5 2 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



as in theories of life. If, in evolving in the direction 

 of the vertebrates in general, of man and intellect in par 

 ticular, life has had to abandon by the way many elements 

 incompatible with this particular mode of organization 

 and consign them, as we shall show, to other lines of 

 development, it is the totality of these elements that we 

 must find again and rejoin to the intellect proper, in 

 order to grasp the true nature of vital activity. And 

 we shall probably be aided in this by the fringe of vague 

 intuition that surrounds our distinct that is, intellectual 

 representation. For what can this useless fringe be, 

 if not that part of the evolving principle which has not 

 shrunk to the peculiar form of our organization, but has 

 settled around it unasked for, unwanted ? It is there, 

 accordingly, that we must look for hints to expand the 

 intellectual form of our thought ; from there shall we 

 derive the impetus necessary to lift us above ourselves. 

 To form an idea of the whole of life cannot consist in 

 combining simple ideas that have been left behind in us 

 by life itself in the course of its evolution. How could 

 the part be equivalent to the whole, the content to 

 the container, a by-product of the vital operation to 

 the operation itself? Such, however, is our illusion 

 when we define the evolution of life as a &quot; passage from 

 the homogeneous to the heterogeneous,&quot; or by any 

 other concept obtained by putting fragments of intellect 

 side by side. We place ourselves in one of the points 

 where evolution comes to a head the principal one, 

 no doubt, but not the only one ; and there we do 

 not even take all we find, for of the intellect we keep 

 only one or two of the concepts by which it expresses 

 itself; and it is this part of a part that we declare 

 representative of the whole, of something indeed which 

 goes beyond the concrete whole, I mean of the evolution 



