Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Jaime Luciano Balmes

42. It may have been remarked in the preceding chapters that the idea of extension is always united with that of space, and when we endeavor to determine the real nature of the former, we encounter the questions which relate to the latter. It is not possible to explain one, while the other remains in obscurity. It is for this reason that I have concluded to examine carefully the questions concerning space under its ideal as well as under its real aspect; since only in this manner is it possible to determine clearly the nature of extension.

43. Space is one of those profound mysteries which the natural order presents to man's weak understanding. The deeper he examines it the more obscure he finds it; the mind is buried in the darkness which we imagine to exist beyond the bounds of the finite, in the abyss of immensity. We know not if what we behold is an illusion or a reality. For a moment we seem to have found the truth, and then we discover that we have stretched our arms to embrace a shadow. We form arguments which in any other matter would be conclusive, but are not so here, because they are in direct contradiction to others equally conclusive. We seem to have reached the limit which the Creator has put to our investigations; and in endeavoring to pass beyond it, our strength fails, for we find ourselves out of the element which is natural to our life.

When certain philosophers pass rapidly over the questions relating to space, and flatter themselves with explaining them in a few words, we can assure them that either they have not meditated much upon the difficulty which these questions involve, or else they have not understood them. It was not so that Descartes, Malebranche, Newton, or Leibnitz proceeded.

To descend this bottomless abyss is not to lose time in useless discussion; even though we should not find what we seek, we obtain a most precious result, for we reach the limits assigned to our intellect. It is well to know what may be known and what cannot; for from this knowledge philosophy draws high and valuable considerations. Moreover, though we have small hope of success, we cannot pass over without examining an idea that is so closely connected with all our knowledge of corporeal objects, that is to say, extension. There must be a motive of investigation since all philosophers have investigated it, and who can say that after long ages of efforts the truth is not perhaps reserved as the reward of constancy?

44. What then is space? Is it something real or only an idea? If an idea is there any object in the external world which corresponds to it? Is it a pure illusion? And is the word space without meaning?

If we do not know what space is, let us at least fix the meaning of the word, and thus determine in some measure the state of the question. By space we understand the extension in which we imagine bodies to be placed, or the capacity to contain them to which we attribute none of their qualities except extension.

Let us suppose a glass to be hermetically sealed, and the interior to remain empty by the annihilation of what it contained; this cavity or capacity which in our way of understanding it may be occupied by a body is a part of space. Let us imagine the world to be an immense receptacle in which all bodies are contained; let us suddenly make it empty and we have a cavity equal in space to the universe. If we imagine beyond the limits of the world a capacity to contain other bodies, we have an unlimited or imaginary space.

Space appears to us at first sight, if not infinite, at least indefinite. For in whatever part we conceive a body to be placed, we also conceive the possibility of its moving, describing any class of lines, or taking any kind of direction and departing indefinitely from its first position. Therefore we imagine no limit to this capacity, to these dimensions. Therefore space appears to us as indefinite.

45. Is space a pure nothing? Some philosophers maintain that abstracted from the surface of bodies, and considered as a mere interval, it is a pure nothing. At the same time they admit that it is only owing to space that two bodies are really distant from each other, and add that if we suppose the whole world, with the exception of one body only, to be reduced to nothing, this body could move and change its place. I am confident that this opinion involves irreconcilable contradictions. To say extension-nothing is a contradiction in terms, and the opinion of these philosophers is reduced to this expression.

46. If every thing in a room be reduced to nothing, it seems impossible for the walls to remain distant from each other; for the idea of distance implies a medium between the two objects; and nothing, being nothing, cannot be the medium required. If the interval is nothing, there is no distance. To attribute properties to nothing, is to destroy all ideas,—to affirm that a thing may be and not be at the same time,—and consequently to overthrow the foundation of human knowledge.