If you desire it to assign the first of the units
that make up an infinite number, it will readily answer, that there
can be no beginning, end, or number in the infinite; because if one
could find either a first or last unit in it, one might add some
other unit to that, and consequently increase the number. Now a
number cannot be infinite, when it is capable of some addition, and
when a limit may be assigned to it, on the side where it may receive
an increase.
SECT. LI. The Mind knows the Finite only by the Idea of the
Infinite.
It is even in the infinite that my mind knows the finite. When we
say a man is sick, we mean a man that has no health; and when we
call a man weak, we mean one that has no strength. We know
sickness, which is a privation of health, no other way but by
representing to us health itself as a real good, of which such a man
is deprived; and, in like manner, we only know weakness, by
representing to us strength as a real advantage, which such a man is
not master of. We know darkness, which is nothing real, only by
denying, and consequently by conceiving daylight, which is most
real, and most positive. In like manner we know the finite only by
assigning it a bound, which is a mere negation of a greater extent;
and consequently only the privation of the infinite. Now a man
could never represent to himself the privation of the infinite,
unless he conceived the infinite itself: just as he could not have
a notion of sickness, unless he had an idea of health, of which it
is only a privation.
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