iv THE IDEA OF NOTHING 303 



the power ascribed here to negation. We represent 

 negation as exactly symmetrical with affirmation. We 

 imagine that negation, like affirmation, is self-sufficient. 

 So that negation, like affirmation, would have the 

 power of creating ideas, with this sole difference that 

 they would be negative ideas. By affirming one thing, 

 and then another, and so on ad infinitum, I form the 

 idea of &quot; All &quot; ; so, by denying one thing and then 

 other things, finally by denying All, I arrive at the 

 idea of Nothing. But it is just this assimilation which 

 is arbitrary. We fail to see that while affirmation is a 

 complete act of the mind, which can succeed in building 

 up an idea, negation is but the half of an intel 

 lectual act, of which the other half is understood, or 

 rather put off to an indefinite future. We fail to see 

 that while affirmation is a purely intellectual act, there 

 enters into negation an element which is not intel 

 lectual, and that it is precisely to the intrusion of this 

 foreign element that negation owes its specific character. 

 To begin with the second point, let us note that to 

 deny always consists in setting aside a possible affirma 

 tion. 1 Negation is only an attitude taken by the mind 

 toward an eventual affirmation. When I say, &quot; This 

 table is black,&quot; I am speaking of the table ; I have 

 seen it black, and my judgment expresses what I have 

 seen. But if I say, &quot;This table is not white,&quot; I surely 

 do not express something I have perceived, for I 

 have seen black, and not an absence of white. It is 

 therefore, at bottom, not on the table itself that I 

 bring this judgment to bear, but rather on the judgment 

 that would declare the table white. I judge a judgment 



1 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, and edition, p. 737 : &quot;From the point 

 of view of our knowledge in general ... the peculiar function of negative 

 propositions is simply to prevent error.&quot; Cf. Sigwart, Logik, znd edition, 

 vol. i. pp. 150 ff. 



