HI INTELLECT AND MATERIALITY 213 



we have studied elsewhere. Let us merely recall that 

 extension admits of degrees, that all sensation is 

 extensive in a certain measure, and that the idea of 

 unextended sensations, artificially localized in space, 

 is a mere view of the mind, suggested by an uncon 

 scious metaphysic much more than by psychological 

 observation. 



No doubt we make only the first steps in the 

 direction of the extended, even when we let ourselves 

 go as much as we can. But suppose for a moment 

 that matter consists in this very movement pushed 

 further, and that physics is simply psychics inverted. 

 We shall now understand why the mind feels at its 

 ease, moves about naturally in space, when matter 

 suggests the more distinct idea of it. This space it 

 already possessed as an implicit idea in its own eventual 

 detcnsion y that is to say, of its own possible extension. 

 The mind finds space in things, but could have got 

 it without them if it had had imagination strong 

 enough to push the inversion of its own natural 

 movement to the end. On the other hand, we are 

 able to explain how matter accentuates still more its 

 materiality, when viewed by the mind. Matter, at first, 

 aided mind to run down its own incline ; it gave the 

 impulsion. But, the impulsion once received, mind 

 continues its course. The idea that it forms of pure 

 space is only the schema of the limit at which this 

 movement would end. Once in possession of the 

 form of space, mind uses it like a net with meshes 

 that can be made and unmade at will, which, thrown 

 over matter, divides it as the needs of our action 

 demand. Thus, the space of our geometry and the 

 spatiality of things are mutually engendered by the 

 reciprocal action and reaction of two terms which arc 



