Which consequence, I conceive, is
very ill collected, because the existence of matter is no ways
necessary to the existence of space, no more than the existence of
motion, or the sun, is necessary to duration, though duration used
to be measured by it. And I doubt not but that a man may have the idea
of ten thousand miles square, without any body so big, as well as
the idea of ten thousand years, without any body so old. It seems as
easy to me to have the idea of space empty of body, as to think of the
capacity of a bushel without corn, or the hollow of a nut-shell
without a kernel in it: it being no more necessary that there should
be existing a solid body, infinitely extended, because we have an idea
of the infinity of space, than it is necessary that the world should
be eternal, because we have an idea of infinite duration. And why
should we think our idea of infinite space requires the real existence
of matter to support it, when we find that we have as clear an idea of
an infinite duration to come, as we have of infinite duration past?
Though I suppose nobody thinks it conceivable that anything does or
has existed in that future duration. Nor is it possible to join our
idea of future duration with present or past existence, any more
than it is possible to make the ideas of yesterday, to-day, and
to-morrow to be the same; or bring ages past and future together,
and make them contemporary.
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