344 AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING SPACE. , hint, and raise some efforts of reasoning, in order to prove space tobe nothingreal, or no real being : Surely there is no real being whatsoever, but has some capacity either of actión or passion, of putting forth some sort of act, or ofbeing acted upon : But space is utterly incapable of all real active or passive power: It can neither be an agent, nor a recipient of action. It cannot act upon body, either as body does, i.e. by touching; noras spirit does,i. e. by volition ; for it cannot touch nor will. Norcan space receive any actions or impressions of any kind from body or from spirit : Now, since no manner of agency can belong to it; nor any oper- ationof any being be received by it, surely such an inactive thing cannot be .God, nor can such an impassive thing be a creature. Therefore it must be amere non-entity or nothing. I. Such an impassive thing cannot be a creature. There is ne created being but is capable of being acted upon by another being, at least by God himself, and thereby receiving some change : But space cannot be acted upon ; no, not by the Great God the Maker of all ; nor can it receive any real and proper al- teration in itself, nor suffer any manner of change, but what a mere nothing may receive; i. e. being may be put where nothing was before : so body may be put where before there was empty space. Thus space in itself is really an impassive thing, and therefore it is no created being. 2. Such an inactive being cannot be God ; . for the living and true God cannot be conceived otherwise than as a most active being; a being of necessary and everlasting activity : This be- longs to the very idea and essence' of Godhead. But space, empty space, i. e. extension without solidity, is the most inactive idea you can frame, and indeed utterly incapable of all action, either as an instrument, or as a prime agent. You cannot add the least degree of solidity to the idea of space, in order to render it capable of acting as a body does; for that would turn it intoThe idea of body or matter, it would be space no longer. You cannot make space think, or will, or act, as a spirit does; for join thinking and space, which are two distinct ideas, as near as possible in your mind, yet you cannot unite them into one being, nor conceive of space as having any share in thinking, or as exerting a thought. So you may join iron and joy together in you mind as two neighbouring ideas, but they will be two ideas for ever distinct. No force can squeeze, melt or weld them together, and make them unite in one ; you can never make iron become joyful : There is an utter inconsistency in their ideas, and they are eternally incompatible. Space can no more exert a thought, than iron can exertjoy. Thus space can never act as a body or as a mind. Space and action are two incompatible ideas. Mere extensionis not only
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=