8 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



that they are not quite the same reasons, since they are 

 not those of the same person, nor of the same moment. 

 That is why we cannot deal with them in the abstract, 

 from outside, as in geometry, nor solve for another 

 the problems by which he is faced in life. Each 

 must solve them from within, on his own account. 

 But we need not go more deeply into this. We are 

 seeking only the precise meaning that our conscious 

 ness gives to this word &quot; exist,&quot; and we find that, for 

 a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is 

 to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself 

 endlessly. Should the same be said of existence in 

 general ? 



A material object, of whatever kind, presents- 

 opposite characters to those which we have just been 

 describing. Either it remains as it is, or else, if it 

 changes under the influence of an external force, our 

 idea of this change is that of a displacement of parts 

 which themselves do not change. If these parts took 

 to changing, we should split them up in their turn. 

 We should thus descend to the molecules of which the 

 fragments are made, to the atoms that make up the 

 molecules, to the corpuscles that generate the atoms, 

 to the &quot; imponderable &quot; within which the corpuscle 

 is perhaps a mere vortex. In short, we should push 

 the division or analysis as far as necessary. But we 

 should stop only before the unchangeable. 



Now, we say that a composite object changes by 

 the displacement of its parts. But when a part has 

 left its position, there is nothing to prevent its return 

 to it. A group of elements which has gone through 

 a state can therefore always find its way back to that 

 state, if not by itself, at least by means of an external 



