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
To conclude: whatever men shall think concerning the existence of a
VACUUM, this is plain to me—that we have as clear an idea of space
distinct from solidity, as we have of solidity distinct from motion, or
motion from space. We have not any two more distinct ideas; and we can
as easily conceive space without solidity, as we can conceive body or
space without motion, though it be never so certain that neither body
nor motion can exist without space. But whether any one will take space
to be only a RELATION resulting from the existence of other beings at a
distance; 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 inspired philosopher St. Paul, ‘In
him we live, move, and have our being,’ are to be understood in a
literal sense, I leave every one to consider: only our idea of space
is, I think, such as I have mentioned, and distinct from that of body.
For, whether we consider, in matter itself, the distance of its
coherent solid parts, and call it, in respect of those solid parts,
extension; or whether, considering it as lying between the extremities
of any body in its several dimensions, we call it length, breadth, and
thickness; or else, considering it as lying between any two bodies or
positive beings, without any consideration whether there be any matter
or not between, we call it distance;—however named or considered, it is
always the same uniform simple idea of space, taken from objects about
which our senses have been conversant; whereof, having settled ideas in
our minds, we can revive, repeat, and add them one to another as often
as we will, and consider the space or distance so imagined, either as
filled with solid parts, so that another body cannot come there without
displacing and thrusting out the body that was there before; or else as
void of solidity, so that a body of equal dimensions to that empty or
pure space may be placed in it, without the removing or expulsion of
anything that was there.
28. Men differ little in clear, simple ideas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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