Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation: Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert SpencerJones, Jesse Henry
Religion
Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation: Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer
Strictly speaking, Space and Time do not "exist." If they exist (ex
sto), they must stand out somewhere and when. This of course involves
the being of a where and a when in which they can stand out; and that
where and when must needs be accounted for, and so on _ad infinitum_.
Again, Mr. Spencer would seem to speak, in his usual style, as if they,
in existing "objectively," had a _formal_ objective existence. Yet this,
in the very statement of it, appears absurd. The mind apprehends many
objects, which do not "exist." They only are. Thus, as has just been
said, Space and Time, as conditions of created being, _are_. They are
entities but not existences. They are _a priori_ entities, and so are
_necessarily_. By this they stand in the same category with all pure
laws, all first principles.
"Moreover, to deny that Space and Time are things, and so by implication
to call them nothings, involves the absurdity that there are two kinds
of nothings." This sentence "involves the absurdity" of assuming that
"nothing" is an entity. If I say that Space is nothing, I say that it
presents no content for a concept, and cannot, because there is no
content to be presented. It is then _blank_. Just so of Time. As
nothings they are, then, both equally blank, and destitute of meaning.
Now if Mr. Spencer wishes to hold that nothing represented by one word,
differs from nothing represented by another, we would not lay a straw in
his way, but yet would be much surprised if he led a large company.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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