His argument against the Unities of PLACE and TIME is this.

That ’tis as impossible for one Stage to present two Rooms or Houses truly, as two Countries or Kingdoms; and as impossible that Five hours or Twenty-four hours should be Two hours as that a Thousand years or hours should be less than what they are, or the greatest part of time to be comprehended in the less:  for all of them being impossible they are none of them nearest the Truth or Nature of what they present, for impossibilities are all equal, and admit of no degrees.

This argument is so scattered into parts, that it can scarce be united into a Syllogism:  yet, in obedience to him, I will abbreviate, and comprehend as much of it, as I can, in few words; that my Answer to it, may be more perspicuous.

I conceive his meaning to be what follows, as to the Unity of PLACE.  If I mistake, I beg his pardon! professing it is not out of any design to play the argumentative Poet.  “If one Stage cannot properly present two Rooms or Houses, much less two Countries or Kingdoms; then there can be no Unity of Place:  but one Stage cannot properly perform this; therefore, there can be no Unity of Place.”

I plainly deny his Minor Proposition:  the force of which if I mistake not, depends on this; that “the Stage being one place, cannot be two.”  This, indeed, is as great a secret as that, “we are all mortal.”  But, to requite it with another, I must crave leave to tell him, that “though the Stage cannot be two places, yet it may properly Represent them, successively or at several times.”

His argument is, indeed, no more than a mere fallacy:  which will evidently appear, when we distinguished Place as it relates to Plays, into Real and Imaginary.  The Real place is that theatre or piece of ground, on which the Play is acted.  The Imaginary, that house, town, or country, where the action of the Drama is supposed to be; or, more plainly, where the Scene of the Play is laid.

Let us now apply this to that Herculean argument, which if strictly and duly weighed, is to make it evident, that there is no such thing as what they All pretend.  ’Tis impossible, he says, for one Stage to present two Rooms or Houses.  I answer, “Tis neither impossible, nor improper, for one real place to represent two or more imaginary places:  so it be done successively,” which, in other words, is no more than this, “That the Imagination of the Audience, aided by the words of the Poet, and painted scenes [scenery], nay suppose the Stage to be sometimes one place, sometimes another; now a garden or wood, and immediately a camp;” which I appeal to every man’s imagination, if it be not true!

Neither the Ancients nor Moderns (as much fools as he is pleased to think them) ever asserted that they could make one place, two:  but they might hope, by the good leave of this author! that the change of a Scene might lead the Imagination to suppose the place altered.  So that he cannot fasten those absurdities upon this Scene of a Play or Imaginary Place of Action; that it is one place, and yet two.