13. We have no perfect knowledge of their primary qualities.
That the size, figure, and motion of one body should
cause a change in the size, figure, and motion of another body, is not beyond our conception; the separation of the
parts of one body upon the intrusion of another; and the change from rest to motion upon impulse; these and the
like seem to have some connexion one with another. And if we knew these primary qualities of bodies, we might
have reason to hope we might be able to know a great deal more of these operations of them one upon another:
but our minds not being able to discover any connexion betwixt these primary qualities of bodies and the
sensations that are produced in us by them, we can never be able to establish certain and undoubted rules of the
consequence or co-existence of any secondary qualities, though we could discover the size, figure, or motion of
those invisible parts which immediately produce them. We are so far from knowing what figure, size, or motion
of parts produce a yellow colour, a sweet taste, or a sharp sound, that we can by no means conceive how any size,
figure, or motion of any particles, can possibly produce in us the idea of any colour, taste, or sound whatsoever:
there is no conceivable connexion between the one and the other.
