No doubt we make only the first steps in the direction of the extended,
even when we let ourselves go as much as we can. But suppose for a
moment that matter consists in this very movement pushed further, and
that physics is simply psychics inverted. We shall now understand why
the mind feels at its ease, moves about naturally in space, when matter
suggests the more distinct idea of it. This space it already possessed
as an implicit idea in its own eventual _detension_, that is to say, of
its own possible _extension_. The mind finds space in things, but could
have got it without them if it had had imagination strong enough to push
the inversion of its own natural movement to the end. On the other hand,
we are able to explain how matter accentuates still more its
materiality, when viewed by the mind. Matter, at first, aided mind to
run down its own incline; it gave the impulsion. But, the impulsion once
received, mind continues its course. The idea that it forms of _pure_
space is only the _schema_ of the limit at which this movement would
end. Once in possession of the form of space, mind uses it like a net
with meshes that can be made and unmade at will, which, thrown over
matter, divides it as the needs of our action demand. Thus, the space of
our geometry and the spatiality of things are mutually engendered by the
reciprocal action and reaction of two terms which are essentially the
same, but which move each in the direction inverse of the other. Neither
is space so foreign to our nature as we imagine, nor is matter as
completely extended in space as our senses and intellect represent it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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