302 or SIUBSTANCE, BODY AND SPIRIT. grammatical view the names of them end in sion or lion, or ness ur ïng or ity, &c. Hence it comes to pass, that whensoever we speak of a thing, which by a grammatical termination sounds like a quality, (and is sometimes logically represented as a qua- lity)wè suppose it loseable while the substance remains ; and we fancy it to require some subject in which it inheres, or some sub- stratum or substance to support it : 'Thus for instance : When we speak of motion, or when we speak of gravity, we mean a a quality or . property, which requires something distinct from itself, and more substantial than itself, to support this quality ; there must be some substance which may be moved, or which may be heavy; and on this account, when we speak of extension and solidity we are ready to infer the same as we do concerning motion or gravity, i. e. that there must be some being distinct from extension and solidity to uphold these qualities : But this is an inference made without just reason, and by mere similarity of sound and termination. I might represent this matter even by those qualities of body, which are called by the very names of extension and solidity taken in another sense. We use the word extension, when we see a piece of cloth or spunge may be extended or stretched to a larger size, or shrunk and contracted to a nar- rower; and this extensionor stretching, as well as contraction or shrinking, being alterable while the cloth remains the same, we form an universal idéa of extension, as a mere quality; and indeed it is so when we use the word to signify stretching. So when we feel a piece of wax hard to the touch, we call it solid: We melt it, and find it has lost its hardness or solidity, and thence we come to call solidity universally a quality; and indeed it is so in this sense, when it signifies hardness: But it does not at all follow, that extension, when it signifies length, breadth and depth, and is joined as it were in one idea with solidity, as that signifies impenetrability, should be à mere quality, though extension and solidity are mere qualities, when one signifies stretching, and the other signifies hardness. When therefore solid extension is represented in our way of speaking, as the primary idea of matter ; surely it is something more than a mere quality. For the sense in which the words are used, when ap- plied to body in general, is very different from the former signi- fication when applied to cloth or wax. And if we will judge here rationally, according to the rule by which we judge of qualities and substances at other times, solid extension may be properly a substance; for whatsoever qualities in bodies are changed, this lias the character of sub- stance, for it is immutably the same. Matter is solid' extension, and the same solid extension too, through all the infinite varieties Of change of its other properties : This can never be lost, till the
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