AN ESSAY IN ONTOLOGY 
95
and hungry, he is extended in all these, 
besides, of course, many more.  But let us 
suppose that these five are all.  Call the 
 
man X; his formula is then X
t+s+b+h+h.   
If he now eat; he will cease to be extended 
in hunger; if he be cut off from time and 
gravitation as well, he will 
now be 
represented by the formula Xs+b.  Should he 
cease to occupy  s pace and to 
exist, his 
formula would then be X 0.  This expression 
is equal to 1; whatever X may represent, if it 
be raised to the power of 0 (this meaning 
mathematically “if it be extended in no 
dimension or category”), the result is Unity, 
and the unknown factor X is eliminated. 
This is the Advaitist idea of the future  
of m an; his personality
, bereft of all 
qualities, disappears and is lost, while in its 
place aris es the im
personal Unity, The 
Pleroma, Parabrahma, or the Allah of 
the 
Unity-adoring followers of Mohammed. 
 
(To the Musulman fakir, Allah is 
by no 
means a personal God.) 
Unity is thus unaffected, whether or no it 
be extended in any  of the categories.  But 
we have already agreed to look to 0 for the 
Uncaused. 
Now if there was in truth 
0 “before the 
beginning of y ears,” THAT 0 WAS EX-
TENDED IN NONE OF THE CATE-
GORIES, FOR THERE 
COULD HAVE 
BEEN NO CATEGORIES 
IN WHICH  
IT COULD EXTEND!  If our 0 was the 
ordinary 0 of mathematics, there 
was not 
truly absolute 0, for 0 is, as I have shown, de-
pendent on the idea of categories.  If these 
existed, then the whole question is m erely 
thrown back; we m
ust reach 
a state in  
which this 0 is absolute.  Not only  must we 
get rid of all subjects, 
but of all predi- 
cates.  By  0 (in 
mathematics) we really 
mean 0 n, where n is the 
final term of a 
natural scale of dimensions, categories, or 
predicates.  Our Cos mic Egg, then, from
 
which the pres
ent univers e arose, was 
Nothingness, extended in no categories, 
or 
graphically, 0 0.  This expression is in 
its 
present form meaningless.  Let us dis- 
cover its value by  a sim ple m athematical 
process! 
0
0
0
0
0
1 1
1
1
=
=
⎡
⎣⎢
⎤
⎦⎥
−
Multiply by1 = n
n  
Then 0
0
0
1
1
n
n
×
=
× ∞.
 
Now the multiplying of the infinitely great 
by the infinitely sm all results in SOME 
UNKNOWN FINITE NUMBER 
EX-
TENDED IN AN UNKNOWN NUMBER 
OF CATEGORIES.  It happened, when 
 
this our Great Inversion took place, from the 
essence of all nothingness to finity
 ex-
tended in innumerable categories, that an 
incalculably vas t s ystem was  produced. 
Merely by chance, chance in the trues t sense 
of the term, we are found 
with gods, men, 
stars, planets , devils , colours , forces , and a ll 
the materials of the Cosm os: and with tim e, 
space, and causality , the conditions lim iting 
and involving them all.1 
Remember that it is not true to say
 that 
our 0 0 existed; nor that it did not exist. 
  
The idea of exis tence was just as much un-
formulated as that of toasted cheese. 
But 00 is a finite expression, or has a f inite 
phase, and our universe is a finite universe ; 
its categories are them selves finite, and the 
expression “infinite space” is a contradiction 
in terms.  The idea of an absolute and of an 
infinite2 God is relegated to the lim bo of all 
similar idle and pernicious perversions of 
truth.  Infinity remains, but only as a mathe-
matical conception as impossible in 
nature 
as the square root of 
-1.  Against all this 
mathematical, or s emi-mathematical, reason-
ing, it may  doubtless be objected 
that our  
 
1 Compare and contrast this doctrine with 
that 
of Herbert Spencer (“First Principles,” Pt. I.), and 
see my “Science and Buddhism ” for  a full 
discussion of the 
difference 
involved. 
—A. C. 
2 If by  “infinitely  gr eat” we only
 mean 
“indefinitely gr eat,” as a m
athematician would 
perhaps tell us,  we of cour se begin at the very 
point I  am  aim ing at,  viz. , E crasez l’Infini. 
—A.C.