Selections from the Principles of PhilosophyDescartes, René
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
Descartes, René
Philosophy
We likewise discover that there cannot exist any atoms or parts of
matter that are of their own nature indivisible. For however small
we suppose these parts to be, yet because they are necessarily
extended, we are always able in thought to divide any one of them
into two or more smaller parts, and may accordingly admit their
divisibility. For there is nothing we can divide in thought which we
do not thereby recognize to be divisible; and, therefore, were we to
judge it indivisible our judgment would not be in harmony with the
knowledge we have of the thing; and although we should even suppose
that God had reduced any particle of matter to a smallness so
extreme that it did not admit of being further divided, it would
nevertheless be improperly styled indivisible, for though God had
rendered the particle so small that it was not in the power of any
creature to divide it, he could not however deprive himself of the
ability to do so, since it is absolutely impossible for him to
lessen his own omnipotence, as was before observed. Wherefore,
absolutely speaking, the smallest extended particle is always
divisible, since it is such of its very nature.
XXI. It is thus also demonstrated that the extension of the world
is indefinite.
We further discover that this world or the whole (universitas) of
corporeal substance, is extended without limit, for wherever we fix
a limit, we still not only imagine beyond it spaces indefinitely
extended, but perceive these to be truly imaginable, in other words,
to be in reality such as we imagine them; so that they contain in
them corporeal substance indefinitely extended, for, as has been
already shown at length, the idea of extension which we conceive in
any space whatever is plainly identical with the idea of corporeal
substance.
XXII. It also follows that the matter of the heavens and earth is
the same, and that there cannot be a plurality of worlds.
And it may also be easily inferred from all this that the earth and
heavens are made of the same matter; and that even although there
were an infinity of worlds, they would all be composed of this
matter; from which it follows that a plurality of worlds is
impossible, because we clearly conceive that the matter whose nature
consists only in its being an extended substance, already wholly
occupies all the imaginable spaces where these other worlds could
alone be, and we cannot find in ourselves the idea of any other
matter.
XXIII. That all the variety of matter, or the diversity of its
forms, depends on motion.
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