John Locke

“ Whether angels and spirits have any analogy to this, in respect to expansion, is beyond my comprehension : and perhaps for us, who have understandings and comprehensions suited to our own preservation, and the ends of our own being, but not to the reality and extent of all other beings, it is near as hard to conceive any existence, or to have an idea of any real being, with a perfect negation of all manner of expansion, as it is to have the idea of any real existence with a perfect negation of all manner of duration. ”

“ I prefer also the word expansion to space, because space is often applied to distance of fleeting successive parts, which never exist together, as well as to those which are permanent. In both these (viz. expansion and duration) the mind has this common idea of continued lengths, capable of greater or less quantities. For a man has as clear an idea of the difference of the length of an hour and a day, as of an inch and a foot. ”

“ That duration and extension being used as names of affections belonging to other beings, we easily conceive in God infinite duration, and we cannot avoid doing so : but, not attributing to Him extension, but only to matter, which is finite, we are apter to doubt of the existence of expansion without matter ; of which alone we commonly suppose it an attribute. And, therefore, when men pursue their thoughts of space, they are apt to stop at the confines of body : as if space were there at an end too, and reached no further. ”

“ Nor duration by motion. Just so is it in duration. The mind having got the idea of any length of duration, can double, multiply, and enlarge it, not only beyond its own, but beyond the existence of all corporeal beings, and all the measures of time, taken from the great bodies of all the world and their motions. But yet every one easily admits, that, though we make duration boundless, as certainly it is, we cannot yet extend it beyond all being. God, every one easily allows, fills eternity ; and it is hard to find a reason why any one should doubt that He likewise fills immensity. ”

“ For the existence of all things, depending upon His good pleasure, all things exist every moment that He thinks fit to have them exist. To conclude : expansion and duration do mutually embrace and comprehend each other ; every part of space being in every part of duration, and every part of duration in every part of expansion. ”

“ What I say of man, I say of all finite beings ; who, though they may far exceed man in knowledge and power, yet are no more than the meanest creature, in comparison with God himself Finite or any magnitude holds not any proportion to infinite. God’s infinite duration, being accompanied with infinite knowledge and infinite power, He sees all things, past and to come ”

“ But when applied to any particular finite beings, the extension of any body is so much of that infinite space as the bulk of the body takes up. And place is the position of any body, when considered at a certain distance from some other. As the idea of the particular duration of anything is, an idea of that portion of infinite duration which passes during the existence of that thing ”

“ Time and place are taken for so much of either as are set out by the existence and motion of bodies. Time and place, taken thus for determinate distinguishable portions of those infinite abysses of space and duration, set out or supposed to be distinguished from the rest, by marks and known boundaries, have each of them a twofold acceptation. ”

“ That the ideas of length which we have of expansion are turned every way, and so make figure, and breadth, and thickness ; but duration is but as it were the length of one straight line, extended in infinitum, not capable of multiplicity, variation, or figure ; but is one common measure of all existence whatsoever, wherein all things, whilst they exist, equally partake. For this present moment is common to all things that are now in being, and equally comprehends that part of their existence, as much as if they were all but one single being ”

“ Because man comprehends not in his knowledge or power all past and future things : his thoughts are but of yesterday, and he knows not what tomorrow will bring forth. What is once past he can never recall ”

“ And he, I think, very much magnifies to himself the capacity of his own understanding, who persuades himself that he can extend his thoughts further than God exists, or imagine any expansion where He is not. ”

“ Without some such fixed parts or periods, the order of things would be lost, to our finite understandings, in the boundless invariable oceans of duration and expansion, which comprehend in them all finite beings, and in their full extent belong only to the Deity. ”

“ They are so much of those boundless oceans of eternity and immensity as is set out and distinguished from the rest, as it were by landmarks ; and so are made use of to denote the position of finite real beings, in respect one to another, in those uniform infinite oceans of duration and space. ”

“ It is true, we can easily in our thoughts come to the end of solid extension ; the extremity and bounds of all body we have no difficulty to arrive at : but when the mind is there, it finds nothing to hinder its progress into this endless expansion ”

“ For, if we should suppose the creation, or fall of the angels, was at the beginning of the Julian period, we should speak properly enough, and should be understood if we said, it is a longer time since the creation of angels than the creation of the world, by 7640 years : whereby we would mark out so much of that undistinguished duration as we suppose equal to, and would have admitted, 7640 annual revolutions of the sun, moving at the rate it now does. ”

“ And therefore, what spirits have to do with space, or how they communicate in it, we know not. All that we know is, that bodies do each singly possess its proper portion of it, according to the extent of solid parts ; and thereby exclude all other bodies from having any share in that particular portion of space, whilst it remains there. ”

“ Nor let any one say, that beyond the bounds of body, there is nothing at all ; unless he will confine God within the limits of matter. Solomon, whose understanding was filled and enlarged with wisdom, seems to have other thoughts when he says, « Heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee. » ”

“ And therefore we are not to wonder that we comprehend them not, and do so often find our thoughts at a loss, when we would consider them, either abstractly in themselves, or as any way attributed to the first incomprehensible Being. ”