200 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



it tight in a principle so simple that it can be thought 

 empty : from this principle we then draw out what 

 we have virtually put into it. In this way we may 

 no doubt show the coherence of intelligence, define 

 intellect, give its formula, but we do not trace its 

 genesis. An enterprise like that of Fichte, although 

 more philosophical than that of Spencer, in that it 

 pays more respect to the true order of things, hardly 

 leads us any further. Fichte takes thought in a 

 concentrated state, and expands it into reality ; Spencer 

 starts from external reality, and condenses it into 

 intellect. But, in the one case as in the other, the in 

 tellect must be taken at the beginning as given, either 

 condensed or expanded, grasped in itself by a direct 

 vision or perceived by reflection in nature, as in a mirror. 

 The agreement of most philosophers on this point 

 comes from the fact that they are at one in affirming 

 the unity of nature, and in representing this unity 

 under an abstract and geometrical form. Between 

 the organized and the unorganized they do not see and 

 they will not see the cleft. Some start from the inorganic, 

 and, by compounding it with itself, claim to form the 

 living ; others place life first, and proceed towards 

 matter by a skilfully managed decrescendo ; but, for 

 both, there are only differences of degree in nature 

 degrees of complexity in the first hypothesis, of 

 intensity in the second. Once this principle is 

 admitted, intelligence becomes as vast as reality ; for 

 it is unquestionable that whatever is geometrical in 

 things is entirely accessible to human intelligence, and 

 if the continuity between geometry and the rest is 

 perfect, all the rest must indeed be equally intelligible, 

 equally intelligent. Such is the postulate of most 

 systems. Any one can easily be convinced of this by 



