306 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



sonal attitudes. Such is the contrivance of the cinemato- 

 graph. And such is also that of our knowledge. Instead 

 of attaching ourselves to the inner becoming of things, 

 we place ourselves outside them in order to recompose 

 their becoming artificially. We take snapshots, as it were, 

 of the passing reality, and, as these are characteristic of 

 the reality, we have only to string them on a becoming, 

 abstract, uniform and invisible, situated at the back of 

 the apparatus of knowledge, in order to imitate what 

 there is that is characteristic in this becoming itself. 

 Perception, intellection, language so proceed in general. 

 Whether we would think becoming, or express it, or 

 even perceive it, we hardly do anything else than set 

 going a kind of cinematograph inside us. We may there- 

 fore sum up what we have been saying in the conclusion 

 that the mechanism of our ordinary knowledge is of a cine- 

 matographical kind. 



Of the altogether practical character of this operation 

 there is no possible doubt. Each of our acts aims at a 

 certain insertion of our will into the reality. There is, 

 between our body and other bodies, an arrangement 

 like that of the pieces of glass that compose a kaleido- 

 scopic picture. Our activity goes from an arrangement 

 to a re-arrangement, each time no doubt giving the kaleido- 

 scope a new shake, but not interesting itself in the shake, 

 and seeing only the new picture. Our knowledge of the 

 operation of nature must be exactly symmetrical, there- 

 fore, with the interest we take in our own operation. In 

 this sense we may say, if we are not abusing this kind of 

 illustration, that the cinematographical character of our 

 knowledge of things is due to the kaleidoscopic character 

 of our adaptation to them. 



The cinematographical method is therefore the only 

 practical method, since it consists in making the general 



