i.l BIOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY 47 



mechanism and radical finalism confine our thought, reality 

 appears as a ceaseless upspringing of something new, which 

 has no sooner arisen to make the present than it has al- 

 ready fallen back into the past; at this exact moment it 

 falls under the glance of the intellect, whose eyes are ever 

 turned to the rear. This is already the case with our 

 inner life. For each of our acts we shall easily find ante- 

 cedents of which it may in some sort be said to be the 

 mechanical resultant. And it may equally well be said 

 that each action is the realization of an intention. In 

 this sense mechanism is everywhere, and finality every- 

 where, in the evolution of our conduct. But if our action 

 be one that involves the whole of our person and is truly 

 ours, it could not have been foreseen, even though its 

 antecedents explain it when once it has been accomplished. 

 And though it be the realizing of an intention, it differs, 

 as a present and new reality, from the intention, which 

 can never aim at anything but recommencing or rear- 

 ranging the past. Mechanism and finalism are there- 

 fore, here, only external views of our conduct. They 

 extract its intellectuality. But our conduct slips between 

 them and extends much further. Once again, this does 

 not mean that free action is capricious, unreasonable 

 action. To behave according to caprice is to oscillate 

 mechanically between two or more ready-made alternatives 

 and at length to settle on one of them; it is no real matur- 

 ing of an internal state, no real evolution; it is merely — 

 however paradoxical the assertion may seem — bending 

 the will to imitate the mechanism of the intellect. A 

 conduct that is truly our own, on the contrary, is that of a 

 will which does not try to counterfeit intellect, and which, 

 remaining itself — that is to say, evolving — ripens gradually 

 into acts which the intellect will be able to resolve in- 

 definitely into intelligible elements without ever reaching 



