ack its
exclusively scientific or philosophical character, suppose in other
words that reality comes itself to inscribe itself on a mind that cares
only for things and is not interested in persons: we shall affirm that
such or such a thing is, we shall never affirm that a thing is not.

How comes it, then, that affirmation and negation are so persistently
put on the same level and endowed with an equal objectivity? How comes
it that we have so much difficulty in recognizing that negation is
subjective, artificially cut short, relative to the human mind and still
more to the social life? The reason is, no doubt, that _both_ negation
and affirmation are expressed in propositions, and that _any_
proposition, being formed of _words_, which symbolize _concepts_, is
something relative to social life and to the human intellect. Whether I
say "The ground is damp" or "The ground is not damp," in both cases the
terms "ground" and "damp" are concepts more or less artificially created
by the mind of man--extracted, by his free initiative, from the
continuity of experience. In both cases the concepts are represented by
the same conventional words. In both cases we can say indeed that the
proposition aims at a social and pedagogical end, since the first would
propagate a truth as the second would prevent an error. From this point
of view, which is that of formal logic, to affirm and to deny are indeed
two mutually symmetrical acts, of which the first establishes a relation
of agreement and the second a relation of disagreement between a subject
and an attribute. But how do we fail to see that the symmetry is
altogether external and the likeness superficial? Suppose language
fallen into disuse, society dissolved, every intellectual initiative,
every faculty of self-reflection and of self-judgment atrophied in man:
the dampness of the ground will subsist none the less, capable of
inscribing itself automatically in sensation and of sending a vague idea
to the deadened intellect. The intellect will still affirm, in implicit
terms. And consequently, neither distinct concepts, nor words, nor the
desire of spreading the truth, nor that of bettering oneself, are of the
very essence of the affirmation. But this passive intelligence,
mechanically keeping step with experience, neither anticipating nor
following the course of the real, would have no wish to deny. It could
not receive an imprint of negation; for, once again, that which exists
may