Note 206 — Introductory material

But whence arises, on this view, the paradox that we cannot but regard space as having more or less thinghood, and as divisible ad infinitum? This must be explained, I think, as a psychological illusion, unavoidably arising from the fact that spatial relations are immediately presented. They thus have a peculiar psychical quality, as immediate experiences, by which quality they can be distinguished from time-relations or any other order in which things may be arranged. To Stumpf, whose problem is psychological, such a psychical quality would constitute an absolute underlying content, and would fully justify his thesis; to us, however, whose problem is epistemological, it would not do so, but would leave the meaning of the spatial element in sense-perception free from any implication of an absolute or empty space[201]. May we not, then, abandon empty space, and say: Spatial order consists of felt relations, and quâ felt has, for Psychology, an existence not wholly resolvable into relations, and unavoidably seeming to be more than mere relations. But when we examine the information, as to space, which we derive from sense-perception, we find ourselves plunged in contradictions, as soon as we allow this information to consist of more than relations. This leaves spatial order alone in the field, and reduces empty space to a mere name for the logical possibility of spatial relations.