TWO THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE 61 



the conception of potency at all ? We reply that we 

 arrive at the idea of potent action because we are 

 ourselves active beings. Our organism maintains 

 itself by constant physiological activities. These 

 are the permanent constancies of transmutation 

 which constitute the organism. 



But superimposed upon these there are our 

 voluntary exertional activities. By these latter we 

 necessarily mingle with and indeed participate in 

 the action of the natural forces which (as we usually 

 say) surround us, but which in point of fact do more 

 than surround us. The disparate grouping of natural 

 bodies in vision blinds us to the fact that we are 

 really not merely surrounded by but are mingled 

 with and participate in the dynamic system. 1 We 

 are continually pressing with our weight upon the 

 bodies on which we rest, we are continually exert- 

 ing or resisting the pressure of so-called adhering 

 masses resistance-points in one dynamic system of 

 which we are ourse]ves a part. Thus it is that in our 

 exertional action we reveal to our consciousness not 

 only the forms of our own activity but the forms of 

 the dynamic system which contains and yet tran- 

 scends the Sensible and the Ideal. 



The theory we have suggested enables us to 



1 " La subdivision de la matiere en corps isoles est relative a notre 

 perception" (Evolution crtatrice, p. 13). 



