72 ESSAYS AND OBSERVATIONS 



QuER. XII. Since bodies derive their 

 colours from the original and immutable 

 qualities of thofe rays which they reflect 

 moft copioully, ought they not to appear of 

 the fame colour, whether viewed at the 

 greateft or leaft diftances ? Whence is it 

 therefore, that the planets whofe folid parts 

 are probably covered with vegetables, and 

 muft therefore refle(fl a great fuperiority of 



green 



6n the luftre of the objedt. That nothing can be conceived 

 or imagined which is lefs than a certain bulk, is no more an 

 argument againft the endlefs divifibility of quantity, than 

 that nothing can be felt or feen below that fize ; which, it is 

 evident, from every magnifying glafs and from every diffe- 

 rent didance of an objed, depends not at all on the confti- 

 tution of the thing perceived, but on that of the perceiver, or 

 the means and circumftances of his perception. < 



Nor, tho' it were granted that the minimum <vijil:le is di= 

 flinflly feen as an indivifible point, would it follow, that 

 the idea of extenfion, received by fight, i? made up of the 

 ideas of indivifibles ; for we receive the idea of extenfion 

 by that motion of the eye which is neceflary to direft its 

 axis to different objedls or parts of an objeft : and, it is 

 well known, that the generation of quantity by motion is 

 preferred by the beft writers, for this very reafon, that it 

 neceffarily excludes the notion of indivifibles. It (hould be 

 remembered likeways, that a vifible objedt is not divided by 

 the eye into a number of contiguous minima 'vifibilia ; for, to 

 Ivhatever mathematical point in the objeft the eye is di- 

 refled, a minimum 'vifthle may be feen there by means of a 

 Certain portion of the objeft immediately furrounding it. 



