It may be objected that having this unity in our soul depends on
receiving from the exterior object a notion and an image, which is a
conception furnished by this object. As the philosophers who profess
this opinion do not differentiate the species of one and of number,
and as they allow them no other hypostatic existence (than to be
conceived by our soul), if they (practically do) allow them any sort
of hypostatic existence, it will be very interesting to scrutinize the
opinions of these.[24] They then say that the notion or conception
that we have of the one or of the number derives from the objects
themselves, is a notion as much "a posteriori" as those of "that,"[25]
"something," "crowd," "festival," "army," or of "multitude"; for, just
as the manifold is nothing without the multiple objects, nor a festival
without the men gathered to celebrate the religious ceremony, thus
"the One" is nothing without the one object, when we posit the one,
conceiving it alone, having made an abstraction of everything else. The
partisans of this opinion will cite many examples of the same kind, as
the "right hand side," "the upper part," and their contraries. What
reality indeed (to speak as they do), can the "right hand side" possess
outside of a person who stands or sits here or there[26]? The case is
similar with "the upper side," which refers to a certain part of the
universe, and the "lower side" to another.[27] Our first answer to
this argument is that we will allow that there is a certain kind of
existence in the things themselves of which we have just spoken; but
that this mode of existence is not identical in all things, considered
either in respect to each other, or each in respect to the One which is
in all. Further, we intend to refute one by one these arguments that
have been opposed to us.