316 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



involves, or even to perceive them, one by one, as 

 they are accomplished ? But the mind is carried 

 immediately to the end, that is to say, to the schematic 

 and simplified vision of the act supposed accomplished. 

 Then, if no antagonistic idea neutralizes the effect of 

 the first idea, the appropriate movements come of 

 themselves to fill out the plan, drawn in some way 

 by the void of its gaps. The intellect, then, only 

 represents to the activity ends to attain, that is to 

 say, points of rest. And, from one end attained to 

 another end attained, from one rest to another rest, 

 our activity is carried by a series of leaps, during 

 which our consciousness is turned away as much as 

 possible from the movement going on, to regard only 

 the anticipated image of the movement accomplished. 



Now, in order that it may represent as unmovable 

 the result of the act which is being accomplished, the 

 intellect must perceive, as also unmovable, the surround 

 ings in which this result is being framed. Our activity 

 is fitted into the material world. If matter appeared 

 to us as a perpetual flowing, we should assign no 

 termination to any of our actions. We should feel 

 each of them dissolve as fast as it was accomplished, 

 and we should not anticipate an ever-fleeting future. 

 In order that our activity may leap from an act to an 

 act, it is necessary that matter should pass from a state 

 to a state, for it is only into a state of the material 

 world that action can fit a result, so as to be accom 

 plished. But is it thus that matter presents itself? 



A priori we may presume that our perception 

 manages to apprehend matter with this bias. Sensory 

 organs and motor organs are in fact coordinated with 

 each other. Now, the first symbolize our faculty of 

 perceiving, as the second our faculty of acting. The 



