188 CREATIVE INVOLUTION 



We have to note that maladjustment has ever been 

 the spur toward a larger consciousness even from 

 the beginning of things. So long as a creature's in- 

 ternal and external worlds are in harmonious rela- 

 tion each to the other, sensations come and go and 

 life is complete for that particular level of experi- 

 ence. 



If, however, the interaction is imperfect, the im- 

 pression holds over and links itself with the following 

 one, and the creature rises to a consciousness of a 

 beyond. With this consciousness come new impulses 

 and desires. These in turn give rise to memory. 

 The organism learns to discriminate between the 

 old and the new, the desirable and the undesirable. 

 Pleasure and pain, with their concomitants, good and 

 evil, come into being. The creature now has a pur- 

 pose, the maintenance of the good the established ; 

 the avoidance of the evil the inexperienced. 



Mr. Bernard found as characteristic of the struc- 

 tural unit a high degree of plasticity, rendering it 

 most sensitive to outward influences, and also great 

 activity which gave it more and more profound per- 

 ception into the nature of the environment. While 

 the survival of the organism was contingent upon the 

 concentration of its powers of reaction and response, 

 its involutionary growth came through an active 

 storming of the environment. Hence in his potenti- 

 ality for the mastery of a progressively widening en- 

 vironment lies the foundation of the higher life for 



