192 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [ohap. 



necessarily collective and progressive. It consists in an 

 interchange of impressions which, correcting and adding 

 to each other, will end by expanding the humanity in 

 us and making us even transcend it. 



But this method has against it the most inveterate 

 habits of the mind. It at once suggests the idea of a 

 vicious circle. In vain, we shall be told, you claim to 

 go beyond intelligence: how can you do that except 

 by intelligence? All that is clear in your consciousness 

 is intelligence. You are inside your own thought; you 

 cannot get out of it. Say, if you like, that the intellect 

 is capable of progress, that it will see more and more 

 clearly into a greater and. greater number of things; but 

 do not speak of engendering it, for it is with your intellect 

 itself that you would have to do the work. 



The objection presents itself naturally to the mind. 

 But the same reasoning would prove also the impossibility 

 of acquiring any new habit. It is of the essence of reason- 

 ing to shut us up in the circle of the given. But action 

 breaks the circle. If we had never seen a man swim, we 

 might say that swimming is an impossible thing, inasmuch 

 as, to learn to swim, we must begin by holding ourselves 

 up in the water and, consequently, already know how to 

 swim. Reasoning, in fact, always nails us down to the 

 solid ground. But if, quite simply, I throw myself into 

 the water without fear, I may keep myself up well enough 

 at first by merely struggling, and gradually adapt myself 

 to the new environment : I shall thus have learnt to swim. 

 So, in theory, there is a kind of absurdity in trying to 

 know otherwise than by intelligence; but if the risk be 

 frankly accepted, action will perhaps cut the knot that 

 reasoning has tied and will not unloose. 



Besides, the risk will appear to grow less, the more 

 our point of view is adopted. We have shown that in- 



