Every one that looks towards infinity does, as I have said, at first
glance make some very large idea of that which he applies it to, let
it be space or duration; and possibly he wearies his thoughts, by
multiplying in his mind that first large idea: but yet by that he
comes no nearer to the having a positive clear idea of what remains to
make up a positive infinite, than the country fellow had of the
water which was yet to come, and pass the channel of the river where
he stood:
Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis oevum.
20. Some think they have a positive idea of eternity, and not of
infinite space. There are some I have met that put so much
difference between infinite duration and infinite space, that they
persuade themselves that they have a positive idea of eternity, but
that they have not, nor can have any idea of infinite space. The
reason of which mistake I suppose to be this- that finding, by a due
contemplation of causes and effects, that it is necessary to admit
some Eternal Being, and so to consider the real existence of that
Being as taken up and commensurate to their idea of eternity; but,
on the other side, not finding it necessary, but, on the contrary,
apparently absurd, that body should be infinite, they forwardly
conclude that they can have no idea of infinite space, because they
can have no idea of infinite matter.
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