CHAPTER XXVI 

 SPONTANEOUS MOVEMENT 



A WIDESPREAD error consists in the idea that spontaneity 

 of movement essentially characterizes life. 



The error is easily understood because of the great part 

 played in man's education by phenomena passing on his 

 own scale. If we observe with no other help than what 

 nature affords all that goes on round about us, it will seem 

 evident that the mouse moves in conditions where a stone of 

 the same dimension and situated in the same place would 

 remain motionless. In other words, where the stone's 

 immobility shows there is no cause of movement (wind, 

 water-current, etc.), a mouse displaces itself spontaneously. 



If we reasoned more closely, we should say : 



Where the stone's immobility shows there is no displacing 

 cause for the stone, the mouse's movement, on the contrary, 

 should make us think either the mouse is endowed with 

 spontaneous mobility, or at the point where it is placed there 

 is some cause of movement for the mouse. 



To tell the truth, we are accustomed to seeing various 

 objects, animate or inanimate, reacting according to their 

 nature and in their own individual manner in presence of 

 the same external causes. The breeze which flutters a 

 piece of paper does not stir a pebble. Living beings are 

 sensitive to causes which appear insufficient to determine 

 variations in those not-living bodies which observation has 



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