350 AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING SPACEC, produced in us only by different degrees and modes of motion in our animalspirits, variously agitatedby external objects,the abate- ment of. any former motion must as necessarily produce anew sensation as the variation and increase of it, and so introduce a new idea, which depends only on a differentmotion of the animal spirits in that organ." Sect. ,5. " But whether this be soor no, I will not here determine ; but I appeal to every one's oWn experience, whether the shadow ofa man, though it consists in nothing but the absence of light, (and the more the absence of light is the more discerni- ble is the shadow) does not, when a man looks on it, cause as clear and positive an idea in his mind as a man himself, though covered over with clear sunshine ? And the picture of a shadow is a positive thing. Indeed we have negative names which stand not directly for positive ideas, but for their absence, such as in- sipid, silence, nihil, 4c. which words denote (or refer to) positive ideas, i. e. taste, sound, being, with a signification of their ab- sence." Sect. 6. " And thus one may truly be said to see darkness. For suppose a hole perfectly dark, from whence no light is re- flected, it is certain one may see the figure of it, or it may be painted." Thus flor Mr. Locke : and I ask leave to add to this discourse, that I have, found a late ingenious writer, in his notés on the English translation of BishopKing's Treatise De Origine Mali, published in 1731, well support such sort of sentiments as I have here advanced concerning space, viz. that it is rather a negation of being than any thing real andpositive, however our common ideas and language may lead us into mistakes about it. See Chap. I. §. I. Note 5, and 11, and 13. Whether the learned author of the defence of Dr. Clarke's demonstration of the being of God, has effectually answeredall this, the reader must judge. SECT. XII.--Space Nothing real, but a mere abstract Idea. AFTER all these debates whereinwe have been endeavour- ing tú prove space to be nothing real without us, yet perhaps we may allow it to be an abstracted idea of the mind ; and it may . possibly be formed by abstracting the length, breadth and depth of matter, i. e. the extension from the solidity of it : for since we frame an idea of length without breadth, and call it a line, when we know there is no suchthing really existent ; andwe form ideas of united length and breadth without depth, and call this a sur- face, though we know also thiscannot exist ; so why may we not frame an idea of extension or space, i. e. length, breadth and depth without solidity*, and yet allow that it had noproper ex- * Solid here is taken in the physiea'l.sense forwhat resists matter, and not is the geometrical sense for the three dimensions united.
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