So that the negation
of an end in any quantity is, in other words, only to say that it is
bigger; and a total negation of an end is but carrying this bigger
still with you, in all the progressions of your thoughts shall make in
quantity; and adding this idea of still greater to all the ideas you
have, or can be supposed to have, of quantity. Now, whether such an
idea as that be positive, I leave any one to consider.
16. We have no positive idea of an infinite duration. I ask those
who say they have a positive idea of eternity, whether their idea of
duration includes in it succession, or not? If it does not, they ought
to show the difference of their notion of duration, when applied to an
eternal Being, and to a finite; since, perhaps, there may be others as
well as I, who will own to them their weakness of understanding in
this point, and acknowledge that the notion they have of duration
forces them to conceive, that whatever has duration, is of a longer
continuance to-day than it was yesterday. If, to avoid succession in
external existence, they return to the punctum stans of the schools, I
suppose they will thereby very little mend the matter, or help us to a
more clear and positive idea of infinite duration; there being nothing
more inconceivable to me than duration without succession. Besides,
that punctum stans, if it signify anything, being not quantum,
finite or infinite cannot belong to it.
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