personal survival, they are
right not to close their ears to its voice; but if there exist "souls"
capable of an independent life, whence do they come? When, how and why
do they enter into this body which we see arise, quite naturally, from a
mixed cell derived from the bodies of its two parents? All these
questions will remain unanswered, a philosophy of intuition will be a
negation of science, will be sooner or later swept away by science, if
it does not resolve to see the life of the body just where it really is,
on the road that leads to the life of the spirit. But it will then no
longer have to do with definite living beings. Life as a whole, from the
initial impulsion that thrust it into the world, will appear as a wave
which rises, and which is opposed by the descending movement of matter.
On the greater part of its surface, at different heights, the current is
converted by matter into a vortex. At one point alone it passes freely,
dragging with it the obstacle which will weigh on its progress but will
not stop it. At this point is humanity; it is our privileged situation.
On the other hand, this rising wave is consciousness, and, like all
consciousness, it includes potentialities without number which
interpenetrate and to which consequently neither the category of unity
nor that of multiplicity is appropriate, made as they both are for inert
matter. The matter that it bears along with it, and in the interstices
of which it inserts itself, alone can divide it into distinct
individualities. On flows the current, running through human
generations, subdividing itself into individuals. This subdivision was
vaguely indicated in it, but could not have been made clear without
matter. Thus souls are continually being created, which, nevertheless,
in a certain sense pre-existed. They are nothing else than the little
rills into which the great river of life divides itself, flowing through
the body of humanity. The movement of the stream is distinct from the
river bed, although it must adopt its winding course. Consciousness is
distinct from the organism it animates, although it must undergo its
vicissitudes. As the possible actions which a state of consciousness
indicates are at every instant beginning to be carried out in the
nervous centres, the brain underlines at every instant the motor
indications of the state of consciousness; but the interdependency of
consciousness and brain is limited to this; the destiny of conscio