existence? This is what we have now to examine, and it will take some time; but I can sum up in a few words the attempt at explanation which I am going to develop. None of our sensations, if isolated, could have brought us to the concept of space; we are brought to it solely by studying the laws by which those sensations succeed one another. We see at first that our impressions are subject to change; but among the changes that we ascertain, we are very soon led to make a distinction. Sometimes we say that the objects, the causes of these impressions, have changed their state, sometimes that they have changed their position, that they have only been displaced. Whether an object changes its state or only its position, this is always translated for us in the same manner, by a modification in an aggregate of impressions. How then have we been enabled to distinguish them? If there were only change of position, we could restore the primitive aggregate of impressions by making movements which would confront us with the movable object in the same relative situation. We thus correct the modification which was produced, and we re-establish the initial state by an inverse modification. If, for example, it were a question of the sight, and if an object be displaced before our eyes, we can "follow it with the eye," and retain its image on the same point of the retina by appropriate movements of the eyeball. These movements we are conscious of because they are voluntary, and because they are accompanied by
