ii.j LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS 185 



finality, we should have to say that consciousness, after 

 having been obliged, in order to set itself free, to divide 

 organization into two complementary parts, vegetables 

 on one hand and animals on the other, has sought an 

 issue in the double direction of instinct and of intelligence. 

 It has not found it with instinct, and it has not obtained 

 it on the side of intelligence except by a sudden leap 

 from the animal to man. So that, in the last analysis, 

 man might be considered the reason for the existence of 

 the entire organization of life on our planet. But this 

 would be only a manner of speaking. There is, in reality, 

 only a current of existence and the opposing current; 

 thence proceeds the whole evolution of life. We must 

 now grasp more closely the opposition of these two currents. 

 Perhaps we shall thus discover for them a common source. 

 By this we shall also, no doubt, penetrate the most obscure 

 regions of metaphysics. However, as the two directions 

 we have to follow are clearly marked, in intelligence on the 

 one hand, in instinct and intuition on the other, we are not 

 afraid of straying. A survey of the evolution of life 

 suggests to us a certain conception of knowledge, and also a 

 certain metaphysics, which imply each other. Once made 

 clear, this metaphysics and this critique may throw some 

 light, in their turn, on evolution as a whole. 



