CONTINUITY OF BERGSON S THOUGHT 1 79 



ing mechanism for the conversion of as much stored-up energy as 

 possible into "explosive" actions. At first, the explosion seems rather 

 aimless, but there develops an increasing tendency to act so that 

 movements will result. Some of the food-supply repairs tissue ; some 

 gives energy to movement. 



The nervous system develops in accordance with the need of 

 action, and finally assumes its supreme place as guide and center of 

 the body. The rest of the body waits upon and supplies this central 

 system, which in turn guides the whole body as a general an army. 



A nervous system with neurones placed end to end, so that at the 

 extremity of each many ways are open to choose from, is a veritable 

 reservoir of indetermination. 



That the main energy of the elan vital has been spent in the creation 

 of apparatus of this kind is, we believe, what a study of the organized 

 world would reveal. 



There is much discord in living beings. Life in general is mobility 

 itself, but particular life-expressions lag behind. The impulse is easily 

 exhausted. Like eddies of dust raised by the wind as it passes, the living 

 turn upon themselves, borne up by the great blast of life. They are, 

 through it, relatively stable. The externalization of our life in act is 

 chilled, and dies, and we tend to doubt the sincerity of our own enthusiasms 

 when we see them in their outer shapes. But tfte dead retain for a while 

 the features of the living. Then at times the invisible breath that bears 

 them is materialized before our eyes, in a brief vision. We have this 

 sudden illumination before certain forms of maternal love, so striking, 

 and in most plants so touching, observable even in the solicitude of the 

 plant for the seed. This love may possibly deliver to us life's secret. It 

 shows us each generation bending over that which follows. We see that 

 life is above all a thoroughfare, and that the essence of life is the movement 

 which passes it onward. 



There is in all living beings a certain torpor, a partial sleep, betray- 

 ing the failure of life to reach its goal. It is like a leaping man who 

 is yet self-preoccupied and cannot give his whole attention to his 

 effort. 



Obstacles and exhaustion make his progress a partial failure. In 



