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1WJTION OP LIFE — MECHANISM AND TBLEOLOOX"'. The existetice of which we are most assured and which ' we know best is unquestionably our own, for of every other object we have notions which may be considered external and superficial, whereas, of ourselves, our per- ception is internal and profound. What, then, do we find? In this privileged case, what is the precise mean- ing of the word "exist"? Let ua recall here briefly the conclusions of an earlier work. I find, first of all, that I pass from state to state. I am warm or cold, I am merry or sad, I work or I do noth- ing, I look at what is around me or I think of something else. Sensations, feelings, volitions, ideas— such are the changes into which my existence is divided and which color it in turns. I change, then, without ceasing. But this is not saying enough. Change is far more radical than we are at first inclined to suppose. For I speak of each of my states as if it formed a block I and were a separate whole. I say indeed that I change, I but the change seems to me to reside in the passage from lone state to the next; of each state, taken separately, ' I am apt to think that it remains the same during all the time that it prevails. Nevertheless, a slight effort of attention would reveal to me that there is no feeling, no idea, no volition which is not undergoing change every moment: if a mental state ceased to vary, its duratloQ ...CREATIVE EVOLUTION would cease- .^ flow. Let us take the most stable of in- ternal states; -the visual perception of a motionless external object... '-Xhe object may remain the same, I may look at it froqr\^e same side, at the same angle, in the same light; nev^rtlieless the vision I now have of it differs from that which I have just had, even if only because the one is an .-.'^nfitant older than the other. My memory is there, which .■■«5nveys something of the past into the present. My men- '. tal state, as it advances on the road of time, is continually swelling with the duration which it accumulates: it goes on increasing — rolling upon itself, as a snowball on the snow. Still more is this the case with states more deeply internal, such as sensations, feelings, desires, etc., which do not correspond, like a simple visual perception, to an unvarying external object. But it is expedient to dis- regard this uninterrupted change, and to notice it only when it becomes sufficient to impress a new attitude on the body, a new direction on the attention. Then, and then only, we find that our state has changed. The truth is that we change without ceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change. This amounts to saying that there is no essential dilTer- ence between passing from one state to another and per- sisting in the same state.
2ention. Then, and then only, we find that our state has changed. The truth is that we change without ceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change. This amounts to saying that there is no essential dilTer- ence between passing from one state to another and per- sisting in the same state. If the state which "remains the same" is more varied than we think, on the other hand the passing from one state to another resembles, more than we imagine, a single state being prolonged; the transition is continuous. But, just because we close our eyes to the unceasing variation of every psychical state, we are obliged, when the change has become so considerable ae to force itself on our attention, to speak as if a new state were placed alongside the previous one. Of this new state we assume that it remains unvarj-ing in its turn, and so on endlessly. The apparent discontinuity of the psychical fl u DURATION 3 then due to our attention being fixed on it by a I of separate acts: actually there is only a gentle ; but in following the broken line of our acts of at- ' tention, we think we perceive separate steps. True, our psychic life is full of the unforeseen, A thousand incidents arise, which seem to hs cut off from those which precede them, and to be disconnected from those which Lfollow. Discontinuous though they appear, however, I in point of fact they stand out against the continuity of a ' background on wiiich they are designed, and to which indeed they owe the intervals that separate them; they are the beats of the drum which break forth here and there in the symphony. Our attention fixes on them because they interest it more, but each of them is borne by the fluid mass of our whole psychical existence. Each is only (the best illuminated point of a moving zone wliich com- prises all that we feel or think or will — all, in short, that we are at any given moment. It is this entire zone which in reality makes up our state. Now, states thus defined cannot be regarded as distinct 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 lego, indifferent and unchangeable, on which it threads the psychic states which it has set up as independent entities. Instead of a flux of fleeting shades merging into each other, it perceives distinct and, so to speak, golid colors, set side by side like the beads of a necklace; it must perforce then suppose a thread, also itself soUd, to hold the beads together. But if this colorless sub- stratum ia perpetually colored by that which covers it, it is for us, in its indeterminateness, as if it did not exist, Bince we only perceive what is colored, or, in other worde, CREATIVE EVOLUTION psychic states.
3thread, also itself soUd, to hold the beads together. But if this colorless sub- stratum ia perpetually colored by that which covers it, it is for us, in its indeterminateness, as if it did not exist, Bince we only perceive what is colored, or, in other worde, CREATIVE EVOLUTION psychic states. As a matter of fact, this substratuin has no reality; it is merely a symbol intended to recall un- ceasingly to our consciousness the artificial character of the process by which the attention places clean-cut states side by side, where actually there is a continuity which unfolds. If our existencs were composed of separate states with an impassive ego to unite them, for ua there would be no duration. For an ego which does not change does not endure, and a psychic state which remajns the same so long as it is not replaced by the following state does not endure either. Vain, therefore, is the attempt to range such states beside each other on the ego supposed to sustain them: never can these solids strung upon a solid make up that duration which flows. What we actually obtain in this way is an artificial imitation of the internal life, a static equivalent which 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 which conceal it, we readily perceive that time is just the stuflE it is made of. There is, moreover, no stuff more resistant nor more substantial. For our duration is not merely one instant replacing another; if it were, there would never be any- thing but the present — no prolonging of the past into the actual, no evolution, no concrete duration. Duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances. And as the past grows without ceasing, so also there is no limit to its preservation. Memory, as we have tried to prove,' is not a faculty of putting away recollections in a drawer, or of inscribing them in a register. There is no register, DO drawer; there is not even, properly speaking, a faculty, iMatHre a mtmdTe, Paris, 1896, chap*, ii J DURATION 5 pfor a faculty works intermittently, when it will or when it can, whilst the piling up of the past upon the past goes on without relaxation. In reality, the past is preserved by itself, automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows Ma at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the , present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals | of consciousness that would fain leave it outside. The cerebral mechanism is arranged just so as to drive back into the unconscious almost the whole of this past, and to admit beyond the threshold only that which can cast light on the present situation or further the action now being pre- pared — in short, only that which can give useful work.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1WJTION OP LIFE — MECHANISM AND TBLEOLOOX"'. The existetice of which we are most assured and which ' we know best is unquestionably our own, for of every other object we have notions which may be considered external and superficial, whereas, of ourselves, our per- ception is internal and profound. What, then, do we find? In this privileged case, what is the precise mean- ing of the word "exist"? Let ua recall here briefly the conclusions of an earlier work. I find, first of all, that I pass from state to state. I am warm or cold, I am merry or sad, I work or I do noth- ing, I look at what is around me or I think of something else. Sensations, feelings, volitions, ideas— such are the changes into which my existence is divided and which color it in turns. I change, then, without ceasing. But this is not saying enough. Change is far more radical than we are at first inclined to suppose. For I speak of each of my states as if it formed a block I and were a separate whole. I say indeed that I change, I but the change seems to me to reside in the passage from lone state to the next; of each state, taken separately, ' I am apt to think that it remains the same during all the time that it prevails. Nevertheless, a slight effort of attention would reveal to me that there is no feeling, no idea, no volition which is not undergoing change every moment: if a mental state ceased to vary, its duratloQ ...CREATIVE EVOLUTION would cease- .^ flow. Let us take the most stable of in- ternal states; -the visual perception of a motionless external object... '-Xhe object may remain the same, I may look at it froqr\^e same side, at the same angle, in the same light; nev^rtlieless the vision I now have of it differs from that which I have just had, even if only because the one is an .-.'^nfitant older than the other. My memory is there, which .■■«5nveys something of the past into the present. My men- '. tal state, as it advances on the road of time, is continually swelling with the duration which it accumulates: it goes on increasing — rolling upon itself, as a snowball on the snow. Still more is this the case with states more deeply internal, such as sensations, feelings, desires, etc., which do not correspond, like a simple visual perception, to an unvarying external object. But it is expedient to dis- regard this uninterrupted change, and to notice it only when it becomes sufficient to impress a new attitude on the body, a new direction on the attention. Then, and then only, we find that our state has changed. The truth is that we change without ceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change. This amounts to saying that there is no essential dilTer- ence between passing from one state to another and per- sisting in the same state.
2ention. Then, and then only, we find that our state has changed. The truth is that we change without ceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change. This amounts to saying that there is no essential dilTer- ence between passing from one state to another and per- sisting in the same state. If the state which "remains the same" is more varied than we think, on the other hand the passing from one state to another resembles, more than we imagine, a single state being prolonged; the transition is continuous. But, just because we close our eyes to the unceasing variation of every psychical state, we are obliged, when the change has become so considerable ae to force itself on our attention, to speak as if a new state were placed alongside the previous one. Of this new state we assume that it remains unvarj-ing in its turn, and so on endlessly. The apparent discontinuity of the psychical fl u DURATION 3 then due to our attention being fixed on it by a I of separate acts: actually there is only a gentle ; but in following the broken line of our acts of at- ' tention, we think we perceive separate steps. True, our psychic life is full of the unforeseen, A thousand incidents arise, which seem to hs cut off from those which precede them, and to be disconnected from those which Lfollow. Discontinuous though they appear, however, I in point of fact they stand out against the continuity of a ' background on wiiich they are designed, and to which indeed they owe the intervals that separate them; they are the beats of the drum which break forth here and there in the symphony. Our attention fixes on them because they interest it more, but each of them is borne by the fluid mass of our whole psychical existence. Each is only (the best illuminated point of a moving zone wliich com- prises all that we feel or think or will — all, in short, that we are at any given moment. It is this entire zone which in reality makes up our state. Now, states thus defined cannot be regarded as distinct 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 lego, indifferent and unchangeable, on which it threads the psychic states which it has set up as independent entities. Instead of a flux of fleeting shades merging into each other, it perceives distinct and, so to speak, golid colors, set side by side like the beads of a necklace; it must perforce then suppose a thread, also itself soUd, to hold the beads together. But if this colorless sub- stratum ia perpetually colored by that which covers it, it is for us, in its indeterminateness, as if it did not exist, Bince we only perceive what is colored, or, in other worde, CREATIVE EVOLUTION psychic states.
3thread, also itself soUd, to hold the beads together. But if this colorless sub- stratum ia perpetually colored by that which covers it, it is for us, in its indeterminateness, as if it did not exist, Bince we only perceive what is colored, or, in other worde, CREATIVE EVOLUTION psychic states. As a matter of fact, this substratuin has no reality; it is merely a symbol intended to recall un- ceasingly to our consciousness the artificial character of the process by which the attention places clean-cut states side by side, where actually there is a continuity which unfolds. If our existencs were composed of separate states with an impassive ego to unite them, for ua there would be no duration. For an ego which does not change does not endure, and a psychic state which remajns the same so long as it is not replaced by the following state does not endure either. Vain, therefore, is the attempt to range such states beside each other on the ego supposed to sustain them: never can these solids strung upon a solid make up that duration which flows. What we actually obtain in this way is an artificial imitation of the internal life, a static equivalent which 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 which conceal it, we readily perceive that time is just the stuflE it is made of. There is, moreover, no stuff more resistant nor more substantial. For our duration is not merely one instant replacing another; if it were, there would never be any- thing but the present — no prolonging of the past into the actual, no evolution, no concrete duration. Duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances. And as the past grows without ceasing, so also there is no limit to its preservation. Memory, as we have tried to prove,' is not a faculty of putting away recollections in a drawer, or of inscribing them in a register. There is no register, DO drawer; there is not even, properly speaking, a faculty, iMatHre a mtmdTe, Paris, 1896, chap*, ii J DURATION 5 pfor a faculty works intermittently, when it will or when it can, whilst the piling up of the past upon the past goes on without relaxation. In reality, the past is preserved by itself, automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows Ma at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the , present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals | of consciousness that would fain leave it outside. The cerebral mechanism is arranged just so as to drive back into the unconscious almost the whole of this past, and to admit beyond the threshold only that which can cast light on the present situation or further the action now being pre- pared — in short, only that which can give useful work.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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