CHARACTER OF THE RELATIONS OF THE REAL ORDER TO THE PHENOMENAL.
186. Is the agreement of the idea, the phenomenon, and the reality necessary, is it founded on the essence of things, or has it been freely established by the will of the Creator?
If the world had no other reality than that expressed by the sensible representation, if the appearances were an exact copy of the essence of things, we should have to say that this agreement is unalterable, that things are what they appear, and that if we suppose them to exist, it is absolutely necessary that they should be just what they appear; for nothing can be in contradiction with its constitutive notion. That which now is extended, would be necessarily extended, and could not but be extended in thesame mannerin which it appears to us, and under thesame conditions; the relation of bodies to each other would be necessarily subject to the same phenomenal laws, and all which does not come under this order would be a contradiction, and beyond the limit of omnipotence.
187. Bodies are presented to us in the sensible intuition with a determinate magnitude, and in a certain fixed relation which we calculate by comparison with an immovable extension, such as we imagine space. By magnitude, bodiesoccupy a certain space, determinate, though changeable by motion; by the relation of magnitudes they occupy a greater or smaller place, and mutually exclude each other; this exclusion is called impenetrability. The question to be examined here is, whether the determination of magnitudes, and their relation in respect to the occupation of place, are things absolutely necessary, so that their alteration involves a contradiction, or not. I answer that they are not.
188. Relation to place considered as a portion of pure space, means nothing; for I have already shown that this space is only an abstraction of our understanding, and that in itself it has no reality,—it is nothing. Therefore the relation to it must be nothing also, because the relation is destroyed if one of the terms is nothing. Therefore, the relations of bodies to place can only be the relations of bodies to one another.
189. This is the principal thing to be noticed in this question. The understanding gets confused when it begins by supposing space an absolute nature with necessary relation to all bodies. We must remember the doctrine of the chapters,[53]where we explained how the idea of space is generated in us, what object corresponds to this idea in reality, and how; and we shall easily perceive that the absolute and essential relations which we think we discover between bodies and avacant and realcapacity, are illusions of our imagination, in consequence of our not sufficiently purifying the ideal order by separating from it all sensible impressions. We cannot understand so much as the meaning of these questions, if we do not make an attempt at this separation as far as is possible to our nature. If this is done, then the questions proposed in the following chapterswill appear very philosophical, and their solution will seem probable, if not true; but they must seem absurd, if we confound the pure intellectual order with the sensible. We cannot admit the idealism which destroys the real world; but the empiricism which annihilates the ideal order, is equally objectionable. If we cannot rise above the sensible representations, let us renounce philosophy, give up thinking, and confine ourselves to sensation.