iv FORM AND BECOMING 315 



through the idea of the nought in order to reach that 

 of being, the being to which we come is a logical or 

 mathematical essence, therefore non-temporal. And, 

 consequently, a static conception of the real is forced on 

 us : everything appears given once for all, in eternity. 

 But we must accustom ourselves to think being directly, 

 without making a detour, without first appealing to 

 the phantom of the nought which interposes itself 

 between it and us. We must strive to see in order to 

 see, and no longer to see in order to act. Then the 

 Absolute is revealed very near us and, in a certain 

 measure, in us. It is of psychological and not 

 of mathematical nor logical essence. It lives with us. 

 Like us, but in certain aspects infinitely more concen 

 trated and more gathered up in itself, it endures. 



But do we ever think true duration ? Here again 

 a direct taking possession is necessary. It is no use 

 trying to approach duration : we must install ourselves 

 within it straight away. This is what the intellect 

 generally refuses to do, accustomed as it is to think the 

 moving by means of the unmovable. 



The function of the intellect is to preside over 

 actions. Now, in action, it is the result that interests 

 us ; the means matter little provided the end is 

 attained. Thence it comes that we are altogether 

 bent on the end to be realized, generally trusting 

 ourselves to it in order that the idea may become an 

 act ; and thence it comes also that only the goal where 

 our activity will rest is pictured explicitly to our mind : 

 the movements constituting the action itself either elude 

 our consciousness or reach it only confusedly. Let us 

 consider a very simple act, like that of lifting the arm. 

 Where should we be if we had to imagine beforehand 

 all the elementary contractions and tensions this act 



