consider without considering these particular sounds, but
may conjoin it with any other objects. The ideas of some objects it
certainly must have, nor is it possible for it without these ideas ever
to arrive at any conception of time; which since it, appears not as any
primary distinct impression, can plainly be nothing but different
ideas, or impressions, or objects disposed in a certain manner, that is,
succeeding each other.

I know there are some who pretend, that the idea of duration
is applicable in a proper sense to objects, which are perfectly
unchangeable; and this I take to be the common opinion of philosophers
as well as of the vulgar. But to be convinced of its falsehood we need
but reflect on the foregoing conclusion, that the idea of duration is
always derived from a succession of changeable objects, and can never
be conveyed to the mind by any thing stedfast and unchangeable. For it
inevitably follows from thence, that since the idea of duration cannot
be derived from such an object, it can never-in any propriety or
exactness be applied to it, nor can any thing unchangeable be ever said
to have duration. Ideas always represent the Objects or impressions,
from which they are derived, and can never without a fiction represent
or be applied to any other. By what fiction we apply the idea of time,
even to what is unchangeable, and suppose, as is common, that duration
is a measure of rest as well as of motion, we shall consider [Sect 5.]
afterwards.

There is another very decisive argument, which establishes the present
doctrine concerning our ideas of space and time, and is founded only on
that simple principle, that our ideas of them are compounded of parts,
which are indivisible. This argument may be worth the examining.

Every idea, that is distinguishable, being also separable, let us take
one of those simple indivisible ideas, of which the compound one of
extension is formed, and separating it from all others, and considering
it apart, let us form a judgment of its nature and qualities.

It is plain it is not the idea of extension. For the idea of extension
consists of parts; and this idea, according to t-he supposition, is
perfectly simple and indivisible. Is it therefore nothing? That is
absolutely impossible. For as the compound idea of extension, which is
real, is composed of such ideas; were these so many non-entities, there
would be a real existence composed of non-entities; which is absurd.
He