14. How we cannot have a positive idea of infinity in quantity.
They who would prove their idea of infinite to be
positive, seem to me to do it by a pleasant argument, taken from the negation of an end; which being negative, the
negation of it is positive. He that considers that the end is, in body, but the extremity or superficies of that body,
will not perhaps be forward to grant that the end is a bare negative: and he that perceives the end of his pen is
black or white, will be apt to think that the end is something more than a pure negation. Nor is it, when applied to
duration, the bare negation of existence, but more properly the last moment of it. But if they will have the end to
be nothing but the bare negation of existence, I am sure they cannot deny but the beginning is the first instant of
being, and is not by any body conceived to be a bare negation; and therefore, by their own argument, the idea of
eternal, à parte ante, or of a duration without a beginning, is but a negative idea.
