the intellect--Geometry
and deduction--Geometry and induction--Physical laws 199

Sketch of a theory of knowledge based on the analysis of the
idea of Disorder--Two opposed forms of order: the problem
of _genera_ and the problem of _laws_--The idea of
"disorder" an oscillation of the intellect between the two
kinds of order 220

Creation and evolution--Ideal genesis of matter--The origin
and function of life--The essential and the accidental in the
vital process and in the evolutionary movement--Mankind--The
life of the body and the life of the spirit 236

CHAPTER IV

THE CINEMATOGRAPHICAL MECHANISM OF THOUGHT AND THE
MECHANISTIC ILLUSION--A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY OF
SYSTEMS--REAL BECOMING AND FALSE EVOLUTIONISM

Sketch of a criticism of philosophical systems, based on the
analysis of the idea of Immutability and of the idea of
"Nothing"--Relation of metaphysical problems to the idea
of "Nothing"--Real meaning of this idea 272

Form and Becoming 298

The philosophy of Forms and its conception of Becoming--Plato
and Aristotle--The natural trend of the intellect 304

Becoming in modern science: two views of Time 329

The metaphysical interpretation of modern science: Descartes,
Spinoza, Leibniz 345

The Criticism of Kant 356

The evolutionism of Spencer 363

INDEX 371

INTRODUCTION

The history of the evolution of life, incomplete as it yet is, already
reveals to us how the intellect has been formed, by an uninterrupted
progress, along a line which ascends through the vertebrate series up to
man. It shows us in the faculty of understanding an appendage of the
faculty of acting, a more and more precise, more and more complex and
supple adaptation of the consciousness of living beings to the
conditions of existence that are made for them. Hence should result this
consequence that our intellect, in the narrow sense of the word, is
intended to secure the perfect fitting of our body to its environment,
to represent the relations of external things among thems