ouch world is the whole system of actual and possible
relations of arrangement between the elements which make it up. It is
because there is such a system of relations that we can speak of things
as of this shape or of that, as great or small, as near or far, as here
or there.

Now, I ask, is there any reason to believe that, when the plain man
speaks of _space_, the word means to him anything more than this system
of actual and possible relations of arrangement among the touch things
that constitute his real world? He may talk sometimes as though space
were some kind of a _thing_, but he does not really think of it as a
thing.

This is evident from the mere fact that he is so ready to make about it
affirmations that he would not venture to make about things. It does
not strike him as inconceivable that a given material object should be
annihilated; it does strike him as inconceivable that a portion of
space should be blotted out of existence. Why this difference? Is it
not explained when we recognize that space is but a name for all the
actual and possible relations of arrangement in which things in the
touch world may stand? We cannot drop out some of these relations and
yet keep _space_, _i.e._ the system of relations which we had before.
That this is what space means, the plain man may not recognize
explicitly, but he certainly seems to recognize it implicitly in what
he says about space. Men are rarely inclined to admit that space is a
_thing_ of any kind, nor are they much more inclined to regard it as a
quality of a thing. Of what could it be the quality?

And if space really were a thing of any sort, would it not be the
height of presumption for a man, in the absence of any direct evidence
from observation, to say how much there is of it--to declare it
infinite? Men do not hesitate to say that space must be infinite. But
when we realize that we do not mean by space merely the actual
relations which exist between the touch things that make up the world,
but also the _possible_ relations, _i.e._ that we mean the whole _plan_
of the world system, we can see that it is not unreasonable to speak of
space as infinite.

The material universe may, for aught we know, be limited in extent.
The actual space relations in which things stand to each other may not
be limitless. But these actual space relations taken alone do not
constitute space. Men have often asked themselves whether they should
conceive of