Note 187 — Chapter V · MAKROKOSMOS

Either in Greek or in Latin, τόπος (= locus) means spot, locality, and also social position; χώρα (= spatium) means space-between, distance, rank, and also ground and soil (e.g., τὰ ἐκ τῆς χώρας, produce); τὸ κένον (vacuum) means quite unequivocally a hollow body, and the stress is emphatically on the envelope. The literature of the Roman Imperial Age, which attempted to render the Magian world-feeling through Classical words, was reduced to such clumsy versions as ὁρατὸς τόπος (sensible world) or spatium inane (“endless space,” but also “wide surface”—the root of the word “spatium” means to swell or grow fat). In the true Classical literature, the idea not being there, there was no necessity for a word to describe it.