300 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP 



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. &quot; Let us therefore no longer 

 speak,&quot; it will be said, &quot; 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 c non-existent. To annihilate 

 it is to act on it in time and perhaps also in space ; it 

 is to accept, consequently, the conditions of spatial and 

 temporal existence, to accept the universal connexion 

 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.&quot; 



Very well ; let us strike out the clause. We must 



not suppose that our pen-stroke is self-sufficient that 

 it 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 to 

 gether the two ideas the object A supposed to exist, 

 and the same object supposed &quot; non-existent.&quot; 



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. 

 Between thinking an object and thinking it existent, 

 there is absolutely no difference. Kant has put this 



