Abstract
Hume's heterodox rejection of infinite divisibility is an inevitable result of his uncompromising empiricism. The idea of the white marble globe is no different in this respect than the complex idea of the apple with which Hume introduces the distinction between simple and complex ideas, separable, also, as he says, into the apple's color, taste, and smell. Hume does not explicitly describe the idea of extension as 'complex' in his official terminology, although he refers to it as 'compound'. The danger to Hume's theory of space is that the finite divisibility of impressions of extended bodies might not transfer to complex mind-mediated secondary ideas of extension. The method of which Locke speaks is that of beginning with sense impressions of extension and the divisibility of extension, and then adding to these conceptions the negative idea of unbounded or unlimited continuation, to produce the negative ideas of infinity and infinite divisibility.Keywords: David Hume; empiricism; infinite divisibility; Locke; mind-mediated ideas; theory of space
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