Extension,
Solidity,
Mobility, or the power of being moved; which by our senses we
receive from body:
Perceptivity, or the power of perception, or thinking;
Motivity, or the power of moving: which by reflection we receive
from our minds.
I crave leave to make use of these two new words, to avoid the
danger of being mistaken in the use of those which are equivocal.
To which if we add
Existence,
Duration,
Number,
which belong both to the one and the other, we have, perhaps, all
the original ideas on which the rest depend. For by these, I
imagine, might be explained the nature of colours, sounds, tastes,
smells, and all other ideas we have, if we had but faculties acute
enough to perceive the severally modified extensions and motions of
these minute bodies, which produce those several sensations in us. But
my present purpose being only to inquire into the knowledge the mind
has of things, by those ideas and appearances which God has fitted
it to receive from them, and how the mind comes by that knowledge;
rather than into their causes or manner of production, I shall not,
contrary to the design of this Essay, set myself to inquire
philosophically into the peculiar constitution of bodies, and the
configuration of parts, whereby they have the power to produce in us
the ideas of their sensible qualities.
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