I shall not now argue with those men,
who take the measure and possibility of all being only from their
narrow and gross imaginations: but having here to do only with those
who conclude the essence of body to be extension, because they say
they cannot imagine any sensible quality of any body without
extension,- I shall desire them to consider, that, had they
reflected on their ideas of tastes and smells as much as on those of
sight and touch; nay, had they examined their ideas of hunger and
thirst, and several other pains, they would have found that they
included in them no idea of extension at all, which is but an
affection of body, as well as the rest, discoverable by our senses,
which are scarce acute enough to look into the pure essences of
things.
26. Essences of things. If those ideas which are constantly joined
to all others, must therefore be concluded to be the essence of
those things which have constantly those ideas joined to them, and are
inseparable from them; then unity is without doubt the essence of
everything. For there is not any object of sensation or reflection
which does not carry with it the idea of one: but the weakness of this
kind of argument we have already shown sufficiently.
27. Ideas of space and solidity distinct. To conclude: whatever
men shall think concerning the existence of a vacuum, this is plain to
me- that we have as clear an idea of space distinct from solidity,
as we have of solidity distinct from motion, or motion from space.
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