310 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



we apply to the first, a judgment which is negation 

 itself. And what gives negation its subjective character 

 is precisely this, that in the discovery of a replacement 

 it takes account only of the replaced, and is not con 

 cerned with what replaces. The replaced exists only 

 as a conception of the mind. It is necessary, in order 

 to continue to see it, and consequently in order to 

 speak of it, to turn our back on the reality, which flows 

 from the past to the present, advancing from behind. 

 It is this that we do when we deny. We discover the 

 change, or more generally the substitution, as a traveller 

 would see the course of his carriage if he looked 

 out behind, and only knew at each moment the point at 

 which he had ceased to be ; he could never determine his 

 actual position except by relation to that which he had just 

 quitted, instead of grasping it in itself. 



To sum up, for a mind which should follow purely 

 and simply the thread of experience, there would be no 

 void, no nought, even relative or partial, no possible 

 negation. Such a mind would see facts succeed facts, 

 states succeed states, things succeed things. What it 

 would note at each moment would be things exist 

 ing, states appearing, events happening. It would live 

 in the actual, and, if it were capable of judging, it would 

 never affirm anything except the existence of the present. 



Endow this mind with memory, and especially with 

 the desire to dwell on the past ; give it the faculty of 

 dissociating and of distinguishing : it will no longer 

 only note the present state of the passing reality ; it 

 will represent the passing as a change, and therefore 

 as a contrast between what has been and what is. And 

 as there is no essential difference between a past that we 

 remember and a past that we imagine, it will quickly 

 rise to the idea of the &quot; possible &quot; in general. 



