ABSTRACT
Classical science is based on a clear distinction between space and the physical world. Thus space is the uniform medium in which things are arranged in three dimensions and in which they remain the same regardless of the position they occupy. Thus space is composed of a variety of different regions and dimensions, which can no longer be thought of as interchangeable and which effect certain changes in the bodies which move around within them. Classical doctrine distinguishes between outline and colour: the artist draws the spatial pattern of the object before filling it with colour. Malebranche assumed that human perception, by some process of reasoning, overestimates the size of the planet. In psychology as in geometry, the notion of a single unified space entirely open to a disembodied intellect has been replaced by the idea of a space which consists of different regions and has certain privileged directions.
