The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause. - Henri Bergson

...we shall not dwell for the present on the effort to delve down to the depths of our being. If possible at all, it is exceptional: and it is on the surface, at the point where it inserts itself into the close-woven tissue of other exteriorised personalities, that our ego generally finds its point of attachment; its solidity lies in this solidarity.

Our intelligence is the prolongation of our senses. Before we speculate we must live, and life demands that we make use of matter, either with our organs, which are natural tools, or with tools, properly so-called, which are artificial organs. Long before there was a philosophy and a science, the role of the intelligence was already that of manufacturing instruments and guiding the action of our body on surrounding bodies. Science has pushed this labor of the intelligence much further, but has not changed its direction.

Talvez não mais se chorasse numa sociedade em que só houvesse puras inteligências, mas provavelmente se risse; por outro lado, almas invariavelmente
sensíveis, afinadas em uníssono com a vida, numa sociedade onde tudo se estendesse em ressonância afetiva, nem conheceriam nem compreenderiam o
riso.