14. How we cannot have a positive idea of infinity in quantity. They
who would prove their idea of infinite to be positive, seem to me to
do it by a pleasant argument, taken from the negation of an end; which
being negative, the negation of it is positive. He that considers that
the end is, in body, but the extremity or superficies of that body,
will not perhaps be forward to grant that the end is a bare
negative: and he that perceives the end of his pen is black or
white, will be apt to think that the end is something more than a pure
negation. Nor is it, when applied to duration, the bare negation of
existence, but more properly the last moment of it. But if they will
have the end to be nothing but the bare negation of existence, I am
sure they cannot deny but the beginning is the first instant of being,
and is not by any body conceived to be a bare negation; and therefore,
by their own argument, the idea of eternal, a parte ante, or of a
duration without a beginning, is but a negative idea.
15. What is positive, what negative, in our idea of infinite. The
idea of infinite has, I confess, something of positive in all those
things we apply to it. When we would think of infinite space or
duration, we at first step usually make some very large idea, as
perhaps of millions of ages, or miles, which possibly we double and
multiply several times.
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