iv.i THE IDEA OF 'NOTHING' 273 



like the senses, is limited to taking, at intervals, views 

 that are instantaneous and by that very fact immobile 

 of the becoming of matter. Consciousness, being in its 

 turn formed on the intellect, sees clearly of the inner life 

 what is already made, and only feels confusedly the making. 

 Thus, we pluck out of duration those moments that interest 

 us, and that we have gathered along its course. These 

 alone we retain. And we are right in so doing, while 

 action only is in question. But when, in speculating on 

 the nature of the real, we go on regarding it as our practi- 

 cal interest requires us to regard it, we become unable to 

 perceive the true evolution, the radical becoming. Of 

 becoming we perceive only states, of duration only in- 

 stants, and even when we speak of duration and of becom- 

 ing, it is of another thing that we are thinking. Such is 

 the most striking of the two illusions we wish to examine. 

 It consists in supposing that we can think the unstable 

 by means of the stable, the moving by means of the im- 

 mobile. 



The other illusion is near akin to the first. It has the 

 same origin, being also due to the fact that we import 

 into speculation a procedure made for practice. All 

 action aims at getting something that we feel the want of, 

 or at creating something that does not yet exist. In this 

 very special sense, it fills a void, and goes from the empty 

 to the full, from an absence to a presence, from the unreal 

 to the real. Now the unreality which is here in question 

 is purely relative to the direction in which our attention 

 is engaged, for we are immersed in realities and cannot 

 pass out of them; only, if the present reality is not the 

 one we are seeking, we speak of the absence of this sought- 

 for reality wherever we find the presence of another. We 

 thus express what we have as a function of what we want. 

 This is quite legitimate in the sphere of action. But, 



