APPLICATION OF CATEGORIES,—SPACE, TIME, AND POSITION. 555 
382. Space and Time are in themselves infinite, and forms or manifestations or at- 
tributes of the Absolute Infinite. In them the indefinite and the infinite are as nearly 
equivalent as it is possible to suppose them, and our indefinite conceptions are so nearly 
adequate, that we need hardly desire them to be more complete. But without Position, 
both Space and Time would be empty voids,—not only void of reality, but also void of 
conceivability. 
383. When Hamilton says that Time and Space are only the images or intuitions or 
concepts “of a certain correlation of existences,—of existence, therefore, pro tanto, as con- 
ditioned,”* he appears to have his mind fixed on Position, rather than on the Infinites that 
make Position possible. ‘Time is the absolute (of Cousin) which renders possible “ the 
image or concept of a certain correlation of existences,” which is date, and not time. 
Space is the parallel absolute which renders possible place, or conditioned Space. 
384. In Position, the finite and infinite are harmoniously blended. Each single or con- 
ditioned position is finite, but position regarded as unconditioned, or in its entire possi- 
bility, is as infinite as Space and Time. By means of position, we obtain the ideas of 
relative infinites which constitute our indefinite concepts of absolute infinites. In all 
infinites, it is possible, through position, to distinguish semi-infinites,—infinite at one ex- 
tremity, and finite at the other. 
385. It should always be borne in mind, that in every cognition, the three forms of 
Consciousness co-operate, and it is impossible for us to assign the precise limit of each. 
How far Space, ‘Time, and Position, are objective, subjective, or rational, it is not necessary 
for us to determine ; if -we perceive their reality under each phase of cognition, it is suffi- 
cient for the purposes of our analysis.t 
points of view: it conceives a space determinate and limited, or the space of all particular spaces, absolute space. 
. . . Does it consider things under this single relation, that they exist ? it can conceive only the idea of absolute 
existence, or of relative existence. . . . In the moral world, does it perceive anything beautiful or good? it then 
irresistibly transports this same category of the finite and the infinite, which becomes the imperfect and the per- 
fect, the ideal beauty, and the real beauty, virtue with the miseries of reality, or holiness in its exaltation, and in 
its unsullied purity.” Cousin: Hist. of Mod. Phil., Vol. 1, p. 76-7. 
* Discussions, pp. 35, 36. 
+ I was led to infer the necessary reality of a third form, from the three necessary relations of the subjective. 
After I had decided upon the name Position, I found that Mansel had also fixed upon three ‘laws or formal con- 
ditions of experience.” He says (p. 184), “Of these conditions, I have in a former lecture enumerated three,— 
Time, Space, and Personality; the first as the condition of human consciousness in general; the second and third 
as the conditions of the same consciousness in relation to the phenomena of matter and of mind respectively.” 
Personality appears to be a modification of Position, that supposes some mental manifestation; but in entire inde- 
pendence of all manifestation, Time, Space, and Position have a necessary existence. Mahan (p. 218), enumerates 
as logical antecedents of phenomena, “the ideas of time, space, substance, personal identity, and cause.” The 
last three of these ideas may all be ranked under Position. 
