n LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS 193 



fabricate, or does it not pursue involuntarily, and even 

 unconsciously, something entirely different ? Fabri 

 cating consists in shaping matter, in making it supple 

 and in bending it, in converting it into an instrument 

 in order to become master of it. It is this mastery that 

 profits humanity, much more even than the material 

 result of the invention itself. Though we derive an 

 immediate advantage from the thing made, as an 

 intelligent animal might do, and though this advantage 

 be all the inventor sought, it is a slight matter com 

 pared with the new ideas and new feelings that the 

 invention may give rise to in every direction, as if 

 the essential part of the effect were to raise us above 

 ourselves and enlarge our horizon. Between the effect 

 and the cause the disproportion is so great that it is 

 difficult to regard the cause as producer of its effect. It 

 releases it, whilst settling, indeed, its direction. Every 

 thing happens as though the grip of intelligence on 

 matter were, in its main intention, to let something pass 

 that matter is holding back. 



The same impression arises when we compare 

 the brain of man with that of the animals. The 

 difference at first appears to be only a difference of 

 size and complexity. But, judging by function, there 

 must be something else besides. In the animal, the 

 motor mechanisms that the brain succeeds in setting 

 up, or, in other words, the habits contracted voluntarily, 

 have no other object nor effect than the accomplish 

 ment of the movements marked out in these habits, 

 stored in these mechanisms. But, in man, the motor 

 habit may have a second result, out of proportion to 

 the first : it can hold other motor habits in check, and 

 thereby, in overcoming automatism, set consciousness 

 free. We know what vast regions in the human 



o 



