CHAP. XIV. Duration. and may as well conceive the duration of 50,000 years as BOOK II. 5639. Whereby it appears that, to the measuring the duration of anything by time, it is not requisite that that thing should be co-existent to the motion we measure by, or any other periodical revolution; but it suffices to this purpose, that we have the idea of the length of any regular periodical appearances, which we can in our minds apply to duration, with which the motion or appearance never co-existed. 30. For, as in the history of the creation delivered by Infinity in Moses, I can imagine that light existed three days before the sun was, or had any motion, barely by thinking that the duration of light before the sun was created was so long as (if the sun had moved then as it doth now) would have been equal to three of his diurnal revolutions; so by the same way I can have an idea of the chaos, or angels, being created before there was either light or any continued motion, a minute, an hour, a day, a year, or one thousand years. For, if I can but consider duration equal to one minute, before either the being or motion of any body, I can add one minute more till I come to sixty; and by the same way of adding minutes, hours, or years (i. e. such or such parts of the sun's revolutions, or any other period whereof I have the idea) proceed in infinitum, and suppose a duration exceeding as many such periods as I can reckon, let me add whilst I will, which I think is the notion we have of eternity; of whose infinity we have no other notion than we have of the infinity of number, to which we can add for ever without end 1. our ideas 31. And thus I think it is plain, that from those two Origin of fountains of all knowledge before mentioned, viz. reflection and of Durasensation, we got the ideas of duration, and the measures of it. tion, and of the measures For, First, by observing what passes in our minds, how our of it. ideas there in train constantly some vanish and others begin to appear, we come by the idea of succession. 1 Can the mysterious idea of the Innumerable be called a 'mode' of the positive idea of number? The ultimate reality is not numerable --not measurable-transcends the ca tegory of quantity, and the positive Secondly, by observing a distance in the parts of this succession, we get the idea of duration. Thirdly, by sensation observing certain appearances, at certain regular and seeming equidistant periods, we get the ideas of certain lengths or measures of duration, as minutes, hours, days, years, &c. Fourthly, by being able to repeat those measures of time, or ideas of stated length of duration, in our minds, as often as we will, we can come to imagine duration, where nothing does really endure or exist; and thus we imagine to-morrow, next year, or seven years hence. Fifthly, by being able to repeat ideas of any length of time, as of a minute, a year, or an age, as often as we will in our own thoughts, and adding them one to another, without ever coming to the end of such addition, any nearer than we can to the end of number, to which we can always add; we come by the idea of eternity, as the future eternal duration of our souls, as well as the eternity of that infinite Being which must necessarily have always existed. Sixthly, by considering any part of infinite duration, as set out by periodical measures, we come by the idea of what we call time in general. CHAPTER XV. IDEAS OF DURATION AND EXPANSION, CONSIDERED TOGETHER. CHAP. XV. and less. 1. THOUGH We have in the precedent chapters dwelt pretty BOOK II. long on the considerations of space and duration, yet, they being ideas of general concernment, that have something Both very abstruse and peculiar in their nature, the comparing capable of them one with another may perhaps be of use for their greater illustration; and we may have the more clear and distinct conception of them by taking a view of them together1. Distance or space, in its simple abstract conception, to avoid confusion, I call expansion, to distinguish it from extension, which by some is used to express this distance only as it is in the solid parts of matter, and so includes, or at least intimates, the idea of body: whereas the idea of pure distance includes no such thing 2. I prefer also the word expansion to space, because space is often applied to distance of fleeting successive parts, which never exist together 3, as 1 These ideas, along with number, are modes of Quantity, or that which is conceived to consist of parts, as contrasted with other ideas which consist of degrees in Quality, and are not lost in boundless addition and division of quantitative parts. 2 Space void of body is the property of an incorporeal substance. .. Void space is not an attribute without a subject; because by void space we never mean space void of everything, but void of body only. In all void VOL. I. S space God is certainly present; and 3 e. g. -- CHAP. XV. BOOK II. well as to those which are permanent1. In both these (viz. expansion and duration) the mind has this common idea of continued lengths, capable of greater or less quantities. For a man has as clear an idea of the difference of the length of an hour and a day, as of an inch and a foot. Expansion not 2. The mind, having got the idea of the length of any part of expansion 2, let it be a span, or a pace, or what by Matter. length you will, can, as has been said, repeat that idea, bounded and so, adding it to the former, enlarge its idea of length, and make it equal to two spans, or two paces; and so, as often as it will, till it equals the distance of any parts of the earth one from another, and increase thus till it amounts to the distance of the sun or remotest star. By such a progression as this, setting out from the place where it is, or any other place, it can proceed and pass beyond all those lengths, and find nothing to stop its going on, either in or without body. It is true, we can easily in our thoughts come to the end of solid extension; the extremity and bounds of all body we have no difficulty to arrive at: but when the mind is there, it finds nothing to hinder its progress into this endless expansion; of that it can neither find nor conceive any end. Nor let any one say, that beyond the bounds of body, there is nothing at all; unless he will confine God within the limits of matter. Solomon, whose understanding was filled and enlarged with wisdom, seems to have other thoughts when he says, 'Heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee.' And he, I think, very much magnifies to himself the capacity of his own understanding, who persuades himself that he can extend his 1 Cf. ch. xiii. § 2. Locke vacillates, nevertheless, as in other instances, in his use of these terms, and occasionally uses extension, and also space, instead of expansion, as here defined. 2 Originally by sight or touch. Either gives an incomplete idea; but without one or other of those senses it seems to Locke that we must have wanted the idea of 'expansion' alto gether; and, as it is, we could not by them have perceived it, in the absence of all perceived bodies. Yet, after the idea has thus arisen, it remains as a necessary relation, under which things must be perceived in sense, and also as a capacity or possibility for the existence of extended beings. thoughts further than God exists, or imagine any expansion BOOK II. where He is not 1. 14 CHAP. XV. 3. Just so is it in duration. The mind having got the Nor Dura Motion. idea of any length of duration, can double, multiply, and tion by enlarge it, not only beyond its own, but beyond the existence of all corporeal beings, and all the measures of time, taken from the great bodies of all the world and their motions. But yet every one easily admits, that, though we make duration boundless, as certainly it is, we cannot yet extend it beyond all being. God, every one easily allows, fills eternity; and it is hard to find a reason why any one should doubt that he likewise fills immensity. His infinite being is certainly as boundless one way as another; and methinks it ascribes a little too much to matter to say, where there is no body, there is nothing 2. easily infinite infinite 4. Hence I think we may learn the reason why every one Why Men familiarly and without the least hesitation speaks of and more supposes Eternity, and sticks not to ascribe infinity to dura- admit tion; but it is with more doubting and reserve that many Duration admit or suppose the infinity of space. The reason whereof than seems to me to be this,-That duration and extension being Expanused as names of affections belonging to other beings, we easily sion. conceive in God infinite duration, and we cannot avoid doing so: but, not attributing to him extension, but only to matter, which is finite, we are apter to doubt of the existence of 1 Although Locke holds (as afterwards Samuel Clarke) that in some way God occupies and sustains space, this cannot mean that God must be conceived to consist of partes extra partes, but only that signs of active Reason and Purpose must appear wherever extended beings are, or can exist, that the extended universe cannot be supposed, in any part of it, or as a whole, to be purposeless chaos. 'Si Dieu était étendu,' says Leibniz, ‘il aurait des parties, mais la durée n'en donne qu'à ses opérations. Cependant, par rapport à l'espace, il faut lui attribuer l'immensité, qui donne aussi des parties, et de l'ordre, aux opérations immédiates du Dieu. Il est la source des possibilités comme des |