Page:Kant's Prolegomena etc (1883).djvu/291



METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF DYNAMICS.

Matter is the movable, in so far as it fills a space. To fill a space means to resist everything movable, which endeavours by its motion to press into a certain space. A space that is not filled is an empty space.

Observation.

This is the dynamical explanation of the conception of matter. It presupposes the Phoronomic, but adds thereto a property that is related as cause to an effect, namely, the capacity of resisting a motion within a certain space. This could not come into consideration in the foregoing science, even when we had to do with the motions of one and the same point in opposite directions. This filling of space keeps a certain space free from the intrusion of any other movable when the motion of the latter is directed to any place within this space. On what the resistance of matter on all sides rests, and what it is, now remains to be investigated. But it may be already seen from the above explanation, that matter is not here considered as resisting when it is driven from its place, and thus as itself moved (this case will hereafter come into consideration as mechanical resistance), but only when the mere space of its own extension is to be diminished. The expression is used to occupy space, namely, to be immediately present in all its points, in order to indicate thereby the extension of a thing in space. But inasmuch as it is not defined in this conception, what effect, or whether any effect at all, arises from this presence, whether in resisting others that are attempting to press into it, or whether it signifies