232 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



as a whole, altogether different, and yet have succeeded. 

 This is so, just because there is no definite system of 

 mathematical laws at the base of nature, and because 

 mathematics in general represents simply the side to 

 which matter inclines. Put one of those little cork dolls 

 with leaden feet in any posture, lay it on its back, turn 

 it up on its head, throw it into the air : it will always 

 stand itself up again, automatically. So likewise with 

 matter : we can take it by any end and handle it in 

 any way, it will always fall back into some one of our 

 mathematical formulae, because it is weighted with 

 geometry. 



But the philosopher will perhaps refuse to found a 

 theory of knowledge on such considerations. They will 

 be repugnant to him, because the mathematical order, 

 being order, will appear to him to contain something 

 positive. It is in vain that we assert that this order 

 produces itself automatically by the interruption of the 

 inverse order, that it is this very interruption. The 

 idea persists, none the less, that there might be no order 

 at all) and that the mathematical order of things, being 

 a conquest over disorder, possesses a positive reality. 

 In examining this point, we shall see what a prominent 

 part the idea of disorder plays in problems relative 

 to the theory of knowledge. It does not appear 

 explicitly, and that is why it escapes our attention. It 

 is, however, with the criticism of this idea that a theory 

 of knowledge ought to begin, for if the great problem 

 is to know why and how reality submits itself to an 

 order, it is because the absence of every kind of order 

 appears possible or conceivable. It is this absence of 

 order that realists and idealists alike believe they 

 are thinking of, the realist when he speaks of the 



