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

Substance

which we

know not, no

proof against fpace with out body..

§. 18. I endeavour, as much as I can, to deliver myfelf from thofe fallacies which we are apt to put upon ourfelves, 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 stand for determined ideas. And I defire thofe who lay fo 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 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 harth doctrine. If they fay, that they apply it to God, finite fpirit, and matter, in three different fignifications; and that it stands 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 subftance ftands for three feveral diftinct 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 doubtfulea 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 diftinct ideas of substance, what hinders why another may not make a fourth?

Substance and acci

S. 19. They who firft ran into the notion of accidents, as a fort of real beings dents, of lit that needed fomething to inhere in, were tle ufe in phi- forced to find out the word fubftance to lofophy. fupport 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 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 answer from an Indian philofopher, that substance, without knowing what it is, is that which fupports the earth; as we take it for a fufficient answer, 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 confused 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 fcarce 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 such 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 inhærentia and fubftantia, 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 fpace. 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 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 ftretch 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 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 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 must either own that they think body infinite, though they are loth to speak it out, or elfe affirm that fpace 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

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

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 pleafes. Whoever then will allow, that God can, during fuch a ge-neral 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 diftinct ideas plainly fatisfying us, that there is no neceffary connexion between fpace 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 extenfion void of folidity, though they deny its exiftence: or clfe 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 exiftence, fignifics 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

Cuum.

S. 23. But not to go fo far as beyond proves a va- 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 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 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 fo on in infinitum. And let this void fpace 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 still space without body; and makes as great a difference between fpace and body, as if it were μéya xécμa, a distance as wide as any in nature.. And therefore, if we fuppofe not the void fpace neceffary to motion equal to the leaft parcel of the divided folid matter, but toor of it; the fame confequence will always follow of space without matter.

fpace and bo dy diftinct.

The ideas of

$24. But the queftion being here, "whether the idea of fpace or extenfion be "the fame with the idea of body," it is not neceffary to prove the real exiftence 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 exiftence and if their idea of body did not include 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 fpace without fpace, or body without body, fince these were but different names of the fame idea.

§. 25.