=197.= Thus Geometry is forced, since it wishes to regard space as independent, to hypostatize its abstractions, and therefore to invent a self-contradictory notion as the spatial element. A similar absurdity appears, even more obviously, in the notion of a whole of space. The antinomy may, therefore, be stated thus: Space, as we have seen throughout, must, if knowledge of it is to be possible, be mere relativity; but it must also, if _independent_ knowledge of it, such as Geometry seeks, is to be possible, be something more than mere relativity, since it is divisible and has parts. But we saw, in Chap. III., Section A (§ 133) that knowledge of a form of externality must be logically independent of the particular matter filling the form. How then are we to extricate ourselves from this dilemma? The only way, I think, is, not to make Geometry dependent on Physics, which we have seen to be erroneous[192], but to give every geometrical proposition a certain reference to matter in general. And at this point an important distinction must be made. We have hitherto spoken of space as relational, and of spatial figures as relations. But space, it would seem, is rather relativity than relations--itself not a relation, it gives the bare possibility of relations between diverse things[193]. As applied to a spatial figure, which can only arise by a differentiation of space, and hence by the introduction of some differentiating matter, the word relation is, perhaps, less misleading than any other; as applied to empty undifferentiated space, it seems by no means an accurate description. But a bare possibility cannot exist, or be given in sense-perception! What becomes, then, of the arguments of the first part of this chapter? I reply, it is not empty space, but spatial figures, which sense-perception reveals, and spatial figures, as we have just seen, involve a differentiation of space, and therefore a reference to the matter which is in space. It is spatial figures, also, and not empty space, with which Geometry has to deal. The antinomy discussed above arises then--so it would seem--from the attempt to deal with empty space, rather than with spatial figures and the matter to which they necessarily refer.