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there is in the doctrine of fubftance and accidents, and fhow of what ufe they are in deciding of questions in philofophy.

§ 21. A Vacuum beyond the utmoft Bounds of Body. BUT to return to our idea of space. If body be not suppofed infinite, which I think no one will affirm, I would afk, Whether, if God placed a man at the extremity of corporeal beings, he could not ftretch his hand beyond his body? If he could, then he would put his arm where there was before space without body; and if there he fpread his fingers, there would still be space between them without body. If he could not stretch out his hand, it must be because of fome external hinderance (for we fuppofe him alive, with fuch a power of moving the parts of his body that he hath now, which is not in itfelf impoffible, if GOD fo pleafed to have it, or at least it is not impoffible for God fo to move him); and then I afk, Whether that which hinders his hand from moving outwards be fubftance or accident, fomething or nothing? And when they have refolved that, they will be able to refolve themselves what that is which is or may be between two bodies at a distance, that is not body, and has no folidity. In the mean time, the argument is at leaft as good, that where nothing hinders (as beyond the utmoft bounds of all bodies), a body put into motion may move on; as where there is nothing between, there two bodies must neceffarily touch; for pure space between is fufficient to take away the neceffity of mutual contact, but bare space in the way is not fufficient to ftop motion. The truth is, thefe men must either own that they think body infinite, though they are loth to fpeak it out, or elfe affirm that Space is not body; for I would fain meet with that thinking man that can in his thoughts fet any bounds to space more than he can to duration, or by thinking, hope to arrive at the end of either; and therefore, if his idea of eternity be infinite, fo is his idea of immen fity; they are both finite or infinite alike.

$22. The Power of Annihilation proves a Vacuum. FARTHER, thofe who affert the impoffibility of space exifting without matter, must not only make body infi

151 nite, but muft alfo deny a power in God to annihilate any part of matter. No one, I fuppofe, will deny that God can put an end to all motion that is in matter, and fix all the bodies of the univerfe in a perfect quiet and reft, and continue them fo long as he pleafes. Whoever then will allow that God can, during fuch a general rest, annihilate either this book, or the body of him that reads it, must neceffarily admit the poffibility of a vacuum; for it is evident, that the space that was filled by the parts of the annihilated body will ftill remain, and be a space without body; for the circumambient bodies being in perfect reft, are a wall of adamant, and in that state make it a perfect impoffibility for any other body to get into that fpace. And indeed the neceffary motion of one particle of matter into the place from whence another particle of matter is removed, is but a confequence from the fuppofition of plenitude, which will therefore need fome better proof than a fupposed matter of fact, which experiment can never make out; our own clear and distinct ideas plainly fatisfying us that there is no neceffary connection between jpace and folidity, fince we can conceive the one without the other; and those who difpute for or against a vacuum, do thereby confefs they have diftinct ideas of vacuum and plenum, i. e. eat they have an idea of extenfion void of folidity, though they deny its exiftence, or else they difpute about nothing at all; for they who fo much alter the fignification of words as to call extenfion body, and confequently make the whole effence of body to be nothing but pure extenfion without folidity, must talk abfurdly whenever they fpeak of vacuum, fince it is impoffible for extension to be without extenfion; for vacuum, whether we affirm or deny its exiftence, fignifies fpace without body, whofe very existence no one can deny to be poffible who will not make matter infinite, and take from God a power to annihilate any particle of it.

23. Motion proves a Vacuum.

BUT not to go lo far as beyond the utmost bounds of body in the univerfe, nor appeal to God's omnipoten

cy to find a vacuum, the motion of bodies that are in our view and neighbourhood feem to me plainly to evince it; for I defire any one so to divide a folid body, of any dimenfion he pleafes, as to make it poffible for the folid parts to move up and down freely every way within the bounds of that fuperficies, if there be not left in it a void fpace as big as the leaft part into which he has divided the faid folid body, and if where the least particle of the body divided is as big as a mustard-feed, a void fpace equal to the bulk of a muftard-feed be requifite to make room for the free motion of the parts of the divided body within the bounds of its fuperficies, where the particles of matter are 100,000,000 less than a mustard-feed, there must also be a space void of folid matter as big as 100,000,000 part of a mustard-feed; for if it hold in one, it will hold in the other, and so on in infinitum. And let this void fpace be as little as it will, it destroys the hypothesis of plenitude; for if there can be a space void of body equal to the smallest feparate particle of matter now exifting in nature, it is ftill space without body, and makes as great a difference between fpace and body as if it were piya xácua, a distance as wide as any in nature; and therefore, if we fuppofe not the void pace neceffary to motion equal to the leaft parcel of the divided folid matter, but to 1-10th or 1000th of it, the fame confequence will always follow of space without matter.

§ 24. The Ideas of Space and Body diftinct. BUT the question being here, Whether the idea of space or extenfion be the fame with the idea of body? it is not neceffary to prove the real existence of a vacuum, but the idea of it, which it is plain men have when they inquire and difpute whether there be a vacuum or no; for if they had not the idea of space without body, they could not make a question about its existence; and if their idea of body did not include in it femething more than the bare idea of space, they could have no doubt about the plenitude of the world; and it would be as abfurd to demand, whether there were

fpace without body, as whether there were space without space, or body without body, fince thefe were but different names of the fame idea.

$25. Extenfun being infeparable from Body, proves

not the fame.

it

Ir is true, the idea of extenfion joins itfelf fo infeparably with all visible and moft tangible qualities, that it fuffers us to fee no one, or feel very few external objects, without taking in impreffions of extenfion too. This readiness of extenfion to make itself be taken notice of fo constantly with other ideas, has been the cccafion, I guefs, that fome have made the whole effence of body to confift in extenfion; which is not much to be wondered at, fince fome have had their minds, by their eyes and touch (the bufieft of all our fenfes), fo filled. with the idea of extenfion, and as it were wholly poffeffed with it, that they allowed no exiftence to any thing that had not extenfion. I fhall not now argue with thofe men who take the meafure and poffibility of all being only from their narrow and grofs imaginations; but having here to do only with those who conclude the effence of body to be extenfion, because they fay they cannot imagine any fenfible quality of any body without extenfion, I fhall defire them to confider, that had they reflected on their ideas of tastes. and fmells as much as on thofe of fight and touch, nay, had they examined their ideas of hunger and thirft,, and feveral other pains, they would have found that they included in them no idea of extenfion at all, which. is but an affection of body as well as the reft, difcoverable by our fenfes, which are fcarce acute enough to look into the pure effences of things.. § 26.

IF thofe ideas, which are conftantly joined to all others, muft therefore be concluded to be the effence of those things which have conftantly thofe ideas joined to them, and are infeparable from them, then unity is without. doubt the effence of every thing; for there is not any object of sensation or reflection which does not carry

with it the idea of one. But the weakness of this kind of argument we have already fhown fufficiently.

§ 27. Ideas of Space and Solidity distinct.

To conclude, whatever men fhall think concerning the existence of a vacuum, this is plain to me, that we have as clear an idea of Space diftinct from falidity, as we have of folidity diftinct from motion, or motion from space. We have not any two more distinct ideas; and we can as cafily conceive space without folidity, as we can conceive body or space without motion, though it be ever fo certain that neither body nor motion can exist without fpace. But whether any one will take space to be only a relation refulting from the existence of other beings at a diftance, or whether they will think the words of the most knowing king Solomon, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, or those more emphatical ones of the infpired philofopher St. Paul, In him we live, move, and have our being, are to be understood in a literal fenfe, I leave every one to confider; only our idea of space is, I think, fuch as I have mentioned, and distinct from that of body. For whether we confider in matter itself the distance of its coherent folid parts, and call it, in respect of those solid parts, extenfion; or whether, confidering it as lying between the extremities of any body in its feveral dimenfions, we call it length, breadth, and thickness ; or elfe confidering it as lying between any two bodies or pofitive beings, without any confideration whether there be any matter or no between, we call it diftance; however named or confidered, it is always the fame uniform fimple idea of space, taken from ob jects about which our fenfes have been conversant; whereof having fettled ideas in our minds, we can revive, repeat, and add them one to another as often as we will, and confider the space or diftance fo imagined, either as filled with folid parts, fo that another body cannot come there without difplacing and thrusting out the body that was there before, or elfe as void of folidity, fo that a body of equal dimensions to that empty or pure fpace may be placed in it,,

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