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The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan by Ibn Tufail
page 60 of 141 (42%)
represent to him any Body existent in Nature, which had this only
Adjunct, and was void of all other Forms: For he saw that every one of
them had some other Quality superadded to the said _Extension_.

ยง 47. Then he consider'd further, whether this Three-fold _Extension_,
was the very Essence of Body or not; and quickly found, that besides
this _Extension_, there was another, in which this Extension did exist,
and that this Extension could not subsist by it self, as also the Body
which was extended, could not subsist by it self without Extension. This
he experimented in some of those sensible Bodies which are endu'd with
Forms; for Example, in Clay: Which he perceiv'd, when moulded into any
Figure, (Spherical suppose) had in it a certain Proportion, Length,
Breadth, and Thickness. But then if you took that very same Ball, and
reduc'd it into a Cubical or Oval Figure, the Dimensions were chang'd,
and did not retain the same Proportion which they had before, and yet
the Clay still remain'd the same, without any Change, only that it was
necessary for it to be extended into Length, Breadth, and Thickness, in
some Proportion or other, and not be depriv'd of its Dimensions: Yet it
was plain to him from the successive Alterations of them in the same
Body, that they were distinct from the Clay itself; as also, that
because the Clay could not be altogether without them, it appear'd to
him that it belong'd to its Essence. And thus from this Experiment it
appear'd to him, that Body consider'd as Body, was compounded of two
Properties: The one of which represents the _Clay_, of which the Sphere
was made; The other, the _Threefold Expression_ of it, when form'd into
a Sphere, Cube, or what other Figure soever. Nor was it possible to
conceive _Body_, but as consisting of these two Properties, neither of
which could subsist without the other. But that one (namely, that of
Extension) which was liable to Change, and could successively put on
different Figures, did represent the Form in all those Bodies which had
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