Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/65

 Rh can, therefore, be supposed without fear of its being disproved, but also without hope of proving it by reason. Such spiritual natures would be present in space in such a manner that it would still be penetrable for corporeal beings. For by their presence they operate in space, but do not fill it, i.e., they cause no resistance, which is the basis of solidity. , If such a simple spiritual substance be supposed,—notwithstanding its indivisibility,—it can be said that the space where it is immediately present is not a point, but itself a space. For, calling in the aid of analogy, even the simple elements of the body must occupy there a space which is a proportionate part of its whole extension, inasmuch as points are not parts but limits of space. Thus space is filled by means of an active force—repulsion. But the fact that it is being filled is apparent only by a greater activity of its components. The way, therefore, in which it is being filled—by accumulating individual elements—does not at all conflict with its simple nature, although the possibility of this cannot be pointed out more clearly, for this can never be done with first causes and effects. In the same way I shall meet with at least no demonstrable impossibility, although the thing itself remains incomprehensible, if I state that a spiritual substance, although it is simple, still can occupy a space, i.e., can immediately be active in it without filling it, which means without offering resistance to material substances in it. Such an immaterial substance also could not be said to possess expansion, any more than the units of matter. For only