THE TIME OF ORGANIZED BEINGS 157 



at a constant rate of speed but we demonstrate precisely the 

 contrary. We are here facing an absolute contradiction. This 

 contradiction, however, is more apparent than real. Indeed, 

 on what do we base ourselves to say that the velocity of repair 

 is not uniform? We base ourselves on physical time, on the 

 regular rhythm of our clocks. We therefore impHcitly admit 

 that this rhythm is invariable. But if, as was pointed out in 

 the preceding chapter, this rhythm ceased to be uniform for 

 any reason whatsoever, we could not know it and we would 

 measure our phenomenon by means of a variable, elastic unit, 

 which would destroy all the value of our conclusions. We 

 would have no means of ascertaining whether the velocity of 

 cellular reparation or that of the flow of the time employed to 

 measure it, fluctuates. 



Now, this unit, in which we have complete confidence, and 

 to which we conventionally attribute an absolute rigidity and 

 undeformability, is borrowed from our inorganic material 

 universe. The use of this unit for measuring the evolution 

 of our physiological and psychological ego is practical, but is it 

 legitimate? As we have before remarked, there is a difference 

 between the physical, sideral time based on the co-ordination 

 of our sense impressions, but which remains nevertheless 

 outside us, and our human duration which is a constituent of 

 our ego as much as the space in which we evolve. It is our 

 intelhgence which 'thinks' the world. Our consciousness is 

 born, ages, and dies. But in coming to life it inherits an 

 enormous quantity of observations relative to this world which 

 have been accumulated by preceding consciences and trans- 

 mitted by word or by letter. It is this tradition which enables 

 it to acquire the notion of the continuity of the universe. ^ It 

 is this tradition which enables us to see and to locate ourselves 

 in the world. A unique, isolated consciousness, without con- 

 tact with those which have preceded it, would have very 

 different notions. Our short and fragmentary human duration 



^ And many other 'notions' also, which our intelhgencCj our science 

 have proved to be false or, if one prefers, relative; for example, the 

 notion of the vertical, the trajectory in a straight line, the parallelism 

 of two plumb-lines, etc. 



