iv THE IDEA OF * NOTHING 293 



like that of Spinoza, or even that of Leibniz, and such 

 indeed has been their genesis. 



Now, if we could prove that the idea of the nought, 

 in the sense in which we take it when we oppose it to 

 that of existence, is a pseudo-idea, the problems that are 

 raised around it would become pseudo-problems. The 

 hypothesis of an absolute that acts freely, that in an 

 eminent sense endures, would no longer raise up 

 intellectual prejudices. The road would be cleared 

 for a philosophy more nearly approaching intuition, 

 and which would no longer ask the same sacrifices of 

 common sense. 



Let us then see what we are thinking about when 

 we speak of &quot; Nothing.&quot; To represent &quot; Nothing,&quot; we 

 must either imagine it or conceive it. Let us examine 

 what this image or this idea may be. First, the image. 



I am going to close my eyes, stop my ears, extinguish 

 one by one the sensations that come to me from the 

 outer world. Now it is done ; all my perceptions 

 vanish, the material universe sinks into silence and the 

 night. I subsist, however, and cannot help myself 

 subsisting. I am still there, with the organic sensa 

 tions which come to me from the surface and from the 

 interior of my body, with the recollections which my 

 past perceptions have left behind them nay, with the 

 impression, most positive and full, of the void I have 

 just made about me. How can I suppress all this ? 

 How eliminate myself? I can even, it may be, blot 

 out and forget my recollections up to my immediate 

 past ; but at least I keep the consciousness of my present 

 reduced to its extremest poverty, that is to say, of the 

 actual state of my body. I will try, however, to do 

 away even with this consciousness itself. I will reduce 



