he mind finds its stopping-place. All that the complex
vision can say about "infinite space" is that it is a real experience,
and that we can neither imagine space with an end nor without an
end.

The "Infinite" is the name which logic gives to this psychological
phenomenon. The fact that the mind stops abruptly and breaks into
irreconcilable contradictions when it is confronted with
unfathomable space is simply a proof that space without an end is
as unimaginable as space with an end. It is no proof that space is
merely a subjective category of the human mind. One, thing,
however, it is a proof of. It is a proof that the universe can never
be satisfactorily explained on any materialistic hypothesis.

The fact that we all of us, at every hour of our common day, are
surrounded by this unthinkable thing, space without end, is an
eternal reminder that the forms, shapes and events of habitual
occurrence, which we are inclined to take so easily for granted, are
part of a staggering and inscrutable enigma.

The reality of this thing, actually there, above our heads and under
our feet, lodges itself, like an ice cold wedge of annihilating
scepticism, right in the heart of any facile explanation. We cannot
interpret the world in terms of what we call "matter" when what
we call "matter" has these unthinkable horizons. We may take into
our hands a pebble or a shell or a grain of sand; and we may feel
as though the universe were within our grasp. But when we
remember that this little piece of the earth is part of a continuous
unity which recedes in every direction, world without end, we are
driven to admit that the universe is so little within our grasp that
we have to regard it as something which breaks and baffles the
mind as soon as the mind tries to take hold of it at all.

The reason does not advance one inch in explaining the universe
when it utters the word "evolution" and it does not advance one
thousandth part of an inch--indeed it gives up the task altogether--
when it informs us that infinite space is a category of the human
mind. We must regard it, then, as part of the original revelation of
the complex vision, that we are separate personal souls surrounded
by an unfathomable mystery whose margins recede into unthinkable
remoteness.

The ancient dilemma of the One and the Many obtrudes itself at
this point; and we are compelled to ask how the plurality of these
separate souls can be reconciled with the unity of