e 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 that it carries with it, whether we will or no,
all that we tried to abstract from. Let us compare together the two
ideas--the object A supposed to exist, and the same object supposed
"non-existent."

The idea of the object A, supposed existent, is the representation pure
and simple of the object A, for we cannot represent an object without
attributing to it, by the very fact of representing it, a certain
reality. Between thinking an object and thinking it existent, there is
absolutely no difference. Kant has put this point in clear light in his
criticism of the ontological argument. Then, what is it to think the
object A non-existent? To represent it non-existent cannot consist in
withdrawing from the idea of the object A the idea of the attribute
"existence," since, I repeat, the representation of the existence of the
object is inseparable from the representation of the object, and indeed
is one with it. To represent the object A non-existent can only consist,
therefore, in _adding_ something to the idea of this object: we add to
it, in fact, the idea of an _exclusion_ of this particular object by
actual reality in general. To think the object A as non-existent is
first to think the object and consequently to think it existent; it is
then to think that another reality, with which it is incompatible,
supplants it. Only, it is useless to represent this latter reality
explicitly; we are not concerned with what it is; it is enough for us to
know that it drives out the object A, which alone is of interest to us.
That is why we think of the expulsion rather than of the cause which
expels. But this cause is none the less present to the mind; it is there
in the implicit state, that which expels being inseparable from the
expulsion as the hand which drives the pen is inseparable from the
pen-stroke. The act by which we declare an object unreal therefore
posits the existence of the real in general. In other words, to
represent an object as unreal cannot consist in depriving it of every
kind of existence, since the representation of an object is necessarily
that of the