AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. Ill 



instead, precisely the abstract externality or volume per- 

 taining to the thing itself, and inseparable therefrom. 

 It can occupy only just so much of space as corresponds 

 to its volume, neither more nor less ; and thus, in a cer- 

 tain sense, it carries with it the <( place-where-it-is", 

 the latter being, in short, nothing else than a given 

 quantity of what Kant calls "movable space. " It may 

 also be said that the whole of pure space is the "here" of 

 every particular body, since it is impossible to say where, 

 in space as such, the body is. It can, in fact, be located 

 only with reference to other bodies. Apart from body, 

 then, "place" has no meaning, so that a body cannot 

 leave the "place-where-it-is", simply because it cannot 

 separate itself from its own volume. On the other hand, 

 as to the particular portion of abstract space which the 

 body is in, it is impossible for us ever to know whether a 

 body is moving or not, so long as the body is viewed apart 

 from other bodies. As will be shown more fully below, 

 neither motion nor rest could ever be ascribed to an 

 isolated body in abstract space. Motion and rest are 

 terms that cannot be applied with any meaning to a 

 body, save as expressing a relation of that body to some 

 other body. 



Thus motion proves to be the very first and simplest 

 phase of "becoming" or change in any portion of the 

 extended world. That is, in such "change" the object 

 is found theoretically to undergo change or modification 

 only in a purely external sense ; for there occurs no real 

 change in the object, but only a change in the purely 

 external relations which the given object sustains to 

 other objects. 



