2i 4 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



essentially the same, but which move each in the 

 direction inverse of the other. Neither is space so 

 foreign to our nature as we imagine, nor is matter 

 as completely extended in space as our senses and 

 intellect represent it. 



We have treated of the first point elsewhere. 

 As to the second, we will limit ourselves to pointing 

 out that perfect spatiality would consist in a perfect 

 externality of parts in their relation to one another, 

 that is to say, in a complete reciprocal independence. 

 Now, there is no material point that does not act on 

 every other material point. When we observe that a 

 thing really is there where it acts, we shall be led to 

 say (as Faraday l was) that all the atoms interpenetrate 

 and that each of them fills the world. On such a 

 hypothesis, the atom or, more generally, the material 

 point, becomes simply a view of the mind, a view 

 which we come to take when we continue far enough 

 the work (wholly relative to our faculty of acting) by 

 which we subdivide matter into bodies. Yet it is 

 undeniable that matter lends itself to this subdivision, 

 and that, in supposing it breakable into parts external 

 to one another, we are constructing a science sufficiently 

 representative of the real. It is undeniable that if 

 there be no entirely isolated system, yet science finds 

 means of cutting up the universe into systems relatively 

 independent of each other, and commits no appreciable 

 error in doing so. What else can this mean but that 

 matter extends itself in space without being absolutely 

 extended therein, and that in regarding matter as de 

 composable into isolated systems, in attributing to it 

 quite distinct elements which change in relation to 



1 Faraday, &quot;A Speculation concerning Electric Conduction&quot; (Philo 

 sophical Magazine, 3d. scries, vol. xxiv.). 



