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Chapter XVIII.—Concerning Space
[119] Space, or place, then, is used in two senses,
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the strict and the loose—loosely of place taken broadly (as ‟my city”), and strictly of exactly containing place whereby we are exactly enclosed. Our inquiry, then, is concerned with space of the strict kind. This some
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have affirmed, others denied; and others have suspended judgement about it.
[120] And of these, those who maintain its existence have recourse to the evidence of experience.
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Who, they argue, could assert that space does not exist when he sees the parts of space, such as right and left, up and down, before and behind; and when he is now here, now there, and sees that where my teacher
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was talking there I am talking now; and when he observes that the place of things naturally light is different from that of things naturally heavy;
[121] and when, also, he hears the ancients declaring that ‟Verily first of all came Chaos into existence”
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For space, they say, is called Chaos from its capacity for containing
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what becomes within it. Then, too, if any body exists, space also exists; for without it body would not exist. And if ‟that-by- which” exists, and ‟that-from-which,”
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there exists; also ‟that-in-which,” and this is space; but the first is in each of the two, therefore the second is in both.
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[122] But those who deny space do not admit the existence of the parts of space; for space, they say, is nothing else than its parts, and he who tries to deduce the existence of space from the assumption that its parts exist is seeking to establish the matter in question by means of itself. Equally silly is the language of those who assert that a thing becomes or has become in some place, when space in general is not admitted
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And they also presume the reality of body, which is not self-evident; and, in much the same way as space, both that-from-which and that-by-which are proved to be unreal.
[123] Hesiod, too, is no competent judge of philosophical problems. And while thus rebutting the arguments that tend to establish the existence of space, they also demonstrate its unreality more elaborately by making use of what are held to be the most weighty views of the Dogmatists about space, namely those of the Stoics and Peripatetics, in the following fashion.
[124] The Stoics declare that Void is that which is capable of being occupied by an existent but is not so occupied, or an interval empty of body, or an interval un- occupied by body; and that Place is an interval occupied by an existent and equated to that which occupies it (‟existent” being here the name they give to ‟body”); and that Room is an interval partly occupied by body and partly unoccupied—though some of them say that Room is the Place of the large body, so that the difference between Place and Room depends on size.
[125] Their opponents then argue thus: When the Stoics define Place as an ‟interval occupied by body,” in what sense do they call it an ‟interval?” Do they mean the length of the body or its width or its depth only, or all three dimensions? For if they mean one dimension, the place is not equated with the object of which it is the place, and besides, that which includes is part of what is included, which is pure nonsense.
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[126] And if by ‟interval” is meant the three dimensions, then, since in the so-called place there subsists neither a void nor another body which has dimensions, but only the body said to exist in place, and it is composed of the dimensions (for it is length and breadth and depth and solidity,
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this last being said to be a property of the foregoing dimensions), the body itself will be its own place and at once both container and contained, which is absurd.
[127] Therefore no dimension of a subsisting place exists. And, consequently, place is nothing.
This argument also is propounded.
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Since the dimensions are not found to be twofold in the case of each of the objects said to exist in place, but there is one length, one breadth and one depth, do these dimensions belong to the body only, or to the place only, or to both? If they belong only to the place, the body will have no length or breadth or depth of its own, so that the body will not even be body, which is absurd.
[128] If they belong to both, then, since the Void has no reality apart from the dimensions, if the dimensions of the Void subsist in the body and serve to compose the body itself, the components of the Void will also be components of the body—for about the reality of solidity it is impossible to say anything positive, as we have shown above.
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And since in the case of the so-called body only those dimensions appear which belong to the Void and are identical with the Void, the body will be Void, which is absurd. And if the dimensions belong to the body only, there will be no dimension of place, and therefore no place either. If, then, no dimension of place is found in any of the ways described above, place does not exist.
[129] Further, it is argued that when the body occupies the Void and place comes about, the Void either remains or withdraws or perishes. But if it remains, the Plenum and the Void will be identical; and if it withdraws by a movement of transition, or perishes by change, the Void will be a body;
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for these affections are peculiar to body. But it is absurd to say either that Void and Plenum are identical or that the Void is body. Therefore it is absurd to say that the Void can be occupied by body and become place.
[130] For these reasons also the Void is found to be unreal, since it is impossible for it to be occupied by body and to become place; for Void was defined
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as ‟that which is capable of being occupied by body.” And, in the refutation of these, Room also is involved; for it is annulled along with place if ‟room is the large place,” while if it is ‟that which is partly occupied by body and partly empty extension,” its refutation is included in that of these two.
These arguments, and others besides, are directed against the views about place held by the Stoics.
[131] The Peripatetics
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assert that place is ‟the limit of what encloses in so far as it encloses,” so that my place is the surface of the air that forms a mould round my body. But if this is place, the same thing will both be and not be. For when the body is about to become in a certain place, then, inasmuch as nothing can become in what is non-existent, the place must be pre-existent in order that the body may in this way become in it, and consequently the place will exist before the-body-in-the-place becomes therein. But inasmuch as it consists in the moulding of the surface of what encloses round the thing enclosed, place cannot be already subsisting before the body becomes within it, and therefore it will not be in existence then. But it is absurd to say that the same thing both is and is not; therefore place is not ‟the limit of what encloses in so far as it encloses.”
[132] Furthermore, if place is anything, it is either created or uncreate.Now it is not uncreate; for it is brought about, they say, by being moulded round the body within it. Nor yet is it created; for if it is created, it is either when the body is in place that the place, in which the body in place is already said to be, comes into existence, or when the body is not in it.
[133] But it does not come into existence either when the body is in it (for the place of the body within it exists already), or when it is not in it, since, as they assert, the container is moulded round the contained and in this way place becomes, and nothing can be moulded round that which is not within it. But if place does not become either when the body is in place or when it is not therein, and no other alternatives are conceivable, then place is not created at all. And if it is neither created nor uncreate, it has no existence.
[134] These objections may also be stated more generally.
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If place is anything, it is either corporeal or incorporeal; but each of these alternatives is, as we have shown, disputed; therefore place is in dispute. Place is conceived in relation to the body whereof it is the place; but the doctrine of the reality of body is disputed, therefore that of place is likewise disputable. The place of each thing is not eternal, but if we say that it becomes it is found to be unreal as becoming does not exist.
[135] It is possible to adduce many other arguments. But in order to avoid prolonging our exposition, we may conclude by saying that while the Sceptics are put to confusion by the arguments, they are also put to shame by the evidence
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of experience. Consequently we attach ourselves to neither side, so far as concerns the doctrines of the Dogmatists, but suspend judgement regarding place.
Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes. Sextus Empiricus. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). London. 1933.
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