The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 07 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
You add further, that by my definition of _figure_, a solid sphere, and
a sphere made hollow within, is the same figure; but you say not why,
nor can you derive any such thing from my definition. That which
deceived your shallowness, is, that you take those points that are in
the concave superficies of a hollowed sphere, not to be contiguous to
anything without it, because that whole concave superficies is within
the whole sphere. Lastly, for the fault you find with the definition of
_like figures in like positions_, I confess there wants the same word
which was wanting in the definition of parallels; namely, _ad easdem
partes_ (_the same way_) which should have been added in the end of the
definition of like figures, &c., and may easily be supplied by any
student of geometry, that is not otherwise a fool.
At the fifteenth chapter, art. 1, number 6, you object as a
contradiction, that _I make motion to be the measure of time; and yet,
in other places, do usually measure motion and the affections thereof by
time_. If your thoughts were your own, and not taken rashly out of
books, you could not but, (with all men else that see time measured by
clocks, dials, hour-glasses, and the like), have conceived sufficiently,
that there cannot be of time any other measure besides motion; and that
the most universal measure of motion, is a line described by some other
motion; which line being once exposed to sense, and the motion whereby
it was described sufficiently explicated, will serve to measure all
other motions and their time: for time and motion (time being but the
mental image or remembrance of the motion) have but one and the same
dimension, which is a line. But you, that would have me measure
_swiftness_ and _slowness_ by longer and shorter motion, what do you
mean by _longer_ and _shorter motion_? Is _longer_ and _shorter_ in the
motion, or in the duration of the motion, which is time? Or is the
motion, or the duration of the motion, that which is exposed, or
designed by a line? Geometricians say often, _let the line A B be the
time_; but never say, _let the line A B be the motion_. There is no
unlearned man that understandeth not what is time, and motion, and
measure; and yet you, that undertake to teach it (most egregious
professors) understand it not.
At the second article you bring another argument (which it seems in its
proper place you had forgotten), to prove that a point is not quantity
not considered, but absolutely nothing; which is this, _That if a point
be not nothing, then the whole is greater than its two halves_. How does
that follow? Is it impossible when a line is divided into two halves,
that the middle point should be divided into two halves also, being
quantity?