Negative we assert is grounded not upon Axioms taken from the usual course of Nature or upon Propositions dubious or remote from the first Principles of knowledge but upon either Catholick and Metaphysical Axioms or else upon Truths manifestly flowing from some clear tho inadequate notion we have of the nature of the things we treat of The other Case is when we have a clear and sufficient proof by Revelation or otherwise of the positive Attributes of the things we contemplate for then we may safely deny of that Subject any other thing that is really inconsistent with that positive Attribute Upon which account it is that tho we do not fully comprehend what God is yet knowing by the clear Light of Nature and if we be Christians believing it upon the account of Revelation that he is a Being Intelligent and infinitely perfect we may safely deny against Epicurus Vorstius and Mr. Hobbs that he is a Corporeal Substance as also that he is Mortal or Corruptible Pyrocl. I shall not trouble you Arnobius to inlarge upon your last Advice but willingly receive the â—avour of your next Arnob. Which shall be this The Third Advice or Rule That a matter of Fact or other Truth about Privileg'd Things being prov'd by Arguments competent in their kind we ought not to deny it meerly because we cannot explain or perhaps so much as conceive the Modus of it 'T is no very difficult Task to justifie this Advice but I may do it the better if you give me leave to frame and premise a Distinction for want of which I have observed a want of Clearness in several Discourses where the term Modus has been employed for sometimes we would deny so much as a possibillity that one thing can belong to or be truly said of another as when we say we understand not how one Creature can create another or how there can be a Line that is neither straight nor crooked or a finite whole number that is neither even nor odd But most commonly we mean by our not understanding the Modus of a thing that we do not clearly and distinctly conceive after what manner the Property or other Attribute of a Subject belongs to it or performs its operations The first kind of Modus may for distinctions sake be called a possible Modus and the other an actual modus Now in both the foregoing Acceptions of the term Modus we may find Instances fit for our present purpose For we cannot imagine How a short Line or other finite Quantity can be endlesly divisible or on the contrary how Infinite Parts should make but a Finite Total and yet Geometry constrains us to admit That it is so But tho there be but few Instances of this kind yet of the other sort of our Nescience of the Modus of things there may be found more Instances than we could wish there were for even in natural and corporeal things the eager disputes of the acutest Philophers and the ingenuous Confessions of the most judicious and moderate sufficiently manifest that as yet we know not the manner of operating whereby several Bodies perform what we well know they bring to pass And not to enter into those nice and tedious Disputes of the cause of the Cohesion of the parts of matter in the smallest most principal and most primary Bodies perhaps without going out of our selves the way whereby the Rational Soul can exercise any power over the humane body and the way whereby the Understanding and the Will act upon one another have not yet been intelligibly explain'd by any And the like I may say of the Phaenomena of the Memory especially in those in whom that faculty is eminent For 't is a thing much more fit to be admired than easie to be conceived how in so narrow a compass as part of a Human Brain there should be so many thousand distinct Cells or Impressions as are requisite to harbour the Characters or Signatures of many Languages each of them consisting of many thousand differing Words besides the Images or Models of so many thousand Faces Schemes Buildings and other sensible Objects and the Ideas of so many thousand Notions and Thoughts and the distinct Footsteps of almost innumerable multitudes of other things and how all these shall in so narrow a compass have such deep and lasting Impressions made for them and be oftentimes lodged so exactly in the order wherein they were at first committed to the memory and that perhaps many years before that upon a sudden command of the Will or a slight casual Hint a whole set of Words Things and Circumstances will in a trice as it were start up and present themselves even in the very Series order and manner that so long before belong'd to them And I doubt not but that besides those abstruse things about the Modus of which the more candid Philosophers have confessed their Ignorance there would many others have been taken notice of if we did but as seriously and impartially inquire into the Nature of all the things we are pleased to think we know And when I reflect on the yet depending Disputes between Philosophers and Mathematicians about the nature of Place and Local Motion which are things so obvious and familiar to us I should tho I had no other Inducements be inclin'd to think that we should find difficulties enough in many other Subjects wherein we do not now take notice of any if we particularly studyed their nature and that our acquiescence in what we have learned about many things proceeds not from our greater knowledge of their nature but from our having exercised less curiosity and attention in considering it And if in things Corporeal that are the familiar objects of our Senses we are often reduc'd to confess our Ignorance of the Modes of their inexisting or operating I hope it will not be denyed that to a Being wholly unapproachable by our Senses natural Theology may be allowed to ascribe some things whose Modus is not attainable by our understanding As the Divine Prescience of future Contingents which as 't were impious to deny as to the truth of the thing so I fear 't is impossible to explicate as to the Modus of it Eugen. If it were at this time proper for me to meddle with things of that kind I should not much scruple to say in favour of the Christian Religion that divers Tenents granted both by Christians Jews and Heathens as parts of natural Theology to me seem as difficult to be conâ—ived as divers of those Mysteries that for their unintelligibless are fiercely opposed in Reveal'd Theology I will not take upon me to judge of others but for my part I confess I do not much better understand how an Intellect and a Will and Affections are distinctly inexistent in God in such sort as they are wont to be attributed to him than how in him there can be a Trinity stated not as some Schoolmen explicate or rather darken it
the dark Thus Surveyors Carpenters Architects and many others know divers Affections of the square Figure that are of great use to them in their respective Employments though that property of the square that its side and diagonal are incommensurable be unknown to most of them and if they were told of it and would prosecute the Speculation would involve them in exceeding great and probably insuperable difficulties Sophron. To confirm what you have been telling us Timoth. I shall venture to add that even about priviledg'd things our inquiries if modestly and discreetly manag'd may not only be allowable but sometimes profitable For even of such Subjects a studious search may bring us to know more than we did though not so much as we would nor enough to be acquiesc'd in So that such enquiries may probably teach us to know the Objects better and our selves better too by giving us such a sensible discovery of the insufficiency of our Understandings to comprehend all sorts of things as may be very useful though not pleasing and may richly recompence us for the pains that ended in so instructive a disappointment And let me add to the pertinent instances that have been mention'd the noblest that can be given I mean the Contemplation of God himself For he hath so ordered all things that 't is scarce possible for us to be destitute of an Idaea of him which will at least represent him as an existent Being and more perfect than any other Being and yet when we come with sufficient Application of mind to pry into the wonderful Attributes of this most singular and adorable Being we are as was lately observ'd sure to find our selves unable to comprehend so unbounded an Object Which yet ought not to discourage us from so noble a Study since we are allow'd the great contentment and honour to make further and further discoveries of the excellentest of Objects by that very immensity of his perfections that makes it impossible for us to reach to the bounds of his Excellency or rather to discover that it has any bounds at all But Gentlemen I perceive I have been so transported by the mention of this vast and divine Subject in whose Contemplation 't is so easie and so pleasant to lose ones self that I have forgot the notice Eugen. gave me a pretty while since that the time allotted for our present conference was then near expiring And therefore I shall leave you to pick out of the Excursions to which your interpositions tempted not to say oblig'd me the Applications that I intended to make more methodically of the distinctions I laid down And I am the less troubled to be hindred from proposing to you my thoughts about the way of distinguishing priviledg'd things from others because we have a domestick Monitor or a kind of an internal Criterium always at hand to help us For I think it may well be said that the wise Author of Nature has endued the Understanding with such a quick though internal Sensation if I may so call it that when due attention is not wanting it can feelingly discern between other Objects and those that are disproportionate to its ability As even in Beasts the eye is so fram'd according to the institution of Nature that if it be obverted to the bright noon-day-Sun there needs no Monitor but the operation of the same Sun to make it wink and perhaps water and thereby discover it self to be dazled and overpowr'd by the disproportionate Object Pyroc I confess your Discourses Gentlemen have made an unexpected Impression upon me but whether that will amount to a Conviction will scarce appear till our next Conference Only thus much I shall tell you now that it would much facilitate our agreement in Opinion if you did not contend for altogether so much but would be pleas'd to leave it undertermin'd whether Man's intellectual Faculty it self is uncapable by the help of any degree of light to discover and know those things which you call above Reason and would content your selves to say That there are some things belonging to these Subjects which we must confess we have less clear and distinct Notions of than we have even of the difficultest of those things that are acknowledg'd not to surpass our Reason And that if we will take upon us to determine positively and particularly about these transcendent things we must employ ways of Reasoning congruous to their peculiar natures Sophron. I shall readily consent not to expect your final Resolution before our next meeting having no cause to fear that time will be unfriendly to her Daughter Truth Timoth. And in the mean while Pyrocles I am glad to find by the last part of what you just now said that you seem to be no longer indispos'd to admit some things that at least in our present state do some way or other surpass our Reason For I think that instead of exalting that faculty we injure and defraud it if we do not freely allow it as much enjoyment of Truth as we are able to procure it And consequently if Geometry or Revelation or Experience assure us of divers things of which we can know but That they are and what they do not what they are and how they act we must neither refuse nor neglect the study of such Truths any more than we would refuse to look into any other Objects than those that we can look through And therefore to enrich the Intellect as much as we are able we must entertain not only those Truths that we can comprehend but those also how sublime soever that we can have any certain though but a very imperfect Knowledge of Especially since those remote and abstruse Subjects may be as much more noble as more dark than others and thereby render an imperfect Discovery of them more desirable than a far clearer one of Inferior things FINIS ADVICES IN JUDGING OF Things SAID TO TRANSCEND REASON The Speakers Arnobius Eugenius Pyrocles and Timotheus Arnob. I Was very glad Gentlemen to learn this morning of Sophronius some things whence 't was easie to conclude that by the Discourse you had with him last night he has made it allowable for me to demand and rational for you to grant nay to proffer me a Dispensation of the Task you imposed on me at our last meeting For tho' he spake with the modesty that became him of your Conference and gave me but a hasty and imperfect Account of what pass'd between you yet I think I may presume that by his Discourse Pyrocles himself was at least inclin'd and you two Gentlemen fully perswaded to admit that there are Things above Reason which was the main point about which you expected at our last Congress that I should entertain you at our then next or now present meeting Eugen. I deny not that Sophronius's Considerations were prevalent on Timotheus and me and have I hope made a good impression on Pyrocles himself but that ought not to hinder us
really are not priviledged things but Scholastic Chimeras But tho' I shall not presume positively to set down the discriminating Bounds and Signes of priviledged things yet most if not all of them being such as are either primary in their kind as God himself and the things whose Nature flows immediately from him or else things that if thorowly inspected do necessarily involve the consideration of some kind of Infinitum or else are such that tho' in some main Questions about them one side must be taken both sides are encombred with absurdities or scarce superable Difficulties Those I say being all or some of them the usual marks that belong to priviledged things you will easily grant that their Number is not near so great as their abstruseness and that therefore Pyrocles and his Philosophical Friends need not fear to want employment for their Curiosity And for farther Answer to his Objection I shall add that we must regulate our Belief by our Perceptions not our Wishes and must not conclude that because 't were desirable for us that all things were penetrable to our humane Understandings there is really nothing that is not so and we can no more conclude that we are as knowing as Angels because we wish we were so than that we are as immortal as they because we would never die But as for those few things that have belonging to them Properties so extraordinary as to make it probable even at the first sight that their Nature must be very abstruse and difficult be fully discover'd by us I hope Pyrocles will allow that things of so Heteroclite a Nature may challenge an exemption from some of the rules imployed about common things And that really such Rules as I mean and some also of the vulgar Notions cannot always be safely extended to such Subjects I forbear to shew in this place only because I would not too long at once interrupt Arnobius and I expect to have a good opportunity to speak again of this Subject before our Conference be ended Tim. You may then I presume Arnobius as soon as you please favour us with your second Advice Arnob. I shall readily obey you Timotheus by proposing it thus The Second Advice or Rule That we be not hasty to frame Negatives about Privileg'd Things or to reject Propositions or Explications concerning them at least as if they were absurd or impossible 'T is easie to observe in the Speculation of natural things themselves how unsafe 't is not only to affirm but in divers Cases also reject opinions before men have any thing near a competent Historical Information of what belongs to the Subject they take upon them peremptorily to judge of And therefore it must in reason be thought much more unwary to be forward to resolve upon Negative Propositions about things which we our selves acknowledge to be above the reach of Human Reason which since they are 't will become us at least to forbear a rude and insulting way of rejecting the opinions of Learned Men that dissent from us about such things since the sublimity of the Subject should make mistakes about them the more easie to be pardon'd because they are difficult to be avoided and our own sharing in the disability of penetrating such abstruse things should keep us from being over-confident that we also may not be mistaken and incline us to tolerate other mens opinions about matters wherein we our selves have but opinion not science Pyr. But have not you formerly advised us not to suffer our selves to be impos'd upon by proofless Assertions even about privileg'd things Arnob. I did so and do so still but there is a great deal of difference between believing a proofless affirmation about things which the affirmer does not know to be true and framing Negative Conclusions against Opinions which for ought we yet clearly know may be true and therefore my present advice is very consistent with my former for here I counsel only either a suspension of Judgment when there appears no proof on either side sufficient to sway the Intellect or such a wary and unprejudic'd assent to opinions that are but faintly probable that the mind may be ready to receive without either obstinacy or surprise any better argument that shall conclude the contrary of the opinion we favour'd before Eugen. But methinks 't is hard to avoid the framing of Conjectures even about those sublime Subjects concerning which we can frame but conjectures and those often very slight ones Arnob. I confess an absolute suspension of judgment is a very uneasie thing nor do I strictly require you should entertain no conjectures but only that we should consider that we may be easily mistaken in them and by further information see cause to lay them down and perhaps exchange them for contrary ones my thoughts of this matter may be perchance somewhat illustrated by supposing that we four were walking in a High-way and discover'd as far off as our eyes could reach some erected and moving body of human stature tho we should by its shape and walking safely enough conclude that 't were no other animal than a man yet what manner of man he were as old or young handsome or ugly we should not be able to discern and consequently could have no sufficient ground to determine And as if I should affirm him to be a young man or handsome you may justly censure me of rashness so if because I cannot prove my conjecture you should resolutely deny that he is a young man or handsome I should think you guilty tho not of an equal yet of a censurable unwariness because for ought you know to the contrary he may be what I guess'd him to be And tho we are naturally so uneasie under fluctuation of mind that for my part I confess and it may be you may be subject to the same Infirmity I should scarce forbear resembling in my thoughts the man we speak of to some body or other that I knew yet I should justly think that Conjecture to be very fallible and both expect that when I should come to have a nearer and clearer view of him I might see cause to dismiss my first Idea for that which this new and better prospect would afford me tho it were quite differing from that I â—ad formerly entertain'd and should represent him that my forward thought perhaps resemble to a young man of my acquaintance with black curl'd hair and a ruddy complexion to be pale and wrinckled with grey hair curl'd like a pound of Candles The Application I suppose I may spare But Gentlemen I would not be understood in the preceding Discourse as if I were against all framing of Negative Propositions about privileg'd Things my design being but to dissuade from hasty ones For sometimes 't is much more easie and safe to deny things than to affirm them to belong to a Subject that surpasses our Reason And the observation may be of use especially in two cases one when the