ii THE FUNCTION OF THE INTELLECT 165 



regard its matter as indifferent to its form. The 

 whole of matter is made to appear to our thought 

 as an immense piece of cloth in which we can cut 

 out what we will and sew it together again as we 

 please. Let us note, in passing, that it is this power 

 that we affirm when we say that there is a space, that 

 is to say, a homogeneous and empty medium, infinite 

 and infinitely divisible, lending itself indifferently to any 

 mode of decomposition whatsoever. A medium of this 

 kind is never perceived ; it is only conceived. What 

 is perceived is extension coloured, resistant, divided 

 according to the lines which mark out the boundaries of 

 real bodies or of their real elements. But when we think 

 of our power over this matter, that is to say, of our faculty 

 of decomposing and recomposing it as we please, we 

 project the whole of these possible decompositions and 

 recompositions behind real extension in the form of a 

 homogeneous space, empty and indifferent, which is 

 supposed to underlie it. This space is therefore, pre 

 eminently, the plan of our possible action on things, 

 although, indeed, things have a natural tendency, as we 

 shall explain further on, to enter into a frame of this 

 kind. It is a view taken by mind. The animal has 

 probably no idea of it, even when, like us, it perceives ex 

 tended things. It is an idea that symbolizes the tendency 

 of the human intellect to fabrication. But this point 

 must not detain us now. Suffice it to say that the intellect 

 is characterized by the unlimited -power of decomposing 

 according to any law and of recomposing into any system. 



We have now enumerated a few of the essential 

 features of human intelligence. But we have hitherto 

 considered the individual in isolation, without taking 

 account of social life. In reality, man is a being who 

 lives in society. If it be true that the human intellect 



