294 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



it takes account only of the replaced, and is not con- 

 cerned with what replaces. The replaced exists only 

 as a conception of the mind. It is necessary, in order 

 to continue to see it, and consequently in order to speak 

 of it, to turn our back on the reality, which flows from the 

 past to the present, advancing from behind. It is this 

 that we do when we deny. We discover the change, 

 or more generally the substitution, as a traveller would 

 see the course of his carriage if he looked out behind, and 

 only knew at each moment the point at which he had 

 ceased to be; he could never determine his actual position 

 except by relation to that which he had just quitted, in- 

 stead of grasping it in itself. 



To sum up, for a mind which* should follow purely 

 and simply the thread of experience, there would be no 

 void, no nought, even relative or partial, no possible 

 negation. Such a mind would see facts succeed facts, 

 states succeed states, things succeed things. What it 

 would note at each moment would be things existing, 

 states appearing, events happening. It would live in 

 the actual, and, if it were capable of judging, it would 

 never affirm anything except the existence of the present. 



Endow this mind with memory, and especially with 

 the desire to dwell on the past; give it the faculty of 

 dissociating and of distinguishing: it will no longer only 

 note the present state of the passing reality; it will repre- 

 sent the passing as a change, and therefore as a contrast 

 between what has been and what is. And as there is no 

 essential difference between a past that we remember 

 and a past that we imagine, it will quickly rise to the idea 

 of the "possible" in general. 



It will thus be shunted on to the siding of negation. 

 And especially it will be at the point of representing 

 a disappearance. But it will not yet have reached it. 



