384 AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING SPACE. a mode of being ; for if it has any real subsistence at all, it sub- sists of itself, which is the first character and property of a sub- stance. Besides it seems to have the other character of substance also ; for as it subsists of itself, i. e. it emtuts no created being to support its existence, so itself seems to be the proper subject of many properties, modes or accidents, such as werejust mention- ed before, viz. length, breadth,, capacity, &c. nor do they need anyother substratum to uphold them. Now these are the known and agreed characters of substance among the learned, viz. sub - stanfia est quod per se subsistit, (i. e. nulla re creata indiget ad subsistendum) & substat accidentibus. Even a very learned writer, in his discourses on this subject, in his letters to Leibnitz, uses but feeble reasoning to prove that space is not a substance, viz. " That infinite space is immensitas. not inzrnensum ; whereas an infinite substance is immensum not imniensitas : therefore space Must be a property." Now I might use this very language to prove that space is a substance, and say, is not space the immensum itself, if it has any thing real in it ? We have only a mere denial of it, without any argument. Do wenot generally say, space is immense, or space has immen- sity belonging to it ? Space is properly the immensum, and what forbids it to he a substance ? And indeed if space has any thing of a real and positive existence without us, all the arguments that ever I read to disprove it to be a substance, carry no force at all with them, and seem to be mere assertions, not only without rea- son, but contrary to it. SECT. IV. Is Space created or increated? IE it be allowed then that space is a substance, it is either created or increaled. Surely it cannot be a created substance, because we cannot conceive it possible to be created, since we cannot conceive it as non- existent and creable, which may be con- ceived concerning every created being. Nor can we conceive it properly as annihilated or annihilable, which we may suppose of every creature. In short, if it be a substance, shall I dare ven- ture to. speak it ? it appears to be God himself. Mr. Raphson, a great mathematician, has written a book on this theme, De Specie Reali, wherein be labours to prove that this space is God himself, going all along upon this supposition, that space is and must be something real ; and then his reason cannot find an idea for it below godhead. And indeed if space be a real thing existent without us it appears to bid fair for deity ; for the supposed per- tectious and properties of it are such as seem to be infinite and divine. As for instance : If space has length, breadth, and depth, it is infinite length, breadth and depth If it has capacity, it is an unbounded or an
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=