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§ 17. Subftance which we know not, no Proof againft Space without Body.

If it be demanded (as ufually it is), whether this space, void of body, be fubflance or accident, I fhall readily anfwer, I know not, nor fhall be ashamed to own my ignorance till they that afk fhow me a clear diftin&t idea of fubftance.

$18.

I ENDEAVOUR as much as I can to deliver myfelf from thofe 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 fignifica tions. Names made at pleasure neither alter the nature of things, nor make us understand them, but as they are figns of, and ftand for determined ideas. And I defire those who lay fo much stress on the found of these two fyllables, fubftance, to confider, whether applying it, as they do, to the infinite incomprehenfible GOD, to finite spirit, and to body, it be in the fame fenfe, and whether it ftands for the fame idea when each of thofe three fo different beings are called fubftances; if fo, whether it will not thence follow that God, fpirits, and body, agreeing in the fame common nature of subftance, differ any otherwife 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 harih doctrine. If they fay that they apply it to God, finite fpirits, and matter, in three different fignifications, and that it ftands for one idea when GOD is faid to be

a fubftance, for another when the foul is called fubftance, and for a third when a body is called fo; if the name fubftance ftands for three feveral diftinct ideas, they would do well to make known those diftinct ideas, or at leaft 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 use of so doubtful a term, which is fo far from being

suspected to have three distinct, that in ordinary use it has fcarce any one clear distinct fignification: And if they can thus make three distinct ideas of fubftance, what hinders why another may not make a fourth?

$ 19. Subftance and Accidents of little Ufe in Philofophy. THEY who firft 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 support them. Had the poor Indian philofopher (who imagined that the earth alfo wanted fomething 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 tortoife to fupport his elephant; the word fubftance would have done it effectually; and he that inquired might have taken it for as good an answer from an Indian philofopher, that fubftance, without knowing what it is, is that which supports the earth, as we take it for a sufficient anfwer and good doctrine from our European philofophers, that fubflance, 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 fhould be told, that a pillar was a thing supported by a bafis, and a bafis fomething that fupported a pillar. Would he not think himfelf mocked, instead of taught, with fuch an account as this? And a stranger to them would be very liberally inftructed in the nature of books, and the things they contained, if he should be told, that all learned books confifted of paper and letter, 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 paper: But were the Latin words inhærentia and fubftan-. tia put into the plain English ones that answer them, and were called flicking on and underpropping, they would better difcover to us the very great clearness.

Book II. there is in the doctrine of fubftance and accidents, and show of what use 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 fuppofed 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 stretch 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 becaufe 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 itself impoffible, if GOD fo pleafed to have it, or at least it is not impoffible for God fo to move him); and then I ask, Whether that which hinders his hand from moving outwards be substance or accident, something 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 into motion may move on; as where there is nothing between, there two bodies muft 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 stop motion. The truth is, these men must 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 fpace 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 immenfity; they are both finite or infinite alike.

§ 22. The Power of Annihilation proves a Vacuum. FARTHER, those 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 universe 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, 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 rest, 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 supposed 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 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 diftinct ideas of vacuum and plenum, i. e. that they have an idea of extension void of folidity, though they deny its exiftence, or else they dispute 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 speak of vacuum, fince it is impoffible for extenfion to be without extenfion; for vacuum, whether we affirm or deny its existence, 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 fo far as beyond the utmost bounds of body in the universe, nor appeal to God's omnipoten

Book II. 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 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 fpace as big as the leaft part into which he has divided the faid folid body, and if where the leaft particle of the body divided is as big as a mustard-feed, a void fpace equal to the bulk of a mustard-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 lefs than a mustard-feed, there muft alfo be a fpace 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 fo 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 space 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 μέγα χάσμα, a diftance 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 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 queftion about its existence; and if their idea of body did not include in it fomething 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

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