i 4 4 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



fore, if it is the diversity of this effort that strikes us in 

 instinct and intelligence, and if we see in these two 

 modes of psychical activity, above all else, two different 

 methods of action on inert matter. This rather narrow 

 view of them has the advantage of giving us an 

 objective means of distinguishing them. In return, 

 however, it gives us, of intelligence in general and of 

 instinct in general, only the mean position above and 

 below which both constantly oscillate. For that reason 

 the reader must expect to see in what follows only a 

 diagrammatic drawing, in which the respective outlines 

 of intelligence and instinct are sharper than they 

 should be, and in which the shading-off which comes 

 from the indecision of each and from their reciprocal 

 encroachment on one another is neglected. In a 

 matter so obscure, we cannot strive too hard for 

 clearness. It will always be easy afterwards to soften 

 the outlines and to correct what is too geometrical 

 in the drawing in short, to replace the rigidity of a 

 diagram by the suppleness of life. 



To what date is it agreed to ascribe the appearance 

 of man on the earth ? To the period when the first 

 weapons, the first tools, were made. The memor 

 able quarrel over the discovery of Boucher de Perthes 

 in the quarry of Moulin- Quignon is not forgotten. 

 The question was whether real hatchets had been 

 found or merely bits of flint accidentally broken. 

 But that, supposing they were hatchets, we were indeed 

 in the presence of intelligence, and more particularly 

 of human intelligence, no one doubted for an instant. 

 Now let us open a collection of anecdotes on the in 

 telligence of animals : we shall see that besides many 

 acts explicable by imitation or by the automatic associa- 



