328 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



to measure the distance that separates it from the integral 

 reality. Each lower degree consists in a diminution of 

 the higher, and the sensible newness that we perceive in it 

 is resolved, from the point of view of the intelligible, into a 

 new quantity of negation which is superadded to it. The 

 smallest possible quantity of negation, that which is found 

 already in the highest forms of sensible reality, .and con- 

 sequently a fortiori in the lower forms, is that which is 

 expressed by the most general attributes of sensible reality, 

 extension and duration. By increasing degradations we 

 will obtain attributes more and more special. Here the 

 philosopher's fancy will have free scope, for it is by an 

 arbitrary decree, or at least a debatable one, that a particu- 

 lar aspect of the sensible world will be equated with a 

 particular diminution of being. We shall not necessarily 

 end, as Aristotle did, in a world consisting of concentric 

 spheres turning on themselves. But we shall be led to an 

 analogous cosmology — I mean, to a construction whose 

 pieces, though all different, will have none the less the same 

 relations between them. And this cosmology will be 

 ruled by the same principle. The physical will be defined 

 by the logical. Beneath the changing phenomena will 

 appear to us, by transparence, a closed system of concepts 

 subordinated to and coordinated with each other. Science, 

 understood as the system of concepts, will be more real 

 than the sensible reality. It will be prior to human know- 

 ledge, which is only able to spell it letter by letter; prior 

 also to things, which awkwardly try to imitate it. It 

 would only have to be diverted an instant from itself 

 in order to step out of its eternity and thereby coincide 

 with all this knowledge and all these things. Its immu- 

 tability is therefore, indeed, the cause of the universal 

 becoming. 

 Such was the point of view of ancient philosophy in 



