207 



in any other point of view, this capacity is merely ficti- 

 tious. Otherwise, before any body was created, a capa- 

 city for receiving bodies existed: that is, when nothing 

 whatsoever existed. As well might it be said, that a ca- 

 pacity of receiving spirits existed, before any spirit was 

 created. From what principle this capacity is inferred, 

 will presently be seen. 



The notion of distance is originally acquired through the 

 sense of feeling. By the repetition of tactile sensations, 

 firom one part of the body to another, we gain the notion 

 of extension; which consists in nothing else, than in the 

 number and continuity of tactile sensations, either per- 

 ceived or conceived to be perceptible, betwixt two or more 

 objects. The difference between the first and last of these 

 sensations, is what is called distance. Neither the know- 

 ledge of distance, nor, consequently, that of extension, is 

 originally gained by the sight, but gradually learned, by 

 experience of the connexion betwixt distant objects, pre- 

 viously knoAvn by tact and visual appearances, and the 

 motion and feelings of the eye itself; as Dr. Berkley has 

 clearly shewn, in his admirable Essay on Vision, and has 

 been amply proved, by the subsequent experiments of Dr. 

 Cheselden.* From this connexion it happens, that the 

 different visible appearances, of near and distant bodies, 

 constantly suggest the idea of extension, as subsisting be- 



D d 2 tM'een 



* Some of the most perspicacious of the scholastics, much despised as they 

 are, reasoned in the sanje manner. Mastriiis Log. 329, 



