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CHAPTER III.

OF MATTER AND SPACE.

375. OF MATTER. We give the names of matter, material, substance, body, to the subject of sensible qualities or properties.

Illus. I perceive in a billiard ball, figure, color, and motion; but the ball is not figure, nor is it color, nor motion, nor all these taken together; it is something that has figure, and color, and motion. (Illus. Art. 182.) This is a dictate of nature, and the belief of all mankind. The essence of body is unknown to us; but we have the information of nature for the existence of those properties in matter which our senses discover.

376. The belief that figure, motion, and color, are qualities, and require a subject, must either be a judgment of nature, or it must be discovered by reason, or it must be a prejudice that has no just foundation.

Corol. 1. But extension must be in something extended, motion in something moved, color in something colored; and in the structure of all languages, we find adjective nouns used to express sensible qualities; but it is well known that every adjective in language must belong to some substantive, expressed or understood; that is, every quality must belong to some subject: therefore, our opinion, or belief, that the things immediately perceived by our senses, are qualities which must belong to a subject, is an immediate judgment of nature, not discoverable by reason, nor instilled as a prejudice that has no just foundation; and all the information our senses give us about this subject, is, that it is that to which such qualities belong.

2. From this it is evident, that our notion of body or matter, as distinguished from its qualities, is a relative notion. (Art. 365. Obs.)

Obs. The relation which sensible qualities bear to their subject, that is, to body, may be distinguished from all other relations. Thus, you can distinguish it from the relation of an effect to its cause (Art. 14.); of a means to its end (Art. 337. Corol.); or of a sign to the thing signified (Art. 374).

377. Some of the determinations, however, which we form concerning matter, cannot be deduced solely from the testimony of sense, but must be referred to some other source.

Illus. There seems to be nothing more evident, than that bodies must consist of parts, and that every part of a body is a body, and a distinct something which may exist without the other parts; and yet I apprehend this conclusion is not deducible solely from the testimony of sense. For, besides that it is a necessary truth, and therefore no object of sense, there is a limit beyond which we cannot perceive any

division of a body. The parts become too small to be perceived by our senses; but we cannot believe that it becomes then incapable of being further divided, or that such division would make it not to be a body.

378. We carry on the division and subdivision in our thoughts, far beyond the reach of our senses, and we can find no limit to it; nay, we plainly discern that there can be no limit beyond which the division cannot be carried.

Illus. For, if there be any limit to this division, one of two things must necessarily happen; either we shall come by division to a body which is extended, but has no parts, and is absolutely indivisible; or this body is divisible, but as soon as it is divided, it becomes no body. Both of these positions seem to be absurd, and one or the other is the necessary consequence of supposing a limit to the divisibility

of matter.

379. On the other hand, if it is admitted, that the divisibility of matter has no limit, it will follow, that no body can be called an individual substance; you may as well call it two, or twenty, or two hundred.

Corol. For where it is divided into parts, every part is a body or substance, distinct from all the other parts, and was so even before the division. Any one part, therefore, may continue to exist, though all the other parts were annihilated.

380. There are other determinations concerning matter, which, we apprehend, are not solely founded upon the testimony of sense.

Illus. These determinations are, that it is impossible that two bodies should occupy the same place at the same time; that the same body should be in different places at the same time; that a body can be moved from one place to another without passing through the intermediate places either in a straight course, or by some circuit.

Corol. These appear to be necessary truths, and therefore cannot be conclusions of our senses; for our senses testify only what is, not what must necessarily be.

381. OF SPACE. Though space be not perceived by any of our senses, when all matter is removed; yet, when we perceive any of the primary qualities, space presents itself as a necessary concomitant; for there can neither be extension, nor motion, nor figure, nor divisibility, nor cohesion of parts, without space.

382. There are only two of our senses, touch and sight, by which the notion of space enters into the mind.

Illus. A man without either of these senses can have no conception of space. And supposing him to have both, until he sees or feels other objects, he can have no notion of space; for it has neither color nor figure to make it an object of sight; and it is no tangible

quality, to make it an object of touch. But other objects of sight and touch carry the notion of space along with them, and not the notion only, but the belief of it; for a body could not exist, if there was no space to contain it; nor could it move, if there was no space; and its situation, its distance, and every relation which it has to other bodies, supposes space.

383. But though the notion of space seems not to enter at first into the mind, until it is introduced by the proper objects of sense, yet being once introduced, it remains in our conception and belief, though the objects, which introduced it be removed.

Illus. We see no absurdity in supposing a body to be annihilated, but the space that contained it remains; and to suppose that annihilated, seems to be absurd. It is so much allied to nothing, or emptiness, that it seems incapable of annihilation or of creation.

384. Space not only retains a firm hold of our belief, even when we suppose all the objects that introduced it to be annihilated, but it swells to immensity. We can set no limits, either of extent or duration, to its profundity and immutability.

Corol. Hence we call it immense, eternal, immovable, and indestructible. But it is only an immense, eternal, immovable, and indestructible void or emptiness.

Obs. The student will here observe, that this language, though popular, is sufficiently definite, as is also our reference to the aeriform elastic fluid, that fills all space.

385. When we consider parts of space that have measure and figure, there is nothing we understand better, nothing about which we can reason so clearly and to so great an

extent.

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Illus. Extension and figure are circumscribed parts of space, are the objects of Geometry, a science in which human reason has the most ample field, and can go deeper, and with more certainty, than in any other. But when we attempt to comprehend the whole of space, and to trace it to its origin, we lose ourselves in the search.

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386. The philosophers tell us, that our sight, unaided by touch, gives a very partial notion of space, but yet a distinct This partial notion they call visible space. The sense of touch, say they, too, gives a much more complete notion of space; and when it is considered according to this notion, they call it tangible space.

Obs. Visible figure, extension, and space, may be made the subjects of mathematical speculation, as well as the tangible. In the visible, we find two dimensions only; in the tangible, three; in the one, mag nitude is measured by angles; in the other, by lines.

Corol. Every part of visible space bears some proportion to the whole; but tangible space being immense, any part of it bears no proportion to the whole. (See Dr. Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Mind, Essay II. Chap. XIX.)

CHAPTER IV.

OF DURATION, EXTENSION, AND NUMBER.

387. IN the Illustration of Article 244, it was shown that Memory implies a conception and belief of past DURATION; for it is impossible that we should remember any thing distinctly, without believing some interval of Duration, more or less, to have passed between the time that it happened and the present moment; and, if we had no Memory, we could acquire no notion of Duration.

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388. Duration, extension, and number, are the measures of all things subject to mensuration. When we apply them to finite things, which are measured by them, they seem of all things to be the most distinctly conceived, and most within the reach of the human understanding.

Illus. 1. Extension, having three dimensions, has an endless variety of modifications, capable of being accurately defined; and their various relations furnish the human mind with its most ample field of demonstrative reasoning.

2. Duration, having only one dimension, has fewer modifications; but these are clearly understood; and their relations admit of measure, proportion, and demonstrative reasoning.

3. Number is called decrete quantity, because it is compounded of units, which are all equal and similar, and it can only be divided into units.

4. Duration and extension are not decrete, but continued quantity. They consist of parts perfectly similar, but divisible without end. (See Art. 237. Illus. 1.)

389. In order to assist our conception of the magnitude and proportions of the various intervals of Duration, we find it necessary to give a name to some known portion of it, such as an hour, a day, a year.

Illus. These intervals we consider as units; and, by the number of them continued in a larger interval, we form a distinct conception of its magnitude. A similar expedient we find necessary, to give us a distinct conception of the magnitudes and proportions of things extended. Thus, number is found necessary as a common measure of extension and duration.

390. Some parts of Duration have, to other parts of it, the relations of prior and posterior; and to the present, they have the relations of past and future.

Illus. 1. The notion of past is immediately suggested by Memory, as has been shown above (Art. 387.); and when we have apprehended the notions of present and past, and of prior and posterior, we can, from these, frame a notion of the future; for the future is that which is posterior to the present. Hence, we say of the past, former, that is, prior time; and as we cannot give the name of posterior to the present, we must assign that term to the future. (See Art. 237. Mus. 2. and Example 1.)

2. Nearness and distance are relations equally applicable to time and place. But distance in time, and distance in place, are things so different in their nature, and so like in their relation, that it is difficult to determine, whether the name of distance is applied to both in the same sense, or in an analogical sense. (See Illus. 3. and Corol. Art. 237.)

391. The Extension of bodies, which we perceive by our senses, leads us necessarily to the conception and belief of a space, which remains immovable when the body is removed. And the Duration of events which we remember, leads us necessarily to the conception and belief of a Duration, which would have gone on uniformly, though the event had never happened. (See Art. 243. Illus.)

Obs. Thus, this present month of November (1818) would have passed away, though no remarkable event had happened in it ; but the death of the QUEEN will make it to be long remembered.

392. Without space there can be nothing that is extended; and without time, there can be nothing that hath Duration. This is undeniable; and yet we find that Extension and Duration are not more clear and intelligible, than space and time are dark and difficult objects of contemplation.

Corol. As there must be space wherever any thing extended does exist or can exist; and time, when there is or can be any thing that has Duration; we can set no bounds to either, even in our Imagination. They bid stern defiance to all limitation. Pursue them in conception, you plunge with the one into immensity, and with the other, into eternity!

393. An eternity past is an object which we cannot comprehend; but a beginning of time, unless we take it in a figurative sense, is a contradiction.

Illus. By a common figure of speech, we give the name of time to those motions and revolutions, by which we measure it; such as, days and years. (Art. 389.) We can conceive a beginning of these sensible measures of time, and say that there was a time when they were nota time undistinguished by any motion or change; but to say that there was a time before all time, is a contradiction.

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