l method,
since it consists in making the general character of knowledge form
itself on that of action, while expecting that the detail of each act
should depend in its turn on that of knowledge. In order that action may
always be enlightened, intelligence must always be present in it; but
intelligence, in order thus to accompany the progress of activity and
ensure its direction, must begin by adopting its rhythm. Action is
discontinuous, like every pulsation of life; discontinuous, therefore,
is knowledge. The mechanism of the faculty of knowing has been
constructed on this plan. Essentially practical, can it be of use, such
as it is, for speculation? Let us try with it to follow reality in its
windings, and see what will happen.

I take of the continuity of a particular becoming a series of views,
which I connect together by "becoming in general." But of course I
cannot stop there. What is not determinable is not representable: of
"becoming in general" I have only a verbal knowledge. As the letter _x_
designates a certain unknown quantity, whatever it may be, so my
"becoming in general," always the same, symbolizes here a certain
transition of which I have taken some snapshots; of the transition
itself it teaches me nothing. Let me then concentrate myself wholly on
the transition, and, between any two snapshots, endeavor to realize what
is going on. As I apply the same method, I obtain the same result; a
third view merely slips in between the two others. I may begin again as
often as I will, I may set views alongside of views for ever, I shall
obtain nothing else. The application of the cinematographical method
therefore leads to a perpetual recommencement, during which the mind,
never able to satisfy itself and never finding where to rest, persuades
itself, no doubt, that it imitates by its instability the very movement
of the real. But though, by straining itself to the point of giddiness,
it may end by giving itself the illusion of mobility, its operation has
not advanced it a step, since it remains as far as ever from its goal.
In order to advance with the moving reality, you must replace yourself
within it. Install yourself within change, and you will grasp at once
both change itself and the successive states in which _it might_ at any
instant be immobilized. But with these successive states, perceived from
without as real and no longer as potential immobilities, you will never
reconstitute movement. Call them _q