The natural world contains time and space, but the spiritual world does not really, though it appears to do so. The reason why time and space were introduced into the cosmos was to distinguish one thing from another, the great from the small, much from little; thus to distinguish one quantity from another and by that means one quality from another; and so that by them the bodily senses could distinguish its objects, and the mental senses its objects, and thus feel emotion, think and exercise choice. Time came into the natural world by the rotation of the earth on its axis, and the travelling of these rotations from point to point along the zodiac. The sun appears to be responsible for these variations, since it is the source of heat and light throughout the whole surface of the globe. This causes the times of day, morning, noon, evening and night, as well as the seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn and winter. The times of day cause variation between light and darkness, the seasons of the year between heat and cold. Space was introduced into the natural world by the earth being rolled into a ball and filled with matter, the parts of which are mutually distinct and have extension. The spiritual world does not possess material space and time corresponding to it. But there appear to be space and time there, the appearances answering to the differences of state affecting the minds of spirits and angels there. Time and space there are therefore determined by the affections of their wills and the thoughts of their understandings; but these appearances are real in the sense that they are consistently dependent upon their states.

[2] The general opinion about the condition of souls after death, and hence of angels and spirits, is that they are not in any place and therefore not in space and time. This idea leads to the saying that souls after death are in Pu or Where*, that spirits and angels are breaths of wind, not to be thought of as different from the ether, the air, breath or wind. The truth is that they are persons possessing substance, and among themselves they lead lives like those of people in the natural world on the basis of space and time, which as I have said are controlled by their mental states. If it were not so, that is to say, in the absence of space and time, that universe in which souls arrive and where angels and spirits live, could be pulled through the eye of a needle or be compressed to fit on one end of a hair. This would be possible if there were not an extent of substance there. But since there is, angels live in separate groups apart from one another, more distant in fact than people on earth who have material space between them. But periods of time there are not divided into days, weeks, months and years, because the sun there does not appear to rise and set, nor to travel across the sky, but remains motionless in the east halfway between the zenith and the horizon. They have space because everything which in the natural world is material is in that world substantial. But I shall have more to say on this topic in the part of this chapter devoted to Creation [75-80].

[3] The foregoing account should enable it to be grasped that everything in either world is bounded by space and time, and human beings are therefore not only in body but also in soul finite; and so equally are angels and spirits. From all of these facts the conclusion can be drawn that God is infinite, that is, not bounded. For He as the Creator, Former and Maker of the universe bounded all things, and this He did by means of His Sun, in the midst of which He resides, consisting of the Divine Essence, which issues from Him like a sphere. Therein and thence is the beginning of bounding; but in its progress it extends to the ultimate forms of Nature. It follows that He in Himself is infinite, because He is not created. The infinite, however, appears to man as non-existent, because man is bounded and thinks by means of bounded ideas. Therefore if the bounding which is inseparable from his thought were removed, he would perceive the residue as nonexistent. The truth, however, is that God is infinitely all, and man comparatively is of himself nothing. *Pu is the Greek word for 'Where?', which is at once explained by the Latin translation.