The loss of the excuse(250) may hurt Transubstantiation, but not the Trinity. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ We need not strain our imaginations to conceive such little things. Bigger may do as well for infinitesimals, since the integer must be an infinite. Evident yt wch has an infinite number of parts must be infinite. Qu. Whether extension be resoluble into points it does not consist of? Nor can it be objected that we reason about numbers, wch are only words & not ideas(251); for these infinitesimals are words of no use, if not supposed to stand for ideas. Axiom. No reasoning about things whereof we have no idea. Therefore no reasoning about infinitesimals. Much less infinitesimals of infinitesimals, &c. Axiom. No word to be used without an idea. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ (M420) Our eyes and senses inform us not of the existence of matter or ideas existing without the mind(252). They are not to be blam’d for the mistake. I defy any man to assign a right line equal to a paraboloid, but wn look’d at thro’ a microscope they may appear unequall. (M421) Newton’s harangue amounts to no more than that gravity is proportional to gravity. One can’t imagine an extended thing without colour. V. Barrow, L. G. (M422) Men allow colours, sounds, &c.(253) not to exist without the mind, tho’ they have no demonstration they do not. Why may they not allow my Principle with a demonstration? (M423) Qu. Whether I had not better allow colours to exist without the mind; taking the mind for the active thing wch I call “I,” “myself”—yt seems to be distinct from the understanding(254)? (M424) The taking extension to be distinct from all other tangible & visible qualities, & to make an idea by itself, has made men take it to be without the mind. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ I see no wit in any of them but Newton. The rest are meer triflers, mere Nihilarians. The folly of the mathematicians in not judging of sensations by their senses. Reason was given us for nobler uses. (M425) Keill’s filling the world with a mite(255). This follows from the divisibility of extension _ad infinitum_. Extension, or length without breadth, seems to be nothing save the number of points that lie betwixt any 2 points(256). It seems to consist in meer proportion—meer reference of the mind. To what purpose is it to determine the forms of glasses geometrically? Sir Isaac(257) owns his book could have been demonstrated on the supposition of indivisibles. (M426) Innumerable vessels of matter. V. Cheyne. I’ll not admire the mathematicians. ’Tis wt any one of common sense might attain to by repeated acts. I prove it by experience. I am but one of human sense, and I &c. Mathematicians have some of them good parts—the more is the pity. Had they not been mathematicians they had been good for nothing. They were such fools they knew not how to employ their parts.