On the Vastness and Presumed Sanctity of Space: Personal, Private and Public

We men exist in space, or more correctly a number of spaces. What we may call the space of immediate effect (that is, the space in which a man can immediately effect an action and simultaneously ensure that it is done – say, peeling an onion, making a friend turn his head or strangling a cat) extends roughly as far as the voice can reach and dissipates at a distance where words become intelligible. At the outer periphery of the space of immediate effect, we see a general warping and perversion of this space. A policeman running behind a school-bus, waving his hands and shouting “stop” (maybe the driver has run over a child?) may accidentally impel the driver to accelerate. It may in fact so distract him that he hits another child – thus creating a victim of the deterioration of the space of immediate effect at its furthest limits.