iv FORM AND BECOMING 327 



It is to distinguish two successive acts where, by the 

 hypothesis, there is only one. In short, it is to attribute 

 to the course itself of the arrow everything that can be 

 said of the interval that the arrow has traversed, that is 

 to say, to admit a priori the absurdity that movement 

 coincides with immobility. 



We shall not dwell here on the three other argu 

 ments of Zeno. We have examined them elsewhere. 

 It is enough to point out that they all consist in 

 applying the movement to the line traversed, and 

 supposing that what is true of the line is true of the 

 movement. The line, for example, may be divided 

 into as many parts as we wish, of any length that we 

 wish, and it is always the same line. From this we 

 conclude that we have the right to suppose the move 

 ment articulated as we wish, and that it is always the 

 same movement. We thus obtain a series of absurdities 

 that all express the same fundamental absurdity. But 

 the possibility of applying the movement to the line 

 traversed exists only for an observer who, keeping 

 outside the movement and seeing at every instant the 

 possibility of a stop, tries to reconstruct the real move 

 ment with these possible immobilities. The absurdity 

 vanishes as soon as we adopt by thought the continuity 

 of the real movement, a continuity of which every one 

 of us is conscious whenever he lifts an arm or advances 

 a step. We feel then indeed that the line passed over 

 between two stops is described with a single indivisible 

 stroke, and that we seek in vain to practise on the 

 movement, which traces the line, divisions correspond 

 ing, each to each, with the divisions arbitrarily chosen 

 of the line once it has been traced. The line traversed 

 by the moving body lends itself to any kind of 

 division, because it has no internal organization. But 



