210 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



which may be called metaphysical^- (Thus combined, 

 &quot; ~^tf our knawl e (ige&quot;, - 6otTi&quot;~scienf i fie and metaphysical, is 

 heightened.! In the absolute we live and move and 

 have our being. The knowledge we possess of it is 

 incomplete, no doubt, but not external or relative. It 

 is reality itself, in the profoundest meaning of the 

 word, that we reach by the combined and progressive 

 development of science and of philosophy. 



Thus, in renouncing the factitious unity which the 

 understanding imposes on nature from outside, we 

 shall perhaps find its true, inward and living unity. 

 For the effort we make to transcend the pure under 

 standing introduces us into that more vast something 

 out of which our understanding is cut, and from 

 which it has detached itself. And, as matter is 

 determined by intelligence, as there is between them 

 an evident agreement, we cannot make the genesis of 

 the one without making the genesis of the other. An 

 identical process must have cut out matter and the 

 intellect, at the same time, from a stuff that contained 

 both.. Into this reality we hiiall.get. ha.c_k_more and 

 more completely, in proportion as we compel ourselves 

 JLoJjranscend pure intelligence. 



Let us then concentrate attention on that which we 

 have that is at the same time the most removed from 

 externality and the least penetrated with intellectuality. 

 Let us seek, in the depths of our experience, the point 

 where we feel ourselves most intimately within our 

 own life. It is into pure duration that we then plunge 

 back, a duration in which the past, always moving on, 

 is swelling unceasingly with a present that is absolutely 

 new. But, at the same time, we feel the spring of our 

 will strained to its utmost limit. We must, by a 



