258. Such consequences are astounding, but they are inevitable. If we destroy objective truth, all rational thought disappears. Such thought includes a certain continuity of acts corresponding to different instants; if this continuity be broken, the human thought ceases to be what it is, ceases to exist as _reason_. It is a series of acts which have no sort of connection, and which lead to nothing. In such a case, all expression, all words fail; nothing has a fixed value; every thing is ingulfed in obscurity. Thus it is in the intellectual and moral order as in the material; and man has not even the comfort of possessing himself; he vanishes from himself like an empty shadow. 259. Sensations may also exist as an unconnected series, but there will be no certain recollection of them, since the objective truth is wanting; past sensations exist only as past, and, consequently, as simple objects. All intellectual reflection upon them will be impossible, for reflection is not sensation; sensation is an object of reflection, not reflection itself. Thus, the ignorant man has the same sensation as the philosopher, but not the same reflection upon it. A thousand times we have sensations without reflecting that we have them. Sensible is very different from intellectual consciousness; the former is the simple presence of the sensation, or the sensation itself; the latter is the act of the intellect occupied with the sensation. 260. This distinction is also found in all purely intellectual acts: the reflection upon the act is not the act itself. One is the object of the other; they are not identical, and are often found separated. If, then, there were no objective truth, reflection would be impossible. 261. It is likewise difficult to comprehend how any act of the consciousness of the _me_, even as present, can be possible. We have already seen the _me_ disappear when the series of recollections is broken, and without objective truth it is not even possible to conceive the _me_ for one instant. The _me_ thinking knows the _me_ thought only as object. Whether it _perceive_ or _know_ it, to account to itself for itself, it must reflect upon itself, and take itself for its own object; and there being no objective truth, it is inconceivable how an object can have any value. It follows from this, that they who oppose objectiveness, attack a fundamental law of our mind, destroy thought, even consciousness, and every thing subjective which could serve as its basis.