1 64 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



useful end. When it substitutes for movement im- 

 mobilities put together, it does not pretend to recon 

 stitute the movement such as it actually is ; it merely 

 replaces it with a practical equivalent. It is the 

 philosophers who are mistaken when they import into 

 the domain of speculation a method of thinking which 

 is made for action. But of this more anon. Suffice it 

 now to say that to the stable and unchangeable our 

 intellect is attached by virtue of its natural disposition. 

 Of immobility alone does the intellect form a clear idea. 



Now, fabricating consists in carving out the form 

 of an object in matter. What is the most important is 

 the form to be obtained. As to the matter, we choose 

 that which is most convenient ; but, in order to choose 

 it, that is to say, in order to go and seek it among 

 many others, we must have tried, in imagination at 

 least, to endow every kind of matter with the form of 

 the object conceived. In other words, an intelligence 

 which aims at fabricating is an intelligence which never 

 stops at the actual form of things nor regards it as final, 

 but, on the contrary, looks upon all matter as if it were 

 carvable at will. Plato compares the good dialectician 

 to the skilful cook who carves the animal without 

 breaking its bones, by following the articulations marked 

 out by nature. 1 An intelligence which always proceeded 

 thus would really be an intelligence turned toward 

 speculation. But action, and in particular fabrication, 

 requires the opposite mental tendency : it makes us 

 consider every actual form of things, even the form of 

 natural things, as artificial and provisional ; it makes 

 our thought efface from the object perceived, even 

 though organized and living, the lines that outwardly 

 mark its inward structure ; in short, it makes us 



1 Plato, Phatdrus, 265 K. 



