Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/120

 9* DESCARTES. from the condensation and rarefaction of bodies, he urges that the apparent increase or decrease in extension is, in fact, a mere change of figure ; that the rarefaction of a body depends on the increase in size of the intervals between its parts, and the entrance into them of foreign bodies, just as a sponge swells up when its pores become filled with water and, therefore, enlarged. The demand that the pores, and the bodies which force their way into them, should always be perceptible to the senses, is groundless. He meets the second point, that we call extension by itself space, and not body, by maintaining that the distinction between exten- sion and corporeal substance is a distinction in thought, and not in reality; that attribute and substance, mathematical and physical bodies, are not distinct in fact but only in our thought of them. We apply the term space to extension in general, as an abstraction, and body to a given individual, determinate, limited extension. In reality, wherever ex- tension is, there substance is also, — the non-existent has no extension, — and wherever space is, there matter is also. Empty space does not exist. When we say a vessel is empty, we mean that the bodies which fill it are impercep- tible ; if it were absolutely empty its sides would touch. Descartes argues against the atomic theory and against the finitude of the world, as he argues against empty space : matter, as well as space, has no smallest, indivisible parts, and the extension of the world has no end. In the identi- fication of space and matter the former receives fullness from the latter, and the latter unlimitedness from the former, both internal unlimitedness (endless divisibility) and external (boundlessness). Hence there are not several matters but only one (homogeneous) matter, and only one (illimitable) world. Matter is divisible, figurable, movable quantity. Natu- ral science needs no other principles than these indisputably true conceptions, by which all natural phenomena may be explained, and must employ no others. The most important is motion, on which all the diversity of forms depends. Cor- poreal being has been shown to be extension ; corporeal becoming is motion. Motion is defined as " the transport- ing of one part of matter, or of one body, from the vicinity