It was by following as closely as possible the evidence of biology that we reached the conception of a vital impetus and of a creative evolution. As we set it out at the beginning of the last chapter, this conception was by no means a hypothesis, such as can be found at the basis of any metaphysical system: it was a condensation of fact, a summing up of summings up. Now, whence came the impetus, and what was the principle behind it? If it sufficed unto itself, what was it in itself, and what meaning were we to ascribe to its manifestations as a whole? To such questions the facts under consideration sup- plied no direct answer; but we saw clearly from what direction the answer might come. For the energy precipitated through matter appeared to us, as it were, below or above conscious- ness, in any case of the same order as consciousness. It had had to get round many obstacles, squeeze itself through others; above all, divide itself between diverging lines of evolution: at the extremity of the two main lines we ulti- 2i4 DYNAMIC RELIGION CH. mately found two modes of knowledge into which it had resolved itself in order to materialize: the instinct of insects, the intelligence of manl Instinct was intuitive; intelligence reflected and reasoned. It is true that intuition had had to debase itself to become instinct; it had become intent, as though hypnotized, on the interest of the species, and what had survived