propounded by Reid and others in regard to the primary and secondary qualities of matter; and it certainly was quite as philosophical.
10. I conclude this account of the Atomic doctrine by remarking that, even in this system, we may observe that tendency which I have said is the characteristic more or less of all speculative philosophy, the tendency, namely, to aim at truth for all rather than at truth for some intelligence. This tendency is not so conspicuous in the Atomic scheme as it is in some other systems; but even here it is unmistakably manifested. What the Atomists called the full and the empty, atoms and the void, which was their expression for what are nowadays called the primary qualities of matter—these are more universal in their character than such qualities as heat and cold, sweet and bitter, luminous and dark; these latter qualities could not be understood except by intelligences endowed with senses like ours; but the full and the empty, in other words, atoms and the void, would, in all probability, be intelligible to pure intellect, and certainly approach more nearly to the character of truths for all intellect than do any of those truths which are known to us as the secondary qualities of matter.
