n.i INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 153 



knowledge cannot be said to depend on it: knowledge 

 ceases to be a product of the intellect and becomes, in a 

 certain sense, part and parcel of reality. 



Philosophers will reply that action takes place in an 

 ordered world, that this order is itself thought, and that 

 we beg the question when we explain the intellect by action, 

 which presupposes it. They would be right if our point 

 of view in the present chapter was to be our final one. 

 We should then be dupes of an illusion like that of Spencer, 

 who believed that the intellect is sufficiently explained as 

 the impression left on us by the general characters of matter: 

 as if the order inherent in matter were not intelligence 

 itself! But we reserve for the next chapter the question 

 up to what point and with what method philosophy can 

 attempt a real genesis of the intellect at the same time 

 as of matter. For the moment, the problem that engages 

 our attention is of a psychological order. We are asking 

 what is the portion of the material world to which our in- 

 tellect is specially adapted. To reply to this question, 

 there is no need to choose a system of philosophy: it is 

 enough to take up the point of view of common sense. 



Let us start, then, from action, and lay down that 

 the intellect aims, first of all, at constructing. This 

 fabrication is exercised exclusively on inert matter, in 

 this sense, that even if it makes use of organized material, 

 it treats it as inert, without troubling about the life which 

 animated it. And of inert matter itself, fabrication deals 

 only with the solid; the rest escapes by its very fluidity. 

 If, therefore, the tendency of the intellect is to fabricate, 

 we may expect to find that whatever is fluid in the real 

 will escape it in part, and whatever is life in the living will 

 escape it altogether. Our intelligence, as it leaves the hands 

 of nature, has for its chief object the unorganized solid. 



When we pass in review the intellectual functions, 



