in the same manner as we speak of 'time' and 'space.'

Yet space is also of a very permanent or even eternal nature; and Plato
seems more willing to admit of the unreality of time than of the unreality
of space; because, as he says, all things must necessarily exist in space.
We, on the other hand, are disposed to fancy that even if space were
annihilated time might still survive. He admits indeed that our knowledge
of space is of a dreamy kind, and is given by a spurious reason without the
help of sense. (Compare the hypotheses and images of Rep.) It is true
that it does not attain to the clearness of ideas. But like them it seems
to remain, even if all the objects contained in it are supposed to have
vanished away. Hence it was natural for Plato to conceive of it as
eternal. We must remember further that in his attempt to realize either
space or matter the two abstract ideas of weight and extension, which are
familiar to us, had never passed before his mind.

Thus far God, working according to an eternal pattern, out of his goodness
has created the same, the other, and the essence (compare the three
principles of the Philebus--the finite, the infinite, and the union of the
two), and out of them has formed the outer circle of the fixed stars and
the inner circle of the planets, divided according to certain musical
intervals; he has also created time, the moving image of eternity, and
space, existing by a sort of necessity and hardly distinguishable from
matter. The matter out of which the world is formed is not absolutely
void, but retains in the chaos certain germs or traces of the elements.
These Plato, like Empedocles, supposed to be four in number--fire, air,
earth, and water. They were at first mixed together; but already in the
chaos, before God fashioned them by form and number, the greater masses of
the elements had an appointed place. Into the confusion (Greek) which
preceded Plato does not attempt further to penetrate. They are called