ot have an end.

The Antimony of Our Conception of Space.

To bring our examples to a conclusion, we find the same sort of antinomy
in regard to space, and the world as it is extended in space. Here, too,
it becomes apparent that space as we imagine it, and as we carry it with
us as a concept for arranging our sense-impressions, cannot correspond to
the true reality. As in regard to time, so also in regard to space, we can
never after any distance however enormous come to a halt and say, "Here is
the end of space." Whether we think of the diameter of the earth's orbit
or the distance to Sirius, and multiply them by a million we always ask,
"What lies behind?" and so extend space into the infinite. And as a matter
of course we people it also without end with heavenly bodies, stars,
nebulae, Milky Ways and the like. For here again there can be no obvious
reason why space in our neighbourhood should be filled, while space at a
greater distance should be thought of as empty. Therefore we actually
think of star beyond star, and, as far as we can reckon, stars beyond that
without end. For space extends not merely so far, but always farther. And
the number of the stars is not so many, but always one more. This sounds
quite obvious, but it has exactly the same impossibility as we found in
our "past infinity." For although we are carried by our conceptions into
the infinite, and to what never could have an end, it is impossible to
assume the same of reality.

It is remarkable and quite characteristic that the whole difficulty and
its peculiar nature become much more intelligible to us through the
familiar images and expressions of religion. There we readily admit that
we cannot comprehend the number of the stars and stellar spaces, because
for us they never reach an end, there being always one more; but that in
the eyes of God all is embraced in His universality, in a "perfect
synthesis," and that to Him Being is never and in no point "always one
more." God does not count.

Without the help of religious expressions we say: Being itself is always
itself and never implies any more; for if there were "always one more" it
would not be Being. It can only exist "as a perfect synthesis," which does
not mean an endless number, which nevertheless somewhere comes to an
end--again wooden iron--but something above all reckoning and beyond all
number, as it is beyond space and time. And that which we are able to
weigh and measure