it, the consciousness makes us acquainted with what a thing is, but it adds nothing to it. It is not a power which begets objects, nor is it a power which begets relations.
Let us carefully note the consequence at which we should arrive, if, while admitting, on the one hand, that our consciousness lights up and reveals the objects without creating them, we were, on the other hand, to admit that it makes up for this passivity by creating relations between objects. We dare not go so far as to say that this creation of relations is arbitrary and corresponds in no way to reality; or that, when we judge two neighbouring or similar objects, the relations of contiguity and resemblance are pure inventions of our consciousness, and that these objects are really neither contiguous nor similar.
It must therefore be supposed that the relation is already, in some manner, attracted into the objects; it must be admitted that our intelligence does not apply its categories haphazard or from the caprice of the moment; and it must be admitted that it is led to apply them because it has perceived in the objects themselves a sign and a reason which are an invitation to this application, and its justification. On this hypothesis, therefore, contiguity and resemblance must exist in the things themselves, and must be perceived; for without this we should run the
