Whether the fault is in me or not I cannot say, but I fail to see that my argument is thus rebutted. On the contrary, it appears to me substantially conceded. What kind of entity is that which can exist only when occupied by something else? Dr. Hodgson's own argument is a tacit assertion that Space by itself cannot be conceived as an existence; and this is all that I have alleged.
Dr. Hodgson deals next with the further argument, familiar to all readers, which I have added as showing the insurmountable difficulty in the way of conceiving Space and Time as objective entities: namely, that "all entities which we actually know as such are limited.... But of Space and Time we cannot assert either limitation or the absence of limitation." Without quoting at length the reasons Dr. Hodgson gives for distinguishing between Space as perceived and Space as conceived, it will suffice if I quote his own statement of the result to which they bring him: "So that Space and Time, as perceived, are not finite but infinite; as conceived, are not infinite but finite."
Most readers will, I think, be startled by the assertion that conception is less extensive in range than perception; but, without dwelling on this, I will content myself by asking in what case Space is perceived as infinite? Surely Dr. Hodgson does not mean to say that he can perceive the whole surrounding Space at once—that the Space behind is united in perception with the Space in front. Yet this is the necessary implication of his words. Taking his statement less literally, however, and not dwelling on the fact that in perception Space is habitually bounded by objects more or less distant, let us test his assertion under the most favorable conditions. Supposing the eye directed upward toward a clear sky; is not the Space then perceived laterally limited? The visual area, restricted by the visual apertures, cannot include in perception even 180° from side to side, and is still more confined in a direction at right angles to this. Even in the third direction, to which alone Dr. Hodgson evidently refers, it cannot properly be said that it is infinite in perception. Look at a position in the sky a thousand miles off. Now look at a position a million miles off. What is the difference in perception? Nothing. How, then, can an infinite distance be perceived, when these immensely unlike finite distances cannot be perceived as differing from one another, or from an infinite distance? Dr. Hodgson has used the
