Space

¹⁵ How external place is rightly taken for the surfaces of the surrounding body.

Thus we never distinguish space from length, width, and height.

We sometimes, however, consider place as in the thing placed and at other times as out of it.

Internal place differs in no way from space.

But external place may be taken for the surfaces that immediately surrounds the thing placed.

‘Surfaces’ here does not mean any part of the surrounding body, but only the boundary between the surrounding and surrounded bodies, which is nothing more than a mode.

At least, ‘surfaces’ in general make no part of one body or another body, but is always considered the same, provided it retains the same magnitude and figure.

If all of a body’s surfaces were changed, it does not mean that its body had changed its place if it stayed in the same location.

A boat is carried in one direction by the current of a stream. It is impelled by the wind in the opposite with an equal force, its location with respect to the banks is not changed.*

*Superphysics Note: One force is Yang or positive. Another force is Yin or Negative. Their interaction creates a ‘surface’ which seems static even if both forces are very dynamic.

We will readily admit that it remains in the same place even if the whole ‘surface’ which surrounds it is incessantly changing.

¹⁶ A vacuum or space in which there is absolutely no body is repugnant to reason.

The philosophical vacuum is a space where there is no substance. It does not exist since the extension of space or internal place is not different from that of body.

Since a body has extension in length, width, and height, it follows that it is a substance.

It is absolutely contradictory that nothing should possess extension. And so we should form a similar inference regarding the space which is supposed void, viz., that since there is extension in it there is necessarily also substance.

¹⁷ A vacuum in the ordinary use of the term does not exclude all body.

The common ‘vacuum’ does not mean a place or space in which there is absolutely nothing.

It means a place in which there is none of those things we presume ought to be there.

A pitcher is made to hold water.

• It is said to be empty when it is merely filled with air.

A fish-pond is meant to hold fish.

• It has nothing if there are no fish in it although it is full of water.

Thus, a vessel is said to be empty when, in place of the merchandise which it was designed to carry, it is loaded with sand only, to enable it to resist the violence of the wind.

Finally, it is in the same sense that we say space is void when it contains nothing sensible, although it contain created and self-subsisting matter. For we are not in the habit of considering the bodies near us, unless in so far as they cause in our organs of sense, impressions strong enough to enable us to perceive them.

We are wrong to say that a pitcher that only has air is empty, because it makes us regard air as not being a substance (RES SUBSISTENS).

In the same way, we are wrong if we say that a common vacuum has nothing, or is empty.

¹⁸ How the prejudice of an absolute vacuum is to be corrected.

We have almost all fallen into this error from the earliest age.

We observe that there is no necessary connection between a vessel and the body it contains. This makes us think that God at least could take from a vessel the body which occupied it, without it being necessary that any other should be put in the place of the one removed.

There is in truth no connection between the vessel and the particular body which it contains.

But there is an absolutely necessary connection between the concave figure of the vessel and the extension considered generally which must be comprised in this cavity.

So that it is not more contradictory to conceive a mountain without a valley than such a cavity without the extension it contains, or this extension apart from an extended substance, for, as we have often said, of nothing there can be no extension.

Accordingly, if God removed from a vessel all the body contained in it, without permitting another body to occupy its place, then the sides of the vessel would thus come into proximity with each other.

For two bodies must touch each other when there is nothing between them. It is contradictory for two bodies to be apart, in other words, that there should be a distance between them, and this distance yet be nothing. For all distance is a mode of extension, and cannot therefore exist without an extended substance.

¹⁹ This confirms what was said of Rarefaction.

The nature of corporeal substance consists only in its being an extended thing.

Its extension is not different from that which we attribute to space, however empty.

It is impossibile for any one of its parts in any way to occupy more space at one time than at another, and thus of being otherwise rarefied than in the way explained above.

There cannot be more matter or body in a vessel when it is filled with lead or gold, or any other body however heavy and hard, than when it but contains air and is supposed to be empty. For the quantity of the parts of which a body is composed does not depend on their weight or hardness, but only on the extension, which is always equal in the same vase.

²⁰ From this, the non-existence of indivisible atoms may likewise be demonstrated.

This means that there cannot exist any atoms or parts of matter that are of their own nature indivisible.

For however small we suppose these parts to be, yet because they are necessarily extended, we are always able in thought to divide any one of them into two or more smaller parts, and may accordingly admit their divisibility.

For there is nothing we can divide in thought which we do not thereby recognize to be divisible; and, therefore, were we to judge it indivisible our judgment would not be in harmony with the knowledge we have of the thing.

We suppose that God had reduced any particle of matter to extreme smallness that it did not admit of being further divided.

• But it should not be called ‘indivisible’
• Any creature might be unable to divide it, but God can.

Thus, absolutely speaking, the smallest extended particle is always divisible, since it is such of its very nature.