The necessity of
such a motion is built only on the supposition that the world is full;
but not on the distinct ideas of space and solidity, which are as
different as resistance and not resistance, protrusion and not
protrusion. And that men have ideas of space without a body, their
very disputes about a vacuum plainly demonstrate, as is shown in
another place.
4. From hardness. Solidity is hereby also differenced from hardness,
in that solidity consists in repletion, and so an utter exclusion of
other bodies out of the space it possesses: but hardness, in a firm
cohesion of the parts of matter, making up masses of a sensible
bulk, so that the whole does not easily change its figure. And indeed,
hard and soft are names that we give to things only in relation to the
constitutions of our own bodies; that being generally called hard by
us, which will put us to pain sooner than change figure by the
pressure of any part of our bodies; and that, on the contrary, soft,
which changes the situation of its parts upon an easy and unpainful
touch.
But this difficulty of changing the situation of the sensible
parts amongst themselves, or of the figure of the whole, gives no more
solidity to the hardest body in the world than to the softest; nor
is an adamant one jot more solid than water. For, though the two
flat sides of two pieces of marble will more easily approach each
other, between which there is nothing but water or air, than if
there be a diamond between them; yet it is not that the parts of the
diamond are more solid than those of water, or resist more; but
because the parts of water, being more easily separable from each
other, they will, by a side motion, be more easily removed, and give
way to the approach of the two pieces of marble.
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