be chosen, is what we have tried to prove, in a former work, by the study of facta that best bring into relief the relation of the conscious state to the cerebral state, the facts of normal and pathological recognition, in particu- lar the forms of aphasia.' But it could have been proved by pure reasoning, before even it was Cv-idenced by facts. We have shown on what self-contradictory postulate, on what confusion of two mutually incompatible symbol- isms, the hypothesis of equivalence between the cerebral state and the psychic state rests.'
The evolution of life, looked at from this point, recdvee a clearer meaning, although it cannot be subsumed under any actual idea. It is as if a broad current of conscioua- ness had penetrated matter, loaded, as all consciousness is, with an enormous multiplicity of interwoven potential- ities. It has carried matter along to organization, but its movement has been at once infinitely retarded and in- finitely divided. On the one hand, indeed, consciousness has had to fall asleep, like the chrysalis in the envelope in which it is preparing for itself wings; and, on the other hand, the manifold tendencies it contained have been distributed among divergent series of organisms which, moreover, express these tendencies outwardly in move- ments rather than internally in representations. In the course of this evolution, while some beings have fallen more and more asleep, others have more and more complete- ly awakened, and the torpor of some has served the activity of others. But the waking could be effected in two different ways. Life, that is to say consciousness launched into matter, fixed its attention either on its own movement or on the matter it was passing through; and it has thus
> Malihe et mhnoiTe, chaps, ii. and iii.
• "Le ParalogiBine paycho-phj-Biologiquo-' (fteuue de m&ajihysiqut, Nov. 1904).
been turned either m the direction of intuition or in that intellect. Intuition, at first sight, seems far preferable to intellect, since in it life and consciousness remain within themselves. But a glance at the evolution of living beings shows us that intuition could not go very far. On the side of intuition, consciousness found itself so restricted by its envelope that intuition had to shrink into instinct, that is, to embrace only the very small portion of life that interested it; and this it embraces only in the dark, touch- ing it while hardly seeing it. On this side, the horizon was soon shut out. On the contrary, consciousness, in shaping itself into intelligence, that is to say in concentrat- ing itself at first on matter, seems to externalize itself in relation to itself; but, just because it adapts itself thereby to objects from without, it succeeds in moving among them and is evading the barriers they oppose to it, thus opening to itself an unlinoited field. Once freed, more- over, it can turn inwards on itself, and awaken the po- tentialities of intuition which still slumber within it.
From this point of view, not only does consciousness appear as the motive principle of evolution, but also, among conscious beings themselves, man comes to occupy a privileged place. Between him and the animals the dif- ference is no longer one of degree, but of kind. We shall show how this conclusion is arrived at in our next chapter. Let us now show how the preceding analyses suggest it.
A noteworthy fact is the extraordinary disproportion between the consequences of an invention and the invention itself. We have said that intelligence is modeled on matter and that it aims in the first place at fabrication. But does it fabricate in order to fabricate or does it not pursue involuntarily, and even unconsciously, something entirely different? Fabricating consists in shaping matter, in making it supple and in bending it, in converting it into
that of ^H
Life and Consciousness 183
an instrument in order to become master of it. It is this maslery that profits humaaity, much more even than the material result of the invention itself. Though we derive an immediate advantage from the thing made, as an intelligent animal might do, and though this advantage be all the inventor sought, it is a sHght matter compared with the new ideas and new feelings that the invention may g^ve rise to in every direction, as if the essential part of the effect were to raise us above oui"seIves and enlarge oiu- horizon. Between the effect and the cause the dis- proportion is so great that it is difficult to regard the cause as producer of its effect. It releases it, wliilst setthng, indeed, its direction. Everjthing happens as though the grip of intelligence on matter were, in its main intention, to let something pass that matter is holding back.
The same impression arises when we compare the brain of man with that of the animals. The difference at first appears to be only a difference of size and complexity. But, jud^ng by function, there must be something else besides. In the animal, the motor mechanisms that the brain succeeds in setting up, or, in other words, the habits contracted voluntarily, have no other object nor effect than the accomplishment of the movements marked out in these habits, stored in these mechanisms. But, in man, the motor habit may have a second result, out of proportion to the first: it can hold other motor habits in check, and thereby, in overcoming automatism, set consciousness free. We know what vast re^ons in the human brain language occupies. The cerebral mechanisms that corre- spond to the words have this in particular, that they can be made to grapple with other mechanisms, those, for instance, that correspond to the things themselves, or even be made to grapple with one another. Meanwhile consciousness, which would have been dragged down and
184 CREATIVE EVOLUTION iohap."
drowned in the accomplishment of the act, is restored and set free.'
The difference must therefore be more radical than a superficial examination would lead us to suppose. It is the difference between a mechanism which engages the attention and a mechanism from which it can be diverted. The primitive steam-engine, as Newcomen conceived it, required the presence of a person exclusively employed to turn on and off the taps, either to let the steam into the cylinder or to throw the cold spray into it in order to con- dense the steam. It is said that a boy employed on this work, and very tired of having to do it, got the idea of tying the handles of the taps, with cords, to the beam of the engine. Then the machine opened and closed the taps ilsclf; it worked all alone. Now, if an observer had com- pared the structure of this second machine with that of the first without taking into account the two boya left to watch over them, he would have found only a slight difference of complexity. That is, indeed, all we can per- ceive when we look only at the machines. But if we cast a glance at the two boj-s, we shall see that whilst one is wholly taken up by the watching, the other is free to go and play as he chooses, and that, from this point of view, the difference between the two machines is radical, the first holding the attention captive, the second setting it at liberty. A difference of the same kind, we think, Would be found between the brain of an animal and the Human brain.
If, now, we should wish to express this in terms of ' A geologist whom we have alreadj' had occasion to eit«, N. S. Shtkler, well says that "when we come to man, it seeniM im if we find the uicient subjcctioD of mind to body aholJRhed, and the intcUectiul pftrtB develop with an extraordinary rapidity, the Btructtire of the body remaining identical in essentiaU" (Sbaier, Th* Inttrpntatian of Natur*, Boalon. IS!)9, p. 1S7).
finality, we should have to say that consciousness, after having been obliged, in order to set itself free, to divide organization into two complementary parts, vegetables on one hand and animals on the other, has sought an issue in the double direction of instinct and of inteUigence. It has not found it with instinct, and it has not obtained it on the side of intelligence except by a sudden leap from the animal to man. So that, in the last analysis, man might be considered the reason for the existence of the entire organization of life on our planet. But this would be only a manner of speaking. There is, in reality, only a current of existence and 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 we shall also, no doubt, penetrate the most obscure regions of metaphysics. However, as the two directions we have to follow are clearly marked, in intelligence on the one hand, in instinct and intuition on the other, we are not afraid of straying. A survey of the evolution of life suggests to us a certain conception of knowledge, and also a certain metaphysics, which imply each other. Once made clear, this metaphysics and this critique may throw some light, in their turn, on evolution as a whole.
CHAPTER m
ON THE MEANING OP UFE — THE QBDEK OF NATOBH \ AND THE FORM OF DJTELLIOENCB
In the course of our first chapter we traced a line of de-l niarcation between the inorganic and the organized, but we pointed out that the division of unorganized matter into separate bodies is relative to our senses and to our intellect, and that matter, looked at as an undivided whole, must be a flux rather than a thing. In this we were preparing the way for a reconciliation between the inert and the living.
On the other side, we have shown in our second chapter that the same opposition is found again between instinct and intelligence, the one turned to certain determinations of life, the other molded on the configuration of matter. But instinct and intelligence, we have also said, stand out from the same background, which, for want of a better name, we may call consciousness in general, and which must be coextensive with universal life. In this way, we have disclosed the possibility of showing the genesis of intelligence in setting out from general consciousness, which embraces it.
We are now, then, to attempt a genesis of intellect at the same time as a genesis of material bodies — two enterprises that are evidently correlative, if it be true that the main lines of our intellect mark out the general form of our action on matter, and that the detail of matter is ruled by the requirements of our action. Intellectuality
The Method of Philosophy
and materiality have been constituted, in detail, by
reciprocal adaptation. Both are derived from a wider
and higher form of existence. It is there that we must
replace them, in order to see them issue forth.
Such an attempt may appear, at first, more daring than the boldest speculations of metaphysicians. It claims to go further than psychology, further than cos- mology, further than traditional metaphysics; for psy- chology, cosmology and metaphysics take intelligence, in all that is essential to it, as given, instead of, as we now propose, engendering it in its form and in its matter. The enterprise is in reality much more modest, as we are going to show. But let us first say how it differs from othere.
To begin with psychology, we are not to believe that it engenders intelligence when it follows the progressive development of it through the animal series. Comparative psychology teaches us that the more an animal is intelligent, the more it tends to reflect on the actions by which it makes use of things, and thus to approximate to man. But its actions have already by themselves adopted the principal lines of human action; they have made out the same general directions in the material world as we have; they depend upon the same objects bound together by the same relations; so that animal intelligence, although it does not form concepts properly so called, already moves in a conceptual atmosphere. Absorbed at every instant by the actions it performs and the attitudes it must adopt, drawn outward by them and so externalized in relation to itself, it no doubt plays rather than thinks its ideas; this play none the less already corresponds, in the main, to the general plan of human intelligence.' To explain the intelligence of man by that of the animal consists
Wa have de%'ebped this point in Matiire et mimoire, chaps, ii. and iii,, DoUbly pp. 7S-S0 and 1<)&-1SS.
tOHAF.
then simply in foUowing the development of an embryo
of humanity into complete humanity. We show how a
certain direction haa been followed further and further
by beings more and more intelligent. But the moment
we admit the direction, intelligence is given.