If man is not to be embedded in the matrix of that syncretic setting in which animals lead their lives in a sort of ek stase, if he is to be aware of a world as the common reason for all settings and the theatre of all patterns of behaviour, then between himself and what elicits his action a distance must be set, and, as Malebranche put it, forms of stimulation from outside must henceforth impinge on him 'respectfully'; each momentary situation must cease to be, for him, the totality of being, each particular response must no longer fill his whole field of action.