160 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



It is necessary here to consider some preliminary 

 details that concern the mechanism of intelligence. We 

 have said that the function of intelligence is to 

 establish relations. Let us determine more precisely 

 the nature of these relations. On this point we are 

 bound to be either vague or arbitrary so long as we 

 see in the intellect a faculty intended for pure 

 speculation. We are then reduced to taking the 

 general frames of the understanding for something 

 absolute, irreducible and inexplicable. The under 

 standing must have fallen from heaven with its 

 form, as each of us is born with his face. This form 

 may be defined, of course, but that is all ; there is no 

 asking why it is what it is rather than anything else. 

 Thus, it will be said that the function of the intellect is 

 essentially unification, that the common object of all its 

 operations is to introduce a certain unity into the 

 diversity of phenomena, and so forth. But, in the first 

 place, &quot; unification &quot; is a vague term, less clear than 

 &quot; relation &quot; or even &quot; thought,&quot; and says nothing more. 

 And, moreover, it might be asked if the function of 

 intelligence is not to divide even more than to unite. 

 Finally, if the intellect proceeds as it does because it 

 wishes to unite, and if it seeks unification simply because 

 it has need of unifying, the whole of our knowledge 

 becomes relative to certain requirements of the mind 

 that probably might have been entirely different from 

 what they are : for an intellect differently shaped, 

 knowledge would have been different. Intellect being 

 no longer dependent on anything, everything becomes 

 dependent on it ; and so, having placed the understand 

 ing too high, we end by putting too low the knowledge 

 it gives us. Knowledge becomes relative as soon as 

 the intellect is made a kind of absolute. We regard the 



