From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



Therefore there is no pre-determined finality; no 

 scheme of evolution laid down in advance; there are 

 only objectifications which involve and succeed each 

 other; * a creation which proceeds without end in virtue 

 of an initial impulse.' This creation brings forth, not 

 only the forms of life, but the ideas which allow the 

 intellect to understand it, and the terms by which it is 

 expressed. Its future goes beyond the present and 

 cannot be described by any existing idea.' 



M. le Roy 1 has summed up as clearly as may be 

 the thought of M. Bergson on the creative processus 

 and on the concepts of spirit and matter issuing from 

 that processus. 



* In this concept of Being, consciousness is omni- 

 present as the original and fundamental reality, 

 always there under a thousand different degrees of 

 intensity or of sleep, and under an infinitely diverse 

 rhythm. 



4 The vital surge consists in an impulse to create. 

 Life, in its humblest stages is a spiritual activity; 

 and its efforts start a current of ascending objectifica- 

 tion, which in its turn directs the counter-current 

 of matter. Thus all Reality appears as a double 

 movement of ascent and descent. The former alone, 

 revealing an interior energy of creative impulsion, 

 has endless duration; the latter might be said to 

 be almost instantaneous, like the recoil of a spring, 

 but each imposes its rhythm on the other. From 

 this point of view Spirit and Matter do not appear as 

 opposed entities the statical terms of a fixed anti- 

 thesis but rather as movement in inverse directions; 

 and in certain relations it would be better to speak 

 of spiritualisation and materialisation, rather than 

 of Spirit and Matter, the latter process of materiali- 

 sation resulting automatically from an interruption 



1 Le Roy : Une Philosophic Nouvelle. 



165 N 



