absurdities, a point which I will now take for granted), from which
these authors attempt to draw the conclusion that substance extended is
finite, do not by any means follow from the supposition that quantity is
infinite, but from the supposition that infinite quantity is measurable,
and that it is made up of finite parts. Therefore, from the absurdities
to which this leads nothing can be concluded, excepting that infinite
quantity is not measurable, and that it cannot be composed of finite
parts. But this is what we [maintain].

... The shaft therefore which is aimed at us turns against those who
cast it. If, therefore, from these absurdities any one should attempt to
conclude that substance extended must be finite, he would, forsooth, be
in the position of the man who supposes a circle to have the properties
of a square, and then concludes that it has no center, such that all the
lines drawn from it to the circumference are equal. For corporeal
substance, which cannot be conceived except as infinite, one and
indivisible, is conceived by those against whom I argue to be composed
of finite parts, and to be multiplex and divisible, in order that they
may prove it finite. Just in the same way others, after they have
imagined a line to consist of points, know how to discover many
arguments, by which they show that a line cannot be divided _ad
infinitum_; and indeed it is not less absurd to suppose that corporeal
substance is composed of bodies or parts than to suppose that a body is
composed of surfaces, surfaces of lines, and that lines, finally, are
composed of points. Every one who knows that clear reason is infallible
ought to admit this, and especially those who deny that a vacuum can
exist. For if corporeal substance could be so divided that its parts
could be really distinct, why could not one part be annihilated, the
rest remaining, as before, connected with one another? And why must all
be so fitted together that there can be no vacuum? For of things which
are really distinct the one from the other, one can be and remain in its
own position without the other. Since therefore it is supposed that
there is no vacuum in Nature (about which I will speak at another time),
but that all the parts must be united, so that no vacuum can exist, it
follows that they cannot be really separated; that is to say, that
corporeal substance, in so far as it is substance, cannot be divided.

If, nevertheless, any one should now ask w