energy in its own interest. In this consists _adaptation_. The species
and the individual thus think only of themselves--whence arises a
possible conflict with other forms of life. Harmony, therefore, does
not exist in fact; it exists rather in principle; I mean that the
original impetus is a _common_ impetus, and the higher we ascend the
stream of life the more do diverse tendencies appear complementary to
each other. Thus the wind at a street-corner divides into diverging
currents which are all one and the same gust. Harmony, or rather
"complementarity," is revealed only in the mass, in tendencies rather
than in states. Especially (and this is the point on which finalism has
been most seriously mistaken) harmony is rather behind us than before.
It is due to an identity of impulsion and not to a common aspiration. It
would be futile to try to assign to life an end, in the human sense of
the word. To speak of an end is to think of a pre-existing model which
has only to be realized. It is to suppose, therefore, that all is given,
and that the future can be read in the present. It is to believe that
life, in its movement and in its entirety, goes to work like our
intellect, which is only a motionless and fragmentary view of life, and
which naturally takes its stand outside of time. Life, on the contrary,
progresses and _endures_ in time. Of course, when once the road has been
traveled, we can glance over it, mark its direction, note this in
psychological terms and speak as if there had been pursuit of an end.
Thus shall we speak ourselves. But, of the road which was going to be
traveled, the human mind could have nothing to say, for the road has
been created _pari passu_ with the act of traveling over it, being
nothing but the direction of this act itself. At every instant, then,
evolution must admit of a psychological interpretation which is, from
our point of view, the best interpretation; but this explanation has
neither value nor even significance except retrospectively. Never could
the finalistic interpretation, such as we shall propose it, be taken for
an anticipation of the future. It is a particular mode of viewing the
past in the light of the present. In short, the classic conception of
finality postulates at once too much and too little: it is both too wide
and too narrow. In explaining life by intellect, it limits too much the
meaning of life: intellect, such at least as we find it in ourselves,
has been fashione