262 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



such as that according to which consciousness is attached 

 to certain neurons, and is thrown off from their work like 

 a phosphorescence, may be accepted by the scientist for the 

 detail of analysis; it is a convenient mode of expression. 

 But it is nothing else. In reality, a living being is a centre 

 of action. It represents a certain sum of contingency 

 entering into the world, that is to say, a certain quantity 

 of possible action — a quantity variable with individuals 

 and especially with species. The nervous system of 

 an animal marks out the flexible lines on which its action 

 will run (although the potential energy is accumulated 

 in the muscles rather than in the nervous system itself); 

 its nervous centres indicate, by their development and their 

 configuration, the more or less extended choice it will 

 have among more or less numerous and complicated 

 actions. Now, since the awakening of consciousness in a 

 living creature is the more complete, the greater the 

 latitude of choice allowed to it and the larger the amount 

 of action bestowed upon it, it is clear that the development 

 of consciousness will appear to be dependent on that of 

 the nervous centres. On the other hand, every state of 

 consciousness being, in one aspect of it, a question put 

 to the motor activity and even the beginning of a reply, 

 there is no psychical event that does not imply the entry 

 into play of the cortical mechanisms. Everything seems, 

 therefore, to happen as if consciousness sprang from the 

 brain, and as if the detail of conscious activity were mod- 

 eled on that of the cerebral activity. In reality, conscious- 

 ness does not spring from the brain; but brain and con- 

 sciousness correspond because equally they measure, the 

 one by the complexity of its structure and the other by 

 the intensity of its awareness, the quantity of choice that 

 the living being has at its disposal. 



It is precisely because a cerebral state expresses simply 



