iv.] THE IDEA OF 'NOTHING' 281 



idea of an annihilation of everything presents the same 

 character as that of a square circle: it is not an idea, it 

 is only a word. So let us examine more closely the 

 mechanism of the operation. 



In fact, the object suppressed is either external or 

 internal: it is a thing or it is a state of consciousness. 

 Let us consider the first case. I annihilate in thought 

 an external object: in the place where it was, there is 

 no longer anything. — No longer anything of that object, 

 of course, but another object has taken its place: there is 

 no absolute void in nature. But admit that an absolute 

 void is possible : it is not of that void that I am thinking 

 when I say that the object, once annihilated, leaves its 

 place unoccupied; for by the hypothesis it is a place, that 

 is a void limited by precise outlines, or, in other words, a 

 kind of thing. The void of which I speak, therefore, is, at 

 bottom, only the absence of some definite object, which 

 was here at first, is now elsewhere and, in so far as it is no 

 longer in its former place, leaves behind it, so to speak, the 

 void of itself. A being unendowed with memory or 

 prevision would not use the words "void" or "nought;" 

 he would express only what is and what is perceived; 

 now, what is, and what is perceived, is the presence of 

 one thing or of another, never the absence of anything. 

 There is absence only for a being capable of remem- 

 bering and expecting. He remembered an object, and 

 perhaps expected to encounter it again; he finds another, 

 and he expresses the disappointment of his expectation 

 (an expectation sprung from recollection) by saying that 

 he no longer finds anything, that he encounters "nothing." 

 Even if he did not expect to encounter the object, it is a 

 possible expectation of it, it is still the falsification of his 

 eventual expectation that he expresses by saying that the 

 object is no longer where it was. What he perceives in 



