212 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



instantaneous which dies and is born again endlessly. 

 Is the existence of matter of this nature ? Not 

 altogether, for analysis resolves it into elementary 

 vibrations, the shortest of which are of very slight 

 duration, almost vanishing, but not nothing. It may 

 be presumed, nevertheless, that physical existence 

 inclines in this second direction, as psychical existence 

 in the first. 



Behind &quot; spirituality &quot; on the one hand, and 

 &quot; materiality &quot; with intellectuality on the other, there 

 are then two processes opposite in their direction, and 

 we pass from the first to the second by way of 

 inversion, or perhaps even by simple interruption, if it 

 is true that inversion and interruption are two terms 

 which in this case must be held to be synonymous, 

 as we shall show at more length later on. This pre 

 sumption is confirmed when we consider things from 

 the point of view of extension, and no longer from 

 that of duration alone. 



The more we succeed in making ourselves conscious 

 of our progress in pure duration, the more we feel the 

 different parts of our being enter into each other, and 

 our whole personality concentrate itself in a point, or 

 rather a sharp edge, pressed against the future and 

 cutting into it unceasingly. It is in this that life and 

 action are free. But suppose we let ourselves go and, 

 instead of acting, dream. At once the self is scattered ; 

 our past, which till then was gathered together into the 

 indivisible impulsion it communicated to us, is broken 

 up into a thousand recollections made external to one 

 another. They give up interpenetrating in the degree 

 that they become fixed. Our personality thus descends 

 in the direction of space. It coasts around it continu 

 ally in sensation. We will not dwell here on a point 



