OP BODY AND SPACE. 165 



divesting ourselves of the notion, or conceiving the non-existence of the thing itself) may, as 

 far as it can truly be admitted, be satisfactorily accounted for from the negative foundation of 

 the idea as expounded in the preceding pages. The sole external condition necessary for the 

 apprehension of space by the exercise of muscular power being the absence of body, the mani- 

 festation of space does not depend upon the positive action of any external principle the 

 removal of which would be felt as the destruction of the phenomenon. So long therefore as 

 we retain the consciousness of touch and muscular activity we find it impossible to escape from 

 the notion of the space required for the exercise of those faculties. But if we suppose a being 

 whose whole experience was confined to sound, and smell, and taste, and passive touch, he could 

 have no conception of space, and it is hard to say that an extended universe would in the nature 

 of things be necessary for his existence ; though of course we can form no positive conception 

 of the mode in which an unembodied life could actually be carried on. 



