Let a cannon-bullet pass through a room,
and in its way take with it any limb, or fleshy parts of a man, it
is as clear as any demonstration can be, that it must strike
successively the two sides of the room: it is also evident that it
must touch one part of the flesh first, and another after, and so in
succession: and yet, I believe, nobody who ever felt the pain of
such a shot, or heard the blow against the two distant walls, could
perceive any succession either in the pain or sound of so swift a
stroke. Such a part of duration as this, wherein we perceive no
succession, is that which we call an instant, and is that which
takes up the time of only one idea in our minds, without the
succession of another; wherein, therefore, we perceive no succession
at all.
11. In slow motions. This also happens where the motion is so slow
as not to supply a constant train of fresh ideas to the senses, as
fast as the mind is capable of receiving new ones into it; and so
other ideas of our own thoughts, having room to come into our minds
between those offered to our senses by the moving body, there the
sense of motion is lost; and the body, though it really moves, yet,
not changing perceivable distance with some other bodies as fast as
the ideas of our own minds do naturally follow one another in train,
the thing seems to stand still; as is evident in the hands of
clocks, and shadows of sun-dials, and other constant but slow motions,
where, though, after certain intervals, we perceive, by the change
of distance, that it hath moved, yet the motion itself we perceive
not.
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