246 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



behave which, left to itself^ would work in the inverse 

 direction. Incapable of stopping the course of material 

 changes downwards, it succeeds in retarding it. The 

 evolution of life really continues, as we have shown, 

 an initial impulsion: this impulsion, which has deter- 

 mined the development of the chlorophyllian function 

 in the plant and of the sensori-motor system in the ani- 

 mal, brings life to more and more efficient acts by the 

 fabrication and use of more and more powerful explosives. 

 Now, what do these explosives represent if not a storing- 

 up of the solar energy, the degradation of which energy 

 is thus provisionally suspended on some of the points 

 where it was being poured forth? The usable energy which 

 the explosive conceals will be expended, of course, at the 

 moment of the explosion; but it would have been expended 

 sooner if an organism had not happened to be there to 

 arrest its dissipation, in order to retain it and save it up. 

 As we see it to-day, at the point to which it was brought 

 by a scission of the mutually complementary tendencies 

 which it contained within itself, life is entirely dependent 

 on the chlorophyllian function of the plant. This means 

 that, looked at in its initial impulsion, before any scission, 

 life was a tendency to accumulate in a reservoir, as do 

 especially the green parts of vegetables, with a view 

 to an instantaneous effective discharge, like that which 

 an animal brings about, something that would have 

 otherwise flowed away. It is like an effort to raise the 

 weight which falls. True, it succeeds only in retarding 

 the fall. But at least it can give us an idea of what the 

 raising of the weight was. 1 



1 In a book rich in facts and in ideas (La Dissolution opposte a l'&volv£ion, 

 Paris, 1899), M. Andr6 Lalande shows us everything going towards 

 death, in spite of the momentary resistance which organisms seem 

 to oppose. — But, even from the side of unorganized matter, have we 

 the right to extend to the entire universe considerations drawn from 



