where we discussed objectivity in general; another part will be dealt with in the last pages of this book, where we shall speak of the idea of matter. We confine ourselves here to a few essential points.
First, the objects ranged along the line AB represent to our eyes what we are going to perceive, while the line CI contains only that which has already been perceived. Now the past has no longer any interest for us; it has exhausted its possible action, or will only recover an influence by borrowing the vitality of the present perception. The immediate future, on the contrary, consists in an impending action, in an energy not yet spent. The unperceived part of the material universe, big with promises and threats, has then for us a reality which the actually unperceived periods of our past existence cannot and should not possess. But this distinction, which is entirely relative to practical utility and to the material needs of life, takes in our minds the more and more marked form of a metaphysical distinction.
We have shown that the objects which surround us represent, in varying degrees, an actionWhy the idea of an existence that is real through not perceived appears to be clear in the case of an unperceived object, obscure in the case of an unperceived idea. which we can accomplish upon things, or which we must experience from them. The date of fulfilment of this possible action is indicated by the greater or less remoteness of the corresponding object, so that distance in space measures the proximity of a threat or of
