526 A BRIEF SCHEME OF ONTOLOGY. modal. Why should names provoke disputes, where our ideas agree ? All substances that we know are either material or intelligent, i. e. bodies ar spirits. Man indeed is compounded of both of them ; but as for space, which is neither body nor spirit, I take it to be a nonentity or nothing real, but a mere idea of the mind, which we are wont to consider, under the form of something long, broad and deep, without solidity., Perhaps these positive conceptions arise by our abstracting some properties of matter from the rest, or only from a prejudice of sense and imagina- tion, as we conceive just of darkness or a shadow to have the dimensions of length and breadth, and fancy it to have shape and motion too, though we know it is properly not- being, or a mere absence of light. After substances, we come to consider modes of being, and these have also their various kinds into which they are distributed, viz. essential and accidental, primary and secondary, inherent .and adherent, i. e. Qualities and adjuncts, and many others. But in Logic they are treated of largely ; and therefore 1 dismiss the reader to Logic, part I. chap. 2. sect. 3 and 4. CHAP. XVII. Of Finite and Infinite. THE ideas of finite and infinite comenext to be considered by us. Finite beings are those which are limited or bounded in their natures, their parts, their quantity, their qualities, their powers and operations, or their duration. Infinite is that which is un- limited, and hathno bounds. When substances are called finiteor infinite, it is chiefly in respect of their quantity, or in respect of their powers. All sub- stances are in this sense finite or infinite : But as there are some qualities or modes of being which are called infinite or finite, sò there are some to which neither finite nor infinite can properly agree : We speak of knowledge, goodness, patience, length; breadth, &c. as finite or infinite : But there is no such thing as a finite or infinite blue, red or green ; no finite or infinité likeness between two drops of rain: There is no finite or in& nite truth in a proposition, nor finite or infinite crookedness in a stick. The universe of bodies is finite in its dimensions or quantity, as well as every singlebody. I have elsewhere shewn, that the supposedspace beyond the world is probably nothing at all, and therefore not properly infinite or finite ; though we often speak of the infinite void; i. e. emptiness or absence of being every where beyond the creation, unbounded by any real being : For as nihility may be called the limit of being, so being may be said to limit nihility.
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