io8 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



downs of the hills ; it adapts itself to the accidents of 

 the ground ; but the accidents of the ground are not 

 the cause of the road, nor have they given it its 

 direction. At every moment they furnish it with 

 what is indispensable, namely, the soil on which it 

 lies ; but if we consider the whole of the road, instead 

 of each of its parts, the accidents of the ground appear 

 only as impediments or causes of delay, for the road 

 aims simply at the town and would fain be a straight 

 line. Just so as regards the evolution of life and 

 the circumstances through which it passes with this 

 difference, that evolution does not mark out a solitary 

 route, that it takes directions without aiming at 

 ends, and that it remains inventive even in its 

 adaptations. 



But, if the evolution of life is something other than 

 a series of adaptations to accidental circumstances, so 

 also it is not the realization of a plan. A plan is given 

 in advance. It is represented, or at least representable, 

 before its realization. The complete execution of it 

 may be put off to a distant future, or even indefinitely ; 

 but the idea is none the less formulable at the present 

 time, in terms actually given. If, on the contrary, 

 evolution is a creation unceasingly renewed, it creates, 

 as it goes on, not only the forms of life, but the ideas 

 that will enable the intellect to understand it, the terms 

 which will serve to express it. That is to say that its 

 future overflows its present, and cannot be sketched 

 out therein in an idea. 



There is the first error of finalism. It involves 

 another, yet more serious. 



If life realizes a plan, it ought to manifest a greater 

 harmony the further it advances, just as the house 

 shows better and better the idea of the architect as 



