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abstract terms, it is a compendious expression. In this 

 respect, Des Cartes and his followers reasoned more conse- 

 quentially than many succeeding philosophers: for he in- 

 ferred an extended thing, namely, matter, to exist where- 

 ever space exists; and thence denied the possibility of 

 a vacuum. His opinion having been long since satisfac- 

 torily refuted, and now universally abandoned, requires no 

 further notice. 



Mr. Locke seems, at different times, to have entertain- 

 ed different opinions of the nature of space ; for, after 

 clearly stating, B. II. chap, iv, §. 2, 3, and chap. xiii. that 

 space is the distance between two bodies, or between the 

 parts of the same body, if the body be considered length- 

 ways, (and the same may be said of the parts of the 

 breadth and the thickness, for their extremes also are dis- 

 tant from each other,) he denies, chap. xvii. §. 20, that 

 matter is any way necessary for the existence of space: 

 and thus the notion of distance is completely abandoned. 

 To this persuasion he was led, by the supposition, that, if 

 a man were placed at the extremity of the material uni- 

 verse, and stretched out his arm, his arm would still be 

 in space. But this is an evident mistake: his arm would 

 be in nothing, or surrounded by nothing; but different 

 parts of his arm, being at a distance from his body, would 

 form a solid space. And hence Locke himself allows, that 

 the world is, properly speaking, no where, as already men- 

 tioned: though, in a sense, which he justly calls confused, 



he 



