It is often said by Chrysippus, that there is without
the world an infinite vacuum, and that this infinity has
neither beginning, middle, nor end. And by this the Stoics
chiefly refute that spontaneous motion of the atoms downward, which is taught by Epicurus; there not being in
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infinity any difference according to which one thing is
thought to be above, another below. But in his Fourth
Book of Things Possible, having supposed a certain middle
place and middle region, he says that the world is situated
there. The words are these: ‘Wherefore, if it is to be
said of the world that it is corruptible, this seems to want
proof; yet nevertheless it rather appears to me to be so.
However, its occupation of the place wherein it stands cooperates very much towards its seeming to be incorruptible,
because it is in the midst; since if it were thought to be
anywhere else, corruption would absolutely take hold of
it.’ And again, a little after: ‘For so also in a manner
has essence happened eternally to possess the middle place,
being immediately from the beginning such as it is; so that
both by another manner and through this chance it admits
not any corruption, and is therefore eternal.’ These words
have one apparent and visible contradiction, to wit, his
admitting a certain middle place and middle region in
infinity. They have also a second, more obscure indeed,
but withal more absurd than this. For thinking that the
world would not have remained incorruptible if its situation
had happened to have been in any other part of the vacuum, he manifestly appears to have feared lest, the parts of
essence moving towards the middle, there should be a dissolution and corruption of the world. Now this he would
not have feared, had he not thought that bodies do by nature tend from every place towards the middle, not of
essence, but of the region containing essence; of which
also he has frequently spoken, as of a thing impossible
and contrary to Nature; for that (as he says) there is not
in the vacuum any difference by which bodies are drawn
rather this way than that way, but the construction of the
world is the cause of motion, bodies inclining and being
carried from every side to the centre and middle of it. It
is sufficient to this purpose, to set down the text out of his
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Second Book of Motion; for having discoursed, that the
world indeed is a perfect body, but that the parts of the
world are not perfect, because they have in some sort
respect to the whole and are not of themselves; and going
forward concerning its motion, as having been framed by
Nature to be moved by all its parts towards compaction
and cohesion, and not towards dissolution and breaking, he
says thus: ‘But the universe thus tending and being
moved to the same point, and the parts having the same
motion from the nature of the body, it is probable that all
bodies have this first motion according to Nature towards
the centre of the world,—the world being thus moved as
regards itself, and the parts being thus moved as being its
parts.’ What then ailed you, good sir (might some one
say to him), that you have so far forgotten those words, as
to affirm that the world, if it had not casually possessed
the middle place, would have been dissoluble and corruptible? For if it is by Nature so framed as always to incline
towards the middle, and its parts from every side tend to the
same, into what place soever of the vacuum it should have
been transposed,—thus containing and (as it were) embracing itself,—it would have remained incorruptible and without
danger of breaking. For things that are broken and dissipated suffer this by the separation and dissolution of their
parts, every one of them hasting to its own place from that
which it had contrary to Nature. But you, being of opinion that, if the world should have been seated in any other
place of the vacuum, it would have been wholly liable to
corruption, and affirming the same, and therefore asserting
a middle in that which naturally can have no middle,—
to wit, in that which is infinite,—have indeed dismissed
these tensions, coherences, and inclinations, as having
nothing available to its preservation, and attributed all the
cause of its permanency to the possession of place. And,
as if you were ambitious to confute yourself, to the things
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you have said before you join this also: ‘In whatsoever
manner every one of the parts moves, being coherent to
the rest, it is agreeable to reason that in the same also the
whole should move by itself; yea, though we should, for
argument's sake, imagine and suppose it to be in some
vacuity of this world; for as, being kept in on every side,
it would move towards the middle, so it would continue in
the same motion, though by way of disputation we should
admit that there were on a sudden a vacuum round about
it.’ No part then whatsoever, though encompassed by a
vacuum, loses its inclination moving it towards the middle
of the world; but the world itself, if chance had not prepared it a place in the middle, would have lost its containing vigor, the parts of its essence being carried some one
way, some another.
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