For division (which
is all that a mill, or pestle, or any other body, does upon another,
in reducing it to insensible parts) can never take away either
solidity, extension, figure, or mobility from any body, but only makes
two or more distinct separate masses of matter, of that which was
but one before; all which distinct masses, reckoned as so many
distinct bodies, after division, make a certain number. These I call
original or primary qualities of body, which I think we may observe to
produce simple ideas in us, viz. solidity, extension, figure, motion
or rest, and number.
10. Secondary qualities of bodies. Secondly, such qualities which in
truth are nothing in the objects themselves but power to produce
various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e. by the bulk,
figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colours,
sounds, tastes, &c. These I call secondary qualities. To these might
be added a third sort, which are allowed to be barely powers; though
they are as much real qualities in the subject as those which I, to
comply with the common way of speaking, call qualities, but for
distinction, secondary qualities. For the power in fire to produce a
new colour, or consistency, in wax or clay,- by its primary qualities,
is as much a quality in fire, as the power it has to produce in me a
new idea or sensation of warmth or burning, which I felt not
before,- by the same primary qualities, viz.
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