Wisdom

If we say Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 16:16:45 +0000
Motion can neither exist nor be perceived without a distance passed over. If, therefore, the distance is nothing, there is no motion. If we say that the body has passed over half of the diameter, or one foot, what does this mean ? If the space is nothing, it can mean nothing.

Autor of the post: Undefined

The former, as we shall Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 16:35:08 +0000
I see no reply which can be made to these argu ments, which are all based on the axiom, that nothing has no properties. 53 However great may be the difficulties opposed to the reality of space, they are not so great as those which are brought against the opinion, which, while granting exten sion to space, still regards it as a pure nothing. The former, as we shall soon see, are produced by certain inaccuracies in our way of conceiving things, rather than by arguments founded on the nature of things; whilst those objections which we have brought against the opinion denying the reality of space, are founded on the ideas which are the basis of all our knowledge, and on this evident proposition : nothing has no properties.

Autor of the post: Undefined

54 IF space is something Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 16:52:52 +0000
If this proposition is not ad mitted as an established axiom, the principle of contradic tion falls, and all human knowledge is destroyed. For, it would be a plain contradiction, if nothing could have any properties or parts; if any thing could be affirmed of noth ing, or could be moved in nothing ; if a science like geome try could be founded upon nothing ; or if all the calcula tions which are made on nature are referred to nothing. 54 IF space is something, what is it ? Here is the diffi culty.

Autor of the post: Undefined

This consequence is una voidable Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 17:05:41 +0000
To overthrow the opinion of our adversaries was easy, but to maintain our position is more difficult. Can we say that space is only the extension of bodies ; that conceived in the abstract it gives us the idea of what we call pure space ; and that the different points and posi tions are mere modifications of extension ? It is easy to see that if space is the extension of bodies, where there is no body there can be no space, and conse quently vacuum is impossible. This consequence is una voidable.

Autor of the post: Undefined

But our object is not Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 17:19:09 +0000
This has been the opinion of celebrated philosophers like Descartes and Leibnitz; but I cannot understand why they both gave the universe an indefinite extension. It is true that by this means they avoid the difficulty of the space which we imagine beyond the limits of the universe ; since, if the universe is not limited, there can be nothing beyond its limits, and therefore, whatever we can imagine, must be within the universe. But our object is not to avoid difficulties, but to solve them ; and it argues nothing for the soundness of our opinion that it escapes difficulties.

Autor of the post: Undefined

Descartes accepts all the consequences Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 17:36:50 +0000
55 According to Descartes, the essence of body is in extension, and as we necessarily conceive extension in space, it follows that space, body, and extension, are three essen tially identical things. Vacuum, as it is generally con ceived, that is, an extension without a body, is then a con tradiction ; for it is a body, because it is extension, and it is not a body, because we suppose that there is no body. Descartes accepts all the consequences of this doctrine.

Autor of the post: Undefined

Nothing, as we have often Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 17:54:30 +0000
He does not admit the supposition that if God should anni hilate all the matter contained in a vessel, this vessel could still retain its form. "We shall observe," he says, "in opposition to this serious error, that there is no necessary connection between the vessel and the body which fills it ; but such is the invincible necessity of the relation between the concave figure of the vessel and the extension contained in this concavity, that it is not more difficult to imagine a moun tain without a valley, than to conceive this concavity with out the extension contained in it, or this extension without a thing extended. Nothing, as we have often said, cannot 3 extended.

Autor of the post: Undefined

It would be a contradic Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:05:46 +0000
Therefore, if any one should ask, what would happen if God should destroy the matter contained in a vessel, without replacing it, we must say that the sides of the vessel would come so closely together as to touch each other. Two bodies must touch each other, when there is nothing between them. It would be a contradic tion to assert that these two bodies were separated; that is to say, that there was a distance between them, if this dis tance were nothing, or did not exist.

Autor of the post: Undefined

Because we cannot imagine Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:17:00 +0000
Distance is a property extension, and cannot exist without extension. If Descartes had gone no farther than to maintain that space, because it contains real distances, cannot be a mere nothing, his reasoning would seem conclusive But when he adds that space is body, because space is exten- sion, and extension constitutes the essence of body, he as serts what he does not prove. Because we cannot imagine or conceive a bod} without extension, it only follows that extension is a property of bodies without which we cannot conceive them, not that it is their essence.

Autor of the post: Undefined

Whence arises the inseparability Post Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:36:32 +0000
To be able to say this, it would be necessary for us to have the idea of body as we have that of extension, in order that we might see if they are iden tical. But all that we know of bodies is derived through the senses ; we are not able to penetrate into their more intimate nature. Whence arises the inseparability of the ideas of body and extension? It arises from the idea which we have of body being a confused idea, since we conceive it to be a substance in certain relations to ourselves, and causing in us the impressions which we call sensations.

Autor of the post: Undefined

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