BERGSOx's PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM. 25 



process of evolution : however much the vital impetus has 

 become dissociated into groups of tendencies, these 

 cleavages are not absolute ones. Something of the 

 synthetic metabolism of the plant remains in the animal, 

 so much indeed in some of the lower organisms that we 

 find it difficult to say to which category they may belong. 

 Instincts are not the inevitable automatic actions they 

 ought to be if they were pure, but we find that they 

 become modified during the experience of the animal 

 exhibiting them. 



Among the mainly intelligent actions of man 

 instincts also appear, and the indubitable use of tools 

 among the typically instinctive insects has been observed. 

 We recognise that the vital impetus meets with 

 opposition in the conditions of our earth ; that all of its 

 tendencies cannot be manifested in the same organism ; 

 and that dissociation has occurred, different tendencies 

 obtaining development in different groups. But what- 

 ever parts of the complementary tendencies can be 

 transmitted, without detriment to the fullest development 

 of the one or more appearing in the evolutionary line, 

 are transmitted, so we find intellect appearing as a bright 

 nucleus in a faint nebulosity of instinct, and vice versa. 

 And indeed our study of structure shows us the same kind 

 of predominance of one type of form, but the persistence 

 of others as well. 



The picture of evolution which we thus obtain is 

 that of the appearance of a vital tendency for material 

 and energetic transformations to take directions other 

 than they do in what we term inorganic phenomena ; and 

 for the almost simultaneous splitting of this tendency 

 into components. The cleavage of life into plant and 

 animal most probably occurred about the same time as 

 life appeared on our earth ; and on the animal side all the 

 main phyla were probably marked out in tendency from 



