Darkness is not space. It is just the Negation of Light

The Idea of Space is Just Made Up of Points

The second part of my system is that the idea of space is just the idea of visible or tangible points distributed in a certain order.

It follows that we cannot form an idea of a vacuum or space where there is nothing visible or tangible.

This creates 3 objections:

1. For many ages, men have disputed a vacuum [void] and a plenum [a space filled with matter], inconclusively.

The very dispute is decisive on the idea.

It is impossible men could so long reason about a vacuum and refute or defend it, without knowing what they refuted or defended.

2. The reality or possibility of the idea of a vacuum [void] is proven by the following reasoning.

Every idea is possible.

The world is currently a plenum.

But we can easily conceive it to be deprived of motion.

We can easily conceive an omnipotent deity destroying any part of matter while the other parts remain at rest since:

• every idea that is distinguishable is separable by the imagination, and
• every idea that is separable by the imagination can exist separately.

The existence of one particle does not imply the existence of another particle.

If the Deity Destroyed Matter, How Will the Universe React?

So what happens when the ideas of rest and annihilation are combined?

What follows the annihilation of the air and subtle matter in the room, if the walls remained the same?

Some metaphysicians answer that since matter and space are the same, the annihilation of the contents of the room makes the walls of the room collapse into each other and touch each other.

• They would touch each other because there would be no distance between them.

But I defy these metaphysicians to:

• conceive the matter according to their hypothesis, or
• imagine the room’s floor, roof, and walls, to touch each other.

If you change their position, then you suppose a motion.

But as we stay strictly with annihilation and no motion, the result would be a vacuum and not a contact of parts.

3. The idea of a vacuum [void] is real and possible, necessary and unavoidable.

This is based on the motion of bodies which would be impossible without a vacuum [void], into which one body must move to make way for another.

I shall not enlarge on this objection because it belongs to natural philosophy.

Darkness is Not the Same as Vacuum, Since a Vacuum [Void] is Absolute Nothingness

The idea of darkness is not a positive idea.

• It is merely the negation of light or coloured and visible objects.

A man born blind has no idea of light or darkness.

This means that

• we get the impression of a vacuum not from the mere removal of visible objects
• the idea of utter darkness is not the same as the idea of vacuum.

All visible bodies appear as if they were painted on a plain surface.

• This makes their distance to us appear uniform.
• This distance is discovered more by reason than by our senses.

When I hold up an object to the sky, it is surrounded by the blue sky just as well as it could be surrounded by other visible objects.

Can sight convey the impression and the idea of a vacuum?

Assume there are luminous bodies in the darkness.

• Their light shows only these bodies themselves.

This is the same for physical tactile objects.

• We cannot suppose a total removal of all tactile objects.
• We touch an object and then touch another and so on.

Do these intervals afford us the idea of space without body?

When only 2 luminous bodies appear, we can perceive whether they are:

• conjoined or separate, and
• separated by a great or small distance.

If this distance varies, we can perceive its increase or decrease with the motion of the bodies.

But the distance in this case is not anything coloured or visible.

• So people think that here is a vacuum [void] or pure space

This is corrected by a little reflection.

When 2 bodies present themselves out of an entire darkness, the only discoverable change is in the appearance of these 2 objects and the distance between them.

This distance is nothing but darkness or the negation of light.

• It has no parts nor composition.
• It is invariable and indivisible.

So it shares the properties of darkness.

Blindness and darkness afford us no ideas of space [since they are merely the negation of light].

The sole difference between an absolute darkness and the appearance of two or more luminous objects is in the:

• objects themselves, and
• how they affect our senses.