nd is contrary to the first and
most unprejudiced notions of mankind, is often greedily embraced by
philosophers, as shewing the superiority of their science, which coued
discover opinions so remote from vulgar conception. On the other hand,
anything proposed to us, which causes surprize and admiration, gives
such a satisfaction to the mind, that it indulges itself in those
agreeable emotions, and will never be persuaded that its pleasure is
entirely without foundation. From these dispositions in philosophers and
their disciples arises that mutual complaisance betwixt them; while the
former furnish such plenty of strange and unaccountable opinions, and
the latter so readily believe them. Of this mutual complaisance I
cannot give a more evident instance than in the doctrine of infinite
divisibility, with the examination of which I shall begin this subject
of the ideas of space and time.

It is universally allowed, that the capacity of the mind is limited, and
can never attain a full and adequate conception of infinity: And though
it were not allowed, it would be sufficiently evident from the plainest
observation and experience. It is also obvious, that whatever is capable
of being divided in infinitum, must consist of an infinite number of
parts, and that it is impossible to set any bounds to the number of
parts, without setting bounds at the same time to the division. It
requires scarce any, induction to conclude from hence, that the idea,
which we form of any finite quality, is not infinitely divisible, but
that by proper distinctions and separations we may run up this idea
to inferior ones, which will be perfectly simple and indivisible. In
rejecting the infinite capacity of the mind, we suppose it may arrive at
an end in the division of its ideas; nor are there any possible means of
evading the evidence of this conclusion.

It is therefore certain, that the imagination reaches a minimum, and
may raise up to itself an idea, of which it cannot conceive any
sub-division, and which cannot be diminished without a total
annihilation. When you tell me of the thousandth and ten thousandth
part of a grain of sand, I have a distinct idea of these numbers and of
their different proportions; but the images, which I form in my mind to
represent the things themselves, are nothing different from each other,
nor inferior to that image, by which I represent the grain of sand
itself, which is supposed so vastly to exceed them. What c