An essay on the foundations of geometry · Bertrand Russell
PHILOSOPHICAL CONSEQUENCES.
In the present chapter, we completed our proof of the apriority of the projective and equivalent metrical axioms, by showing the necessity, for experience, of some form of externality, given by sensation or intuition, and not merely inferred from other data. Without this, we said, a knowledge of diverse but interrelated things, the corner-stone of all experience, would be impossible. Finally, we discussed the contradictions arising out of the relativity and continuity of space, and endeavoured to overcome them by a reference to matter. This matter, we found, must consist of unextended atoms, localized by their spatial relations, and appearing, in Geometry, as points. But the non-spatial adjectives of matter, we contended, are irrelevant to Geometry, and its causal properties may be left out of account. To deal with the new contradictions, involved in such a notion of matter, would demand a fresh treatise, leading us, through Kinematics, into the domains of Dynamics and Physics. But to discuss the special difficulties of space is all that is possible in an essay on the Foundations of Geometry.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.