18. No positive idea of infinite space.
He that thinks he has a positive idea of infinite space, will, when he
considers it, find that he can no more have a positive idea of the greatest, than he has of the least space. For in this
latter, which seems the easier of the two, and more within our comprehension, we are capable only of a
comparative idea of smallness, which will always be less than any one whereof we have the positive idea. All our
positive ideas of any quantity, whether great or little, have always bounds, though our comparative idea, whereby
we can always add to the one, and take from the other, hath no bounds. For that which remains, either great or
little, not being comprehended in that positive idea which we have, lies in obscurity; and we have no other idea of
it, but of the power of enlarging the one and diminishing the other, without ceasing. A pestle and mortar will as
soon bring any particle of matter to indivisibility, as the acutest thought of a mathematician; and a surveyor may
as soon with his chain measure out infinite space, as a philosopher by the quickest flight of mind reach it, or by
thinking comprehend it; which is to have a positive idea of it. He that thinks on a cube of an inch diameter, has a
clear and positive idea of it in his mind, and so can frame one of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and so on, till he has the idea in his
thoughts of something very little; but yet reaches not the idea of that incomprehensible littleness which division
can produce. What remains of smallness is as far from his thoughts as when he first began; and therefore he never
comes at all to have a clear and positive idea of that smallness which is consequent to infinite divisibility.
