50 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



things is impossible. To be conceived at all, a thing must 

 be conceived as having attributes. We can distinguish 

 something from nothing, only by the power which the 

 something has to act on our consciousness; the several 

 affections it produces on our "consciousness (or else the 

 hypothetical causes of them), we attribute to it, and call 

 its attributes; and the absence of these attributes is the 

 absence of the terms in which the something is conceived, 

 and involves the absence of a conception. What now are 

 the attributes of Space? The only one which it is possible 

 for a moment to think of as belonging to it, is that of exten- 

 sion; and to credit it with this implies a confusion of 

 thought. For extension and Space are controvertible terms : 

 by extension, as we ascribe it to surrounding objects, we 

 mean occupancy of Space ; and thus to say that Space is ex- 

 tended, is to say that Space occupies Space. How we are 

 similarly unable to assign any attribute to Time, scarcely 

 needs pointing out. Nor are Time and Space un- 



thinkable as entities only from the absence of attributes; 

 there is another peculiarity, familiar to readers of meta- 

 physics, which equally excludes them from the category. 

 All entities which we actually know as such, are limited; 

 and even if we suppose ourselves either to know or to be 

 able to conceive some unlimited entity, we of necessity in so 

 classing it positively separate it from the class of limited 

 entities. But of Space and Time we cannot assert either 

 limitation or the absence of limitation. We find ourselves 

 totally unable to form any mental image of unbounded 

 Space; and yet totally unable to imagine bounds beyond 

 which there is no Space. Similarly at the other extreme: 

 it is impossible to think of a limit to the divisibility of 

 Space ; yet equally impossible to think of its infinite divisi- 

 bility. And, without stating them, it will be seen that we 

 labour under like impotencies in respect to Time. Thus 



we cannot conceive Space and Time as entities, and are 

 equally disabled from conceiving them as either the attri- 



