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there may be different
what precedes and with what follows. The reality for us of a psychical state or of a material object consists
degrees of either
in the double fact that our consciousness perceives them and that they form part of a series, temporal or
spatial, of which the elements determine each other. But these two conditions admit of degrees, and it is
conceivable that, though both are necessary, they maybe unequally fulfilled. Thus, in the case of actual
internal states, the connexion is less close, and the determination of the present by the past, leav-
The fallacy consists in
(190) ing ample room for contingency, has not the character of a mathematical derivation;-but then,
presentation in consciousness is perfect, an actual psychical state yielding the whole of its content in the act distinguishing two
kinds of existence
itself whereby we perceive it. On the contrary, if we are dealing with external objects it is the connexion
characterized the one
which is perfect, since these objects obey necessary laws ; but then the other condition, presentation in
by conscious
consciousness, is never more than partially fulfilled, for the material object, just because of the multitude of apprehension and the
unperceived elements by which it is linked with all other objects, appears to enfold within itself and to hide
other by regular
connexion
behind it infinitely more than it allows to be seen.-We ought to say; then, that existence, in the empirical
sense of the word, always implies conscious apprehension and regular connexion ; both at the same time
but in different degrees. But our intellect, of which the function is to establish clear-cut distinctions, does
not so understand things. Rather than admit the presence in all cases of the two elements mingled in
varying proportions, it prefers to dissociate them, and thus attribute to external objects on the one hand, and
to internal states on the other, two radically different modes of existence each characterized by the
exclusive presence of the condition which should be regarded as merely preponderating. Then the existence
of psychical states is assumed to consist entirely in
(191) their apprehension by consciousness, and that of external phenomena, entirely also, in the strict order
of their concomitance and their succession. Whence the impossibility of leaving to material objects,
existing, but unperceived, the smallest share in consciousness, and to internal unconscious states the
smallest share in existence. We have shown, at the beginning of this book, the consequences of the first
illusion : it ends by falsifying our representation of matter. The second, complementary to the first, vitiates
our conception of mind by casting over the idea of the unconscious an artificial obscurity. The whole of our
past psychical life conditions our present state, without being its necessary determinant ; whole, also, it
reveals itself in our character, although no one of its past states manifests itself explicitly in character.
Taken together, these two conditions assure to each one of the past psychological states a real, though an
unconscious, existence.
But, if memories are
But we are so much accustomed to reverse, for the sake of action, the real order of things, we are so
preserved qua
strongly obsessed by images drawn from space, that we cannot hinder ourselves from asking where
memories, where are
memories are stored up. We understand that physico-chemical phenomena take place in the brain, that the
they? Fallacy involved
brain is in the body, the body in the air which surrounds it, etc.; but the past, once achieved, if it is retained, in the question
where is it ? To locate it in the cerebral sub-
(192) -stance, in the state of molecular modification, seems clear and simple enough, because then we have
a receptacle, actually given, which we have only to open in order to let the latent images flow into
consciousness. But if the brain cannot serve such a purpose, in what warehouse shall we store the
accumulated images ?-We forget that the relation of container to content borrows its apparent clearness and
universality from the necessity laid upon us of always opening out space in front of us, and of always
closing duration behind us. Because it has been shown that one thing is within another, the phenomenon of
its preservation is not thereby made any clearer. We may even go further: let us admit for a moment that
the past survives in the form of a memory stored in the brain ; it is then necessary that the brain, in order to
preserve the memory, should preserve itself. But the brain, in so far as it is an image extended in space,
never occupies more than the present moment : it constitutes, with all the rest of the material universe, an
ever renewed section of universal becoming. Either, then, you must suppose that this universe dies and is
born again miraculously at each moment of duration, or you must attribute to it that continuity of existence
which you deny to consciousness, and make of its past a reality which endures and is prolonged into its
present. So that you leave rained nothing by depositing the memories in matter, and you find yourself, on
the contrary, compelled
(193) to extend to the totality of the states of the material world that complete and independent survival of
the past which you have just refused to psychical states. This survival of the past per se forces itself upon
philosophers, then, under one form or another; and the difficulty that we have in conceiving it comes
simply from the fact that we extend to the series of memories, in time, that obligation of containing and
being contained which applies only to the collection of bodies instantaneously perceived in space. The
fundamental illusion consists in transferring to duration itself, in its continuous flow, the form of the
instantaneous sections which we make in it.
The past has not ceased
But how can the past, which, by hypothesis, has ceased to be, preserve itself ? Have we not here a real
to existed; it has only
contradiction ?-We reply that the question is just whether the past has ceased to exist or whether it has
ceased to be useful
simply ceased to be useful. You define the present in an arbitrary manner as that which is, whereas the
present is simply what is being made. Nothing is less than the present moment, if you understand by that
the indivisible limit which divides the past from the future. When we think this present as going to be, it
exists not yet ; and when we think it as existing, it is already past. If, on the other hand, what you are
considering is the concrete present such as it is actually lived by consciousness, we may say that this
present consists, in large measure, in the immediate
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