LIFE AND CONSCIOUSNESS 123 



into account, in the explanation of the organic 

 world, the obstacles of every kind which this force 

 encounters. The spectacle of the evolution of 

 life from its very beginning down to man suggests 

 to us the image of a current of consciousness 

 which flows down into matter as into a tunnel, 

 which endeavours to advance, which makes efforts 

 on every side, thus digging galleries most of 

 which are stopped by a rock that is too hard, but 

 which, in one direction at least, prove possible to 

 follow to the end and break out into the light once 

 more. This direction is the line of evolutipn 

 resulting in man. Now, what has been gained 

 by forcing this tunnel, and why did life start on 

 the undertaking ? Here, again, new lines of facts 

 might lead us to a plausible conclusion, one that 

 may become more and more probable. But I 

 have so little time, and it would be necessary to 

 enter into such great detail on the mechanism of 

 psychical facts above all, on the physio-psycho- 

 logical relation that I can now only formulate 

 briefly my conclusions. When, setting one 

 against the other, we examine consciousness and 

 matter in their mutual reactions, we have the 

 impression that matter plays at first, in relation to 

 consciousness, the part of an instrument that cuts 

 it up in order to bring about a greater precision. 

 A thought only becomes precise when it is divided 

 into words, that is, if it can be so divided; an 

 orator does not quite know what he is going to 

 say, and what he means to say, until he has taken 



