 As we have seen above, Henry explicitly ascribes an ethical function to art. This involves two essential concepts: that of life’s “self-growth” (auto-accroissement) and that of the bond between the living and absolute life (the latter concept being especially important in his philosophy of religion). Self-growth describes the movement inherent to life, namely “the living ‘me’” itself (AP 295). Such a movement, however, is not simply the continuation of an unchanging state. Self-experience is primarily an experience (épreuve) of passivity, of pathos in Henry’s terminology: We have neither brought ourselves into existence nor do we continue to make ourselves exist. On the contrary, it is absolute life that engenders itself “in” us. But for the same reason, the experience of passivity is one of the “weight” of subjectivity, leading to the urge to deploy subjective powers. Perhaps in analogy with intentional acts that seek fulfillment in intuition, Henry’s concept of self-growth refers, on the level of immanent affectivity, to subjectivity seeking the development of its powers in the “I can”: