i.i RADICAL MECHANISM 37 



reasons have less force, we acknowledge, in the case of a 

 rudimentary organism like the amoeba, which hardly 

 evolves at all. But they acquire more when we consider 

 a complex organism which goes through a regular cycle 

 of transformations. The more duration marks the living 

 being with its imprint, the more obviously the organism 

 differs from a mere mechanism, over which duration glides 

 without penetrating. And the demonstration has most 

 force when it applies to the evolution of life as a whole, 

 from its humblest origins to its highest forms, inasmuch as 

 this evolution constitutes, through the unity and con- 

 tinuity of the animated matter which supports it, a single 

 indivisible history. Thus viewed, the evolutionist hypothe- 

 sis does not seem so closely akin to the mechanistic con- 

 ception of life as it is generally supposed to be. Of this 

 mechanistic conception we do not claim, of course, to 

 furnish a mathematical and final refutation. But the 

 refutation which we draw from the consideration of real 

 time, and which is, in our opinion, the only refutation 

 possible, becomes the more rigorous and cogent the more 

 frankly the evolutionist hypothesis is assumed. We must 

 dwell a good deal more on this point. But let us first show 

 more clearly the notion of life to which we are leading up. 



The mechanistic explanations, we said, hold good for 

 the systems that our thought artificially detaches from the 

 whole. But of the whole itself and of the systems which, 

 within this whole, seem to take after it, we cannot admit 

 a priori that they are mechanically explicable, for then 

 time would be useless, and even unreal. The essence of 

 mechanical explanation, in fact, is to regard the future 

 and the past as calculable functions of the present, and thus 

 to claim that all is given. On this hypothesis, past, 

 present and future would be open at a glance to a super- 

 human intellect capable of making the calculation. Indeed, 



