LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS 121 



two alone seem to have led to a certain success, 

 partial only on one, but relatively complete on 

 the other. These two lines are those of the 

 Arthropods and the Vertebrates. At the end of 

 the first we find instinct in its most marvellous 

 forms; at the end of the second, the human 

 intellect. It seems then, indeed, as if the force I 

 speak of were a force that contained in itself, at 

 least potentially, and interfused, the two forms of 

 consciousness that we call instinct and intelli- 

 gence. 



Things seem to happen as if an immense cur- 

 rent of consciousness (a consciousness which 

 includes a multitude of potentialities all crowd- 

 ing on and hindering each other) had traversed 

 matter in order to entice it to organisation and 

 make of this matter, which is necessity itself, an 

 instrument of liberty. But it has scarcely 

 escaped being itself ensnared. Matter, which is 

 essentially automatism and necessity, enfolds the 

 consciousness which seeks to entice it, converts it 

 to its own automatism, and lulls it into its own 

 unconsciousness. On certain lines of evolution, 

 as, for example, in the vegetable kingdom, this 

 automatism and unconsciousness have become 

 the rule, and the liberty of the evolutive force 

 cannot show itself except in the creation of forms 

 which are, indeed, veritable works of art. These 

 unforeseeable forms, once created, repeat them- 

 selves automatically, and the individual has no 

 power of choice. On other lines, consciousness 



