in INTELLECT AND MATERIALITY 217 



parts absolutely external to one another ; whence 

 antinomies, of which we may plainly see that the thesis 

 and antithesis suppose the perfect coincidence of matter 

 with geometrical space, but which vanish the moment 

 we cease to extend to matter what is true only of pure 

 space. Whence, finally, the conclusion that there are 

 three alternatives, and three only, among which to 

 choose a theory of knowledge : either the mind is 

 determined by things, or things are determined by the 

 mind, or between mind and things we must suppose 

 a mysterious agreement. 



But the truth is that there is a fourth, which does 

 not seem to have occurred to Kant in the first place 

 because he did not think that the mind overflowed the 

 intellect, and in the second place (and this is at bottom 

 the same thing) because he did not attribute to duration 

 an absolute existence, having put time, a priori, on the 

 same plane as space. This alternative consists, first 

 of all, in regarding the intellect as a special function 

 of the mind, essentially turned toward inert matter ; 

 then in saying that neither does matter determine 

 the form of the intellect, nor does the intellect impose 

 its form on matter, nor have matter and intellect been 

 regulated in regard to one another by we know not 

 what pre-established harmony, but that intellect and 

 matter have progressively adapted themselves one to 

 the other in order to attain at last a common form. 

 This adaptation has, moreover, been brought about quite 

 naturally, because it is the same inversion of the same 

 movement which creates at once the intellectuality of mind 

 and the materiality of things. 



From this point of view, the knowledge of matter 

 that our perception on one hand and science on the 

 other give to us appears, no doubt, as approximative, 



