iv.l THE IDEA OF 'NOTHING' 283 



intelligence that was only intelligence, that had neither 

 regret nor desire, whose movement was governed by 

 the movement of its object, could not even conceive an 

 absence or a void. The conception of a void arises 

 here when consciousness, lagging behind itself, remains 

 attached to the recollection of an old state when another 

 state is already present. It is only a comparison be- 

 tween what is and what could or ought to be, between 

 the full and the full. In a word, whether it be a void of 

 matter or a void of consciousness, the representation of 

 the void is always a representation which is full and which 

 resolves itself on analysis into two positive elements: the idea, 

 distinct or confused, of a substitution, and the feeling, ex- 

 perienced or imagined, of a desire or a regret. 



It follows from this double analysis that the idea of 

 the absolute nought, in the sense of the annihilation of 

 everything, is a self-destructive idea, a pseudo-idea, a 

 mere word. If suppressing a thing consists in replacing 

 it by another, if thinking the absence of one thing is 

 only possible by the more or less explicit representation 

 of the presence of some other thing, if, in short, anni- 

 hilation signifies before anything else substitution, the 

 idea of an "annihilation of everything" is as absurd as 

 that of a square circle. The absurdity is not obvious, 

 because there exists no particular object that cannot be 

 supposed annihilated; then, from the fact that there is 

 nothing to prevent each thing in .turn being suppressed in 

 thought, we conclude that it is possible to suppose them sup- 

 pressed altogether. We do not see that suppressing each 

 thing in turn consists precisely in replacing it in proportion 

 and degree by another, and therefore that the suppression 

 of absolutely everything implies a downright contradic- 

 tion in terms, since the operation consists in destroy- 

 ing the very condition that makes the operation possible. 



