"The apparent discontinuity of psychological life is due, then, to the fact
that our attention is concentrated on it in a series of discontinuous acts;
where there is only a gentle slope, we think we see, when we follow the
broken line of our attention, the steps of a staircase. It is true that
our psychological life is full of surprises. A thousand incidents arise
which seem to contrast with what precedes them, and not to be connected
with what follows. But the gap in their appearances stands out against the
continuous background on which they are represented, and to which they owe
the very intervals that separate them; they are the drumbeats which break
into the symphony at intervals. Our attention is fixed upon them because
they interest it more, but each of them proceeds from the fluid mass of our
entire psychological existence. Each of them is only the brightest point
in a moving zone which understands all that we feel, think, wish; in fact,
all that we are at a given moment. It is this zone which really
constitutes our state. But we may observe that states defined in this way
are not distinct elements. They are an endless stream of mutual
continuity."

And do not think that perhaps such a description represents only or
principally our life of feeling. Reason and thought share the same
characteristic, as soon as we penetrate their living depth, whether it be a
question of creative invention or of those primordial judgments which
direct our activity. If they evidence greater stability, it is in
permanence of direction, because our past remains present to us.

For we are endowed with memory, and that perhaps is, on the whole, our most
profound characteristic. It is by memory we enlarge ourselves and draw
continually upon the wealth of our treasuries. Hence comes the completely
original nature of the change which constitutes us. But it is here that we