BOOK I PART II
consist of parts or inferior ideas; otherwise it
would be the last of its parts, which finished
the idea, and so on; this is a clear proof, that the
ideas of surfaces, lines and points admit not of
any division; those of surfaces in depth; of lines
in breadth and depth; and of points in any di-
mension.
The school were so sensible of the force of
this argument, that some of them maintained,
that nature has mixed among those particles of
matter, which are divisible in infinitum, a num-
ber of mathematical points, in order to give a
termination to bodies; and others eluded the
force of this reasoning by a heap of unintelli-
gible cavils and distinctions. Both these adver-
saries equally yield the victory. A man who
hides himself, confesses as evidently the supe-
riority of his enemy, as another, who fairly de-