2 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



is no feeling, no idea, no volition which is not under 

 going change every moment : if a mental state ceased 

 to vary, its duration would cease to flow. Let us take 

 the most stable of internal states, the visual perception 

 of a motionless external object. The object may remain 

 the same, I may look at it from the same side, at the 

 same angle, in the same light ; nevertheless the vision 

 I now have of it differs from that which I have just had, 

 even if only because the one is an instant older than 

 the other. My memory is there, which conveys some 

 thing of the past into the present. My mental 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 disregard 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 

 difference between passing from one state to another 

 and persisting in the same state. If the state which 

 &quot;remains the same&quot; 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 



