tion.' Reflecting on the simplest kinds of external objects, which
to the ancients were the four elements, he was led to a more general
notion of a substance, more or less like themselves, out of which they
were fashioned. He would not have them too precisely distinguished.
Thus seems to have arisen the first dim perception of (Greek) or matter,
which has played so great a part in the metaphysical philosophy of
Aristotle and his followers. But besides the material out of which the
elements are made, there is also a space in which they are contained.
There arises thus a second nature which the senses are incapable of
discerning and which can hardly be referred to the intelligible class.
For it is and it is not, it is nowhere when filled, it is nothing
when empty. Hence it is said to be discerned by a kind of spurious
or analogous reason, partaking so feebly of existence as to be hardly
perceivable, yet always reappearing as the containing mother or nurse of
all things. It had not that sort of consistency to Plato which has been
given to it in modern times by geometry and metaphysics. Neither of
the Greek words by which it is described are so purely abstract as the
English word 'space' or the Latin 'spatium.' Neither Plato nor any other
Greek would have spoken of (Greek) or (Greek) in the same manner as we
speak of 'time' and 'space.'

Yet space is also of a very permanent or even eternal nature; and
Plato seems more willing to admit of the unreality of time than of the
unreality of space; because, as he says, all things must necessarily
exist in space. We, on the other hand, are disposed to fancy that even
if space were annihilated time might still survive. He admits indeed
that our knowledge of space is of a dreamy kind, and is given by a
spurious reason without the help of sense. (Compare the hypotheses and
images of Rep.) It is true that it does not attain to the clearness
of ideas. But like them it seems to remain, even if all the objects
contained in it are supposed to have vanished away. Hence it was natural
for Plato to conceive of it as eternal. We must remember further that in
his attempt to realize either space or matter the two abstract ideas of
weight and extension, which are familiar to us, had never passed before
his mind.

Thus far God, working according to an eternal pattern, out of his
goodness has created the same, the other, and the essence (compare the
three principles of the Philebus--the finite, th