ns as also their order be given at once--with
something else which is neither order nor position but which is
essential, the mobility. But, in another sense, the movement is _less_
than the series of positions and their connecting order; for, to arrange
points in a certain order, it is necessary first to conceive the order
and then to realize it with points, there must be the work of assemblage
and there must be intelligence, whereas the simple movement of the hand
contains nothing of either. It is not intelligent, in the human sense of
the word, and it is not an assemblage, for it is not made up of
elements. Just so with the relation of the eye to vision. There is in
vision _more_ than the component cells of the eye and their mutual
coordination: in this sense, neither mechanism nor finalism go far
enough. But, in another sense, mechanism and finalism both go too far,
for they attribute to Nature the most formidable of the labors of
Hercules in holding that she has exalted to the simple act of vision an
infinity of infinitely complex elements, whereas Nature has had no more
trouble in making an eye than I have in lifting my hand. Nature's simple
act has divided itself automatically into an infinity of elements which
are then found to be coordinated to one idea, just as the movement of my
hand has dropped an infinity of points which are then found to satisfy
one equation.

We find it very hard to see things in that light, because we cannot
help conceiving organization as manufacturing. But it is one thing to
manufacture, and quite another to organize. Manufacturing is peculiar to
man. It consists in assembling parts of matter which we have cut out in
such manner that we can fit them together and obtain from them a common
action. The parts are arranged, so to speak, around the action as an
ideal centre. To manufacture, therefore, is to work from the periphery
to the centre, or, as the philosophers say, from the many to the one.
Organization, on the contrary, works from the centre to the periphery.
It begins in a point that is almost a mathematical point, and spreads
around this point by concentric waves which go on enlarging. The work of
manufacturing is the more effective, the greater the quantity of matter
dealt with. It proceeds by concentration and compression. The organizing
act, on the contrary, has something explosive about it: it needs at the
beginning the smallest possible place, a minimum of matter, as if the
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