Creative Evolution
There is, moreover, no stuff more resistant nor more substantial than the element of time.(1) For our duration is not merely one instant replacing another;(2) if it were, there would never be anything but the present — no prolonging of the past into the actual, no evolution, no concrete duration.(3) Duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances.(4) And as the past grows without ceasing, so also there is no limit to its preservation.(5) Memory, as we have tried to prove, is not a faculty of putting away recollections in a drawer; or of inscribing them in a register.(6) There is no register, no drawer; there is not even, properly speaking, a faculty, for a faculty works intermittently, when it will or when it can, while the piling up of the past upon the past goes on without relaxation.(7) In reality, the past is preserved by itself, automatically.(8) In its entirety, probably, it follows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness that would in vain leave it outside.(9) The cerebral me
chanism is arranged just so as to drive back into the unconscious almost the whole of this past, and to admit beyond the threshold only that which can cast light on the present situation or further the action now being prepared — in short, only that which can give useful work.(10) At the most, a few superfluous recollections may succeed in smuggling themselves through the half-open door.(11) These memories, messengers from the unconscious, tell us that we are dragging behind us unawares.(12) But, even though we may have no distinct idea of it, we feel vaguely that our past remains present to us.(13) What are we, in fact, what is our character, if not the condensation of the history that we have experienced from our birth — nay, even before our birth, since we bring with us prenatal dispositions?(14) Doubtless we think with only a small part of our past, but it is with our entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will and act.(15) Our past, then, as a whole is made manifest to us in its impulse; it is felt in the form of tendency, although a small part of it only is known in the form of idea.(16)
From this survival of the past it follows that consciousness cannot go through the same, b
ut they will act no longer on the same person, since they find him at a new moment of his history.(17) Our personality, which is being built up each instant with its accumulated experience, changes without ceasing.(18) By changing, it prevents any state, although superficially identical with another, from ever repeating it in its very depth.(19) That is why our duration is irreversible.(20) We could not live over again a single moment, for we should have to begin by effacing the memory of all that had followed.(21) Even should we erase this memory from our intellect, we could not from our will.(22)
Thus our personality shoots, grows and ripens without ceasing.(23) Each of its moments is something new added to what was before.(24) We may go further: it is not only something new, but something unforeseeable.(25) Doubtless, my present state is explained by what was in me and by what was acting on me a moment ago.(26) In analysing it should find no other elements.(27) But even a superhuman intelligence would not have been able to foresee the simple indivisible form which gives to these purely abstract elements their concrete organization.(28) For to foresee consists of projecting int
o the future what has been perceived in the past, or of imagining for a later time a new grouping, in a new order, of elements already perceived.(29) But that which has never been perceived, and which is at the same time simple, is necessarily unforeseeable.(30) Now such is the case with each of our states, regarded as a moment in a history that is gradually unfolding: it is simple, and it cannot have been already perceived since it concentrates in its indivisibility all that has been perceived and what the present is adding to it besides.(31) It is an original moment of a no less original history.(32)
The finished portrait is explained by the features of the model, by the nature of the artist, by the colors spread out on the palette; but even with the knowledge of what explains it, no one, not even the artist, could have foreseen exactly what the portrait would be, for to predict it would have been to produce it before it was produced — in any case,is modified under the very influence of the works he produces, so each of our states, at the moment of its issue, modifies our personality, being indeed the new form that we are just assuming.(33) It is then right to say that what we do depends on what we are; but it is nec
essary to add also that we are, to a certain extent, what we do, and that we are creating ourselves continually.(34) This creation of self by self is the more complete, the more one reasons on what one does.(35) For reason does not proceed in such matters as in geometry, where impersonal premises are given once for all, and an impersonal conclusion must be drawn.(36) Here, on the contrary, the same reasons may dictate to different persons, or to the same person at different moments, acts profoundly different, although equally reasonable.(37) The truth is that they are not quite the same reasons, because they are not those of the same person, nor of the same moment.(38) That is why we cannot deel with them in the abstract, from outside, as in geometry, nor solve for another the problems by which he is faced in life; instead, each must solve them from within, on his own account.(39) But we need not go more deeply into this.(40) We are seeking only the precise meaning that our consciousness gives to this word "exist", and we find that, for a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.(41) That being the case, should the same be said of existence in general?(42)
创造进化论
没有一种实体像时间要素这样持久。（1）因为我们的绵延并不是从一瞬间到另一瞬间的单纯取代。（2）如果这样，那么人只有现在而没有过去——过去不会延伸到现在，进化也失去了具体绵延。（3）所谓绵延不过是过去的连续进展。（4）过去总是紧紧咬住未来，逐渐膨胀，直至无限。就像我们曾经试图证明的那样。（5）记忆也不是把整理了的表象锁进抽屉，或在账簿上记载这些表象的能力。（6）记忆里没有账簿和抽屉。确切地说，甚至谈不上能力。因为能力只在需要或可能的时候才起作用，而过去的累积是无条件的，（7）它自存其力。（8）在每一瞬间，过去都伴随着未来。我们幼时的感受、思考和希望无一不延伸到今天，与现在融为一体，紧靠意识之门，使你欲弃不能。（9）大脑的技能就是，把过去全部驱于潜意思之中，只让那些明确现时处境的东西或正在准备中的行动进入门槛——总之是一些有价值的东西。（10）充其量让一些多余的回忆潜入现在的半掩着的门扉，（11）作为意识的使者，告诉我们那些没有意识到的东西。（12）尽管我们对这些东西没有清晰的概念，但仍会模糊地感觉到：我们的过去保存在现实之中。（13）应该承认，每个人都是自己出生以来、甚至出生以前历史剧的凝聚。只有这样，我们才能明确自己是什
么，有哪些特征。（14）毫无疑问，我们在思考时只用了过去的一小部分；只有当我们有所需求、希望或行动时，才用了过去的全部，其中包括天生的心理趋向。（15)所以，成为观念形态的只是过去的一小部分，而其他部分则凭着自身的推动力，以趋向的形式，毫无遗漏地展现在我们面前。（16）
意识不可能再度经过同一状态。因为同一环境不会作用于同一个人，环境所攫住的是这个人历史的全新时刻。（17）我们的人格由每一瞬间的经历积蓄而成，因而处在不断变化中。（18）尽管每一状态看似相同，但在本质上不存在重复。（19）所以我们的延续是不能逆转的。（20）我们不可能重新体验过去某个时刻，否则，我们将废弃自己在这个时刻之后获得的所有记忆。（21）即使我们能从知识中消除这种记忆，也无法从意愿中消除它。（22）
我们的人格不断成长，日趋成熟。（23）每一瞬间都是全新的，也是不可预测的。（24）（25）我现在的状态可以用我刚才的内心世界与外物的相互作用来解释。（26）在分析现状时，我不到其他的要素。（27）对于未来状态，无论你怎样努力，也无法预见，纵然有超人的智慧，也不能预见单一的不可分的形式。这种形式是纯抽象要素的表象。（28）
所谓预见，就是把过去的知觉投射于未来，或者以一种新的顺序安排已知要素，以便在未来新的环境中推演出已知的事物。（29）但是必然不可预见的是：从未感知过的事情，而同时是简单的事情。（30）我们的现状便是如此，可以看做逐渐展开的历史瞬间。我们的情况是如此简单，也不可能预先被感知到，因为所有已经被感知的东西和现在附加上去的东西，都毫不例外地凝聚在状态的不可分性之中。（31）所以说，我们的每一状态都是历史的独创时刻。（32）
一幅肖像画可以用模特儿的容貌、画家的性格和调板上的颜料来解释。但即便知道解释的含义，在画像完成之前谁都无法预料画像的结果，甚至连绘画者本人也无法预见。假如能够预见，那就表示未画之前画像就已经完成。这是自相矛盾的荒谬假设。画家的才能使在他的影响下形成和变化的。因此，我们是自己状态的创造者，每一瞬间都是一种创造，都赋予我们新的形态，并限定了我们的人格。（33）因此，完全有理由说，我们做什么取决于我们是什么。但必须附加一句：在某种程度上，我是自己行动的创造者，我们不断地在创造自己。（34）人们越对自己的行动加以思考，就越能趋于完善。（35）因为理性作用与几何学不同。几何学中，给定的前提与人，得出的结论也不具备人格。（36）但在这
里，虽有相同的理性也不会有相同的个人，就是相同的个人在不同的瞬间，理性的行为也完全不同。（37）实际上，完全相同的理性是不存在的。因为他们不可能是同一个人在同一瞬间的理性。（38）这就是为什么我们不能像解决几何学问题那样，从外部解决人生面临的问题的原因。这类问题必须自己从内部加以解决。（vaguely39）但在这里不宜作深入探讨。（40）我们所要研究的只是意识赋予“存在”这个词的精确含义。我们将发现，对有意识的存在者来说，存在就是变化；变化就是成熟；成熟就是无限的自我创造。（41）倘使如此，所有方式的存在难道不也如此吗？（42）

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