the objects of our external perception; that we 'localize' them.
Has this a meaning, and if so what?
Does it mean that we represent to ourselves external objects in geometric space?
Our representations are only the reproduction of our sensations; they can therefore be ranged only in the same frame as these, that is to say, in perceptual space.
It is as impossible for us to represent to ourselves external bodies in geometric space, as it is for a painter to paint on a plane canvas objects with their three dimensions.
Perceptual space is only an image of geometric space, an image altered in shape by a sort of perspective, and we can represent to ourselves objects only by bringing them under the laws of this perspective.
Therefore we do not represent to ourselves external bodies in geometric space, but we reason on these bodies as if they were situated in geometric space.
When it is said then that we 'localize' such and such an object at such and such a point of space, what does it mean?
It simply means that we represent to ourselves the movements it would be necessary to make to reach that object; and one may not say that to represent to oneself these movements, it is necessary to project the movements themselves in space and that the notion of space must, consequently, pre-exist.
When I say that we represent to ourselves these movements, I mean only that we represent to ourselves the muscular sensations which accompany them and which have no geometric