emselves under certain circumstances to aesthetic
manipulation, but underlying their worst disjointedness are three great
continua in which for each of us reason's ideal is actually reached. I
mean the continua of memory or personal consciousness, of time and of
space. In {265} these great matrices of all we know, we are absolutely
at home. The things we meet are many, and yet are one; each is itself,
and yet all belong together; continuity reigns, yet individuality is
not lost.

Consider, for example, space. It is a unit. No force can in any way
break, wound, or tear it. It has no joints between which you can pass
your amputating knife, for it penetrates the knife and is not split,
Try to make a hole in space by annihilating an inch of it. To make a
hole you must drive something else through. But what can you drive
through space except what is itself spatial?

But notwithstanding it is this very paragon of unity, space in its
parts contains an infinite variety, and the unity and the variety do
not contradict each other, for they obtain in different respects. The
one is the whole, the many are the parts. Each part is one again, but
only one fraction; and part lies beside part in absolute nextness, the
very picture of peace and non-contradiction. It is true that the space
between two points both unites and divides them, just as the bar of a
dumb-bell both unites and divides the two balls. But the union and the
division are not _secundum idem_: it divides them by keeping them out
of the space between, it unites them by keeping them out of the space
beyond; so the double function presents no inconsistency.
Self-contradiction in space could only ensue if one part tried to oust
another from its position; but the notion of such an absurdity vanishes
in the framing, and cannot stay to vex the mind.[2] Beyond the parts
we see or think at any {266} given time extend further parts; but the
beyond is homogeneous with what is embraced, and follows the same law;
so that no surprises, no foreignness, can ever emerge from space's womb.

Thus with space our intelligence is absolutely intimate; it is
rationality and transparency incarnate. The same may be said of the
ego and of time. But if for simplicity's sake we ignore them, we may
truly say that when we desiderate rational knowledge of the world the
standard set by our knowledge of space is what governs our desire.[3]
Cannot the breaks, the jolts, the margin of fore