what is termed space and direction is something whose existence is independent of whatever takes up a position and settles within it. Whatever is confined to a space and direction, however, depends on that space and direction. For it is rationally impossible for something capable of occupying space to exist without being confined to a direction. This entails that something capable of occupying space cannot rationally exist without space and direction, and therefore needs space and direction. He has already established that what is termed space and direction is something whose existence is independent of whatever takes up a position and settles within it. Space and direction would thus be independent of directionally situated space. This entails that all spatially situated things depend on their spaces, while their spaces—outside which it is rationally impossible for those things to exist—are independent of them.

Yet every rational person knows that a body’s occupancy of space is something inhering in the body and dependent upon it, not something independent of the body. It is this spatial occupancy without which the existence of a spatially situated thing is rationally impossible: a spatially situated thing cannot exist without occupying space. Every body occupies space, and the existence of something spatially situated without spatial occupancy is impossible. This is like a body, or something of determinate magnitude, existing without determinate magnitude, or something distinct existing without distinction.

As for the claim that it is rationally impossible for a spatially situated thing to exist without a space over and above this spatial occupancy, reason knows