of bodies which have clearly defined outlines and change their place, that is, their relation with each other?
Besides consciousness and science, there is life. Beneath the principles of speculation, so carefullyIt is the necessities of living, i.e. of action, that mark out for consciousness distinct bodies. analysed by philosophers, there are tendencies of which the study has been neglected, and which are to be explained simply by the necessity of living, that is, of acting. Already the power conferred on the individual consciousness of manifesting itself in acts requires the formation of distinct material zones, which correspond respectively to living bodies: in this sense my own body and, by analogy with it, all other living bodies are those which I have the most right to distinguish in the continuity of the universe. But this body itself, as soon as it is constituted and distinguished, is led by its various needs to distinguish and constitute other bodies. In the humblest living being nutrition demands research, then contact, in short a series of efforts which converge towards a centre: this centre is just what is made into an object—the object which will serve as food. Whatever be the nature of matter, it may be said that life will at once establish in it a primary discontinuity, expressing the duality of the need and of that which must serve to satisfy it. But the need of food is not the only need. Others group themselves round it, all having for object the
