NewThoughtLibrary.com / DivineLibrary.org

extension for the one involves the other at some instant evoked by it, or do we, at its conclusion, as its result, finally eliminate such a notion? This may seem a slight difference, yet it is a fundamental one. We give a further quotation in completion of the above. " How, through experiences of occupied extension or body, can we ever gain the notion of unoccupied extension or space? How from the perception of a relation between resistant positions, do we progress to a perception of a relation between non-resistant positions? If all the space attributes of body are resolvable into relations of position between subject and object, disclosed in the act of touch if, originally, relative position is only thus knowable if therefore position is, to the nascent intelligence, incognizable except as the position of something that produces an impression on the organism, how is it possible for the idea of position ever to be disassociated from that of body? How can the germinal notion of empty extension ever be gained?

This problem, though apparently difficult of solution, is really a very easy one. If, after some particular motion of a limb, there invariably came a sensation of softness, after some other one of roughness, after some other one of hardness or if, after those movements of the eye needed for some special act of vision, there always came a sensation of redness, after some other a sensation of blueness; and so on it is manifest that, in conformity with the known laws of association, there would be established a constant relation between such notions and such sensations. If positions were conceived at all, they would be conceived as invariably occupied by things producing special impressions, and it would be impossible to disassociate the positions from the things. But as, in our experience, we find that a certain movement of the hand which once brought the finger in contact with something hot, now brings it in contact with