noise of each wave, although each of these little noises makes itself known only when combined confusedly with all the others, and would not be noticed if the wave which made it were by itself. We must be affected slightly by the motion of this wave, and have some perception of each of these noises, however faint they may be; otherwise there would be no perception of a hundred thousand waves, since a hundred thousand nothings cannot make something. Moreover, we never sleep so soundly that we do not have some feeble and confused ¥sensation; and the loudest noise in the world would never waken us if we did not have some perception of its start, which is small, just as the strongest force in the world would never break a rope unless the least force strained it and stretched it slightly, even though that little lengthening which is produced is imperceptible.
  These minute perceptions, then, are more effective in their results than has been recognized. They constitute that je ne sais quoi, those flavours those images of sensible qualities, vivid in the aggregate but confused as to the parts; those impressions which are made on us by the bodies around us and which involve the infinite; that connection that each being has with all the rest of the universe. It can even be said that by virtue of these minute perceptions the present is big with the future and burdened with the past, that all things harmonize Ñ sympnoia panta?as .Hippocrates put it Ñ and that eyes as piercing as GodÕs could read in the lowliest substance the universeÕs whole sequence of events Ñ4 What is, what was, and what will soon be brought in by the futureÕ [Virgil].
  These insensible perceptions also indicate and constitute the same individual, who1 is characterized by the vestiges or expressions which the perceptions preserve from the individualÕs former states, thereby connecting these with his present state. Even when the individual himself has no sense of the previous states, i.e. no longer has any explicit memory of them, they could be known by a superior mind. But those perceptions also provide the means for recovering this memory at need, as a result of successive improvements which one may eventually undergo. That is why death can only be a sleep, and not a lasting one at that: the perceptions merely cease to be sufficiently distinct; in animals they are reduced to a state of confusion which puts awareness into abeyance but which cannot last for ever; and I shall not here discuss the case of man, who must in this regard have special prerogatives for safeguarding his personhood.
  It is also through insensible perceptions that I account for