io6 SCIENCE AND METHOD. 



which makes the unity of the blows of such different 

 kinds that can threaten us from the same point 

 in space. It is this double unity that makes the 

 individuality of each point in space, and in the notion 

 of such a point there is nothing else but this. 



The space I pictured in the preceding section, 

 which I might call restricted space, was referred to 

 axes of co-ordinates attached to my body. These axes 

 were fixed, since my body did not move, and it 

 was only my limbs that changed their position. What 

 are the axes to which the extended space is naturally 

 referred — that is to say, the new space I have just 

 defined ? We define a point by the succession of 

 movements we require to make to reach it, starting 

 from a certain initial position of the body. The axes 

 are accordingly attached to this initial position of the 

 body. 



But the position I call initial may be arbitrarily 

 chosen from among all the positions my body has 

 successively occupied. If a more or less unconscious 

 memory of these successive positions is necessary for 

 the genesis of the notion of space, this memory can go 

 back more or less into the past. Hence results a 

 certain indeterminateness in the very definition of 

 space, and it is precisely this indeterminateness which 

 constitutes its relativity. 



Absolute space exists no longer ; there is only space 

 relative to a certain initial position of the body. For 

 a conscious being, fixed to the ground like the inferior 

 animals, who would consequently only know restricted 

 space, space would still be relative, since it would be 

 referred to his body, but this being would not be 

 conscious of the relativity, because the axes to which 



