Imagination. Come and see the Infinite just as I have pictured it.
Understanding. [Peeping cautiously about it.] Where is your frame? Ah! I see it now, clearly. How is this! Your frame does not include all. There is a “beyond” to your picture. I cannot tell whether you intend the inside or outside for your picture of the Infinite, I see it on both.
Imag. [Tries to extend the frame, but with the same result as before.] I believe you are right! I am well nigh exhausted by my efforts to include the unlimited.
Un. Ah! you see the Infinite is merely the negative of the finite or positive. It is the negative of those conditions which you place there in order to have any representation at all.
[While the Understanding proceeds to deliver a course of wise saws and moral reflections on the “inability of the Finite to grasp the Infinite,” sitting apart upon its bipod—for tripod it has none, one of the legs being broken—it self-complacently and oracularly admonishes the human mind to cultivate humility; Imagination drops her brush and pencil in confusion at these words. Very opportunely Reason steps in and takes an impartial survey of the scene.]
Reason. Did you say that the Infinite is unknowable?
Un. Yes. “To think is to limit, and hence to think the Infinite is to limit it, and thus to destroy it.”
Reason. Apply your remarks to Space. Is not Space infinite?
Un. If I attempt to realize Space, I conceive a bounded, but I at once perceive that I have placed my limits within Space, and hence my realization is inadequate. The Infinite, therefore, seems to be a beyond to my clear conception.
Reason. Indeed! When you reflect on Space do you not perceive that it is of such a nature that it can be limited only by itself? Do not all its limits imply Space to exist in?