These philosophical considerations may, at first sight, seem to be in contradiction to our judgment, but they do not change to us the external world; they cause no inversion of our ideas of it; they only make us fix our attention upon some relations which we had imperfectly defined, and do not allow us to attribute to objects what in reality does not belong to them. They make us limit the testimony of the senses to their appropriate sphere, and in some manner rectify our judgments; but the world continues the same that it was before, excepting that we have discovered in the marvels of nature a closer relation with our own being, and have perceived that our organization and our soul play a more important part in them than we had imagined.
42. If we destroy extension, take this quality from external objects, and regard it as only a mere sensation, of which we only know that there is an external object which causes it, the corporeal world at once disappears. The whole system of the universe will be reduced to a collection of beings which cause us different impressions; without the idea of extension we can neither form any idea of body, nor know if all that we have thought of the world be aught else than a pure illusion. I can easily resign my infantile belief that the color I see in my hand is in it, or the noise made when I clap my hands is in them; but I cannot, do what I will, lay aside the idea of extension; I cannot imagine the distance from my wrist to the extremity of my fingers to be only a pure illusion, that there only exists a being which causes it without my knowing whether in reality this distance exists. I can easily separate from the fruit which I find savory the quality of savor; and I may, if I examine it philosophically, admit, without any inconvenience, that it has nothing resembling taste, but that it is only composed so to affect my palate as to produce an agreeable sensation. But I cannot take from the fruit its extension; in no wise can I regard it as something indivisible; I cannot possibly regard the distance from one of its points to another as a mere sensation. My efforts to consider the savory object as in itself indivisible are all in vain; and if, for a single instant, I seem to have overcome the instinct of nature, every thing is overturned. By the same right that I make the fruit something indivisible, I may make the whole universe so; but an indivisible universe is to me no universe; my intellect is confounded, and all around me is annihilated. I am in worse than chaos; for chaos is at least something, although the elements are in horrible confusion and frightful darkness; but now I am worse off, for the corporeal world, such as I have conceived it to be, returns to nothing.