CHAPTER III. 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



§ 15. What are Space and Time? Two hypotheses are 

 current respecting them: the one that they are objective, 

 and the other that they are subjective — the one that they 

 are external to, and independent of, ourselves, the other 

 that they are internal, and appertain to our own conscious- 

 ness. Let us see what becomes of these hypotheses under 

 analysis. 



To say that Space and Time exist objectively, is to say 

 that they are entities. The assertion that they are non- 

 entities is self -destructive : non-entities are non-existences; 

 and to allege that non-existences exist objectively, is a con- 

 tradiction in terms. Moreover, to deny that Space and Time 

 are things, and so by implication to call them nothings, in- 

 volves the absurdity that there are two kinds of nothing. 

 Neither can they be regarded as attributes of some entity; 

 seeing, not only that it is impossible really to conceive any 

 entity of which they are attributes, but seeing further that 

 we cannot think of them as disappearing, even if every- 

 thing else disappeared; whereas attributes necessarily dis- 

 appear along with the entities they belong to. Thus as 

 Space and Time cannot be either non-entities, nor the attri- 

 butes of entities, we have no choice but consider them as 

 entities. But while, on the hypothesis of their ob- 



jectivity, Space and Time must be classed as things, we 

 find, on experiment, that to represent them in thought as 



49 



