ii.j LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS 179 



itself, that we shall form an idea of the mutual opposition 

 of the two terms, as also, perhaps, of their common origin. 

 But, on the other hand, by dwelling on this opposition 

 of the two elements and on this identity of origin, perhaps 

 we shall bring out more clearly the meaning of evolution 

 itself. 



Such will be the aim of our next chapter. But the 

 facts that we have just noticed must have already sug- 

 gested to us the idea that life is connected either with 

 consciousness or with something that resembles it. 



Throughout the whole extent of the animal kingdom, 

 we have said, consciousness seems proportionate to the 

 living being's power of choice. It lights up the zone 

 of potentialities that surrounds the act. It fills the interval 

 between what is done and what might be done. Looked 

 at from without, we may regard it as a simple aid to action, 

 a light that action kindles, a momentary spark flying up 

 from the friction of real action against possible actions. 

 But we must also point out that things would go on in just 

 the same way if consciousness, instead of being the effect, 

 were the cause. We might suppose that consciousness, 

 even in the most rudimentary animal, covers by right an 

 enormous field, but is compressed in fact in a kind of vise: 

 each advance of the nervous centres, by giving the organism 

 a choice between a larger number of actions, calls forth the 

 potentialities that are capable of surrounding the real, 

 thus opening the vise wider and allowing consciousness 

 to pass more freely. In this second hypothesis, as in 

 the first, consciousness is still the instrument of action; 

 but it is even more true to say that action is the instrument 

 of consciousness; for the complicating of action with action, 

 and the opposing of action to action, are for the imprisoned 

 consciousness the only possible means to set itself free. 

 How, then, shall we choose between the two hypotheses? 



