128 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



deny goodness and love, if we did not know that the dead 

 retain for a time the features of the living. 



The profound cause of this discordance lies in an ir- 

 remediable difference of rhythm. Life in general is mo- 

 bility itself; particular manifestations of life accept this 

 mobility reluctantly, and constantly lag behind. It is 

 always going ahead; they want to mark time. Evolution 

 in general would fain go on in a straight line; each special 

 evolution is a kind of circle. Like eddies of dust raised 

 by the wind as it passes, the living turn upon themselves, 

 borne up by the great blast of life. They are therefore 

 relatively stable, and counterfeit immobility so well 

 that we treat each of them as a thing rather than as a 

 progress, forgetting that the very permanence of their 

 form is only the outline of a movement. At times, how- 

 ever, in a fleeting vision, the invisible breath that bears 

 them is materialized before our eyes. We have this 

 sudden illumination before certain forms of maternal 

 love, so striking, and in most animals so touching, ob- 

 servable even in the solicitude of the plant for its seed. 

 This love, in which some have seen the great mystery 

 of life, may possibly deliver us life's secret. It shows us 

 each generation leaning over the generation that shall 

 follow. It allows us a glimpse of the fact that the living 

 being is above all a thoroughfare, and that the essence of 

 life is in the movement by which life is transmitted. 



This contrast between life in general, and the forms 

 in which it is manifested, has everywhere the same char- 

 acter. It might be said that life tends toward the ut- 

 most possible action, but that each species prefers to 

 contribute the slightest possible effort. Regarded in what 

 constitutes its true essence, namely, as a transition from 

 species to species, life is a continually growing action. 

 But each of the species, through which life passes, aims 



