life, action, freedom. Creation, so conceived, is not a mystery; we experience it in ourselveswhen we act freely. That new things can join things already existing isabsurd, no doubt, since the _thing_ results from a solidificationperformed by our understanding, and there are never any things otherthan those that the understanding has thus constituted. To speak ofthings creating themselves would therefore amount to saying that theunderstanding presents to itself more than it presents to itself--aself-contradictory affirmation, an empty and vain idea. But that actionincreases as it goes on, that it creates in the measure of its advance, is what each of us finds when he watches himself act. Things areconstituted by the instantaneous cut which the understanding practices, at a given moment, on a flux of this kind, and what is mysterious whenwe compare the cuts together becomes clear when we relate them to theflux. Indeed, the modalities of creative action, in so far as it isstill going on in the organization of living forms, are much simplifiedwhen they are taken in this way. Before the complexity of an organismand the practically infinite multitude of interwoven analyses andsyntheses it presupposes, our understanding recoils disconcerted. Thatthe simple play of physical and chemical forces, left to themselves, should have worked this marvel, we find hard to believe. And if it is aprofound science which is at work, how are we to understand theinfluence exercised on this matter without form by this form withoutmatter? But the difficulty arises from this, that we representstatically ready-made material particles juxtaposed to one another, and, also statically, an external cause which plasters upon them a skilfullycontrived organization. In reality, life is a movement, materiality isthe inverse movement, and each of these two movements is simple, thematter which forms a world being an undivided flux, and undivided alsothe life that runs through it, cutting out in it living beings all alongits track. Of these two currents the second runs counter to the first, but the first obtains, all the same, something from the second. Thereresults between them a _modus vivendi_, which is organization. Thisorganization takes, for our senses and for our intellect, the form ofparts entirely external to other parts in space and in time. Not only dowe shut our eyes to the unity of the impulse which, passing throughgenerations, links individuals with individuals, species with species, and makes of the whole series of the living one single immense waveflowing over matter, but each individual itself seems to us as anaggregate, aggregate of molecules and aggregate of facts. The reason ofthis lies in the structure of our intellect, which is formed to act onmatter from without, and which succeeds by making, in the flux of thereal, instantaneous cuts, each of which becomes, in its fixity, endlessly decomposable. Perceiving, in an organism, only parts externalto parts, the understanding has the choice between two systems ofexplanation only: either to regard the infinitely complex (and therebyinfinitely well-contrived) organization as a fortuitous concatenation ofatoms, or to relate it to the incomprehensible influence of an externalforce that has grouped its elements together. But this complexity is thework of the understanding; this incomprehensibility is also its work. Let us try to see, no longer with the eyes of the intellect alone, whichgrasps only the already made and which looks from the outside, but withthe spirit, I mean with that faculty of seeing which is immanent in thefaculty of acting and which springs up, somehow, by the twisting of thewill on itself, when action is turned into knowledge, like heat, so tosay, into light. To movement, then, everything will be restored, andinto movement everything will be resolved. Where the understanding, working on the image supposed to be fixed of the progressing action, shows us parts infinitely manifold and an order infinitely wellcontrived, we catch a glimpse of a simple process, an action which ismaking itself across an action of the same kind which is unmakingitself, like the fiery path torn by the last rocket of a fireworksdisplay through the black cinders of the spent rockets that are fallingdead. 

 * * * * *

From this point of view, the general considerations we have presentedconcerning the evolution of life will be cleared up and completed. Wewill distinguish more sharply what is accidental from what is essentialin this evolution. 

The impetus of life, of which we are speaking, consists in a need ofcreation. It cannot create absolutely, because it is confronted withmatter, that is to say with the movement that is the inverse of its own. But it seizes upon this matter, which is necessity itself, and strivesto introduce into it the largest possible amount of indetermination andliberty. How does it go to work?

An animal high in the scale may be represented in a general way, wesaid, as a sensori-motor nervous system imposed on digestive, respiratory, circulatory systems, etc. The function of these latter isto cleanse, repair and protect the nervous system, to make it asindependent as possible of external circumstances, but, above all, tofurnish it with energy to be expended in movements. The increasingcomplexity of the organism is therefore due theoretically (in spite ofinnumerable exceptions due to accidents of evolution) to the necessityof complexity in the nervous system. No doubt, each complication of anypart of the organism involves many others in addition, because this partitself must live, and every change in one point of the bodyreverberates, as it were, throughout. The complication may therefore goon to infinity in all directions; but it is the complication of thenervous system which conditions the others in right, if not always infact. Now, in what does the progress of the nervous system itselfconsist? In a simultaneous development of automatic activity and ofvoluntary activity, the first furnishing the second with an appropriateinstrument. Thus, in an organism such as ours, a considerable number ofmotor mechanisms are set up in the medulla and in the spinal cord, awaiting only a signal to release the corresponding act: the will isemployed, in some cases, in setting up the mechanism itself, and in theothers in choosing the mechanisms to be released, the manner ofcombining them and the moment of releasing them. The will of an animalis the more effective and the more intense, the greater the number ofthe mechanisms it can choose from, the more complicated the switchboardon which all the motor paths cross, or, in other words, the moredeveloped its brain. Thus, the progress of the nervous system assures tothe act increasing precision, increasing variety, increasing efficiencyand independence. The organism behaves more and more like a machine foraction, which reconstructs itself entirely for every new act, as if itwere made of india-rubber and could, at any moment, change the shape ofall its parts. But, prior to the nervous system, prior even to theorganism properly so called, already in the undifferentiated mass of theamoeba, this essential property of animal life is found. The amoebadeforms itself in varying directions; its entire mass does what thedifferentiation of parts will localize in a sensori-motor system in thedeveloped animal. Doing it only in a rudimentary manner, it is dispensedfrom the complexity of the higher organisms; there is no need here ofthe auxiliary elements that pass on to motor elements the energy toexpend; the animal moves as a whole, and, as a whole also, procuresenergy by means of the organic substances it assimilates. Thus, whetherlow or high in the animal scale, we always find that animal lifeconsists (1) in procuring a provision of energy; (2) in expending it, bymeans of a matter as supple as possible, in directions variable andunforeseen. 

Now, whence comes the energy? From the ingested food, for food is a kindof explosive, which needs only the spark to discharge the energy itstores. Who has made this explosive? The food may be the flesh of ananimal nourished on animals and so on; but, in the end it is to thevegetable we always come back. Vegetables alone gather in the solarenergy, and the animals do but borrow it from them, either directly orby some passing it on to others. How then has the plant stored up thisenergy? Chiefly by the chlorophyllian function, a chemicism _suigeneris_ of which we do not possess the key, and which is probablyunlike that of our laboratories. The process consists in using solarenergy to fix the carbon of carbonic acid, and thereby to store thisenergy as we should store that of a water-carrier by employing him tofill an elevated reservoir: the water, once brought up, can set inmotion a mill or a turbine, as we will and when we will. Each atom ofcarbon fixed represents something like the elevation of the weight ofwater, or like the stretching of an elastic thread uniting the carbon tothe oxygen in the carbonic acid. The elastic is relaxed, the weightfalls back again, in short the energy held in reserve is restored, when, by a simple release, the carbon is permitted to rejoin its oxygen. 

So that all life, animal and vegetable, seems in its essence like aneffort to accumulate energy and then to let it flow into flexiblechannels, changeable in shape, at the end of which it will accomplishinfinitely varied kinds of work. That is what the _vital impetus_, passing through matter, would fain do all at once. It would succeed, nodoubt, if its power were unlimited, or if some reinforcement could cometo it from without. But the impetus is finite, and it has been givenonce for all. It cannot overcome all obstacles. The movement it startsis sometimes turned aside, sometimes divided, always opposed; and theevolution of the organized world is the unrolling of this conflict. Thefirst great scission that had to be effected was that of the twokingdoms, vegetable and animal, which thus happen to be mutuallycomplementary, without, however, any agreement having been made betweenthem. It is not for the animal that the plant accumulates energy, it isfor its own consumption; but its expenditure on itself is lessdiscontinuous, and less concentrated, and therefore less efficacious, than was required by the initial impetus of life, essentially directedtoward free actions: the same organism could not with equal forcesustain the two functions at once, of gradual storage and sudden use. Ofthemselves, therefore, and without any external intervention, simply bythe effect of the duality of the tendency involved in the originalimpetus and of the resistance opposed by matter to this impetus, theorganisms leaned some in the first direction, others in the second. Tothis scission there succeeded many others. Hence the diverging lines ofevolution, at least what is essential in them. But we must take intoaccount retrogressions, arrests, accidents of every kind. And we mustremember, above all, that each species behaves as if the generalmovement of life stopped at it instead of passing through it. It thinksonly of itself, it lives only for itself. Hence the numberlessstruggles that we behold in nature. Hence a discord, striking andterrible, but for which the original principle of life must not be heldresponsible. 

The part played by contingency in evolution is therefore great. Contingent, generally, are the forms adopted, or rather invented. Contingent, relative to the obstacles encountered in a given place andat a given moment, is the dissociation of the primordial tendency intosuch and such complementary tendencies which create divergent lines ofevolution. Contingent the arrests and set-backs; contingent, in largemeasure, the adaptations. Two things only are necessary: (1) a gradualaccumulation of energy; (2) an elastic canalization of this energy invariable and indeterminable directions, at the end of which are freeacts. 

This twofold result has been obtained in a particular way on our planet. But it might have been obtained by entirely different means. It was notnecessary that life should fix its choice mainly upon the carbon ofcarbonic acid. What was essential for it was to store solar energy; but, instead of asking the sun to separate, for instance, atoms of oxygen andcarbon, it might (theoretically at least, and, apart from practicaldifficulties possibly insurmountable) have put forth other chemicalelements, which would then have had to be associated or dissociated byentirely different physical means. And if the element characteristic ofthe substances that supply energy to the organism had been other thancarbon, the element characteristic of the plastic substances wouldprobably have been other than nitrogen, and the chemistry of livingbodies would then have been radically different from what it is. Theresult would have been living forms without any analogy to those weknow, whose anatomy would have been different, whose physiology alsowould have been different. Alone, the sensori-motor function would havebeen preserved, if not in its mechanism, at least in its effects. It istherefore probable that life goes on in other planets, in other solarsystems also, under forms of which we have no idea, in physicalconditions to which it seems to us, from the point of view of ourphysiology, to be absolutely opposed. If its essential aim is to catchup usable energy in order to expend it in explosive actions, it probablychooses, in each solar system and on each planet, as it does on theearth, the fittest means to get this result in the circumstances withwhich it is confronted. That is at least what reasoning by analogy leadsto, and we use analogy the wrong way when we declare life to beimpossible wherever the circumstances with which it is confronted areother than those on the earth. The truth is that life is possiblewherever energy descends the incline indicated by Carnot's law and wherea cause of inverse direction can retard the descent--that is to say, probably, in all the worlds suspended from all the stars. We go further:it is not even necessary that life should be concentrated and determinedin organisms properly so called, that is, in definite bodies presentingto the flow of energy ready-made though elastic canals. It can beconceived (although it can hardly be imagined) that energy might besaved up, and then expended on varying lines running across a matter notyet solidified. Every essential of life would still be there, sincethere would still be slow accumulation of energy and sudden release. There would hardly be more difference between this vitality, vague andformless, and the definite vitality we know, than there is, in ourpsychical life, between the state of dream and the state of waking. Suchmay have been the condition of life in our nebula before thecondensation of matter was complete, if it be true that life springsforward at the very moment when, as the effect of an inverse movement, the nebular matter appears. 

It is therefore conceivable that life might have assumed a totallydifferent outward appearance and designed forms very different fromthose we know. With another chemical substratum, in other physicalconditions, the impulsion would have remained the same, but it wouldhave split up very differently in course of progress; and the wholewould have traveled another road--whether shorter or longer who cantell? In any case, in the entire series of living beings no term wouldhave been what it now is. Now, was it necessary that there should be aseries, or terms? Why should not the unique impetus have been impressedon a unique body, which might have gone on evolving?

This question arises, no doubt, from the comparison of life to animpetus. And it must be compared to an impetus, because no imageborrowed from the physical world can give more nearly the idea of it. But it is only an image. In reality, life is of the psychological order, and it is of the essence of the psychical to enfold a confused pluralityof interpenetrating terms. In space, and in space only, is distinctmultiplicity possible: a point is absolutely external to another point. But pure and empty unity, also, is met with only in space; it is that ofa mathematical point. Abstract unity and abstract multiplicity aredeterminations of space or categories of the understanding, whichever wewill, spatiality and intellectuality being molded on each other. Butwhat is of psychical nature cannot entirely correspond with space, norenter perfectly into the categories of the understanding. Is my ownperson, at a given moment, one or manifold? If I declare it one, innervoices arise and protest--those of the sensations, feelings, ideas, among which my individuality is distributed. But, if I make itdistinctly manifold, my consciousness rebels quite as strongly; itaffirms that my sensations, my feelings, my thoughts are abstractionswhich I effect on myself, and that each of my states implies all theothers. I am then (we must adopt the language of the understanding, since only the understanding has a language) a unity that is multipleand a multiplicity that is one;[91] but unity and multiplicity are onlyviews of my personality taken by an understanding that directs itscategories at me; I enter neither into one nor into the other nor intoboth at once, although both, united, may give a fair imitation of themutual interpenetration and continuity that I find at the base of my ownself. Such is my inner life, and such also is life in general. While, inits contact with matter, life is comparable to an impulsion or animpetus, regarded in itself it is an immensity of potentiality, a mutualencroachment of thousands and thousands of tendencies which neverthelessare "thousands and thousands" only when once regarded as outside of eachother, that is, when spatialized. Contact with matter is what determinesthis dissociation. Matter divides actually what was but potentiallymanifold; and, in this sense, individuation is in part the work ofmatter, in part the result of life's own inclination. Thus, a poeticsentiment, which bursts into distinct verses, lines and words, may besaid to have already contained this multiplicity of individuatedelements, and yet, in fact, it is the materiality of language thatcreates it. 

But through the words, lines and verses runs the simple inspirationwhich is the whole poem. So, among the dissociated individuals, onelife goes on moving: everywhere the tendency to individualize is opposedand at the same time completed by an antagonistic and complementarytendency to associate, as if the manifold unity of life, drawn in thedirection of multiplicity, made so much the more effort to withdrawitself on to itself. A part is no sooner detached than it tends toreunite itself, if not to all the rest, at least to what is nearest toit. Hence, throughout the whole realm of life, a balancing betweenindividuation and association. Individuals join together into a society;but the society, as soon as formed, tends to melt the associatedindividuals into a new organism, so as to become itself an individual, able in its turn to be part and parcel of a new association. At thelowest degree of the scale of organisms we already find veritableassociations, microbial colonies, and in these associations, accordingto a recent work, a tendency to individuate by the constitution of anucleus. [92] The same tendency is met with again at a higher stage, inthe protophytes, which, once having quitted the parent cell by way ofdivision, remain united to each other by the gelatinous substance thatsurrounds them--also in those protozoa which begin by mingling theirpseudopodia and end by welding themselves together. The "colonial"theory of the genesis of higher organisms is well known. The protozoa, consisting of one single cell, are supposed to have formed, byassemblage, aggregates which, relating themselves together in theirturn, have given rise to aggregates of aggregates; so organisms more andmore complicated, and also more and more differentiated, are born of theassociation of organisms barely differentiated and elementary. [93] Inthis extreme form, the theory is open to grave objections: more andmore the idea seems to be gaining ground, that polyzoism is anexceptional and abnormal fact. [94] But it is none the less true thatthings happen _as if_ every higher organism was born of an associationof cells that have subdivided the work between them. Very probably it isnot the cells that have made the individual by means of association; itis rather the individual that has made the cells by means ofdissociation. [95] But this itself reveals to us, in the genesis of theindividual, a haunting of the social form, as if the individual coulddevelop only on the condition that its substance should be split up intoelements having themselves an appearance of individuality and unitedamong themselves by an appearance of sociality. There are numerous casesin which nature seems to hesitate between the two forms, and to askherself if she shall make a society or an individual. The slightest pushis enough, then, to make the balance weigh on one side or the other. Ifwe take an infusorian sufficiently large, such as the Stentor, and cutit into two halves each containing a part of the nucleus, each of thetwo halves will generate an independent Stentor; but if we divide itincompletely, so that a protoplasmic communication is left between thetwo halves, we shall see them execute, each from its side, correspondingmovements: so that in this case it is enough that a thread should bemaintained or cut in order that life should affect the social or theindividual form. Thus, in rudimentary organisms consisting of a singlecell, we already find that the apparent individuality of the whole isthe composition of an _undefined_ number of potential individualitiespotentially associated. But, from top to bottom of the series of livingbeings, the same law is manifested. And it is this that we express whenwe say that unity and multiplicity are categories of inert matter, thatthe vital impetus is neither pure unity nor pure multiplicity, and thatif the matter to which it communicates itself compels it to choose oneof the two, its choice will never be definitive: it will leap from oneto the other indefinitely. The evolution of life in the double directionof individuality and association has therefore nothing accidental aboutit: it is due to the very nature of life. 

Essential also is the progress to reflexion. If our analysis is correct, it is consciousness, or rather supra-consciousness, that is at theorigin of life. Consciousness, or supra-consciousness, is the name forthe rocket whose extinguished fragments fall back as matter;consciousness, again, is the name for that which subsists of the rocketitself, passing through the fragments and lighting them up intoorganisms. But this consciousness, which is a _need of creation_, ismade manifest to itself only where creation is possible. It lies dormantwhen life is condemned to automatism; it wakens as soon as thepossibility of a choice is restored. That is why, in organismsunprovided with a nervous system, it varies according to the power oflocomotion and of deformation of which the organism disposes. And inanimals with a nervous system, it is proportional to the complexity ofthe switchboard on which the paths called sensory and the paths calledmotor intersect--that is, of the brain. How must this solidarity betweenthe organism and consciousness be understood?

We will not dwell here on a point that we have dealt with in formerworks. Let us merely recall that a theory such as that according towhich consciousness is attached to certain neurons, and is thrown offfrom their work like a phosphorescence, may be accepted by the scientistfor the detail of analysis; it is a convenient mode of expression. Butit is nothing else. In reality, a living being is a centre of action. Itrepresents a certain sum of contingency entering into the world, that isto say, a certain quantity of possible action--a quantity variable withindividuals and especially with species. The nervous system of an animalmarks out the flexible lines on which its action will run (although thepotential energy is accumulated in the muscles rather than in thenervous system itself); its nervous centres indicate, by theirdevelopment and their configuration, the more or less extended choice itwill have among more or less numerous and complicated actions. Now, since the awakening of consciousness in a living creature is the morecomplete, the greater the latitude of choice allowed to it and thelarger the amount of action bestowed upon it, it is clear that thedevelopment of consciousness will appear to be dependent on that of thenervous centres. On the other hand, every state of consciousness being, in one aspect of it, a question put to the motor activity and even thebeginning of a reply, there is no psychical event that does not implythe entry into play of the cortical mechanisms. Everything seems, therefore, to happen _as if_ consciousness sprang from the brain, and_as if_ the detail of conscious activity were modeled on that of thecerebral activity. In reality, consciousness does not spring from thebrain; but brain and consciousness correspond because equally theymeasure, the one by the complexity of its structure and the other by theintensity of its awareness, the quantity of _choice_ that the livingbeing has at its disposal. 

It is precisely because a cerebral state expresses simply what there isof nascent action in the corresponding psychical state, that thepsychical state tells us more than the cerebral state. The consciousnessof a living being, as we have tried to prove elsewhere, is inseparablefrom its brain in the sense in which a sharp knife is inseparable fromits edge: the brain is the sharp edge by which consciousness cuts intothe compact tissue of events, but the brain is no more coextensive withconsciousness than the edge is with the knife. Thus, from the fact thattwo brains, like that of the ape and that of the man, are very muchalike, we cannot conclude that the corresponding consciousnesses arecomparable or commensurable. 

But the two brains may perhaps be less alike than we suppose. How can wehelp being struck by the fact that, while man is capable of learning anysort of exercise, of constructing any sort of object, in short ofacquiring any kind of motor habit whatsoever, the faculty of combiningnew movements is strictly limited in the best-endowed animal, even inthe ape? The cerebral characteristic of man is there. The human brain ismade, like every brain, to set up motor mechanisms and to enable us tochoose among them, at any instant, the one we shall put in motion by thepull of a trigger. But it differs from other brains in this, that thenumber of mechanisms it can set up, and consequently the choice that itgives as to which among them shall be released, is unlimited. Now, fromthe limited to the unlimited there is all the distance between theclosed and the open. It is not a difference of degree, but of kind. 

Radical therefore, also, is the difference between animal consciousness, even the most intelligent, and human consciousness. For consciousnesscorresponds exactly to the living being's power of choice; it iscoextensive with the fringe of possible action that surrounds the realaction: consciousness is synonymous with invention and with freedom. Now, in the animal, invention is never anything but a variation on thetheme of routine. Shut up in the habits of the species, it succeeds, nodoubt, in enlarging them by its individual initiative; but it escapesautomatism only for an instant, for just the time to create a newautomatism. The gates of its prison close as soon as they are opened; bypulling at its chain it succeeds only in stretching it. With man, consciousness breaks the chain. In man, and in man alone, it sets itselffree. The whole history of life until man has been that of the effort ofconsciousness to raise matter, and of the more or less completeoverwhelming of consciousness by the matter which has fallen back on it. The enterprise was paradoxical, if, indeed, we may speak here otherwisethan by metaphor of enterprise and of effort. It was to create withmatter, which is necessity itself, an instrument of freedom, to make amachine which should triumph over mechanism, and to use the determinismof nature to pass through the meshes of the net which this verydeterminism had spread. But, everywhere except in man, consciousness haslet itself be caught in the net whose meshes it tried to pass through:it has remained the captive of the mechanisms it has set up. Automatism, which it tries to draw in the direction of freedom, winds about it anddrags it down. It has not the power to escape, because the energy it hasprovided for acts is almost all employed in maintaining the infinitelysubtle and essentially unstable equilibrium into which it has broughtmatter. But man not only maintains his machine, he succeeds in using itas he pleases. Doubtless he owes this to the superiority of his brain, which enables him to build an unlimited number of motor mechanisms, tooppose new habits to the old ones unceasingly, and, by dividingautomatism against itself, to rule it. He owes it to his language, which furnishes consciousness with an immaterial body in which toincarnate itself and thus exempts it from dwelling exclusively onmaterial bodies, whose flux would soon drag it along and finally swallowit up. He owes it to social life, which stores and preserves efforts aslanguage stores thought, fixes thereby a mean level to which individualsmust raise themselves at the outset, and by this initial stimulationprevents the average man from slumbering and drives the superior man tomount still higher. But our brain, our society, and our language areonly the external and various signs of one and the same internalsuperiority. They tell, each after its manner, the unique, exceptionalsuccess which life has won at a given moment of its evolution. Theyexpress the difference of kind, and not only of degree, which separatesman from the rest of the animal world. They let us guess that, while atthe end of the vast spring-board from which life has taken its leap, allthe others have stepped down, finding the cord stretched too high, manalone has cleared the obstacle. 

It is in this quite special sense that man is the "term" and the "end"of evolution. Life, we have said, transcends finality as it transcendsthe other categories. It is essentially a current sent through matter, drawing from it what it can. There has not, therefore, properlyspeaking, been any project or plan. On the other hand, it is abundantlyevident that the rest of nature is not for the sake of man: we strugglelike the other species, we have struggled against other species. Moreover, if the evolution of life had encountered other accidents inits course, if, thereby, the current of life had been otherwise divided, we should have been, physically and morally, far different from what weare. For these various reasons it would be wrong to regard humanity, such as we have it before our eyes, as pre-figured in the evolutionarymovement. It cannot even be said to be the outcome of the whole ofevolution, for evolution has been accomplished on several divergentlines, and while the human species is at the end of one of them, otherlines have been followed with other species at their end. It is in aquite different sense that we hold humanity to be the ground ofevolution. 

From our point of view, life appears in its entirety as an immense wavewhich, starting from a centre, spreads outwards, and which on almost thewhole of its circumference is stopped and converted into oscillation: atone single point the obstacle has been forced, the impulsion has passedfreely. It is this freedom that the human form registers. Everywhere butin man, consciousness has had to come to a stand; in man alone it haskept on its way. Man, then, continues the vital movement indefinitely, although he does not draw along with him all that life carries initself. On other lines of evolution there have traveled other tendencieswhich life implied, and of which, since everything interpenetrates, manhas, doubtless, kept something, but of which he has kept only verylittle. _It is as if a vague and formless being, whom we may call, as wewill_, man _or_ superman, _had sought to realize himself, and hadsucceeded only by abandoning a part of himself on the way_. The lossesare represented by the rest of the animal world, and even by thevegetable world, at least in what these have that is positive and abovethe accidents of evolution. 

From this point of view, the discordances of which nature offers us thespectacle are singularly weakened. The organized world as a wholebecomes as the soil on which was to grow either man himself or a beingwho morally must resemble him. The animals, however distant they may befrom our species, however hostile to it, have none the less been usefultraveling companions, on whom consciousness has unloaded whateverencumbrances it was dragging along, and who have enabled it to rise, inman, to heights from which it sees an unlimited horizon open againbefore it. 

It is true that it has not only abandoned cumbersome baggage on the way;it has also had to give up valuable goods. Consciousness, in man, ispre-eminently intellect. It might have been, it ought, so it seems, tohave been also intuition. Intuition and intellect represent two oppositedirections of the work of consciousness: intuition goes in the verydirection of life, intellect goes in the inverse direction, and thusfinds itself naturally in accordance with the movement of matter. Acomplete and perfect humanity would be that in which these two forms ofconscious activity should attain their full development. And, betweenthis humanity and ours, we may conceive any number of possible stages, corresponding to all the degrees imaginable of intelligence and ofintuition. In this lies the part of contingency in the mental structureof our species. A different evolution might have led to a humanityeither more intellectual still or more intuitive. In the humanity ofwhich we are a part, intuition is, in fact, almost completely sacrificedto intellect. It seems that to conquer matter, and to reconquer its ownself, consciousness has had to exhaust the best part of its power. Thisconquest, in the particular conditions in which it has beenaccomplished, has required that consciousness should adapt itself to thehabits of matter and concentrate all its attention on them, in factdetermine itself more especially as intellect. Intuition is there, however, but vague and above all discontinuous. It is a lamp almostextinguished, which only glimmers now and then, for a few moments atmost. But it glimmers wherever a vital interest is at stake. On ourpersonality, on our liberty, on the place we occupy in the whole ofnature, on our origin and perhaps also on our destiny, it throws a lightfeeble and vacillating, but which none the less pierces the darkness ofthe night in which the intellect leaves us. 

These fleeting intuitions, which light up their object only at distantintervals, philosophy ought to seize, first to sustain them, then toexpand them and so unite them together. The more it advances in thiswork, the more will it perceive that intuition is mind itself, and, in acertain sense, life itself: the intellect has been cut out of it by aprocess resembling that which has generated matter. Thus is revealed theunity of the spiritual life. We recognize it only when we placeourselves in intuition in order to go from intuition to the intellect, for from the intellect we shall never pass to intuition. 

Philosophy introduces us thus into the spiritual life. And it shows usat the same time the relation of the life of the spirit to that of thebody. The great error of the doctrines on the spirit has been the ideathat by isolating the spiritual life from all the rest, by suspending itin space as high as possible above the earth, they were placing itbeyond attack, as if they were not thereby simply exposing it to betaken as an effect of mirage! Certainly they are right to listen toconscience when conscience affirms human freedom; but the intellect isthere, which says that the cause determines its effect, that likeconditions like, that all is repeated and that all is given. They areright to believe in the absolute reality of the person and in hisindependence toward matter; but science is there, which shows theinterdependence of conscious life and cerebral activity. They are rightto attribute to man a privileged place in nature, to hold that thedistance is infinite between the animal and man; but the history of lifeis there, which makes us witness the genesis of species by gradualtransformation, and seems thus to reintegrate man in animality. When astrong instinct assures the probability of personal survival, they areright not to close their ears to its voice; but if there exist "souls"capable of an independent life, whence do they come? When, how and whydo they enter into this body which we see arise, quite naturally, from amixed cell derived from the bodies of its two parents? All thesequestions will remain unanswered, a philosophy of intuition will be anegation of science, will be sooner or later swept away by science, ifit does not resolve to see the life of the body just where it really is, on the road that leads to the life of the spirit. But it will then nolonger have to do with definite living beings. Life as a whole, from theinitial impulsion that thrust it into the world, will appear as a wavewhich rises, and which is opposed by the descending movement of matter. On the greater part of its surface, at different heights, the current isconverted by matter into a vortex. At one point alone it passes freely, dragging with it the obstacle which will weigh on its progress but willnot stop it. At this point is humanity; it is our privileged situation. On the other hand, this rising wave is consciousness, and, like allconsciousness, it includes potentialities without number whichinterpenetrate and to which consequently neither the category of unitynor that of multiplicity is appropriate, made as they both are for inertmatter. The matter that it bears along with it, and in the intersticesof which it inserts itself, alone can divide it into distinctindividualities. On flows the current, running through humangenerations, subdividing itself into individuals. This subdivision wasvaguely indicated in it, but could not have been made clear withoutmatter. Thus souls are continually being created, which, nevertheless, in a certain sense pre-existed. They are nothing else than the littlerills into which the great river of life divides itself, flowing throughthe body of humanity. The movement of the stream is distinct from theriver bed, although it must adopt its winding course. Consciousness isdistinct from the organism it animates, although it must undergo itsvicissitudes. As the possible actions which a state of consciousnessindicates are at every instant beginning to be carried out in thenervous centres, the brain underlines at every instant the motorindications of the state of consciousness; but the interdependency ofconsciousness and brain is limited to this; the destiny of consciousnessis not bound up on that account with the destiny of cerebral matter. Finally, consciousness is essentially free; it is freedom itself; but itcannot pass through matter without settling on it, without adaptingitself to it: this adaptation is what we call intellectuality; and theintellect, turning itself back toward active, that is to say free, consciousness, naturally makes it enter into the conceptual forms intowhich it is accustomed to see matter fit. It will therefore alwaysperceive freedom in the form of necessity; it will always neglect thepart of novelty or of creation inherent in the free act; it will alwayssubstitute for action itself an imitation artificial, approximative, obtained by compounding the old with the old and the same with the same. Thus, to the eyes of a philosophy that attempts to reabsorb intellect inintuition, many difficulties vanish or become light. But such a doctrinedoes not only facilitate speculation; it gives us also more power to actand to live. For, with it, we feel ourselves no longer isolated inhumanity, humanity no longer seems isolated in the nature that itdominates. As the smallest grain of dust is bound up with our entiresolar system, drawn along with it in that undivided movement of descentwhich is materiality itself, so all organized beings, from the humblestto the highest, from the first origins of life to the time in which weare, and in all places as in all times, do but evidence a singleimpulsion, the inverse of the movement of matter, and in itselfindivisible. All the living hold together, and all yield to the sametremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestridesanimality, and the whole of humanity, in space and in time, is oneimmense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in anoverwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance and clear themost formidable obstacles, perhaps even death. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 78: We have developed this point in _Matière et mémoire_, chaps. Ii. And iii. , notably pp. 78-80 and 169-186. ]

[Footnote 79: Faraday, _A Speculation concerning Electric Conduction_(_Philosophical Magazine_, 3d. Series, vol. Xxiv. ). ]

[Footnote 80: Our comparison does no more than develop the content ofthe term [Greek: logos], as Plotinus understands it. For while the[Greek: logos] of this philosopher is a generating and informing power, an aspect or a fragment of the [Greek: psychê], on the other handPlotinus sometimes speaks of it as of a _discourse_. More generally, therelation that we establish in the present chapter between "extension"and "detension" resembles in some aspects that which Plotinus supposes(some developments of which must have inspired M. Ravaisson) when hemakes extension not indeed an inversion of original Being, but anenfeeblement of its essence, one of the last stages of the procession, (see in particular, _Enn. _ IV. Iii. 9-11, and III. Vi. 17-18). Yetancient philosophy did not see what consequences would result from thisfor mathematics, for Plotinus, like Plato, erected mathematical essencesinto absolute realities. Above all, it suffered itself to be deceived bythe purely superficial analogy of duration with extension. It treatedthe one as it treated the other, regarding change as a degradation ofimmutability, the sensible as a fall from the intelligible. Whence, aswe shall show in the next chapter, a philosophy which fails to recognizethe real function and scope of the intellect. ]

[Footnote 81: Bastian, _The Brain as an Organ of the Mind_, pp. 214-16. ]

[Footnote 82: We have dwelt on this point in a former work. See the_Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience_, Paris, 1889, pp. 155-160. ]

[Footnote 83: _Op. Cit. _ chaps. I. And ii. _passim_. ]

[Footnote 84: Cf. Especially the profound studies of M. Ed. Le Roy inthe _Revue de métaph. Et de morale_. ]

[Footnote 85: _Matière et mémoire_, chapters iii. And iv. ]

[Footnote 86: See in particular, _Phys. _, iv. 215 a 2; v. 230 b 12;viii. 255 a 2; and _De Caelo_, iv. 1-5; ii. 296 b 27; iv. 308 a 34. ]

[Footnote 87: _De Caelo_, iv. 310 a 34 [Greek: to d' eis ton autou toponpherethai hekaoton to eis to autou eidos esti pheresthai]. ]

[Footnote 88: On these differences of quality see the work of Duhem, _L'Évolution de la mécanique_, Paris, 1905, pp. 197 ff. ]

[Footnote 89: Boltzmann, _Vorlesungen über Gastheorie_, Leipzig, 1898, pp. 253 ff. ]

[Footnote 90: In a book rich in facts and in ideas (_La Dissolutionopposée a l'évolution_, Paris, 1899), M. André Lalande shows useverything going towards death, in spite of the momentary resistancewhich organisms seem to oppose. --But, even from the side of unorganizedmatter, have we the right to extend to the entire universeconsiderations drawn from the present state of our solar system? Besidethe worlds which are dying, there are without doubt worlds that arebeing born. On the other hand, in the organized world, the death ofindividuals does not seem at all like a diminution of "life in general, "or like a necessity which life submits to reluctantly. As has been morethan once remarked, life has never made an effort to prolongindefinitely the existence of the individual, although on so many otherpoints it has made so many successful efforts. Everything is _as if_this death had been willed, or at least accepted, for the greaterprogress of life in general. ]

[Footnote 91: We have dwelt on this point in an article entitled"Introduction à la métaphysique" (_Revue de métaphysique et de morale_, January, 1903, pp. 1-25). ]

[Footnote 92: Cf. A paper written (in Russian) by Serkovski, andreviewed in the _Année biologique_, 1898, p. 317. ]

[Footnote 93: Ed. Perrier, _Les Colonies animales_, Paris, 1897 (2ndedition). ]

[Footnote 94: Delage, _L'Hérédité_, 2nd edition, Paris, 1903, p. 97. Cf. By the same author, "La Conception polyzoïque des êtres" (_Revuescientifique_, 1896, pp. 641-653). ]

[Footnote 95: This is the theory maintained by Kunstler, Delage, Sedgwick, Labbé, etc. Its development, with bibliographical references, will be found in the work of Busquet, _Les êtres vivants_, Paris, 1899. ]

CHAPTER IV

THE CINEMATOGRAPHICAL MECHANISM OF THOUGHT AND THE MECHANISTICILLUSION--A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY OF SYSTEMS[96]--REAL BECOMING ANDFALSE EVOLUTIONISM. 

It remains for us to examine in themselves two theoretical illusionswhich we have frequently met with before, but whose consequences ratherthan principle have hitherto concerned us. Such is the object of thepresent chapter. It will afford us the opportunity of removing certainobjections, of clearing up certain misunderstandings, and, above all, ofdefining more precisely, by contrasting it with others, a philosophywhich sees in duration the very stuff of reality. 

Matter or mind, reality has appeared to us as a perpetual becoming. Itmakes itself or it unmakes itself, but it is never something made. Suchis the intuition that we have of mind when we draw aside the veil whichis interposed between our consciousness and ourselves. This, also, iswhat our intellect and senses themselves would show us of matter, ifthey could obtain a direct and disinterested idea of it. But, preoccupied before everything with the necessities of action, theintellect, like the senses, is limited to taking, at intervals, viewsthat are instantaneous and by that very fact immobile of the becoming ofmatter. Consciousness, being in its turn formed on the intellect, seesclearly of the inner life what is already made, and only feelsconfusedly the making. Thus, we pluck out of duration those moments thatinterest us, and that we have gathered along its course. These alone weretain. And we are right in so doing, while action only is in question. But when, in _speculating_ on the _nature_ of the real, we go onregarding it as our practical interest requires us to regard it, webecome unable to perceive the true evolution, the radical becoming. Ofbecoming we perceive only states, of duration only instants, and evenwhen we speak of duration and of becoming, it is of another thing thatwe are thinking. Such is the most striking of the two illusions we wishto examine. It consists in supposing that we can think the unstable bymeans of the stable, the moving by means of the immobile. 

The other illusion is near akin to the first. It has the same origin, being also due to the fact that we import into speculation a proceduremade for practice. All action aims at getting something that we feel thewant of, or at creating something that does not yet exist. In this veryspecial sense, it fills a void, and goes from the empty to the full, from an absence to a presence, from the unreal to the real. Now theunreality which is here in question is purely relative to the directionin which our attention is engaged, for we are immersed in realities andcannot pass out of them; only, if the present reality is not the one weare seeking, we speak of the _absence_ of this sought-for realitywherever we find the _presence_ of another. We thus express what we haveas a function of what we want. This is quite legitimate in the sphere ofaction. But, whether we will or no, we keep to this way of speaking, and also of thinking, when we speculate on the nature of thingsindependently of the interest they have for us. Thus arises the secondof the two illusions. We propose to examine this first. It is due, likethe other, to the static habits that our intellect contracts when itprepares our action on things. Just as we pass through the immobile togo to the moving, so we make use of the void in order to think the full. 

We have met with this illusion already in dealing with the fundamentalproblem of knowledge. The question, we then said, is to know why thereis order, and not disorder, in things. But the question has meaning onlyif we suppose that disorder, understood as an absence of order, ispossible, or imaginable, or conceivable. Now, it is only order that isreal; but, as order can take two forms, and as the presence of the onemay be said to consist in the absence of the other, we speak of disorderwhenever we have before us that one of the two orders for which we arenot looking. The idea of disorder is then entirely practical. Itcorresponds to the disappointment of a certain expectation, and it doesnot denote the absence of all order, but only the presence of that orderwhich does not offer us actual interest. So that whenever we try to denyorder completely, absolutely, we find that we are leaping from one kindof order to the other indefinitely, and that the supposed suppression ofthe one and the other implies the presence of the two. Indeed, if we goon, and persist in shutting our eyes to this movement of the mind andall it involves, we are no longer dealing with an idea; all that is leftof disorder is a word. Thus the problem of knowledge is complicated, andpossibly made insoluble, by the idea that order fills a void and thatits actual presence is superposed on its virtual absence. We go fromabsence to presence, from the void to the full, in virtue of thefundamental illusion of our understanding. That is the error of which wenoticed one consequence in our last chapter. As we then anticipated, wemust come to close quarters with this error, and finally grapple withit. We must face it in itself, in the radically false conception whichit implies of negation, of the void and of the nought. [97]

Philosophers have paid little attention to the idea of the nought. Andyet it is often the hidden spring, the invisible mover of philosophicalthinking. From the first awakening of reflection, it is this that pushesto the fore, right under the eyes of consciousness, the torturingproblems, the questions that we cannot gaze at without feeling giddy andbewildered. I have no sooner commenced to philosophize than I ask myselfwhy I exist; and when I take account of the intimate connection in whichI stand to the rest of the universe, the difficulty is only pushed back, for I want to know why the universe exists; and if I refer the universeto a Principle immanent or transcendent that supports it or creates it, my thought rests on this principle only a few moments, for the sameproblem recurs, this time in its full breadth and generality: Whencecomes it, and how can it be understood, that anything exists? Even here, in the present work, when matter has been defined as a kind of descent, this descent as the interruption of a rise, this rise itself as agrowth, when finally a Principle of creation has been put at the base ofthings, the same question springs up: How--why does this principle existrather than nothing?

Now, if I push these questions aside and go straight to what hidesbehind them, this is what I find:--Existence appears to me like aconquest over nought. I say to myself that there might be, that indeedthere ought to be, nothing, and I then wonder that there is something. Or I represent all reality extended on nothing as on a carpet: at firstwas nothing, and being has come by superaddition to it. Or, yet again, if something has always existed, nothing must always have served as itssubstratum or receptacle, and is therefore eternally prior. A glass mayhave always been full, but the liquid it contains nevertheless fills avoid. In the same way, being may have always been there, but the noughtwhich is filled, and, as it were, stopped up by it, pre-exists for itnone the less, if not in fact at least in right. In short, I cannot getrid of the idea that the full is an embroidery on the canvas of thevoid, that being is superimposed on nothing, and that in the idea of"nothing" there is _less_ than in that of "something. " Hence all themystery. 

It is necessary that this mystery should be cleared up. It is moreespecially necessary, if we put duration and free choice at the base ofthings. For the disdain of metaphysics for all reality that endurescomes precisely from this, that it reaches being only by passing through"not-being, " and that an existence which endures seems to it not strongenough to conquer non-existence and itself posit itself. It is for thisreason especially that it is inclined to endow true being with a_logical_, and not a psychological nor a physical existence. For thenature of a purely logical existence is such that it seems to beself-sufficient and to posit itself by the effect alone of the forceimmanent in truth. If I ask myself why bodies or minds exist rather thannothing, I find no answer; but that a logical principle, such as A=A, should have the power of creating itself, triumphing over the noughtthroughout eternity, seems to me natural. A circle drawn with chalk ona blackboard is a thing which needs explanation: this entirely physicalexistence has not by itself wherewith to vanquish non-existence. But the"logical essence" of the circle, that is to say, the possibility ofdrawing it according to a certain law--in short, its definition--is athing which appears to me eternal: it has neither place nor date; fornowhere, at no moment, has the drawing of a circle begun to be possible. Suppose, then, that the principle on which all things rest, and whichall things manifest possesses an existence of the same nature as that ofthe definition of the circle, or as that of the axiom A=A: the mysteryof existence vanishes, for the being that is at the base of everythingposits itself then in eternity, as logic itself does. True, it will costus rather a heavy sacrifice: if the principle of all things exists afterthe manner of a logical axiom or of a mathematical definition, thethings themselves must go forth from this principle like theapplications of an axiom or the consequences of a definition, and therewill no longer be place, either in the things nor in their principle, for efficient causality understood in the sense of a free choice. Suchare precisely the conclusions of a doctrine like that of Spinoza, oreven that of Leibniz, and such indeed has been their genesis. 

Now, if we could prove that the idea of the nought, in the sense inwhich we take it when we oppose it to that of existence, is apseudo-idea, the problems that are raised around it would becomepseudo-problems. The hypothesis of an absolute that acts freely, that inan eminent sense endures, would no longer raise up intellectualprejudices. The road would be cleared for a philosophy more nearlyapproaching intuition, and which would no longer ask the same sacrificesof common sense. 

Let us then see what we are thinking about when we speak of "Nothing. "To represent "Nothing, " we must either imagine it or conceive it. Let usexamine what this image or this idea may be. First, the image. 

I am going to close my eyes, stop my ears, extinguish one by one thesensations that come to me from the outer world. Now it is done; all myperceptions vanish, the material universe sinks into silence and thenight. --I subsist, however, and cannot help myself subsisting. I amstill there, with the organic sensations which come to me from thesurface and from the interior of my body, with the recollections whichmy past perceptions have left behind them--nay, with the impression, most positive and full, of the void I have just made about me. How can Isuppress all this? How eliminate myself? I can even, it may be, blot outand forget my recollections up to my immediate past; but at least I keepthe consciousness of my present reduced to its extremest poverty, thatis to say, of the actual state of my body. I will try, however, to doaway even with this consciousness itself. I will reduce more and morethe sensations my body sends in to me: now they are almost gone; nowthey are gone, they have disappeared in the night where all things elsehave already died away. But no! At the very instant that myconsciousness is extinguished, another consciousness lights up--orrather, it was already alight: it had arisen the instant before, inorder to witness the extinction of the first; for the first coulddisappear only for another and in the presence of another. I see myselfannihilated only if I have already resuscitated myself by an act whichis positive, however involuntary and unconscious. So, do what I will, Iam always perceiving something, either from without or from within. WhenI no longer know anything of external objects, it is because I havetaken refuge in the consciousness that I have of myself. If I abolishthis inner self, its very abolition becomes an object for an imaginaryself which now perceives as an external object the self that is dyingaway. Be it external or internal, some object there always is that myimagination is representing. My imagination, it is true, can go from oneto the other, I can by turns imagine a nought of external perception ora nought of internal perception, but not both at once, for the absenceof one consists, at bottom, in the exclusive presence of the other. But, from the fact that two relative noughts are imaginable in turn, wewrongly conclude that they are imaginable together: a conclusion theabsurdity of which must be obvious, for we cannot imagine a noughtwithout perceiving, at least confusedly, that we are imagining it, consequently that we are acting, that we are thinking, and thereforethat something still subsists. 

The image, then, properly so called, of a suppression of everything isnever formed by thought. The effort by which we strive to create thisimage simply ends in making us swing to and fro between the vision of anouter and that of an inner reality. In this coming and going of our mindbetween the without and the within, there is a point, at equal distancefrom both, in which it seems to us that we no longer perceive the one, and that we do not yet perceive the other: it is there that the image of"Nothing" is formed. In reality, we then perceive both, having reachedthe point where the two terms come together, and the image of Nothing, so defined, is an image full of things, an image that includes at oncethat of the subject and that of the object and, besides, a perpetualleaping from one to the other and the refusal ever to come to restfinally on either. Evidently this is not the nothing that we can opposeto being, and put before or beneath being, for it already includesexistence in general. 

But we shall be told that, if the representation of Nothing, visible orlatent, enters into the reasonings of philosophers, it is not as animage, but as an idea. It may be agreed that we do not imagine theannihilation of everything, but it will be claimed that we can conceiveit. We conceive a polygon with a thousand sides, said Descartes, although we do not see it in imagination: it is enough that we canclearly represent the possibility of constructing it. So with the ideaof the annihilation of everything. Nothing simpler, it will be said, than the procedure by which we construct the idea of it. There is, infact, not a single object of our experience that we cannot supposeannihilated. Extend this annihilation of a first object to a second, then to a third, and so on as long as you please: the nought is thelimit toward which the operation tends. And the nought so defined is theannihilation of everything. That is the theory. We need only consider itin this form to see the absurdity it involves. 

An idea constructed by the mind is an idea only if its pieces arecapable of coexisting; it is reduced to a mere word if the elements thatwe bring together to compose it are driven away as fast as we assemblethem. When I have defined the circle, I easily represent a black or awhite circle, a circle in cardboard, iron, or brass, a transparent or anopaque circle--but not a square circle, because the law of thegeneration of the circle excludes the possibility of defining thisfigure with straight lines. So my mind can represent any existing thingwhatever as annihilated;--but if the annihilation of anything by themind is an operation whose mechanism implies that it works on a part ofthe whole, and not on the whole itself, then the extension of such anoperation to the totality of things becomes self-contradictory andabsurd, and the idea of an annihilation of everything presents the samecharacter as that of a square circle: it is not an idea, it is only aword. So let us examine more closely the mechanism of the operation. 

In fact, the object suppressed is either external or internal: it is athing or it is a state of consciousness. Let us consider the first case. I annihilate in thought an external object: in the place where it was, there is no longer anything. --No longer anything of that object, ofcourse, but another object has taken its place: there is no absolutevoid in nature. But admit that an absolute void is possible: it is notof that void that I am thinking when I say that the object, onceannihilated, leaves its place unoccupied; for by the hypothesis it is a_place_, that is a void limited by precise outlines, or, in other words, a kind of _thing_. The void of which I speak, therefore, is, at bottom, only the absence of some definite object, which was here at first, isnow elsewhere and, in so far as it is no longer in its former place, leaves behind it, so to speak, the void of itself. A being unendowedwith memory or prevision would not use the words "void" or "nought;" hewould express only what is and what is perceived; now, what is, and whatis perceived, is the _presence_ of one thing or of another, never the_absence_ of anything. There is absence only for a being capable ofremembering and expecting. He remembered an object, and perhaps expectedto encounter it again; he finds another, and he expresses thedisappointment of his expectation (an expectation sprung fromrecollection) by saying that he no longer finds anything, that heencounters "nothing. " Even if he did not expect to encounter the object, it is a possible expectation of it, it is still the falsification of hiseventual expectation that he expresses by saying that the object is nolonger where it was. What he perceives in reality, what he will succeedin effectively thinking of, is the presence of the old object in a newplace or that of a new object in the old place; the rest, all that isexpressed negatively by such words as "nought" or the "void, " is not somuch thought as feeling, or, to speak more exactly, it is the tinge thatfeeling gives to thought. The idea of annihilation or of partialnothingness is therefore formed here in the course of the substitutionof one thing for another, whenever this substitution is thought by amind that would prefer to keep the old thing in the place of the new, orat least conceives this preference as possible. The idea implies on thesubjective side a preference, on the objective side a substitution, andis nothing else but a combination of, or rather an interference between, this feeling of preference and this idea of substitution. 

Such is the mechanism of the operation by which our mind annihilates anobject and succeeds in representing in the external world a partialnought. Let us now see how it represents it within itself. We find inourselves phenomena that are produced, and not phenomena that are notproduced. I experience a sensation or an emotion, I conceive an idea, Iform a resolution: my consciousness perceives these facts, which are somany _presences_, and there is no moment in which facts of this kind arenot present to me. I can, no doubt, interrupt by thought the course ofmy inner life; I may suppose that I sleep without dreaming or that Ihave ceased to exist; but at the very instant when I make thissupposition, I conceive myself, I imagine myself watching over myslumber or surviving my annihilation, and I give up perceiving myselffrom within only by taking refuge in the perception of myself fromwithout. That is to say that here again the full always succeeds thefull, and that an intelligence that was only intelligence, that hadneither regret nor desire, whose movement was governed by the movementof its object, could not even conceive an absence or a void. Theconception of a void arises here when consciousness, lagging behinditself, remains attached to the recollection of an old state whenanother state is already present. It is only a comparison between whatis and what could or ought to be, between the full and the full. In aword, whether it be a void of matter or a void of consciousness, _therepresentation of the void is always a representation which is full andwhich resolves itself on analysis into two positive elements: the idea, distinct or confused, of a substitution, and the feeling, experienced orimagined, of a desire or a regret_. 

It follows from this double analysis that the idea of the absolutenought, in the sense of the annihilation of everything, is aself-destructive idea, a pseudo-idea, a mere word. If suppressing athing consists in replacing it by another, if thinking the absence ofone thing is only possible by the more or less explicit representationof the presence of some other thing, if, in short, annihilationsignifies before anything else substitution, the idea of an"annihilation of everything" is as absurd as that of a square circle. The absurdity is not obvious, because there exists no particular objectthat cannot be supposed annihilated; then, from the fact that there isnothing to prevent each thing in turn being suppressed in thought, weconclude that it is possible to suppose them suppressed altogether. Wedo not see that suppressing each thing in turn consists precisely inreplacing it in proportion and degree by another, and therefore that thesuppression of absolutely everything implies a downright contradictionin terms, since the operation consists in destroying the very conditionthat makes the operation possible. 

But the illusion is tenacious. Though suppressing one thing consists _infact_ in substituting another for it, we do not conclude, we areunwilling to conclude, that the annihilation of a thing _in thought_implies the substitution in thought of a new thing for the old. We agreethat a thing is always replaced by another thing, and even that our mindcannot think the disappearance of an object, external or internal, without thinking--under an indeterminate and confused form, it istrue--that another object is substituted for it. But we add that therepresentation of a disappearance is that of a phenomenon that isproduced in space or at least in time, that consequently it stillimplies the calling up of an image, and that it is precisely here thatwe have to free ourselves from the imagination in order to appeal to thepure understanding. "Let us therefore no longer speak, " it will be said, "of disappearance or annihilation; these are physical operations. Let usno longer represent the object A as annihilated or absent. Let us saysimply that we think it "non-existent. " To annihilate it is to act on itin time and perhaps also in space; it is to accept, consequently, thecondition of spatial and temporal existence, to accept the universalconnection that binds an object to all others, and prevents it fromdisappearing without being at the same time replaced. But we can freeourselves from these conditions; all that is necessary is that by aneffort of abstraction we should call up the idea of the object A byitself, that we should agree first to consider it as existing, and then, by a stroke of the intellectual pen, blot out the clause. The objectwill then be, by our decree, non-existent. "

Very well, let us strike out the clause. We must not suppose that ourpen-stroke is self-sufficient--that it can be isolated from the rest ofthings. We shall see that it carries with it, whether we will or no, all that we tried to abstract from. Let us compare together the twoideas--the object A supposed to exist, and the same object supposed"non-existent. "

The idea of the object A, supposed existent, is the representation pureand simple of the object A, for we cannot represent an object withoutattributing to it, by the very fact of representing it, a certainreality. Between thinking an object and thinking it existent, there isabsolutely no difference. Kant has put this point in clear light in hiscriticism of the ontological argument. Then, what is it to think theobject A non-existent? To represent it non-existent cannot consist inwithdrawing from the idea of the object A the idea of the attribute"existence, " since, I repeat, the representation of the existence of theobject is inseparable from the representation of the object, and indeedis one with it. To represent the object A non-existent can only consist, therefore, in _adding_ something to the idea of this object: we add toit, in fact, the idea of an _exclusion_ of this particular object byactual reality in general. To think the object A as non-existent isfirst to think the object and consequently to think it existent; it isthen to think that another reality, with which it is incompatible, supplants it. Only, it is useless to represent this latter realityexplicitly; we are not concerned with what it is; it is enough for us toknow that it drives out the object A, which alone is of interest to us. That is why we think of the expulsion rather than of the cause whichexpels. But this cause is none the less present to the mind; it is therein the implicit state, that which expels being inseparable from theexpulsion as the hand which drives the pen is inseparable from thepen-stroke. The act by which we declare an object unreal thereforeposits the existence of the real in general. In other words, torepresent an object as unreal cannot consist in depriving it of everykind of existence, since the representation of an object is necessarilythat of the object existing. Such an act consists simply in declaringthat the existence attached by our mind to the object, and inseparablefrom its representation, is an existence wholly ideal--that of a mere_possible_. But the "ideality" of an object, and the "simplepossibility" of an object, have meaning only in relation to a realitythat drives into the region of the ideal, or of the merely possible, theobject which is incompatible with it. Suppose the stronger and moresubstantial existence annihilated: it is the attenuated and weakerexistence of the merely possible that becomes the reality itself, andyou will no longer be representing the object, then, as non-existent. Inother words, and however strange our assertion may seem, _there is_more, _and not_ less, _in the idea of an object conceived as "notexisting" than in the idea of this same object conceived as "existing";for the idea of the object "not existing" is necessarily the idea of theobject "existing" with, in addition, the representation of an exclusionof this object by the actual reality taken in block_. 

But it will be claimed that our idea of the non-existent is not yetsufficiently cut loose from every imaginative element, that it is notnegative enough. "No matter, " we shall be told, "though the unreality ofa thing consist in its exclusion by other things; we want to knownothing about that. Are we not free to direct our attention where weplease and how we please? Well then, after having called up the idea ofan object, and thereby, if you will have it so, supposed it existent, weshall merely couple to our affirmation a 'not, ' and that will be enoughto make us think it non-existent. This is an operation entirelyintellectual, independent of what happens outside the mind. So let usthink of anything or let us think of the totality of things, and thenwrite in the margin of our thought the 'not, ' which prescribes therejection of what it contains: we annihilate everything mentally by themere fact of decreeing its annihilation. "--Here we have it! The veryroot of all the difficulties and errors with which we are confronted isto be found in the power ascribed here to negation. We representnegation as exactly symmetrical with affirmation. We imagine thatnegation, like affirmation, is self-sufficient. So that negation, likeaffirmation, would have the power of creating ideas, with this soledifference that they would be negative ideas. By affirming one thing, and then another, and so on _ad infinitum_, I form the idea of "All;"so, by denying one thing and then other things, finally by denying All, I arrive at the idea of Nothing. --But it is just this assimilation whichis arbitrary. We fail to see that while affirmation is a complete act ofthe mind, which can succeed in building up an idea, negation is but thehalf of an intellectual act, of which the other half is understood, orrather put off to an indefinite future. We fail to see that whileaffirmation is a purely intellectual act, there enters into negation anelement which is not intellectual, and that it is precisely to theintrusion of this foreign element that negation owes its specificcharacter. 

To begin with the second point, let us note that to deny always consistsin setting aside a possible affirmation. [98] Negation is only anattitude taken by the mind toward an eventual affirmation. When I say, "This table is black, " I am speaking of the table; I have seen itblack, and my judgment expresses what I have seen. But if I say, "Thistable is not white, " I surely do not express something I have perceived, for I have seen black, and not an absence of white. It is therefore, atbottom, not on the table itself that I bring this judgment to bear, butrather on the judgment that would declare the table white. I judge ajudgment and not the table. The proposition, "This table is not white, "implies that you might believe it white, that you did believe it such, or that I was going to believe it such. I warn you or myself that thisjudgment is to be replaced by another (which, it is true, I leaveundetermined). Thus, while affirmation bears directly on the thing, negation aims at the thing only indirectly, through an interposedaffirmation. An affirmative proposition expresses a judgment on anobject; a negative proposition expresses a judgment on a judgment. _Negation, therefore, differs from affirmation properly so called inthat it is an affirmation of the second degree: it affirms something ofan affirmation which itself affirms something of an object. _

But it follows at once from this that negation is not the work of puremind, I should say of a mind placed before objects and concerned withthem alone. When we deny, we give a lesson to others, or it may be toourselves. We take to task an interlocutor, real or possible, whom wefind mistaken and whom we put on his guard. He was affirming something:we tell him he ought to affirm something else (though without specifyingthe affirmation which must be substituted). There is no longer then, simply, a person and an object; there is, in face of the object, aperson speaking to a person, opposing him and aiding him at the sametime; there is a beginning of society. Negation aims at some one, andnot only, like a purely intellectual operation, at some thing. It is ofa pedagogical and social nature. It sets straight or rather warns, theperson warned and set straight being possibly, by a kind of doubling, the very person that speaks. 

So much for the second point; now for the first. We said that negationis but the half of an intellectual act, of which the other half is leftindeterminate. If I pronounce the negative proposition, "This table isnot white, " I mean that you ought to substitute for your judgment, "Thetable is white, " another judgment. I give you an admonition, and theadmonition refers to the necessity of a substitution. As to what youought to substitute for your affirmation, I tell you nothing, it istrue. This may be because I do not know the color of the table; but itis also, it is indeed even more, because the white color is that alonethat interests us for the moment, so that I only need to tell you thatsome other color will have to be substituted for white, without havingto say which. A negative judgment is therefore really one whichindicates a need of substituting for an affirmative judgment anotheraffirmative judgment, the nature of which, however, is not specified, sometimes because it is not known, more often because it fails to offerany actual interest, the attention bearing only on the substance of thefirst. 

Thus, whenever I add a "not" to an affirmation, whenever I deny, Iperform two very definite acts: (1) I interest myself in what one of myfellow-men affirms, or in what he was going to say, or in what mighthave been said by another _Me_, whom I anticipate; (2) I announce thatsome other affirmation, whose content I do not specify, will have to besubstituted for the one I find before me. Now, in neither of these twoacts is there anything but affirmation. The _sui generis_ character ofnegation is due to superimposing the first of these acts upon thesecond. It is in vain, then, that we attribute to negation the power ofcreating ideas _sui generis_, symmetrical with those that affirmationcreates, and directed in a contrary sense. No idea will come forth fromnegation, for it has no other content than that of the affirmativejudgment which it judges. 

To be more precise, let us consider an existential, instead of anattributive, judgment. If I say, "The object A does not exist, " I meanby that, first, that we might believe that the object A exists: how, indeed, can we think of the object A without thinking it existing, and, once again, what difference can there be between the idea of the objectA existing and the idea pure and simple of the object A? Therefore, merely by saying "The object A, " I attribute to it some kind ofexistence, though it be that of a mere _possible_, that is to say, of apure idea. And consequently, in the judgment "The object A is not, "there is at first an affirmation such as "The object A has been, " or"The object A will be, " or, more generally, "The object A exists atleast as a mere _possible_. " Now, when I add the two words "is not, " Ican only mean that if we go further, if we erect the possible objectinto a real object, we shall be mistaken, and that the possible of whichI am speaking is excluded from the actual reality as incompatible withit. Judgments that posit the non-existence of a thing are thereforejudgments that formulate a contrast between the possible and the actual(that is, between two kinds of _existence_, one thought and the otherfound), where a person, real or imaginary, wrongly believes that acertain possible is realized. Instead of this possible, there is areality that differs from it and rejects it: the negative judgmentexpresses this contrast, but it expresses the contrast in anintentionally incomplete form, because it is addressed to a person whois supposed to be interested exclusively in the possible that isindicated, and is not concerned to know by what kind of reality thepossible is replaced. The expression of the substitution is thereforebound to be cut short. Instead of affirming that a second term issubstituted for the first, the attention which was originally directedto the first term will be kept fixed upon it, and upon it alone. And, without going beyond the first, we shall implicitly affirm that a secondterm replaces it in saying that the first "is not. " We shall thus judgea judgment instead of judging a thing. We shall warn others or warnourselves of a possible error instead of supplying positive information. Suppress every intention of this kind, give knowledge back itsexclusively scientific or philosophical character, suppose in otherwords that reality comes itself to inscribe itself on a mind that caresonly for things and is not interested in persons: we shall affirm thatsuch or such a thing is, we shall never affirm that a thing is not. 

How comes it, then, that affirmation and negation are so persistentlyput on the same level and endowed with an equal objectivity? How comesit that we have so much difficulty in recognizing that negation issubjective, artificially cut short, relative to the human mind and stillmore to the social life? The reason is, no doubt, that _both_ negationand affirmation are expressed in propositions, and that _any_proposition, being formed of _words_, which symbolize _concepts_, issomething relative to social life and to the human intellect. Whether Isay "The ground is damp" or "The ground is not damp, " in both cases theterms "ground" and "damp" are concepts more or less artificially createdby the mind of man--extracted, by his free initiative, from thecontinuity of experience. In both cases the concepts are represented bythe same conventional words. In both cases we can say indeed that theproposition aims at a social and pedagogical end, since the first wouldpropagate a truth as the second would prevent an error. From this pointof view, which is that of formal logic, to affirm and to deny are indeedtwo mutually symmetrical acts, of which the first establishes a relationof agreement and the second a relation of disagreement between a subjectand an attribute. But how do we fail to see that the symmetry isaltogether external and the likeness superficial? Suppose languagefallen into disuse, society dissolved, every intellectual initiative, every faculty of self-reflection and of self-judgment atrophied in man:the dampness of the ground will subsist none the less, capable ofinscribing itself automatically in sensation and of sending a vague ideato the deadened intellect. The intellect will still affirm, in implicitterms. And consequently, neither distinct concepts, nor words, nor thedesire of spreading the truth, nor that of bettering oneself, are of thevery essence of the affirmation. But this passive intelligence, mechanically keeping step with experience, neither anticipating norfollowing the course of the real, would have no wish to deny. It couldnot receive an imprint of negation; for, once again, that which existsmay come to be recorded, but the non-existence of the non-existingcannot. For such an intellect to reach the point of denying, it mustawake from its torpor, formulate the disappointment of a real orpossible expectation, correct an actual or possible error--in short, propose to teach others or to teach itself. 

It is rather difficult to perceive this in the example we have chosen, but the example is indeed the more instructive and the argument the morecogent on that account. If dampness is able automatically to come andrecord itself, it is the same, it will be said, with non-dampness; forthe dry as well as the damp can give impressions to sense, which willtransmit them, as more or less distinct ideas, to the intelligence. Inthis sense the negation of dampness is as objective a thing, as purelyintellectual, as remote from every pedagogical intention, asaffirmation. --But let us look at it more closely: we shall see that thenegative proposition, "The ground is not damp, " and the affirmativeproposition, "The ground is dry, " have entirely different contents. Thesecond implies that we know the dry, that we have experienced thespecific sensations, tactile or visual for example, that are at the baseof this idea. The first requires nothing of the sort; it could equallywell have been formulated by an intelligent fish, who had neverperceived anything but the wet. It would be necessary, it is true, thatthis fish should have risen to the distinction between the real and thepossible, and that he should care to anticipate the error of hisfellow-fishes, who doubtless consider as alone possible the condition ofwetness in which they actually live. Keep strictly to the terms of theproposition, "The ground is not damp, " and you will find that it meanstwo things: (1) that one might believe that the ground is damp, (2) thatthe dampness is replaced in fact by a certain quality _x_. This qualityis left indeterminate, either because we have no positive knowledge ofit, or because it has no actual interest for the person to whom thenegation is addressed. To deny, therefore, always consists in presentingin an abridged form a system of two affirmations: the one determinate, which applies to a certain _possible_; the other indeterminate, referring to the unknown or indifferent reality that supplants thispossibility. The second affirmation is virtually contained in thejudgment we apply to the first, a judgment which is negation itself. Andwhat gives negation its subjective character is precisely this, that inthe discovery of a replacement it takes account only of the replaced, and is not concerned with what replaces. The replaced exists only as aconception of the mind. It is necessary, in order to continue to see it, and consequently in order to speak of it, to turn our back on thereality, which flows from the past to the present, advancing frombehind. It is this that we do when we deny. We discover the change, ormore generally the substitution, as a traveller would see the course ofhis carriage if he looked out behind, and only knew at each moment thepoint at which he had ceased to be; he could never determine his actualposition except by relation to that which he had just quitted, insteadof grasping it in itself. 

To sum up, for a mind which should follow purely and simply the threadof experience, there would be no void, no nought, even relative orpartial, no possible negation. Such a mind would see facts succeedfacts, states succeed states, things succeed things. What it would noteat each moment would be things existing, states appearing, eventshappening. It would live in the actual, and, if it were capable ofjudging, it would never affirm anything except the existence of thepresent. 

Endow this mind with memory, and especially with the desire to dwell onthe past; give it the faculty of dissociating and of distinguishing: itwill no longer only note the present state of the passing reality; itwill represent the passing as a change, and therefore as a contrastbetween what has been and what is. And as there is no essentialdifference between a past that we remember and a past that we imagine, it will quickly rise to the idea of the "possible" in general. 

It will thus be shunted on to the siding of negation. And especially itwill be at the point of representing a disappearance. But it will notyet have reached it. To represent that a thing has disappeared, it isnot enough to perceive a contrast between the past and the present; itis necessary besides to turn our back on the present, to dwell on thepast, and to think the contrast of the past with the present in terms ofthe past only, without letting the present appear in it. 

The idea of annihilation is therefore not a pure idea; it implies thatwe regret the past or that we conceive it as regrettable, that we havesome reason to linger over it. The idea arises when the phenomenon ofsubstitution is cut in two by a mind which considers only the firsthalf, because that alone interests it. Suppress all interest, allfeeling, and there is nothing left but the reality that flows, togetherwith the knowledge ever renewed that it impresses on us of its presentstate. 

From annihilation to negation, which is a more general operation, thereis now only a step. All that is necessary is to represent the contrastof what is, not only with what has been, but also with all that mighthave been. And we must express this contrast as a function of what mighthave been, and not of what is; we must affirm the existence of theactual while looking only at the possible. The formula we thus obtain nolonger expresses merely a disappointment of the individual; it is madeto correct or guard against an error, which is rather supposed to be theerror of another. In this sense, negation has a pedagogical and socialcharacter. 

Now, once negation is formulated, it presents an aspect symmetrical withthat of affirmation; if affirmation affirms an objective reality, itseems that negation must affirm a non-reality equally objective, and, soto say, equally real. In which we are both right and wrong: wrong, because negation cannot be objectified, in so far as it is negative;right, however, in that the negation of a thing implies the latentaffirmation of its replacement by something else, which wesystematically leave on one side. But the negative form of negationbenefits by the affirmation at the bottom of it. Bestriding the positivesolid reality to which it is attached, this phantom objectifies itself. Thus is formed the idea of the void or of a partial nought, a thingbeing supposed to be replaced, not by another thing, but by a void whichit leaves, that is, by the negation of itself. Now, as this operationworks on anything whatever, we suppose it performed on each thing inturn, and finally on all things in block. We thus obtain the idea ofabsolute Nothing. If now we analyze this idea of Nothing, we find thatit is, at bottom, the idea of Everything, together with a movement ofthe mind that keeps jumping from one thing to another, refuses to standstill, and concentrates all its attention on this refusal by neverdetermining its actual position except by relation to that which it hasjust left. It is therefore an idea eminently comprehensive and full, asfull and comprehensive as the idea of _All_, to which it is very closelyakin. 

How then can the idea of Nought be opposed to that of All? Is it notplain that this is to oppose the full to the full, and that thequestion, "Why does something exist?" is consequently without meaning, apseudo-problem raised about a pseudo-idea? Yet we must say once more whythis phantom of a problem haunts the mind with such obstinacy. In vaindo we show that in the idea of an "annihilation of the real" there isonly the image of all realities expelling one another endlessly, in acircle; in vain do we add that the idea of non-existence is only that ofthe expulsion of an imponderable existence, or a "merely possible"existence, by a more substantial existence which would then be the truereality; in vain do we find in the _sui generis_ form of negation anelement which is not intellectual--negation being the judgment of ajudgment, an admonition given to some one else or to oneself, so that itis absurd to attribute to negation the power of creating ideas of a newkind, viz. Ideas without content;--in spite of all, the convictionpersists that before things, or at least under things, there is"Nothing. " If we seek the reason of this fact, we shall find itprecisely in the feeling, in the social and, so to speak, practicalelement, that gives its specific form to negation. The greatestphilosophic difficulties arise, as we have said, from the fact that theforms of human action venture outside of their proper sphere. We aremade in order to act as much as, and more than, in order to think--orrather, when we follow the bent of our nature, it is in order to actthat we think. It is therefore no wonder that the habits of action givetheir tone to those of thought, and that our mind always perceivesthings in the same order in which we are accustomed to picture them whenwe propose to act on them. Now, it is unquestionable, as we remarkedabove, that every human action has its starting-point in adissatisfaction, and thereby in a feeling of absence. We should not actif we did not set before ourselves an end, and we seek a thing onlybecause we feel the lack of it. Our action proceeds thus from "nothing"to "something, " and its very essence is to embroider "something" on thecanvas of "nothing. " The truth is that the "nothing" concerned here isthe absence not so much of a thing as of a utility. If I bring a visitorinto a room that I have not yet furnished, I say to him that "there isnothing in it. " Yet I know the room is full of air; but, as we do notsit on air, the room truly contains nothing that at this moment, for thevisitor and for myself, counts for anything. In a general way, humanwork consists in creating utility; and, as long as the work is notdone, there is "nothing"--nothing that we want. Our life is thus spentin filling voids, which our intellect conceives under the influence, byno means intellectual, of desire and of regret, under the pressure ofvital necessities; and if we mean by void an absence of utility and notof things, we may say, in this quite relative sense, that we areconstantly going from the void to the full: such is the direction whichour action takes. Our speculation cannot help doing the same; and, naturally, it passes from the relative sense to the absolute sense, since it is exercised on things themselves and not on the utility theyhave for us. Thus is implanted in us the idea that reality fills a void, and that Nothing, conceived as an absence of everything, pre-existsbefore all things in right, if not in fact. It is this illusion that wehave tried to remove by showing that the idea of Nothing, if we try tosee in it that of an annihilation of all things, is self-destructive andreduced to a mere word; and that if, on the contrary, it is truly anidea, then we find in it as much matter as in the idea of All. 

 * * * * *

This long analysis has been necessary to show that _a self-sufficientreality is not necessarily a reality foreign to duration_. If we pass(consciously or unconsciously) through the idea of the nought in orderto reach that of being, the being to which we come is a logical ormathematical essence, therefore non-temporal. And, consequently, astatic conception of the real is forced on us: everything appears givenonce for all, in eternity. But we must accustom ourselves to think beingdirectly, without making a detour, without first appealing to thephantom of the nought which interposes itself between it and us. We muststrive to see in order to see, and no longer to see in order to act. Then the Absolute is revealed very near us and, in a certain measure, in us. It is of psychological and not of mathematical nor logicalessence. It lives with us. Like us, but in certain aspects infinitelymore concentrated and more gathered up in itself, it _endures_. 

But do we ever think true duration? Here again a direct takingpossession is necessary. It is no use trying to approach duration: wemust install ourselves within it straight away. This is what theintellect generally refuses to do, accustomed as it is to think themoving by means of the unmovable. 

The function of the intellect is to preside over actions. Now, inaction, it is the result that interests us; the means matter littleprovided the end is attained. Thence it comes that we are altogetherbent on the end to be realized, generally trusting ourselves to it inorder that the idea may become an act; and thence it comes also thatonly the goal where our activity will rest is pictured explicitly to ourmind: the movements constituting the action itself either elude ourconsciousness or reach it only confusedly. Let us consider a very simpleact, like that of lifting the arm. Where should we be if we had toimagine beforehand all the elementary contractions and tensions this actinvolves, or even to perceive them, one by one, as they areaccomplished? But the mind is carried immediately to the end, that is tosay, to the schematic and simplified vision of the act supposedaccomplished. Then, if no antagonistic idea neutralizes the effect ofthe first idea, the appropriate movements come of themselves to fill outthe plan, drawn in some way by the void of its gaps. The intellect, then, only represents to the activity ends to attain, that is to say, points of rest. And, from one end attained to another end attained, fromone rest to another rest, our activity is carried by a series of leaps, during which our consciousness is turned away as much as possible fromthe movement going on, to regard only the anticipated image of themovement accomplished. 

Now, in order that it may represent as unmovable the result of the actwhich is being accomplished, the intellect must perceive, as alsounmovable, the surroundings in which this result is being framed. Ouractivity is fitted into the material world. If matter appeared to us asa perpetual flowing, we should assign no termination to any of ouractions. We should feel each of them dissolve as fast as it wasaccomplished, and we should not anticipate an ever-fleeting future. Inorder that our activity may leap from an _act_ to an _act_, it isnecessary that matter should pass from a _state_ to a _state_, for it isonly into a state of the material world that action can fit a result, soas to be accomplished. But is it thus that matter presents itself?

_A priori_ we may presume that our perception manages to apprehendmatter with this bias. Sensory organs and motor organs are in factcoördinated with each other. Now, the first symbolize our faculty ofperceiving, as the second our faculty of acting. The organism thusevidences, in a visible and tangible form, the perfect accord ofperception and action. So if our activity always aims at a _result_ intowhich it is momentarily fitted, our perception must retain of thematerial world, at every moment, only a _state_ in which it isprovisionally placed. This is the most natural hypothesis. And it iseasy to see that experience confirms it. 

From our first glance at the world, before we even make our _bodies_ init, we distinguish _qualities_. Color succeeds to color, sound to sound, resistance to resistance, etc. Each of these qualities, takenseparately, is a state that seems to persist as such, immovable untilanother replaces it. Yet each of these qualities resolves itself, onanalysis, into an enormous number of elementary movements. Whether wesee in it vibrations or whether we represent it in any other way, onefact is certain, it is that every quality is change. In vain, moreover, shall we seek beneath the change the thing which changes: it is alwaysprovisionally, and in order to satisfy our imagination, that we attachthe movement to a mobile. The mobile flies for ever before the pursuitof science, which is concerned with mobility alone. In the smallestdiscernible fraction of a second, in the almost instantaneous perceptionof a sensible quality, there may be trillions of oscillations whichrepeat themselves. The permanence of a sensible quality consists in thisrepetition of movements, as the persistence of life consists in a seriesof palpitations. The primal function of perception is precisely to graspa series of elementary changes under the form of a quality or of asimple state, by a work of condensation. The greater the power of actingbestowed upon an animal species, the more numerous, probably, are theelementary changes that its faculty of perceiving concentrates into oneof its instants. And the progress must be continuous, in nature, fromthe beings that vibrate almost in unison with the oscillations of theether, up to those that embrace trillions of these oscillations in theshortest of their simple perceptions. The first feel hardly anything butmovements; the others perceive quality. The first are almost caught upin the running-gear of things; the others react, and the tension oftheir faculty of acting is probably proportional to the concentration oftheir faculty of perceiving. The progress goes on even in humanityitself. A man is so much the more a "man of action" as he can embrace ina glance a greater number of events: he who perceives successive eventsone by one will allow himself to be led by them; he who grasps them asa whole will dominate them. In short, the qualities of matter are somany stable views that we take of its instability. 

Now, in the continuity of sensible qualities we mark off the boundariesof bodies. Each of these bodies really changes at every moment. In thefirst place, it resolves itself into a group of qualities, and everyquality, as we said, consists of a succession of elementary movements. But, even if we regard the quality as a stable state, the body is stillunstable in that it changes qualities without ceasing. The bodypre-eminently--that which we are most justified in isolating within thecontinuity of matter, because it constitutes a relatively closedsystem--is the living body; it is, moreover, for it that we cut out theothers within the whole. Now, life is an evolution. We concentrate aperiod of this evolution in a stable view which we call a form, and, when the change has become considerable enough to overcome the fortunateinertia of our perception, we say that the body has changed its form. But in reality the body is changing form at every moment; or rather, there is no form, since form is immobile and the reality is movement. What is real is the continual _change of_ form: _form is only a snapshotview of a transition_. Therefore, here again, our perception manages tosolidify into discontinuous images the fluid continuity of the real. When the successive images do not differ from each other too much, weconsider them all as the waxing and waning of a single _mean_ image, oras the deformation of this image in different directions. And to thismean we really allude when we speak of the _essence_ of a thing, or ofthe thing itself. 

Finally things, once constituted, show on the surface, by their changesof situation, the profound changes that are being accomplished withinthe Whole. We say then that they _act_ on one another. This actionappears to us, no doubt, in the form of movement. But from the mobilityof the movement we turn away as much as we can; what interests us is, aswe said above, the unmovable plan of the movement rather than themovement itself. Is it a simple movement? We ask ourselves _where_ it isgoing. It is by its direction, that is to say, by the position of itsprovisional end, that we represent it at every moment. Is it a complexmovement? We would know above all _what_ is going on, _what_ themovement is doing--in other words, the _result_ obtained or thepresiding _intention_. Examine closely what is in your mind when youspeak of an action in course of accomplishment. The idea of change isthere, I am willing to grant, but it is hidden in the penumbra. In thefull light is the motionless plan of the act supposed accomplished. Itis by this, and by this only, that the complex act is distinguished anddefined. We should be very much embarrassed if we had to imagine themovements inherent in the actions of eating, drinking, fighting, etc. Itis enough for us to know, in a general and indefinite way, that allthese acts are movements. Once that side of the matter has been settled, we simply seek to represent the _general plan_ of each of these complexmovements, that is to say the _motionless design_ that underlies them. Here again knowledge bears on a state rather than on a change. It istherefore the same with this third case as with the others. Whether themovement be qualitative or evolutionary or extensive, the mind managesto take stable views of the instability. And thence the mind derives, aswe have just shown, three kinds of representations: (1) qualities, (2)forms of essences, (3) acts. 

To these three ways of seeing correspond three categories of words:_adjectives_, _substantives_, and _verbs_, which are the primordialelements of language. Adjectives and substantives therefore symbolize_states_. But the verb itself, if we keep to the clear part of the ideait calls up, hardly expresses anything else. 

 * * * * *

Now, if we try to characterize more precisely our natural attitudetowards Becoming, this is what we find. Becoming is infinitely varied. That which goes from yellow to green is not like that which goes fromgreen to blue: they are different _qualitative_ movements. That whichgoes from flower to fruit is not like that which goes from larva tonymph and from nymph to perfect insect: they are different_evolutionary_ movements. The action of eating or of drinking is notlike the action of fighting: they are different _extensive_ movements. And these three kinds of movement themselves--qualitative, evolutionary, extensive--differ profoundly. The trick of our perception, like that ofour intelligence, like that of our language, consists in extracting fromthese profoundly different becomings the single representation ofbecoming _in general_, undefined becoming, a mere abstraction which byitself says nothing and of which, indeed, it is very rarely that wethink. To this idea, always the same, and always obscure or unconscious, we then join, in each particular case, one or several clear images thatrepresent _states_ and which serve to distinguish all becomings fromeach other. It is this composition of a specified and definite statewith change general and undefined that we substitute for the specificchange. An infinite multiplicity of becomings variously colored, so tospeak, passes before our eyes: we manage so that we see only differencesof color, that is to say, differences of state, beneath which there issupposed to flow, hidden from our view, a becoming always and everywherethe same, invariably colorless. 

Suppose we wish to portray on a screen a living picture, such as themarching past of a regiment. There is one way in which it might firstoccur to us to do it. That would be to cut out jointed figuresrepresenting the soldiers, to give to each of them the movement ofmarching, a movement varying from individual to individual althoughcommon to the human species, and to throw the whole on the screen. Weshould need to spend on this little game an enormous amount of work, andeven then we should obtain but a very poor result: how could it, at itsbest, reproduce the suppleness and variety of life? Now, there isanother way of proceeding, more easy and at the same time moreeffective. It is to take a series of snapshots of the passing regimentand to throw these instantaneous views on the screen, so that theyreplace each other very rapidly. This is what the cinematograph does. With photographs, each of which represents the regiment in a fixedattitude, it reconstitutes the mobility of the regiment marching. It istrue that if we had to do with photographs alone, however much we mightlook at them, we should never see them animated: with immobility setbeside immobility, even endlessly, we could never make movement. Inorder that the pictures may be animated, there must be movementsomewhere. The movement does indeed exist here; it is in the apparatus. It is because the film of the cinematograph unrolls, bringing in turnthe different photographs of the scene to continue each other, that eachactor of the scene recovers his mobility; he strings all his successiveattitudes on the invisible movement of the film. The process thenconsists in extracting from all the movements peculiar to all thefigures an impersonal movement abstract and simple, _movement ingeneral_, so to speak: we put this into the apparatus, and wereconstitute the individuality of each particular movement by combiningthis nameless movement with the personal attitudes. Such is thecontrivance of the cinematograph. And such is also that of ourknowledge. Instead of attaching ourselves to the inner becoming ofthings, we place ourselves outside them in order to recompose theirbecoming artificially. We take snapshots, as it were, of the passingreality, and, as these are characteristic of the reality, we have onlyto string them on a becoming, abstract, uniform and invisible, situatedat the back of the apparatus of knowledge, in order to imitate whatthere is that is characteristic in this becoming itself. Perception, intellection, language so proceed in general. Whether we would thinkbecoming, or express it, or even perceive it, we hardly do anything elsethan set going a kind of cinematograph inside us. We may therefore sumup what we have been saying in the conclusion that the _mechanism of ourordinary knowledge is of a cinematographical kind_. 

Of the altogether practical character of this operation there is nopossible doubt. Each of our acts aims at a certain insertion of our willinto the reality. There is, between our body and other bodies, anarrangement like that of the pieces of glass that compose akaleidoscopic picture. Our activity goes from an arrangement to arearrangement, each time no doubt giving the kaleidoscope a new shake, but not interesting itself in the shake, and seeing only the newpicture. Our knowledge of the operation of nature must be exactlysymmetrical, therefore, with the interest we take in our own operation. In this sense we may say, if we are not abusing this kind ofillustration, that _the cinematographical character of our knowledge ofthings is due to the kaleidoscopic character of our adaptation to them_. 

The cinematographical method is therefore the only practical method, since it consists in making the general character of knowledge formitself on that of action, while expecting that the detail of each actshould depend in its turn on that of knowledge. In order that action mayalways be enlightened, intelligence must always be present in it; butintelligence, in order thus to accompany the progress of activity andensure its direction, must begin by adopting its rhythm. Action isdiscontinuous, like every pulsation of life; discontinuous, therefore, is knowledge. The mechanism of the faculty of knowing has beenconstructed on this plan. Essentially practical, can it be of use, suchas it is, for speculation? Let us try with it to follow reality in itswindings, and see what will happen. 

I take of the continuity of a particular becoming a series of views, which I connect together by "becoming in general. " But of course Icannot stop there. What is not determinable is not representable: of"becoming in general" I have only a verbal knowledge. As the letter _x_designates a certain unknown quantity, whatever it may be, so my"becoming in general, " always the same, symbolizes here a certaintransition of which I have taken some snapshots; of the transitionitself it teaches me nothing. Let me then concentrate myself wholly onthe transition, and, between any two snapshots, endeavor to realize whatis going on. As I apply the same method, I obtain the same result; athird view merely slips in between the two others. I may begin again asoften as I will, I may set views alongside of views for ever, I shallobtain nothing else. The application of the cinematographical methodtherefore leads to a perpetual recommencement, during which the mind, never able to satisfy itself and never finding where to rest, persuadesitself, no doubt, that it imitates by its instability the very movementof the real. But though, by straining itself to the point of giddiness, it may end by giving itself the illusion of mobility, its operation hasnot advanced it a step, since it remains as far as ever from its goal. In order to advance with the moving reality, you must replace yourselfwithin it. Install yourself within change, and you will grasp at onceboth change itself and the successive states in which _it might_ at anyinstant be immobilized. But with these successive states, perceived fromwithout as real and no longer as potential immobilities, you will neverreconstitute movement. Call them _qualities_, _forms_, _positions_, or_intentions_, as the case may be, multiply the number of them as youwill, let the interval between two consecutive states be infinitelysmall: before the intervening movement you will always experience thedisappointment of the child who tries by clapping his hands together tocrush the smoke. The movement slips through the interval, because everyattempt to reconstitute change out of states implies the absurdproposition, that movement is made of immobilities. 

Philosophy perceived this as soon as it opened its eyes. The argumentsof Zeno of Elea, although formulated with a very different intention, have no other meaning. 

Take the flying arrow. At every moment, says Zeno, it is motionless, forit cannot have time to move, that is, to occupy at least two successivepositions, unless at least two moments are allowed it. At a givenmoment, therefore, it is at rest at a given point. Motionless in eachpoint of its course, it is motionless during all the time that it ismoving. 

Yes, if we suppose that the arrow can ever _be_ in a point of itscourse. Yes again, if the arrow, which is moving, ever coincides with aposition, which is motionless. But the arrow never _is_ in any point ofits course. The most we can say is that it might be there, in thissense, that it passes there and might stop there. It is true that if itdid stop there, it would be at rest there, and at this point it is nolonger movement that we should have to do with. The truth is that if thearrow leaves the point A to fall down at the point B, its movement AB isas simple, as indecomposable, in so far as it is movement, as thetension of the bow that shoots it. As the shrapnel, bursting before itfalls to the ground, covers the explosive zone with an indivisibledanger, so the arrow which goes from A to B displays with a singlestroke, although over a certain extent of duration, its indivisiblemobility. Suppose an elastic stretched from A to B, could you divide itsextension? The course of the arrow is this very extension; it is equallysimple and equally undivided. It is a single and unique bound. You fix apoint C in the interval passed, and say that at a certain moment thearrow was in C. If it had been there, it would have been stopped there, and you would no longer have had a flight from A to B, but _two_flights, one from A to C and the other from C to B, with an interval ofrest. A single movement is entirely, by the hypothesis, a movementbetween two stops; if there are intermediate stops, it is no longer asingle movement. At bottom, the illusion arises from this, that themovement, _once effected_, has laid along its course a motionlesstrajectory on which we can count as many immobilities as we will. Fromthis we conclude that the movement, _whilst being effected_, lays ateach instant beneath it a position with which it coincides. We do notsee that the trajectory is created in one stroke, although a certaintime is required for it; and that though we can divide at will thetrajectory once created, we cannot divide its creation, which is an actin progress and not a thing. To suppose that the moving body _is_ at apoint of its course is to cut the course in two by a snip of thescissors at this point, and to substitute two trajectories for thesingle trajectory which we were first considering. It is to distinguishtwo successive acts where, by the hypothesis, there is only one. Inshort, it is to attribute to the course itself of the arrow everythingthat can be said of the interval that the arrow has traversed, that isto say, to admit _a priori_ the absurdity that movement coincides withimmobility. 

We shall not dwell here on the three other arguments of Zeno. We haveexamined them elsewhere. It is enough to point out that they all consistin applying the movement to the line traversed, and supposing that whatis true of the line is true of the movement. The line, for example, maybe divided into as many parts as we wish, of any length that we wish, and it is always the same line. From this we conclude that we have theright to suppose the movement articulated as we wish, and that it isalways the same movement. We thus obtain a series of absurdities thatall express the same fundamental absurdity. But the possibility ofapplying the movement _to_ the line traversed exists only for anobserver who keeping outside the movement and seeing at every instantthe possibility of a stop, tries to reconstruct the real movement withthese possible immobilities. The absurdity vanishes as soon as we adoptby thought the continuity of the real movement, a continuity of whichevery one of us is conscious whenever he lifts an arm or advances astep. We feel then indeed that the line passed over between two stops isdescribed with a single indivisible stroke, and that we seek in vain topractice on the movement, which traces the line, divisionscorresponding, each to each, with the divisions arbitrarily chosen ofthe line once it has been traced. The line traversed by the moving bodylends itself to any kind of division, because it has no internalorganization. But all movement is articulated inwardly. It is either anindivisible bound (which may occupy, nevertheless, a very long duration)or a series of indivisible bounds. Take the articulations of thismovement into account, or give up speculating on its nature. 

When Achilles pursues the tortoise, each of his steps must be treated asindivisible, and so must each step of the tortoise. After a certainnumber of steps, Achilles will have overtaken the tortoise. There isnothing more simple. If you insist on dividing the two motions further, distinguish both on the one side and on the other, in the course ofAchilles and in that of the tortoise, the _sub-multiples_ of the stepsof each of them; but respect the natural articulations of the twocourses. As long as you respect them, no difficulty will arise, becauseyou will follow the indications of experience. But Zeno's device is toreconstruct the movement of Achilles according to a law arbitrarilychosen. Achilles with a first step is supposed to arrive at the pointwhere the tortoise was, with a second step at the point which it hasmoved to while he was making the first, and so on. In this case, Achilles would always have a new step to take. But obviously, toovertake the tortoise, he goes about it in quite another way. Themovement considered by Zeno would only be the equivalent of the movementof Achilles if we could treat the movement as we treat the intervalpassed through, decomposable and recomposable at will. Once yousubscribe to this first absurdity, all the others follow. [99]

Nothing would be easier, now, than to extend Zeno's argument toqualitative becoming and to evolutionary becoming. We should find thesame contradictions in these. That the child can become a youth, ripento maturity and decline to old age, we understand when we consider thatvital evolution is here the reality itself. Infancy, adolescence, maturity, old age, are mere views of the mind, _possible stops_ imaginedby us, from without, along the continuity of a progress. On thecontrary, let childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age be given asintegral parts of the evolution, they become _real stops_, and we can nolonger conceive how evolution is possible, for rests placed beside restswill never be equivalent to a movement. How, with what is made, can wereconstitute what is being made? How, for instance, from childhood onceposited as a _thing_, shall we pass to adolescence, when, by thehypothesis, childhood only is given? If we look at it closely, we shallsee that our habitual manner of speaking, which is fashioned after ourhabitual manner of thinking, leads us to actual logicaldead-locks--dead-locks to which we allow ourselves to be led withoutanxiety, because we feel confusedly that we can always get out of themif we like: all that we have to do, in fact, is to give up thecinematographical habits of our intellect. When we say "The childbecomes a man, " let us take care not to fathom too deeply the literalmeaning of the expression, or we shall find that, when we posit thesubject "child, " the attribute "man" does not yet apply to it, andthat, when we express the attribute "man, " it applies no more to thesubject "child. " The reality, which is the _transition_ from childhoodto manhood, has slipped between our fingers. We have only the imaginarystops "child" and "man, " and we are very near to saying that one ofthese stops _is_ the other, just as the arrow of Zeno _is_, according tothat philosopher, at all the points of the course. The truth is that iflanguage here were molded on reality, we should not say "The childbecomes the man, " but "There is becoming from the child to the man. " Inthe first proposition, "becomes" is a verb of indeterminate meaning, intended to mask the absurdity into which we fall when we attribute thestate "man" to the subject "child. " It behaves in much the same way asthe movement, always the same, of the cinematographical film, a movementhidden in the apparatus and whose function it is to superpose thesuccessive pictures on one another in order to imitate the movement ofthe real object. In the second proposition, "becoming" is a subject. Itcomes to the front. It is the reality itself; childhood and manhood arethen only possible stops, mere views of the mind; we now have to do withthe objective movement itself, and no longer with its cinematographicalimitation. But the first manner of expression is alone conformable toour habits of language. We must, in order to adopt the second, escapefrom the cinematographical mechanism of thought. 

We must make complete abstraction of this mechanism, if we wish to getrid at one stroke of the theoretical absurdities that the question ofmovement raises. All is obscure, all is contradictory when we try, withstates, to build up a transition. The obscurity is cleared up, thecontradiction vanishes, as soon as we place ourselves along thetransition, in order to distinguish states in it by making cross cutstherein in thought. The reason is that there is _more_ in the transitionthan the series of states, that is to say, the possible cuts--_more_ inthe movement than the series of positions, that is to say, the possiblestops. Only, the first way of looking at things is conformable to theprocesses of the human mind; the second requires, on the contrary, thatwe reverse the bent of our intellectual habits. No wonder, then, ifphilosophy at first recoiled before such an effort. The Greeks trustedto nature, trusted the natural propensity of the mind, trusted languageabove all, in so far as it naturally externalizes thought. Rather thanlay blame on the attitude of thought and language toward the course ofthings, they preferred to pronounce the course of things itself to bewrong. 

Such, indeed, was the sentence passed by the philosophers of the Eleaticschool. And they passed it without any reservation whatever. As becomingshocks the habits of thought and fits ill into the molds of language, they declared it unreal. In spatial movement and in change in generalthey saw only pure illusion. This conclusion could be softened downwithout changing the premisses, by saying that the reality changes, butthat it _ought not_ to change. Experience confronts us with becoming:that is _sensible_ reality. But the _intelligible_ reality, that which_ought_ to be, is more real still, and that reality does not change. Beneath the qualitative becoming, beneath the evolutionary becoming, beneath the extensive becoming, the mind must seek that which defieschange, the definable quality, the form or essence, the end. Such wasthe fundamental principle of the philosophy which developed throughoutthe classic age, the philosophy of Forms, or, to use a term more akin tothe Greek, the philosophy of Ideas. 

The word [Greek: eidos], which we translate here by "Idea, " has, infact, this threefold meaning. It denotes (1) the quality, (2) the formor essence, (3) the end or _design_ (in the sense of _intention_) of theact being performed, that is to say, at bottom, the _design_ (in thesense of _drawing_) of the act supposed accomplished. _These threeaspects are those of the adjective, substantive and verb, and correspondto the three essential categories of language. _ After the explanationswe have given above, we might, and perhaps we ought to, translate[Greek: eidos] by "view" or rather by "moment. " For [Greek: eidos] isthe stable view taken of the instability of things: the _quality_, whichis a moment of becoming; the _form_, which is a moment of evolution; the_essence_, which is the mean form above and below which the other formsare arranged as alterations of the mean; finally, the intention or_mental design_ which presides over the action being accomplished, andwhich is nothing else, we said, than the _material design_, traced outand contemplated beforehand, of the action accomplished. To reducethings to Ideas is therefore to resolve becoming into its principalmoments, each of these being, moreover, by the hypothesis, screened fromthe laws of time and, as it were, plucked out of eternity. That is tosay that we end in the philosophy of Ideas when we apply thecinematographical mechanism of the intellect to the analysis of thereal. 

But, when we put immutable Ideas at the base of the moving reality, awhole physics, a whole cosmology, a whole theology follows necessarily. We must insist on the point. Not that we mean to summarize in a fewpages a philosophy so complex and so comprehensive as that of theGreeks. But, since we have described the cinematographical mechanism ofthe intellect, it is important that we should show to what idea ofreality the play of this mechanism leads. It is the very idea, webelieve, that we find in the ancient philosophy. The main lines of thedoctrine that was developed from Plato to Plotinus, passing throughAristotle (and even, in a certain measure, through the Stoics), havenothing accidental, nothing contingent, nothing that must be regarded asa philosopher's fancy. They indicate the vision that a systematicintellect obtains of the universal becoming when regarding it by meansof snapshots, taken at intervals, of its flowing. So that, even to-day, we shall philosophize in the manner of the Greeks, we shall rediscover, without needing to know them, such and such of their generalconclusions, in the exact proportion that we trust in thecinematographical instinct of our thought. 

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We said there is _more_ in a movement than in the successive positionsattributed to the moving object, _more_ in a becoming than in the formspassed through in turn, _more_ in the evolution of form than the formsassumed one after another. Philosophy can therefore derive terms of thesecond kind from those of the first, but not the first from the second:from the first terms speculation must take its start. But the intellectreverses the order of the two groups; and, on this point, ancientphilosophy proceeds as the intellect does. It installs itself in theimmutable, it posits only Ideas. Yet becoming exists: it is a fact. How, then, having posited immutability alone, shall we make change come forthfrom it? Not by the addition of anything, for, by the hypothesis, thereexists nothing positive outside Ideas. It must therefore be by adiminution. So at the base of ancient philosophy lies necessarily thispostulate: that there is more in the motionless than in the moving, andthat we pass from immutability to becoming by way of diminution orattenuation. 

It is therefore something negative, or zero at most, that must be addedto Ideas to obtain change. In that consists the Platonic "non-being, "the Aristotelian "matter"--a metaphysical zero which, joined to theIdea, like the arithmetical zero to unity, multiplies it in space andtime. By it the motionless and simple Idea is refracted into a movementspread out indefinitely. In right, there ought to be nothing butimmutable Ideas, immutably fitted to each other. In fact, matter comesto add to them its void, and thereby lets loose the universal becoming. It is an elusive nothing, that creeps between the Ideas and createsendless agitation, eternal disquiet, like a suspicion insinuated betweentwo loving hearts. Degrade the immutable Ideas: you obtain, by thatalone, the perpetual flux of things. The Ideas or Forms are the whole ofintelligible reality, that is to say, of truth, in that they represent, all together, the theoretical equilibrium of Being. As to sensiblereality, it is a perpetual oscillation from one side to the other ofthis point of equilibrium. 

Hence, throughout the whole philosophy of Ideas there is a certainconception of duration, as also of the relation of time to eternity. Hewho installs himself in becoming sees in duration the very life ofthings, the fundamental reality. The Forms, which the mind isolates andstores up in concepts, are then only snapshots of the changing reality. They are moments gathered along the course of time; and, just because wehave cut the thread that binds them to time, they no longer endure. Theytend to withdraw into their own definition, that is to say, into theartificial reconstruction and symbolical expression which is theirintellectual equivalent. They enter into eternity, if you will; but whatis eternal in them is just what is unreal. On the contrary, if we treatbecoming by the cinematographical method, the Forms are no longersnapshots taken of the change, they are its constitutive elements, theyrepresent all that is positive in Becoming. Eternity no longer hoversover time, as an abstraction; it underlies time, as a reality. Such isexactly, on this point, the attitude of the philosophy of Forms orIdeas. It establishes between eternity and time the same relation asbetween a piece of gold and the small change--change so small thatpayment goes on for ever without the debt being paid off. The debt couldbe paid at once with the piece of gold. It is this that Plato expressesin his magnificent language when he says that God, unable to make theworld eternal, gave it Time, "a moving image of eternity. "[100]

Hence also arises a certain conception of extension, which is at thebase of the philosophy of Ideas, although it has not been so explicitlybrought out. Let us imagine a mind placed alongside becoming, andadopting its movement. Each successive state, each quality, each form, in short, will be seen by it as a mere cut made by thought in theuniversal becoming. It will be found that form is essentially extended, inseparable as it is from the extensity of the becoming which hasmaterialized it in the course of its flow. Every form thus occupiesspace, as it occupies time. But the philosophy of Ideas follows theinverse direction. It starts from the Form; it sees in the Form the veryessence of reality. It does not take Form as a snapshot of becoming; itposits Forms in the eternal; of this motionless eternity, then, durationand becoming are supposed to be only the degradation. Form thus posited, independent of time, is then no longer what is found in a perception; itis a _concept_. And, as a reality of the conceptual order occupies nomore of extension than it does of duration, the Forms must be stationedoutside space as well as above time. Space and time have thereforenecessarily, in ancient philosophy, the same origin and the same value. The same diminution of being is expressed both by extension in space anddetention in time. Both of these are but the distance between what isand what ought to be. From the standpoint of ancient philosophy, spaceand time can be nothing but the field that an incomplete reality, orrather a reality that has gone astray from itself, needs in order to runin quest of itself. Only it must be admitted that the field is createdas the hunting progresses, and that the hunting in some way deposits thefield beneath it. Move an imaginary pendulum, a mere mathematical point, from its position of equilibrium: a perpetual oscillation is started, along which points are placed next to points, and moments succeedmoments. The space and time which thus arise have no more "positivity"than the movement itself. They represent the remoteness of the positionartificially given to the pendulum from its normal position, _what itlacks_ in order to regain its natural stability. Bring it back to itsnormal position: space, time and motion shrink to a mathematical point. Just so, human reasonings are drawn out into an endless chain, but areat once swallowed up in the truth seized by intuition, for theirextension in space and time is only the distance, so to speak, betweenthought and truth. [101] So of extension and duration in relation to pureForms or Ideas. The sensible forms are before us, ever about to recovertheir ideality, ever prevented by the matter they bear in them, that isto say, by their inner void, by the interval between what they are andwhat they ought to be. They are for ever on the point of recoveringthemselves, for ever occupied in losing themselves. An inflexible lawcondemns them, like the rock of Sisyphus, to fall back when they arealmost touching the summit, and this law, which has projected them intospace and time, is nothing other than the very constancy of theiroriginal insufficiency. The alternations of generation and decay, theevolutions ever beginning over and over again, the infinite repetitionof the cycles of celestial spheres--this all represents merely a certainfundamental deficit, in which materiality consists. Fill up thisdeficit: at once you suppress space and time, that is to say, theendlessly renewed oscillations around a stable equilibrium always aimedat, never reached. Things re-enter into each other. What was extended inspace is contracted into pure Form. And past, present, and future shrinkinto a single moment, which is eternity. 

This amounts to saying that physics is but logic spoiled. In thisproposition the whole philosophy of Ideas is summarized. And in it alsois the hidden principle of the philosophy that is innate in ourunderstanding. If immutability is more than becoming, form is more thanchange, and it is by a veritable fall that the logical system of Ideas, rationally subordinated and coördinated among themselves, is scatteredinto a physical series of objects and events accidentally placed oneafter another. The generative idea of a poem is developed in thousandsof imaginations which are materialized in phrases that spread themselvesout in words. And the more we descend from the motionless idea, wound onitself, to the words that unwind it, the more room is left forcontingency and choice. Other metaphors, expressed by other words, mighthave arisen; an image is called up by an image, a word by a word. Allthese words run now one after another, seeking in vain, by themselves, to give back the simplicity of the generative idea. Our ear only hearsthe words: it therefore perceives only accidents. But our mind, bysuccessive bounds, leaps from the words to the images, from the imagesto the original idea, and so gets back, from the perception ofwords--accidents called up by accidents--to the conception of the Ideathat posits its own being. So the philosopher proceeds, confronted withthe universe. Experience makes to pass before his eyes phenomena whichrun, they also, one behind another in an accidental order determined bycircumstances of time and place. This physical order--a degeneration ofthe logical order--is nothing else but the fall of the logical intospace and time. But the philosopher, ascending again from the percept tothe concept, sees condensed into the logical all the positive realitythat the physical possesses. His intellect, doing away with themateriality that lessens being, grasps being itself in the immutablesystem of Ideas. Thus Science is obtained, which appears to us, completeand ready-made, as soon as we put back our intellect into its trueplace, correcting the deviation that separated it from the intelligible. Science is not, then, a human construction. It is prior to ourintellect, independent of it, veritably the generator of Things. 

And indeed, if we hold the Forms to be simply snapshots taken by themind of the continuity of becoming, they must be relative to the mindthat thinks them, they can have no independent existence. At most wemight say that each of these Ideas is an _ideal_. But it is in theopposite hypothesis that we are placing ourselves. Ideas must then existby themselves. Ancient philosophy could not escape this conclusion. Plato formulated it, and in vain did Aristotle strive to avoid it. Sincemovement arises from the degradation of the immutable, there could be nomovement, consequently no sensible world, if there were not, somewhere, immutability realized. So, having begun by refusing to Ideas anindependent existence, and finding himself nevertheless unable todeprive them of it, Aristotle pressed them into each other, rolled themup into a ball, and set above the physical world a Form that was thusfound to be the Form of Forms, the Idea of Ideas, or, to use his ownwords, the Thought of Thought. Such is the God of Aristotle--necessarilyimmutable and apart from what is happening in the world, since he isonly the synthesis of all concepts in a single concept. It is true thatno one of the manifold concepts could exist apart, such as it is in thedivine unity: in vain should we look for the ideas of Plato within theGod of Aristotle. But if only we imagine the God of Aristotle in a sortof refraction of himself, or simply inclining toward the world, at oncethe Platonic Ideas are seen to pour themselves out of him, as if theywere involved in the unity of his essence: so rays stream out from thesun, which nevertheless did not contain them. It is probably this_possibility of an outpouring_ of Platonic Ideas from the AristotelianGod that is meant, in the philosophy of Aristotle, by the activeintellect, the [Greek: nous] that has been called [Greek:poiêtikos]--that is, by what is essential and yet unconscious in humanintelligence. The [Greek: nous poiêtikos] is Science entire, posited allat once, which the conscious, discursive intellect is condemned toreconstruct with difficulty, bit by bit. There is then within us, orrather behind us, a possible vision of God, as the Alexandrians said, avision always virtual, never actually realized by the consciousintellect. In this intuition we should see God expand in Ideas. This itis that "does everything, "[102] playing in relation to the discursiveintellect, which moves in time, the same rôle as the motionless Moverhimself plays in relation to the movement of the heavens and the courseof things. 

There is, then, immanent in the philosophy of Ideas, a particularconception of causality, which it is important to bring into fulllight, because it is that which each of us will reach when, in order toascend to the origin of things, he follows to the end the naturalmovement of the intellect. True, the ancient philosophers neverformulated it explicitly. They confined themselves to drawing theconsequences of it, and, in general, they have marked but points of viewof it rather than presented it itself. Sometimes, indeed, they speak ofan _attraction_, sometimes of an _impulsion_ exercised by the primemover on the whole of the world. Both views are found in Aristotle, whoshows us in the movement of the universe an aspiration of things towardthe divine perfection, and consequently an ascent toward God, while hedescribes it elsewhere as the effect of a contact of God with the firstsphere and as descending, consequently, from God to things. TheAlexandrians, we think, do no more than follow this double indicationwhen they speak of _procession_ and _conversion_. Everything is derivedfrom the first principle, and everything aspires to return to it. Butthese two conceptions of the divine causality can only be identifiedtogether if we bring them, both the one and the other, back to a third, which we hold to be fundamental, and which alone will enable us tounderstand, not only why, in what sense, things move in space and time, but also why there is space and time, why there is movement, why thereare things. 

This conception, which more and more shows through the reasonings of theGreek philosophers as we go from Plato to Plotinus, we may formulatethus: _The affirmation of a reality implies the simultaneous affirmationof all the degrees of reality intermediate between it and nothing. _ Theprinciple is evident in the case of number: we cannot affirm the number10 without thereby affirming the existence of the numbers 9, 8, 7, . .. , etc. --in short, of the whole interval between 10 and zero. But here ourmind passes naturally from the sphere of quantity to that of quality. It seems to us that, a certain perfection being given, the wholecontinuity of degradations is given also between this perfection, on theone hand, and the nought, on the other hand, that we think we conceive. Let us then posit the God of Aristotle, thought of thought--that is, thought _making a circle_, transforming itself from subject to objectand from object to subject by an instantaneous, or rather an eternal, circular process: as, on the other hand, the nought appears to posititself, and as, the two extremities being given, the interval betweenthem is equally given, it follows that all the descending degrees ofbeing, from the divine perfection down to the "absolute nothing, " arerealized automatically, so to speak, when we have posited God. 

Let us then run through this interval from top to bottom. First of all, the slightest diminution of the first principle will be enough toprecipitate Being into space and time; but duration and extension, whichrepresent this first diminution, will be as near as possible to thedivine inextension and eternity. We must therefore picture to ourselvesthis first degradation of the divine principle as a sphere turning onitself, imitating, by the perpetuity of its circular movement, theeternity of the circle of the divine thought; creating, moreover, itsown place, and thereby place in general, [103] since it includes withoutbeing included and moves without stirring from the spot; creating alsoits own duration, and thereby duration in general, since its movement isthe measure of all motion. [104] Then, by degrees, we shall see theperfection decrease, more and more, down to our sublunary world, inwhich the cycle of birth, growth and decay imitates and mars theoriginal circle for the last time. So understood, the causal relationbetween God and the world is seen as an attraction when regarded frombelow, as an impulsion or a contact when regarded from above, since thefirst heaven, with its circular movement, is an imitation of God and allimitation is the reception of a form. Therefore, we perceive God asefficient cause or as final cause, according to the point of view. Andyet neither of these two relations is the ultimate causal relation. Thetrue relation is that which is found between the two members of anequation, when the first member is a single term and the second a sum ofan endless number of terms. It is, we may say, the relation of thegold-piece to the small change, if we suppose the change to offer itselfautomatically as soon as the gold piece is presented. Only thus can weunderstand why Aristotle has demonstrated the necessity of a firstmotionless mover, not by founding it on the assertion that the movementof things must have had a beginning, but, on the contrary, by affirmingthat this movement could not have begun and can never come to an end. Ifmovement exists, or, in other words, if the small change is beingcounted, the gold piece is to be found somewhere. And if the countinggoes on for ever, having never begun, the single term that is eminentlyequivalent to it must be eternal. A perpetuity of mobility is possibleonly if it is backed by an eternity of immutability, which it unwinds ina chain without beginning or end. 

Such is the last word of the Greek philosophy. We have not attempted toreconstruct it _a priori_. It has manifold origins. It is connected bymany invisible threads to the soul of ancient Greece. Vain, therefore, the effort to deduce it from a simple principle. [105] But if everythingthat has come from poetry, religion, social life and a still rudimentaryphysics and biology be removed from it, if we take away all the lightmaterial that may have been used in the construction of the statelybuilding, a solid framework remains, and this framework marks out themain lines of a metaphysic which is, we believe, the natural metaphysicof the human intellect. We come to a philosophy of this kind, indeed, whenever we follow to the end, the cinematographical tendency ofperception and thought. Our perception and thought begin by substitutingfor the continuity of evolutionary change a series of unchangeable formswhich are turn by turn, "caught on the wing, " like the rings at amerry-go-round, which the children unhook with their little stick asthey are passing. Now, how can the forms be passing, and on what "stick"are they strung? As the stable forms have been obtained by extractingfrom change everything that is definite, there is nothing left, tocharacterize the instability on which the forms are laid, but a negativeattribute, which must be indetermination itself. Such is the firstproceeding of our thought: it dissociates each change into twoelements--the one stable, definable for each particular case, to wit, the Form; the other indefinable and always the same, Change in general. And such, also, is the essential operation of language. Forms are allthat it is capable of expressing. It is reduced to taking as understoodor is limited to _suggesting_ a mobility which, just because it isalways unexpressed, is thought to remain in all cases the same. --Thencomes in a philosophy that holds the dissociation thus effected bythought and language to be legitimate. What can it do, except objectifythe distinction with more force, push it to its extreme consequences, reduce it into a system? It will therefore construct the real, on theone hand, with definite Forms or immutable elements, and, on the other, with a principle of mobility which, being the negation of the form, will, by the hypothesis, escape all definition and be the purelyindeterminate. The more it directs its attention to the forms delineatedby thought and expressed by language, the more it will see them riseabove the sensible and become subtilized into pure concepts, capable ofentering one within the other, and even of being at last massed togetherinto a single concept, the synthesis of all reality, the achievement ofall perfection. The more, on the contrary, it descends toward theinvisible source of the universal mobility, the more it will feel thismobility sink beneath it and at the same time become void, vanish intowhat it will call the "non-being. " Finally, it will have on the one handthe system of ideas, logically coördinated together or concentrated intoone only, on the other a quasi-nought, the Platonic "non-being" or theAristotelian "matter. "--But, having cut your cloth, you must sew it. With supra-sensible Ideas and an infra-sensible non-being, you now haveto reconstruct the sensible world. You can do so only if you postulate akind of metaphysical necessity in virtue of which the confronting ofthis All with this Zero _is equivalent_ to the affirmation of all thedegrees of reality that measure the interval between them--just as anundivided number, when regarded as a difference between itself and zero, is revealed as a certain sum of units, and with its own affirmationaffirms all the lower numbers. That is the natural postulate. It is thatalso that we perceive as the base of the Greek philosophy. In order thento explain the specific characters of each of these degrees ofintermediate reality, nothing more is necessary than to measure thedistance that separates it from the integral reality. Each lower degreeconsists in a diminution of the higher, and the _sensible_ newness thatwe perceive in it is resolved, from the point of view of the_intelligible_, into a new quantity of negation which is superadded toit. The smallest possible quantity of negation, that which is foundalready in the highest forms of sensible reality, and consequently _afortiori_ in the lower forms, is that which is expressed by the mostgeneral attributes of sensible reality, extension and duration. Byincreasing degradations we will obtain attributes more and more special. Here the philosopher's fancy will have free scope, for it is by anarbitrary decree, or at least a debatable one, that a particular aspectof the sensible world will be equated with a particular diminution ofbeing. We shall not necessarily end, as Aristotle did, in a worldconsisting of concentric spheres turning on themselves. But we shall beled to an analogous cosmology--I mean, to a construction whose pieces, though all different, will have none the less the same relations betweenthem. And this cosmology will be ruled by the same principle. Thephysical will be defined by the logical. Beneath the changing phenomenawill appear to us, by transparence, a closed system of conceptssubordinated to and coördinated with each other. Science, understood asthe system of concepts, will be more real than the sensible reality. Itwill be prior to human knowledge, which is only able to spell it letterby letter; prior also to things, which awkwardly try to imitate it. Itwould only have to be diverted an instant from itself in order to stepout of its eternity and thereby coincide with all this knowledge and allthese things. Its immutability is therefore, indeed, the cause of theuniversal becoming. 

Such was the point of view of ancient philosophy in regard to changeand duration. That modern philosophy has repeatedly, but especially inits beginnings, had the wish to depart from it, seems to usunquestionable. But an irresistible attraction brings the intellect backto its natural movement, and the metaphysic of the moderns to thegeneral conclusions of the Greek metaphysic. We must try to make thispoint clear, in order to show by what invisible threads our mechanisticphilosophy remains bound to the ancient philosophy of Ideas, and howalso it responds to the requirements, above all practical, of ourunderstanding. 

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Modern, like ancient, science proceeds according to thecinematographical method. It cannot do otherwise; all science is subjectto this law. For it is of the essence of science to handle _signs_, which it substitutes for the objects themselves. These signs undoubtedlydiffer from those of language by their greater precision and theirhigher efficacy; they are none the less tied down to the generalcondition of the sign, which is to denote a fixed aspect of the realityunder an arrested form. In order to think movement, a constantly renewedeffort of the mind is necessary. Signs are made to dispense us with thiseffort by substituting, for the moving continuity of things, anartificial reconstruction which is its equivalent in practice and hasthe advantage of being easily handled. But let us leave aside the meansand consider only the end. What is the essential object of science? Itis to enlarge our influence over things. Science may be speculative inits form, disinterested in its immediate ends; in other words we maygive it as long a credit as it wants. But, however long the day ofreckoning may be put off, some time or other the payment must be made. It is always then, in short, practical utility that science has in view. Even when it launches into theory, it is bound to adapt its behavior tothe general form of practice. However high it may rise, it must be readyto fall back into the field of action, and at once to get on its feet. This would not be possible for it, if its rhythm differed absolutelyfrom that of action itself. Now action, we have said, proceeds by leaps. To act is to re-adapt oneself. To know, that is to say, to foresee inorder to act, is then to go from situation to situation, fromarrangement to rearrangement. Science may consider rearrangements thatcome closer and closer to each other; it may thus increase the number ofmoments that it isolates, but it always isolates moments. As to whathappens in the interval between the moments, science is no moreconcerned with that than are our common intelligence, our senses and ourlanguage: it does not bear on the interval, but only on the extremities. So the cinematographical method forces itself upon our science, as itdid already on that of the ancients. 

Wherein, then, is the difference between the two sciences? We indicatedit when we said that the ancients reduced the physical order to thevital order, that is to say, laws to genera, while the moderns try toresolve genera into laws. But we have to look at it in another aspect, which, moreover, is only a transposition, of the first. Wherein consiststhe difference of attitude of the two sciences toward change? We mayformulate it by saying that _ancient science thinks it knows its objectsufficiently when it has noted of it some privileged moments, whereasmodern science considers the object at any moment whatever_. 

The forms or ideas of Plato or of Aristotle correspond to privileged orsalient moments in the history of things--those, in general, that havebeen fixed by language. They are supposed, like the childhood or the oldage of a living being, to characterize a period of which they expressthe quintessence, all the rest of this period being filled by thepassage, of no interest in itself, from one form to another form. Take, for instance, a falling body. It was thought that we got near enough tothe fact when we characterized it as a whole: it was a movement_downward_; it was the tendency toward a _centre_; it was the _natural_movement of a body which, separated from the earth to which it belonged, was now going to find its place again. They noted, then, the final termor culminating point ([Greek: telos, akmê]) and set it up as theessential moment: this moment, that language has retained in order toexpress the whole of the fact, sufficed also for science to characterizeit. In the physics of Aristotle, it is by the concepts "high" and "low, "spontaneous displacement and forced displacement, own place and strangeplace, that the movement of a body shot into space or falling freely isdefined. But Galileo thought there was no essential moment, noprivileged instant. To study the falling body is to consider it at itmatters not what moment in its course. The true science of gravity isthat which will determine, for any moment of time whatever, the positionof the body in space. For this, indeed, signs far more precise thanthose of language are required. 

We may say, then, that our physics differs from that of the ancientschiefly in the indefinite breaking up of time. For the ancients, timecomprises as many undivided periods as our natural perception and ourlanguage cut out in it successive facts, each presenting a kind ofindividuality. For that reason, each of these facts admits, in theirview, of only a _total_ definition or description. If, in describing it, we are led to distinguish phases in it, we have several facts instead ofa single one, several undivided periods instead of a single period; buttime is always supposed to be divided into determinate periods, and themode of division to be forced on the mind by apparent crises of thereal, comparable to that of puberty, by the apparent release of a newform. --For a Kepler or a Galileo, on the contrary, time is not dividedobjectively in one way or another by the matter that fills it. It has nonatural articulations. We can, we ought to, divide it as we please. Allmoments count. None of them has the right to set itself up as a momentthat represents or dominates the others. And, consequently, we know achange only when we are able to determine what it is about at any one ofits moments. 

The difference is profound. In fact, in a certain aspect it is radical. But, from the point of view from which we are regarding it, it is adifference of degree rather than of kind. The human mind has passed fromthe first kind of knowledge to the second through gradual perfecting, simply by seeking a higher precision. There is the same relation betweenthese two sciences as between the noting of the phases of a movement bythe eye and the much more complete recording of these phases byinstantaneous photography. It is the same cinematographical mechanism inboth cases, but it reaches a precision in the second that it cannot havein the first. Of the gallop of a horse our eye perceives chiefly acharacteristic, essential or rather schematic attitude, a form thatappears to radiate over a whole period and so fill up a time of gallop. It is this attitude that sculpture has fixed on the frieze of theParthenon. But instantaneous photography isolates any moment; it putsthem all in the same rank, and thus the gallop of a horse spreads outfor it into as many successive attitudes as it wishes, instead ofmassing itself into a single attitude, which is supposed to flash out ina privileged moment and to illuminate a whole period. 

From this original difference flow all the others. A science thatconsiders, one after the other, undivided periods of duration, seesnothing but phases succeeding phases, forms replacing forms; it iscontent with a _qualitative_ description of objects, which it likens toorganized beings. But when we seek to know what happens within one ofthese periods, at any moment of time, we are aiming at somethingentirely different. The changes which are produced from one moment toanother are no longer, by the hypothesis, changes of quality; they are_quantitative_ variations, it may be of the phenomenon itself, it may beof its elementary parts. We were right then to say that modern scienceis distinguishable from the ancient in that it applies to magnitudes andproposes first and foremost to measure them. The ancients did indeed tryexperiments, and on the other hand Kepler tried no experiment, in theproper sense of the word, in order to discover a law which is the verytype of scientific knowledge as we understand it. What distinguishesmodern science is not that it is experimental, but that it experimentsand, more generally, works only with a view to measure. 

For that reason it is right, again, to say that ancient science appliedto _concepts_, while modern science seeks _laws_--constant relationsbetween variable magnitudes. The concept of circularity was sufficientto Aristotle to define the movement of the heavenly bodies. But, evenwith the more accurate concept of elliptical form, Kepler did not thinkhe had accounted for the movement of planets. He had to get a law, thatis to say, a constant relation between the quantitative variations oftwo or several elements of the planetary movement. 

Yet these are only consequences--differences that follow from thefundamental difference. It did happen to the ancients accidentally toexperiment with a view to measuring, as also to discover a lawexpressing a constant relation between magnitudes. The principle ofArchimedes is a true experimental law. It takes into account threevariable magnitudes: the volume of a body, the density of the liquid inwhich the body is immersed, the vertical pressure that is being exerted. And it states indeed that one of these three terms is a function of theother two. 

The essential, original difference must therefore be sought elsewhere. It is the same that we noticed first. The science of the ancients isstatic. Either it considers in block the change that it studies, or, ifit divides the change into periods, it makes of each of these periods ablock in its turn: which amounts to saying that it takes no account oftime. But modern science has been built up around the discoveries ofGalileo and of Kepler, which immediately furnished it with a model. Now, what do the laws of Kepler say? They lay down a relation between theareas described by the heliocentric radius-vector of a planet and the_time_ employed in describing them, a relation between the longer axisof the orbit and the _time_ taken up by the course. And what was theprinciple discovered by Galileo? A law which connected the spacetraversed by a falling body with the _time_ occupied by the fall. Furthermore, in what did the first of the great transformations ofgeometry in modern times consist, if not in introducing--in a veiledform, it is true--time and movement even in the consideration offigures? For the ancients, geometry was a purely static science. Figureswere given to it at once, completely finished, like the Platonic Ideas. But the essence of the Cartesian geometry (although Descartes did notgive it this form) was to regard every plane curve as described by themovement of a point on a movable straight line which is displaced, parallel to itself, along the axis of the abscissae--the displacement ofthe movable straight line being supposed to be uniform and the abscissathus becoming representative of the time. The curve is then defined ifwe can state the relation connecting the space traversed on the movablestraight line to the time employed in traversing it, that is, if we areable to indicate the position of the movable point, on the straight linewhich it traverses, at any moment whatever of its course. This relationis just what we call the equation of the curve. To substitute anequation for a figure consists, therefore, in seeing the actual positionof the moving points in the tracing of the curve at any moment whatever, instead of regarding this tracing all at once, gathered up in the uniquemoment when the curve has reached its finished state. 

Such, then, was the directing idea of the reform by which both thescience of nature and mathematics, which serves as its instrument, wererenewed. Modern science is the daughter of astronomy; it has come downfrom heaven to earth along the inclined plane of Galileo, for it isthrough Galileo that Newton and his successors are connected withKepler. Now, how did the astronomical problem present itself to Kepler?The question was, knowing the respective positions of the planets at agiven moment, how to calculate their positions at any other moment. Sothe same question presented itself, henceforth, for every materialsystem. Each material point became a rudimentary planet, and the mainquestion, the ideal problem whose solution would yield the key to allthe others was, the positions of these elements at a particular momentbeing given, how to determine their relative positions at any moment. Nodoubt the problem cannot be put in these precise terms except in verysimple cases, for a schematized reality; for we never know therespective positions of the real elements of matter, supposing there arereal elements; and, even if we knew them at a given moment, thecalculation of their positions at another moment would generally requirea mathematical effort surpassing human powers. But it is enough for usto know that these elements might be known, that their presentpositions might be noted, and that a superhuman intellect might, bysubmitting these data to mathematical operations, determine thepositions of the elements at any other moment of time. This convictionis at the bottom of the questions we put to ourselves on the subject ofnature, and of the methods we employ to solve them. That is why everylaw in static form seems to us as a provisional instalment or as aparticular view of a dynamic law which alone would give us whole anddefinitive knowledge. 

Let us conclude, then, that our science is not only distinguished fromancient science in this, that it seeks laws, nor even in this, that itslaws set forth relations between magnitudes: we must add that themagnitude to which we wish to be able to relate all others is time, andthat _modern science must be defined pre-eminently by its aspiration totake time as an independent variable_. But with what time has it to do?

We have said before, and we cannot repeat too often, that the science ofmatter proceeds like ordinary knowledge. It perfects this knowledge, increases its precision and its scope, but it works in the samedirection and puts the same mechanism into play. If, therefore, ordinaryknowledge, by reason of the cinematographical mechanism to which it issubjected, forbears to follow becoming in so far as becoming is moving, the science of matter renounces it equally. No doubt, it distinguishesas great a number of moments as we wish in the interval of time itconsiders. However small the intervals may be at which it stops, itauthorizes us to divide them again if necessary. In contrast withancient science, which stopped at certain so-called essential moments, it is occupied indifferently with any moment whatever. But it alwaysconsiders moments, always virtual stopping-places, always, in short, immobilities. Which amounts to saying that real time, regarded as aflux, or, in other words, as the very mobility of being, escapes thehold of scientific knowledge. We have already tried to establish thispoint in a former work. We alluded to it again in the first chapter ofthis book. But it is necessary to revert to it once more, in order toclear up misunderstandings. 

When positive science speaks of time, what it refers to is the movementof a certain mobile T on its trajectory. This movement has been chosenby it as representative of time, and it is, by definition, uniform. Letus call T_{1}, T_{2}, T_{3}, . .. Etc. , points which divide the trajectoryof the mobile into equal parts from its origin T_0. We shall say that 1, 2, 3, . .. Units of time have flowed past, when the mobile is at the pointsT_{1}, T_{2}, T_{3}, . .. Of the line it traverses. Accordingly, to considerthe state of the universe at the end of a certain time _t_, is toexamine where it will be when T is at the point T_t of its course. Butof the _flux_ itself of time, still less of its effect on consciousness, there is here no question; for there enter into the calculation only thepoints T_{1}, T_{2}, T_{3}, . .. Taken on the flux, never the flux itself. We may narrow the time considered as much as we will, that is, break up atwill the interval between two consecutive divisions T_{n} and T_{n-|-1};but it is always with points, and with points only, that we are dealing. What we retain of the movement of the mobile T are positions taken onits trajectory. What we retain of all the other points of the universeare their positions on their respective trajectories. To each _virtualstop_ of the moving body T at the points of division T_{1}, T_{2}, T_{3}, . .. We make correspond a _virtual stop_ of all the other mobiles at thepoints where they are passing. And when we say that a movement or anyother change has occupied a time _t_, we mean by it that we have noted anumber _t_ of correspondences of this kind. We have therefore countedsimultaneities; we have not concerned ourselves with the flux that goesfrom one to another. The proof of this is that I can, at discretion, vary the rapidity of the flux of the universe in regard to aconsciousness that is independent of it and that would perceive thevariation by the quite qualitative _feeling_ that it would have of it:whatever the variation had been, since the movement of T wouldparticipate in this variation, I should have nothing to change in myequations nor in the numbers that figure in them. 

Let us go further. Suppose that the rapidity of the flux becomesinfinite. Imagine, as we said in the first pages of this book, that thetrajectory of the mobile T is given at once, and that the whole history, past, present and future, of the material universe is spread outinstantaneously in space. The same mathematical correspondences willsubsist between the moments of the history of the world unfolded like afan, so to speak, and the divisions T_{1}, T_{2}, T_{3}, . .. Of the linewhich will be called, by definition, "the course of time. " In the eyes ofscience nothing will have changed. But if, time thus spreading itselfout in space and succession becoming juxtaposition, science has nothingto change in what it tells us, we must conclude that, in what it tellsus, it takes account neither of _succession_ in what of it is specificnor of _time_ in what there is in it that is fluent. It has no sign toexpress what strikes our consciousness in succession and duration. It nomore applies to becoming, so far as that is moving, than the bridgesthrown here and there across the stream follow the water that flowsunder their arches. 

Yet succession exists; I am conscious of it; it is a fact. When aphysical process is going on before my eyes, my perception and myinclination have nothing to do with accelerating or retarding it. Whatis important to the physicist is the _number_ of units of duration theprocess fills; he does not concern himself about the units themselvesand that is why the successive states of the world might be spread outall at once in space without his having to change anything in hisscience or to cease talking about time. But for us, conscious beings, itis the units that matter, for we do not count extremities of intervals, we feel and live the intervals themselves. Now, we are conscious ofthese intervals as of _definite_ intervals. Let me come back again tothe sugar in my glass of water:[106] why must I wait for it to melt?While the duration of the phenomenon is _relative_ for the physicist, since it is reduced to a certain number of units of time and the unitsthemselves are indifferent, this duration is an _absolute_ for myconsciousness, for it coincides with a certain degree of impatiencewhich is rigorously determined. Whence comes this determination? What isit that obliges me to wait, and to wait for a certain length ofpsychical duration which is forced upon me, over which I have no power?If succession, in so far as distinct from mere juxtaposition, has noreal efficacy, if time is not a kind of force, why does the universeunfold its successive states with a velocity which, in regard to myconsciousness, is a veritable absolute? Why with this particularvelocity rather than any other? Why not with an infinite velocity? Why, in other words, is not everything given at once, as on the film of thecinematograph? The more I consider this point, the more it seems to methat, if the future is bound to _succeed_ the present instead of beinggiven alongside of it, it is because the future is not altogetherdetermined at the present moment, and that if the time taken up by thissuccession is something other than a number, if it has for theconsciousness that is installed in it absolute value and reality, it isbecause there is unceasingly being created in it, not indeed in any suchartificially isolated system as a glass of sugared water, but in theconcrete whole of which every such system forms part, somethingunforeseeable and new. This duration may not be the fact of matteritself, but that of the life which reascends the course of matter; thetwo movements are none the less mutually dependent upon each other. _Theduration of the universe must therefore be one with the latitude ofcreation which can find place in it. _

When a child plays at reconstructing a picture by putting together theseparate pieces in a puzzle game, the more he practices, the more andmore quickly he succeeds. The reconstruction was, moreover, instantaneous, the child found it ready-made, when he opened the box onleaving the shop. The operation, therefore, does not require a definitetime, and indeed, theoretically, it does not require any time. That isbecause the result is given. It is because the picture is alreadycreated, and because to obtain it requires only a work of recomposingand rearranging--a work that can be supposed going faster and faster, and even infinitely fast, up to the point of being instantaneous. But, to the artist who creates a picture by drawing it from the depths of hissoul, time is no longer an accessory; it is not an interval that may belengthened or shortened without the content being altered. The durationof his work is part and parcel of his work. To contract or to dilate itwould be to modify both the psychical evolution that fills it and theinvention which is its goal. The time taken up by the invention, is onewith the invention itself. It is the progress of a thought which ischanging in the degree and measure that it is taking form. It is a vitalprocess, something like the ripening of an idea. 

The painter is before his canvas, the colors are on the palette, themodel is sitting--all this we see, and also we know the painter'sstyle: do we foresee what will appear on the canvas? We possess theelements of the problem; we know in an abstract way, how it will besolved, for the portrait will surely resemble the model and will surelyresemble also the artist; but the concrete solution brings with it thatunforeseeable nothing which is everything in a work of art. And it isthis nothing that takes time. Nought as matter, it creates itself asform. The sprouting and flowering of this form are stretched out on anunshrinkable duration, which is one with their essence. So of the worksof nature. Their novelty arises from an internal impetus which isprogress or succession, which confers on succession a peculiar virtue orwhich owes to succession the whole of its virtue--which, at any rate, makes succession, or _continuity of interpenetration_ in time, irreducible to a mere instantaneous juxtaposition in space. This is whythe idea of reading in a present state of the material universe thefuture of living forms, and of unfolding now their history yet to come, involves a veritable absurdity. But this absurdity is difficult to bringout, because our memory is accustomed to place alongside of each other, in an ideal space, the terms it perceives in turn, because it alwaysrepresents _past_ succession in the form of juxtaposition. It is able todo so, indeed, just because the past belongs to that which is alreadyinvented, to the dead, and no longer to creation and to life. Then, asthe succession to come will end by being a succession past, we persuadeourselves that the duration to come admits of the same treatment as pastduration, that it is, even now, unrollable, that the future is there, rolled up, already painted on the canvas. An illusion, no doubt, but anillusion that is natural, ineradicable, and that will last as long asthe human mind!

_Time is invention or it is nothing at all. _ But of time-inventionphysics can take no account, restricted as it is to thecinematographical method. It is limited to counting simultaneitiesbetween the events that make up this time and the positions of themobile T on its trajectory. It detaches these events from the whole, which at every moment puts on a new form and which communicates to themsomething of its novelty. It considers them in the abstract, such asthey would be outside of the living whole, that is to say, in a timeunrolled in space. It retains only the events or systems of events thatcan be thus isolated without being made to undergo too profound adeformation, because only these lend themselves to the application ofits method. Our physics dates from the day when it was known how toisolate such systems. To sum up, _while modern physics is distinguishedfrom ancient physics by the fact that it considers any moment of timewhatever, it rests altogether on a substitution of time-length fortime-invention_. 

It seems then that, parallel to this physics, a second kind of knowledgeought to have grown up, which could have retained what physics allowedto escape. On the flux itself of duration science neither would norcould lay hold, bound as it was to the cinematographical method. Thissecond kind of knowledge would have set the cinematographical methodaside. It would have called upon the mind to renounce its most cherishedhabits. It is within becoming that it would have transported us by aneffort of sympathy. We should no longer be asking where a moving bodywill be, what shape a system will take, through what state a change willpass at a given moment: the moments of time, which are only arrests ofour attention, would no longer exist; it is the flow of time, it is thevery flux of the real that we should be trying to follow. The first kindof knowledge has the advantage of enabling us to foresee the future andof making us in some measure masters of events; in return, it retainsof the moving reality only eventual immobilities, that is to say, viewstaken of it by our mind. It symbolizes the real and transposes it intothe human rather than expresses it. The other knowledge, if it ispossible, is practically useless, it will not extend our empire overnature, it will even go against certain natural aspirations of theintellect; but, if it succeeds, it is reality itself that it will holdin a firm and final embrace. Not only may we thus complete the intellectand its knowledge of matter by accustoming it to install itself withinthe moving, but by developing also another faculty, complementary to theintellect, we may open a perspective on the other half of the real. For, as soon as we are confronted with true duration, we see that it meanscreation, and that if that which is being unmade endures, it can only bebecause it is inseparably bound to what is making itself. Thus willappear the necessity of a continual growth of the universe, I should sayof a _life_ of the real. And thus will be seen in a new light the lifewhich we find on the surface of our planet, a life directed the same wayas that of the universe, and inverse of materiality. To intellect, inshort, there will be added intuition. 

The more we reflect on it, the more we shall find that this conceptionof metaphysics is that which modern science suggests. 

For the ancients, indeed, time is theoretically negligible, because theduration of a thing only manifests the degradation of its essence: it iswith this motionless essence that science has to deal. Change being onlythe effort of a form toward its own realization, the realization is allthat it concerns us to know. No doubt the realization is never complete:it is this that ancient philosophy expresses by saying that we do notperceive form without matter. But if we consider the changing object ata certain essential moment, at its apogee, we may say that there itjust touches its intelligible form. This intelligible form, this idealand, so to speak, limiting form, our science seizes upon. And possessingin this the gold-piece, it holds eminently the small money which we callbecoming or change. This change is less than being. The knowledge thatwould take it for object, supposing such knowledge were possible, wouldbe less than science. 

But, for a science that places all the moments of time in the same rank, that admits no essential moment, no culminating point, no apogee, changeis no longer a diminution of essence, duration is not a dilution ofeternity. The flux of time is the reality itself, and the things whichwe study are the things which flow. It is true that of this flowingreality we are limited to taking instantaneous views. But, just becauseof this, scientific knowledge must appeal to another knowledge tocomplete it. While the ancient conception of scientific knowledge endedin making time a degradation, and change the diminution of a form givenfrom all eternity--on the contrary, by following the new conception tothe end, we should come to see in time a progressive growth of theabsolute, and in the evolution of things a continual invention of formsever new. 

It is true that it would be to break with the metaphysics of theancients. They saw only one way of knowing definitely. Their scienceconsisted in a scattered and fragmentary metaphysics, their metaphysicsin a concentrated and systematic science. Their science and metaphysicswere, at most, two species of one and the same genus. In our hypothesis, on the contrary, science and metaphysics are two opposed althoughcomplementary ways of knowing, the first retaining only moments, that isto say, that which does not endure, the second bearing on durationitself. Now, it was natural to hesitate between so novel a conceptionof metaphysics and the traditional conception. The temptation must havebeen strong to repeat with the new science what had been tried on theold, to suppose our scientific knowledge of nature completed at once, tounify it entirely, and to give to this unification, as the Greeks hadalready done, the name of metaphysics. So, beside the new way thatphilosophy might have prepared, the old remained open, that indeed whichphysics trod. And, as physics retained of time only what could as wellbe spread out all at once in space, the metaphysics that chose the samedirection had necessarily to proceed as if time created and annihilatednothing, as if duration had no efficacy. Bound, like the physics of themoderns and the metaphysics of the ancients, to the cinematographicalmethod, it ended with the conclusion, implicitly admitted at the startand immanent in the method itself: _All is given. _

That metaphysics hesitated at first between the two paths seems to usunquestionable. The indecision is visible in Cartesianism. On the onehand, Descartes affirms universal mechanism: from this point of viewmovement would be relative, [107] and, as time has just as much realityas movement, it would follow that past, present and future are givenfrom all eternity. But, on the other hand (and that is why thephilosopher has not gone to these extreme consequences), Descartesbelieves in the free will of man. He superposes on the determinism ofphysical phenomena the indeterminism of human actions, and, consequently, on time-length a time in which there is invention, creation, true succession. This duration he supports on a God who isunceasingly renewing the creative act, and who, being thus tangent totime and becoming, sustains them, communicates to them necessarilysomething of his absolute reality. When he places himself at thissecond point of view, Descartes speaks of movement, even spatial, as ofan absolute. [108]

He therefore entered both roads one after the other, having resolved tofollow neither of them to the end. The first would have led him to thedenial of free will in man and of real will in God. It was thesuppression of all efficient duration, the likening of the universe to athing given, which a superhuman intelligence would embrace at once in amoment or in eternity. In following the second, on the contrary, hewould have been led to all the consequences which the intuition of trueduration implies. Creation would have appeared not simply as_continued_, but also as _continuous_. The universe, regarded as awhole, would really evolve. The future would no longer be determinableby the present; at most we might say that, once realized, it can befound again in its antecedents, as the sounds of a new language can beexpressed with the letters of an old alphabet if we agree to enlarge thevalue of the letters and to attribute to them, retro-actively, soundswhich no combination of the old sounds could have produced beforehand. Finally, the mechanistic explanation might have remained universal inthis, that it can indeed be extended to as many systems as we choose tocut out in the continuity of the universe; but mechanism would then havebecome a _method_ rather than a _doctrine_. It would have expressed thefact that science must proceed after the cinematographical manner, thatthe function of science is to scan the rhythm of the flow of things andnot to fit itself into that flow. --Such were the two oppositeconceptions of metaphysics which were offered to philosophy. 

It chose the first. The reason of this choice is undoubtedly the mind'stendency to follow the cinematographical method, a method so natural toour intellect, and so well adjusted also to the requirements of ourscience, that we must feel doubly sure of its speculative impotence torenounce it in metaphysics. But ancient philosophy also influenced thechoice. Artists for ever admirable, the Greeks created a type ofsupra-sensible truth, as of sensible beauty, whose attraction is hard toresist. As soon as we incline to make metaphysics a systematization ofscience, we glide in the direction of Plato and of Aristotle. And, oncein the zone of attraction in which the Greek philosophers moved, we aredrawn along in their orbit. 

Such was the case with Leibniz, as also with Spinoza. We are not blindto the treasures of originality their doctrines contain. Spinoza andLeibniz have poured into them the whole content of their souls, richwith the inventions of their genius and the acquisitions of modernthought. And there are in each of them, especially in Spinoza, flashesof intuition that break through the system. But if we leave out of thetwo doctrines what breathes life into them, if we retain the skeletononly, we have before us the very picture of Platonism andAristotelianism seen through Cartesian mechanism. They present to us asystematization of the new physics, constructed on the model of theancient metaphysics. 

What, indeed, could the unification of physics be? The inspiring idea ofthat science was to isolate, within the universe, systems of materialpoints such that, the position of each of these points being known at agiven moment, we could then calculate it for any moment whatever. As, moreover, the systems thus defined were the only ones on which the newscience had hold, and as it could not be known beforehand whether asystem satisfied or did not satisfy the desired condition, it was usefulto proceed always and everywhere _as if_ the condition was realized. There was in this a methodological rule, a very natural rule--sonatural, indeed, that it was not even necessary to formulate it. Forsimple common sense tells us that when we are possessed of an effectiveinstrument of research, and are ignorant of the limits of itsapplicability, we should act as if its applicability were unlimited;there will always be time to abate it. But the temptation must have beengreat for the philosopher to hypostatize this hope, or rather thisimpetus, of the new science, and to convert a general rule of methodinto a fundamental law of things. So he transported himself at once tothe limit; he supposed physics to have become complete and to embracethe whole of the sensible world. The universe became a system of points, the position of which was rigorously determined at each instant byrelation to the preceding instant and theoretically calculable for anymoment whatever. The result, in short, was universal mechanism. But itwas not enough to formulate this mechanism; what was required was tofound it, to give the reason for it and prove its necessity. And theessential affirmation of mechanism being that of a reciprocalmathematical dependence of all the points of the universe, as also ofall the moments of the universe, the reason of mechanism had to bediscovered in the unity of a principle into which could be contractedall that is juxtaposed in space and successive in time. Hence, the wholeof the real was supposed to be given at once. The reciprocaldetermination of the juxtaposed appearances in space was explained bythe indivisibility of true being, and the inflexible determinism ofsuccessive phenomena in time simply expressed that the whole of being isgiven in the eternal. 

The new philosophy was going, then, to be a recommencement, or rather atransposition, of the old. The ancient philosophy had taken each of the_concepts_ into which a becoming is concentrated or which mark itsapogee: it supposed them all known, and gathered them up into a singleconcept, form of forms, idea of ideas, like the God of Aristotle. Thenew philosophy was going to take each of the _laws_ which condition abecoming in relation to others and which are as the permanent substratumof phenomena: it would suppose them all known, and would gather them upinto a unity which also would express them eminently, but which, likethe God of Aristotle and for the same reasons, must remain immutablyshut up in itself. 

True, this return to the ancient philosophy was not without greatdifficulties. When a Plato, an Aristotle, or a Plotinus melt all theconcepts of their science into a single one, in so doing they embracethe whole of the real, for concepts are supposed to represent the thingsthemselves, and to possess at least as much positive content. But a law, in general, expresses only a relation, and physical laws in particularexpress only _quantitative_ relations between concrete things. So thatif a modern philosopher works with the laws of the new science as theGreek philosopher did with the concepts of the ancient science, if hemakes all the conclusions of a physics supposed omniscient converge on asingle point, he neglects what is concrete in the phenomena--thequalities perceived, the perceptions themselves. His synthesiscomprises, it seems, only a fraction of reality. In fact, the firstresult of the new science was to cut the real into two halves, quantityand quality, the former being credited to the account of _bodies_ andthe latter to the account of _souls_. The ancients had raised no suchbarriers either between quality and quantity or between soul and body. For them, the mathematical concepts were concepts like the others, related to the others and fitting quite naturally into the hierarchy ofthe Ideas. Neither was the body then defined by geometrical extension, nor the soul by consciousness. If the [Greek: psychê] of Aristotle, theentelechy of a living body, is less spiritual than our "soul, " it isbecause his [Greek: oôma], already impregnated with the Idea, is lesscorporeal than our "body. " The scission was not yet irremediable betweenthe two terms. It has become so, and thence a metaphysic that aims at anabstract unity must resign itself either to comprehend in its synthesisonly one half of the real, or to take advantage of the absoluteheterogeneity of the two halves in order to consider one as atranslation of the other. Different phrases will express differentthings if they belong to the same language, that is to say, if there isa certain relationship of sound between them. But if they belong to twodifferent languages, they might, just because of their radical diversityof sound, express the same thing. So of quality and quantity, of souland body. It is for having cut all connection between the two terms thatphilosophers have been led to establish between them a rigorousparallelism, of which the ancients had not dreamed, to regard them astranslations and not as inversions of each other; in short, to posit afundamental identity as a substratum to their duality. The synthesis towhich they rose thus became capable of embracing everything. A divinemechanism made the phenomena of thought to correspond to those ofextension, each to each, qualities to quantities, souls to bodies. 

It is this parallelism that we find both in Leibniz and in Spinoza--indifferent forms, it is true, because of the unequal importance whichthey attach to extension. With Spinoza, the two terms Thought andExtension are placed, in principle at least, in the same rank. They are, therefore, two translations of one and the same original, or, as Spinozasays, two attributes of one and the same substance, which we must callGod. And these two translations, as also an infinity of others intolanguages which we know not, are called up and even forced intoexistence by the original, just as the essence of the circle istranslated automatically, so to speak, both by a figure and by anequation. For Leibniz, on the contrary, extension is indeed still atranslation, but it is thought that is the original, and thought mightdispense with translation, the translation being made only for us. Inpositing God, we necessarily posit also all the possible views of God, that is to say, the monads. But we can always imagine that a view hasbeen taken from a point of view, and it is natural for an imperfect mindlike ours to class views, qualitatively different, according to theorder and position of points of view, qualitatively identical, fromwhich the views might have been taken. In reality the points of view donot exist, for there are only views, each given in an indivisible blockand representing in its own way the whole of reality, which is God. Butwe need to express the plurality of the views, that are _unlike_ eachother, by the multiplicity of the points of view that are _exterior_ toeach other; and we also need to symbolize the more or less closerelationship between the views by the relative situation of the pointsof view to one another, their nearness or their distance, that is tosay, by a magnitude. That is what Leibniz means when he says that spaceis the order of coexistents, that the perception of extension is aconfused perception (that is to say, a perception relative to animperfect mind), and that nothing exists but monads, expressing therebythat the real Whole has no parts, but is repeated to infinity, each timeintegrally (though diversely) within itself, and that all theserepetitions are complementary to each other. In just the same way, thevisible relief of an object is equivalent to the whole set ofstereoscopic views taken of it from all points, so that, instead ofseeing in the relief a juxtaposition of solid parts, we might quite aswell look upon it as made of the _reciprocal complementarity_ of thesewhole views, each given in block, each indivisible, each different fromall the others and yet representative of the same thing. The Whole, thatis to say, God, is this very relief for Leibniz, and the monads arethese complementary plane views; for that reason he defines God as "thesubstance that has no point of view, " or, again, as "the universalharmony, " that is to say, the reciprocal complementarity of monads. Inshort, Leibniz differs from Spinoza in this, that he looks upon theuniversal mechanism as an aspect which reality takes for us, whereas, Spinoza makes of it an aspect which reality takes for itself. 

It is true that, after having concentrated in God the whole of the real, it became difficult for them to pass from God to things, from eternityto time. The difficulty was even much greater for these philosophersthan an Aristotle or a Plotinus. The God of Aristotle, indeed, had beenobtained by the compression and reciprocal compenetration of the Ideasthat represent, in their finished state or in their culminating point, the changing things of the world. He was, therefore, transcendent to theworld, and the duration of things was juxtaposed to His eternity, ofwhich it was only a weakening. But in the principle to which we are ledby the consideration of universal mechanism, and which must serve as itssubstratum, it is not concepts or _things_, but laws or _relations_ thatare condensed. Now, a relation does not exist separately. A law connectschanging terms and is immanent in what it governs. The principle inwhich all these relations are ultimately summed up, and which is thebasis of the unity of nature, cannot, therefore, be transcendent tosensible reality; it is immanent in it, and we must suppose that it isat once both in and out of time, gathered up in the unity of itssubstance and yet condemned to wind it off in an endless chain. Ratherthan formulate so appalling a contradiction, the philosophers werenecessarily led to sacrifice the weaker of the two terms, and to regardthe temporal aspect of things as a mere illusion. Leibniz says so inexplicit terms, for he makes of time, as of space, a confusedperception. While the multiplicity of his monads expresses only thediversity of views taken of the whole, the history of an isolated monadseems to be hardly anything else than the manifold views that it cantake of its own substance: so that time would consist in all the pointsof view that each monad can assume towards itself, as space consists inall the points of view that all monads can assume towards God. But thethought of Spinoza is much less clear, and this philosopher seems tohave sought to establish, between eternity and that which has duration, the same difference as Aristotle made between essence and accidents: amost difficult undertaking, for the [Greek: ylê] of Aristotle was nolonger there to measure the distance and explain the passage from theessential to the accidental, Descartes having eliminated it for ever. However that may be, the deeper we go into the Spinozistic conception ofthe "inadequate, " as related to the "adequate, " the more we feelourselves moving in the direction of Aristotelianism--just as theLeibnizian monads, in proportion as they mark themselves out the moreclearly, tend to approximate to the Intelligibles of Plotinus. [109] Thenatural trend of these two philosophies brings them back to theconclusions of the ancient philosophy. 

To sum up, the resemblances of this new metaphysic to that of theancients arise from the fact that both suppose ready-made--the formerabove the sensible, the latter within the sensible--a science one andcomplete, with which any reality that the sensible may contain isbelieved to coincide. _For both, reality as well as truth are integrallygiven in eternity. _ Both are opposed to the idea of a reality thatcreates itself gradually, that is, at bottom, to an absolute duration. 

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Now, it might easily be shown that the conclusions of this metaphysic, springing from science, have rebounded upon science itself, as it were, by ricochet. They penetrate the whole of our so-called empiricism. Physics and chemistry study only inert matter; biology, when it treatsthe living being physically and chemically, considers only the inertside of the living: hence the mechanistic explanations, in spite oftheir development, include only a small part of the real. To suppose _apriori_ that the whole of the real is resolvable into elements of thiskind, or at least that mechanism can give a complete translation of whathappens in the world, is to pronounce for a certain metaphysic--the verymetaphysic of which Spinoza and Leibniz have laid down the principlesand drawn the consequences. Certainly, the psycho-physiologist whoaffirms the exact equivalence of the cerebral and the psychical state, who imagines the possibility, for some superhuman intellect, of readingin the brain what is going on in consciousness, believes himself veryfar from the metaphysicians of the seventeenth century, and very near toexperience. Yet experience pure and simple tells us nothing of the kind. It shows us the interdependence of the mental and the physical, thenecessity of a certain cerebral substratum for the psychicalstate--nothing more. From the fact that two things are mutuallydependent, it does not follow that they are equivalent. Because acertain screw is necessary to a certain machine, because the machineworks when the screw is there and stops when the screw is taken away, wedo not say that the screw is the equivalent of the machine. Forcorrespondence to be equivalence, it would be necessary that to any partof the machine a definite part of the screw should correspond--as in aliteral translation in which each chapter renders a chapter, eachsentence a sentence, each word a word. Now, the relation of the brain toconsciousness seems to be entirely different. Not only does thehypothesis of an equivalence between the psychical state and thecerebral state imply a downright absurdity, as we have tried to prove ina former essay, [110] but the facts, examined without prejudice, certainly seem to indicate that the relation of the psychical to thephysical is just that of the machine to the screw. To speak of anequivalence between the two is simply to curtail, and make almostunintelligible, the Spinozistic or Leibnizian metaphysic. It is toaccept this philosophy, such as it is, on the side of Extension, but tomutilate it on the side of Thought. With Spinoza, with Leibniz, wesuppose the unifying synthesis of the phenomena of matter achieved, andeverything in matter explained mechanically. But, for the consciousfacts, we no longer push the synthesis to the end. We stop half-way. Wesuppose consciousness to be coextensive with a certain part of natureand not with all of it. We are thus led, sometimes to an"epiphenomenalism" that associates consciousness with certain particularvibrations and puts it here and there in the world in a sporadic state, and sometimes to a "monism" that scatters consciousness into as manytiny grains as there are atoms; but, in either case, it is to anincomplete Spinozism or to an incomplete Leibnizianism that we comeback. Between this conception of nature and Cartesianism we find, moreover, intermediate historical stages. The medical philosophers ofthe eighteenth century, with their cramped Cartesianism, have had agreat part in the genesis of the "epiphenomenalism" and "monism" of thepresent day. 

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These doctrines are thus found to fall short of the Kantian criticism. Certainly, the philosophy of Kant is also imbued with the belief in ascience single and complete, embracing the whole of the real. Indeed, looked at from one aspect, it is only a continuation of the metaphysicsof the moderns and a transposition of the ancient metaphysics. Spinozaand Leibniz had, following Aristotle, hypostatized in God the unity ofknowledge. The Kantian criticism, on one side at least, consists inasking whether the whole of this hypothesis is necessary to modernscience as it was to ancient science, or if part of the hypothesis isnot sufficient. For the ancients, science applied to _concepts_, that isto say, to kinds of _things_. In compressing all concepts into one, theytherefore necessarily arrived at a _being_, which we may call Thought, but which was rather thought-object than thought-subject. When Aristotledefined God the [Greek: noêseôs noêsis], it is probably on [Greek:noêseôs], and not on [Greek: noêsis] that he put the emphasis. God wasthe synthesis of all concepts, the idea of ideas. But modern scienceturns on laws, that is, on relations. Now, a relation is a bondestablished by a mind between two or more terms. A relation is nothingoutside of the intellect that relates. The universe, therefore, can onlybe a system of laws if phenomena have passed beforehand through thefilter of an intellect. Of course, this intellect might be that of abeing infinitely superior to man, who would found the materiality ofthings at the same time that he bound them together: such was thehypothesis of Leibniz and of Spinoza. But it is not necessary to go sofar, and, for the effect we have here to obtain, the human intellect isenough: such is precisely the Kantian solution. Between the dogmatism ofa Spinoza or a Leibniz and the criticism of Kant there is just the samedistance as between "it may be maintained that--" and "it sufficesthat--. " Kant stops this dogmatism on the incline that was making itslip too far toward the Greek metaphysics; he reduces to the strictminimum the hypothesis which is necessary in order to suppose thephysics of Galileo indefinitely extensible. True, when he speaks of thehuman intellect, he means neither yours nor mine: the unity of naturecomes indeed from the human understanding that unifies, but the unifyingfunction that operates here is impersonal. It imparts itself to ourindividual consciousnesses, but it transcends them. It is much less thana substantial God; it is, however, a little more than the isolated workof a man or even than the collective work of humanity. It does notexactly lie within man; rather, man lies within it, as in an atmosphereof intellectuality which his consciousness breathes. It is, if we will, a _formal_ God, something that in Kant is not yet divine, but whichtends to become so. It became so, indeed, with Fichte. With Kant, however, its principal rôle was to give to the whole of our science arelative and _human_ character, although of a humanity already somewhatdeified. From this point of view, the criticism of Kant consistedchiefly in limiting the dogmatism of his predecessors, accepting theirconception of science and reducing to a minimum the metaphysic itimplied. 

But it is otherwise with the Kantian distinction between the matter ofknowledge and its form. By regarding intelligence as pre-eminently afaculty of establishing relations, Kant attributed an extra-intellectualorigin to the terms between which the relations are established. Heaffirmed, against his immediate predecessors, that knowledge is notentirely resolvable into terms of intelligence. He brought back intophilosophy--while modifying it and carrying it on to another plane--thatessential element of the philosophy of Descartes which had been abandonedby the Cartesians. 

Thereby he prepared the way for a new philosophy, which might haveestablished itself in the extra-intellectual matter of knowledge by ahigher effort of intuition. Coinciding with this matter, adopting thesame rhythm and the same movement, might not consciousness, by twoefforts of opposite direction, raising itself and lowering itself byturns, become able to grasp from within, and no longer perceive onlyfrom without, the two forms of reality, body and mind? Would not thistwofold effort make us, as far as that is possible, re-live theabsolute? Moreover, as, in the course of this operation, we should seeintellect spring up of itself, cut itself out in the whole of mind, intellectual knowledge would then appear as it is, limited, but notrelative. 

Such was the direction that Kantianism might have pointed out to arevivified Cartesianism. But in this direction Kant himself did not go. 

He _would_ not, because, while assigning to knowledge anextra-intellectual matter, he believed this matter to be eithercoextensive with intellect or less extensive than intellect. Thereforehe could not dream of cutting out intellect in it, nor, consequently, oftracing the genesis of the understanding and its categories. The moldsof the understanding and the understanding itself had to be accepted asthey are, already made. Between the matter presented to our intellectand this intellect itself there was no relationship. The agreementbetween the two was due to the fact that intellect imposed its form onmatter. So that not only was it necessary to posit the intellectual formof knowledge as a kind of absolute and give up the quest of its genesis, but the very matter of this knowledge seemed too ground down by theintellect for us to be able to hope to get it back in its originalpurity. It was not the "thing-in-itself, " it was only the refraction ofit through our atmosphere. 

If now we inquire why Kant did not believe that the matter of ourknowledge extends beyond its form, this is what we find. The criticismof our knowledge of nature that was instituted by Kant consisted inascertaining what our mind must be and what Nature must be _if_ theclaims of our science are justified; but of these claims themselves Kanthas not made the criticism. I mean that he took for granted the idea ofa science that is one, capable of binding with the same force all theparts of what is given, and of coördinating them into a systempresenting on all sides an equal solidity. He did not consider, in his_Critique of Pure Reason_, that science became less and less objective, more and more symbolical, to the extent that it went from the physicalto the vital, from the vital to the psychical. Experience does not move, to his view, in two different and perhaps opposite ways, the oneconformable to the direction of the intellect, the other contrary to it. There is, for him, only _one_ experience, and the intellect covers itswhole ground. This is what Kant expresses by saying that all ourintuitions are sensuous, or, in other words, infra-intellectual. Andthis would have to be admitted, indeed, if our science presented in allits parts an equal objectivity. But suppose, on the contrary, thatscience is less and less objective, more and more symbolical, as it goesfrom the physical to the psychical, passing through the vital: then, asit is indeed necessary to perceive a thing somehow in order to symbolizeit, there would be an intuition of the psychical, and more generally ofthe vital, which the intellect would transpose and translate, no doubt, but which would none the less transcend the intellect. There would be, in other words, a supra-intellectual intuition. If this intuition exist, a taking possession of the spirit by itself is possible, and no longeronly a knowledge that is external and phenomenal. What is more, if wehave an intuition of this kind (I mean an ultra-intellectual intuition)then sensuous intuition is likely to be in continuity with it throughcertain intermediaries, as the infra-red is continuous with theultra-violet. Sensuous intuition itself, therefore, is promoted. It willno longer attain only the phantom of an unattainable thing-in-itself. Itis (provided we bring to it certain indispensable corrections) into theabsolute itself that it will introduce us. So long as it was regarded asthe only material of our science, it reflected back on all sciencesomething of the relativity which strikes a scientific knowledge ofspirit; and thus the perception of bodies, which is the beginning of thescience of bodies, seemed itself to be relative. Relative, therefore, seemed to be sensuous intuition. But this is not the case ifdistinctions are made between the different sciences, and if thescientific knowledge of the spiritual (and also, consequently, of thevital) be regarded as the more or less artificial extension of a certainmanner of knowing which, applied to bodies, is not at all symbolical. Let us go further: if there are thus two intuitions of different order(the second being obtained by a reversal of the direction of the first), and if it is toward the second that the intellect naturally inclines, there is no essential difference between the intellect and thisintuition itself. The barriers between the matter of sensible knowledgeand its form are lowered, as also between the "pure forms" ofsensibility and the categories of the understanding. The matter and formof intellectual knowledge (restricted to its own object) are seen to beengendering each other by a reciprocal adaptation, intellect modelingitself on corporeity, and corporeity on intellect. 

But this duality of intuition Kant neither would nor could admit. Itwould have been necessary, in order to admit it, to regard duration asthe very stuff of reality, and consequently to distinguish between thesubstantial duration of things and time spread out in space. It wouldhave been necessary to regard space itself, and the geometry which isimmanent in space, as an ideal limit in the direction of which materialthings develop, but which they do not actually attain. Nothing could bemore contrary to the letter, and perhaps also to the spirit, of the_Critique of Pure Reason_. No doubt, knowledge is presented to us in itas an ever-open roll, experience as a push of facts that is for evergoing on. But, according to Kant, these facts are spread out on oneplane as fast as they arise; they are external to each other andexternal to the mind. Of a knowledge from within, that could grasp themin their springing forth instead of taking them already sprung, thatwould dig beneath space and spatialized time, there is never anyquestion. Yet it is indeed beneath this plane that our consciousnessplaces us; there flows true duration. 

In this respect, also, Kant is very near his predecessors. Between thenon-temporal, and the time that is spread out in distinct moments, headmits no mean. And as there is indeed no intuition that carries us intothe non-temporal, all intuition is thus found to be sensuous, bydefinition. But between physical existence, which is spread out inspace, and non-temporal existence, which can only be a conceptual andlogical existence like that of which metaphysical dogmatism speaks, isthere not room for consciousness and for life? There is, unquestionably. We perceive it when we place ourselves in duration in order to go fromthat duration to moments, instead of starting from moments in order tobind them again and to construct duration. 

Yet it was to a non-temporal intuition that the immediate successors ofKant turned, in order to escape from the Kantian relativism. Certainly, the ideas of becoming, of progress, of evolution, seem to occupy a largeplace in their philosophy. But does duration really play a part in it?Real duration is that in which each form flows out of previous forms, while adding to them something new, and is explained by them as much asit explains them; but to deduce this form directly from one completeBeing which it is supposed to manifest, is to return to Spinozism. Itis, like Leibniz and Spinoza, to deny to duration all efficient action. The post-Kantian philosophy, severe as it may have been on themechanistic theories, accepts from mechanism the idea of a science thatis one and the same for all kinds of reality. And it is nearer tomechanism than it imagines; for though, in the consideration of matter, of life and of thought, it replaces the successive degrees ofcomplexity, that mechanism supposed by degrees of the realization of anIdea or by degrees of the objectification of a Will, it still speaks ofdegrees, and these degrees are those of a scale which Being traverses ina single direction. In short, it makes out the same articulations innature that mechanism does. Of mechanism it retains the whole design; itmerely gives it a different coloring. But it is the design itself, or atleast one half of the design, that needs to be re-made. 

If we are to do that, we must give up the method of _construction_, which was that of Kant's successors. We must appeal to experience--anexperience purified, or, in other words, released, where necessary, fromthe molds that our intellect has formed in the degree and proportion ofthe progress of our action on things. An experience of this kind is nota non-temporal experience. It only seeks, beyond the spatialized time inwhich we believe we see continual rearrangements between the parts, thatconcrete duration in which a radical recasting of the whole is alwaysgoing on. It follows the real in all its sinuosities. It does not leadus, like the method of construction, to higher and highergeneralities--piled-up stories of a magnificent building. But then itleaves no play between the explanations it suggests and the objects ithas to explain. It is the detail of the real, and no longer only thewhole in a lump, that it claims to illumine. 

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That the thought of the nineteenth century called for a philosophy ofthis kind, rescued from the arbitrary, capable of coming down to thedetail of particular facts, is unquestionable. Unquestionably, also, itfelt that this philosophy ought to establish itself in what we callconcrete duration. The advent of the moral sciences, the progress ofpsychology, the growing importance of embryology among the biologicalsciences--all this was bound to suggest the idea of a reality which_endures_ inwardly, which is duration itself. So, when a philosopherarose who announced a doctrine of evolution, in which the progress ofmatter toward perceptibility would be traced together with the advanceof the mind toward rationality, in which the complication ofcorrespondences between the external and the internal would be followedstep by step, in which change would become the very substance ofthings--to him all eyes were turned. The powerful attraction thatSpencerian evolutionism has exercised on contemporary thought is due tothat very cause. However far Spencer may seem to be from Kant, howeverignorant, indeed, he may have been of Kantianism, he felt, nevertheless, at his first contact with the biological sciences, the direction inwhich philosophy could continue to advance without laying itself open tothe Kantian criticism. 

But he had no sooner started to follow the path than he turned offshort. He had promised to retrace a genesis, and, lo! he was doingsomething entirely different. His doctrine bore indeed the name ofevolutionism; it claimed to remount and redescend the course of theuniversal becoming; but, in fact, it dealt neither with becoming norwith evolution. 

We need not enter here into a profound examination of this philosophy. Let us say merely that _the usual device of the Spencerian methodconsists in reconstructing evolution with fragments of the evolved_. IfI paste a picture on a card and then cut up the card into bits, I canreproduce the picture by rightly grouping again the small pieces. And achild who working thus with the pieces of a puzzle-picture, and puttingtogether unformed fragments of the picture finally obtains a prettycolored design, no doubt imagines that he has _produced_ design andcolor. Yet the act of drawing and painting has nothing to do with thatof putting together the fragments of a picture already drawn and alreadypainted. So, by combining together the most simple results of evolution, you may imitate well or ill the most complex effects; but of neither thesimple nor the complex will you have retraced the genesis, and theaddition of evolved to evolved will bear no resemblance whatever to themovement of evolution. 

Such, however, is Spencer's illusion. He takes reality in its presentform; he breaks it to pieces, he scatters it in fragments which hethrows to the winds; then he "integrates" these fragments and"dissipates their movement. " Having _imitated_ the Whole by a work ofmosaic, he imagines he has retraced the design of it, and made thegenesis. 

Is it matter that is in question? The diffused elements which heintegrates into visible and tangible bodies have all the air of beingthe very particles of the simple bodies, which he first supposesdisseminated throughout space. They are, at any rate, "material points, "and consequently unvarying points, veritable little solids: as ifsolidity, being what is nearest and handiest to us, could be found atthe very origin of materiality! The more physics progresses, the more itshows the impossibility of representing the properties of ether or ofelectricity--the probable base of all bodies--on the model of theproperties of the matter which we perceive. But philosophy goes backfurther even than the ether, a mere schematic figure of the relationsbetween phenomena apprehended by our senses. It knows indeed that whatis visible and tangible in things represents our possible action onthem. It is not by dividing the evolved that we shall reach theprinciple of that which evolves. It is not by recomposing the evolvedwith itself that we shall reproduce the evolution of which it is theterm. 

Is it the question of mind? By compounding the reflex with the reflex, Spencer thinks he generates instinct and rational volition one after theother. He fails to see that the specialized reflex, being a terminalpoint of evolution just as much as perfect will, cannot be supposed atthe start. That the first of the two terms should have reached its finalform before the other is probable enough; but both the one and the otherare _deposits_ of the evolution movement, and the evolution movementitself can no more be expressed as a function solely of the first thansolely of the second. We must begin by mixing the reflex and thevoluntary. We must then go in quest of the fluid reality which has beenprecipitated in this twofold form, and which probably shares in bothwithout being either. At the lowest degree of the animal scale, inliving beings that are but an undifferentiated protoplasmic mass, thereaction to stimulus does not yet call into play one definite mechanism, as in the reflex; it has not yet choice among several definitemechanisms, as in the voluntary act; it is, then, neither voluntary norreflex, though it heralds both. We experience in ourselves something ofthis true original activity when we perform semi-voluntary andsemi-automatic movements to escape a pressing danger. And yet this isbut a very imperfect imitation of the primitive character, for we areconcerned here with a mixture of two activities already formed, alreadylocalized in a brain and in a spinal cord, whereas the original activitywas a simple thing, which became diversified through the veryconstruction of mechanisms like those of the spinal cord and brain. Butto all this Spencer shuts his eyes, because it is of the essence of hismethod to recompose the consolidated with the consolidated, instead ofgoing back to the gradual process of consolidation, which is evolutionitself. 

Is it, finally, the question of the correspondence between mind andmatter? Spencer is right in defining the intellect by thiscorrespondence. He is right in regarding it as the end of an evolution. But when he comes to retrace this evolution, again he integrates theevolved with the evolved--failing to see that he is thus taking uselesstrouble, and that in positing the slightest fragment of the actuallyevolved he posits the whole--so that it is vain for him, then, topretend to make the genesis of it. 

For, according to him, the phenomena that succeed each other in natureproject into the human mind images which represent them. To therelations between phenomena, therefore, correspond symmetricallyrelations between the ideas. And the most general laws of nature, inwhich the relations between phenomena are condensed, are thus found tohave engendered the directing principles of thought, into which therelations between ideas have been integrated. Nature, therefore, isreflected in mind. The intimate structure of our thought corresponds, piece by piece, to the very skeleton of things--I admit it willingly;but, in order that the human mind may be able to represent relationsbetween phenomena, there must first be phenomena, that is to say, distinct facts, cut out in the continuity of becoming. And once we positthis particular mode of cutting up such as we perceive it to-day, weposit also the intellect such as it is to-day, for it is by relation toit, and to it alone, that reality is cut up in this manner. Is itprobable that mammals and insects notice the same aspects of nature, trace in it the same divisions, articulate the whole in the same way?And yet the insect, so far as intelligent, has already something of ourintellect. Each being cuts up the material world according to the linesthat its action must follow: it is these lines of _possible action_that, by intercrossing, mark out the net of experience of which eachmesh is a fact. No doubt, a town is composed exclusively of houses, andthe streets of the town are only the intervals between the houses: so, we may say that nature contains only facts, and that, the facts onceposited, the relations are simply the lines running between the facts. But, in a town, it is the gradual portioning of the ground into lotsthat has determined at once the place of the houses, their generalshape, and the direction of the streets: to this portioning we must goback if we wish to understand the particular mode of subdivision thatcauses each house to be where it is, each street to run as it does. Now, the cardinal error of Spencer is to take experience alreadyallotted as given, whereas the true problem is to know how the allotmentwas worked. I agree that the laws of thought are only the integration ofrelations between facts. But, when I posit the facts with the shape theyhave for me to-day, I suppose my faculties of perception andintellection such as they are in me to-day; for it is they that portionthe real into lots, they that cut the facts out in the whole of reality. Therefore, instead of saying that the relations between facts havegenerated the laws of thought, I can as well claim that it is the formof thought that has determined the shape of the facts perceived, andconsequently their relations among themselves: the two ways ofexpressing oneself are equivalent; they say at bottom the same thing. With the second, it is true, we give up speaking of evolution. But, withthe first, we only speak of it, we do not think of it any the more. Fora true evolutionism would propose to discover by what _modus vivendi_, gradually obtained, the intellect has adopted its plan of structure, andmatter its mode of subdivision. This structure and this subdivision workinto each other; they are mutually complementary; they must haveprogressed one with the other. And, whether we posit the presentstructure of mind or the present subdivision of matter, in either casewe remain in the evolved: we are told nothing of what evolves, nothingof evolution. 

And yet it is this evolution that we must discover. Already, in thefield of physics itself, the scientists who are pushing the study oftheir science furthest incline to believe that we cannot reason aboutthe parts as we reason about the whole; that the same principles are notapplicable to the origin and to the end of a progress; that neithercreation nor annihilation, for instance, is inadmissible when we areconcerned with the constituent corpuscles of the atom. Thereby they tendto place themselves in the concrete duration, in which alone there istrue generation and not only a composition of parts. It is true that thecreation and annihilation of which they speak concern the movement orthe energy, and not the imponderable medium through which the energy andthe movement are supposed to circulate. But what can remain of matterwhen you take away everything that determines it, that is to say, justenergy and movement themselves? The philosopher must go further than thescientist. Making a clean sweep of everything that is only animaginative symbol, he will see the material world melt back into asimple flux, a continuity of flowing, a becoming. And he will thus beprepared to discover real duration there where it is still more usefulto find it, in the realm of life and of consciousness. For, so far asinert matter is concerned, we may neglect the flowing without committinga serious error: matter, we have said, is weighted with geometry; andmatter, the reality which _descends_, endures only by its connectionwith that which _ascends_. But life and consciousness are this veryascension. When once we have grasped them in their essence by adoptingtheir movement, we understand how the rest of reality is derived fromthem. Evolution appears and, within this evolution, the progressivedetermination of materiality and intellectuality by the gradualconsolidation of the one and of the other. But, then, it is within theevolutionary movement that we place ourselves, in order to follow it toits present results, instead of recomposing these results artificiallywith fragments of themselves. Such seems to us to be the true functionof philosophy. So understood, philosophy is not only the turning of themind homeward, the coincidence of human consciousness with the livingprinciple whence it emanates, a contact with the creative effort: it isthe study of becoming in general, it is true evolutionism andconsequently the true continuation of science--provided that weunderstand by this word a set of truths either experienced ordemonstrated, and not a certain new scholasticism that has grown upduring the latter half of the nineteenth century around the physics ofGalileo, as the old scholasticism grew up around Aristotle. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 96: The part of this chapter which treats of the history ofsystems, particularly of the Greek philosophy, is only the very succinctrésumé of views that we developed at length, from 1900 to 1904, in ourlectures at the Collège de France, especially in a course on the_History of the Idea of Time_ (1902-1903). We then compared themechanism of conceptual thought to that of the cinematograph. We believethe comparison will be useful here. ]

[Footnote 97: The analysis of the idea of the nought which we give here(pp. 275-298) has appeared before in the _Revue philosophique_ (November1906). ]

[Footnote 98: Kant, _Critique of Pure Reason_, 2nd edition, p. 737:"From the point of view of our knowledge in general . .. The peculiarfunction of negative propositions is simply to prevent error. " Cf. Sigwart, _Logik_, 2nd edition, vol. I. Pp. 150 ff. ]

[Footnote 99: That is, we do not consider the sophism of Zeno refuted bythe fact that the geometrical progression _a_(1 + 1/_n_ + 1/_n_2 +1/_n_3 +, . .. Etc. )--in which _a_ designates the initial distance betweenAchilles and the tortoise, and _n_ the relation of their respectivevelocities--has a finite sum if _n_ is greater than 1. On this point wemay refer to the arguments of F. Evellin, which we regard as conclusive(see Evellin, _Infini et quantité_, Paris, 1880, pp. 63-97; cf. _Revuephilosophique_, vol. Xi. , 1881, pp. 564-568). The truth is thatmathematics, as we have tried to show in a former work, deals and candeal only with lengths. It has therefore had to seek devices, first, totransfer to the movement, which is not a length, the divisibility of theline passed over, and then to reconcile with experience the idea(contrary to experience and full of absurdities) of a movement that is alength, that is, of a movement _placed upon_ its trajectory andarbitrarily decomposable like it. ]

[Footnote 100: Plato, _Timaeus_, 37 D. ]

[Footnote 101: We have tried to bring out what is true and what is falsein this idea, so far as spatiality is concerned (see Chapter III. ). Itseems to us radically false as regards _duration_. ]

[Footnote 102: Aristotle, _De anima_, 430 a 14 [Greek: kai hestin ho mentoioutos nous tô pynta ginesthai, ho de tô panta poiein, ôs hexis tis, oion to phôs. Tropon gar tina ka to phôs poiei ta dynamei onta chrômataenergeia chrômata]. ]

[Footnote 103: _De caelo_, ii. 287 a 12 [Greek: tês eschatês periphorasoute kenon estin exôthen oute topos. ] _Phys. _ iv. 212 a 34 [Greek: to depan esti men hôs kinêsetai hesti d' hôs ou. Hôs men gar holon, hama tontopon hou metaballei. Kyklô de kinêsetai, tôn moriôn gar outos hotopos]. ]

[Footnote 104: _De caelo_, i. 279 a 12 [Greek: oude chronos hestin hexôtou ouranou]. _Phys. _ viii. 251 b 27 [Greek: ho chronos pathos tikinêseôs]. ]

[Footnote 105: Especially have we left almost entirely on one side thoseadmirable but somewhat fugitive intuitions that Plotinus was later toseize, to study and to fix. ]

[Footnote 106: See page 10. ]

[Footnote 107: Descartes, _Principes_, ii. § 29. ]

[Footnote 108: Descartes, _Principes_, ii. §§ 36 ff. ]

[Footnote 109: In a course of lectures on Plotinus, given at the Collègede France in 1897-1898, we tried to bring out these resemblances. Theyare numerous and impressive. The analogy is continued even in theformulae employed on each side. ]

[Footnote 110: "Le Paralogisme psycho-physiologique" (_Revue demétaphysique et de morale_, Nov. 1904, pp. 895-908). Cf. _Matière etmémoire_, Paris, 1896, chap. I. ]

INDEX

(Compiled by the Translator)

Abolition of everything a self-contradiction, 280, 283, 296, 298 idea of, 279, 282, 283, 295, 296. _See_ Nought

Absence of order, 231, 234, 274. _See_ Disorder

Absolute and freedom, 277 reality, 99, 228-9, 269, 358, 361 reality of the person, 269 time and the, 239, 240, 298, 340, 344

Absoluteness of duration, 206 of understanding, xi, 47, 152, 190, 197, 199

Abstract becoming, 304-7 multiplicity, 257-9 time, 9, 17, 20-2, 37, 39, 46, 51, 163, 318-9, 336, 352-3

Accident and essence in Aristotle's philosophy, 353 in evolution, 86-7, 104, 114-5, 127, 169, 170, 252, 254-5, 266, 267, 326-7

Accidental variations, 55, 63, 68, 69, 74, 85-6, 168

Accumulation of energy, function of vegetable organisms, 253, 255

Achilles and tortoise, in Zeno, 311, 312-3

Acquired characters, inheritance of, 76-9, 83-4, 87, 169, 170, 173, 231

Act, consciousness as inadequacy of, to representation, 144 form (or essence), quality, three classes of representation, 302-3

Action, creativeness of free, 192, 247 and concepts, 160, 297 and consciousness, xiii, 5, 143-4, 145, 179-80, 207, 262 discontinuity of, 154, 307 freedom of, in animals, 130 as function of nervous system, 262-3 indivisibility of, 94, 95, 308-9 and inert matter, 96, 136, 141-2, 156, 187, 198, 226, 366 instinct and, 136, 141 instrument of, consciousness, 180 instrument of, life, 162 instrument of matter, 161, 198-9 as instrument of consciousness, 180 and intellect. _See_ Intellect and action intensity of consciousness varies with ratio of possible, to real, 145 meaning of, 301-3 moves from want to fulness, 297, 298 organism a machine for, 252, 254, 300 and perception, 5, 11, 12, 93, 188, 189, 206, 227-30, 300, 307, 368 possible, 12, 13, 96, 144, 145, 146-7, 159, 165, 179-81, 188, 264 and science, 93, 195-6, 198-9, 329-30 and space, 203 sphere of the intellect, 155 tension in a free, 200, 207, 238, 240, 301-2

Activity, dissatisfaction the starting-point of, 297 of instinct, continuous with vital process, 139, 140 life as, 128-9, 247 mutually inverse factors in vital, 248 and nervous system, 110, 130, 132-3, 134-5, 180, 252, 261-3 organism as, 174 potential. _See_ Action, possible tension of free, 200, 202, 207-8, 223-4, 237, 239, 300-1 and torpor in evolution, 109, 111, 113, 114, 119-20, 129-30, 135-6, 181, 292 vital, has evolved divergently, 134 _See_ Divergent lines of evolution

Adaptation, 50-1, 55, 57-8, 59, 70, 101, 129, 133, 192, 255, 270, 305-6 and causation, 102 mutual, between materiality and intellectuality, 187, 206-7 and progress, 101-2

Adequate and inadequate in Spinoza, 353

Adjectives, substantives and verbs, 303-4, 315

Aesthetics and philosophy, 177

Affection, Role of, in the idea of chance, 234 in the idea of nought, 281-3, 289, 293, 295, 296 in negation, 286-7

Affirmation and negation, 285-6, 293

Age and individuality, 15-6

Albuminoid substances, 121-2

Alciope, 96

Alexandrian philosophy, 322, 323

Algae in illustration of probable consciousness in vegetable forms, 112

Alimentation, 113-4, 117, 247

Allegory of the Cave, 191

Alternations of increase and decrease of mutability of the universe, 245-6

Alveolar froth, 33-4

Ambiguity of the idea of "generality" in philosophy, 230-1, 320-1 of primitive organisms, 99, 112, 113, 129-30

Ammophila hirsuta, paralyzing instinct in, 173

Amoeba, in illustration of imitation of the living by the unorganized, 33-6 in illustration of the ambiguity of primitive organisms, 99 in illustration of the mobility characteristic of animals, 108 in illustration of the "explosive" expenditure of energy characteristic of animals, 120, 253

Anagenesis, 34

Anarchy, idea of, 233, 234. _See_ Disorder

Anatomy, comparative, and transformism, 25

Ancient philosophy, Achilles and tortoise, 311-2 Alexandrian philosophy, 322-3 Allegory of the Cave, 191 Anima (De), 322 _note_ Apogee of sensible object, 344, 345, 349 Archimedes, 343-4 Aristotle, 135, 174-5, 227-8, 314, 316, 321, 323, 324, 328-33, 347, 349, 353, 356, 370 Arrow of Zeno, 308-13 ascent toward God, in Aristotle, 323 Astronomy, ancient and modern, 334-6 attraction and impulsion in, 323-4 becoming in, 313-4, 317 bow and indivisibility of motion, 308-9 Caelo (De), of Aristotle, 322 _note_, 324 _note_ and Cartesian geometry, 334-5 causality in, 323, 325-6 change in, 313-4, 317, 328-9, 342-3 cinematographical nature of, 315 circularity of God's thought, 323-4 concentric spheres, 328 concepts, 326-7, 356 "conversion" and "procession" in, 323 degradation of ideas into sensible flux, 317-8, 321, 323-4, 327, 328, 343-5, 352-3 degrees of reality, 323-4, 327 diminution, derivation of becoming by. _See_ Degradation of Ideas, etc. Duration, 317-9 _note_, 323-4, 327-9 Eleatic philosophy, 308, 314 Enneads of Plotinus, 210 _note_ essence and accident, 354 essence or form, 314-5 eternal, 317-8, 324-6 Eternity, 317-8, 320, 324, 328-9 extension, 210 _note_, 318, 324, 327 form or idea, 314-20, 322, 327, 329-31, 352 geometry, Cartesian, and ancient philosophy, 334 God of Aristotle, 196-7, 322-4, 349, 352, 356 [Greek: hylê], 353 Idea, 314-22, 352-3 and indivisibility of motion, 307-8, 311 intelligible reality in, 326 intelligibles of Plotinus, 353 [Greek: logos], of Plotinus, 210 _note_ matter in Aristotle's philosophy, 316, 327 and modern astronomy, 333-4, 335 and modern geometry, 333-4 and modern philosophy, 226-7, 228-9, 232, 281-2, 344-5, 346, 349-51, 364, 369 and modern science, 329-30, 336, 342-3, 344-5, 357 motion in, 307-8, 312-3 necessity in, 327 [Greek: noêseôs noêsis], 356 non-being, 316, 327 [Greek: nous poiêtikos], 322 oscillation about being, sensible reality as, 317-8 Physics of Aristotle, 227-8 _note_, 324 _note_, 330-1 Plato, 48, 156, 191, 210 _note_, 316-8, 321-4, 327, 330, 348, 349 Plotinus, 210, 316, 323, 326 _note_, 349, 352-4 procession in Alexandrian philosophy, 323 [Greek: psychê], 210 _note_, 350 realism in, 232 refraction of idea through matter or non-being, 317 sectioning of becoming, 318-9 sensible reality, 314, 316-8, 321, 327-9, 352-3 [Greek: sôma], 350 space and time, 317-9, 320 Timaeus, 318 _note_ time in ancient and in modern science, 330-1, 336-7, 341-4 time and space, 317-9, 320 vision of God in Alexandrian philosophy, 322 Zeno, 308, 313

Ancient science and modern, 329-31, 336-7, 342-5, 357

Anima (De), of Aristotle, 322 _note_

Animal kingdom, 12, 105-6, 119-21, 126, 129, 131-2, 134-6, 137-8, 139, 179, 184-5

Animals, 105-47, 167, 170, 181, 183, 187, 212, 214, 246, 252, 253, 254, 262-5, 267, 271, 293, 301 deduction in, 212 induction in, 214 and man, 139-43, 183, 187, 188, 212, 263, 264, 267 and man in respect to brain, 183, 184-5, 263-5 and man in respect to consciousness, 139-43, 180, 183, 187, 188, 192, 212, 263-8 and man in respect to instruments of action, 139-43, 150-1 and man in respect to intelligence, 137-8, 187, 188, 191-2, 212 and plants, 105-39, 124-6, 143, 145, 146-7, 168-70, 181-2, 253, 254, 293 and plants in respect to activity of consciousness, 109, 111, 113, 119-21, 128-9, 132, 134-6, 142-3, 144, 181-2, 293 and plants in respect to function, 117-8, 121-2, 127 and plants in respect to instinct, 167, 170 and plants in respect to mobility, 109, 110, 113, 129-30, 132-3, 135, 181 and plants in respect to nature of consciousness, 134-5

Antagonistic currents of the vital impetus, 129, 135-6, 181, 184, 250, 258-9

Anthophora, 146-7

Antinomies of Kant, 204, 205

Antipathy. _See_ Sympathy, Feeling, Divination

Antithesis and thesis, 205

Ants, 101, 134, 140, 157

Ape's brain and consciousness contrasted with man's, 263

Aphasia, 181

Apidae, social instinct in the, 171

Apogee of instinct in the hymenoptera and of intelligence in man, 174-5 _See_ Evolutionary superiority

Apogee of sensible object, in philosophy of Ideas, 343-4, 349

Approximateness of the knowledge of matter, 206-7

Approximation, in matter, to the mathematical order, 218. _See_ Order

Archimedes, 333-4

Aristotle. _See_ Ancient Philosophy, Aristotle

Arrow, Flying, of Zeno, 308-9, 310, 312-3

Art, 6-7, 29 _note_, 45, 89, 177

Artemia Salina, transformations of, 72, 73

Arthropods in evolution, 130-5, 142

Articulate species, 133

Articulations of matter relative to action, 156, 367 of motion, 310-1 of real time, 332-3

Artificial, how far scientific knowledge is, 197, 218-9 instruments, 138, 139, 140-1

Artist, in illustration of the creativeness of duration, 340-1

Ascending cosmic movement, 11, 208, 275, 369

Ascent toward God, in Aristotle, 323

Association of organisms, 260. _See_ Individuation universal oscillation between association and individuation, 259, 260. _See_ Societies

Astronomy and deduction, 213 and the inert order, 224 modern, in reference to ancient science, 334-6

Atmosphere of spatiality bathing intelligence, 204

Atom, 240, 254, 255 as an intellectual view of matter, 203, 250 and interpenetration, 207

Attack and defence in evolution, 131-2

Attention, 2, 148-9, 154, 184, 209 discontinuity of, 2 in man and in lower animals, 184. _See_ Tension and instinct, Tension as inverted extension, Tension of personality, Sympathetic appreciation, etc. , Relaxation and intellect

Attraction and impulsion in Greek philosophy, 323, 324

Attribute and subject, 148

Automatic activity, 145 as instrument of voluntary, 252 order, 224, 231-4. _See_ Negative movement, etc. , Geometrical order

Automatism, 127, 143-4, 174, 223-4, 261, 264

Background of instinct and intelligence, consciousness as, 186

Backward-looking attitude of the intellect, 47, 48, 237

Baldwin, J. M. , 27 _note_

Ballast of intelligence, 152, 230, 239, 369-70

Bastian, 212 _note_

Bateson, 63

Becoming, 164, 236, 248-9, 273, 299-304, 307-8, 313-4, 316, 337-8, 342-3, 345, 363 in ancient philosophy, 313-4, 317 in Descartes's philosophy, 346 in Eleatic philosophy, 313-4, 315 in general, or abstract becoming, 304, 306-7 instantaneous and static views of, 272, 304-5 states of, falsely so called, 164, 247-8, 273, 298-301, 307-8 in the successors of Kant, 363. _See_ Change, New, Duration, Time, Views of reality

Bees, 101, 140, 142, 146, 166, 172

Beethoven, 224

Berthold, 34 _note_

Bethe, 176 _note_

Bifurcations of tendency, 54. _See_ Divergent lines of evolution

Biology, 12, 25, 26, 31-2, 43, 168-9, 174-5, 194-6 evolutionist, 168-9 and philosophy, 43, 194-6 and physico-chemistry, 26

Blaringhem, 85

Bodies, 156, 188, 189, 300-1, 360. _See_ Inert matter as a relaxation of the unextended into the extended defined as bundles of qualities, 349

Bois-Reymond (Du), 38

Boltzmann, 245

Bombines, social instincts in, 171

Bouvier, 142 _note_

Bow, strain of, illustrating indivisibility of motion, 308-10

Brain and consciousness, 5, 109, 110, 179-80, 183-4, 212 _note_, 252, 261-4, 270, 354, 356, 366. _See_ Nervous System in man and lower animals, 183, 184, 263-5

Brandt, 66 _note_

Breast-Plate, in reference to animal mobility, 130, 131. _See_ Carapace, Cellulose envelope

Brown-Séquard, 80-2

Bulb, medullary, in the development of the nervous system, 110, 252

Busquet, 259 _note_

Bütschli, 33 _note_

Buttel-Reepen, 171 _note_

Butterflies, in illustration of variation from evolutionary type, 72

Caelo (De), of Aristotle, 322 _note_, 324 _note_

Calcareous sheath, in reference to animal mobility, 130-1

Calkins, 16 _note_

Canal, in illustration of the relation of function and structure, 93

Canalization, in illustration of the function of animal organisms, 93, 95, 110, 126, 256, 270

Canvas, embroidering "something" on the, of "nothing, " 297

Caprice, an attribute not of freedom but of mechanism, 47

Carapace, in reference to animal mobility, 130-1

Carbohydrates, in reference to the function of the animal organism, 121-2

Carbon, in reference to the function of organisms, 107, 113, 114, 117, 254, 255

Carbonic acid, in reference to the function of organisms, 254, 255

Carnot, 243, 246, 256

Cartesian geometry, compared with ancient, 334

Cartesianism, 345, 356, 358

Cartesians, 358. _See_ Spinoza, Leibniz

Carving, the, of matter by intellect, 155

Categorical propositions, characteristic of instinctive knowledge, 149-50

Categories, conceptual, x, xiii, 48, 147, 148-9, 165, 189-90, 195-7, 207, 220-1, 257-60, 265, 358, 361. _See_ Concept deduction of, and genesis of the intellect, 196, 207, 359. _See_ Genesis of matter and of the intellect innate, 147, 148-9 misfit for the vital, x, xiii, 48, 165, 195-9, 220-1, 257-9 in reference to the adaptation to each other of the matter and form of knowledge, 361

Cats, in illustration of the law of correlation, 67

Causal relation in Aristotle, 325 between consciousness and movement, 111 in Greek philosophy, 324-5

Causality, mechanical, a category which does not apply to life, x, xiv, 177 in the philosophy of Ideas, 323-6

Causation and adaptation, 101, 102 final, involves mechanical, 44

Cause and effect as mathematical functions of each other, 20, 21 efficient, 238, 277, 323 efficient, in Aristotle's philosophy, 324 efficient, in Leibniz's philosophy, 353 final, 40, 44, 238 final, in Aristotle's philosophy, 324 by impulsion, release and unwinding, 73 mechanical, as containing effect, 14, 233, 269 in the vital order, 95, 164

Cave, Plato's allegory of the, 191

Cell, 16, 24, 33, 162, 166, 167, 260, 269 as artificial construct, 162 in the "colonial theory, " 260 division, 16, 24, 33 instinct in the, 166, 167 in relation to the soul, 269

Cellulose envelope in reference to vegetable immobility and torpor, 108, 111, 130

Cerebral activity and consciousness, 5, 109-10, 180-1, 183-4, 212 _note_, 252, 253, 261, 264, 268, 270, 350, 351, 354, 355, 366 mechanism, 5, 252, 253, 262, 264, 366

Cerebro-spinal system, 124. _See_ Nervous system

Certainty of induction, 215, 216

Chance analogous to disorder, 233, 234. _See_ Affection in evolution, 86-7, 104, 114-5, 126, 169-70, 171, 252, 254, 255, 266, 267, 326-7. _See_ Indetermination

Change, 1, 7-8, 18, 85-6, 248, 275, 294, 300-304, 308, 313-4, 317, 326, 328-9, 343-4, 344-5 in ancient philosophy, 313-4, 316-7, 325-6, 327-9, 343, 345 in Eleatic philosophy, 314 known only from within, 307-8

Chaos, 232. _See_ Disorder

Character, moral, 5, 99-100

Charrin, 81 _note_

Chemistry, 27, 34-6, 55, 72, 74, 98, 194, 226, 256, 260

Child, intelligence in, 147-8 adolescence of, in illustration of evolutionary becoming, 311-3

Chipped stone, in paleontology, 139

Chlorophyllian function, 107-9, 114, 117, 246, 253

Choice, 110, 125, 143-5, 179, 180, 252, 260-4, 276, 366 and consciousness, 110, 179, 260-4

Chrysalis, 114 _note_

Cinematograph, 306-7, 339-40

Cinematographical character of ancient philosophy, 315-6 of intellectual knowledge, 306, 307, 312-8, 323-4, 331-3, 346 of language, 306-7, 312-5 of modern science, 329-31, 336-7, 341-3, 345, 346, 347

Circle of the given, broken by action, 192, 247 logical and physical, 277 vicious, in intellectualist philosophy, 193, 197, 320 vicious, in the intuitional method is only apparent, 192, 193

Circularity of God's thought in Aristotle's philosophy, 324 of each special evolution, 128

Circulation, protoplasmic, imitated, 32-3 in plants and animals, 108

Circumstances in the determination of evolution, 101-2, 128-9, 133, 138, 142, 150-1, 167, 168, 170-1, 193, 194, 252, 256 in relation to special instincts, 138, 168, 193

Classes of words corresponding to the three kinds of representation, 303-4

Clausius, 243

Clearness characteristic of intellect, 160

Cleft between the organized and the unorganized, 190, 196-9

Climbing plants, instincts of, 170 _note_

Coincidence of matter with space as in Kant, 206, 207, 244 of mind with intellect as in Kant, 48, 206 of qualities, 216 of seeing and willing, 237 of self with self, definition of the feeling of duration, 199-200

Coleopter, instinct in, 146

Colonial theory, 259, 260

Colonies, microbial, 259

Color variation in lizards, 72, 74

Coming and going of the mind between the without and the within gives rise to the idea of "Nothing, " 279 between nature and mind, the true method of philosophy, 239

Common-sense, 29, 153, 161, 213, 224, 277 defined as continuous experience of the real, 213

Comparison of ancient philosophy with modern, 226, 228-9, 232, 328-9, 345-6, 349-51, 353-4, 356

Compenetration, 352-3. _See_ Interpenetration

Complementarity of forms evolved, xii, xiii, 51, 101, 103, 113, 116-7, 135, 136, 254, 255 of instinct and intelligence, 146, 173. _See_ Opposition of Instinct and Intelligence of intuition and intellect, 343, 345 in the powers of life, 49, 96-7, 140-3, 177, 178-9, 183-5, 239, 246, 254, 343 of science and metaphysics, 344

Complexity of the order of mathematics, 208-10, 217, 251

Compound reflex, instinct as a, 174

Concentration, intellect as, 191, 301 of personality, 198-9, 201

Concentric spheres in Aristotle's philosophy, 328

Concept accessory to action, ix analogy of, with the solid body, ix in animals, 187 externality of, 160, 168, 175-8, 199-200, 251, 306, 311, 314 fringed about with intuition, 46 and image distinguished, 160, 279 impotent to grasp life, ix-xiii, 49 intellect the concept-making faculty, vi, 49 misfit for the vital, 48 representation of the act by which the intellect is fixed on things, 161 synthesis of, in ancient philosophy, 325-6, 356. _See_ Categories, Externality, Frames, Image, Space, Symbol

Conditions, external, in evolution, 128-9, 133, 138, 141-2, 150-1, 166-7, 168, 170, 193, 194, 251, 256, 257 external, in determination of special instinct, 141-2, 150-1, 167, 168, 171

Conduct, mechanism and finality in the evolution of, 47. _See_ Freedom, Determination, Indetermination

Confused plurality of life, 257

Conjugation of Infusoria, 16

Consciousness and action, ix, 5, 144, 145, 179-80, 207, 260-1 consciousness as appendage to action, ix consciousness as arithmetical difference between possible and real activity, 145 consciousness as auxiliary to action, 179-80 consciousness as inadequacy of act to representation, 144 consciousness as instrument of action, 180 consciousness as interval between possible and real action, 145, 179 consciousness as light from zone of possible actions surrounding the real act, 179 consciousness and locomotion, 262 consciousness plugged up by action, 144, 145. _See_ Torpor, Sleep consciousness as sketch of action, 207 intensity of, varies with ratio of possible to real action, 145

Consciousness in animals, as distinguished from the consciousness of plants, 130, 135-6, 143 as distinguished from the consciousness of man, 139-43, 180, 183, 184, 187, 188, 212, 263-9. _See_ Torpor, Sleep characteristic of animals, torpor of plants, 109, 111, 113, 120, 128-9, 135-6, 181, 182, 292 as background of instinct and intelligence, 186 and brain, 180, 262, 263, 269, 270, 354 and choice, 110, 144-5, 179, 262-4 coextensive with universal life, 186, 270 and creation, consciousness as demand for creation, 261 current of, penetrating matter, 181, 270 as deficiency of instinct, 145 in dog and man, 180 double form of, 179 function of, 207 as hesitation or choice, 143, 144 imprisonment of, 180, 183-4, 264 as invention and freedom, 264, 270 in man as distinguished from, in lower forms of life, 180, 263, 264, 267, 268 and matter, 179, 181-2 as motive principle of evolution, 181-2 nullified, as distinguished from the absence of consciousness, 143 and the organism, 270 in plants, 131, 135-6, 143 as world principle, 237, 261

Conservation of energy, 243, 244

Construction, 139-42, 150-1, 156, 157-8, 180, 182. _See_ Manufacture, Solid the characteristic work of intellect, 163-4 as the method of Kant's successors, 364-5

Contingency, 96, 255, 268. _See_ Accident, Chance the, of order, 231, 235

Continuation of vital process in instinct, 138, 139, 166, 167, 246. _See_ Variations, Vital process

Continuity, 1, 26, 29-30, 37, 138-40, 154, 162-4, 258, 302, 306-7, 311-2, 321, 325-6, 329-30, 347 of becoming, 306-7, 312 of change, 325-6 of evolution, 18, 19 of extension, 154 of germinative plasma, 26, 37 of instinct with vital process, 139, 140, 166-7, 246 of life, 1-11, 29, 163-4, 258 of living substance, 162 of psychic life, 1, 30 of the real, 302, 329-30 of sensible intuition with ultra-intellectual, 361 of sensible universe, 346

Conventionality of science, 207

"Conversion" and "procession" in Alexandrian philosophy, 323

Cook, Plato's comparison of the, and the dialectician, 156

Cope, 35 _note_, 77, 111

Correlation, law of, 66, 67

Correspondence between mind and matter in Spencer, 368. _See_ Simultaneity

Cortical mechanism, 252, 253, 262. _See_ Cerebral mechanism

Cosmogony and genesis of matter, 188. _See_ Genesis of matter and of intellect, Spencer

Cosmology the, that follows from the philosophy of Ideas, 315, 328 as reversed psychology, 208

Counterweight representation as, to action, 145

Counting simultaneities, the measurement of time is, 338, 341-2

Creation, xi, 7, 11, 12, 22, 29, 30, 45, 93, 100, 101, 103, 105, 108, 114, 128-31, 161, 163-4, 178, 200, 217, 218, 223, 226, 230, 237-40, 261, 270, 275, 339-40 in Descartes's philosophy, 345 of intellect, 248-9 of matter, 237, 239, 247-8, 249. _See_ Materiality the inversion of spirituality of present by past, 5, 20-3, 27, 167, 199-202 the vital order as, 230

Creative evolution, 7, 15, 21, 27, 29, 36, 37, 65, 100, 104-5, 161, 163, 223-4, 230-1, 237, 264, 269

Creativeness of free action, 192, 243 of invention, 250

Creeping plants in illustration of vegetable mobility, 108

Cricket victim of paralyzing instinct of sphex, 172

Criterion, quest of a, 53 _ff. _ of evolutionary rank, 133, 265

Criticism, Kantian, 205, 287 _note_, 356, 360-2 of knowledge, 194-5

Cross-cuts through becoming by intellect, 314. _See_ Views of reality through matter by perception, 206

Cross-roads of vital tendency, 51, 52, 54, 110, 126

Crustacea, 19, 111, 129-30

Crystal illustrating (by contrast) individuation, 12

Cuénot, 79 _note_

Culminating points of evolutionary progress, 50, 133-5. _See_ Evolutionary superiority

Current, 26, 27, 51, 185, 236, 237, 250, 266, 269

Currents, antagonistic, 250 of existence, 185 of life penetrating matter, 26, 27, 266, 270 vital, 26, 27, 51, 237, 266, 270 of will penetrating matter, 237

Curves, as symbol of life, 32, 90, 213

Cuts through becoming by the intellect, 313-4. _See_ Views of reality, Snapshots in illustration, etc. Through matter by perception, 206

Cuvier, 125 _note_

Dantec (Le), 18 _note_, 34 _note_

Darwin, 62-5, 66, 72, 108, 170 _note_

Darwinism, 56, 85, 86

Dastre, 36 _note_

Dead, the, is the object of intellect, 165

Dead-locks in speculation, 155, 312

Death, 246 _note_, 271

Declivity descended by matter, 208, 246, 256, 339-40. _See_ Descending movement

Decomposing and recomposing powers characteristic of intellect, 157, 251

Deduction, analogy between, related to moral sphere and tangent to curve, 213 and astronomy, 213 duration refractory to, 213 geometry the ideal limit of, 213-26, 361 in animals, 212 inverse to positive spiritual effort, 212 nature of, 211 physics and, 213 weakness of, in psychology and moral science, 213

Defence and attack in evolution, 132

Deficiency of will the negative condition of mathematical order and complexity, 209

Definition in the realm of life, 13, 105, 106

Degenerates, 133-5

_Dégénérescence sénile (La)_, by Metchnikoff, 18 _note_

Degradation of energy, 241, 242, 246 of the extra-spatial into the spatial, 207 of the ideas into the sensible flux in ancient philosophy, 317-9, 324-5, 327-9, 331, 343, 345, 352-3

Degrees of being in the successors of Kant, 362-3

Degrees of reality in Greek philosophy, 324, 327

Delage, 59 _note_, 81 _note_, 260 _note_

Delamare, 81 _note_

Deliberation, 144

De Manacéine, 124 _note_

Deposit, instinct and intelligence as deposits, emanations, issues, or aspects of life, x, xii, xiii, 49, 103, 105, 136, 365

De Saporta, 107 _note_

Descartes, 280, 334, 345, 346, 353, 358 becoming, 345-6 creation, 346 determinism, 345 duration, 346 freedom, 345, 346 geometry, 334 God, 346 image and idea or concept, 281 indeterminism, 345 mechanism, 345, 346 motion, 346 vacillation between abstract time and real duration, 345

Descending movement of existence, 11, 202, 203, 208, 271, 275, 369

Design, motionless, of action the object of intellect, 154-5, 299, 301-2, 303

Detention in the dream state, 202 of intuition in intellect, 238

Determination, 76-7, 129-30, 223, 246

Determinism, 217, 264, 345, 348. _See_ Inert matter, Geometry in Descartes, 345

Development, 133, 134-5, 141. _See_ Order, Progress, Evolution, Superiority

Deviation from type, 82-4

Dialect and intuition in philosophy, 238

Dichotomy of the real in modern philosophy, 350

Differentiation of parts in an organism, 253, 260

Dilemma of any systematic metaphysics, 195, 197, 230

Diminution, derivation of becoming from being by, in ancient philosophy, 316, 317, 322, 323-4, 327-8, 343-5, 352 geometrical order as, or lower complication of the vital order, 236

Dionaea illustrating certain animal characteristics in plants, 107, 108, 109

Discontinuity of action, 154, 306-7 of attention, 2 of extension relative to action, 154, 163 of knowledge, 306 of living substance, 163 a positive idea, 154

Discontinuous the object of intellect, 154

Discord in nature, 127, 128, 254-5, 267

Disorder, 40, 104, 222-3, 225-6, 232-5, 274. _See_ Expectation, Order, mathematical, Orders of reality, two

Disproportion between an invention and its consequences, 182

Dissociation as a cosmic principle opposed to association, 260 of tendencies, 54, 89, 135, 254, 255, 257, 258. _See_ Divergent lines of evolution

Distance, extension as the, between what is and what ought to be, 318-9, 327-8, 331

Distinct multiplicity in the dream state, 201, 210 of the inert, 257

Distinctness characteristic of the intellect, 160, 237, 251 characteristic of perception, 227, 251 as spatiality, 203, 207-8, 244, 250

Divergent lines of evolution, xii, 54, 55, 87, 97-101, 103-4, 106, 107, 109, 112, 113, 116, 119, 130, 132, 134-5, 142, 149, 150, 168, 173, 181, 254, 255, 266, 267. _See_ Dissociation of tendencies, Complementarity, etc. , Schisms in the primitive impulsion of life

Diversity, sensible, 205, 220-1, 231, 235, 236

Divination, instinct as, 176. _See_ Sympathy, etc. 

Divisibility of extension, 154, 162

Division as function of intellect, 152, 154, 162-3, 189 of labor, 99, 110, 118, 157, 166, 260 of labor in cells, 166

Dog and man, consciousness in, 180

Dogmatism of the ancient epistemology contrasted with the relativism of the modern, 230 of Leibniz and Spinoza, 356-7 skepticism, and relativism, 196-7, 230

Dogs and the law of correlation, 66

Domestication of animals and heredity, 80

Dominants of Reinke, 42 _note_

Dorfmeister, 72

Dream, 144, 180-1, 202, 209, 256. _See_ Interpenetration, Relaxation, Detention, Recollection as relaxation, 202

Driesch, 42 _note_

Drosera, 107, 108, 109

Dufourt, 124 _note_

Duhem, 242 _note_

Dunan, Ch. , xv _note_

Duration, xiv _note_, 2, 4-6, 8-11, 15, 17, 21, 22, 37, 39, 46, 51, 199, 201, 206, 213, 216, 240, 272, 273, 276, 298-9, 308-9, 317-8, 319 _note_, 324, 328, 332, 339, 342, 343, 345, 354, 361, 363-4 absoluteness of, 206 and deduction, 213 in Descartes's philosophy, 346 gnawing of, 4, 8, 46 indivisibility of, 6, 308-9 and induction, 216 and the inert, 343-4 in the philosophy of the Ideas, 316-7, 319 _note_, 324, 327, 328-9 rhythm of, 11, 128, 346. _See_ Creation, Evolution, Invention, Time, Unforeseeableness, Uniqueness

Echinoderms in reference to animal mobility, 130, 131

Efficient cause in conception of chance, 234 Spinoza and, 269

Effort in evolution, 170

[Greek: Eidos], 314-5

Eimer, 55, 72, 73, 86

Elaborateness of the mathematical order, 208-10, 217, 251

Eleatic philosophy, 308, 314-5

Emanation, logical thought an, issue, aspect or deposit of life, ix, xii, xiii, 49

Embroidering "something" on the canvas of "nothing, " 297

Embroidery by descendants on the canvas handed down by ancestors, 23

Embryo, 18, 19, 26, 27, 75, 81, 89, 101, 166

Embryogeny, comparative, and transformism, 25

Embryonic life, 27, 166

Empirical study of evolution the centre of the theory of knowledge and of the theory of life, 178 theories of knowledge, 205

Empty, thinking the full by means of the empty, 273-4

End in Eleatic philosophy, 314-5 of science is practical utility, 329

Energy, 115-7, 120-3, 242, 243, 245, 246, 252-5, 256, 257, 262 conservation of, 242 degradation of, 242, 243, 246 solar, stored by plants, released by animals, 245, 254

Enneadae of Plotinus, 210 _note_

Entelechy of Driesch, 42 _note_

Entropy, 243

Environment in evolution, 129, 133, 138, 140, 142, 150, 167, 168, 170, 192, 193, 252, 256, 257 and special instincts, 138, 168, 192, 193

Epiphenomenalism, 262

Essence and accidents in Aristotle's philosophy, 353 or form in Eleatic philosophy, 314-5 the meaning of, 302-3

Essences (or forms), qualities and acts, the three kinds of representation, 303-4

Eternity, 39, 298, 314, 317, 320, 324, 328, 346, 352, 354 in the philosophy of Ideas, 316-7, 319, 324, 328 in Spinoza's philosophy, 353

Euglena, 116

Evellin, 311 _note_

Eventual actions, 11, 96. _See_ Possible activity

Evolution, ix-xv, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26-7, 37, 46-55, 63, 68, 79 _note_, 84-8, 97-105, 107, 113, 116, 126, 127, 129-30, 131-2, 133, 134, 136, 138-40, 141-2, 143, 161, 166, 167, 168-72, 173, 174, 175, 179, 181, 182, 185, 186, 190, 193, 198-9, 207-8, 224, 231, 242 _note_, 246, 248, 249, 251, 252, 254, 264-6, 268, 273, 302, 311, 345, 359, 360, 366 accident in, 104, 169, 170, 173, 174, 251, 252 animal, a progress toward mobility, 131 antagonistic tendencies in, 103, 113, 185 automatic and determinate, is action being undone, 248 blind alleys of, 129 circularity of each special, 128 complementarity of the divergent lines of, 97-102, 103, 116 conceptually inexpressible, 49, 50, 52, 53, 127, 181, 273 continuity of, 18, 19, 26, 37, 46, 273, 302, 312, 345 creative, 7, 15, 21, 27, 30, 36, 37, 65, 100, 105, 161, 162, 163, 223, 230, 238, 264, 269 culminating points of, 50, 133, 174, 185, 265, 266, 268 development by, 133, 134, 141-2 divergent lines of, xii, 53, 54, 87, 97-101, 103-4, 107, 173-4, 246 and duration, 20, 22, 37, 45-6 empirical study of, the centre of the theory of knowledge and of life, 178 and environment, 101-3, 129, 133, 138, 142, 150, 167, 168, 169, 192, 193, 251, 256, 257 of instinct, 170, 171, 174-5. _See_ Divergent lines, etc. , Culminating points, etc. , Evolution and environment of intellect, x-xii, 153, 186, 189-90, 193, 198-9, 207-8, 359, 360. _See_ Divergent lines, etc. , Culminating points, etc. , Genesis of matter and of intellect as invention, 344 of man, 264, 266, 268. _See_ Culminating points, etc. Motive principle of, is consciousness, 181 of species product of the vital impetus opposed by matter, 247-8, 254 and transformism, 24 unforeseeable, 47, 48, 53, 86, 224 variation in, 23-4, 55, 63, 68, 72 _note_, 85, 131, 137-8, 167, 169, 171, 264

Evolutionary, qualitative, and extensive motion 302-3, 311, 312 superiority, 133-5, 174-5. _See_ Success, Criterion of evolutionary rank, Culminating points, etc. 

Evolutionism, x-xii, xiv, 77, 84, 364

Exhaustion of the mutability of the universe, 337-8

Existence, logical, as contrasted with psychical and physical, 276, 362 of matter tends toward instantaneity, 201 of self means change, 1 _ff. _ superaddition of, upon nothingness, 276

Expectation, 214-6, 221, 222, 226, 233, 235, 274, 281, 292 in conception of disorder, 221, 222, 226, 233, 234, 235, 274 in conception of void or naught, 282, 292

Experience, 138, 147, 177, 197, 204, 229, 321, 354, 359, 363, 368

Explosion, illustrating cause by release, 73

Explosive character of animal energy, 116, 119, 120, 246 of organization, 92

Explosives, manufacture of, by plants and use by animals, 246, 254

Extension, 149, 154, 161, 202, 203, 207, 211, 223, 236, 245, 318-20, 324, 327, 351, 352 continuity of, 154 discontinuity of, relative to action, 154, 162 as the distance between what is and what ought to be, 318 divisibility of, 154, 162 the most general property of matter, 154, 250, 251 the inverse movement to tension, 245 of knowledge, 150 in Leibniz's philosophy, 351, 352 of matter in space, 204, 211 in the philosophy of Ideas, 318-9, 323-4, 327 and relaxation, 202, 207, 209, 211, 212, 218, 223, 245 in Spinoza's philosophy, 350 in the Transcendental Aesthetic, 203 unity of, 158-9 as weakening of the essence of being, in Plotinus, 210 _note_

Extensive, evolutionary and qualitative motion, 302-3, 311, 312

External conditions in evolution, 128, 133, 137, 141-2, 150-1, 167, 168, 170, 192, 193, 252, 256, 257 finality, 41

Externality of concepts, 160, 168, 174, 177, 199, 251, 305, 311-4 the most general property of matter, 154, 250, 251

Externalized action in distinction from internalized, 147, 165. _See_ Somnambulism, etc. , Automatic activity, etc. 

Eye of mollusc and vertebrate compared, 60, 75, 77, 84, 86, 87-8

Fabre, 172 _note_

Fabrication. _See_ Construction

Fallacies, two fundamental, 272, 273

Fallacy of thinking being by not-being, 276, 277, 284, 297-8 of thinking the full by the empty, 273-5 of thinking motion by the motionless, 272, 273, 297-8, 307-8, 309-14

Fallibility of instinct, 172-3

Falling back of matter upon consciousness, 264 bodies, comparison of Aristotle and Galileo, 228, 331-2, 334 weight, figure of material world, 245, 246

Familiar, the, is the object of intellect, 163, 164, 199, 270

Faraday, 203

Fasting, in reference to primacy of nervous system over the other physiological systems, 124

Fauna, menace of torpor in primitive, 130

Feeling in the conception of chance, 207 and instinct, 143, 174-5

Fencing-master, illustrating hereditary transmission, 79

Ferments, certain characteristics of, 106

Fertilization of orchids by insects, by Darwin, 170 _note_

Fichte's conception of the intellect, 189-90, 357

Filings, iron, in illustration of the relation of structure to function, 94, 95

Film, cinematographic, figure of abstract motion, 304-6

Final cause, 40, 45, 234, 325 conception of, involves conception of mechanical cause, 44 God as, in Aristotle, 322-3

Finalism, 39-53, 58, 74, 88-97, 101-5, 126-8

Finality, 41, 164, 177-8, 185, 223, 224, 266 external and internal, 41 misfit for the vital, 177, 223-4, 225, 266 and the unforeseeableness of life, 164, 185

Fischel, 75 _note_

Fish in illustration of animal tendency to mobility, 130, 131

Fixation of nutritive elements, 107-9, 113, 117, 246, 247, 253

Fixity, 108-13, 118, 119, 130, 155. _See_ Torpor apparent or relative, 155 cellulose envelope and the, of plants, 108, 111, 130 of extension, 155 of plants, 108-13, 118, 119, 130-1 of torpid animals, 130

Flint hatchets and human intelligence, 137

Fluidity of life, 153, 165, 193 of matter as a whole, 186, 369

Flux of material bodies, 265 of reality, 250, 251, 337, 342, 344

Flying arrow of Zeno, 308, 309, 310

Focalization of personality, 201

Food, 106-9, 113-4, 117, 120, 121, 246, 247, 254

Foraminifera, failure of certain, to evolve, 197

Force, 126-7, 141, 149, 150, 175, 246, 254, 339 life a, inverse to matter, 246 limitedness of vital force, 126, 127, 141, 149, 162 time as, 339-40

Forel, 176 _note_

Foreseeing, 8, 28, 29, 30, 37, 45, 47, 96. _See_ Unforeseeableness

Form, xi, 51, 101, 104, 113, 116-8, 129, 135-6, 148-53, 155, 156, 160, 164, 195-7, 222, 237, 250, 255, 302, 303, 314, 317, 318, 322, 341, 357, 359, 361, 362 complementarity of forms evolved, xi, 51, 101, 104, 113, 116-8, 135-6, 255 expansion of the forms of consciousness, xii, xiii (or essences), qualities and acts the three kinds of representation, 302-3 God as pure form in Aristotle, 196, 322 or idea in ancient philosophy, 317, 318, 330 of intelligence, xiv, 48, 147, 148, 165, 190, 195, 196, 198, 207, 219, 257-9, 266, 358-9, 361. _See_ Concept and matter in creation, 239, 250 and matter in knowledge, 195, 361 a snapshot view of transition, 302

Formal knowledge, 152 logic, 292

Forms of sensibility, 361

Fossil species, 102

Foster, 125 _note_

Fox in illustration of animal intelligence, 138

Frames of the understanding, 46-7, 48, 150-2, 173, 177, 197-9, 219-20, 223-4, 258, 270, 313, 358, 364 fit the inert, 197, 218 inadequate to reality entire, 364 misfit for the vital, x, xiii, xiv, 46, 48, 173, 177, 197-9, 223, 258, 313 product of life, 358 transform freedom into necessity, 270 utility of, lies in their unlimited application, 149-50, 152

Freedom, 11, 48, 126, 130, 163, 164, 200, 202, 207, 208, 217, 223, 231, 237, 239, 247, 249, 264-6, 269, 270, 277, 300, 339-41, 345, 346 the absolute as freely acting, 277 affirmed by conscience, 269 animal characteristic rather than vegetable, 129-30 caprice attribute not of, but of mechanism, 47 coextensiveness of consciousness with, 111, 112, 202, 264, 270 of creation and life, 247, 254, 255 creativeness of, 223, 239, 248 in Descartes's philosophy, 345, 346 as efficient causality, 277 inversion of necessity, 236 and liberation of consciousness, 265, 266. _See_ Imprisonment of consciousness and novelty, 12, 163, 164, 200, 218, 231, 239, 249, 270, 339-42 order in, 223 property of every organism, 129-31 relaxation of, into necessity, 217 tendency of, to self-negation in habit, 127 tension of, 200, 201, 202, 207, 223, 237, 301 transformed by the understanding into necessity, 270 _See_ Spontaneity

Fringe of intelligence around instinct, 136 of intuition around intellect, xii, xiii, 46 of possible action around real action, 179, 272

Froth, alveolar, in imitation of organic phenomena, 33-4

Full, fallacy of thinking the, by the empty, 273-6

Function, ix, 3, 5, 44, 46, 47, 88-90, 94, 95, 106-10, 113, 114, 117, 120, 121, 127, 132, 140, 141, 145, 152, 153, 157, 161, 163, 164, 168, 173-5, 186-92, 199, 206, 207, 233, 237, 246, 251, 254-6, 262, 263, 270, 273, 298, 306, 346, 358, 369 accumulation of energy the function of vegetable organisms, 254, 255 action the, of intellect, ix, 12, 44, 47, 93, 161, 162, 186-8, 206, 251, 273, 305 action the, of nervous system, 262, 263 alimentation, 106, 107, 120, 121, 246, 254 of animals is canalization of energy, 93, 110, 126, 255, 256 carbon and the, of organisms, 107, 113, 114, 117, 254, 255 chlorophyllian, 107-9, 114, 117, 246, 254 concept-making the, of intellect, x, 49 of consciousness: sketching movements, 207 construction the, of intellect, 108 illumination of action, of perception, 5, 206, 307-8 of intelligence: action, ix, 12, 44, 46, 93, 160, 162, 186-8, 206, 251, 273, 307-8 of intelligence: concept-making, x, 50 of intelligence: construction, 160, 163, 181-2 of intelligence: division, 154, 155, 162, 189 of intelligence: illumination of action by perception, 5, 206, 301 of intelligence: repetition, 164, 199, 214-6 of intelligence: retrospection, 47, 237 of intelligence: connecting same with same, 199, 233, 270 of intelligence: scanning the rhythm of the universe, 346 of intelligence: tactualizing all perception, 168 of intelligence: unification, 152, 154, 357 of the nervous system: action, 262, 263 and organ, 88-90, 94, 95, 132-3, 140, 141, 158. _See_ Function and structure and organ in arthropods, vertebrates and man, 132-3 of the organism, 94, 106-10, 112, 114, 117, 120, 126, 173-5, 246, 253-6 of the organism, alimentation, 106, 107, 120, 121, 246, 254 of the organism, animal: canalization of energy, 93, 110, 126, 255, 256 of the organism, carbon in, 107, 113, 114, 117, 254, 255 of the organism, chlorophyllian function, 107-9, 114, 117, 246, 247, 254 of the organism, primary functions of life: storage and expenditure of energy, 254-6 of the organism, vegetable: accumulation of energy, 254, 255 of philosophy: adoption of the evolutionary movement of life and consciousness, 370 of science, 168, 346 sketching movements the, of consciousness, 207 and structure, 55, 62, 66, 69, 74, 75, 76, 86, 88-91, 93, 94, 96, 118, 132, 140, 141, 158, 162, 250, 252, 256 tactualizing all perception the, of science, 168 of vegetable organism: accumulation of energy, 254, 255

Functions of life, the two: storage and expenditure of energy, 254-6

Galileo, homogeneity of time in, 332 his influence on metaphysics, 20, 228 his influence on modern science, 334, 335 extension of Galileo's physics, 357, 370 his theory of the fall of bodies compared with Aristotle's, 228, 331, 332, 334

Ganoid breast-plate of ancient fishes, in reference to animal mobility, 130, 131

Gaudry, 130 _note_

Genera, relation of, to individuals, 226 relation of, to laws, 225, 226, 330 potential, 226-7 and signs, 158

Generality, ambiguity of the idea of, in philosophy, 229-31, 236

Generalization dependent on repetition, 230, 231 distinguished from transference of sign, 158 in the vital and mathematical orders, 224, 225, 230

Generic, type of the: similarity of structure between generating and generated, 223, 224

Genesis, xiii, xiv, 153, 186-199, 207, 359, 360 of intellect, xiii, xiv, 153, 186, 187, 190, 193, 194, 196-7, 207, 264, 360 of knowledge, 191 of matter, xiii, xiv, 153, 186, 188, 190, 193, 199, 207, 360

Genius and the willed order, 223, 237

Genus. _See_ Genera

Geometrical, the, is the object of the intellect, 190

Geometrical order as a diminution or lower complication of the vital, 223, 225, 236, 330. _See_ Genera, Relation of, to laws mutual contingency of, and vital order, 235 _See_ Mathematical order space, relation of, to the spatiality of things, 203

Geometrism, the latent, of intellect, 194, 211-3

Geometry, fitness of, to matter, 10 goal of intellectual operations, 211, 213, 218 ideal limit of induction and deduction, 214-8, 361. _See_ Space, Descending movement of existence modern, compared with ancient, 36, 161, 333-4 natural, 194, 211-2 perception impregnated with, 205, 230 reasoning in, contrasted with reasoning concerning life, 7, 8 scientific, 161, 211

Germ, accidental predisposition of, in Neo-Darwinism, 168, 169, 170

Germ-plasm, continuity of, 27, 37, 78-83

Giard, 84

Glucose in organic function, 122, 123

Glycogen in organic function, 122-4

God, as activity, 249 of Aristotle, 196, 322, 325, 349, 353, 356-7 ascent toward, in Aristotle's philosophy, 322-3 circularity of God's thought, in Aristotle's philosophy, 324, 325 in Descartes's philosophy, 346, 347 as efficient cause in Aristotle's philosophy, 324 as hypostasis of the unity of nature, 196, 322, 357 in Leibniz's philosophy, 352, 353, 356-7 as eternal matter, 196-7 as pure form, 196-7, 322 in Spinoza's philosophy, 351, 357

Greek philosophy. _See_ Ancient philosophy

Green parts of plants, 107-9, 114, 117, 246, 247, 254

Growing old, 15

Growth, creation is, 240-1, 275 and novelty, 231 of the powers of life, 132, 134-5 reality is, 237 of the universe, 343, 345

Guérin, P. , 59 _note_

Guinea-pig, in illustration of hereditary transmission, 80, 81

Habit and consciousness annulled, 143 form of knowledge a habit or bent of attention, 148 and heredity, 78, 93, 169, 170, 173. _See_ Acquired characters, inheritance of instinct as an intelligent, 173-4 and invention in animals, 264 and invention in man, 265 tendency of freedom to self-negation in, 127-8

Harmony between instinct and life, and between intelligence and the inert, 187, 194-5, 198 of the organic world is complementarity due to a common original impulse 50, 51, 103, 116, 118 pre-established, 205, 206 in radical finalism, 127-8. _See_ Discord

Hartog, 60 _note_

Hatchets, ancient flint, and human intellect, 137

Heliocentric radius-vector in Kepler's laws, 333-4

Hereditary transmission, 76-83, 87, 168-9, 170, 173, 225-6, 230 domestication of animals and, 80-1 habit and, 79, 83, 169, 170, 173

Hesitation or choice, consciousness as, 143, 144

Heteroblastia and identical structures on divergent lines of evolution, 75

Heymons, 72 _note_

History as creative evolution, 6, 15, 21, 26, 29, 36, 37, 65-6, 103-4, 105, 163, 264, 269 of philosophy, 238

Hive as an organism, 166

_Homo faber_, designation of human species, 139

Homogeneity of space, 156, 212 the sphere of intellect, 163 of time in Galileo, 332

Horse-fly illustrating the object of instinct, 146

Houssay, 109 _note_

Human and animal attention, 184 and animal brain, 184, 263-5 and animal consciousness, 139-43, 180, 183, 184, 187, 188, 191, 212, 263-8 and animal instruments of action, 139-43, 150 and animal intelligence, 138, 187, 188, 191, 192, 212 and animal invention, relation of, to habit, 264, 265 intellect and language, 157-8 intellect and manufacture, 137, 138

Humanity in evolution, 134, 137-9, 142, 147, 158, 181, 184, 185, 264-71. _See_ Culminating points, etc. Goal of evolution, 266, 267

Huxley, 38

Hydra and individuality, 13

[Greek: Hylê] of Aristotle, 353

Hymenoptera, the culmination of arthropod and instinctive evolution, 134, 173-4 as entomologists, 146, 172-3 organization and instinct in, 140 paralyzing instinct of, 146, 172, 173-4 social instincts of, 101, 171

Hypostasis of the unity of nature, God as, 196-7, 322, 356

Hypothetical propositions characteristic of intellectual knowledge, 149-50

Idea or form in ancient philosophy, 49, 314, 316-7, 318, 329-30 in ancient philosophy, [Greek: eidos], 314-5 in ancient philosophy, Platonic, 48 and image in Descartes, 280

Idealism, 232

Idealists and realists alike assume the possibility of an absence of order, 220, 232

Identical structures in divergent lines of evolution, 55, 60-1, 62, 69, 74-7, 86, 119

Illumination of action the function of perception, 5, 206, 307

Image and idea in Descartes, 280 distinguished from concept, 160-1, 280

Imitation of being in Greek philosophy, 324, 327 of instinct by science, 168-9, 173-4 of life in intellectual representation, 4, 33, 88-9, 101, 176, 208, 209, 213, 226, 259, 341, 365 of life by the unorganized, 33, 35, 36 of motion by intelligence, 305, 307-8, 312, 313, 329. _See_ Imitation of the real, etc. Of the physical order by the vital, 230 of the real by intelligence, 258, 270, 307

Immobility of extension, 155 and plants, 108-13, 118, 119, 130 of primitive and torpid animals, 130-1 relative and apparent; mobility real, 155

Impatience, duration as, 10, 339-40

Impelling cause, 73

Impetus, vital, divergence of, 26-7, 51-5, 97-105, 110, 118-9, 126-7, 131, 134-6, 257, 258, 266, 270 vital, limitedness of, 126, 141, 148-9, 254 vital, loaded with matter, 239 vital, as necessity for creation, 252, 261 vital, transmission of, through organisms, 25, 27, 79, 85, 87, 88, 230, 231, 250, 251 vital, _See_ Impulse of life

Implement, the animal, is natural: the human, artificial, 139-43 artificial, 137-40, 150-1 constructing, function of intelligence, 159, 182-3 life known to intelligence only as, 162 matter known to intelligence only as, 161, 198 natural, 141, 145, 150 organized, 141, 145, 150 unorganized, 137-9, 141, 150-1

Implicit knowledge, 148

Impotence of intellect and perception to grasp life, 176-8

Imprisonment of consciousness, 180-3, 264-6

Impulse of life, divergence of, 26, 27, 51-5, 97-105, 110, 118-9, 126-7, 131, 134-6, 257, 258, 266, 270 limitedness of, 126, 141, 148-9, 254 loaded with matter, 239 tendency to mobility, 131, 132 as necessity for creation, 252, 261 negates itself, 247, 248 prolonged in evolution, 246 prolonged in our will, 239 transmitted through generations of organisms, 25, 26, 79, 85, 87, 230, 231 unity of, 202, 250, 270

Impulsion and attraction in Greek philosophy, 323-4 release and unwinding, the three kinds of cause, 73 given to mind by matter, 202

Inadequacy of act to representation, consciousness as, 143

Inadequate and adequate in Spinoza, 353

Inanition, illustrating primacy of nervous system, 124 _note_

Incoherence, 236. _See_ Absence of order, Chance, Chaos in nature, 104

Incommensurability of free act with conceptual idea, 47, 201 of instinct and intelligence, 167-8, 175

Incompatibility of developed tendencies, 104, 168

Independent variable, time as, 20, 335-6

Indetermination, 86, 114, 126, 252, 253, 326. _See_ Accident in evolution

Indeterminism in Descartes, 345

Individual, viewed by intelligence as aggregate of molecules and of facts, 250-1 and division of labor, 140 in evolutionist biology, 169, 171, 246 _note_ and genus, 226-9 mind in philosophy, 191 aesthetic intuition only attains the, 177 and society, 260, 265 transmits the vital impetus, 250, 259, 270

Individuality never absolute, x, 12, 13, 16, 19, 42, 260 and age, 15-23, 27, 43 corporeal, physics tends to deny, 188, 189, 208. _See_ Interpenetration, Obliteration of outlines, Solidarity of the parts of matter and generality, 226-8 the many and the one in the idea of, x, 258 as plan of possible influence, 11

Individuation never absolute, x, 12-16, 43, 260 as a cosmic principle in contrast with association, 259-60 property of life, 12-5 partly the work of matter, 257-8, 259, 270

Indivisibility of action, 94, 95 of duration, 6, 308 of invention, 164 of life, 225, 270-1. _See_ Unity of life of motion, 307-11

Induction in animals, 214 certainty of, approached as factors approach pure magnitudes, 222, 223 and duration, 216 and expectation, 214-6 geometry the ideal limit of, 214-8, 361. _See_ Space, Geometry, Reasoning, "Descending" movement of matter, etc. And magnitude, 215, 216 repetition the characteristic function of intellect, 164, 199, 205-16 and space, 216. _See_ Space as the ideal limit, Systems, etc. 

Industry, ix, 161, 162, 164

Inert matter and action, 96, 136, 141, 155, 187, 198, 225, 367 in Aristotle, 316, 327, 353 bodies, 7, 8, 12, 14, 20, 21, 156, 159, 174, 186, 188, 189, 204, 213, 215, 228, 240, 241, 298, 300, 341, 342, 346-8, 360 Creation of. _See_ Inert matter the inversion of life flux of, 186, 265, 273, 369 and form, 148, 149, 157, 239, 250 genesis of, 188 homogeneity of, 156 imitation of living matter by, 33, 35, 36 imitation of physical order by vital, 230 instantaneity of, 10, 201 and intellect, ix, 31, 141, 159-62, 164, 165, 167-8, 175, 179, 181, 186, 187, 195, 196, 197, 198, 205-12, 216-9, 224, 264, 270, 319, 369 the inversion or interruption of life, 93, 94, 98, 99, 128-9, 153, 177, 186, 189, 190, 196, 197, 201, 203, 208, 216-9, 231, 235, 236, 239, 240, 245-50, 252, 254, 256, 258, 259, 261, 264, 267, 272, 276, 319, 339-40, 343. _See_ Inert matter, order inherent in knowledge of, approximate but not relative, 206 the metaphysics and the physics of, 195-6 as necessity, 252, 264 the order inherent in, 40, 103, 153, 201, 207-12, 216, 226-7, 230-6, 245, 251, 263, 274, 319-20. _See_ Inert matter, inversion of life penetration of, by life, 25, 26, 51, 179, 181, 237, 239, 266, 270, 271 and perception, 12, 206, 226 and the psychical, 201, 202, 205, 269, 270, 350, 367 solidarity of the parts of, 188, 202, 207, 241, 257-9, 270, 271, 352 and space, 10, 153, 189, 204-11, 214, 244, 250, 251, 257 in Spencer's philosophy, 365

Inertia, 176, 224

Infant, intelligence in, 147, 148

Inference a beginning of invention, 138

Inferiority in evolutionary rank, 174-5

Influence, possible, 11, 189

Infusoria, conjugation of, 15 development of the eye from its stage in, 60-1, 72, 78, 84 and individuation, 260 and mechanical explanations, 34, 35 vegetable function in, 116

Inheritance of acquired characters. _See_ Hereditary transmission

Innate knowledge, 146-7, 150-1

Innateness of the categories, 148, 149-50

Inorganic matter. _See_ Inert matter

Insectivorous plants, 107-9

Insects, 19, 101, 107, 126, 131, 134, 135, 140-1, 146, 147, 157, 166, 169, 171-5, 188 apogee of instinct in hymenoptera, 134, 173-4 consciousness and instinct, 145, 167, 173 continuity of instinct with organization, 139, 145 fallibility of instinct in, 172-3 instinct in general in, 169, 173-4 language of ants, 157-8 object of instinct in, 146 paralyzing instinct in, 146, 171, 172-3 social instinct in, 101, 157-8, 171 special instincts as variations on a theme, 167. _See_ Arthropods in evolution

Insensible variation, 63, 66

Inspiration of a poem an undivided intuitive act, contrasted with its intellectual imitation in words, 209, 210, 258. _See_ Sympathy

Instantaneity of the intellectual view, 31, 70, 84, 89, 199, 201-2, 207, 226, 249, 258, 273, 300-6, 311, 314, 331-3, 342, 351, 352

Instinct and action on inert matter, 136, 141 in animals as distinguished from plants, 170 in cells, 166 and consciousness, 143-5, 166, 167, 173, 174, 175, 186 culmination of, in evolution, 133, 174-5. _See_ Arthropods in evolution, Evolutionary superiority fallibility of, 173-4 in insects in general, 169, 173-4 and intelligence, xii, 51, 100, 103, 113, 116-8, 132-7, 141-3, 145, 150, 152, 159, 168-70, 173-9, 184-5, 186, 197-8, 238, 246, 254, 255, 259, 267, 268, 343, 345, 366 and intuition, 177, 178-9, 181 object of, 146-52, 165, 168, 172-9, 186, 189, 195, 234, 254 and organization, 23-4, 138-40, 145, 166-8, 171-2, 173, 176, 193, 194, 264 paralyzing, in certain hymenoptera, 146, 171, 172-3 in plants, 170, 171 social, of insects, 101, 157-8, 171

Instinctive knowledge, 148, 167, 168, 173-4 learning, 193 metaphysics, 192, 269, 270, 277

Instrument, action as, of consciousness, 180 animal, is natural; human artificial, 139-43 automatic activity as instrument of voluntary, 252 consciousness as, of action, 180 intelligence: the function of intelligence is to construct instruments, 159, 192-3 intelligence transforms life into an, 162 intelligence transforms matter into an, 161, 198 intelligence: the instruments of intelligence are artificial, ix, 137-9, 140-1, 150-1 natural or organized instruments of instinct, 140-1, 145, 150

Intellect and action, ix, 11, 29, 44-8, 93, 136, 142, 152-7, 162, 179, 186, 187, 192, 195, 197-8, 219, 220, 226-9, 251, 270, 273, 297-9, 301, 302, 306, 329, 346-7 in animals, 187 Fichte's conception of the, 189, 190, 357 function of the, 5, 11, 12, 44-50, 92, 93, 126, 137-45, 149-60, 162-4, 168, 174, 176, 181, 187-99, 204-8, 214-9, 229, 233, 237, 241, 242, 246, 247, 251, 270, 290, 298, 299, 328, 336, 337, 341, 342, 347, 348, 356, 357 genesis of the, xi-xv, 49, 103, 104-5, 126-7, 152, 153, 186, 187, 189, 193, 194, 195, 198, 207, 247-9, 358, 359, 366 as inversion of intuition, 7, 8, 11, 12, 46, 49, 51, 86, 88-91, 93, 94, 103-4, 113, 116-8, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 139-43, 145, 157, 161, 168-80, 181, 183, 184, 185, 190-204, 207-12, 216-8, 221, 223, 225-6, 230-3, 235, 236, 238, 245-52, 254-9, 264, 267-71, 276, 277, 313, 330, 339, 342-5, 361, 369 and language, 4, 148, 158-60, 258, 265, 292, 303, 304, 312, 313, 326 and matter, ix-xv, 10, 11, 48-9, 92, 135, 136, 141, 142, 152-4, 155, 160, 161, 165, 168, 175, 179, 181, 182, 186-7, 190, 193, 194, 195, 198, 199, 201-4, 205-10, 213, 215, 218-20, 224, 225-30, 240-2, 245, 246, 248-52, 254, 256-9, 264, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 297-8, 306, 319, 321, 329, 340, 341-3, 347-9, 355, 358-61, 368, 369 mechanism of the, ix-xv, 4, 30, 32, 47-9, 70, 84-5, 88-9, 101, 137-8, 150-5, 156-7, 160, 161, 164, 165, 167, 168, 173, 174, 176, 177, 186, 187, 190-3, 194-218, 223-40, 244, 246-7, 249-51, 254, 255, 257, 258, 266, 270, 273, 276-7, 292, 300-21, 325, 329, 330, 332, 337, 338, 339, 341-8, 351, 358-9, 361-2, 363-4, 365, 367 object of the, ix-xv, 7, 8, 10, 17, 20, 21, 30, 31, 34, 35, 37, 46-9, 52, 71, 74, 84, 87-92, 93, 95, 102, 103, 139, 140, 149, 152-66, 168, 173, 175-9, 180, 181, 186, 190, 193-211, 213, 216-20, 223, 224, 226, 228-30, 233, 237, 238, 240, 245, 249-51, 254, 255, 257-9, 261, 264, 265, 270, 271, 273, 274, 298-314, 318-22, 326, 328, 329, 332-8, 342, 344-9, 351, 352-7, 359-61, 363, 365, 369-70 and perception, 4-5, 11, 12, 93-4, 161-2, 168, 176-7, 188, 189, 205, 207, 226-7, 228-9, 230, 238, 249-51, 273, 299-300, 301, 306, 359-60 and rhythm, 299, 300-1, 306-7, 329, 337, 346-7 and science, 8-12, 31, 92-3, 152, 153, 157-8, 159, 160-1, 162-3, 168, 173-6, 187, 193-8, 202, 204, 207-9, 214-6, 217, 225-6, 228-9, 241, 251, 270, 273, 297-8, 306, 321, 322, 329, 333-5, 345, 346-8, 354, 356, 357, 359-60, 362-3, 369-70 and space, 10-11, 154, 156-7, 160-3, 174-5, 176-7, 189, 202-4, 207-12, 215, 218, 222-3, 244, 245, 250, 251, 257-8, 361-2 and time, 4, 8-9, 17, 18, 20-2, 36, 39, 45-6, 47, 51, 163, 300, 301, 331-2, 335-7, 341 possibility of transcending the, xii, xiii, 48, 152, 177-8, 193-4, 198-200, 205-6, 207-8, 266, 360-1. _See_ Philosophy, Intelligence

Intellectualism, hesitation of Descartes between, and intuitionism, 345

Intelligence and action, 137-41, 150, 154-5, 161, 162-3, 181, 189, 198, 306 animal, 138, 187, 188, 212 categories of, x, 48, 195-6 of the child, 147-8 and consciousness, 187 culmination of, 130, 139-40, 174-5. _See_ Superiority genesis of, 136, 177-8, 366 and the individual, 251 and instinct, 109, 135, 136, 141, 142, 168-70, 173-7, 179, 186, 197, 209, 238, 259, 267 in Kant's philosophy, 357-8 and laws, 229-30 limitations of, 152 and matter, 152, 159-60, 161-2, 175, 179, 181, 186, 189, 194-8, 230, 237, 250, 369, 370 mechanism of, 152, 153, 164, 165 and motion, 153, 159-60, 274, 303-7, 312, 313, 329 object of, 145-56, 161, 162, 175, 179, 250 practical nature of, ix-xv, 137-9, 141, 150-1, 247-8, 305, 306, 328-9 and reality, ix-xv, 161-2, 177, 237, 251, 258, 269, 271, 307 and science, 175, 176, 193, 194-5 and signs, 157, 158, 159, 160 and space, 205 _See_ Intellect, Understanding, Reason

Intelligent, the, contrasted with the merely intelligible, 175

Intelligible reality in ancient philosophy, 316-7 world, 160-1

Intelligibles of Plotinus, 353

Intension of knowledge, 149-50

Intensity of consciousness varies with ratio of possible to real action, 144-5

Intention as contrasted with mechanism, 233. _See_ Automatic order, Willed order of life the object of instinct, 176, 233

Interaction, universal, 188-9

Interest as cause of variation, 131 in representation of "nought, " 296, 297. _See_ Affection, rôle of, etc. 

Internal finality, 41

Internality of instinct, 168, 174-5, 176-7 of subject in object the condition of knowledge of reality, 307, 317, 358-9

Interpenetration, 161, 162, 174-5, 177, 184 _note_, 188, 189, 201-3, 207-8, 257, 258, 270, 319-20, 341, 352

Interruption, materiality an, of positivity, 219, 246, 247-8, 319-20. _See_ Inverse relation, etc. 

Interval of time, 8-9, 22, 23 between what is done and what might be done covered by consciousness, 179

Intuition, continuity between sensible and ultra-intellectual, 360-1 dialectic and, in philosophy, 238. _See_ Intellect as inversion of intuition fringe of, around the nucleus of intellect, xiii, 12, 46, 49, 193 and instinct, 176-9, 182 and intellect in theoretical knowledge, 176-9, 270-1

Intuitional cosmology as reversed psychology, 207-8 metaphysics contrasted with intellectual or systematic, 191-2, 268-70, 277-8 method of philosophy, apparent vicious circle of, 191-4, 195-8

Intuitionism in Spinoza, 347-8 and intellectualism in Descartes, 345-6

Invention, consciousness as, and freedom, 264, 270-1 creativeness of, 164, 237, 340, 341 disproportion between, and its consequences, 181, 182-3 duration as, 10-1 evolution as, 102-3, 255, 344-5 fervor of, 164 indivisibility of, 164 inference a beginning of, 138 mechanical, 142-3, 194-5 of steam engine as epoch-marking, 138-9 time as, 341 unforeseeableness of, 164 upspringing of, 164 _See_ New

Inverse relation of the physical and psychical, 126-7, 143-4, 145, 173-4, 177-8, 201, 202, 206-7, 208, 210-1, 212, 217, 218, 222, 223, 236, 240, 245, 246, 247-8, 249, 256, 257, 261, 264, 265, 270, 319-20

Irreversibility of duration. _See_ Repetition

Isolated systems of matter, 204, 213, 215, 241, 242, 341, 342, 346, 347-8. _See_ Bodies

Janet, Paul, 60-1 _note_

Jennings, 35 _note_

Jourdain and the two kinds of order, 221

Juxtaposition, 207-8, 338, 339, 341. Cf. Succession

Kaleidoscopic variation, 74

Kant, antinomies of, 204-5, 206 becoming in Kant's successors, 362 coincidence of matter with space in Kant's philosophy, 206, 207-8, 244 construction the method of Kant's successors, 364-5 his criticism of pure reason, 205, 287 _note_, 356-62, 364 degrees of being in Kant's successors, 362-3 duration in Kant's successors, 362-3 intelligence in Kant's philosophy, 230, 357 ontological argument in Kant's philosophy, 285 space and time in Kant's philosophy, 204-6 and Spencer, 364 _See_ Mind and matter, Sensuous manifold, Thing-in-itself

Kantianism, 358, 364

Katagenesis, 34

Kepler, 228-9, 332-5

Knowledge and action, 150, 193-4, 196, 197, 206-7, 208, 218 criticism of, 193-4 discontinuity of, 306 extension of, 149 form of, 148, 194-5, 358-362 formal, 152 genesis of, 190 innate or natural, 146-50 instinct in, 143, 144, 166-9, 173, 177, 192-3, 198, 268 intellect in, ix-xv, 48, 149, 162-4, 177, 179, 193-4, 196-9, 206-7, 208, 218, 237, 238, 251, 270, 305, 306, 312, 313, 315, 317, 325, 331-2, 342, 343, 347-8, 359-60, 361 intension of, 149-50 of reality viewed as the internality of subject in object, 307, 317, 358-9 intuition and intellect in theoretical knowledge, 174-7, 179, 238, 270, 342-4 matter of, 194-5, 357-8, 359-62 of matter, xi, 48, 206-7, 360-1 object of, ix-xv, 1, 48, 147, 148, 159-60, 163, 164, 197-9, 270, 342, 359-60 fundamental problem of, 273-5 as relative to certain requirements of the mind, 152, 190-1, 230 scientific, 193-4, 196-8, 206, 207, 218 theory of, xiii, 177, 179, 197, 204-5, 207-8, 229, 231 unconscious, 142-6, 146, 150, 165, 166 alleged unknowableness of the thing-in-itself, 205, 206

Kunstler, 260 _note_

Labbé 260 _note_

Labor, division of, 99, 110, 118, 140, 157, 166, 260

Lalande, André, 246 _note_

Lamarck, 75-6

Lamarckism, 75-6, 77, 84-87

Language, 4, 147, 157-60, 258, 265, 293, 302-3, 305, 312-4, 320

La Place, 38

Lapsed intelligence, instinct as, 169, 175

Larvae, 19, 140, 145-66, 172-3

Latent geometrism of intellect, 194, 211-2

Law of correlation, 66, 67 and genera, 226-9, 330 heliocentric radius-vector in Kepler's laws, 334 imprint of relations and laws upon consciousness in Spencer's philosophy, 188 and intuitional philosophy, 176-7 physical, contrasted with the laws of our codes, 218-9 physical, expression of the negative movement, 218 physical, mathematical form of, 218, 219, 229-30, 241 relation as, 228, 229-30

Learning, instinctive, 192, 193

Le Dantec, 18 _note_

Leibniz, cause in, 277 dogmatism of, 356, 357 extension in, 351, 352 God in, 351, 352, 356 mechanism in, 348, 351, 355, 356 his philosophy a systematization of physics, 347 space in, 351-2 teleology in, 39, 40 time in, 352, 362

Lepidoptera, 114 _note_, 134

Le Roy, Ed. , 218 _note_

Liberation of consciousness, 183-4, 265, 266

Liberty. _See_ Freedom

Life as activity, 128-9, 246 cause in the realm of, 94, 164 complementarity of the powers of, ix-xv, 25-6, 27, 51-5, 97-105, 110, 113, 116-9, 126-7, 131-6, 140-3, 176, 177, 183, 184, 246, 254-7, 266, 270, 343, 344-5 consciousness coextensive with, 186, 257, 270, 362-3 mutual contingency of the orders of life and matter, 235 continuity of, 1-11, 29, 30, 162, 163, 258 as creation, 57-8, 161-2, 223, 230, 246, 247-8, 252, 254, 255 symbolized by a curve, 31, 89, 90 embryonic, 166 and finality, 44, 89, 164, 185, 222-3 fluidity of, 153, 165, 191-2, 193 as free, 129-30 function of, 93-4, 106-10, 113, 114, 117, 120, 121, 126-7, 173-5, 246, 254-6 harmony of the realm of, 50, 51, 103, 116, 117-8, 127 imitation of the inert by, 230 imitation of, by the inert, 33-6 impulse of, prolonged in our will, 239 and individuation, 12-4, 26, 27, 79-80, 85, 87, 88, 127-8, 149, 195-6, 230, 231, 250, 259, 261, 269, 300-1, 302-3. _See_ Individuality indivisibility of, 225-6, 270 and instinct. 136-40, 145, 165-8, 170, 172, 173, 175-9, 186, 192-7, 233, 264, 366 and intellect, ix-xv, 13, 32-5, 44-9, 89, 101, 102-3, 104-5, 127, 136, 152, 160-5, 168, 173-4, 176-9, 181, 191-201, 206, 207, 213, 220, 222-3, 224, 225-6, 257-61, 266, 270, 300-1, 342, 355, 359-61, 365, 366 and interpenetration, 271 as inversion of the inert, 6-7, 8, 176, 177, 186, 190, 191, 196, 197, 201, 202, 207, 208-9, 210-1, 212, 216, 217, 218, 222-3, 225-6, 232, 235, 236, 238, 239, 245-50, 264, 329-31 a limited force, 126, 127, 141, 148, 149, 254 and memory, 167 penetrating matter, 26, 27, 52, 179, 181, 182, 237, 239, 266, 269-70 as tendency to mobility, 128, 131, 132 and physics and chemistry, 31, 33, 35, 36, 225-6 in other planets, 256 as potentiality, 258 repetition in, and in the inert, 224, 225, 230, 231 sinuousness of, 71, 98, 99, 102, 112, 113, 116, 129-30, 212 social, 138, 140, 157-8, 265 in other solar systems, 256 and evolution of species, 247-8, 254, 269 theory of, and theory of knowledge, xii, 177, 179, 197 unforeseeableness of, 6, 8-9, 20, 26-7, 28, 29, 37, 45-6, 47, 48, 52, 86, 96, 163, 164, 184, 223-4, 249, 339, 341 unity of, 250, 268, 270 as a wave flowing over matter, 251, 266 _See_ Impulse of, Organic substance, Organism, Organization, Vital impetus, Vital order, Vital principle, Vitalism, Willed order

Limitations of instinct and of intelligence, 152

Limitedness of the scope of Galileo's physics, 357, 370 of the vital impetus, 126, 127, 141, 148, 149, 255

Linden, Maria von, 114 _note_

Lingulae illustrating failure to evolve, 102

Lizards, color variation in, 72, 74

Locomotion and consciousness, 108, 111, 115, 261. _See_ Mobility, Movement

Logic and action, ix, 44, 46, 162, 179 formal, 292 genesis of, x-xi, xiii-xiv, 49, 103, 104-5, 136, 191-2, 193, 301, 359, 366 and geometry, ix, 161, 176, 212 impotent to grasp life, x, 13, 32, 35, 36, 46-9, 89, 101, 152, 162-5, 194-201, 205, 206, 213, 219, 220, 222, 223, 225-6, 256-61, 266, 270, 313, 355, 360-1, 365 natural, 161, 194-5 of number, 208 and physics, 319-20, 321 and time, 4, 277 _See_ Intellect, Intelligence, Understanding, Order, mathematical

Logical existence contrasted with psychical and physical, 277, 298, 328, 361-2 categories, x, 48, 195, 196 and physical contrasted, 276-7

_Logik_, by Sigwart, 287 _note_

[Greek: logos], in Plotinus, 210 _note_

Looking backward, the attitude of intellect, 46, 237

Lumbriculus, 13

Machinery and intelligence, 141

Machines, natural and artificial, 139. _See_ Implement, Instrument organisms, for action, 252, 254, 300-1

Magnitude, certainty of induction approached as factors approach pure magnitudes, 215-16 and modern science, 333, 335

Man in evolution, attention, 184 brain, 183, 184, 263-5 consciousness, 139-43, 180, 181, 183, 185, 187, 188, 191-2, 212, 262-8 goal, 134, 174-5, 185, 266, 267, 269, 270 habit and invention, 265 intelligence, 133, 137-9, 143, 146, 174, 175, 187, 188, 212, 266, 267 language, 158

Manacéine (de), 124 _note_

Manufacture, the aim of intellect, 137, 138, 145, 152-4, 159-65, 181, 191, 192, 199, 251, 298 and organization, 92, 93, 126-7, 139-43, 150 and repetition, 44, 45, 155-8 _See_ Construction, Solid, Utility

Many and one, categories inapplicable to life, x, 162-3, 177-8, 257, 261, 268 in the idea of individuality, 258 _See_ Multiplicity

Martin, J. , 102 _note_

Marion, 107 _note_

Material knowledge, 152

Materialists, 240

Materiality the inversion of spirituality, 212

Mathematical order. _See_ Inert matter, Order

Matter. _See_ Inert matter

Maturation as creative evolution, 47-8, 230

Maupas, 35 _note_

Measurement a human convention, 218, 242 of real time an illusion, 336-40

Mechanical account of action after the fact, 47 cause, x, 34, 35, 40, 44, 177, 234, 235 procedure of intellect, 165 invention, 138, 140, 194-5 necessity, 47, 215, 216, 218, 236, 252, 265, 270, 327

Mechanics of transformation, 32

Mechanism, cerebral, 252, 253, 262, 263, 265, 366. _See_ Cerebral activity and consciousness of the eye, 88 instinct as, 176-7 of intellect. _See_ Intellect, mechanism of and intention, 233. _See_ Automatic order, Willed order life more than, x, xiv _note_, 78-9

Mechanistic philosophy, xii, xiv, 17, 29, 30, 37, 74, 88-96, 101, 102, 194-5, 218, 223, 264, 345, 346, 347, 348, 351, 355, 356, 362

Medical philosophers of the eighteenth century, 356 science, 165

Medullary bulb in the development of the nervous system, 252 and consciousness, 110

Memory, 5, 17, 20, 21, 167, 168, 180, 181, 201

Menopause in illustration of crisis of evolution, 19

Mental life, unity of, 268

Metamorphoses of larvae, 139-40, 146-7, 166

Metaphysics and duration, 276 and epistemology, 177, 179, 185, 197, 208-9 Galileo's influence on, 20, 238 instinctive, 191-2, 269, 270, 277-8 and intellect, 189-90 and matter, 194 natural, 21, 325 and science, 176-7, 194-5, 198, 208-9, 344, 354, 369-70 systematic, 191, 192, 194, 195-6, 238, 269, 270, 347

Metchnikoff, 18 _note_

Method of philosophy, 191-2

Microbes, illustrating divergence of tendency, 117

Microbial colonies, 259

Mind, individual, in philosophy, 191 and intellect, 48-9, 205-6 knowledge as relative to certain requirements of the mind, 152, 190-1, 230 and matter, 188-9, 201, 202, 203, 205-6, 264, 269, 270, 350, 365-9 _See_ Psychic, Psycho-physiological parallelism, Psychology and Philosophy, [Greek: psychê]

Minot, Sedgwick, 17 _note_

Mobility, tendency toward, characterizes animals, 109, 110, 113, 129-32, 135, 180 and consciousness, 108, 111, 115-6, 261 and intellect, 154-5, 161-2, 163, 300, 326, 327, 337 of intelligent signs, 158, 159 life as tendency toward, 127-8, 131, 132 in plants, 112, 135 _See_ Motion

Möbius, 60 _note_

Model necessary to the constructive work of intellect, 164, 166-7

Modern astronomy compared with ancient science, 334, 335 geometry compared with ancient science, 31, 161, 334 idealism, 231 philosophy compared with ancient, 225-9, 231, 327-8, 344, 345, 349-51, 354, 356-7 philosophy: parallelism of body and mind in, 180, 350, 355, 356 science: cinematographical character of, 329, 330, 336, 341, 342, 346-7 science compared with ancient, 329-36, 342-5, 356-7 science, Galileo's influence on, 334, 335 science, Kepler's influence on, 334 science, magnitudes the object of, 333, 335 science, time an independent variable in, 20, 335

Molecules, 251

Molluscs, illustrating animal tendency to mobility, 129-31 perception in, 189 vision in, 60, 75, 77, 83, 86, 87

Monads of Leibniz, 351-4

Monera, 126

Monism, 355

Moral sciences, weakness of deduction in, 212

Morat, 123 _note_

Morgan, L. , 79 _note_, 80

Motion, abstract, 304 articulations of, 310-1 an animal characteristic, 252 and the cinematograph, 304-5 continuity of, 310 in Descartes, 346-7 evolutionary, extensive and qualitative, 302, 303, 311, 312 in general (_i. E. _ abstract), 304-5 indivisibility of, 306-7, 311, 336-7, 338 and instinct, 139-40, 331-2 and intellect, 71, 155, 156, 159-60, 273, 274, 298, 317-8, 321, 329, 331-2, 338, 344-5 organization of, 310-1 track laid by motion along its course, 308-11, 337, 338 _See_ Mobility, Movement

Motive principle of evolution: consciousness, 181-2

Motor mechanisms, cerebral, 252, 253, 263, 265

Moulin-Quignon, quarry of, 137

Moussu, 81

Movement and animal life, 108, 131, 132 ascending, 12, 101, 103, 104, 185, 208-9, 210-1, 369-70. _See_ Vital impetus consciousness and, 111, 118, 144-5, 207-8 descending, 11-2, 202-4, 207-10, 212, 246, 252, 256, 270, 276, 339, 361, 369-70 goal of, the object of the intellect, 155, 299-300, 302, 303 intellect unable to grasp, 313 mutual inversion of cosmic movements, 126-7, 143, 144, 173-4, 176, 177, 209-10, 212, 217, 218, 222-3, 236, 245-51, 261, 264, 265, 272, 342-3 life as, 166, 176-7 and the nervous system, 110, 132, 134, 180, 262-3 of plants, 109, 135-6 _See_ Mobility, Motion, Locomotion, Current, Tendency, Impetus, Impulse, Impulsion

Movements, antagonistic cosmic, 128-9, 135, 181, 185, 250, 259. _See_ Movement, Mutual inversion of cosmic

Multiplicity, abstract, 257, 259 distinct, 202, 209-10, 257. _See_ Interpenetration does not apply to life, x, 162, 177, 257, 261, 270

Mutability, exhaustion of, of the universe, 244, 245

Mutations, sudden, 28, 62-3, 64-8 theory of, 85-6

Natural geometry, 195-6, 211-2 instrument, 141, 144-5, 150-1 or innate knowledge, 147, 150-1 logic, 161, 194-5 metaphysic, 21, 325-6 selection, 54, 56-7, 59-60, 61-5, 68, 95, 169-70

Nature, Aristotelian theory of, 135, 174 discord in, 127-8, 255, 267 facts and relations in, 368 incoherence in, 104 as inert matter, 161-2, 218, 219, 228-9, 239, 245, 264, 280-1, 303, 356, 359-60, 367 as life, 100, 138, 139-40, 141-2, 143, 144-5, 150, 154, 155-6, 227, 241, 260, 269, 270, 301-2 order of, 225-6 as ordered diversity, 231, 233 unity of, 105, 190, 191, 195, 196-9, 322, 352-7, 358

Nebula, cosmic, 249, 257

Necessity for creation, vital impetus as, 252, 261 and death of individuals, 246 _note_ and freedom, 218, 236, 270 in Greek philosophy, 326-7 in induction, 215, 216 and matter, 252, 264

Negation, 275, 285-97. _See_ Nought

Negative cause of mathematical order, 217. _See_ Inverse relation, etc. Cosmic principle, 126-7, 143, 144, 173-4, 176-7, 209, 212, 218, 223-4, 236, 245-51, 261, 264-5, 272, 243. _See_ Inert matter, Opposition of the two ultimate cosmic movements, etc. 

Neo-Darwinism, 55, 56, 85, 86, 169-70

Neo-Lamarckism, 42 _note_

Nervous system a centre of action, 109, 130-1, 132, 134-5, 180, 253, 261-3 of the plant, 114 primacy of, 120-1, 126-7, 252

Neurone and indetermination, 126

New, freedom and the, 11-2, 164, 165, 199-200, 218, 230, 239, 249, 270, 339-42

Newcomen, 184

Newton, 335

Nitrogen and the function of organisms, 108, 113-4, 117, 255

[Greek: noêseôs noêsis] of Aristotle, 356

Non-existence. _See_ Nought

Nothing. _See_ Nought

Nought, conception of the, 273-80, 281-3, 289-90, 292-8, 316-7, 327. _See_ Negation, Pseudo-ideas, etc. 

[Greek: nous poiêtikos] of Aristotle, 322

Novelty. _See_ new. 

Nucleus intelligence as the luminous, enveloped by instinct, 166-7 in microbial colonies, 259 intelligence as the solid, bathed by a mist of instinct, 193, 194 of Stentor, 260

Number illustrating degrees of reality, 324-5, 327 logic of, 208

Nuptial flight, 146

Nutritive elements, fixation of, 107-9, 114, 117, 246, 247, 254

Nymph (Zool. ), 139, 146

Object of this book, ix-xv of instinct, 146-52, 163, 175-9 of intellect, 146-52, 161-5, 175, 179, 190-1, 199-200, 237, 250, 252, 270, 273, 298-304, 307-8, 311-2, 354, 359 internality of subject in, the condition of knowledge of reality, 307-8, 317-8, 359 of knowledge, 147, 148-9, 159-60 idea of, contrasted with that of universal interaction, 11, 188-9, 207-8 of philosophy as contrasted with object of science, 195-6, 220-1, 225-6, 227, 239, 251, 270, 273, 297-9, 305-6, 347 of science, 329, 332-3, 335-6

Obliteration of outlines in the real, 11, 188, 189, 207-8

Oenothera Lamarckiana, 63, 85-6

Old, growing. _See_ Age the, is the object of the intellect, 163, 164, 199, 270

One and many in the idea of individuality, x, 258. _See_ Unity

Ontological argument in Kant, 284

Opposition of the two ultimate cosmic movements, 128-9, 175-6, 179, 186, 201, 203, 238, 248, 254, 259, 261, 267. _See_ Inverse relation of the physical and psychical

Orchids, instincts of, 170

Order and action, 226-7 complementarity of the two orders, 145-6, 173-4, 221-2. _See_ Order, Mutual inversion of the two orders mutual contingency of the two orders, 231, 235 and disorder, 40, 103-4, 220-2, 225-6, 231-6, 274 mutual inversion of the two orders, 186, 201, 202, 206-9, 211, 212, 216-8, 219-21, 222-3, 225-6, 230, 232, 235, 236, 238, 240, 245-8, 256, 257, 258, 264, 270, 274, 313, 330 mathematical, 153, 209-11, 217-9, 223-6, 230-3, 236, 245, 251, 270, 330-1 of nature, 225-6, 231, 233 as satisfaction, 222, 223, 274 vital, 94-5, 164, 222-7, 230, 235, 236, 237, 330-1 willed, 224, 239

Organ and function, 88-91, 93-4, 95, 132, 140, 141, 157, 161-2

Organic destruction and physico-chemistry, 226 substance, 131, 140, 141-2, 149, 162-3, 195-6, 240 _note_, 255, 267 world, cleft between, and the inorganic, 190, 191, 196, 197-8 world, harmony of, 50-1, 103, 104, 116, 118, 126-7 world, instinct the procedure of, 165

Organism and action, 123-4, 125, 174, 253, 254, 300-1 ambiguity of primitive, 99, 112, 113, 116, 129, 130 association of organisms, 260 change and the, 301, 302-3 complementarity of intelligence and instinct in the, 141-2, 150, 181, 184, 185 complexity of the, 162, 250, 252, 253, 260 consciousness and the, 111, 145, 179, 180, 262, 270 contingency of the actual chemical nature of the, 255, 257 differentiation of parts in, 252, 260. _See_ Organism, complexity of extension of, by artificial instruments, 141, 161 freedom the property of every, 130, 131 function of, 26, 27, 79, 80, 85, 87, 88, 93-4, 106-110, 113, 114, 117, 120, 121, 126-7, 128, 136, 173-5, 230, 231, 246, 247, 250, 251, 254, 255, 256, 258, 270 function and structure, 55, 61, 62, 69, 74, 75, 76-7, 86, 88-91, 93-4, 95, 96-7, 118-9, 132, 139, 140, 157-8, 161-3, 250, 252, 256 generality typified by similarity among organisms, 223, 224, 228-9, 230 hive as, 166 and individuation, x, 12, 13, 15, 23, 26-7, 42, 149, 195-6, 225-6, 228-9, 259, 260, 261, 270 mutual interpenetration of organisms, 177-8 mechanism of the, 31, 92-3, 94 philosophy and the, 195-6 unity of the, 176-8

Organization of action, 142, 145, 147-8, 150, 181, 184, 185 of duration, 5-6, 15, 25, 26 explosive character of, 92 and instinct, 24, 138-46, 150, 165-7, 171-2, 173, 176, 192-3, 194, 264 and intellect, 161-2 and manufacture, 92, 93, 94-5, 96, 126-8 is the _modus vivendi_ between the antagonistic cosmic currents, 181, 250, 254 of motion, 310 and perception, 226-7

Originality of the willed order, 224

Orthogenesis, 69, 86-7

Oscillation between association and individuation, 259, 261. _See_ Societies of ether, 301-2 of instinct and intelligence about a mean position, 136 of pendulum, illustrating space and time in ancient philosophy, 318-9, 320 between representation of inner and outer reality, 279-80 of sensible reality in ancient philosophy about being, 316-8

Outlines of perception the plan of action, 5, 11, 12, 93, 188, 189, 204-5, 206-7, 226-7, 228-9, 230, 250, 299-300, 306

Oxygen, 114, 254, 255

Paleontology, 24-5, 129, 139

Paleozoic era, 102

Parallelism, psycho-physiological, 180, 350, 351, 355, 356

Paralyzing instinct in hymenoptera, 139-40, 146, 172, 174-5

Parasites, 106, 108, 109, 111-13, 134-5

Parasitism, 132

Passivity, 222-4

Past, subsistence of, in present, 4, 20-3, 26-7, 108, 199-202

Peckham, 173-4 _note_

Pecten, illustrating identical structures in divergent lines of evolution, 62, 63, 75

Pedagogical and social nature of negation, 287-97

Pedagogy and the function of the intellect, 165

Penetration, reciprocal, 161-2. _See_ Interpenetration

Perception and action, 4-5, 11, 12, 93, 188, 189, 206, 226-7, 228-9, 300-1, 306-7 and becoming, 176-7, 303-6 cinematographical character of, 206-7, 249, 251, 331-2 distinctness of, 226-7, 250 and geometry, 205, 230 in molluscs, 188 and organization, 226-7 prolonged in intellect, 161-2, 273 reaction in, 264 and recollection, 180, 181 refracts reality, 204, 238, 359-60 rhythm of, 299-300, 301 and science, 168

Permanence an illusion, 299-301

Peron, 80

Perrier, Ed. , 260 _note_

Personality, absolute reality of, 269 concentration of, 201, 202 and matter, 269, 270 the object of intuition, 268 tension of, 199, 200, 201

Perthes, Boucher de, 137

Phaedrus, 156 _note_

Phagocytes and external finality, 42

Phagocytosis and growing old, 18

Phantom ideas and problems, 177, 277, 283, 296

Philosophical explanation contrasted with scientific explanation, 168

Philosophy and art, 176-7 and biology, 43-4, 194-6 and experience, 197-8 function of 29-30, 84-5, 93-4, 168, 173-4, 194-7, 198, 268, 269, 369-70 history of, 238 incompletely conscious of itself, 207-8, 209 individual mind in, 191 and intellect, ix-xv intellect and intuition in, 238 of intuition, 176-7, 191-4, 196, 197, 277 method of, 191-2, 194, 195, 239 object of, 239 and the organism, 195-6 and physics, 194, 208 and psychology, 194, 196 and science, 175, 196-7, 208, 345, 370 _See_ Ancient philosophy, Cosmology, Finalism, Mechanistic philosophy, Metaphysics, Modern philosophy, Post-Kantian philosophy

Phonograph illustrating "unwinding" cause, 73

Phosphorescence, consciousness compared to, 262

Photograph, illustrating the nature of the intellectual view of reality, 31, 304-5

Photography, instantaneous, illustrating the mechanism of the intellect, 331-2, 333

Physical existence, as contrasted with logical, 276, 297-8, 328, 361 laws, their precise form artificial, 218, 219, 229, 240-1 laws and the negative cosmic movement, 218 operations the object of intelligence, 175, 250 order, imitation of, by the vital, 230 science, 176-7

Physicochemistry and organic destruction, 226 and biology, 25-6, 29-30, 34, 35, 36, 55, 57, 98, 194

Physics, ancient, "logic spoiled, " 320, 321-2 of ancient philosophy, 315, 320, 321-2, 355 of Aristotle, 228 _note_, 324 _note_, 331, 332 and deduction, 213 of Galileo, 357, 369-70 and individuality of bodies, 188, 208 as inverted psychics, 202 and logic, 319-20, 321 and metaphysics, 194, 208 and mutability, 245 success of, 218, 219

Pigment-spot and adaptation, 60, 61, 71-3, 76-7 and heredity, 83, 84

Pinguicula, certain animal characteristics of, 107

Plan, motionless, of action the object of intellect, 155, 298-9, 301-2, 303

Planets, life in other, 256

Plants and animals in evolution, 105-39, 142-3, 144, 145-6, 147, 168, 169-70, 181, 182, 183-4, 185, 254, 267 complementarity of, to animals, 183-4, 185, 267 consciousness of, 109, 111, 113, 120, 128-35, 142-3, 144, 181, 182, 292. _See_ Torpor, Sleep function of, 107-9, 113, 114, 117, 246, 247, 254, 256 function and structure in, 67, 77-8, 79 individuation in, 12 instinct in, 170, 171 and mobility, 108, 109, 111-13, 118-9, 129, 130, 135-6 parallelism of evolution with animals, 59-60, 106-8, 116 supporters of all life, 271 variation of, 85, 86

Plasma, continuity of germinative, 25-6, 42, 78-83

Plastic substances, 255

Plato, 49, 156, 191, 210 _note_, 316, 318, 319, 320, 321, 327, 330, 347, 349

Platonic ideas, 49, 315-6, 321, 322, 327, 330, 352

Plotinus, 210 _note_, 314-5, 323, 324 _note_, 349, 352, 353

Plurality, confused, of life, 257. _See_ Interpenetration

Poem, sounds of, distinct to perception; the sense indivisible to intuition, 209 illustrating creation of matter, 240, 319-20

[Greek: poiêtikos, nous], of Aristotle, 322

Polymorphism of ants, bees, and wasps, 140 of insect societies, 157

Polyzoism, 260

Positive reality, 208, 212. _See_ Reality

Positivity, materiality an inversion or interruption of, 219, 246, 247-8, 319-20

Possible activity as a factor in consciousness, 11, 12, 96, 144, 145, 146-7, 158-9, 165, 179, 180, 181, 189, 264, 368 existence, 290, 295

Post-Kantian philosophy, 362, 363

Potential activity. _See_ Possible activity genera, 226 knowledge, 142-7, 150, 166

Potentiality, life as an immense, 258, 270 zone of, surrounding acts, 179, 180, 181, 264. _See_ Possible activity

Powers of life, complementarity of, xii, xiii, 26, 27, 51-5, 97-105, 110, 113, 116-8, 119, 126-7, 131-6, 140-3, 176, 177, 183, 184, 246, 254, 255, 257, 266, 270, 343, 345

Practical nature of perception and its prolongation in intellect and science, 137-41, 150, 193-4, 196, 197, 206, 207-8, 218, 247-8, 273, 281, 305, 306-7, 328, 329

Preëstablished harmony, 205-6, 207

Present, creation of, by past, 5, 20-3, 26-7, 167, 199-202

Prevision. _See_ Foreseeing

Primacy of nervous system, 120-6, 252

Primary instinct, 138-9, 168

Primitive organisms, ambiguous forms of, 99, 112, 113, 116, 129, 130

"Procession" in Alexandrian philosophy, 323

Progress, adaptation and, 101 ff. Evolutionary, 50, 133, 134, 138, 141-2, 173-4, 175, 185, 264-5, 266

Prose and verse, illustrating the two kinds of orders, 221, 232

Protophytes, colonizing of, 259

Protoplasm, circulation of, 32-3, 108 and senescence, 18, 19 imitation of, 32-3, 35 primitive, and the nervous system, 124, 126-7 of primitive organisms, 99, 108, 109 and the vital principle, 42-3

Protozoa, association of, 259-61 ageing of, 16 of ambiguous form, 112 and individuation, 14, 259-61 mechanical explanation of movements of, 33 and nervous system, 126 reproduction of, 14

Pseudo-ideas and problems, 177, 277, 283, 296

Pseudoneuroptera, division of labor among, 140

[Greek: pschnê] of Aristotle, 350 of Plotinus, 210 _note_

Psychic activity, twofold nature of, 136, 140-1, 142-3 life, continuity of, 1-11, 29-30

Psychical existence contrasted with logical, 276, 297-8, 327-8, 361 nature of life, 257

Psychics inverted physics, 201, 202. _See_ Inverse relation of the physical and psychical

Psychology and deduction, 212-3 and the genesis of intellect, 187, 194, 195-6, 197 intuitional cosmology as reversed, 208-9

Psycho-physiological parallelism, 180, 350, 351, 355, 356

Puberty, illustrating crises in evolution, 19, 320-1

Qualitative, evolutionary and extensive becoming, 313 motion, 302-3, 304, 311

Qualities, acts, forms, the classes of representation, 303, 314 bodies as bundles of, 300-1 coincidence of, 309 and movements, 299-300 and natural geometry, 211 superimposition of, in induction, 216

Quality is change, 299-300 in Eleatic philosophy, 314-5 and quantity in ancient philosophy, 323-4 and quantity in modern philosophy, 350 and rhythm, 300-2

Quaternary substances, 121

Quinton, René, 134 _note_

Radius-vector, Heliocentric, in Kepler's laws, 334

Rank, evolutionary, 50, 133-5, 173-4, 265

Reaction, rôle of, in perception, 226-7

Ready-made categories, x, xiv, 48, 237, 250, 251, 273, 311, 321, 329, 354, 359

Real activity as distinguished from possible, 145 common-sense is continuous experience of the, 213 continuity of the, 302, 329 dichotomy of the, in modern philosophy, 349 imitation of the, by intelligence, 90, 204, 258, 270, 307, 355 obliteration of outlines in the, 11-2, 188, 189, 207-8 representation of the, by science, 203-4

Realism, ancient, 231-2

Realists and idealists alike assume possibility of absence of order, 220, 231-2

Reality, absolute, 198, 228-9, 230, 269, 359-60, 361 as action, 47, 191-2, 194-5, 249 degrees of, 323, 327 in dogmatic metaphysics, 196 double form of, 179-80, 216, 230-1, 236 as duration, 11-2, 217, 272 as flux, 165, 250, 251, 294, 337, 338, 342 and the frames of the intellect, 363-4, 365. _See_ Frames of the understanding as freedom, 247 of genera in ancient philosophy, 226-7 is growth, 239 imitation of, by the intellect, 89-90, 365 and the intellect, 52, 89-90, 153, 191, 192, 314-5, 355-6 intelligible, in ancient philosophy, 317 knowledge of, 307-8, 317, 358-9 and mechanism, 351, 354-5 as movement, 90, 155, 301-2, 312 and not-being, 276, 280, 285 of the person, 269 refraction of, through the forms of perception, 204, 238, 359-60 and science, 194, 196, 198, 199, 203-4, 206-8, 354, 357 sensible, in ancient philosophy, 314, 317, 321, 327, 328, 352 symbol of, xi, 30-1, 71, 88-9, 93-4, 195-6, 197, 209, 240, 342, 360-1, 369 undefinable conceptually, 13, 49 unknowable in Kant, 205 unknowable in Spencer, xi views of, 30-1, 71, 84, 88, 199, 201, 206-7, 225-6, 249, 258, 273, 300-7, 311, 314, 331-2, 342, 351, 352

Reason and life, 7, 8, 48, 161 cannot transcend itself, 193-4

Reasoning and acting, 192-3 and experience, 203-4 and matter, 204-5, 208-9 on matter and life, 7, 8

Recollection, dependence of, on special circumstances, 167, 180 in the dream, 202, 207-8 and perception, 180, 181

Recommencing, continual, of the present in the state of relaxation, 201

Recomposing, decomposing and, the characteristic powers of intellect, 157, 251

Record, false comparison of memory with, 5

Reflection, 158-9

Reflex activity, 110 compound, 173-4, 175-6

Refraction of the idea through matter or non-being, 316-7 of reality through forms of perception, 204, 238, 359-60

Regeneration and individuality, 13, 14

Register of time, 16, 20, 37

Reinke, 42 _note_

Relation, imprint of relations and laws upon consciousness, 188 as law, 229, 230-1 and thing, 147-52, 156-7, 160, 161, 187, 202, 352, 357

Relativism, epistemological, 196, 197, 230

Relativity of immobility, 155 of the intellect, xi, 48-9, 152, 153, 187, 195-6, 197-8, 199, 219, 273, 306-7, 360-1 of knowledge, 152, 191, 230 of perception, 226-7, 228, 300-1

Relaxation in the dream state, 201, 209-10 and extension, 201, 207-8, 209, 210, 212, 218, 223, 245 and intellect, 200, 207-8, 209, 212, 218 logic a, of virtual geometry, 212 matter a, of unextended into extended, 218 memory vanishes in complete, 200 necessity as, of freedom, 218 present continually recommences in the state of relaxation, 200 will vanishes in complete, 200, 207-8 _See_ Tension

Releasing cause, 73, 74, 115, 118-9, 120

Repetition and generalization, 230-1, 232 and fabrication, 44-5, 46, 155-8 and intellect, 156-7, 199, 214-6 of states, 5-6, 7-8, 28-9, 30, 36, 45-6, 47 in the vital and in the mathematical order, 225, 226, 230, 231

Representation and action, 143-4, 145, 180 classes of: qualities, forms, acts, 302-3, 314 and consciousness, 143-4 of motion, 159-60, 303-4, 305, 306-7, 308, 313, 315, 344-5 of the Nought, 273-80, 281-4, 289-317, 327

Represented or internalized action distinguished from externalized action, 144-7, 158-9, 165

Reproduction and individuation, 13, 14

Resemblance. _See_ Similarity

Reservoir, organism a, of energy, 115, 116, 125-6, 245, 246, 254

Rest and motion in Zeno, 308-12

Retrogression in evolution, 133, 134

Retrospection the function of intellect, 47-8, 237

Reversed psychology: intuitional cosmology, 208

Rhizocephala and animal mobility, 111

Rhumbler, 34 _note_

Rhythm of duration, 11-2, 127-8, 300-1, 345-7 intelligence adopts the, of action, 305-6 of perception, 299-300, 301 and quality, 301 scanning the, of the universe the function of science, 346-7 of science must coincide with that of action, 320 of the universe untranslatable into scientific formulae, 337

Rings of arthropods, 132-3

Ripening, creative evolution as, 47-8, 340-1

Romanes, 139

Roule, 27 _note_

Roy (Le), Ed. , 218 _note_

_Salamandra maculata_, vision in, 75

Salensky, 75 _note_

Same, function of intellect connecting same with same, 199-200, 233, 270

Samter and Heymons, 72 _note_

Saporta (De), 112 _note_

Savage's sense of distance and direction, 212

Skepticism or dogmatism the dilemma of any systematic metaphysics, 195-6, 197, 230-1

Schisms in the primitive impulsion of life, 254-5, 257. _See_ Divergent lines of evolution

Scholasticism, 370

Science and action, 93, 195, 198, 328-9 ancient, and modern, 329-37, 342-5, 357 astronomy, ancient and modern, 334-5, 336 cartesian geometry and ancient geometry, 333-4 cinematographical character of modern, 329, 330, 336-7, 340-1, 342, 345-8 conventionality of a certain aspect of, 206-7 and deduction, 212-3 and discontinuity, 161-2 function of, 92, 167-8, 173-4, 176-7, 193-4, 195-6, 198-9, 328-9, 346-7 Galileo's influence on modern, 333-4, 335 and instinct, 169, 170, 173-4, 175, 193-5 and intelligence, 176, 177, 193-6 Kepler's influence on modern, 334 and matter, 194-5, 206-7, 208 modern. _See_ Modern science object of, 195-6, 220, 221, 251, 270-1, 273, 296-8, 306-7, 328-9, 332-3, 335-6, 347-8 and perception, 168 and philosophy, 175-6, 196-7, 208-9, 344, 370 physical. _See_ Physics and reality. _See_ Reality and science and time, 8-13, 20, 335-8 unity of, 195-6, 197, 228-9, 230, 321-2, 323, 344-5, 347-8, 349, 354, 355-6, 359-60, 362-3

Scientific concepts, 338-40 explanation and philosophical explanation, 168 formulae, 337 geometry, 161, 211 knowledge, 193-4, 196-7, 198, 199, 207, 208, 218

Sclerosis and ageing, 19

Scolia, paralyzing instinct in, 172

Scope of action indefinitely extended by intelligent instruments, 141 of Galileo's physics, 357, 370

Scott, 63 _note_

Sea-urchin and individuality, 13

Séailles, 29 _note_

Secondary instincts, 139, 168

Sectioning of becoming in the philosophy of ideas, 317-8 of matter by perception, 206-7, 249, 251

Sedgwick, 260 _note_

Seeing and willing, coincidence of, in intuition, 237

Selection, natural, 54, 56-7, 59-60, 61-2, 63, 64, 68, 95-6, 169, 170

Self, coincidence of, with, 199 existence of, means change, 1 ff. Knowledge of, 1 ff. 

Senescence, 15-23, 26-7, 42-3

Sensation and space, 202

Sense-perception. _See_ Perception

Sensible flux, 316-7, 318, 321, 322, 327, 343, 345 intuition and ultra-intellectual, 360-1 object, apogee of, 342-3, 344-5, 349 reality, 314, 317, 319, 327, 328, 352

Sensibility, forms of, 361

Sensitive plant, in illustration of mobility in plants, 109

Sensori-motor system. _See_ Nervous system

Sensuous manifold, 205, 221, 232, 235, 236

Sentiment, poetic, in illustration of individuation, 258, 259

Serkovski, 259 _note_

Serpula, in illustration of identical evolution in divergent lines, 96

Sexual cells, 14, 26, 27, 79-81

Sexuality parallel in plants and animals, 58-60, 119-21

Shaler, N. S. , 133 _note_, 184 _note_

Sheath, calcareous, in illustration of animal tendency to mobility, 130-1

Signs, function of, 158, 159, 160 the instrument of science, 329-30

Sigwart, 287 _note_

Silurian epoch, failure of certain species to evolve since, 102

Similarity among individuals of same species the type of generality, 224-6, 228-9, 230-1 and mechanical causality, 44, 45

Simultaneity, to measure time is merely to count simultaneities, 9, 336, 337, 341

Sinuousness of evolution, 71, 98, 102, 212-3

Sitaris, unconscious knowledge of, 146, 147

Situation and magnitude, problems of, 211

Sketching movements, function of consciousness, 207-8

Sleep, 129-31, 135, 181

Snapshot, in illustration of intellectual representation of motion, 305, 306, 313, 315, 344 _See_ View of reality, Cinematographical character, etc. Form defined as a, of transition, 301-2, 317, 318, 321-2, 345

Social instinct, 101, 140, 158, 171-2 life, 138, 140, 158, 265 and pedagogical character of negation, 287-97

Societies, 101, 131-2, 158, 171-2, 259

Society and the individual, 260, 265

Solar energy stored by plants, released by animals, 246, 254 systems, 241-4, 246 _note_, 256, 270 systems, life in other, 256

Solid, concepts analogous to solids, ix intellect as a solid nucleus, 193, 194 the material of construction and the object of the intellect, 153, 154, 161, 162, 251

Solidarity between brain and consciousness, 180, 262 of the parts of matter, 203, 207-8, 241, 271

Solidification operated by the understanding, 249

[Greek: sôma] in Aristotle, 350

Somnambulism and consciousness, 144, 145, 159

Soul and body, 350 and cell, 269 creation of, 270

Space and action, 203 in ancient philosophy, 318, 319 and concepts, 160-1, 163, 174-5, 176-7, 188-9, 257-9 geometrical, 203 homogeneity of, 156, 212 and induction, 216 in Kant's philosophy, 205, 206, 207, 244 in Leibniz's philosophy, 351 and matter, 189, 202-13, 244, 257, 264, 361-2, 368 and time in Kant's philosophy, 205-6 unity and multiplicity determinations of, 357-9 _See_ Extension

Spatiality atmosphere of, bathing intelligence, 205 degradation of the extra-spatial, 207 and distinctness, 203, 207, 244, 250, 257-9 and geometrical space, 203, 211, 213, 218 and mathematical order, 208, 209

Special instincts and environment, 138, 168, 192-3, 194 and recollections, 167, 168, 180 as variations on a theme, 167, 172, 264

Species, articulate, 133 evolution of, 247, 255, 269 and external finality, 128-9, 130-1, 132, 266 fossil, 102 human, as goal of evolution, 266, 267 human, styled _homo faber_, 139 and instinct, 140, 167, 170-2, 264 and life, 167 similarity within, 223-6, 228-9, 230-1

Speculation, dead-locks in, xii, 155, 156, 312, 313-4 object of philosophy, 44, 152, 196, 198, 220, 225-6, 227, 251, 270-1, 273, 297-8, 306-7, 317, 347-8

Spencer, Herbert, xi, xiv, 78-9, 153, 188, 189, 190, 364, 365

Spencer's evolutionism, correspondence between mind and matter in, 368 cosmogony in, 188 imprint of relations and laws upon consciousness in, 188 matter in, 365, 367 mind in, 365, 367

Spheres, concentric, in Aristotle's philosophy, 328

Sphex, paralyzing instinct in, 172-5

Spiders and paralyzing hymenoptera, 172

Spinal cord, 110

Spinoza, the adequate and the inadequate, 353 cause, 277 dogmatism, 356, 357 eternity, 353 extension, 350 God, 351, 357 intuitionism, 347 mechanism, 348, 352, 355, 356 time, 362

Spirit, 251, 269, 270

Spirituality and materiality, 128-9, 201-3, 316-7, 208-9, 210-1, 212-3, 217, 218, 219, 222-3, 237, 238, 245, 247-8, 249, 251, 254, 256, 257, 259, 261, 267, 270-1, 272, 276, 343

Spontaneity of life, 86, 237. _See_ Freedom and mechanism, 40 in vegetables, 109 and the willed order, 224

Sport (biol. ), 63

Starch, in the function of vegetable kingdom, 114

States of becoming, 1, 13, 163, 247-8, 299, 300, 307

Static character of the intellect, 155-6, 163, 274, 298 views of becoming, 273

Stehasny, 124 _note_

Steam-engine and bronze, parallel as epoch-marking, 138-9

Stentor and individuality, 260

Stoics, 316

Storing of solar energy by plants, 246, 253-6

Strain of bow and indivisibility of motion, 308

Stream, duration as a, 39, 338

Structure and function. _See_ Function and structure identical, in divergent lines of evolution, 55, 60, 61-2, 63, 69, 73-4, 75, 76-7, 83, 86, 87, 118-9

Subject and attribute, 147-8

Substance, albuminoid, 120-1 continuity of living, 162 organic, 121, 131, 140, 142, 149, 162-3, 195-7 _note_, 255, 267 in Spinoza's philosophy, 350 ternary substances, 121

Substantives, adjectives, verbs, correspond to the three classes of representation, 302-4

Substitution essential to representation of the Nought, 281, 283-4, 289-90, 291, 294, 296

Success of physics, 218, 219-20 and superiority, 133, 264-5

Succession in time, 10, 339, 340, 341, 345. Cf. Juxtaposition

Successors of Kant, 363, 364

Sudden mutations, 28, 62-3, 64-5, 68-9

Sun, 115, 241, 323

Superaddition of existence upon nothingness, 276 of order upon disorder, 236, 275

Superimposition. _See_ Measurement of qualities, in induction, 216

Superiority, evolutionary, 133-5, 173, 174-5

Superman, 267

Supraconsciousness, 261

Survival of the fit, 169. _See_ Natural selection

Swim, learning to, as instinctive learning, 193, 194

Symbol, the concept is a, 161, 209, 341-2 of reality, xi, 30-1, 71, 88-9, 93, 195-6, 210, 240, 342, 360-1, 369-70

Symbolic knowledge of life, 199, 342, 360

Symbolism, 176, 180, 360

Sympathetic or intuitive knowledge, 209, 210, 342

Sympathy, instinct is, 164, 168, 172-8, 342-3. _See_ Divination, Feeling, Inspiration

Systematic metaphysics, dilemma of, 195, 196, 230-1 contrasted with intuitional, 191-2, 193-4, 238, 269, 270, 277, 346-8 postulate of, 190, 195

Systematization of physics, Liebniz's philosophy, 347

Systems, isolated, 9-13, 203, 214, 215, 241, 242, 342, 347-9

Tangent and curve, analogy with deduction and the moral sphere, 214 analogy with physico-chemistry and life, 31

Tarakevitch, 124 _note_

Teleology. _See_ Finalism

Tendency, antagonistic tendencies of life, 13, 98, 103, 113, 135, 150 antagonistic tendencies in development of nervous system, 124-5 complementary tendencies of life, 51, 103, 135, 150, 168, 246 to dissociation, 260 divergent tendencies of life, 54, 89, 99, 101, 107-8, 109-10, 112, 116-8, 134, 135, 150, 181, 246, 254-8 to individuation, 13 life a tendency to act on inert matter, 96 toward mobility in animals, 109, 110, 113, 127-8, 129-33, 135, 181, 182 the past exists in present tendency, 5 to reproduce, 13 of species to change, 85-86 mathematical symbols of tendencies, 22, 23 toward systems, in matter, 10 transmission of, 80-1 a vital property is a, 13

Tension and extension, 236, 245 and freedom, 200-2, 207-8, 223, 237, 239, 300-2 matter the inversion of vital, 239 of personality, 199-200, 201, 207-8, 237, 239, 300

Ternary substances, 121

Theology consequent upon philosophy of ideas, 316

Theoretic fallacies, 263, 264 knowledge and instinct, 177, 268 knowledge and intellect, 155, 177, 179, 238, 270, 342, 343

Theorizing not the original function of the intellect, 154-5

Theory of knowledge, xiii, 178, 180, 184-5, 197, 204, 207-8, 209, 228-9, 231 of life, xiii, 178, 180, 197

Thermodynamics, 241-2. _See_ Conservation of energy, Degradation of energy

Thesis and antithesis, 205

Thing as distinguished from motion, 187, 202, 247-8, 249, 299-300 as distinguished from relation, 147, 148, 150, 152, 158-9, 159-60, 161, 187, 202, 352, 356-7 and mind, 206 as solidification operated by understanding, 249

Thing-in-itself, 205, 206, 230-1, 312

Timaeus, 318 _note_

Time and the absolute, 240, 241, 297-8, 339, 343-4 abstract, 21, 22, 37, 39 articulations of real, 331-3 as force, 16, 45-6, 47, 51, 103, 339 homogeneous, 17, 18, 163-4, 331-3 as independent variable, 20, 335-7 interval of, 9, 22, 23 as invention, 341-2 in Leibniz's philosophy, 351, 352, 362 and logic, 4, 277 and simultaneity, 9, 336, 337, 341 in modern science 321-37, 341-5 and space in Kant, 205 and space in ancient philosophy, 318, 319. _See_ Duration

Tools and intellect, 137-41, 150-1. _See_ Implement

Torpor, in evolution, 109, 111, 113, 114 _note_, 120, 128-35, 181, 292

Tortoise, Achilles and the, in Zeno, 311

Touch, science expresses all perception as touch, 168 is to vision as intelligence to instinct, 169

Track laid by motion along its course, 309-12, 337

Transcendental Aesthetic, 203

Transformation, 32, 72, 73, 131, 231, 263

Transformism, 23-5

Transition, form a snapshot view of, 301-2, 316-7, 318, 321, 344-5

Transmissibility of acquired characters, 75-84, 87, 168, 169, 172-3, 225-6, 230-1

Transmission of the vital impetus, 26, 27, 79, 85, 87, 88, 93-4, 110, 126-7, 128, 230, 231, 246, 255, 256, 257, 259, 270

Trigger-action of motor mechanisms, 272

Triton, Regeneration in, 75

Tropism and psychical activity, 35 _note_

Truth seized in intuition, 318-20

Unconscious effort, 170 instinct, 142-3, 144, 145-6, 147, 166 knowledge, 145-8, 150-1

Unconsciousness, two kinds of, 144

Undefinable, reality, 13, 48

Understanding, absoluteness of, 153-4, 190-1, 197-8, 199, 200 and action, ix, xi, 179 genesis of the, ix-xv, 49, 189, 207-8, 257-9, 359, 361-2 and geometry, ix, xii and innateness of categories, 147, 148-9 and intuition, 46-7 and life, ix-xv, 13, 32-3, 46-50, 88-9, 101, 147-8, 149, 152, 162-5, 173-4, 176-7, 178, 195-201, 213, 220, 222-3, 224, 226, 257-9, 261, 266, 270, 271, 313, 361-2, 365 and inert matter, 166, 168, 179, 194-5, 198, 205-6, 207, 219, 355 and the ready-made, xiii, 48, 237, 250, 251, 273, 311, 321, 328-9, 354, 358 and the solid, ix unlimited scope of the, 149, 150, 152 _See_ Intellect, Intelligence, Concept, Categories, Frames of the understanding, Logic

Undone, automatic and determinate evolution is action being, 249

Unfolding cause, 73, 74

Unforeseeableness of action, 47 of duration, 6, 164, 340-2 of evolution, 47, 48, 52, 86, 224 of invention, 164 of life, 164, 184 and the willed order, 224, 342-3 _See_ Foreseeing

Unification as the function of the intellect, 152, 154, 357-8

Uniqueness of phases of duration, 164

Unity of extension, 154 of knowledge, 195-6 of life, 106-7, 250, 268, 271 of mental life, 268 and multiplicity as determinations of space, 351-3 of nature, 104-5, 189-90, 191, 195-6, 197, 199, 322, 352, 356-8 of the organism, 176-7 of science, 195-6, 197, 228-9, 230, 321, 322, 344-5, 347, 359-60, 362-3

Universal interaction, 188, 189 life, consciousness coextensive with, 186, 257, 270

Universe, continuity of, 346 Descartes's, 346 physical, and the idea of disorder, 233, 275 duration of, 10, 11, 241 evolution of, 241, 246 _note_ growth of, 342-3, 344 movement of, in Aristotle, 323 mutability of, 244, 245 as organism, 31, 241 as realization of plan, 40 rhythm of, 337, 339, 346-7 states of, considered by science, 336, 337 as unification of physics, 348-9, 357

Unknowable, the, of evolutionism, xi the, in Kant, 204, 205, 206

Unmaking, the nature of the process of materiality, 245, 248, 249, 251, 272, 342-3

Unorganized bodies, 7-8, 14, 20, 21, 186. _See_ inert matter instruments, 137-9, 140-1, 150-1 matter, cleft between, and the organized, 190, 191, 196, 197-9 matter, imitation of the organized by, 33-4, 35, 36 matter and science, 194-6 matter. _See_ inert matter

Unwinding cause, 73 of immutability in Greek philosophy, 325, 352

Upspringing of invention, 164

Utility, 4-5, 150, 152, 154-5, 158-9, 160, 168, 187, 195-6, 247-8, 297-8, 328-9, 330

_Vanessa levana_ and _Vanessa prorsa_, transformation of, 72

Variable, time as an independent, 20, 336

Variation, accidental, 55, 63-4, 68, 85, 168-9 of color, in lizards, 72, 74 by deviation, 82-3, 84 of evolutionary type, 23-4, 72 _note_, 131-2, 137-8, 167, 169, 171-2, 264 insensible, 63, 68 interest as cause of, 131-2 in plants, 85-86

Vegetable kingdom. _See_ Plants

Verb, relation expressed by, 148

Verbs, substantives and adjectives, 303

Verse and prose, in illustration of the two kinds of order, 221, 232

Vertebrate, ix, 126, 130, 131-4, 141

Vibrations, matter analyzed into elementary, 201

Vicious circle, apparent, of intuitionism, 192-4, 196-7 of intellectualism, 194, 197, 318-9, 320

View, intellectual, of becoming, 4, 90-1, 273, 298-9, 304, 305, 310, 326-7 intellectual, of matter, 203, 240, 250, 254, 255 of reality, 206

Vignon, P. , 35 _note_

Virtual actions, 12. _See_ Possible action geometry, 212

Vise, consciousness compressed in a, 179

Vision of God, in Alexandrian philosophy, 322 in molluscs. See Eye of molluscs, etc. In _Salamandra maculata_, 75

Vital activity, 134-6, 139, 140, 166-9, 246, 247-8 current, 26, 27, 53-5, 80, 85, 87, 88, 96-105, 118-9, 120, 230-1, 232, 239, 257, 266, 270 impetus, 50-1, 53-5, 85, 87, 88, 98-105, 118-9, 126-7, 128, 131-2, 141-2, 148-9, 150, 218, 230-1, 232, 247-8, 250, 252, 254-5, 261 order, cause in, 34, 35, 94-5, 164 order, finality and, 223-5, 226 order, generalization in the, and in the mathematical order contrasted, 225, 226, 230-1 order, and the geometrical order, 222-3, 225, 226, 230, 231, 235, 236, 330-1 order, imitation of physical order by vital, 230 principle, 42, 43, 225, 226 order, repetition in the vital and the mathematical orders contrasted, 225, 226, 230, 231 process, 166-7

Vitalism, 42, 43

Void, representation of, 273, 274, 275, 277-8, 281, 283-4, 289-90, 291, 292, 294, 296, 298

Voisin, 80

Volition and cerebral mechanism, 253-4

Voluntary activity, 110, 252

Vries (de), 24, 63 _note_, 85

Wasps, instinct in, 140, 172

Weapons and intellect, 137

Weismann, 26, 78, 80-1

Will and caprice, 47 and cerebral mechanism, 252 current of, penetrating matter, 237 insertion of, into reality, 305-6, 307 and relaxation, 201, 207-8 and mechanism in disorder, 233 tension of, 199, 201, 207-8

Willed order, mutual contingency of willed order and mathematical order, 231-3 unforeseeability in the, 224, 342-3

Willing, coincidence of seeing and, in intuition, 237

Wilson, E. B. , 36

Wolff, 75 _note_

Words and states, 4, 302-3 three classes of, corresponding to three classes of representation, 302-3, 313-4

World, intelligible, 162-3 principle: conciousness, 237, 261

Worms, in illustration of ambiguity of primitive organisms, 130

Yellow-winged sphex, paralyzing instinct in, 172

Zeno on motion, 308-13

Zone of potentialities surrounding acts, 179-80, 181, 264

Zoology, 128-9

Zoospores of algae, in illustration of mobility in plants, 112