CHAPTER III 



THE SYNTHESIS OF THE INDIVIDUAL 

 I. PRIMORDIAL AND SECONDARY REPRESENTATIONS 



THE rational concept of the individual in accord with all 

 the facts is as follows. 



For the genesis of the individual the essential 

 dynamo-psychism objectifies itself by graded primordial 

 representations successively conditioning one another. 



According to our present knowledge the primordial 

 representations are: 



1 . The purely mental; 



2. The Vital Dynamism; 



3. The single organic substance. 1 



These primordial representations constitute them- 

 selves into secondary representations: the mental, by 

 states of consciousness and thoughts; the unique 

 substance by cells and organs. These primordial repre- 

 sentations are ' cadres ' which remain the same from the 

 birth to the death of the grouping which constitutes 

 the individual. 



The secondary representations, on the contrary, 

 are perpetually renewed. The cells of the organic com- 

 plex, are born, die, and succeed each other very rapidly. 

 The states of consciousness and thoughts follow on one 

 another in the same way, associating, opposing, con- 

 verging or diverging in a chaos which is co-ordinated 

 only by the directing Self. 



1 It is curious that the schools of thought called occultist have reached 

 by intuitive or mystical paths a systematisation not unlike this, and 

 describe each of the primordial representations as having each a concrete 

 presentment, by means of an organic or fluidic substratum. 



228 



