IDEAS OF DURATION AND EXPANSION, CONSIDERED TOGETHER.
1. Both capable of greater and less.
Though we have in the precedent chapters dwelt pretty long on the
considerations of space and duration, yet, they being ideas of general
concernment, that have something very abstruse and peculiar in their
nature, the comparing them one with another may perhaps be of use for
their illustration; and we may have the more clear and distinct
conception of them by taking a view of them together. Distance or
space, in its simple abstract conception, to avoid confusion, I call
EXPANSION, to distinguish it from extension, which by some is used to
express this distance only as it is in the solid parts of matter, and
so includes, or at least intimates, the idea of body: whereas the idea
of pure distance includes no such thing. 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.
2. Expansion not bounded by Matter.
The mind, having got the idea of the length of any part of expansion,
let it be a span, or a pace, or what length you will, CAN, as has been
said, repeat that idea, and so, adding it to the former, enlarge its
idea of length, and make it equal to two spans, or two paces; and so,
as often as it will, till it equals the distance of any parts of the
earth one from another, and increase thus till it amounts to the
distance of the sun or remotest star. By such a progression as this,
setting out from the place where it is, or any other place, it can
proceed and pass beyond all those lengths, and find nothing to stop its
going on, either in or without body. 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; of that it can neither find nor conceive any end. 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 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.
3. 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. His infinite being is certainly as boundless one way as
another; and methinks it ascribes a little too much to matter to say,
where there is no body, there is nothing.
4. Why Men more easily admit infinite Duration than infinite Expansion.
Hence I think we may learn the reason why every one familiarly and
without the least hesitation speaks of and supposes Eternity, and
sticks not to ascribe INFINITY to DURATION; but it is with more
doubting and reserve that many admit or suppose the INFINITY OF SPACE.
The reason whereof seems to me to be this,—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. Or if their ideas, upon consideration, carry them further, yet
they term what is beyond the limits of the universe, imaginary space:
as if IT were nothing, because there is no body existing in it. Whereas
duration, antecedent to all body, and to the motions which it is
measured by, they never term imaginary: because it is never supposed
void of some other real existence. And if the names of things may at
all direct our thoughts towards the original of men’s ideas, (as I am
apt to think they may very much,) one may have occasion to think by the
name DURATION, that the continuation of existence, with a kind of
resistance to any destructive force, and the continuation of solidity
(which is apt to be confounded with, and if we will look into the
minute anatomical parts of matter, is little different from, hardness)
were thought to have some analogy, and gave occasion to words so near
of kin as durare and durum esse. And that durare is applied to the idea
of hardness, as well as that of existence, we see in Horace, Epod. xvi.
ferro duravit secula. But, be that as it will, this is certain, that
whoever pursues his own thoughts, will find them sometimes launch out
beyond the extent of body, into the infinity of space or expansion; the
idea whereof is distinct and separate from body and all other things:
which may, (to those who please,) be a subject of further meditation.
5. Time to Duration is as Place to Expansion.
Time in general is to duration as place to expansion. 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. These,
rightly considered, are only ideas of determinate distances from
certain known points, fixed in distinguishable sensible things, and
supposed to keep the same distance one from another. From such points
fixed in sensible beings we reckon, and from them we measure our
portions of those infinite quantities; which, so considered, are that
which we call TIME and PLACE. For duration and space being in
themselves uniform and boundless, the order and position of things,
without such known settled points, would be lost in them; and all
things would lie jumbled in an incurable confusion.
6. 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.
FIRST, Time in general is commonly taken for so much of infinite
duration as is measured by, and co-existent with, the existence and
motions of the great bodies of the universe, as far as we know anything
of them: and in this sense time begins and ends with the frame of this
sensible world, as in these phrases before mentioned, ‘Before all
time,’ or, ‘When time shall be no more.’ Place likewise is taken
sometimes for that portion of infinite space which is possessed by and
comprehended within the material world; and is thereby distinguished
from the rest of expansion; though this may be more properly called
extension than place. Within these two are confined, and by the
observable parts of them are measured and determined, the particular
time or duration, and the particular extension and place, of all
corporeal beings.
7. Sometimes for so much of either as we design by Measures taken from
the Bulk or Motion of Bodies.
SECONDLY, sometimes the word time is used in a larger sense, and is
applied to parts of that infinite duration, not that were really
distinguished and measured out by this real existence, and periodical
motions of bodies, that were appointed from the beginning to be for
signs and for seasons and for days and years, and are accordingly our
measures of time; but such other portions too of that infinite uniform
duration, which we upon any occasion do suppose equal to certain
lengths of measured time; and so consider them as bounded and
determined. 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 thus
likewise we sometimes speak of place, distance, or bulk, in the great
INANE, beyond the confines of the world, when we consider so much of
that space as is equal to, or capable to receive, a body of any
assigned dimensions, as a cubic foot; or do suppose a point in it, at
such a certain distance from any part of the universe.
8. They belong to all finite beings.
WHERE and WHEN are questions belonging to all finite existences, and
are by us always reckoned from some known parts of this sensible world,
and from some certain epochs marked out to us by the motions observable
in it. 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.
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. 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; so
the time when the thing existed is, the idea of that space of duration
which passed between some known and fixed period of duration, and the
being of that thing. One shows the distance of the extremities of the
bulk or existence of the same thing, as that it is a foot square, or
lasted two years; the other shows the distance of it in place, or
existence from other fixed points of space or duration, as that it was
in the middle of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, or the first degree of Taurus,
and in the year of our Lord 1671, or the 1000th year of the Julian
period. All which distances we measure by preconceived ideas of certain
lengths of space and duration,—as inches, feet, miles, and degrees, and
in the other, minutes, days, and years, &c.
9. All the Parts of Extension are Extension, and all the Parts of
Duration are Duration.
There is one thing more wherein space and duration have a great
conformity, and that is, though they are justly reckoned amongst our
SIMPLE IDEAS, yet none of the distinct ideas we have of either is
without all manner of composition: it is the very nature of both of
them to consist of parts: but their parts being all of the same kind,
and without the mixture of any other idea, hinder them not from having
a place amongst simple ideas. Could the mind, as in number, come to so
small a part of extension or duration as excluded divisibility, THAT
would be, as it were, the indivisible unit or idea; by repetition of
which, it would make its more enlarged ideas of extension and duration.
But, since the mind is not able to frame an idea of ANY space without
parts, instead thereof it makes use of the common measures, which, by
familiar use in each country, have imprinted themselves on the memory
(as inches and feet; or cubits and parasangs; and so seconds, minutes,
hours, days, and years in duration);—the mind makes use, I say, of such
ideas as these, as simple ones: and these are the component parts of
larger ideas, which the mind upon occasion makes by the addition of
such known lengths which it is acquainted with. On the other side, the
ordinary smallest measure we have of either is looked on as an unit in
number, when the mind by division would reduce them into less
fractions. Though on both sides, both in addition and division, either
of space or duration, when the idea under consideration becomes very
big or very small, its precise bulk becomes very obscure and confused;
and it is the NUMBER of its repeated additions or divisions that alone
remains clear and distinct; as will easily appear to any one who will
let his thoughts loose in the vast expansion of space, or divisibility
of matter. Every part of duration is duration too; and every part of
extension is extension, both of them capable of addition or division in
infinitum. But THE LEAST PORTIONS OF EITHER OF THEM, WHEREOF WE HAVE
CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS, may perhaps be fittest to be considered by
us, as the simple ideas of that kind out of which our complex modes of
space, extension, and duration are made up, and into which they can
again be distinctly resolved. Such a small part in duration may be
called a MOMENT, and is the time of one idea in our minds, in the train
of their ordinary succession there. The other, wanting a proper name, I
know not whether I may be allowed to call a SENSIBLE POINT, meaning
thereby the least particle of matter or space we can discern, which is
ordinarily about a minute, and to the sharpest eyes seldom less than
thirty seconds of a circle, whereof the eye is the centre.
10. Their Parts inseparable.
Expansion and duration have this further agreement, that, though they
are both considered by us as having parts, yet their parts are not
separable one from another, no not even in thought: though the parts of
bodies from whence we take our MEASURE of the one; and the parts of
motion, or rather the succession of ideas in our minds, from whence we
take the MEASURE of the other, may be interrupted and separated; as the
one is often by rest, and the other is by sleep, which we call rest
too.
11. Duration is as a Line, Expansion as a Solid.
But there is this manifest difference between them,—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; and we may truly say, they
all exist in the SAME moment of time. 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. 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.
12. Duration has never two Parts together, Expansion altogether.
DURATION, and TIME which is a part of it, is the idea we have of
PERISHING distance, of which no two parts exist together, but follow
each other in succession; an EXPANSION is the idea of LASTING distance,
all whose parts exist together and are not capable of succession. And
therefore, though we cannot conceive any duration without succession,
nor can put it together in our thoughts that any being does NOW exist
to-morrow, or possess at once more than the present moment of duration;
yet we can conceive the eternal duration of the Almighty far different
from that of man, or any other finite 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 to-morrow will bring forth.
What is once past he can never recall; and what is yet to come he
cannot make present. 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; and they are no more distant from
his knowledge, no further removed from his sight, than the present:
they all lie under the same view: and there is nothing which he cannot
make exist each moment he pleases. 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. Such a combination of two distinct ideas is, I suppose,
scarce to be found in all that great variety we do or can conceive, and
may afford matter to further speculation.