284 CREATIVE EVOLUTION ichap. 



But the illusion is tenacious. Though suppressing 

 one thing consists in fact in substituting another for it, 

 we do not conclude, we are unwilling to conclude, that 

 the annihilation of a thing in thought implies the sub- 

 stitution in thought of a new thing for the old. We 

 agree that a thing is always replaced by another thing, 

 and even that our mind cannot think the disappearance 

 of an object, external or internal, without thinking — 

 under an indeterminate and confused form, it is true — 

 that another object is substituted for it. But we add 

 that the representation of a disappearance is that of a 

 phenomenon that is produced in space or at least in time, 

 that consequently it still implies the calling up of an 

 image, and that it is precisely here that we have to free 

 ourselves from the imagination in order to appeal to 

 the pure understanding. "Let us therefore no longer 

 speak," it will be said, "of disappearance or annihilation; 

 these are physical operations. Let us no longer repre- 

 sent the object A as annihilated or absent. Let us say 

 simply that we think it "non-existent." To annihilate 

 it is to act on it in time and perhaps also in space; it 

 is to accept, consequently, the condition of spatial and 

 temporal existence, to accept the universal connection 

 that binds an object to all others, and prevents it from 

 disappearing without being at the same time replaced. 

 But we can free ourselves from these conditions; all 

 that is necessary is that by an effort of abstraction we 

 should call up the idea of the object A by itself, that 

 we should agree first to consider it as existing, and then, 

 by a stroke of the intellectual pen, blot out the clause. 

 The object will then be, by our decree, non-existent." 



Very well, let us strike out the clause. We must 

 not suppose that our pen-stroke is self-sufficient — that 

 it can be isolated from the rest of things. We shall see 



