292 CREATIVE EVOLUTION ichap. 



that the proposition aims at a social and pedagogical end, 

 since the first would propagate a truth as the second would 

 prevent an error. From this point of view, which is 

 that of formal logic, to affirm and to deny are indeed 

 two mutually symmetrical acts, of which the first estab- 

 lishes a relation of agreement and the second a relation 

 of disagreement between a subject and an attribute. 

 But how do we fail to see that the symmetry is altogether 

 external and the likeness superficial? Suppose language 

 fallen into disuse, society dissolved, every intellectual 

 initiative, every faculty of self-reflection and of self- 

 judgment atrophied in man: the dampness of the ground 

 will subsist none the less, capable of inscribing itself auto- 

 matically in sensation and of sending a vague idea to the 

 deadened intellect. The intellect will still affirm, in implicit 

 terms. And consequently, neither distinct concepts, nor 

 words, nor the desire of spreading the truth, nor that of 

 bettering oneself, are of the very essence of the affirmation. 

 But this passive intelligence, mechanically keeping step 

 with experience, neither anticipating nor following the 

 course of the real, would have no wish to deny. It could 

 not receive an imprint of negation; for, once again, that 

 which exists may come to be recorded, but the non-ex- 

 istence of the non-existing cannot. For such an intellect 

 to reach the point of denying, it must awake from its torpor, 

 formulate the disappointment of a real or possible expect- 

 ation, correct an actual or possible error — in short, propose 

 to teach others or to teach itself. 



It is rather difficult to perceive this in the example 

 we have chosen, but the example is indeed the more in- 

 structive and the argument the more cogent on that 

 account. If dampness is able automatically to come and 

 record itself, it is the same, it will be said, with non-damp- 

 ness; for the dry as well as the damp can give impressions 



