Extract
[...] From then on, this ability to think allows man to get out of necessity, and therefore to make choices: in this sense, he can choose to go towards good or evil, and therefore towards bestiality, which is therefore well within culture and not within nature. Man is therefore free, and not by his animal part, which seems to be a biological constraint here. Freedom is a capacity for initiative and choice not subject to necessity or survival: animal choices cannot be free, they are necessarily conditioned. Culture, reason, and freedom are therefore proper to man, who, despite this, always possesses his intuition and must respond, like other animals, to biological necessities. From then on, The essence of man is double. [...]
[...] From then on, this double essence of man may perhaps testify that the difference between man and animal is less a matter of nature than of degree, and that culture does not oppose nature as much, since man is the very example of the association of the two. Thus, man is a being whose essence is double: he cannot restrict himself to his animality, but, on the other hand, the specificities acquired by his reason do not entirely distinguish him from other animals. [...]
[...] Man cannot renounce his animality. But in what way would this latter be what defines him? Is man an animal like any other? Man is above all a sensitive being. Sensitivity is the faculty that allows him to experience sensations, but also emotions, in addition to his intuition. It is thanks to these abilities that man is capable of empathy. This sensitivity, which man shares with the animal, is therefore well positive and indispensable to man, because empathy allows him to create links with others and to maintain them. [...]
[...] Can we radically oppose animality and humanity? Is man an animal like any other? Man is an being endowed with instinct, governed to a large extent by his intuition and passions: in this sense, he cannot renounce his animality. Nevertheless, his ability to know, to think, his culture and his use of language seem to distinguish him radically from other animals, not as a specific animal but as escaping radically from animality. Thus, man would be double, governed by his reason and by his instinct, making him a particular animal whose specificity often fails to recognize him as such. [...]
[...] This is an animal that questions and, above all, questions itself. By the same token, the essence of man cannot be reduced solely to his animality, because man has access to several temporalities. In fact, the animal is always linked to the present. According to Bergson, the animal is a being determined by instinct, whose responses will always adapt to its current situation without any mediation, reflection, or delay. An animal's hesitation is not a sign of reflection or questioning. [...]
