Finally all the things which are requisite to
cause us distinctly to recognise a body, are met with in it.
But notice that while I speak and approach the fire what
remained of the taste is exhaled, the smell evaporates, the
colour alters, the figure is destroyed, the size increases, it
becomes liquid, it heats, scarcely can one handle it, and when
one strikes it, now sound is emitted. Does the same wax
remain after this change? We must confess that it remains;
none would judge otherwise. What then did I know so
distinctly in this piece of wax? It could certainly be
nothing of all that the senses brought to my notice, since all
these things which fall under taste, smell, sight, touch, and
hearing, are found to be changed, and yet the same wax
remains.
Perhaps it was what I now think, viz. that this wax was
not that sweetness of honey, nor that agreeable scent of
flowers, nor that particular whiteness, nor that figure, nor
that sound, but simply a body which a little while before
appeared tome as perceptible under these forms, and which is
now perceptible under others.
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