191' 



- To evade the force of this.' reasohing, the PeripatctiC!>" 

 and Epicureans made different replies. The former said. 

 that empty space is a mere capacity or possibihty of re- 

 ceiving bodies; and, that its extension is only the possi- 

 ble extension of such bodies as may be placed in it. But 

 this answer was soon found to be unsatisfactov}-; for the 

 space, actually existing between two distant bodies, would 

 remain unaltered, even if all the intervening bodies were 

 annihilated. Moreover, the capacity of receiving bodies, 

 is merely the consequence of the vacuity of space, and 

 not space itself. The Epicureans, as Gassendi and Ber-. 

 nier, followed by Le Clerc, supposed it to be a peculiar 

 kind of being, whicli possessed no other property but ex-, 

 tension. It was not, therefore, a spiritual substance, this 

 not being extended; nor a material being, as it possessed 

 no solidity, but a being sui generis. This opinion, appear- 

 ing as untenable as the foregoing, from av hence it differed 

 only by being more fully explained, was embraced by no 

 one else. 



David de Rodon, an. eminent Calvinist professor at 

 Nismes, sometime before the year I66O, and possibly 

 during the life of Des Cartes, struck with the absurdity 

 of supposing any thing real and eternal besides God, adr 

 vanced a very different opinion; as I find, by a letter 

 from Bayle to La Coste, 4 Bayle, Oeuvres .Posth. 845. He 

 maintained, that space AVas nothing else than the Divine 

 immensity. This opinion was embraced by Ottp_ Guericke, 

 about 1670, as .Leibnitz thinks, and aftei\wards by the _ce- 



I. ■ E b 3 lebratcd 



