Microsoft Word Deleuze, Guattari- a thousand Plateaus

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0 □ 10,000 B.C.: THE GEOLOGY OF MORALS

 

in the formation of interior substantial elements or even compounds. 

These elements and compounds both appropriate materials and exteri-

orize themselves through replication, even in the conditions of the primor-

dial soup itself. Once again, interior and exterior exchange places, and both 

are interior to the organic stratum. The limit between them is the mem-

brane that regulates the exchanges and transformation in organization (in 

other words, the distributions interior to the stratum) and that defines all 

of the stratum's formal relations or traits (even though the situation and 

role of the limit vary widely depending on the stratum, for example, the 

limit of the crystal as compared to the cellular membrane). We may there-

fore use the term central layer, or central ring, for the following aggregate 

comprising the unity of composition of a stratum: exterior molecular 

materials, interior substantial elements, and the limit or membrane con-

veying the formal relations. There is a single abstract machine that is envel-

oped by the stratum and constitutes its unity. This is the Ecumenon, as 

opposed to the Planomenon of the plane of consistency.

 

It would be a mistake to believe that it is possible to isolate this unitary, 

central layer of the stratum, or to grasp it in itself, by regression. In the first 

place, a stratum necessarily goes from layer to layer, and from the very 

beginning. It already has several layers. It goes from a center to a periphery, 

at the same time as the periphery reacts back upon the center to form a new 

center in relation to a new periphery. Flows constantly radiate outward, 

then turn back. There is an outgrowth and multiplication of intermediate 

states, and this process is one of the local conditions of the central ring 

(different concentrations, variations that are tolerated below a certain 

threshold of identity). These intermediate states present new figures of 

milieus or materials, as well as of elements and compounds. They are inter-

mediaries between the exterior milieu and the interior element, substantial 

elements and their compounds, compounds and substances, and between 

the different formed substances (substances of content and substances of 

expression). We will use the term epistrata for these intermediaries and 

superpositions, these outgrowths, these levels. Returning to our two exam-

ples, on the crystalline stratum there are many intermediaries between the 

exterior milieu or material and the interior seed: a multiplicity of perfectly 

discontinuous states of metastability constituting so many hierarchical 

degrees. Neither is the organic stratum separable from so-called interior 

milieus that are interior elements in relation to exterior materials but also 

exterior elements in relation to interior substances." These internal 

organic milieus are known to regulate the degree of complexity or differen-

tiation of the parts of an organism. A stratum, considered from the stand-

point of its unity of composition, therefore exists only in its substantial 

epistrata, which shatter its continuity, fragment its ring, and break it down

 

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0,000 B.C.: THE GEOLOGY OF MORALS □ 51

 

into gradations. The central ring does not exist independently of a periph-

ery that forms a new center, reacts back upon the first center, and in turn 

gives forth discontinuous epistrata.

 

That is not all. In addition to this new or second-degree relativity of inte-

rior and exterior, there is a whole history on the level of the membrane or 

limit. To the extent that elements and compounds incorporate or appropri-

ate materials, the corresponding organisms are forced to turn to other 

"more foreign and less convenient" materials that they take from still 

intact masses or other organisms. The milieu assumes a third figure here: it 

is no longer an interior or exterior milieu, even a relative one, nor an inter-

mediate milieu, but instead an annexed or associated milieu. Associated 

milieus imply sources of energy different from alimentary materials. 

Before these sources are obtained, the organism can be said to nourish 

itself but not to breathe: it is in a state of suffocation.

n

 Obtaining an energy 

source permits an increase in the number of materials that can be trans-

formed into elements and compounds. The associated milieu is thus 

defined by the capture of energy sources (respiration in the most general 

sense), by the discernment of materials, the sensing of their presence or 

absence (perception), and by the fabrication or nonfabrication of the corre-

sponding compounds (response, reaction). That there are molecular per-

ceptions no less than molecular reactions can be seen in the economy of the 

cell and the property of regulatory agents to "recognize" only one or two 

kinds of chemicals in a very diverse milieu of exteriority. The development 

of the associated milieus culminates in the animal worlds described by von 

Uexkull, with all their active, perceptive, and energetic characteristics. 

The unforgettable associated world of the Tick, defined by its gravitational 

energy of falling, its olfactory characteristic of perceiving sweat, and its 

active characteristic of latching on: the tick climbs a branch and drops onto 

a passing mammal it has recognized by smell, then latches onto its skin (an 

associated world composed of three factors, and no more). Active and per-

ceptive characteristics are themselves something of a double pincer, a dou-

ble articulation.

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Here, the associated milieus are closely related to organic forms. An 

organic form is not a simple structure but a structuration, the constitution 

of an associated milieu. An animal milieu, such as the spider web, is no less 

"morphogenetic" than the form of the organism. One certainly cannot say 

that the milieu determines the form; but to complicate things, this does not 

make the relation between form and milieu any less decisive. Since the 

form depends on an autonomous code, it can only be constituted in an 

associated milieu that interlaces active, perceptive, and energetic charac-

teristics in a complex fashion, in conformity with the code's requirements; 

and the form can develop only through intermediary milieus that regulate

 

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