All which is done by enlarging the simple ideas we have taken from the operation of our own minds by reflection, or by our senses from exterior things, to that vastness to which infinity can extend them. For it is infinity which joined to our ideas of existence, power, knowledge, &c., makes that complex idea whereby we represent to ourselves the supreme being’ (Book II. chap. xxiii. sec. 33--35). What is meant by this ‘joining of infinity’ to our ideas? [1] See above, paragraph 35 and the following, and 127 and the following. ‘Infinity,’ according to Locke’s account of it, only applicable to God, if God has parts. 138. ‘Finite and infinite,’ says Locke, ‘are looked upon by the mind as the modes of quantity, and are to be attributed primarily only to those things that have parts and are capable of increase by the addition of any the least part’ (Book II. chap. xvii. sec. 1). Such are ‘duration and expansion.’ The applicability then of the term ‘infinite’ in its proper sense to God implies that he has expansion or duration; and it is characteristic of Locke that though he was clear about the divisibility of expansion and duration, as the above passage shows, he has no scruple about speaking of them as attributes of God, of whom as being ‘in his own essence simple and uncompounded’ he would never have spoken as ‘having parts.’ ‘Duration is the idea we have of perishing distance, of which no parts exist together but follow each other in succession; as expansion is the idea of lasting distance, all whose parts exist together.’ Yet of duration and expansion, thus defined, he says that ‘in their full extent’ (_i.e._ as severally ‘eternity and immensity’) ‘they belong only to the Deity’ (Book II. chap. xv. secs. 8 and 12). ‘A full extent’ of them, however, is in the nature of the case impossible. With a last moment duration would cease to be duration; without another space beyond it space would not be space. Locke is quite aware of this. When his conception of infinity is not embarrassed by reference to God, it is simply that of unlimited ‘addibility’--a juxtaposition of space to space, a succession of time upon time, to which we can suppose no limit so long as we consider space and time ‘as having parts, and thus capable of increase by the addition of parts,’ and which therefore excludes the very possibility of a totality or ‘full extent’ (Book II. chap. xvi. sec. 8, and xvii. sec. 13). The question, then, whether infinity of expansion and duration in this, its only proper, sense can be predicated of the perfect God, has only to be asked in order to be answered in the negative. Nor do we mend the matter if, instead of ascribing such infinity to God, we substitute another phrase of Locke’s, and say that He ‘fills eternity and immensity’ (Book II. chap. xv. sec. 8). Put for eternity and immensity their proper equivalents according to Locke, viz. unlimited ‘addibility’ of times and spaces, and the essential unmeaningness of the phrase becomes apparent.