Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge.djvu/179



53. Location. 53.1 We conceive objects as located in space. This conception of location in space is distinct from that of being situated in an event, though the two concepts are closely allied by a determinate connection. The notion of the situation of an object is logically indefinable being one of the ultimate data of science; the notion of the location of an object is definable in terms of the notion of its situation.

An object is said to be ‘located’ in an abstractive element if there is a simple abstractive class ‘converging’ to the element and such that each of its members is a situation of the object.

In general when an object is located in an abstractive element there will be many simple abstractive classes converging to the element and such that each of their members is a situation of the object. In any specific case of location usually all abstractive classes of a certain type will possess the required property.

It follows from this definition that, in the primary signification of location, an object is located in an element of instantaneous space. The notion of location in an element of time-less space follows derivatively by correlating the elements of instantaneous space to the elements of time-less space in the way already