4. Why men more easily admit infinite duration than infinite expansion.
Hence I think we may learn the reason
why every one familiarly and without the least hesitation speaks of and supposes Eternity, and sticks not to
ascribe infinity to duration; but it is with more doubting and reserve that many admit or suppose the infinity of
space. The reason whereof seems to me to be this,--That duration and extension being used as names of
affections belonging to other beings, we easily conceive in God infinite duration, and we cannot avoid doing so:
but, not attributing to Him extension, but only to matter, which is finite, we are apter to doubt of the existence of
expansion without matter; of which alone we commonly suppose it an attribute. And, therefore, when men pursue
their thoughts of space, they are apt to stop at the confines of body: as if space were there at an end too, and
reached no further. Or if their ideas, upon consideration, carry them further, yet they term what is beyond the
limits of the universe, imaginary space: as if it were nothing, because there is no body existing in it. Whereas
duration, antecedent to all body, and to the motions which it is measured by, they never term imaginary: because
it is never supposed void of some other real existence. And if the names of things may at all direct our thoughts
towards the original of men's ideas, (as I am apt to think they may very much,) one may have occasion to think by
the name duration, that the continuation of existence, with a kind of resistance to any destructive force, and the
continuation of solidity (which is apt to be confounded with, and if we will look into the minute anatomical parts
of matter, is little different from, hardness) were thought to have some analogy, and gave occasion to words so
near of kin as durare and durum esse. And that durare is applied to the idea of hardness, as well as that of
existence, we see in Horace, Epod. xvi. ferro duravit secula. But, be that as it will, this is certain, that whoever
pursues his own thoughts, will find them sometimes launch out beyond the extent of body, into the infinity of
space or expansion; the idea whereof is distinct and separate from body and all other things: which may, (to those
who please), be a subject of further meditation.
