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4 □ 10,000 B.C.: THE GEOLOGY OF MORALS

 

Every stratum is a judgment of God; not only do plants and animals, 

orchids and wasps, sing or express themselves, but so do rocks and even riv-

ers, every stratified thing on earth. The first articulation concerns content, 

the second expression. The distinction between the two articulations is not 

between forms and substances but between content and expression, 

expression having just as much substance as content and content just as 

much form as expression. The double articulation sometimes coincides 

with the molecular and the molar, and sometimes not; this is because con-

tent and expression are sometimes divided along those lines and some-

times along different lines. There is never correspondence or conformity 

between content and expression, only isomorphism with reciprocal pre-

supposition. The distinction between content and expression is always 

real, in various ways, but it cannot be said that the terms preexist their dou-

ble articulation. It is the double articulation that distributes them accord-

ing to the line it draws in each stratum; it is what constitutes their real 

distinction. (On the other hand, there is no real distinction between form 

and substance, only a mental or modal distinction: since substances are 

nothing other than formed matters, formless substances are inconceivable, 

although it is possible in certain instances to conceive of substanceless 

forms.)

 

Even though there is a real distinction between them, content and 

expression are relative terms ("first" and "second" articulation should also 

be understood in an entirely relative fashion). Even though it is capable of 

invariance, expression is just as much a variable as content. Content and 

expression are two variables of a function of stratification. They not only 

vary from one stratum to another, but intermingle, and within the same 

stratum multiply and divide ad infinitum. Since every articulation is dou-

ble, there is not an articulation of content and  an articulation of 

expression—the articulation of content is double in its own right and con-

stitutes a relative expression within content; the articulation of expression 

is also double and constitutes a relative content within expression. For this 

reason, there exist intermediate states between content and expression, 

expression and content: the levels, equilibriums, and exchanges through 

which a stratified system passes. In short, we find forms and substances of 

content that play the role of expression in relation to other forms and sub-

stances, and conversely for expression. These new distinctions do not, 

therefore, coincide with the distinction between forms and substances 

within each articulation; instead, they show that each articulation is 

already, or still, double. This can be seen on the organic stratum: proteins 

of content have two forms, one of which (the infolded fiber) plays the role 

of functional expression in relation to the other. The same goes for the 

nucleic acids of expression: double articulations cause certain formal and

 

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10,000 B.C.: THE GEOLOGY OF MORALS □ 45

 

substantial elements to play the role of content in relation to others; not 

only does the half of the chain that is reproduced become a content, but the 

reconstituted chain itself becomes a content in relation to the "messenger." 

There are double pincers everywhere on a stratum; everywhere and in all 

directions there are double binds and lobsters, a multiplicity of double 

articulations affecting both expression and content. Through all of this, 

Hjelmslev's warning should not be forgotten: "The terms expression plane 

and content plane ... are chosen in conformity with established notions 

and are quite arbitrary. Their functional definition provides no justifica-

tion for calling one, and not the other, of these entities expression, or one, 

and not the other, content. They are defined only by their mutual solidarity, 

and neither of them can be identified otherwise. They are defined only 

oppositively and relatively, as mutually opposed functives of one and the 

same function."

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 We must combine all the resources of real distinction, 

reciprocal presupposition, and general relativism.

 

The question we must ask is what on a given stratum varies and what 

does not. What accounts for the unity and diversity of a stratum? Matter, 

the pure matter of the plane of consistency (or inconsistency) lies outside 

the strata. The molecular materials borrowed from the substrata may be 

the same throughout a stratum, but that does not mean that the molecules 

will be the same. The substantial elements may be the same throughout the 

stratum without the substances being the same. The formal relations or 

bonds may be the same without the forms being the same. In biochemistry, 

there is a unity of composition of the organic stratum defined at the level of 

materials and energy, substantial elements or radicals, bonds and reac-

tions. But there is a variety of different molecules, substances, and forms.

 

Should we not sing the praise of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire? For in the nine-

teenth century he developed a grandiose conception of stratification. He 

said that matter, considered from the standpoint of its greatest divisibility, 

consists in particles of decreasing size, flows or elastic fluids that "deploy 

themselves" by radiating through space. Combustion is the process of this 

escape or infinite division on the plane of consistency. Electrification is the 

opposite process, constitutive of strata; it is the process whereby similar 

particles group together to form atoms and molecules, similar molecules to 

form bigger molecules, and the biggest molecules to form molar aggregates: 

"the attraction of like by like," as in a double pincer or double articulation. 

Thus there is no vital matter specific to the organic stratum, matter is the 

same on all the strata. But the organic stratum does have a specific unity of 

composition, a single abstract Animal, a single machine embedded in the 

stratum, and presents everywhere the same molecular materials, the same 

elements or anatomical components of organs, the same formal connec-

 

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