If at the same time we shall make the Mathematiques much more easie and much more accurate, wt can be objected to us(51)? We need not force our imagination to conceive such very small lines for infinitesimals. They may every whit as well be imagin’d big as little, since that the integer must be infinite. Evident that wch has an infinite number of parts must be infinite. We cannot imagine a line or space infinitely great—therefore absurd to talk or make propositions about it. We cannot imagine a line, space, &c., quovis lato majus. Since yt what we imagine must be datum aliquod; a thing can’t be greater than itself. If you call infinite that wch is greater than any assignable by another, then I say, in that sense there may be an infinite square, sphere, or any other figure, wch is absurd. Qu. if extension be resoluble into points it does not consist of? No reasoning about things whereof we have no ideas(52); therefore no reasoning about infinitesimals. No word to be used without an idea. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ (M9) If uneasiness be necessary to set the Will at work, Qu. how shall we will in heaven? Bayle’s, Malbranch’s, &c. arguments do not seem to prove against Space, but onely against Bodies. (M10) I agree in nothing wth the Cartesians as to ye existence of Bodies & Qualities(53). Aristotle as good a man as Euclid, but he was allowed to have been mistaken. Lines not proper for demonstration. (M11) We see the house itself, the church itself; it being an idea and nothing more. The house itself, the church itself, is an idea, i.e. an object—immediate object—of thought(54). Instead of injuring, our doctrine much benefits geometry. (M12) Existence is percipi, or percipere, [or velle, i.e. agere(55)]. The horse is in the stable, the books are in the study as before. (M13) In physiques I have a vast view of things soluble hereby, but have not leisure. (M14) Hyps and such like unaccountable things confirm my doctrine. Angle not well defined. See Pardies’ Geometry, by Harris, &c. This one ground of trifling. (M15) One idea not the cause of another—one power not the cause of another. The cause of all natural things is onely God. Hence trifling to enquire after second causes. This doctrine gives a most suitable idea of the Divinity(56). (M16) Absurd to study astronomy and other the like doctrines as speculative sciences. (M17) The absurd account of memory by the brain, &c. makes for me. How was light created before man? Even so were Bodies created before man(57). (M18) Impossible anything besides that wch thinks and is thought on should exist(58). ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ That wch is visible cannot be made up of invisible things. M.S. is that wherein there are not contain’d distinguishable sensible parts. Now how can that wch hath not sensible parts be divided into sensible parts? If you say it may be divided into insensible parts, I say these are nothings.