raveled by the side of that which has
led to the human intellect. The intellect is thus brought back to its
generating cause, which we then have to grasp in itself and follow in
its movement. It is an effort of this kind that we attempt--incompletely
indeed--in our third chapter. A fourth and last part is meant to show
how our understanding itself, by submitting to a certain discipline,
might prepare a philosophy which transcends it. For that, a glance over
the history of systems became necessary, together with an analysis of
the two great illusions to which, as soon as it speculates on reality in
general, the human understanding is exposed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society_, vols. ix. and
x., and _Hibbert Journal_ for July, 1910.]

[Footnote 2: The idea of regarding life as transcending teleology as
well as mechanism is far from being a new idea. Notably in three
articles by Ch. Dunan on "Le probleme de la vie" (_Revue philosophique_,
1892) it is profoundly treated. In the development of this idea, we
agree with Ch. Dunan on more than one point. But the views we are
presenting on this matter, as on the questions attaching to it, are
those that we expressed long ago in our _Essai sur les donnees
immediates de la conscience_ (Paris, 1889). One of the principal objects
of that essay was, in fact, to show that the psychical life is neither
unity nor multiplicity, that it transcends both the _mechanical_ and the
_intellectual_, mechanism and finalism having meaning only where there
is "distinct multiplicity," "spatiality," and consequently assemblage of
pre-existing parts: "real duration" signifies both undivided continuity
and creation. In the present work we apply these same ideas to life in
general, regarded, moreover, itself from the psychological point of
view.]

CHAPTER I

THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE--MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY

The existence of which we are most assured and which we know best is
unquestionably our own, for of every other object we have notions which
may be considered external and superficial, whereas, of ourselves, our
perception is internal and profound. What, then, do we find? In this
privileged case, what is the precise meaning of the word "exist"? Let us
recall here briefly the conclusions of an earlier work.

I find, first of all, that I pass from state to state. I am warm or
cold, I am merry or sad, I work or I do nothing, I look at what is
around me or