1 86 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



scientific, but metaphysical, must be sought along quite 

 another path, not in the direction of intelligence, but in 

 that of &quot; sympathy.&quot; 



Instinct is sympathy. If this sympathy could extend 

 its object and also reflect upon itself, it would give us 

 the key to vital operations just as intelligence, 

 developed and disciplined, guides us into matter. For 

 we cannot too often repeat it intelligence and 

 instinct are turned in opposite directions, the former 

 towards inert matter, the latter towards life. Intelli 

 gence, by means of science, which is its work, will 

 deliver up to us more and more completely the secret 

 of physical operations ; of life it brings us, and more 

 over only claims to bring us, a translation in terms of 

 inertia. It goes all round life, taking from outside the 

 greatest possible number of views of it, drawing it into 

 itself instead of entering into it. But it is to the very 

 inwardness of life that intuition leads us, by intuition 

 I mean instinct that has become disinterested, self- 

 conscious, capable of reflecting upon its object and of 

 enlarging it indefinitely. 



That an effort of this kind is not impossible, is 

 proved by the existence in man of an aesthetic faculty 

 along with normal perception. Our eye perceives the 

 features of the living being, merely as assembled, not as 

 mutually organized. The intention of life, the simple 

 movement that runs through the lines, that binds them 

 together and gives them significance, escapes it. This 

 intention is just what the artist tries to regain, in 

 placing himself back within the object by a kind of 

 sympathy, in breaking down, by an effort of intuition, 

 the barrier that space puts up between him and his 

 model. It is true that this aesthetic intuition, like 



