THE ACTIVITIES OF THE ORGANISM 



111 



together — integrated — in order to reproduce the full 

 activity of the whole indivisible process. But in doing 

 this do we not introduce something new — a direction 

 or order of happening — into the elements of the dis- 

 sociated activity of the organism ? Each elemental 

 process must occur at just the right time. 



What right have we to say that the activity of the 

 organism is made up of physico-chemical elements ? 

 Just as much as we have in saying that a curve is 

 made up of infini- 

 tesimal straight 

 lines. Let us 

 adopt Bergson's 

 illustration, with 

 a non - essential 

 modification. 



The curve 1-8 

 is a line which 

 we draw freehand 

 with a single in- 

 divisible motion 

 of the hand and 

 arm and eye. It 



is something unique and individualised, in that no 

 other curve ever drawn, in a similar manner, exactly 

 resembles it. Let us investigate it mathematically. 

 We can select very small portions of it — elements 

 we may call them — and each of these elements, if it 

 is small enough does not differ sensibly from a straight 

 line. Let us produce each of these straight lines in 

 both directions, it is then a tangent to the curve, and 

 it does actually coincide with the curve at one mathe- 

 matical point — the points 1-8 in the figure. The 

 tangent then has something in common with the curve, 

 but would a series of infmitesimally small tangents 



Fig. io. 



