mula that expresses it. The word
turns against the idea.

The letter kills the spirit. And our most ardent enthusiasm, as soon as
it is externalized into action, is so naturally congealed into the cold
calculation of interest or vanity, the one takes so easily the shape of
the other, that we might confuse them together, doubt our own
sincerity, deny goodness and love, if we did not know that the dead
retain for a time the features of the living.

The profound cause of this discordance lies in an irremediable
difference of rhythm. Life in general is mobility itself; particular
manifestations of life accept this mobility reluctantly, and constantly
lag behind. It is always going ahead; they want to mark time. Evolution
in general would fain go on in a straight line; each special evolution
is a kind of circle. Like eddies of dust raised by the wind as it
passes, the living turn upon themselves, borne up by the great blast of
life. They are therefore relatively stable, and counterfeit immobility
so well that we treat each of them as a _thing_ rather than as a
_progress_, forgetting that the very permanence of their form is only
the outline of a movement. At times, however, in a fleeting vision, the
invisible breath that bears them is materialized before our eyes. We
have this sudden illumination before certain forms of maternal love, so
striking, and in most animals so touching, observable even in the
solicitude of the plant for its seed. This love, in which some have seen
the great mystery of life, may possibly deliver us life's secret. It
shows us each generation leaning over the generation that shall follow.
It allows us a glimpse of the fact that the living being is above all a
thoroughfare, and that the essence of life is in the movement by which
life is transmitted.

This contrast between life in general, and the forms in which it is
manifested, has everywhere the same character. It might be said that
life tends toward the utmost possible action, but that each species
prefers to contribute the slightest possible effort. Regarded in what
constitutes its true essence, namely, as a transition from species to
species, life is a continually growing action. But each of the species,
through which life passes, aims only at its own convenience. It goes
for that which demands the least labor. Absorbed in the form it is about
to take, it falls into a partial sleep, in which it ignores almost all
the rest of life; it fashions