The Action [excerpts]

This chapter compares action to the disturbance affecting an elastic milieu in which an initial shock results in moving waves indefinitely spreading into concentric circles. Thought is involved in any action that the agent feels he is producing; and no less profoundly, thought implies a spiritual stimulation, a vital immanence of truth acting within it and asking to become active through it. The body of action is not only a system of movements manifested by organic life in the environment of phenomena; it is made up of the less harmonized synthesis of the multiple tendencies. It is important to understand how human acts insert in the world what would not be there without them, embodied intentions, ideal values which have become perceptible and active. However strong family bonds may be, social solidarity is, in fact and in law, of another nature, of significance than blood or racial ties.