28 Sept. 1814

Logic

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Ch.2. Ontology

Entities classed

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Place. Of the species of relation designated by the word place, a /the most perfect/ conception may be easily formed by taking into the account the species of relation designated by the word time.

Necessary altogether is the relation which the species of fictitious entity called place has on the one hand to the fictitious entity called body on the other hand to the fictitious entity called Space.

Space has already been distinguished into absolute and relative. To absolute space there are no conceivable bounds; to relative space, i.e. to portions of space separated from one or other by bodies, there are, in every instance, bounds, and those determinate ones.

As to the word place, whether it be considered as the name of a real entity or as the name of a fictitious entity, would be a question of words, barely worth explanation, and not at all worth debate.

Considered as a modification of space, it would, like that, stand upon the footing of the name of a real entity; considered as a species of relation, it would stand upon, the footing of a fictitious entity. But in this latter case comes an objection: viz. that the relations which on that occasion are in question, are not place itself, or places themselves, but such relations as belong to place.

Be this as it may place is a relative portion of space, considered either as actually occupied, or as capable of being occupied, by some real entity of the class of bodies.

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