iii.i IDEAL GENESIS OF MATTER 245 



abstractor Extension, we said, appears only as a tension 

 which is interrupted. Or, are we considering the con- 

 crete reality that fills this extension? The order which 

 reigns there, and which is manifested by the laws of nature, 

 is an order which must be born of itself when the inverse 

 order is suppressed; a detension of the will would produce 

 precisely this suppression. Lastly, we find that the 

 direction, which this reality takes, suggests to us the idea 

 of a thing unmaking itself; such, no doubt, is one of the 

 essential characters of materiality. What conclusion are 

 we to draw from all this, if not that the process by which 

 this thing makes itself is directed in a contrary way to that 

 of physical processes, and that it is therefore, by its very 

 definition, immaterial? The vision we have of the material 

 world is that of a weight which falls: no image drawn from 

 matter, properly so called, will ever give us the idea of the 

 weight rising. But this conclusion will come home to us 

 with still greater force if we press nearer to the concrete 

 reality, and if we consider, no longer only matter in general, 

 but, within this matter, living bodies. 



All our analyses show us, in life, an effort to re-mount 

 the incline that matter descends. In that, they reveal 

 to us the possibility, the necessity even of a process 

 the inverse of materiality, creative of matter by its in- 

 terruption alone. The life that evolves on the surface 

 of our planet is indeed attached to matter. If it were 

 pure consciousness, a fortiori if it were supraconscious- 

 ness, it would be pure creative activity. In fact, it is 

 riveted to an organism that subjects it to the general 

 laws of inert matter. But everything happens as if it 

 were doing its utmost to set itself free from these laws. 

 It has not the power to reverse the direction of physical 

 changes, such as the principle of Carnot determines it. 

 It does, however, behave absolutely as a force would 



