144 CREATIVE EVOLUTION iohap. 



sign which compensate and neutralize each other. The 

 unconsciousness of a falling stone is of the former kind: 

 the stone has no feeling of its fall. Is it the same with 

 the unconsciousness of instinct, in the extreme cases in 

 which instinct is unconscious? When we mechanically 

 perform an habitual action, when the somnambulist 

 automatically acts his dream, unconsciousness may be 

 absolute; but this is merely due to the fact that the re- 

 presentation of the act is held in check by the performance 

 of the act itself, which resembles the idea so perfectly, 

 and fits it so exactly, that consciousness is unable to find 

 room between them. Representation is stopped up by 

 action. The proof of this is, that if the accomplishment 

 of the act is arrested or thwarted by an obstacle, con- 

 sciousness may reappear. It was there, but neutralized 

 by the action which fulfiled and thereby filled the repre- 

 sentation. The obstacle creates nothing positive; it simply 

 makes a void, removes a stopper. This inadequacy of act to 

 representation is precisely what we here call consciousness. 

 If we examine this point more closely, we shall find 

 that consciousness is the light that plays around the 

 zone of possible actions or potential activity which sur- 

 rounds the action really performed by the living being. 

 It signifies hesitation or choice. Where many equally 

 possible actions are indicated without there being any real 

 action (as in a deliberation that has not come to an end), 

 consciousness is intense. Where the action performed 

 is the only action possible (as in activity of the somnam- 

 bulistic or more generally automatic kind), consciousness 

 is reduced to nothing. Representation and knowledge 

 exist none the less in the case if we find a whole series of 

 systematized movements the last of which is already pre- 

 figured in the first, and if, besides, consciousness can flash 

 out of them at the shock of an obstacle. From this point 



