112 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



regained liberty of movement, and awakens in just the 

 degree to which the vegetable has reconquered this liberty. 

 Nevertheless, consciousness and unconsciousness mark the 

 directions in which the two kingdoms have developed, in 

 this sense, that to find the best specimens of consciousness 

 in the animal we must ascend to the highest representatives 

 of the series, whereas, to find probable cases of vegetable 

 consciousness, we must descend as low as possible in the 

 scale of plants — down to the zoospores of the algae, for 

 instance, and, more generally, to those unicellular organ- 

 isms which may be said to hesitate between the vegetable 

 form and animality. From this standpoint, and in this 

 measure, we should define the animal by sensibility and 

 awakened consciousness, the vegetable by consciousness 

 asleep and by insensibility. 



To sum up, the vegetable manufactures organic sub- 

 stances directly with mineral substances; as a rule, this 

 aptitude enables it to dispense with movement and so 

 with feeling. Animals, which are obliged to go in search 

 of their food, have evolved in the direction of locomotor 

 activity, and consequently of a consciousness more and 

 more distinct, more and more ample. 



Now, it seems to us most probable that the animal 

 cell and the vegetable cell are derived from a common 

 stock, and that the first living organisms oscillated be- 

 tween the vegetable and animal form, participating in 

 both at once. Indeed, we have just seen that the char- 

 acteristic tendencies of the evolution of the two kingdoms, 

 although divergent, coexist even now, both in the plant 

 and in the animal. The proportion alone differs. Or- 

 dinarily, one of the two tendencies covers or crushes down 

 the other, but in exceptional circumstances the suppressed 

 one starts up and regains the place it had lost. The 



