XI. How space is not in reality different from corporeal substance.
And indeed it will be easy to discern that it is the same extension
which constitutes the nature of body as of space, and that these two
things are mutually diverse only as the nature of the genus and
species differs from that of the individual, provided we reflect on
the idea we have of any body, taking a stone for example, and reject
all that is not essential to the nature of body. In the first place,
then, hardness may be rejected, because if the stone were liquefied
or reduced to powder, it would no longer possess hardness, and yet
would not cease to be a body; colour also may be thrown out of
account, because we have frequently seen stones so transparent as to
have no colour; again, we may reject weight, because we have the
case of fire, which, though very light, is still a body; and,
finally, we may reject cold, heat, and all the other qualities of
this sort, either because they are not considered as in the stone,
or because, with the change of these qualities, the stone is not
supposed to have lost the nature of body.
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