iii.i INTELLECT AND MATERIALITY 201 



duration, nothing but the instantaneous which dies and 

 is born again endlessly. Is the existence of matter of 

 this nature? Not altogether, for analysis resolves it into 

 elementary vibrations, the shortest of which are of very 

 slight duration, almost vanishing, but not nothing. It 

 may be presumed, nevertheless, that physical existence 

 inclines in this second direction, as psychical existence 

 in the first. 



Behind "spirituality" on the one hand, and " materiality" 

 with intellectuality on the other, there are then two pro- 

 cesses opposite in their direction, and we pass from the 

 first to the second by way of inversion, or perhaps even by 

 simple interruption, if it is true that inversion and in- 

 terruption are two terms which in this case must be held 

 to be synonymous, as we shall show at more length later 

 on. This presumption is confirmed when we consider 

 things from the point of view of extension, and no longer 

 from that of duration alone. 



The more we succeed in making ourselves conscious 

 of our progress in pure duration, the more we feel the 

 different parts of our being enter into each other, and 

 our whole personality concentrate itself in a point, or 

 rather a sharp edge, pressed against the future and cutting 

 into it unceasingly. It is in this that life and action are 

 free. But suppose we let ourselves go and, instead of 

 acting, dream. At once the self is scattered; our past, 

 which till then was gathered together into the indivisible 

 impulsion it communicated to us, is broken up into a 

 thousand recollections made external to one another. 

 They give up interpenetrating in the degree that they 

 become fixed. Our personality thus descends in the 

 direction of space. It coasts around it continually in 

 sensation. We will not dwell here on a point we have 

 studied elsewhere. Let us merely recall that extension 



