5. Figure.
There is another modification of this idea, which is nothing but the relation which the parts of the
termination of extension, or circumscribed space, have amongst themselves. This the touch discovers in sensible
bodies, whose extremities come within our reach; and the eye takes both from bodies and colours, whose
boundaries are within its view: where, observing how the extremities terminate,--either in straight lines which
meet at discernible angles, or in crooked lines wherein no angles can be perceived; by considering these as they
relate to one another, in all parts of the extremities of any body or space, it has that idea we call figure, which
affords to the mind infinite variety. For, besides the vast number of different figures that do really exist, in the
coherent masses of matter, the stock that the mind has in its power, by varying the idea of space, and thereby
making still new compositions, by repeating its own ideas, and joining them as it pleases, is perfectly
inexhaustible. And so it can multiply figures in infinitum.
