xity all the same. The reason of it is that science,
like common-sense, although in a manner a little different, aims only in
actual fact at obtaining finished and workable results.

Let us imagine reality under the figure of a curve, a rhythmic
succession of phases of which our concepts mark so many tangents. There
is contact at one point, but at one point only. Thus our logic is valid
as infinitesimal analysis, just as the geometry of the straight line
allows us to define each state of curve. It is thus, for example,
that vitality maintains a relation of momentary tangency to the
physico-chemical structure. If we study this relation and analogous
relations, this fact remains indisputably legitimate. Let us not think,
however, that such a study, even when repeated in as many points as we
wish, can ever suffice.

We must afterwards by genuine integration attain moving continuity. That
is exactly the task represented by the return to intuition, with its
proper instrument, the dynamic scheme. From this tangential point of
view we try to grasp the genesis of the curve as envelope, or rather,
and better still, the birth of successive tangents as instantaneous
directions. Speaking non-metaphorically, we cling to genetic methods
of conceptualisation and proceed from the generating principle to its
conceptual derivatives.

But our thought finds it very difficult to sustain such an effort long.
It is partial to rectilineal deduction, actual becoming horrifies it. It
desires immediately to find "things" sharply determined and very
clear. That is why immediately a tangent is constructed, it follows
its movement in a straight line to infinity. Thus are produced
limit-concepts, the ultimate terms, the atoms of language. As a rule
they go in pairs, in antithetic couples, every analysis being dichotomy,
since the discernment of one path of abstraction determines in contrast,
as a complementary remainder, the opposite path of direction. Hence,
according to the selection effected among concepts, and the relative
weight which is attributed to them, we get the antinomies between which
a philosophy of analysis must for ever remain oscillating and torn in
sunder. Hence comes the parcelling up of metaphysics into systems, and
its appearance of regulated play "between antagonistic schools which get
up on the stage together, each to win applause in turn." (H. Bergson,
"Report of the French Philosophical Society", meeting, 2nd May 1901.)