1 68 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



pictured, that is to say, to the idea. Thus is revealed 

 to the intelligence, hitherto always turned outwards, a 

 whole internal world the spectacle of its own work 

 ings. It required only this opportunity, at length 

 offered by language. It profits by the fact that the 

 word is an external thing, which the intelligence can 

 catch hold of and cling to, and at the same time an 

 immaterial thing, by means of which the intelligence 

 can penetrate even to the inwardness of its own work. 

 Its first business was indeed to make instruments, but 

 this fabrication is possible only by the employment of 

 certain means which are not cut to the exact measure 

 of their object, but go beyond it and thus allow intelli 

 gence a supplementary that is to say disinterested 

 work. From the moment that the intellect, reflecting 

 upon its own doings, perceives itself as a creator or 

 ideas, as a faculty of representation in general, there is 

 no object of which it may not wish to have the idea, 

 even though that object be without direct relation to 

 practical action. That is why we said there are things 

 that intellect alone can seek. Intellect alone, indeed, 

 troubles itself about theory ; and its theory would fain 

 embrace everything not only inanimate matter, over 

 which it has a natural hold, but even life and thought. 

 By what means, what instruments, in short by what 

 method it will approach these problems, we can easily 

 guess. Originally, it was fashioned to the form of 

 matter. Language itself, which has enabled it to 

 extend its field of operations, is made to designate 

 things, and naught but things : it is only because the 

 word is mobile, because it flies from one thing to 

 another, that the intellect was sure to take it, sooner or 

 later, on the wing, while it was not settled on anything, 

 and apply it to an object which is not a thing and 



