Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/46

 Nature at an instant is, in this view, equally real whether or no there be no Nature at any other instant — or, indeed, whether or no there be any other instant. Descartes, who with Galileo and Newton co-operated in the construction of the final Newtonian view, accepted this conclusion. For he explained endurance as perpetual re-creation at each instant. Thus, the matter of fact was, for him, to be seen in the instant and not in the endurance. For him, endurance was a mere succession of instantaneous facts. These were other sides to Descartes’ cosmology which might have led him to a greater emphasis on motion. For example, his doctrines of extension and vortices. But in fact, by anticipation, he drew the conclusion which fitted the Newtonian concepts.

There is a fatal contradiction inherent in the Newtonian cosmoiogy. Only one mode of the occupancy of space is allowed for — namely, this bit of matter occupying this