1 52 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



stopper. This inadequacy of act to representation is 

 precisely what we here call consciousness. 



If we examine this point more closely, we shall find 

 that consciousness is the light that plays around the 

 zone of possible actions or potential activity which 

 surrounds the action really performed by the living 

 being. It signifies hesitation or choice. Where many 

 equally possible actions are indicated without there 

 being any real action (as in a deliberation that has not 

 come to an end), consciousness is intense. Where the 

 action performed is the only action possible (as in 

 activity of the somnambulistic or more generally auto 

 matic kind), consciousness is reduced to nothing. Re 

 presentation and knowledge exist none the less in the 

 case if we find a whole series of systematized movements 

 the last of which is already prefigured in the first, and 

 if, besides, consciousness can flash out of them at the 

 shock of an obstacle. From this point of view, the 

 consciousness of a living being may be defined as an 

 arithmetical difference between potential and real activity. 

 It measures the interval between representation and action. 



It may be inferred from this that intelligence is 

 likely to point towards consciousness, and instinct 

 toward unconsciousness. For, where the implement to 

 be used is organized by nature, the material furnished 

 by nature, and the result to be obtained willed by nature, 

 there is little left to choice : the consciousness inherent 

 in the representation is therefore counterbalanced, when 

 ever it tends to disengage itself, by the performance of 

 the act, identical with the representation, which forms its 

 counter-weight. Where consciousness appears, it does 

 not so much light up the instinct itself as the thwart- 

 ings to which instinct is subject ; it is the deficit of 

 instinct, the distance between the act and the idea, that 



