332 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vou. VIII. 
CHAPTER II. 
THE SIMPLE OR COMPLEX NATURE OF SPACE. 
1. The problem which confronts us here is the question whether 
space is an ultimate element or whether it can be reduced to simpler 
non-spacial elements. The attempts to reduce space to simpler non- 
spacial elements can be classed in three groups: 
To the first group belong all those theories which try to trace space 
back to the unity orindivisibility of the soul or some similar general property 
of the soul or mind. But such views, handed down to us from the days 
of rational psychology, possess to-day no more value than, for example, the 
endeavour to deduce the quality green from the general conception of 
colour, or the existence of God from the idea of a perfect being. In 
our days theories of this kind do not deserve any serious consideration 
for the purposes of scientific refutation. 
In the second group we have all theories which try to make up space 
by means of series, movement, and time. But this must be regarded as 
arguing in a circle for all these conceptions, no matter whether they are 
intended to mean something unextended or to represent a more general 
case of extension, presuppose space. ‘This is perfectly self-evident with 
regard to movement, less clear with regard to time, and perhaps the least 
clear with regard to serves. It has been said that purely temporal series 
are possible. This must immediately appear objectionable when one 
realizes that time can only be regarded as extended in so far as it can be 
represented in analogy with space. It is not true that time presents 
itself as a one-dimensional extension, or that we experience it as such. 
The ‘‘now”’ only is given and that does not partake of the nature of 
extension at all, for it is continually changing. The past in so far as it 
can be an object of knowledge, is present as a state of consciousness. 
It is a part of the ‘‘now.’’ In so far as the space perceiving senses 
come into account the ‘‘now”’’ consists partly of ideas with fixed and 
uncontradicted space localization—what we usually call impressions or 
perceptions—and of another class of ideas, images of memory and 
phantasy, which are indeed just as real and as immediately given 
as the impressions, but which, though showing spacial properties, do not 
possess that one attribute of the former, uncontradicted space localization. 
These so-called ‘‘reproduced’’ elements are very often less distinct 
and intensive than the impressions, but distinctiveness and intensity 
cannot pass as essential characteristics of the direct impressions. A 
