ly prosecuted his original
design?

At the stage which we are supposing him to have reached, very little
remained to complete the work. Around man, around every individual man,
or other conscious intelligence, as its centre, is ranged infinitely
extended space, filled with, or, as it were, composed of various kinds
of matter, every kind and every separate portion of which is endowed
with special qualities capable of communicating corresponding sensations
to the central intelligence. So far all that can be predicated of any
material object or portion of matter is that it is a collection of
qualities; but from hence we may advance boldly to the further negative
discovery that it is nothing else; that there is not and cannot be, in
addition to those qualities, any substance in or to which the qualities
inhere, or are in any way attached.

The absence from matter of any such substance is evidenced by the
absurdity involved in the idea of its presence. Suppose the substance to
exist: the qualities inherent in it must needs be as completely distinct
from itself as pins are from a pincushion; the extension and solidity of
an extended, solid substance can no more be identical with the substance
than the nominative is identical with the genitive case. The substance,
therefore, although deprived of all its qualities will still retain its
essence unimpaired, will still be equally a substance, just as a
pincushion continues equally a pincushion after its last pin has been
abstracted. Conceive, then, all the qualities of matter to be
abstracted, and consider what remains--a substance without qualities of
any sort. But a substance neither solid, nor fluid, nor yet gaseous;
neither coloured nor colourless; neither singular nor plural; without
form and void, without even extension--what is it? not something, but
nothing; a nonentity or non-existence. The qualities of matter in being
removed from the substance have therefore left nothing behind, and,
consequently, although carrying with them nothing but themselves, have
yet carried with them all the constituents of matter, which is thus
seen to be composed exclusively of qualities without a single particle
of foreign admixture. And since, moreover, the qualities of matter are
clearly not themselves substances, that is to say do not themselves
_stand under_ or uphold anything, it follows that their compound,
matter, must likewise be purely unsubstantial.

The edifice begun by Descarte