252 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



different agreements are possible, while there is only 

 one truth. Intuition, if it could be prolonged beyond 

 a few instants, would not only make the philosopher 

 agree with his own thought, but also all philosophers 

 with each other. Such as it is, fugitive and incomplete, 

 it is, in each system, what is worth more than the system 

 and survives it. The object of philosophy would be 

 reached if this intuition could be sustained, generalized 

 and, above all, assured of external points of reference in 

 order not to go astray. To that end a continual coming 

 and going is necessary between nature and mind. 



When we put back our being into our will, and 

 our will itself into the impulsion it prolongs, we 

 understand, we feel, that reality is a perpetual growth, 

 a creation pursued without end. Our will already 

 performs this miracle. Every human work in which 

 there is invention, every voluntary act in which 

 there is freedom, every movement of an organism that 

 manifests spontaneity, brings something new into the 

 world. True, these are only creations of form. How 

 could they be anything else ? We are not the vital 

 current itself ; we are this current already loaded with 

 matter, that is, with congealed parts of its own 

 substance which it carries alonor its course. In the 



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composition of a work of genius, as in a simple free 

 decision, we do, indeed, stretch the spring of our 

 activity to the utmost and thus create what no mere 

 assemblage of materials could have given (what 

 assemblage of curves already known can ever be 

 equivalent to the pencil-stroke of a great artist ?), but 

 there are, none the less, elements here that pre-exist 

 and survive their organization. But if a simple arrest 

 of the action that generates form could constitute 

 matter (are not the original lines drawn by the artist 



