mean by empty space.  There is no third position in the matter of putting forth our active energy.  Where resistance ends and freedom begins, there is space; where freedom ends, and obstruction begins, there is matter.  We find our sentient life to be made up, as regards movement, of a certain number and range of these two alternations; in other words, free spaces and resisting barriers.  And we can, by the constructive power already mentioned, imagine other proportions of the two experiences; we can imagine the scope for movement, the absence of obstruction, to be enlarged more and more, to be counted by thousands and millions of miles; but the only terminus or boundary that we can imagine is resistance, a dead obstacle.  We are able to conceive the starry spaces widened and prolonged from galaxy to galaxy through enormous strides of increasing amplitude, but when we try to think an end to this career, we can think only of a dead wall.  There is no other end of space within the grasp of our faculties; and that termination is not an end of extension; for we know that solid matter, viewed in other ways than as obstructing movement, has the same property of the extended belonging to the empty void.  The inference is, that the limitation of our means of knowledge renders altogether incompetent the imagination of an end to either Time or Space.  The greatest efforts of our combining faculty cannot exceed the elements presented to it, and these elements contain nothing that would set forth the situation of space ending, and obstruction not beginning.

[ARE TIME AND SPACE INFINITE?]

Under these circumstances, it is an irrevelant enquiry, to ask, Are Time and Space finite or infinite?  Many philosophers have put the question, and even answered it.  They say Time has no beginning and no end, and Space has no boundaries; or, as otherwise expressed,—­Time and Space are Infinite:  an answer of such vagueness as to mean anything, from a harmless and proper assertion of the limits of our faculties, up to the verge of extravagance and self-contradiction.

When, in fact, people talk of the Infinite in Time and Space, they can point to one intelligible signification; as to the rest, this word is not a subject for scientific propositions, and the attempt at such can lead only to contradictions.  The Infinite is a phrase most various in its purport:  it is for the most part an emotional word, expressing human desire and aspiration; a word of poetry, imagination, and preaching, not a word to be discussed under science; no intellectual definition would exhibit its emotional force.