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§. 17. If it be demanded (as usually it is) whether this fpace, void of body, be fubftance or accident; I fhall readily anfwer, I know not; nor fhall be afhamed to own my ignorance, till they that afk show me a clear diftinct idea of fubftance.

Subftance
which we

know not, no

proof against fpace without body.

§. 18. I endeavour, as much as I can, to deliver myfelf from those fallacies which we are apt to put upon ourselves, by taking words for things. It helps not our ignorance, to feign a knowledge where we have none, by making a noife with founds, without clear and diftinct fignifications. Names made at pleasure neither alter the nature of things, nor make us underftand them but as they are figns of and ftand for determined ideas. And I defire those who lay so much ftrefs on the found of thefe two fyllables, fubftance, to confider whether applying it, as they do, to the infinite incomprehenfible God, to finite fpirit, and to body, it be in the fame fenfe; and whether it stands for the fame idea, when each of those three fo different beings are called fubftances. If fo, whether it will thence follow, that God, fpirits, and body, agreeing in the fame common nature of fubftance, differ not any otherwise, than in a bare different modification of that fubftance; as a tree and a pebble being in the fame fenfe body, and agreeing in the common nature of body, differ only in a bare modification of that common matter which will be a very harsh doctrine. If they fay, that they apply it to God, finite fpirit, and

in three different fignifications; and that it ftands for one idea, when God is faid to be a substance: for another, when the foul is called fubftance; and for a third, when a body is called fo; if the name substance stands for three feveral diftinét ideas, they would do well to make known thofe diftinct ideas, or at least to give three diftinct names to them, to prevent in fo important a notion the confufion and errors that will naturally follow from the promifcuous ufe of fo doubtful a term; which is fo far from being fufpected to have three diftinct, that in ordinary use it has scarce one clear diftinct fignification; and if they can thus

make

make three distinct ideas of fubftance, what hinders why another may not make a fourth?

Substance and acci

dents, of lit tle ufe in philofophy.

§. 19. They who first ran into the notion of accidents, as a fort of real beings that needed fomething to inhere in, were forced to find out the word fubftance to fupport them. Had the poor Indian philofopher (who imagined that the earth alfo wantedfomething to bear it up) but thought of this word fubftance, he needed not to have been at the trouble to find an elephant to fupport it, and a tortoise to support his elephant: the word fubftance would have done it effectually. And he that inquired, might have taken it for as good an anfwer from an Indian philofopher, that fubftance, without knowing what it is, is that which fupports the earth; as we take it for a fufficient anfwer, and good doctrine, from our European philofophers, that fubftance, without knowing what it is, is that which fupports accidents. So that of fubftance, we have no idea of what it is, but only a confufed obfcure one of what it does.

§. 20. Whatever a learned man may do here, an intelligent American, who inquired into the nature of things, would scarce take it for a fatisfactory account, if defiring to learn our architecture, he should be told, that a pillar was a thing fupported by a bafis, and a bafis fomething that fupported a pillar. Would he not think himself mocked, inftead of taught, with fuch an account as this? And a ftranger to them would be very liberally inftructed in the nature of books, and the things they contained, if he fhould be told, that all learned books confifted of paper and letters, and that letters were things inhering in paper, and paper a thing that held forth letters: a notable way of having clear ideas of letters and papers! But were the Latin words inhæ rentia and substantia, put into the plain English ones that answer them, and were called fticking on and under-propping, they would better difcover to us the very great clearness there is in the doctrine of fubftance and accidents, and fhow of what use they are in deciding of questions in philofophy.

§. 21.

A vacuum beyond the

utmoft bounds of

body.

§. 21. But to return to our idea of space. If body be not fuppofed infinite, which I think no one will affirm, I would ask, 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 ftill be space between them without body. If he could not stretch out his hand, it must be because of fome external hindrance; for we fuppofe him alive, with fuch a power of moving the parts of his body that he hath now, which is not in itself impoffible, if God fo pleased to have it; or at leaft 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 least as good, that where nothing hinders (as beyond the utmost bounds of all bodies) a body put in motion may move on; as where there is nothing between, there two bodies muft neceffarily touch; for pure fpace 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 muft either own that they think body infinite, though they are loth to speak it out, or else 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 immensity; they are both finite or infinite alike.

The power of annihilation proves a va-s

$. 22. Farther, thofe who affert the impoffibility of space exifting without matter, muft not only make body infinite, but must alfo deny a power in God to annihilate any part of matter. No one, I fuppofe. will deny that God

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cuum.

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 pleases. Whoever then will allow, that God can, during fuch a general reft, annihilate either this book, or the body of him that reads it, muft neceffarily admit the poffibility of a vacuum; for it is evident, that the fpace 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 ftate make it a perfect impoffibility for any other body to get into that space. 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 fuppofed matter of fact, which experiment can never make out: our own clear and distinct ideas plainly fatisfying us, that there is no neceffary connexion between space 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 distinct ideas of vacuum and plenum, i. e. that they have an idea of extension void of folidity, though they deny its existence: 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, muft talk abfurdly whenever they fpeak of vacuum, fince it is impoffible for extenfion to be without extenfion. For vacuum, whether we affirm or deny its existence, fignifies space without body, whose 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.

Motion

proves a va cuum.

§. 23. But not to go fo far as beyond the utmost bounds of body in the universe, nor appeal to God's omnipotency, to find a vacuum, the motion of bodies that are in our view and neighbourhood feems to me plainly to evince it.

For

For I defire any one fo to divide a folid body, of any dimenfion he pleases, 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 space, 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 mustardfeed, a void space equal to the bulk of a mustard-seed 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 lefs than a mustard-feed; there must also be a space void of folid matter, as big as 100,000,000 part of a muftard-feed; for if it hold in one, it will hold in the other, and so on in infinitum. And let this void space be as little as it will, it deftroys the hypothefis of plenitude.. For if there can be a fpace void of body equal to the fmalleft feparate particle of matter now exifting in nature, it is ftill fpace without body; and makes as great a difference between space and body, as if it were μiya xáoμa, a distance as wide as any in nature. And therefore, if we fuppofe not the void space neceffary to motion equal to the leaft parcel of the divided folid matter,, but to or T of it; the fame confequence will always follow of space without matter.

fpace and bo

The ideas of

dy diftinét

S. 24. But the queftion 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 includ: in it fomething more than the bare idea of fpace, they could have no doubt about the plenitude of the world: and it would be as abfurd to demand, whether there were space without body, as whether there were space without fpace, or body without body, fince these were but different names of the fame idea.

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