290 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



It is in vain, then, that we attribute to negation the power 

 of creating ideas sui generis, symmetrical with those that 

 affirmation creates, and directed in a contrary sense. No 

 idea will come forth from negation, for it has no other 

 content than that of the affirmative judgment which it 

 judges. 



To be more precise, let us consider an existential, in- 

 stead of an attributive, judgment. If I say, "The object 

 A does not exist," I mean by that, first, that we might 

 believe that the object A exists: how, indeed, can we think 

 of the object A without thinking it existing, and, once 

 again, what difference can there be between the idea of 

 the object A existing and the idea pure and simple of the 

 object A? Therefore, merely by saying "The object A," 

 I attribute to it some kind of existence, though it be that 

 of a mere possible, that is to say, of a pure idea. And 

 consequently, in the judgment "The object A is not," 

 there is at first an affirmation such as "The object A has 

 been," or "The object A will be," or, more generally, 

 "The object A exists at least as a mere possible." Now, 

 when I add the two words "is not," I can only mean that 

 if we go further, if we erect the possible object into a real 

 object, we shall be mistaken, and that the possible of which 

 I am speaking is excluded from the actual reality as 

 incompatible with it. Judgments that posit the non- 

 existence of a thing are therefore judgments that formu- 

 late a contrast between the possible and the actual (that 

 is, between two kinds of existence, one thought and the 

 other found), where a person, real or imaginary, wrongly 

 believes that a certain possible is realized. Instead of 

 this possible, there is a reality that differs from it and re- 

 jects it: the negative judgment expresses this contrast, 

 but it expresses the contrast in an intentionally incomplete 

 form, because it is addressed to a person who is sup- 



