their narrow and gross
imaginations: but having here to do only with those who conclude the
essence of body to be extension, because they say they cannot imagine
any sensible quality of any body without extension,--I shall desire
them to consider, that, had they reflected on their ideas of tastes and
smells as much as on those of sight and touch; nay, had they examined
their ideas of hunger and thirst, and several other pains, they would
have found that THEY included in them no idea of extension at all, which
is but an affection of body, as well as the rest, discoverable by our
senses, which are scarce acute enough to look into the pure essences of
things.

26. Essences of Things.

If those ideas which are constantly joined to all others, must therefore
be concluded to be the essence of those things which have constantly
those ideas joined to them, and are inseparable from them; then unity is
without doubt the essence of everything. For there is not any object of
sensation or reflection which does not carry with it the idea of
one: but the weakness of this kind of argument we have already shown
sufficiently.

27. Ideas of Space and Solidity distinct.

To conclude: whatever men shall think concerning the existence of a
VACUUM, this is plain to me--that we have as clear an idea of space
distinct from solidity, as we have of solidity distinct from motion, or
motion from space. We have not any two more distinct ideas; and we can
as easily conceive space without solidity, as we can conceive body or
space without motion, though it be never so certain that neither body
nor motion can exist without space. But whether any one will take space
to be only a RELATION resulting from the existence of other beings at a
distance; or whether they will think the words of the most knowing King
Solomon, 'The heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee;'
or those more emphatical ones of the inspired philosopher St. Paul,
'In him we live, move, and have our being,' are to be understood in a
literal sense, I leave every one to consider: only our idea of space is,
I think, such as I have mentioned, and distinct from that of body. For,
whether we consider, in matter itself, the distance of its coherent
solid parts, and call it, in respect of those solid parts, extension; or
whether, considering it as lying between the extremities of any body in
its several dimensions, we call it length, breadth, and thickness; or
else, consid