tural. A circle drawn with chalk on
a blackboard is a thing which needs explanation: this entirely physical
existence has not by itself wherewith to vanquish non-existence. But the
"logical essence" of the circle, that is to say, the possibility of
drawing it according to a certain law--in short, its definition--is a
thing which appears to me eternal: it has neither place nor date; for
nowhere, at no moment, has the drawing of a circle begun to be possible.
Suppose, then, that the principle on which all things rest, and which
all things manifest possesses an existence of the same nature as that of
the definition of the circle, or as that of the axiom A=A: the mystery
of existence vanishes, for the being that is at the base of everything
posits itself then in eternity, as logic itself does. True, it will cost
us rather a heavy sacrifice: if the principle of all things exists after
the manner of a logical axiom or of a mathematical definition, the
things themselves must go forth from this principle like the
applications of an axiom or the consequences of a definition, and there
will no longer be place, either in the things nor in their principle,
for efficient causality understood in the sense of a free choice. Such
are precisely the conclusions of a doctrine like that of Spinoza, or
even that of Leibniz, and such indeed has been their genesis.

Now, if we could prove that the idea of the nought, in the sense in
which we take it when we oppose it to that of existence, is a
pseudo-idea, the problems that are raised around it would become
pseudo-problems. The hypothesis of an absolute that acts freely, that in
an eminent sense endures, would no longer raise up intellectual
prejudices. The road would be cleared for a philosophy more nearly
approaching intuition, and which would no longer ask the same sacrifices
of common sense.

Let us then see what we are thinking about when we speak of "Nothing."
To represent "Nothing," we must either imagine it or conceive it. Let us
examine what this image or this idea may be. First, the image.

I am going to close my eyes, stop my ears, extinguish one by one the
sensations that come to me from the outer world. Now it is done; all my
perceptions vanish, the material universe sinks into silence and the
night.--I subsist, however, and cannot help myself subsisting. I am
still there, with the organic sensations which come to me from the
surface and from the interior of my body, with the r