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Now, Lewes, in his History of Ancient Philosophy, or Grote, in his Plato — 
I forget which — has observed, with great truth, that one fundamental error, 
lying at the root of these reasonings, is the assumption of “Nothing” as 
being an absolute entity — that nothing actually exists as nothing — and I 
quite believe that other observations founded upon that assumption lead to a 
vast amount of error in reasoning, and to endless inconclusiveness. I 
apprehend the author has fallen into exactly the same error as that which 
either Lewes or Grote charges against a number of these old metaphysical 
speculations, whether of the Ionic or of the Attic school, — in Plato’s 
Dialogues, and even in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Now, according to 
Mr. Laming, in the passage I have read, empty space is nothing ; but 
immediately afterwards he assumes it to be something. When the old Greek 
philosophers predicated a thing as non-existent, they predicated its non-exist- 
ence as existing, according to Mr. Lewes’s view ; and I think the same thing 
has been done here in the predication of the existence of nothingness 
Mr. Reddie. — I think Mr. Laming means the opposite, whatever con- 
struction his actual words may bear. 
Mr. Row. — Then what does he apprehend space to be ? Space, to my 
mind, is not an actually existing thing, but simply a subjective thing. It is 
a matter of very deep and important philosophical speculation ; and it is 
impossible to say that it can be assumed as determined. Mr. Laming 
goes on : — 
“ Now, God is described as ever filling all space ; for which we can 
conceive the qualification to be His boundlessness and eternal existence.” 
Here we have space presented to us as actual extension, and then God is 
described as filling all space. Bear in mind that I am speaking in philo- 
sophical and not in popular language. Of course it is correct in popular 
language to say that God fills all space ; but, philosophically, if space is 
extension, and God fills all space, it gives the idea of extension to God 
Himself. These are matters which are quite beyond the limits of the human 
understanding. The nearest approximation we can get is to say, not that 
God fills all space, but that He is present at every point of space in all His 
uncreated perfections. It is impossible to say that God fills all space 
without giving direct and positive extension to Deity. Mr. Laming proceeds 
to say: — „ 
“Whenever, then, we observe created things to be in space, we must 
conclude that they are, together with ourselves, literally also in Him.” 
Of course, if the Deity has extension, and all created and finite things are 
also in extension, it will follow that all finite things are contained in Him. 
The real difficulty of the whole subject, and that which the author endeavours 
to unravel, is how the Infinite has created the finite. But that is a difficulty 
which we cannot grapple with. The modus in which the Deity— the uncreated 
God — has actually evolved finite existence, is beyond all human conception. 
