The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science

the fact of livingness, we do not associate it with any idea of physical extension original: "extension"; in this context, the physical space an object occupies. We at once realize that a mouse is quite as much alive as an elephant, despite the difference in size. The important point of this distinction is that if we can conceive of anything as being entirely devoid of the element of space, it must be present in its entire totality anywhere and everywhere—that is to say, at every point of space simultaneously.

The scientific definition of time is that it is the period occupied by a body in passing from one given point in space to another. Therefore, according to this definition, when there is no space, there can be no time. Consequently, a conception of spirit that realizes it as devoid of the element of space must also realize it as being devoid of the element of time.

We find, therefore, that the conception of spirit as pure Thought, rather than as concrete Form, is the conception of it as existing perfectly independently of the elements of time and space. From this it follows that if the idea of anything is conceived as existing on this level, it can only represent that thing as being actually present here and now. In this view of things, nothing can be remote from us either in time or space: either the idea is entirely dissipated, or it exists as an actual present entity. It cannot exist as something that shall be in the future, for where there is no sequence in time, there can be no future. Similarly, where there is no space