For,
it is evident that the space that was filled by the parts of the
annihilated body will still remain, and be a space without body. For
the circumambient bodies being in perfect rest, are a wall of adamant,
and in that state make it a perfect impossibility for any other body
to get into that space. And indeed the necessary motion of one
particle of matter into the place from whence another particle of
matter is removed, is but a consequence from the supposition of
plenitude; which will therefore need some better proof than a supposed
matter of fact, which experiment can never make out;- our own clear
and distinct ideas plainly satisfying us, that there is no necessary
connexion between space and solidity, since we can conceive the one
without the other. And those who dispute for or against a vacuum, do
thereby confess they have distinct ideas of vacuum and plenum, i.e.
that they have an idea of extension void of solidity, though they deny
its existence; or else they dispute about nothing at all. For they who
so much alter the signification of words, as to call extension body,
and consequently make the whole essence of body to be nothing but pure
extension without solidity, must talk absurdly whenever they speak
of vacuum; since it is impossible for extension to be without
extension. For vacuum, whether we affirm or deny its existence,
signifies space without body; whose very existence no one can deny
to be possible, who will not make matter infinite, and take from God a
power to annihilate any particle of it.
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