An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2Locke, John
Philosophy
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2
Locke, John
Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800
But not to go so 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 seems to me plainly to
evince it. For I desire any one so to divide a solid body, of any
dimension he pleases, as to make it possible for the solid parts to
move up and down freely every way within the bounds of that
superficies, if there be not left in it a void space as big as the
least part into which he has divided the said solid body. And if, where
the least particle of the body divided is as big as a mustard-seed, a
void space equal to the bulk of a mustard-seed be requisite to make
room for the free motion of the parts of the divided body within the
bounds of its superficies, where the particles of matter are
100,000,000 less than a mustard-seed, there must also be a space void
of solid matter as big as 100,000,000 part of a mustard-seed; for if it
hold in the one it will hold in the other, and so on IN INFINITUM. And
let this void space 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 separate particle of matter now existing in nature, it is
still space without body; and makes as great a difference between space
and body as if it were mega chasma, a distance as wide as any in
nature. And therefore, if we suppose not the void space necessary to
motion equal to the least parcel of the divided solid matter, but to
1/10 or 1/1000 of it, the same consequence will always follow of space
without matter.
24. The Ideas of Space and Body distinct.
But the question being here,—Whether the idea of space or extension be
the same with the idea of body? it is not necessary to prove the real
existence of a VACUUM, but the idea of it; which it is plain men have
when they inquire and dispute 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 something more than the bare idea of space, they could have no
doubt about the plenitude of the world; and it would be as absurd to
demand, whether there were space without body, as whether there were
space without space, or body without body, since these were but
different names of the same idea.
25. Extension being inseparable from Body, proves it not the same.
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