Page:Bergson - Matter and Memory (1911).djvu/62

ing perception still took place, since this perception would then connect our body with points of space which no longer directly invite it to make a choice. Sever the optic nerve of an animal: the vibrations issuing from the luminous point can no longer be transmitted to the brain and thence to the motor nerves; the thread, of which the optic nerve is a part and which binds the external object to the motor mechanisms of the animal, is broken: visual perception has therefore become impotent, and this very impotence is unconsciousness. That matter should be perceived without the help of a nervous system, and without organs of sense, is not theoretically inconceivable; but it is practically impossible, because such perception would be of no use. It would suit a phantom, not a living, and therefore acting, being. We are too much inclined to regard the living body as a world within a world, the nervous system as a separate being, of which the function is, first, to elaborate perceptions, and then to create movements. The truth is that my nervous system, interposed between the objects which affect my body and those which I can influence, is a mere conductor, transmitting, sending back, or inhibiting movement. This conductor is composed of an enormous number of threads which stretch from the periphery to the centre, and from the centre to the periphery. As many threads as pass from the periphery to the centre, so many points of space are there able