SPACE
167
SPACE
and sea, allowing the inhabitants to withdraw to
Ascalon. Occupied in 1191 by Saladin, the town
was captured by Richard Coeur de Lion after his
victory at Rochetaillee. In 1251 St. Louis re-erected
its ramparts, and fourteen years later, in 1265,
after a siege of forty days, it was stormed by the
sultan Bibars; the inhabitants were killed or sold
as slaves and the town completely razed. It never
recovered, and in the fourteenth century the geog-
rapher Abulfeda said it contained no inhabitants
("Tabula SyriEe", 82). Its name Apollonia was re-
placed by Sozusa at an early period; in 449 at the
Robber Council of Ephesus Baruchius signs with this
title; its bishops, Leontius in 518, and Damianus in
553, are also known (Le Quien, "Oriens cliri.stianus",
III, ,595). Under the name of Sozusa it occurs in the
Byzantine geographers Hierocles and George of
CyiJrus. In the Middle Ages it w:»s confused with
Antipatris, situated more inland, and it is under this
name that some of its titular bishops are to be sought.
To-day its ruins may be seen at Arsdf, north of Jaffa.
Smtth, Diet, of Greek arid Roman Geog., a. v. ApoUonia; Reland, PalfFstina ex monumenlis veieribus illustrata, II (Utrecht, 171-4), 102.3; Gu^RIN, Description de la Palestine. Samarie. II (Paris, 1875). .375-82; Pauly a.vd Wissowa. Real-EncyclopSdie der dassischen Altertumswissenschaft, s. v. ApoUonia.
S. Vailh£.
Space (Lat. spatium). — The idea of space is one of the most important in the philosophy of the material world; for centuries it has preoccupied and puzzled philosophers and psychologists, and even to-day the views as to its nature are far from being harmonious.
It is important first to ascertain the exact meaning of the terra. In ordinary language space means empty extension occupied by bodies, and in which local motion takes place. This notion of emptiness is so closely connected with it, that the word is often used to mean the distance between bodies. Space is thus put in contrast with bodies, and we imply, more or less unconsciously, that space by itself contains no body — in a word, that it is empty. Evidently space in this popular sense is the extension of the world. It surpasses in magnitude all that the strongest imagination can picture, and consequently it is assigned no limits. Not indeed that space, in the popular sense, is considered strictly infinite; but rather it is conceived as something "indefinite". Again, space, in the popular mind, is clearly conceived as being tri-dimensional, that is, we can draw in it three straight lines each of which is perpendicular to both of the others, and which exhaust all its dimensional possibilities.
The concept which mathematicians form of space does not correspond in every respect with the popular notion. The geometrician is concerned only acci- dentally with the space of the world. From it he derive.s his idea of mathematical space; but he elimi- nates from it all predicates which are not absolutely necessary to estabUsh his geometrical relations. Alathematical space therefore abstracts from all existence. It is conceived as an extensive, continu- ous, abstract quantity, in which geometrical points and places can be determined. Mathematical space is said to be infinite — not a metaphysical infinity, which affirms the positive absence of all limits, .and with which the mathematician has no concern, but that mathematical infinity, which signifies that the nature of a reality is such that no limit can be a-ssigned to it. The distinction beween mathematical and metaphysic.-il infinity is somewhat subtle, but it is real; it prevents much confusion and facilitates the solution of difficult problems. It may be remarked here that mathematical space is not necessarily tri- dimensional or homogeneous, matters to which we shall refer presently.
Philosophers cannot be satisfied with mathematical space, an abstract construction useful for theoretical purposes, for they wish to arrive at the real space of
nature. Nor can they restrict themselves to the
popular notion, for their task is precisely to purify
the data of common sense from aU the extraneous
factors modifying them and giving rise to latent con-
tradictions. But in their efforts to discover pure and
real space, they have someiimes arrived at the most
perplexing results; so that many philosophers, while
not subscribing to the doctrines of Kantian criticism,
consider the idea of space as hopelessly contradictory,
as a purely illusory fancy. To recall all the successive
explanations of the nature of real space given by the
great philosophers it would be necessary to go through
the history of philosophy; but, lea\'ing aside the
complete negation of extension, all the doctrines, from
Hesiod (cf. Aristotle, IV Phys., vi, 213b) to our day,
fluctuate between the idea of absolute space, a real
substance independent of the bodies it contains, and
purely relative space, a mental fiction based on the
real extension of material bodies. The most radical
expressions of these two conflicting views are those of
Newton and Clarke, on the one hand, who consider
space as the sensorijtm of God, and on the other, of
Leibniz, who asserts that there is no space independ-
ent of extended bodies, and reduces it to "the order
of co-existing things".
The traditional philosophy of the Catholic schools rejects absolute space. Newton's idea is incompatible with the concept which the great doctors of the school, following Aristotle, formed of quantity. Suarez declares that space is only "a conceptual entity [ens ralionis], not, however, formed at will like chimeras, but extracted from bodies, which by their extension are capable of constituting real spaces" (Met. disp., 51). The expression ens rationis may be equivocal, but it expresses somewhat exaggeratedly the very active part played by the human intellect in the con- struction of space. Space is not material bodies themselves, since it appears to be rather a receptacle containing them. From this point of view it must be pure extension, an unqualified quantity. In the strict sense of the terms a quantity without quality is contradictory; for quantity is only the multi- plicity of the "homogeneous parts in the unity of a body; it is the distribution of an essence, simple in its feirmal determination. Multiplicity implies a thing that is multiplied, and distribution something that is distributed. Every quantity is the quantity of something; all extension is therefore, in itself, the extension of an extended substance. Yet quantity is something more than a modal accident; it is in truth the absolute accident par excellence (see Acci- dent); it confers on a substance a perfection such that, granted the existence of a substance, the corpo- real body is measured by its quantity. It is none the less true that quantity postulates a quantitative substance; and, in a sense, entirely different however from the fancies of ancient physics, it may always be said that an empt}' quantity is a contradiction in terms. From this we must conclude that extension is only a derivative of quantity; a non-qualified ex- tension, pure extension, pure space in the reality of the corporeal world is contradictory. We conceive it, however, and what is, properly speaking, con- tradictory is inconceivable. The contradiction arises when we add the condition of existence to pure space. Space is not contradictory in the mind, though it would be contradictory in the real world, because space is an abstraction. Extension is always the extension of something;but it isnot thethingextended. Mentally we can separate extension from the sub- stances from which we distinguish it; and it is exten- sion thus separated, conceived apart, which con- stitutes the space of the universe. Space is therefore as real, as objective, as the corporeal world itself, but in itself it exists apart only in the human mind, seeing that in the reahty of existing things it is only the extension of bodies themselves.
