In fact, the object suppressed is either external or internal: it is a thing or it is a state of consciousness. Let U3 consider the first case. I annihilate in thought an external object: in the place where it was, there is no longer anything. — No longer anything of that object, of course, but another object has taken its place: there is no absolute void in nature. But admit that an absolute void ia possible : it is not of that void that I am thinking when I say that the object, once annihilated, leaves its place unoccupied; for by the hypothesis it is a place, that is s void limited by precise outlines, or, in other words, a kind of thing. The void of which I speak, therefore, is, at bottom, only the absence of some definite object, which was here at first, is now elsewhere and, in so far as it is no longer in its former place, leaves behind it, so to speak, the void of itself. A being unendowed with memory or prevision would not use the words "void" or "nought;" he would express only what is and what is perceived; now, what is, and what is perceived, is the presence of one thing or of another, never the absence of anything. There is absence only for a being capable of remem- bering and expecting. He remembered an object, and perhaps expected to encounter it again; he finds another, and he expresses the disappointment of his expectation (an expectation sprung from recollection) by saying that he no longer finds anything, that he encounters "nothing." Even if he did not expect to encounter the object, it is a possible expectation of it, it is still the fabitication of his eventual expectation that he expresses by saying that the object is no longer where it was. What he perceives in
282 Creative Evolution
reality, what he will succeed in effectively thinking of, is the presence of the old object in a new place or that of a new object in the old place; the rest, all that is expressed negatively by such words as "nought" or the "void," is not so much thought as feeling, or, to speak more exactly, it is the tinge that feeling gives to tliought. The idea of annihilation or of partial nothingness is therefore formed here in the course of the substitution of one thing for another, whenever this substitution is thought by a mind that would prefer to keep the old thing in the place of the new, or at least conceives this prefer- ence as possible. The idea imphes on the subjective side a preference, on the objective side a substitution, and is nothing else but a combination of, or rather an interference between, this feehng of preference and tins idea of substitution.
Such is the mechanism of the operation by which our mind annihilates an object and succeeds in represent- ing in the external world a partial nought. Let us now see how it represents it within itself. We find in our- selves phenomena that are produced, and not phenomena that are not produced. I experience a sensation or an emotion, I conceive an idea, I form a resolution: my consciousness perceives these facts, which are bo many presences, and there is no moment in which facts of this kind are not present to me. I can, no doubt, interrupt by thought the course of my inner life; I may suppose that I sleep without dreaming or that I have ceased to exist; but at the very instant when I make this suppoa- tion, I conceive myself, I imagine myself watching over my slumber or surviving my annihilation, and I give up per- ceiving myself from within only by taking refuge in the perception of myself from without. That is to say that here again the full always succeeds the full, and that an
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intelligence that was only intelligence, that had neither regret nor desire, whose movement was governed by the movement of ita object, could not even conceive an absence or a void. The conception of a void arises here when consciousness, lagging beliind itself, remains attached to the recollection of an old state when another state is already present. It is only a comparison be- tween what is and what could or ought to be, between the full and the full. In a word, whether it be a void of matter or a void of consciousness, the representation of the void is always a representaticm which is full and which resolves itself on analysis ivio two positive elements: the idea, distinct or confused, of a substitution, and the feeling, ex- perienced or imagined, of a desire or a regret.
It follows from this double analysis that the idea of the absolute nought, in the sense of the annihilation of everything, is a self-destructive idea, a pseudo-idea, a mere word. If suppressing a tiling consists in replacing it by another, if thinking the absence of one thing is only possible by the more or less explicit representation of the presence of some other tiling, if, in short, anni- hilation signifies before anything else substitution, the idea of an "annihilation of everytliing" is as absurd as that of a square circle. The absurdity is not obvious, because there exists no particular object that cannot be supposed anniiulated; then, from the fact that there is nothing to prevent each tiling in turn Ijeing suppressed in thought, we conclude that it ia possible to suppose them sup- pressed altogether. We do not see that suppressing each thing in turn consists precisely in replacing it in proportion and degree by another, and therefore tliat the suppression of absolutely everything impliea a downright contradic- tion in terms, since the operation consists in destroy- ing the very condition tliat makes the operation possible.
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But the illusion is tenacious. Though suppressing one thing consists in fact in substituting another for it, we do not conclude, we are unwilling to conclude, that the annihilation of a thing in thought iraphes the sub- stitution in thought of a new thing for the old. We agree that a thing is always replaced by another thing, and even that our mind cannot think the disappearance of an object, external or internal, without thinking — under an indeterminate and confused form, it is true — that another object is substituted for it. But we add that the representation of a disappearance is that of a phenomenon that is produced in space or at least in time, that consequently it still implies the calling up of an image, and that it is precisely here that we have to free ourselves from the imagination in order to appeal to the pure understanding. "Let us therefore no longer speak," it will be said, "of disappearance or annihilation; these are physical operations. Let us no longer repre- sent the object A as annihilated or absent. Let us say simply that we think it "non-existent." To annihilate it is to act on it in time and perhaps also in space; it is to accept, consequently, the condition of spatial and temporal existence, to accept the universal connection that binds an object to all others, and prevents it from disappearing without being at the same time replaced. But we can free ourselves from these conditions; all that is necessary is that by an effort of abstraction we should call up the idea of the object A by itself, that we should agree first to consider it as existing, and then, by a stroke of the intellectual pen, blot out the clause. The object will then be, by our decree, non-existent."
Very well, let us strike out the clause. We must
not suppose that our pen-stroke is self-sufficient — that
U can be isolated from the rest of things. We shall see
that it carries with it, whether we will or no, all that we
tried to abstract from. Let us compare together the two
ideas — the object A supposed to exist, and the same
object supposed " non-existent."
The idea of the object A, supposed existent, is the representation pure and simple of the object A, for we cannot represent an object without attributing to it, by the very fact of representing it, a certain reality. Be- tween thinking an object and thinking it existent, there is absolutely no difference. Kant has put this point in clear light in his criticism of the ontological argument. Then, what is it to think the object A non-existent? To represent it non-existent cannot consist in withdrawing from the idea of the object A the idea of the attribute "existence," since, I repeat, the representation of the existence of the object Is inseparable from the representation of the object, and indeed is one with it. To represent the object A non-existent can only consist, therefore, in adding something to the idea of this object: we add to it, in fact, the idea of an exclusion of this particular object by actual reality in general. To think the object A as non- existent is first to think the object and consequently to think it existent; it is then to think that another reabty, with which it is incompatible, supplants it. Only, it is useless to represent this latter reality explicitly; we are not concerned with what it is; it is enough for us to know that it drives out the object A, which alone is of interest to us. That is why we think of the expulsion rather than of the cause which expels. But this cause is none the less present to the mind; it is there in the implicit state, that which expels being inseparable from the expulsion as the hand which drives the pen is inseparable from the pen-stroke. The act by which we declare an object unreal therefore posits the existence of the real in general.
In other words, to represent an object as unreal cannot consist in depriving it of every kind of existence, since the representation of an object is necessarily that of the object existing. Such an act consists simply in declaring that the existence attached by our mind to the object, and in- separable from its representation, is an existence wholly ideal — that of a mere possible. But the "ideality" of an object, and the "simple possibility" of an object, have meaning only in relation to a reality that drives into the region of the ideal, or of the merely possible, the object which is incompatible with it. Suppose the stronger and more substantial existence annihilated: it is the attenuated and weaker existence of the merely possible that becomes the reality itself, and you will no longer be representing the object, then, as non-existent. In other words, and however strange our assertion may seem, there is more, and not less, in the idea of an object conceived as "not exist- ing" than in the idea of this saine abject conceived as "existr- ing"; for the idea of the object "n^t existing" is necessariiy the idea of the object "existing" vjith, in addition, the repre- sentation of an exclusion of this c^ject by the actual realUy taken in block.
But it will be claimed that our idea of the non-existent is not yet sufficiently cut loose from every imaginative element, that it is not negative enough. "No matter," we shall be told, "though the unreality of a thing consist in its exclusion by other things; we want to know nothing about that. Are we not free to direct our attention where we please and how we please? Well then, after having called up the idea of an object, and thereby, if you will have it so, supposed it existent, we shall merely couple to our affirmation a ' not,' and that will be enough to make U3 think it non-existent. This is an operation entirely intellectual, independent of what happens outside the
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