This infinite is not rhetorical, as if we spoke of infinite thought or
infinite love: it is physico-mathematical. Nothing but number, M. Benda
tells us, seems to him intelligible. Time, space, volume, and complexity
(which appears to the senses as quality) stretch in a series of units,
positions, or degrees, to infinity, as number does: and in such
homogeneous series, infinite in both directions, there will be no fixed
point of origin for counting or surveying the whole and no particular
predominant scale. Every position will be essentially identical with every
other; every suggested structure will be collapsible and reversible; and
the position and relations of every unit will be indistinguishable from
those of every other. In the infinite, M. Benda says, the parts have no
identity: each number in the scale, as we begin counting from different
points of origin, bears also every other number.
This is no mere mathematical puzzle; the thought has a strange moral
eloquence. Seen in their infinite setting, which we may presume to be
their ultimate environment, all things lose their central position and
their dominant emphasis. The contrary of what we first think of them or of
ourselves--for instance that we are alive, while they are dead or
unborn--is also true. Egotism becomes absurd; pride and shame become the
vainest of illusions. If then it be repugnant to reason that the series of
numbers, moments, positions, and volumes should be limited--and the human
spirit has a great affinity to the infinite--all specific quality and
variety in things must be superficial and deeply unreal.
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