re of two fundamental relations, the
space-ordering relation, which holds between points, and the
space-occupation relation between points of space and material objects.

[3] Cf. (for example) _Projective Geometry_ by Veblen and Young, vol. i.
1910, vol. ii. 1917, Ginn and Company, Boston, U.S.A.

This theory lacks the two main supports of the corresponding theory of
absolute time. In the first place space does not extend beyond nature in
the sense that time seems to do. Our thoughts do not seem to occupy
space in quite the same intimate way in which they occupy time. For
example, I have been thinking in a room, and to that extent my thoughts
are in space. But it seems nonsense to ask how much volume of the room
they occupied, whether it was a cubic foot or a cubic inch; whereas the
same thoughts occupy a determinate duration of time, say, from eleven to
twelve on a certain date.

Thus whereas the relations of a relative theory of time are required to
relate thoughts, it does not seem so obvious that the relations of a
relative theory of space are required to relate them. The connexion of
thought with space seems to have a certain character of indirectness
which appears to be lacking in the connexion of thought with time.

Again the irrevocableness of time does not seem to have any parallel for
space. Space, on the relative theory, is the outcome of certain
relations between objects commonly said to be in space; and whenever
there are the objects, so related, there is the space. No difficulty
seems to arise like that of the inconvenient instants of time which
might conceivably turn up again when we thought that we had done with
them.

The absolute theory of space is not now generally popular. The knowledge
of bare space, as a system of entities known to us in itself and for
itself independently of our knowledge of the events in nature, does not
seem to correspond to anything in our experience. Space, like time,
would appear to be an abstraction from events. According to my own
theory it only differentiates itself from time at a somewhat developed
stage of the abstractive process. The more usual way of expressing the
relational theory of space would be to consider space as an abstraction
from the relations between material objects.

Suppose now we assume absolute time and absolute space. What bearing
has this assumption on the concept of nature as bifurcated into causal
nature and apparent nature? Undoubtedly the s