when the phenomenon of
substitution is cut in two by a mind which considers only the first
half, because that alone interests it. Suppress all interest, all
feeling, and there is nothing left but the reality that flows, together
with the knowledge ever renewed that it impresses on us of its present
state.

From annihilation to negation, which is a more general operation, there
is now only a step. All that is necessary is to represent the contrast
of what is, not only with what has been, but also with all that might
have been. And we must express this contrast as a function of what might
have been, and not of what is; we must affirm the existence of the
actual while looking only at the possible. The formula we thus obtain no
longer expresses merely a disappointment of the individual; it is made
to correct or guard against an error, which is rather supposed to be the
error of another. In this sense, negation has a pedagogical and social
character.

Now, once negation is formulated, it presents an aspect symmetrical with
that of affirmation; if affirmation affirms an objective reality, it
seems that negation must affirm a non-reality equally objective, and, so
to say, equally real. In which we are both right and wrong: wrong,
because negation cannot be objectified, in so far as it is negative;
right, however, in that the negation of a thing implies the latent
affirmation of its replacement by something else, which we
systematically leave on one side. But the negative form of negation
benefits by the affirmation at the bottom of it. Bestriding the positive
solid reality to which it is attached, this phantom objectifies itself.
Thus is formed the idea of the void or of a partial nought, a thing
being supposed to be replaced, not by another thing, but by a void which
it leaves, that is, by the negation of itself. Now, as this operation
works on anything whatever, we suppose it performed on each thing in
turn, and finally on all things in block. We thus obtain the idea of
absolute Nothing. If now we analyze this idea of Nothing, we find that
it is, at bottom, the idea of Everything, together with a movement of
the mind that keeps jumping from one thing to another, refuses to stand
still, and concentrates all its attention on this refusal by never
determining its actual position except by relation to that which it has
just left. It is therefore an idea eminently comprehensive and full, as
full and comprehensive as the idea of