It will be sufficient to remark that the perceptions of the senses
are merely to be referred to this intimate union of the human body
and mind, and that they usually make us aware of what, in external
objects, may be useful or adverse to this union, but do not present
to us these objects as they are in themselves, unless occasionally
and by accident. For, after this observation, we will without
difficulty lay aside the prejudices of the senses, and will have
recourse to our understanding alone on this question by reflecting
carefully on the ideas implanted in it by nature.
IV. That the nature of body consists not in weight hardness, colour
and the like, but in extension alone.
In this way we will discern that the nature of matter or body,
considered in general, does not consist in its being hard, or
ponderous, or coloured, or that which affects our senses in any
other way, but simply in its being a substance extended in length,
breadth, and depth. For with respect to hardness, we know nothing of
it by sense farther than that the parts of hard bodies resist the
motion of our hands on coming into contact with them; but if every
time our hands moved towards any part, all the bodies in that place
receded as quickly as our hands approached, we should never feel
hardness; and yet we have no reason to believe that bodies which
might thus recede would on this account lose that which makes them
bodies.
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