come to be recorded, but the non-existence of the non-existing
cannot. For such an intellect to reach the point of denying, it must
awake from its torpor, formulate the disappointment of a real or
possible expectation, correct an actual or possible error--in short,
propose to teach others or to teach itself.

It is rather difficult to perceive this in the example we have chosen,
but the example is indeed the more instructive and the argument the more
cogent on that account. If dampness is able automatically to come and
record itself, it is the same, it will be said, with non-dampness; for
the dry as well as the damp can give impressions to sense, which will
transmit them, as more or less distinct ideas, to the intelligence. In
this sense the negation of dampness is as objective a thing, as purely
intellectual, as remote from every pedagogical intention, as
affirmation.--But let us look at it more closely: we shall see that the
negative proposition, "The ground is not damp," and the affirmative
proposition, "The ground is dry," have entirely different contents. The
second implies that we know the dry, that we have experienced the
specific sensations, tactile or visual for example, that are at the base
of this idea. The first requires nothing of the sort; it could equally
well have been formulated by an intelligent fish, who had never
perceived anything but the wet. It would be necessary, it is true, that
this fish should have risen to the distinction between the real and the
possible, and that he should care to anticipate the error of his
fellow-fishes, who doubtless consider as alone possible the condition of
wetness in which they actually live. Keep strictly to the terms of the
proposition, "The ground is not damp," and you will find that it means
two things: (1) that one might believe that the ground is damp, (2) that
the dampness is replaced in fact by a certain quality _x_. This quality
is left indeterminate, either because we have no positive knowledge of
it, or because it has no actual interest for the person to whom the
negation is addressed. To deny, therefore, always consists in presenting
in an abridged form a system of two affirmations: the one determinate,
which applies to a certain _possible_; the other indeterminate,
referring to the unknown or indifferent reality that supplants this
possibility. The second affirmation is virtually contained in the
judgment we apply to the first, a judgment which is negati