possible the momentum by which he need simply let himself be borne
along in the sequel. This momentum, as soon as it is acquired, carries
the mind forward along a path where it recovers all the facts it had
gathered together, and a thousand other details besides. The momentum
develops and breaks up of itself into particulars that might be
retailed _ad infinitum._ The more he advances the more he finds; he
will never have exhausted the subject; and nevertheless if he turns
round suddenly to face the momentum he feels at his back and see what
it is, it eludes him; for it is not a thing but a direction of
movement, and though capable of being extended indefinitely, it is
simplicity itself."

[Footnote 3: "Introduction a la Métaphysique." _Revue de Métaphysique
et de Morale_, Janvier, 1903.]

This is evidently well observed: heighten the tone a little, and you
might have a poem on those joyful pangs of gestation and parturition
which are not denied to a male animal. It is a description of the
_sensation_ of literary composition, of the _immediate experience_ of
a writer as words and images rise into his mind. He cannot summon his
memories explicitly, for he would first have to remember them to do
so; his consciousness of inspiration, of literary creation, is nothing
but a consciousness of pregnancy and of a certain "direction of
movement," as if he were being wafted in a balloon; and just in its
moments of highest tension his mind is filled with mere expectancy and
mere excitement, without images, plans, or motives; and what guides it
is inwardly, as M. Bergson says, simplicity itself. Yet excellent as
such a description is psychologically, it is a literary confession
rather than a piece of science; for scientific psychology is a part of
natural history, and when in nature we come upon such a notable