6. Why other ideas are not capable of infinity.
If it be so, that our idea of infinity be got from the power we
observe in ourselves of repeating, without end, our own ideas, it may be demanded,--Why we do not attribute
infinity to other ideas, as well as those of space and duration; since they may be as easily, and as often, repeated in
our minds as the other: and yet nobody ever thinks of infinite sweetness, or infinite whiteness, though he can
repeat the idea of sweet or white, as frequently as those of a yard or a day? To which I answer,--All the ideas that
are considered as having parts, and are capable of increase by the addition of any equal or less parts, afford us, by
their repetition, the idea of infinity; because, with this endless repetition, there is continued an enlargement of
which there can be no end. But in other ideas it is not so. For to the largest idea of extension or duration that I at
present have, the addition of any the least part makes an increase; but to the perfectest idea I have of the whitest
whiteness, if I add another of a less or equal whiteness, (and of a whiter than I have, I cannot add the idea), it
makes no increase, and enlarges not my idea at all; and therefore the different ideas of whiteness, etc. are called
degrees. For those ideas that consist of parts are capable of being augmented by every addition of the least part;
but if you take the idea of white, which one parcel of snow yielded yesterday to our sight, and another idea of
white from another parcel of snow you see to-day, and put them together in your mind, they embody, as it were,
and run into one, and the idea of whiteness is not at all increased; and if we add a less degree of whiteness to a
greater, we are so far from increasing, that we diminish it. Those ideas that consist not of parts cannot be
augmented to what proportion men please, or be stretched beyond what they have received by their senses; but
space, duration, and number, being capable of increase by repetition, leave in the mind an idea of endless room
for more; nor can we conceive anywhere a stop to a further addition or progression: and so those ideas alone lead
our minds towards the thought of infinity.
