232 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



the mind: of a thing that we do not judge to be contingent 

 we do not require an explanation. If order did not appear 

 to us as a conquest over something, or as an addition to 

 something (which something is thought to be the "ab- 

 sence of order"), ancient realism would not have spoken 

 of a "matter" to which the Idea superadded itself, nor 

 would modern idealism have supposed a "sensuous mani- 

 fold" that the understanding organizes into nature. Now, 

 it is unquestionable that all order is contingent, and 

 conceived as such. But contingent in relation to what? 

 The reply, to our thinking, is not doubtful. An order 

 is contingent, and seems so, in relation to the inverse 

 order, as verse is contingent in relation to prose and prose 

 in relation to verse. But, just as all speech which is not 

 prose is verse and necessarily conceived as verse, just as 

 all speech which is not verse is prose and necessarily con- 

 ceived as prose, so any state of things that is not one of 

 the two orders is the other and is necessarily conceived as 

 the other. But it may happen that we do not realize 

 what we are actually thinking of, and perceive the idea 

 really present to our mind only through a mist of affective 

 states. Any one can be convinced of this by considering 

 the use we make of the idea of disorder in daily life. When 

 I enter a room and pronounce it to be "in disorder," what 

 do I mean? The position of each object is explained by the 

 automatic movements of the person who has slept in the 

 room, or by the efficient causes, whatever they may be, 

 that have caused each article of furniture, clothing, etc., 

 to be where it is: the order, in the second sense of the 

 word, is perfect. But it is order of the first kind that 

 I am expecting, the order that a methodical person con- 

 sciously puts into his life, the willed order and not the 

 automatic: so I call the absence of this order "disorder." 

 At bottom, all there is that is real, perceived and even 



