F. H. Bradley

“ Space is not a mere relation. For any space must consist of extended parts, and these parts clearly are spaces. So that, even if we could take our space as a collection, it would be a collection of solids. The relation would join spaces which would not be mere relations. And hence the collection, if taken as a mere inter-relation, would not be space. We should be brought to the proposition that space is nothing but a relation of spaces. ”

“ If extended, however, they will themselves consist of parts, and these again of further parts, and so on without end. A space, or a part of space, that really means to be solid, is a self-contradiction. Anything extended is a collection, a relation of extendeds, which again are relations of extendeds, and so on indefinitely. The terms are essential to the relation, and the terms do not exist. Searching without end, we never find anything more than relations; and we see that we cannot. Space is essentially a relation of what vanishes into relations, which seek in vain for their terms. ”

“ It is taken as a stream, and past and future are regarded as parts of it, which presumably do not coexist, but are often talked of as if they did. Time, apprehended in this way, is open to the objection we have just urged against space. It is a relation—and, on the other side, it is not a relation; and it is, again, incapable of being anything beyond a relation. And the reader who has followed the dilemma which was fatal to space, will not require much explanation. If you take time as a relation between units without duration, then the whole time has no duration, and is not time at all. ”

“ And this process is forced on it, both by its temporal form, and again by the continuity of its content, which transcends what is given. Time, like space, has most evidently proved not to be real, but to be a contradictory appearance. ”

“ And it is not merely that we fail to perceive, or fail to understand, how this can be otherwise. We perceive and we understand that it cannot be otherwise, at least if space is to be space. We either do not know what space means ”

“ The reader will be acquainted with the difficulties that have arisen from the continuity and the discreteness of space. These necessitate the conclusion that space is endless, while an end is essential to its being. ”

“ It would not repay us to dwell further on the contradiction which we have exhibited. The reader who has once grasped the principle can deal himself with the details. I will refer merely in passing to a supplementary difficulty. Empty space—space without some quality (visual or muscular) which in itself is more than spatial—is an unreal abstraction. It cannot be said to exist, for the reason that it cannot by itself have any meaning. When a man realizes what he has got in it, he finds that always he has a quality which is more than extension (cp. Chapter i.) ”

“ I doubt if there is any one who has ever grasped this, and then has failed to reach one main result. But there are too many respectable writers whom here one can hardly criticise. They have simply never got to understand. ”