ui.l THE IDEA OF DISORDER 221 



It will be seen in the next chapter how hard it is to 

 determine the content of a negative idea, and what illu- 

 sions one is liable to, what hopeless difficulties philosophy- 

 falls into, for not having undertaken this task. Diffi- 

 culties and illusions are generally due to this, that we 

 accept as final a manner of expression essentially pro- 

 visional. They are due to our bringing into the domain 

 of speculation a procedure made for practice. If I choose 

 a volume in my library at random, I may put it back on 

 the shelf after glancing at it and say, "This is not verse." 

 Is this what I have really seen in turning over the leaves 

 of the book? Obviously not. I have not seen, I never 

 shall see, an absence of verse. I have seen prose. But 

 as it is poetry I want, I express what I find as a function 

 of what I am looking for, and instead of saying, "This is 

 prose," I say, "This is not verse." In the same way, if 

 the fancy takes me to read prose, and I happen on a 

 volume of verse, I shall say, "This is not prose," thus ex- 

 pressing the data of my perception, which shows me verse, 

 in the language of my expectation and attention, which 

 are fixed on the idea of prose and will hear of nothing else. 

 Now, if Mons. Jourdain heard me, he would infer, no 

 doubt, from my two exclamations that prose and poetry 

 are two forms of language reserved for books, and that these 

 learned forms have come and overlaid a language which 

 was neither prose nor verse. Speaking of this thing 

 which is neither verse nor prose, he would suppose, more- 

 over, that he was thinking of it: it would be only a pseudo- 

 idea, however. Let us go further still: the pseudo- 

 idea would create a pseudo-problem, if M. Jourdain were 

 to ask his professor of philosophy how the prose form and 

 the poetry form have been superadded to that which 

 possessed neither the one nor the other, and if he wished 

 the professor to construct a theory of the imposition of 



