In the fifth objection, you except against the the word _can_, in that I say that bodies are equal which _can_ fill the same place. For the greater body _can_, you say, fill the place of the less, though not reciprocally the less of the greater. It is true, that though the place of the less can never be the place of the greater, yet it may be filled by a part of the greater. But it is not then the greater body that filleth the place of the less, but a part of it, that is to say, a less body. Howsoever, to take away from simple men this straw they stumble at, I have now put the definition of equal bodies into these words: _equal bodies are those whereof every one can fill the place of every other_. And if my definition displease you, propound your own, either of _equal bodies_, or of _equals_ simply. But you have none. Take therefore this of mine. The sixth is a very admirable exception. “What,” say you, “if the same body can sometimes take up a greater, sometimes a lesser place, as by rarefaction and condensation?” I understand very well that bodies may be sometimes thin and sometimes thick, as they chance to stand closer together or further from one another. So in the mathematic schools, when you read your learned lectures, you have a thick or thronging audience of disciples, which in a great church would be but a very thin company. I understand how thick and thin may be attributed to bodies in the plural, as to a company; but I understand not how any one of them is thicker in the school than in the church; or how any one of them taketh up a greater room in the school, when he can get in, than in the street. For I conceive the dimensions of the body, and of the place, whether the place be filled with gold or with air, to be coincident and the same; and consequently both the quantity of the air, and the quantity of the gold, to be severally equal to the quantity of the place; and therefore also, by the first axiom of Euclid, equal to one another; insomuch as if the same air should be by condensation contained in a part of the place it had, the dimensions of it would be the same with the dimensions of part of the place, that is, should be less than they were, and by consequence the quantity less. And then either the same body must be less also, or we must make a difference between greater bodies and bodies of greater quantity; which no man doth that hath not lost his wits by trusting them with absurd teachers. When you receive salary, if the steward give you for every shilling a piece of sixpence, and then say, every shilling is condensed into the room of sixpence, I believe you would like this doctrine of yours much the worse. You see how by your ignorance you confound the affairs of mankind, as far forth as they give credit to your opinions, though it be but little. For nature abhors even empty words, such as are (in the meaning you assign them), _rarefying_ and _condensing_. And you would be as well understood if you