198 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



this play none the less already corresponds, in the main, 

 to the general plan of human intelligence. 1 To explain 

 the intelligence of man by that of the animal consists 

 then simply in following the development of an embryo 

 of humanity into complete humanity. We show how a 

 certain direction has been followed further and further 

 by beings more and more intelligent. But the moment 

 we admit the direction, intelligence is given. 



In a cosmogony like that of Spencer, intelligence is 

 taken for granted, as matter also at the same time. We 

 are shown matter obeying laws, objects connected with 

 objects and facts with facts by constant relations, con 

 sciousness receiving the imprint of these relations and 

 laws, and thus adopting the general configuration of 

 nature and shaping itself into intellect. But how can 

 we fail to see that intelligence is supposed when we 

 admit objects and facts ? A priori and apart from any 

 hypothesis on the nature of matter, it is evident that the 

 materiality of a body does not stop at the point at which 

 we touch it : a body is present wherever its influence is 

 felt ; its attractive force, to speak only of that, is exerted 

 on the sun, on the planets, perhaps on the entire 

 universe. The more physics advances, the more 

 it effaces the individuality of bodies and even of the 

 particles into which the scientific imagination began by 

 decomposing them : bodies and corpuscles tend to 

 dissolve into a universal interaction. Our percep 

 tions give us the plan of our eventual action on 

 things much more than that of things themselves. 

 The outlines we find in objects simply mark^what 

 we can attain and modify in them. The lines we see 

 traced through matter arc just the paths on which 



1 We have developed this point in Matilre et mimoire, chaps, ii. and iii^ 

 notably pp. 78-80 and 169-186. 



