ngle? By means of
them we claim to determine the object from outside, as if, in order to
know it, it were sufficient to enclose it in a system of logical sides
and angles.

And perhaps in this way we do really grasp it, perhaps we do establish
its precise description, but we do not penetrate it.

Concepts translate relations resulting from comparisons by which each
object is finally expressed as a function of what it is not. They
dismember it, divide it up piece by piece, and mount it in various
frames. They lay hold of it only by ends and corners, by resemblances
and differences. Is not that obviously what is done by the converting
theories which explain the soul by the body, life by matter, quality
by movements, space itself by pure number? Is not that what is done
generally by all criticisms, all doctrines which connect one idea to
another, or to a group of other ideas?

In this way we reach only the surface of things, the reciprocal
contacts, mutual intersections, and parts common, but not the organic
unity nor the inner essence.

In vain we multiply our points of view, our perspectives and plane
projections: no accumulation of this kind will reconstruct the concrete
solid. We can pass from an object directly perceived to the pictures
which represent it, the prints which represent the pictures, the scheme
representing the prints, because each stage contains less than the one
before, and is obtained from it by simple diminution.

But, inversely, you may take all the schemes, prints, pictures you
like--supposing that it is not absurd to conceive as given what is by
nature interminable and inexhaustible, lending itself to indefinite
enumeration and endless development and multiplicity--but you will never
recompose the profound and original unity of the source.

How, by forcing yourself to seek the object outside itself, where it
certainly is not, except in echo and reflection, would you ever find
its intimate and specific reality? You are but condemning yourself to
symbolism, for one "thing" can only be in another symbolically.

To go further still, your knowledge of things will remain irremediably
relative, relative to the symbols selected and the points of view
adopted. Everything will happen as in a movement of which the appearance
and formula vary with the spot from which you regard it, with the marks
to which you relate it.

Absolute revelation is only given to the man who passes into the object,
flings