From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



of a group. That which is called its death would be in 

 reality only the dissociation of the group. It is not the 

 annihilation of the constituent monads, which, according 

 to affinities determined by the past or by the necessities 

 of future evolution, go to form a new being by a new 

 grouping. _ 



These individual monads are identical in potentiality 

 but not in realisation. By reason of the rudiments of 

 consciousness they have acquired, the evolutionary 

 impulse becomes more and more susceptible to the 

 influence of acquisitions. The factors of adaptation and 

 selection come into play; they make effort obligatory 

 an effort which is at first purely reflex, then instinctive, 

 then reasoned; and effort necessarily causes inequalities 

 of consciousness and consequent inequalities in realisation. 

 These inequalities of evolving parts are, however, kept 

 within limits by the original and essential solidarity of 

 those parts. 



Thanks to that all-powerful solidarity, the growth into 

 consciousness cannot be purely individual, it is neces- 

 sarily in very great measure, collective. Thus the 

 evolution of the more conscious monads favours the 

 evolution of the less conscious; and the retardation of 

 these latter slows down the evolution of the former. 



This solidarity which is evident in the sum total 

 of beings and in the whole universe, is especially visible 

 in those complex associations which constitute animal 

 colonies and still more so in those graded (hierarchised) 

 associations which we have already studied as constituting 

 living beings. 



THE FUTURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 



If now, having considered past and present evolution, 

 we seek to predict what its future will be, we are led 

 to an important inference. 



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