194 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



brain language occupies. The cerebral mechanisms that 

 correspond to the words have this in particular, that 

 they can be made to grapple with other mechanisms, 

 those, for instance, that correspond to the things them 

 selves, or even be made to grapple with one another. 

 Meanwhile consciousness, which would have been 

 dragged down and drowned in the accomplishment 

 of the act, is restored and set free. 1 



The difference must therefore be more radical than 

 a superficial examination would lead us to suppose. 

 It is the difference between a mechanism which engages 

 the attention and a mechanism from which it can 

 be diverted. The primitive steam-engine, as New- 

 comen conceived it, required the presence of a 

 person exclusively employed to turn on and off the 

 taps, either to let the steam into the cylinder or to 

 throw the cold spray into it in order to condense the 

 steam. It is said that a boy employed on this work, 

 and very tired of having to do it, got the idea of 

 tying the handles of the taps, with cords, to the 

 beam of the engine. Then the machine opened and 

 closed the taps itself; it worked all alone. Now, 

 if an observer had compared the structure of this 

 second machine with that of the first without taking 

 into account the two boys left to watch over them, 

 he would have found only a slight difference of com 

 plexity. That is, indeed, all we can perceive when 

 we look only at the machines. But if we cast a 

 glance at the two boys, we shall see that whilst one 

 is wholly taken up by the watching, the other is free to 



1 A geologist whom we have already had occasion to cite, N. S. Shaler, 

 well says that &quot;when we come to man, it seems as if we find the ancient 

 subjection of mind to body abolished, and the intellectual parts develop with 

 an extraordinary rapidity, the structure of the body remaining identical 

 in essentials&quot; (Shaler, The Interpretation of Nature, Boston, 1899, p. 187). 



