it is no longer limited by its
object, but that is because it contains nothing, being only a form
without matter. The two tendencies, at first implied in each other, had
to separate in order to grow. They both went to seek their fortune in
the world, and turned out to be instinct and intelligence.

Such, then, are the two divergent modes of knowledge by which
intelligence and instinct must be defined, from the standpoint of
knowledge rather than that of action. But knowledge and action are here
only two aspects of one and the same faculty. It is easy to see, indeed,
that the second definition is only a new form of the first.

If instinct is, above all, the faculty of using an organized natural
instrument, it must involve innate knowledge (potential or unconscious,
it is true), both of this instrument and of the object to which it is
applied. Instinct is therefore innate knowledge of a _thing_. But
intelligence is the faculty of constructing unorganized--that is to say
artificial--instruments. If, on its account, nature gives up endowing
the living being with the instruments that may serve him, it is in order
that the living being may be able to vary his construction according to
circumstances. The essential function of intelligence is therefore to
see the way out of a difficulty in any circumstances whatever, to find
what is most suitable, what answers best the question asked. Hence it
bears essentially on the relations between a given situation and the
means of utilizing it. What is innate in intellect, therefore, is the
tendency to establish relations, and this tendency implies the natural
knowledge of certain very general relations, a kind of stuff that the
activity of each particular intellect will cut up into more special
relations. Where activity is directed toward manufacture, therefore,
knowledge necessarily bears on relations. But this entirely _formal_
knowledge of intelligence has an immense advantage over the _material_
knowledge of instinct. A form, just because it is empty, may be filled
at will with any number of things in turn, even with those that are of
no use. So that a formal knowledge is not limited to what is practically
useful, although it is in view of practical utility that it has made its
appearance in the world. An intelligent being bears within himself the
means to transcend his own nature.

He transcends himself, however, less than he wishes, less also than he
imagines himself to do. The p