388 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



phenomena, therefore, correspond symmetrically rela 

 tions between the ideas. And the most general laws 

 of nature, in which the relations between phenomena 

 are condensed, are thus found to have engendered the 

 directing principles of thought, into which the relations 

 between ideas have been integrated. Nature, therefore, 

 is reflected in mind. The intimate structure of our 

 thought corresponds, piece by piece, to the very 

 skeleton of things. 1 admit it willingly ; but, in 

 order that the human mind may be able to represent 

 relations between phenomena, there must first be 

 phenomena, that is to say, distinct facts, cut out in 

 the continuity of becoming. And once we posit this 

 particular mode of cutting up such as we perceive it 

 to-day, we posit also the intellect such as it is to-day, 

 for it is by relation to it, and to it alone, that reality is 

 cut up in this manner. Is it probable that mammals 

 and insects notice the same aspects of nature, trace in 

 it the same divisions, articulate the whole in the same 

 way ? And yet the insect, so far as intelligent, has 

 already something of our intellect. Each being cuts 

 up the material world according to the lines that its 

 action must follow : it is these lines of possible 

 action that, by intercrossing, mark out the net of 

 experience of which each mesh is a fact. No doubt, 

 a town is composed exclusively of houses, and the 

 streets of the town are only the intervals between 

 the houses : so, we may say that nature contains only 

 facts, and that, the facts once posited, the relations are 

 simply the lines running between the facts. But, in a 

 town, it is the gradual portioning of the ground into 

 lots that has determined at once the place of the houses, 

 their general shape, and the direction of the streets : to 

 this portioning we must go back if we wish to understand 



