CHAPTER II 



THE DIVERGENT DIRECTIONS OF THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

 TORPOR, INTELLIGENCE, INSTINCT 



THE evolution movement would be a simple one, and 

 we should soon have been able to determine its direc 

 tion, if life had described a single course, like that of a 

 solid ball shot from a cannon. But it proceeds rather 

 like a shell, which suddenly bursts into fragments, 

 which fragments, being themselves shells, burst in their 

 turn into fragments destined to burst again, and so on 

 for a time incommensurably long. We perceive only 

 what is nearest to us, namely, the scattered move 

 ments of the pulverized explosions. From them we 

 have to go back, stage by stage, to the original 

 movement. 



When a shell bursts, the particular way it breaks is 

 explained both by the explosive force of the powder 

 it contains and by the resistance of the metal. So of 

 the way life breaks into individuals and species. It 

 depends, we think, on two series of causes : the 

 resistance life meets from inert matter, and the explosive 

 force due to an unstable balance of tendencies 

 which life bears within itself. 



The resistance of inert matter was the obstacle that 

 had first to be overcome. Life seems to have succeeded 

 in this by dint of humility, by making itself very small 



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