iv MODERN SCIENCE 359 



-installed in i^bsolute value ^and realitv jl _it,is because 

 there is unceasingly bein^^^eale^^iji^jjt^jiot indeed in 

 any such artificially isolated system as a glass of sugared 

 water, but in the concrete whole of which every such 

 system forms part, something unforeseeable and. new; 

 This duration may not be the fact of matter itself, but 

 that of the life which reascends the course of matter ; the 

 two movements are none the less mutually dependent 

 upon each other. The duration of the universe must 

 therefore be one with the latitude of creation which can 

 find place in it. 



&quot;When a child plays at reconstructing a picture by 

 putting together the separate pieces in a puzzle game, 

 the more he practises, the more and more quickly he 

 succeeds. The reconstruction was, moreover, instan 

 taneous, the child found it ready-made, when he opened 

 the box on leaving the shop. The operation, therefore, 

 does not require a definite time, and indeed, theoretically, 

 it does not require any time. That is because the result 

 is given. It is because the picture is already created, and 

 because to obtain it requires only a work of recom- 

 posing and rearranging a work that can be supposed 

 going faster and faster, and even infinitely fast, up to 

 the point of being instantaneous. But, to the artist 

 who creates a picture by drawing it from the depths 

 of his soul, time is no longer an accessory ; it is not 

 an interval that may be lengthened or shortened with 

 out the content being altered. The duration of his 



O *- ,., L ^ja 



work is-pai^t-attd- parcel of his. w,oxk._To contractor to 



^^^^^J^^p^^^^^ &quot;^ * 



dilate it would be to modify both the psychical evolution 

 that fills it and the invention which is its goal. _The__ 

 time taken up by the invention is one with ^the in- 

 vention itself. It is the progress of a thought which 

 is changing in the degree and measure that it is taking 



