308 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



first would propagate a truth as the second would 

 prevent an error. From this point of view, which is 

 that of formal logic, to affirm and to deny are indeed 

 two mutually symmetrical acts, of which the first estab 

 lishes a relation of agreement and the second a relation 

 of disagreement between a subject and an attribute. 

 But how do we fail to see that the symmetry is 

 altogether external and the likeness superficial ? 

 Suppose language fallen into disuse, society dissolved, 

 every intellectual initiative, every faculty of self-reflec 

 tion and of self-judgment atrophied in man : the damp 

 ness of the ground will subsist none the less, capable 

 of inscribing itself automatically in sensation and of 

 sending a vague idea to the deadened intellect. The 

 intellect will still affirm, in implicit terms. And 

 consequently, neither distinct concepts, nor words, nor 

 the desire of spreading the truth, nor that of bettering 

 oneself, are of the very essence of the affirmation. 

 But this passive intelligence, mechanically keeping step 

 with experience, neither anticipating nor following the 

 course of the real, would have no wish to deny. It 

 could not receive an imprint of negation ; for, once 

 again, that which exists may come to be recorded, but 

 the non-existence of the non-existing cannot. For such 

 an intellect to reach the point of denying, it must 

 awake from its torpor, formulate the disappointment 

 of a real or possible expectation, correct an actual or 

 possible error in short, propose to teach others or to 

 teach itself. 



It is rather difficult to perceive this in the example 

 we have chosen, but the example is indeed the more 

 instructive and the argument the more cogent on that 

 account. If dampness is able automatically to come and 

 record itself, it is the same, it will be said, with non- 



