Chap; 3. ^ Twtije of B O D I E S. 17 



purpoie: What is nothing, cannot have parts : but vacuum is 

 nothing ( becaufe as the adversaries conceive it, vacuum is the 

 want or" a corporeaJl fubftance in an cnclofing body, within 

 whofc fides noth/ng is, whereas a certain body might be con- 

 tained within them, as if in a pail or bowl of a gallon, there 

 were neither milk, nor water, nor aire , nor any other body 

 \vhatibevcr ) therefore, vacuum cannot have parts. Yet thofe 

 who admit it do put it exprefly for a fpace; which doth eflen- 

 tially include parts. And thus they put two contradi&ories, 

 nothing and parts, that is, parts and no parts; or fomething and 

 * nothing; in the fame proportion. And this, I conceive to be ab- 

 folutely unavoidable. 



For thcfe reafons therefore, I muft entreat my readers fa- g. 

 your, that he will allow me to touch upon metaphyficks a little Rarity and 

 more then I defire or intended : but it fhall be no otherwife, i^thl 

 then as is faid of the dogs by the river Nilus fide ; who being proportions 

 thirfty, lap haftily of the water, onely to ferve their necefficy as hath t 

 they run along the fliorc. Thus then ; remembring how we ftaace ' 

 determined that Quantity is Divifibihty : it followeth, that if 

 befidcs Quantity there be a fubftancc or thing which is divifi- 

 ble that thing, if it becondiftinguifhed from its Quantity or 

 Divifibility, muft of it felf be indivifible : or ( to fpeak more 

 properly ) it muft be, notdivifible. Put then fl'ch fijbfrance ta 

 be capable of the Quantity of the whole world or univerfe ; 

 and confcquemly, you put it of it felf indifferent to all, and to 

 any part of Quantity : for in it, by reafon of the negation of 

 Divifibility, there is no variety of parts , whc-reof OIK fhould 

 be tha liibfe& of one part of Quantity, or another of an<- 

 ocher ; or that one fliould be a capacity of more, another of 

 Icfle. ' 



This then being fo, weha-ve-the ground of more or IdTe'pro- 

 ponion between iubllance and quantity': for if the wholdquan- 

 tity of the univerfe be put into it, the proportion of Quantity 

 to the capacity of that ft.'bftance., will be greater then if but half 

 that quantity were imbibed in the fame (ubftaoee. A-ud txcaufe 

 proportion changeth on both ficics by the fingle change of onely 

 one fide : it followeth, that in the latter, the proportion of that 

 fubftance to its Quantity, is greater* and that in the former, it is 

 Jcfle; how-beic the fubiiancc in it Icif be indivifibk*- 



Whac 



