e. the power still
of adding more.
11. How we conceive the Infinity of Space.
The same happens also in space, wherein, conceiving ourselves to be, as
it were, in the centre, we do on all sides pursue those indeterminable
lines of number; and reckoning any way from ourselves, a yard, mile,
diameter of the earth or orbis magnus,--by the infinity of number, we
add others to them, as often as we will. And having no more reason to
set bounds to those repeated ideas than we have to set bounds to number,
we have that indeterminable idea of immensity.
12. Infinite Divisibility.
And since in any bulk of matter our thoughts can never arrive at the
utmost divisibility, therefore there is an apparent infinity to us
also in that, which has the infinity also of number; but with this
difference,--that, in the former considerations of the infinity of space
and duration, we only use addition of numbers; whereas this is like
the division of an unit into its fractions, wherein the mind also can
proceed in infinitum, as well as in the former additions; it being
indeed but the addition still of new numbers: though in the addition of
the one, we can have no more the POSITIVE idea of a space infinitely
great, than, in the division of the other, we can have the positive idea
of a body infinitely little;--our idea of infinity being, as I may say,
a growing or fugitive idea, still in a boundless progression, that can
stop nowhere.
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