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CHAPTER 4
SPACE
THEORY OF SPACE: ZENO, EMPEDOCLES, AND ANAXAGORAS: THE ELEATICS: PLATO: ARISTOTLE: THE ATOMISTS: PYTHAGORAS IDEALISM and Absolutism in all ages have been opposed to the doctrine of a Real Space. “If Space is”, said Zeno, "it must be in something; for, every thing that is, is in something and so in space. Space then will be in space and so ad infinitum. Therefore, Space is not." The argument on the face of it is fallacious. Why should a Real in order to be a Real, be in something ? Pure Being, for instance, is the only absolute Reality according to the philosophy of Zeno himself; but it is not contained in something. Thus it is that although Empedocles, Anaxagoras and the Eleatics denied the reality of Space, it is admitted in some form by Plato, Aristotle, the Atomists and even by the Pythagoreans.
HOBBES: BERKELEY: NEWTON
In modern times, Hobbes described Space as "an imaginary phantasm” and following him Berkeley too declared it to be "a phantom.” His argument is that every assignable magnitude of a body is dependent on subjective conditions and that therefore Space or absolute magnitude is nothing more than an idea. But the subjective idealism of Berkeley, in its extreme form, receives its criticism indirectly from his own hands. If the “Esse” of a thing is nothing more than its “Percipi”, how is a Percept to be distinguished from a purely imaginary Idea ? Berkeley himself admits that in the former case, there is an element of objectivity which is independent of us, the percipients, whereas a purely imaginary Idea is a creature completely dependent on us. The element of objectivity in a Percept consists according to Berkeley, in the Idea being present in the mind of God. But if the hypothesis of a God be eliminated from the
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