m.l THE TWO KINDS OF ORDER 233 



conceived, in this absence of one of the two kinds of order, 

 is the presence of the other. But the second is indifferent 

 to me, I am interested only in the first, and I express the 

 presence of the second as a function of the first, instead 

 of expressing it, so to speak, as a function of itself, by 

 saying it is disorder. Inversely, when we affirm that we 

 are imagining a chaos, that is to say a state of things in 

 which the physical world no longer obeys laws, what are we 

 thinking of? We imagine facts that appear and disappear 

 capriciously. First we think of the physical universe as 

 we know it, with effects and causes well proportioned to 

 each other; then, by a series of arbitrary decrees, we aug- 

 ment, diminish, suppress, so as to obtain what we call 

 disorder. In reality we have substituted will for the 

 mechanism of nature; we have replaced the "automatic 

 order' ' by a multitude of elementary wills, just to the extent 

 that we imagine the apparition or vanishing of phenomena. 

 No doubt, for all these little wills to constitute a " willed 

 order," they must have accepted the direction of a higher 

 will. But, on looking closely at them, we see that that is 

 just what they do: our own will is there, which objectifies 

 itself in each of these capricious wills in turn, and takes 

 good care not to connect the same with the same, nor to 

 permit the effect to be proportional to the cause — in fact 

 makes one simple intention hover over the whole of the 

 elementary volitions. Thus, here again, the absence 

 of one of the two orders consists in the presence of the 

 other. In analyzing the idea of chance, which is closely 

 akin to the idea of disorder, we find the same elements. 

 When the wholly mechanical play of the causes which stop 

 the wheel on a number makes me win, and consequently 

 acts like a good genius, careful of my interests, or when 

 the wholly mechanical force of the wind tears a tile off 

 the roof and throws it on to my head, that is to say acts like 



