110 THE WORLD-ENERGY 



move where it is ; for the moment it begins to move, it 

 must in that very fact leave the place where it is. On the 

 other hand, it can not move where it is not, since it is 

 impossible that it should be in more than one place at 

 the same time. Hence it is impossible that anything 

 should move ; or, in other words, motion of any kind 

 whatever is impossible. 



It was doubtless a very elf ective sarcasm on the part of 

 Diogenes when, on hearing this argument through, he 

 silently and contemptuously filliped a pebble into the brook 

 with his not too tidy great toe, though it could scarcely 

 serve as a philosophic answer to the argument. 



The fallacy, in fact, lies in the ambiguity of the ex- 

 pression, "where it is." In truth, the place where any- 

 thing is is absolutely indifferent as regards space in gen- 

 eral; while, on the other hand, the place where a thing is 

 is no less absolutely inseparable from the thing itself. No 

 matter, then, whether the thing be moving or motion-, 

 less, the "place-where-it-is" pertains absolutely to the 

 thing itself, and is indifferently any portion of space 

 whatever. 



Thus, the " place-where-it-is " is by no means to be 

 understood as an absolutely fixed division in or of 

 absolute space. On the contrary, space is simply an 

 infinite series of indifferent "places," each of which in 

 turn comes to be the "place-where-it-is" as the thing 

 passes into it, and comes again to be the place where it 

 was as the thing passes out of it that is, again, if such 

 "place" could possibly be defined apart from body. 



It is not true, then, that, in order to move, the thing 

 must leave the " place-where-it-is ; " for the "place-where- 

 it-is" is not a fixed portion of absolute space, but is, 



