body equal to the smallest separate particle of matter now existing in nature, it is still space without body; and makes as great a difference between space and body as if it were mega chasma, a distance as wide as any in nature. And therefore, if we suppose not the void space necessary to motion equal to the least parcel of the divided solid matter, but to 1/10 or 1/1000 of it, the same consequence will always follow of space without matter.
- The Ideas of Space and Body distinct.
But the question being here,—Whether the idea of space or extension be the same with the idea of body? it is not necessary to prove the real existence of a VACUUM, but the idea of it; which it is plain men have when they inquire and dispute whether there be a VACUUM or no. For if they had not the idea of space without body, they could not make a question about its existence: and if their idea of body did not include in it something more than the bare idea of space, they could have no doubt about the plenitude of the world; and it would be as absurd to demand, whether there were space without body, as whether there were space without space, or body without body, since these were but different names of the same idea.