118 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [Ohap. 



Now, the elements into which a tendency splits up 

 are far from possessing the same importance, or, above 

 all, the same power to evolve. We have just distinguished 

 three different kingdoms, if one may so express it, in the 

 organized world. While the first comprises only micro- 

 organisms which have remained in the rudimentary state, 

 animals and vegetables have taken their flight toward 

 very lofty fortunes. Such, indeed, is generally the case 

 when a tendency divides. Among the divergent develop- 

 ments to which it gives rise, some go on indefinitely, others 

 come more or less quickly to the end of their tether. These 

 latter do not issue directly from the primitive tendency, 

 but from one of the elements into which it has divided; 

 they are residual developments made and left behind 

 on the way by some truly elementary tendency which 

 continues to evolve. Now, these truly elementary ten- 

 dencies, we think, bear a mark by which they may be 

 recognized. 



This mark is like a trace, still visible in each, of what 

 was in the original tendency of which they represent the 

 elementary directions. The elements of a tendency are 

 not like objects set beside each other in space and mutually 

 exclusive, but rather like psychic states, each of which, 

 although it be itself to begin with, yet partakes of others, 

 and so virtually includes in itself the whole personality 

 to which it belongs. There is no real manifestation of 

 life, we said, that does not show us, in a rudimentary 

 or latent state, the characters of other manifestations. 

 Conversely, when we meet, on one line of evolution, a 

 recollection, so to speak, of what is developed along other 

 lines, we must conclude that we have before us dissociated 

 elements of one and the same original tendency. In this 

 sense, vegetables and animals represent the two great 

 divergent developments of life. Though the plant is 



