Fifthly, By being able to repeat any fuch idea 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 to one another, without ever coming to the end of fuch 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 fouls, as well as the eternity of that infinite Being, which muft neceffarily have always exifted.

Sixthly, By confidering any part of infinite duration, as fet out by periodical measures, we come by the idea of what we call time in general.

CHAP. XV.

OF DURATION AND EXPANSIÓN, CONSIDERED TOGE

THER.

TH

1. Both capable of greater and lefs.

HOUGH we have, in the precedent chapters, dwelt pretty long on the confiderations of fpace and duration, yet they being ideas of general concernment, that have something very abftrufe and peculiar in their nature, the comparing them one with another may perhaps be of ufe for their illuftration; and we may have the more clear and diftinct conception of them, by taking a view of them together. Distance or space, in its fimple abftract conception, to avoid confufion, I call expansion, to diftinguish it from extenfion, which by fome is used to exprefs this diftance only, as it is in the folid parts of matter, and fo includes, or at least intimates, the idea of body; whereas the idea of pure distance includes no fuch thing. I prefer alfo the word expansion to space, because space is often applied to diftance of fleeting fucceffive parts, which never exift together, as well as to thofe which are permanent. both thefe (viz. expansion and duration), the mind has this common idea of continued lengths, capable of greater or lefs quantities; for a man has às clear an idea of

In

the difference of the length of an hour and a day, as of an inch and a foot.

§2. Expanfion not bounded by Matter.

THE mind, having got the idea of the length of any part of expansion, let it be a span, or a pace, or what length you will, can, as has been faid, repeat that idea; and fo, adding it to the former, enlarge its idea of length, and make it equal to two fpans, or two paces; and fo 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 fun, or remotest star. By fuch a progreffion as this, fetting out from the place where it is, or any other place, it can proceed and pass beyond all thofe 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 folid extenfion; 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 progrefs into this endless expansion; of that it can neither find nor conceive any end. Nor let any one fay, that beyond the bounds of body, there is nothing at all, unlefs he will confine GOD within the limits of matter. Solomon, whose understanding was filled and enlarged with wifdom, feems to have other thoughts, when he fays, 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 perfuades himself, that he can extend his thoughts farther than GOD exists, or imagine any expanfion, where he is not.

$3. Nor Duration by Motion.

JUST fo is it in duration. The mind having got the idea of any length of duration, can double, multiply, and enlarge it, not only beyond its own, but beyond the existence of all corporeal beings, and all the meafures of time, taken from the great bodies of 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 eafily allows, fills eternity; and it is hard to find a rea

fon why any one fhould doubt, that he likewife fills immenfity: His infinite being is certainly as boundlefs one way as another; and methinks it ascribes a little too much to matter, to fay, where there is no body, there is nothing.

§ 4. Why Men more easily admit infinite Duration, than infinite Expansion.

HENCE, I think, we may learn the reason why every.one familiarly, and without the least hesitation, speaks of, and supposes eternity, and sticks not to afcribe infinity to duration; but it is with more doubting and reserve, that many admit, or fuppofe the infinity of space. The reafon whereof feems to me to be this, that duration and extension being used as names of affections belonging to other beings, we eafily conceive in GOD infinite duration, and we cannot avoid doing fo: But not attributing to him extension, but only to matter, which is finite, we are apter to doubt of the existence of expanfion without matter, of which alone we commonly fuppofe it an attribute. And therefore, when men pursue their thoughts of space, they are apt to ftop at the confines of body, as if space were there at an end too, and reached no farther; or if their ideas, upon confideration, carry them farther, yet they term what is beyond the limits of the univerfe, imaginary fpace, as if it were nothing, because there is no body existing in it; whereas duration, antecedent to all body, and to the motions which it is measured by, they never term imaginary, because it is never fuppofed void of fome other real existence. And if the names of things may at all direct our thoughts towards the originals of mens ideas (as I am apt to think they may very much), one may have occafion to think, by the name duration, that the continuation of exiftence, with a kind of refiftance to any deftructive force, and the continuation of folidity (which is apt to be confounded with, and if we will look into the minute anatomical parts of matter, is little different from hardness), were thought to have some analogy, and gave occafion to words fo near of kin as durare and durum effe. And that durare

is applied to the idea of hardness, as well as that of existence, we see in Horace, Epod. 16. ferro duravit facula. But be that as it will, this is certain, that whoever purfues his own thoughts, will find them fome times launch out beyond the extent of body into the infinity of space or expanfion; the idea whereof is diftinct and feparate from body, and all other things; which may (to those who please) be a fubject of farther meditation.

§ 5. Time to Duration is as Place to Expanfion. TIME in general is to duration, as place to expansion. They are fo much of those boundlefs oceans of eternity and immenfity, as is fet out and diftinguished from the reft as it were by land-marks; and fo are made use of to denote the pofition of finite real beings, in respect one to another, in those uniform infinite oceans of duration and space. Thefe, rightly confidered, are only ideas of determinate distances, from certain known points fixed in diftinguishable fenfible things, and fupposed to keep the fame distance one from another. From fuch points fixed in fenfible beings we reckon, and from them we measure our portions of those infinite quantities, which, fo confidered, are that which we call time and place: For duration and fpace being in themselves uniform and boundless, the order and pofition of things, without fuch known fettled points, would be loft in them, and all things would lie jumbled in an incurable confufion.

6. Time and Place are taken for fo much of either, as are fet out by the Existence and Motion of Bodies. TIME and place taken thus for determinate diftinguishable portions of those infinite abyffes of space and duration, fet out, or fuppofed to be diftinguifhed from the reft by marks, and known boundaries, have each of them a twofold acceptation.

FIRST, Time in general is commonly taken for fo much of infinite duration, as is measured out by, and co-exiftent with the exiftence and motions of the great bodies of the univerfe, as far as we know any thing of them; and in this fenfe, time begins and ends with the

frame of this fenfible world, as in these phrases beforementioned, before all time, or when time fhall be no more. Place likewife is taken fometimes for that portion of infinite fpace, which is poffeffed by and comprehended within the material world, and is thereby. distinguished from the reft of expanfion, though this may more properly be called extenfion than place. Within these two are confined, and by the obfervable parts of them are measured and determined the particular time or duration, and the particular extension and place of all corporeal beings.

§ 4. Sometimes for fo much of either, as we defign by Meafures taken from the Bulk or Motion of Bodies. SECONDLY, Sometimes the word time is ufed in a larger fenfe, and is applied to parts of that infinité duration, not what were really diftinguished and measured out by this real exiftence, and periodical motions of bodies, that were appointed from the beginning to be for figns, and for feafons, and for days, and years, and are accordingly our meafures of time, but fuch other portions too of that infinite uniform duration, which we, upon any occafion, do fuppofe equal to certain lengths' of measured time, and fo confider them as bounded and determined: For if we fhould fuppofe the creation, or fall of the angels, was at the beginning of the Julian period, we should fpeak properly enough, and fhould be understood, if we said, it is a longer time fince the creation of angels than the creation of the world, by 164 years; whereby we would mark out fo much of that undiftinguished duration, as we fuppofe equal to, and would have admitted 764 annual revolutions of the fun, moving at the rate it now doés. And thus likewife we sometimes fpeak of place, distance, or bulk, in the great inane beyond the confines of the world, when we confider fo much of that space as is equal to, or capable to receive a body of any affigned dimenfions, as a cubic foot; or do we fuppofe a point in it at fuch a certain distance from any part of the univerfe.