Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/205

 Rh mistaken most when we think we are most sure, and have used the greatest caution and circumspection we could to avoid errour. But it is sufficient for us that we ask no more then what is granted to them that pretend to the most undeniable Methods of Demonstration, and which Geometry her self cannot prove, but supposes; to wit. That our Faculties are true.





1. That that necessity of Existence that seems to be included in the Idea of Space is but the same that offers it self to our Mind in that more full and perfect Idea of God. 2. That there is the same reason of Eternal Duration, whose immediate subject is God, not Matter. 3 . That Space is but the possibility of Matter, measurable onely as so many several possible Species of things are numerable. 4. That Distance is no Physical affection of any thing, but onely Notional. 5. That Distance of Bodies is but privation of tactual union, measurable by parts, as other Privations of qualities by degrees. 6. That if distant Space after the removal of Matter be any real thing, it is that necessary Being represented by the Idea of God. 7. That Self-Existence and Contingency are terms inconsistent with one another.

Thers there are that seem to come nearer the mark, while they alledge against the fourth posture of our Argument that necessary Existence is plainly involved in the Idea of Matter. For, say they, a man cannot possibly but imagine a Space running out in infinitum every way, whether there be a God or no. And this Space being extended thus, and measurable by Yards, Poles, or the like, it must needs be something, in that it is thus extended and measurable; for Non-entity can have no affection or property. And if it be an Entity, what can it be but corporeal Matter?

But I answer, If there were no Matter, but the Immensity of the Divine Essence only, occupying all by his Ubiquity, that the Replication, as I may so speak, of his indivisible substance, whereby he presents himself intirely every where, would be the Subject of that Diffusion and Mensurability. And I adde further. That the perpetual obversation of this infinite Amplitude and Mensurability, which we cannot disimagine in our Phansie but will necessarily be, may be a more rude and obscure Notion offered to our Mind of that necessary and self-Existent Essence which the Idea of God does with greater fulness and distinctness represent to us. For it is plain that not so much as our Imagination is engaged to an appropriation of this Idea of Space to corporeal Matter, in that it does not naturally conceive any impenetrability or tangibility in the Notion thereof; and therefore it may as well belong to a Spirit as a Body. Whence, as I said before, the Idea of God being such as it is, it will both justly and  Rh