Supposition the most absurd and most incomprehensible of all other So far is our Extension of Body which is nothing but the cohesion of solid parts from being clearer or more distinct when we would enquire into the Nature Cause or Manner of it than the Idea of Thinking § 28. Another Idea we have of Body is the power of communication of Motion by impulse and of our Souls the power of exciting of Motion by Thought These Ideas the one of Body the other of our Minds every days experience clearly furnishes us with But if here again we enquire how this is done we are equally in the dark For in the communication of Motion by impulse wherein as much Motion is lost to one Body as is got to the other which is the ordinariest case we can have no other conception but of the passing of Motion out of one Body into another which I think is as obscure and unconceivable as how our Minds move or stop our Bodies by Thought which we every moment find they do The increase of Motion by impulse which is observed or believed sometimes to happen is yet harder to be understood We have by daily experience clear evience of Motion produced both by impulse and by thought but the manner how hardly comes within our comprehension we are qually at a loss in both So that however we consider Motion and its communication either in Body or Spirit the Idea which belongs to Spirit is at least as clear as that that belongs to Body And if we consider the active power of Moving or as I may call it Motivity it is much clearer in Spirit than Body since two Bodies placed by one another at rest will never afford us the Idea of a power in the one to move the other but by a borrowed motion whereas the Mind every day affords us Ideas of an active power of moving of Bodies and therefore it is worth our consideration whether active power be not the proper attribute of Spirits and passive power of Matter But be that as it will I think we have as many and as clear Ideas belonging to Spirit as we have belonging to Body the Substance of each being equally unknown to us and the Idea of Thinking in Spirit as clear as of Extension in Body and the communication of Motion by Thought which we attribute to Spirit is as evident as that by impulse which we ascribe to Body Constant Experience makes us sensible of both of these though our narrow Understandings can comprehend neither For when the Mind would look beyond these original Ideas we have from Sensation or Reflection and penetrate into their Causes and manner of production we find still it discovers nothing but its own short-sightedness § 29. To conclude Sensation convinces us that there are solid extended Substances and Reflection that there are thinking ones Experience assures us of the Existence of such Beings and that the one hath a power to move Body by impulse the other by thought this we cannot doubt of Experience I say every moment furnishes us with the clear Ideas both of the one and the other But beyond these Ideas as received from their proper Sources our Faculties will not reach If we would enquire farther into their Nature Causes and Manner we perceive not the Nature of Extension clearer than we do of Thinking If we would explain them any farther one is as easie as the other and there is no more difficulty to conceive how a Substance we know not should by thought set Body into motion than how a Substance we know not should by impulse set Body into motion So that we are no more able to discover wherein the Ideas belonging to Body consist than those belonging to Spirit From whence it seems probable to me that the simple Ideas we receive from Sensation and Reflection are the Boundaries of our Thoughts beyond which the Mind whatever efforts it would make is not able to advance one jot nor can it make any discoveries when it would prie into the Nature and hidden Causes of those Ideas § 30. So that in short the Idea we have of Spirit compared with the Idea we have of Body stands thus The substance of Spirit is unknown to us and so is the substance of Body equally unknown to us Two primary Qualities or Properties of Body viz. solid coherent parts and impulse we have distinct clear Ideas of So likewise we know and have distinct clear Ideas of two primary Qualities or Properties of Spirit viz. Thinking and a power◠Action i. e. a power of beginning or stopping several Thoughts or Motions We have also the Ideas of several Qualities inherent in Bodies and have the clear distinct Ideas of them which Qualities are but the various modifications of the Extension of cohering solid Parts and their motion We have likewise the Ideas of the several modes of Thinking viz. Believing Doubting Intending Fearing Hoping all which are but the several modes of Thinking We have also the Ideas of Willing and Moving the Body consequent to it and with the Body it self too for as has been shewed Spirit is capable of Motion § 31. Lastly if this Notion of Spirit may have perhaps some difficulties in it not easie to be explained we have thereby no more reason to deny or doubt the existence of Spirits than we have to deny or doubt the existence of Body because the notion of Body is cumbred with some difficulties very hard and perhaps impossible to be explained or understood by us For I would fain have instanced any thing in our notion of Spirit more perplexed or nearer a Contradiction than the very notion of Body includes in it the divisibility in infinitum of any finite Extension involving us whether we grant or deny it in consequences impossible to be explicated or made consistent Consequences that carry greater difficulty and more apparent absurdity than any thing can follow from the Notion of an immaterial knowing substance § 32. Which we are not at all to wonder at since we having but some few superficial Ideas of things discovered to us only by the Senses from without or by the Mind reflecting on what it experiments in it self within have no Knowledge beyond that much less of the internal Constitution and true Nature of things being destitute of Faculties to attain it And therefore experimenting and discovering in our selves Knowledge and the power of voluntary Motion as certainly as we experiment or discover in things without us the cohesion and separation of solid Parts which is the Extension and Motion of Bodies we have as much Reason to be satisfied with our Notion of Spirit as with our Notion of Body and the Existence of the one as well as the other For it being no more a contradiction that Thinking should exist separate and independent from Solidity than it is a contradiction that Solidity should exist separate and independent from Thinking they being both but simple Ideas independent one
desire any one to assign any simple Idea which it received not from one of those Inlets before-mentioned or any complex Idea not made out of those simple ones Nor will it be so strange to think these few simple Ideas sufficient to employ the quickest Thought or largest Capacity and to furnish the Materials of all that various Knowledge and more various Phansies and Opinions of all Mankind if we consider how many Words may be made out of the various composition of 24 Letters or if going one step farther we will but reflect on the variety of combinations may be made with barely one of these Ideas viz. Number whose stock is inexhaustible and truly infinite◠And what a large and immense field doth Excursion alone afford the Mathematicians CHAP. VIII Some farther Considerations concerning our simple Ideas § 1. COncerning the simple Ideas of Sensation 't is to be considered That whatsoever is so constituted in Nature as to be able by affecting our Senses to cause any perception in the Mind doth thereby produce in the Understanding a simple Idea which whatever be the external cause of it when it comes to be taken notice of by our discerning Faculty it is by the Mind looked on and considered there to be a real positive Idea in the Understanding as much as any other whatsoever though perhaps the cause of it be but a privation in the subject § 2. Thus the Idea of Heat and Cold Light and Darkness White and Black Motion and Rest are equally clear and positive Ideas in the Mind though perhaps some of the causes which produce them are barely privations in those subjects from whence our Senses derive those Ideas These the Understanding in its view of them considers all as distinct positive Ideas without taking notice of the causes that produce them which is an enquiry not belonging to the Idea as it is in the Understanding but to the nature of the things existing without us These are two very different things and carefully to be distinguished it being one thing to perceive and know the Idea of White or Black and quite another to examine what kind of particles they must be and how ranged in the Superficies to make any Object appear white or black § 3. A Painter or Dyer who never enquired into their causes hath the Ideas of White and Black and other Colours as clearly perfectly and distinctly in his Understanding and perhaps more distinctly than the Philosopher who hath busied himself in considering their Natures and thinks he knows how far either of them is in its cause positive or privative and the Idea of Black is no less positive in his Mind than that of White however the cause of that Colour in the external Object may be only a privation § 4. If it were the design of my present Undertaking to enquire into the natural causes and manner of Perception I should offer this as a reason why a privative cause might in some cases at least produce a positive Idea viz. That all Sensation being produced in us only by different degrees and modes of Motion in our animal Spirits variously agitated by external Objects the abatement of any former motion must as necessarily produce a new sensation as the variation or increase of it and so introduce a new Idea which depends only on a different motion of the animal Spirits in that Organ § 5. But whether this be so or no I will not here determine but appeal to every one 's own Experience whether the shadow of a Man though it consists of nothing but the absence of Light and the more the absence of Light is the more discernible is the shadow does not when a Man looks on it cause as clear and positive an Idea in his mind as a Man himself though covered over with clear Sunshine And the picture of a shadow is a positive thing Indeed we have negative Names to which there be no positive Ideas but they consist wholly in negation of some certain Ideas as Silence Invisible but these signifie not any Ideas in the Mind but their absence § 6. And thus one may truly be said to see Darkness For supposing a hole perfectly dark from whence no light is reflected 't is certain one may see the figure of it or it may be painted and whether the Ink I write with make any other Idea is a question The privative causes I have here assigned of positive Ideas are according to the common Opinion but in truth it will be hard to determine whether there be really any Ideas from a privative cause till it be determined Whether Rest be any more a privation than Motion § 7. To discover the nature of our Ideas the better and to discourse of them intelligibly it will be convenient to distinguish them as they are Ideas or Perceptions in our Minds and as they are in the Bodies that cause such Perceptions in us that sowe may not think as perhaps usually is done that they are exactly the Images and resemblances of something inherent in the subject most of those of Sensation being in the Mind no more the likeness of something existing without us than the Names that stand for them are the likeness of our Ideas which yet upon hearing they are apt to excite in us § 8. Whatsoever the Mind perceives in it self or is the immediate object of Perception Thought or Understanding that I call Idea and the power to produce any Idea in our mind I call Quality of the Subject wherein that power is Thus a Snow-ball having the power to produce in us the Ideas of White Cold and Round the powers to produce those Ideas in us as they are in the Snow-ball I call Qualities and as they are Sensations or Perceptions in our Underwandings I call them Ideas which Ideas if I speak of sometimes as in the things themselves I would be understood to mean those Qualities in the Objects which produce them in us § 9. Concerning these Qualities we may I think observe these primary ones in Bodies that produce simple Ideas in us viz. Solidity Extension Motion or Rest Number and Figure § 10. These which I call original or primary Qualities of Body are wholly inseparable from it and such as in all the alterations and changes it suffers all the force can be used upon it it constantly keeps and such as Sense constantly finds in every particle of Matter which has bulk enough to be perceived and the Mind finds inseparable from every particle of Matter though less than to make it self singly be perceived by our Senses v. g. Take a grain of Wheat divide it into two parts each part has still Solidity Extension Figure and Mobility divide it again and it retains still the same qualities and so divide it on till the parts become insensible they must retain still each of them all those qualities For division which is all that a Mill or Pestle or any other Body does upon another in
since we oftentimes find a Disease quite strip the Mind of all its Ideas and the flames of a Fever in a few days calcines all those Images to dust and confusion which seem'd to be as lasting as if carved in Marble § 6. But concerning the Ideas themselves it is easie to remark That those that are oftenest refreshed amongst which are those that are conveyed into the Mind by more ways than one by a frequent return of the Objects or Actions that produce them fix themselves best in the Memory and remain clearest and longest there and therefore those which are of the original Qualities of Bodies viz. Solidity Extension Figure Motion and Rest and those that almost constantly affect our Bodies as Heat and Cold and those which are the Affections of all kind of Beings as Existence Duration and Number which almost every Object that affects our Senses every Thought which imploys our Minds bring along with them These I say and the like Ideas are seldom quite lost whilst the Mind retains any Ideas at all § 7. In this secundary Perception as I may so call it or viewing again the Ideas that are lodg'd in the Memory the Mind is oftentimes more than barely passive the appearance of those dormant Pictures depending sometimes on the Will The Mind very often sets it self on work in search of some hidden Idea and turns as it were the Eye of the Soul upon it though sometimes too they start up in our Minds of their own accord and offer themselves to the Understanding and very often are rouzed and tumbled out of their dark Cells into open Day-light by some turbulent and tempestuous Passion our Affections bringing Ideas to our Memory which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded § 8. Memory in an intellectual Creature is necessary in the next degree to Perception It is of so great moment that where it is wanting all the rest of our Faculties are in a great measure useless And we in our Thoughts Reasonings and Knowledge could not proceed beyond present Objects were it not for the assistance of our Memories wherein there may be two defects First That it loses the Idea quite and so far it produces perfect Ignorance For since we can know nothing farther than we have the Ideas of it when they are gone we are in perfect ignorance Secondly That it moves slowly and retrieves not the Ideas that it has and are laid up in store quick enough to serve the Mind upon occasions This if it be to a great degree is Stupidity and he who through this default in his Memory has not the Ideas that are really preserved there ready at hand when need and occasion calls for them were almost as good be without them quite since they serve him to little purpose The dull Man who loses the opportunity whilst he is seeking in his Mind for those Ideas that should serve his turn is not much more happy in his Knowledge than one that is perfectly ignorant 'T is the business therefore of the Memory to furnish to the Mind those dormant Ideas which it has present occasion for and in the having them ready at hand on all occasions consists that which we call Invention Fancy and quickness of Parts § 9. This faculty of laying up and retaining the Ideas that are brought into the Mind several other Animals seem to have to a great degree as well as Man For to pass by other instances Birds learning of Tunes and the endeavours one may observe in them to hit the Notes right put it past doubt with me that they have Perception and retain Ideas in their Memories and use them for Patterns For it seems to me impossible that they should endeavour to conform their Voices to Notes as 't is plain they do of which they had no Ideas For tho' I should grant Sound may mechanically cause a certain motion of the animal Spirits in the Brains of those Birds whilst the Tune is actually playing and that motion may be continued on to the Muscles of the Wings and so the Bird mechanically be driven away by certain noises because this may tend to the Birds preservation yet that can never be supposed a Reason why it should cause mechanically either whilst the Tune was playing much less after it has ceased such a motion in the Organs of the Bird's voice as should conform it to the Notes of a foreign Sound which imitation can be of no use to the Birds preservation But which is more it cannot with any appearance of Reason be suppos'd much less proved that Birds without Sense and Memory can approach their Notes nearer and nearer by degrees to a Tune play'd yesterday which if they have no Idea of in their Memory is now no-where nor can be a Pattern for them to imitate or which any repeated Essays can bring them nearer to Snce there is no reason why the sound of a Pipe should leave traces in their Brains which not at first but by their after-endeavours should produce the like Sounds and why the Sounds they make themselves should not make traces which they should follow as well as those of the Pipe is impossible to conceive CHAP. XI Of Discerning and other Operations of the Mind § 1. ANother Faculty we may take notice of in our Minds is that of Discerning and distinguishing between the several Ideas it has It is not enough to have a confused perception of something in general Unless the Mind had a distinct perception of different Objects and their Qualities it would be capable of very little Knowledge though the Bodies that affect us were as busie about us as they are now and the Mind were continually employ'd in thinking On this faculty of Distinguishing one thing from another depends the evidence and certainty of several even very general Propositions which have passed for innate Truths because Men over-looking the true cause why those Propositions find universal assent impute it wholly to native uniform Impressions whereas it in truth depends upon this clear discerning Faculty of the Mind whereby it perceives two Ideas to be the same or different But of this more hereafter § 2. How much the imperfection of accurately discriminating Ideas one from another lies either in the dulness or faults of the Organs of Sense or want of accuteness exercise or attention in the Understanding or hastiness and precipitancy natural to some Tempers I will not here examine It suffices to take notice that this is one of the Operations that the Mind may reflect on and observe in it self It is of that consequence to its other Knowledge that so far as this faculty is in it self dull or not rightly made use of for the distinguishing one thing from another so far our Notions are confused and our Reason and Judgment disturbed or misled If in having our Ideas in the Memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts in this of having them unconfused and being able nicely to distinguish one thing
the Idea of a Power to prefer the doing to the not doing any particular Action vice versa which it has thought on which preference is truly a Mode of Thinking and so the Idea which the word Will stands for is a complex and mixed one made up of the simple Ideas of Power and a certain Mode of Thinking and the Idea of Liberty is yet more complex being made up of the Idea of a Power to act or not to act in conformity to Volition But I hoped this transgression against the method I have proposed to my self will be forgiven me if I have quitted it a little to explain some Ideas of great importance such as are those of the Will Liberty and Necessity in this place where they as it were offered themselves and sprang up from their proper roots Besides having before largely enough instanced in several simple Modes to shew what I meant by them and how the Mind got them for I intend not to enumerate all the particular Ideas of each sort those of Will Liberty and Necessity may serve as instances of mixed Modes which are that sort of Ideas I purpose next to treat of § 47. And thus I have in a short draught given a view of our original Ideas from whence all the rest are derived and of which they are made up which if I would consider as a Philosopher and examine on what Causes they depend and of what they are made I believe they all might be reduced to these very few primary and original ones viz. Extension Solidity Mobility which by our Senses we receive from Body Thinking and the Power of Moving which by reflection we receive from our Minds to which if we add Existence Duration Number which belong both to the one and the other we have perhaps all the original Ideas on which the rest depend For by these I imagine might be explained the nature of Colours Sounds Tastes Smells and all other Ideas we have if we had but Faculties acute enough to perceive the severally modified Extensions and Motions of these minute Bodies which produce those several Sensations in us But my present purpose being to enquire only into the Knowledge the Mind has of Things by those Ideas and Appearances God has fitted it to receive from them and how the Mind comes by that Knowledge rather than into their Causes or manner of Production I shall not contrary to the Design of this Essay set my self to enquire philosophically into the peculiar Constitution of Bodies and the Configuration of Parts whereby they have the power to produce in us the Ideas of their sensible Qualities I shall not enter any farther into that Disquisition it sufficing to my purpose to observe That Gold or Saffron has a power to produce in us the Idea of Yellow and Snow or Milk the Idea of White which we can have only by our Sight without examining the Texture of the Parts of those Bodies or the particular Figures or Motion of the Particles which rebound from them to cause in us that particular Sensation Though when we go beyond the bare Ideas in our Minds and would enquire into their Causes we cannot conceive any thing else to be in any sensible Object whereby it produces different Ideas in us but the different Bulk Figure Number Texture and Motion of its insensible Parts CHAP. XXII Of Mixed Modes § 1. HAving treated of Simple Modes in the foregoing Chapters and given several instances of some of the most considerable of them to shew what they are and how we come by them we are now in the next place to consider those we call Mixed Modes such are the Complex Ideas we make by the names Obligation Drunkenness a Lie c. which consisting of several Combinations of simple Ideas of different kinds I have called Mixed Modes to distinguish them from the more simple Modes which consists only of simple Ideas of the same kind These mixed Modes being also such Combinations of simple Ideas as are not looked upon to be the characteristical Marks of any real Beings that have a steady existence but scattered and independent Ideas put together by the Mind are thereby distinguished from the complex Ideas of Substances § 2. That the Mind in respect of its simple Ideas is wholly passive and receives them all from the Existence and Operations of Things such as Sensation or Reflection offers them without being able to make any one Idea Experience shews us But if we attentively consider these Ideas I call mixed Modes we are now speaking of we shall find their Original quite different The Mind here often exercises an active Power in the making these several Combinations for it being once furnished with simple Ideas it can put them together in several Compositions and so make variety of complex Ideas without examining whether they exist so together in Nature And hence I think it is that these sort of Ideas are called Notions as if they had their Original and constant Existence more in the Thoughts of Men than in the reality of things and to form such Ideas it sufficed that the Mind put the parts of them together and that they were consistent in the Understanding without considering whether they had any real Being Though I do not deny but several of them might be taken from Observation and the Existence of several simple Ideas so combined as they are put together in the Understanding For the Man who first framed the Idea of Hypocrisie might have either taken it at first from the observation of one who made shew of good Qualities which he had not or else have framed that Idea in his Mind without having any such pattern to fashion it by For it is evident that in the beginning of Languages and Societies of Men several of those complex Ideas which were consequent to the Constitutions established amongst them must needs have been in the Minds of Men before they existed any where else and that many names that stood for such complex Ideas were in use and so those Ideas framed before the Combinations they stood for ever existed § 3. Indeed now that Languages are made and abound with words standing for them an usual way of getting these complex Ideas is by the explication of those terms that stand for them For consisting of a company of simple Ideas combined they may by words standing for those simple Ideas be represented to the Mind of one who understands those words though that complex Combination of simple Ideas were never offered to his Mind by the real existence of things Thus a Man may come to have the Idea of Sacrilege or Murther by enumerating to him the simple Ideas these words stand for without ever seeing either of them committed § 4. Every mixed Mode consisting of many distinct simple Ideas it may be well enquired whence it has its Vnity and how such a precise multitude comes to make but one Idea since that Combination does not
absolute because they neither signifie nor intimate any thing but what does or is supposed really to exist in the Man thus denominated But Father Brother King Husband Blacker Merrier c. are Words which together with the thing they denominate imply also something else separate and exterior to the existence of that thing § 11. Having laid down these Premises concerning Relation in general I shall now proceed to shew in some instances how all the Ideas we have of Relation are made up as the others are only of simple Ideas and that they all how refined or remote from Sense soever they seem terminate at last in simple Ideas I shall begin with the most comprehensive Relation wherein all things that do or can exist are concerned and that is the Relation of Cause and Effect The Idea whereof how derived from the two Fountains of all our Knowledge Sensation and Reflection I shall in the next place consider CHAP. XXVI Of Cause and Effect and other Relations § 1. IN the notice that our Senses take of the constant Vicissitude of Things we cannot but observe that several particular both Qualities and Substances begin to exist and that they receive this their Existence from the due Application and Operation of some other Being From this Observation we get our Ideas of Cause and Effect That which produces any simple or complex Idea we denote by the general Name Cause and that which is produced Effect Thus finding that in that Substance which we call Wax Fluidity which is a simple Idea that was not in it before is constantly produced by the Application of a certain degree of Heat we call the simple Idea of Heat in relation to Fluidity in Wax the Cause of it and Fluidity the Effect So also finding that the Substance Wood which is a certain Collection of simple Ideas so called will by the Application of Fire be turned into another Substance called Ashes i. e. another complex Idea consisting of a Collection of simple Ideas quite different from that complex Idea which we call Wood we consider Fire in relation to Ashes as Cause and the Ashes as Effect So that whatever is considered by us to conduce or operate to the producing any particular simple Idea or Collection of simple Ideas whether Substance or Mode which did not before exist hath thereby in our Minds the relation of a Cause and so is denominated by us § 2. Having thus from what our Senses are able to discover in the Operations of Bodies on one another got the Notion of Cause and Effect viz. That a Cause is that which makes any other thing either simple Idea Substance or Mode begin to be and an Effect is that which had its Beginning from some other thing The Mind finds no great difficulty to distinguish the several Originals of things into two sorts First When the thing is wholly made new so that no part thereof did ever exist before as when a new Particle of Matter doth begin to exist in rerum natura which had before no Being and this we call Creation Secondly When a thing is made up of Particles which did all of them before exist but that very thing so constituted of pre-existing Particles which considered altogether make up such a Collection of simple Ideas had not any Existence before as this Man this Egg Rose or Cherry c. And this when referred to a Substance produced in the ordinary course of Nature by an internal Principle but set on work by and received from some external Agent or Cause and working by insensible ways which we perceive not we call Generation when the Cause is extrinsical and the Effect produced by a sensible Separation or juxta Position of discernable Parts we call it Making and such are all artificial things When any simple Idea is produced which was not in that Subject before we call it Alteration Thus a Man is generated a Picture made and either of them altered when any new sensible Quality or simple Idea is produced in either of them which was not there before and the things thus made to exist which were not there before are Effects and those things which operated to the Existence Causes In which and all other Cases we may observe that the Notion of Cause and Effect has its rise from Ideas received by Sensation or Reflection and that this Relation how comprehensive soever terminates at last in them For to have the Idea of Cause and Effect it suffices to consider any simple Idea or Substance as beginning to exist by the Operation of some other without knowing the manner of that Operation § 3. Time and Place are also the Foundations of very large Relations and all finite Beings at least are concerned in them But having already shewn in another Place how we got these Ideas it may suffice here to intimate that most of the Denominations of things received from time are only Relations thus when any one says that Queen Elizabeth lived sixty nine and reigned forty five years these Words import only the Relation of that Duration to some other and means no more but this that the Duration of her Existence was equal to sixty nine and the Duration of her Government to forty five Annual Revolutions of the Sun and so are all Words answering how long Again William the Conqueror invaded England about the year 1070. which means this that taking the Duration from our Saviour's Time till now for one entire great length of time it shews at what distance this Invasion was from the two Extremes and so do all Words of time answering to the Question when which shew only the distance of any point of time from the Period of a longer Duration from which we measure and to which we thereby consider it as related § 4 There are yet besides those other Words of time that ordinarily are thought to stand for positive Ideas which yet will when considered be found to be relative such as are Young Old c. which include and intimate the Relation any things has to a certain length of Duration whereof we have the Idea in our Minds Thus having setled in our Thoughts the Idea of the ordinary Duration of a Man to be seventy years when we say a Man is Young we mean that his Age is yet but a small part of that which usually Men attain to And when we denominate him Old we mean that his Duration is run out almost to the end of that which Men do not usually exceed And so 't is but comparing the particular Age or Duration of this or that Man to the Idea of that Duration which we have in our Minds as ordinarily belonging to that sort of Animals Which is plain in the application of these Names to other Things for a Man is called young at twenty years and very young at seven years old But yet a Horse we call old at twenty and a Dog at seven years because in each of these
the Figure of any of the Wheels the dissolving of Silver in aqua fortis and Gold in aq regia and not vice versa would be then perhaps no more difficult to know than it is to a Smith to understand why the turning of one Key will open a Lock and not the turning of another But whilst we are destitute of Senses acute enough to discover the minute Particles of Bodies and to give us Ideas of their mechanical Affections we must be content to be ignorant of their properties and ways of Operation nor can we be assured about them any farther than some few Trials we make are able to reach But whether they will succeed again another time we cannot be certain This hinders our certain Knowledge of universal Truths concerning natural Bodies And our Reason carries us herein very little beyond particular matter of Fact § 26. And therefore I am apt to doubt that how far soever humane Industry may advance useful and experimental Philosophy in physical Things scientifical will still be out of our reach because we want perfect and adequate Ideas of those very Bodies which are nearest to us and most under our Command Those which we have ranked into Classes under names and we think our selves best acquainted with we have but very imperfect and incompleat Ideas of Distinct Ideas of the several sorts of Bodies that fall under the Examination of our Senses perhaps we may have but adequate Ideas I suspect we have not of any one amongst them And though the former of these will serve us for common Use and Discourse yet whilst we want the latter we are not capable of scientifical Knowledge nor shall ever be able to discover general instructive Truths concerning them Certainty and Demonstration are Things we must not in these Matters pretend to By the Colour Figure Taste and Smell and other sensible Qualities we have as clear and distinct Ideas of Sage and Hemlock as we have of a Circle and a Triangle But having no Ideas of the particular primary Qualities of the minute parts of either of these Plants nor of other Bodies we would apply them to we cannot tell what effects they will produce Nor when we see those Effects can we so much as guess much less know their manner of production Thus having no Ideas of the particular mechanical Affections of the minute parts of Bodies that are within our view and reach we are ignorant of their Constitutions Powers and Operations and of Bodies more remote we are ignorant of their very outward Shapes and Beings § 27. This at first sight will shew us how disproportionate our Knowledge is to the whole extent even of material Beings to which if we add the Consideration of that infinite number of Spirits that may be and probably are which are yet more remote from our Knowledge whereof we have no cognizance nor can frame to our selves any distinct Ideas of their several ranks and sorts we shall find this cause of Ignorance conceal from us in an impenetrable obscurity almost the whole intellectual World a greater certainly and more beautiful World than the material For bating some very few and those if I may so call them superficial Ideas which Spirit we by reflection get of our own and of the Father of all Spirits the eternal independent Author of them and us and all Things we have no certain information so much as of their Existence but by revelation Angels of all sorts are naturally beyond our discovery And all those Intelligences whereof 't is likely there are more Orders than of corporeal Substances are Things whereof our natural Faculties give us no certain account at all That there are Minds and thinking Beings in other Men as well as himself every Man has a reason from their Words and Actions to be satisfied But between us and the Great GOD we can have no certain knowledge of the Existence of any Spirits but by revelation much less have we distinct Ideas of their different Natures Conditions States Powers and several Constitutions wherein they agree or differ from one another and from us And therefore in what concerns their different Species and Properties we are under an absolute ignorance § 28. Secondly What a small part of the substantial Beings that are in the Universe the want of Ideas leave open to our Knowledge we have seen In the next place another cause of Ignorance of no less moment is the want of a discoverable Connexion between those Ideas we have For where-ever we want that we are utterly uncapable of universal and certain Knowledge and are as in the former case left only to Observation and Experiment which how narrow and confined it is how far from general Knowledge we need not be told I shall give some few instances of this cause of our Ignorance and so leave it 'T is evident that the bulk figure and motion of several Bodies about us produce in us several Sensations as of Colours Sounds Tastes or Smells Pleasure and Pain c. those mechanical Affections of Bodies having no affinity at all with these Ideas they produce in us there being no conceivable connexion between any impulse of any sort of Body and any perception of a Colour or Smell we find in our Minds we can have no distinct knowledge of such Operations beyond our Experience and can reason no otherwise about them than as the effects or appointment of an infinitely Wise Agent which perfectly surpass our Comprehensions As the Ideas of sensible secundary Qualities we have in our Minds can by us be no way deduced from bodily Causes nor any correspondence or connexion be found between them and those primary Qualities which Experience shews us produce them in us so on the other side the Opetions of our Minds upon our Bodies is as unconceivable How any thought should produce a motion in Body is as remote from the nature of our Ideas as how any Body should produce any Thought in the Mind That it is so if Experience did not convince us the Considerations of the Things themselves would never be able in the least to discover to us These and the like though they have a constant and regular connexion in the ordinary course of Things yet that connexion being not discoverable in the Ideas themselves which appearing to have no necessary dependence one on another we can attribute their connexion to nothing else but the arbitrary Determination of that All-wise Agent who has made them to be and to operate as they do in a way utterly above our weak Understanding to conceive § 29. In some of our Ideas there are certain Relations Habitudes and Connexions so visibly included in the Nature of the Ideas themselves that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any Power whatsoever And in these only we are capable of certain and universal Knowledge Thus the Idea of a right-lined Triangle necessarily carries with it an equality of its Angles to two right ones
same Figures and Motions of any other and I challenge any one in his Thoughts to add any Thing else to one above another § 16. Thirdly If then neither one peculiar Atom alone can be this eternal thinking Being nor all Matter as Matter i. e. every particle of Matter can be it it only remains that it is some certain System of Matter duly put together that is this thinking eternal Being This is that which I imagine is that Notion which Men are aptest to have of GOD who would have him a material Being as most readily suggested to them by the ordinary conceit they have of themselves and other Men which they take to be material thinking Beings But this Imagination however more natural is no less absurd than the other For to suppose the eternal thinking Being to be nothing else but a composition of Particles of Matter each whereof is incogitative is to ascribe all the Wisdom and Knowledge of that eternal Being only to the juxta-position of parts than which nothing can be more absurd For unthinking Particles of Matter however put together can have nothing thereby added to them but a new relation of Position which 't is impossible should give thought and knowledge to them § 17. But farther this corporeal System either has all its parts at rest or it is a certain motion of the parts wherein its Thinking consists If it be perfectly at rest it is but one lump and so can have no privileges above one Atom If it be the motion of its parts on which its Thinking depends all the Thoughts there must be unavoidably accidental and limitted since all the Particles that by Motion cause Thought being each of them in it self without any Thought cannot regulate its own Motions much less be regulated by the Thought of the whole since that Thought is not the cause of Motion for then it must be antecedent to it and so without it but the consequence of it whereby Freedom Power Choice and all rational and wise thinking or acting will be quite taken away So that such a thinking Being will be no better nor wiser than pure blind Matter since to resolve all into the accidental unguided motions of blind Matter or into Thought depending on unguided motions of blind Matter is the same thing not to mention the narrowness of such Thoughts and Knowledge that must depend on the motion of such parts But there needs no enumeration of any more Absurdities and Impossibilities in this Hypothesis however full of them it be than that before-mentioned since let this thinking System be all or a part of the Matter of the Universe it is impossible that any one Particle should either know its own or the motion of any other Particle or the Whole know the motion of every Particular and so regulate its own Thoughts or Motions or indeed have any Thought resulting from such Motion § 18. Others would have Matter to be eternal notwithstanding that they allow an eternal cogitative immaterial Being This tho' it take not away the Being of a God yet since it denies one and the first great piece of his Workmanship the Creation let us consider it a little Matter must be allow'd eternal Why Because you cannot conceive how it can be made out of nothing why do you not also think your self eternal You will answer perhaps Because about twenty or forty years since you began to be But if I ask you what that You is which began to be you can scarce tell me The Matter whereof you are made began not then to be for if it did then it is not eternal But it began to be put together in such a fashion and frame as makes up your Body but yet that frame of Particles is not You it makes not that thinking Thing You are for I have now to do with one who allows an eternal immaterial thinking Being but would have unthinking Matter eternal too therefore when did that thinking Thing begin to be If it did never begin to be then have you always been a thinking Thing from Eternity the absurdity whereof I need not confute till I meet with one who is so void of Understanding as to own it If therefore you can allow a thinking Thing to be made out of nothing as all Things that are not eternal must be why also can you not allow it possible for a material Being to be made out of nothing by an equal Power but that you have the experience of the one in view and not of the other Though when well considered Creation of one as well as t'other requires an equal Power And we have no more reason to boggle at the effect of that Power in one than in the other because the manner of it in both is equally beyond our comprehension For the Creation or beginning of any one thing out of nothing being once admitted the Creation of every thing else but the CREATOR Himself may with the same ease be supposed § 19. But you will say Is it not impossible to admit of the making any thing out of nothing since we cannot possibly conceive it I answer No 1. Because it is not reasonable to deny the power of an infinite Being because we cannot comprehend its Operations We do not deny other effects upon this ground because we cannot possibly conceive their Production we cannot conceive how Thought or any thing but motion in Body can move Body and yet that is not a Reason sufficient to make us deny it possible against the constant Experience we have of it in our selves in all our voluntary Motions which are produced in us only by the free Thoughts of our own Minds and are not nor cannot be the effects of the impulse or determination of the motion of blind Matter in or upon our Bodies for then it could not be in our power or choice to alter it For example My right Hand writes whilst my left Hand is still What causes rest in one and motion in the other Nothing but my Will a Thought of my Mind my Thought only changing the right Hand rests and the left Hand moves This is matter of fact which cannot be denied Explain this and make it intelligible and then the next step will be to understand Creation In the mean time 't is an overvaluing our selves to reduce all to the narrow measure of our Capacities and to conclude all things impossible to be done whose manner of doing exceeds our Comprehension This is to make our Comprehension infinite or GOD finite when what he can do is limitted to what we can conceive of it If you do not understand the Operations of your own finite Mind that thinking Thing within you do not deem it strange that you cannot comprehend the Operations of that eternal infinite Mind who made and governs all Things and whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain CHAP. XI Of our Knowledge of the Existence of other Things § 1. THe Knowledge of our own Being
which happen to them there and so depend on something exterior to the Mind no otherwise differing in their manner of production from other Ideas derived from Sense but only in the precedency of Time Whereas those innate Principles are supposed to be of quite another nature not coming into the Mind by the accidental alterations in or operations on the Body but as it were original Characters impressed upon it in the very first moment of its Being and Constitution § 7. As there are some Ideas which we may reasonably suppose may be introduced into the Minds of Children in the Womb subservient to the necessity of their Life and being there So after they are born those Ideas are the earliest imprinted which happen to be the sensible Qualities which first occur to them amongst which Light is not the least considerable nor of the weakest efficacy And how covetous the Mind is to be furnished with all such Ideas as have no pain accompanying them may be a little guess'd by what is observable in Children new-born who always turn their Eyes to that part from whence the Light comes lay them how you please But the Ideas that are most familiar at first being various according to the divers circumstances of Childrens first entertainment in the World the order wherein the several Ideas come at first into the Mind is very various and uncertain also neither is it much material to know it § 8. We are farther to consider concerning Perception that the Ideas we receive by sensation are often in grown People alter'd by the Iudgment without our taking notice of it When we set before our Eyes a round Globe of any uniform colour v. g. Gold Alabaster or Jet 't is certain that the Idea thereby imprinted in our Mind is of a flat Circle variously shadow'd with several degrees of Light and Brightness coming to our Eyes But we having by use been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance convex Bodies are wont to make in us what alterations are made in the reflexions of Light by the difference of the sensible Figures of Bodies the Judgment presently by an habitual custom alters the Appearances into their Causes So that from that which truly is variety of shadow or colour collecting the Figure it makes it pass for a mark of Figure and frames to it self the perception of a convex Figure and an uniform Colour when the Idea we receive from thence is only a Plain variously colour'd as is evident in Painting § 9. But this is not I think usual in any of our Ideas but those received by Sight Because Sight the most comprehensive of all our Senses conveying to our Minds the far different Ideas of Light and Colours which are peculiar only to that Sense and also of Space Figure and Motion the several varieties whereof change the appearances of its proper Objects viz. Light and Colours it accustoms it self by use to judge of the one by the other This in many cases by a setled habit in things whereof we have frequent experience is performed so constantly and so quick that we take that for the Perception of our Sensation which is but an Idea formed by our Judgment so that one viz. that of Sensation serves only to excite the other and is scarce taken notice of it self as a Man who reads and hears with attention and understanding takes little notice of the Characters or Sounds but of the Ideas that are excited in him by them § 10. Nor need we wonder that this is done with so little notice if we consider how very quick the actions of the Mind are performed For as it self takes up no space has no extension so its actions seem to require no time but many of them seem to be crouded into an Instant I speak this in comparison to the actions of the Body Any one may easily observe this in his own Thoughts who will take the pains to reflect on them How as it were in an instant does our Minds with one glance see all the parts of a demonstration which may very well be called along one if we consider the time it will require to put it into words and step by step shew it another Secondly we shall not be so much surprized that this is done in us with so little notice if we consider how the facility we get of doing things by a custom of doing makes them often pass in us without our noticeâ— Habits especially such as are begun very early come at last to produce actions in us which often scape our observation How frequently do we in a day cover our Eyes with our Eye-lids without perceiving that we are at all in the dark Men that by custom have got the use of a By-word do almost in every sentence pronounce soundsâ— which though taken notice of by others they themselves neither hear nor observe And therefore 't is not so strange that our Mind should often change the Idea of its Sensation into that of its Judgment and make one serve only to excite the other without our taking notice of it § 11. This faculty of Perception seems to me to be that which puts the distinction betwixt the â—nimal Kingdom and â—he inferior parts of Nature For however Vegetables have many of them some degrees of Motion and upon the different application of other 〈◊〉 it s to them do very briskly alter their Figures and Motions and so have obtained the name of sensitive Plants from a motion which has some resemblance to that which in Animals follows upon Sensationâ— Yet I suppose it is all bare Mechanism and no otherwise produced than the turning of a wild Oat-beard by the insinuation of the Particles of Moisture or the shortning of a Rope by the affusion of Water All which is done without any sensation in the Subject or the having or receiving any Ideas § 12. Perception I believe is in some degree in all sorts of Animals though in some possibly the Avenues provided for the reception of Sensations are so few by Nature and the Perception they are received with so obscure and dull that it comes extreamly short of the quickness and variety of Sensations which is in other Animals but yet it is sufficient for and wisely adapted to the state and condition of that sort of Animals who are thus constituted by Nature So that the Wisdom and Goodness of the Maker plainly appears in all the Parts of this stupendious Fabrick and all the several degrees and ranks of Creatures in it § 13. We may I think from the Make of an Oyster or Cockle reasonably conclude that it has not so many nor so quick Senses as a Man or several other Animals nor if it had would it in that state and incapacity of transferring it self from one place to another be better'd by them What good would Sight and Hearing do to a Creature that cannot move it self to or from the Objects wherein at a distance it perceives Good or
be reckoned its active Powers and passive Capacities which though not strictly simple Ideas yet in this respect for brevities sake may conveniently enough be reckoned amongst them Thus the power of drawing Iron is one of the Ideas of the Complex one of that substance we call a Load-stone and a Power to be so drawn is a part of the Complex one we call Iron which Powers pass for inherent Qualities in those Subjects Because every Substance being as apt by the Powers we observe in it to change some sensible Qualities in other Subjects as it is to produce in us those simple Ideas we receive immediately from it does by those new sensible Qualities introduced into other Subjects discover to us those Powers which do thereby mediately affect our Senses as regularly as its sensible Qualities do it immediately v. g. we immediately by our Senses perceive in Fire its Heat and Colour which are if rightly considered nothing but Powers in it to produce those Ideas in us We also by our Senses perceive the colour and brittleness of Charcoal whereby we come by the Knowledge of another Power in Fire which it has to change the colour and consistency of Wood By the former Fire immediately by the later it mediately discovers to us these several Powers which therefore we look upon to be a part of the Qualities of Fire and so make them a part of the complex Ideas of it For all those Powers that we take Cognizance of terminating only in the alteration of some sensible Qualities in those Subjects on which they operate and so making them exhibit to us new sensible Ideas therefore it is that I have reckoned these Powers amongst the simple Ideas which make the complex ones of the sorts of Substances though these Powers considered in themselves are truly complex Ideas And in this looser sense I crave leave to be understood when I name any of these Potentialities amongst the simple Ideas which we recollect in our Minds when we think of particular Substances For the Powers that are severally in them are necessary to be considered if we will have true distinct Notions of Substances § 8. Nor are we to wonder that Powers make a great part of our complex Ideas of Substances since their secondary Qualities are those which in most of them serve principally to distinguish Substances one from another and commonly make a considerable part of the complex Idea of the several sorts of them For our Senses failing us in the discovery of the Bulk Texture and Figure of the minute parts of Bodies on which their real Constitutions and Differences depend we are fain to make use of their secondary Qualities as the characteristical Notes and Marks whereby to frame Ideas of them in our Minds and distinguish them one from another All which secondary Qualities as has been shewn are nothing but bare Powers For the Colour and Taste of Opium are as well as its foporifick or anodyn Virtues meer Powers depending on its primary Qualities whereby it is sitted to produce different Operations on different parts of our Bodies The Ideas that make our complex ones of corporeal Substances are of these three sorts First The Ideas of the primary Qualities of things which are discovered by our Senses and are in them even when we perceive them not such are the Bulk Figure Number Situation and Motion of the Parts of Bodies which are really in them whether we perceive them or no. Secondly The sensible secondary Qualities which depending on these are nothing but the Powers those Substances have to produce several Ideas in us by our Senses which Ideas are not in the things themselves otherwise than as any thing is in its Cause Thirdly The aptness we consider in any Substance to give or receive such alterations of primary Qualities as that the Substance so altered should produce in us different Ideas from what it did before these are called active and passive Powers all which Powers as far as we have any Notice or Notion of them terminate only in sensible simple Ideas for whatever alteration a Load-stone has the Power to make in the minute Particles of Iron we should have no Notion of any Power it had at all to operate on Iron did not its sensible Motion discover it and I doubt not but there are a thousand Changes that Bodies we daily handle have a Power to cause in one another which we never suspect because they never appear in sensible effects § 10. Powers therefore justly make a great part of our complex Ideas of Substances He that will examine his complex Idea of Gold will find several of its Ideas that make it up to be only Powers as the Power of being melted but of keeping its weight in the Fire of being dissolved in Aq. Regia are Ideas as necessary to make up our complex Idea of Gold as its Colour and Weight which if duly considered are also nothing but different Powers For to speak truly Yellowness is not actually in Gold but is a Power in Gold to produce that Idea in us by our Eyes when placed in a due Light and the Heat which we cannot leave out of our Idea of the Sun is no more really in the Sun than the white Colour it introduces in Wax These are both equally Powers in the Sun operating by the Motion and Figure of its insensible Parts so on a Man as to make him have the Idea of Heat and so on Wax as to make it capable to produce in a Man the Idea of White § 11. Had we Senses acute enough to discern the minute particles of Bodies and the real Constitution on which their sensible Qualities depend I doubt not but they would produce quite different Ideas in us and that which is now the yellow Colour of Gold would then disappear and instead of it we should see an admirable Texture of parts of a certain Size and Figure This Microscopes plainly discover to us for what to our naked Eyes produces a certain Colour is by thus augmenting the acuteness of our Senses discovered to be quite a different thing and the thus altering as it were the proportion of the Bulk of the minute parts of a coloured Object to our usual Sight produces different Ideas from what it did before Thus Sand or pounded Glass which is opaque and white to the naked Eye is pellucid in a Microscope and a Hair seen this way looses its former Colour and is in a great measure pellucid with a mixture of some bright sparkling Colours such as appear from the refraction of Diamonds and other pellucid Bodies Blood to the naked Eye appears all red but by a good Microscope wherein its lesser parts appear shews only some few Globules of Red swimming in a pellucid Liquor and how these red Globules would appear if Glasses could be found that yet could magnifie them 1000 or 10000 times more is uncertain § 12. The infinitely wise contriver of us and
may account for the cohesion of several parts of Matter that are grosser than the Particles of Air and have Pores less than the Corpuscles of Air yet the weight or pressure of the Air will not explain nor can be a cause of the coherence of the Particles of Air themselves And if the pressure of the AEther or any subtiler Matter than the Air may unite and hold fast together the parts of a Particle of Air as well as other Bodies yet it cannot make Bonds for it self and hold together the parts that make up every the least corpuscle of that materia subtilis So that that Hypothesis how ingeniously soever explained by shewing that the parts of sensible Bodies are held together by the pressure of other external insensible Bodies reaches not the parts of the AEther it self and by how much the more evident it proves that the parts of other Bodies are held together by the external pressure of the AEther and can have no other conceivable cause of their cohesion and union by so much the more it leaves us in the dark concerning the cohesion of the parts of the Corpuscles of the AEther it self which we can neither conceive without parts they being Bodies and divisible nor yet how their parts cohere they wanting that cause of cohesion which is given of the cohesion of the parts of all other Bodies § 24. But in truth the pressure of any ambient Fluid how great soever can be no intelligible cause of the cohesion of the solid parts of Matter For though such a pressure may hinder the avulsion of two polished Superficies one from another in a Line perpendicular to them as in the Experiment of two polished Marbles Yet it can never in the least hinder the separation by a Motion in a Line parallel to these Superficies Because the ambient fluid having a full liberty to succeed in each point of Space diserted by a lateral motion resists such a motion of Bodies so joined no more than it would resist the motion of that Body were it on all sides environed by that Fluid and touched no other Body And therefore if there were no other cause of cohesion all parts of Bodies must be easily separable by such a lateral sliding motion For if the pressure of the AEther be the adequate cause of cohesion where-ever that cause operates not there can be no cohesion And since it cannot operate against such a lateral separation as has been shewed therefore in every imaginary plain intersecting any mass of Matter there could be no more cohesion than of two polished Superficies which will always notwithstanding any imaginable pressure of a Fluid easily slide one from another so that perhaps how clear an Idea soever we think we have of the Extension of Body which is nothing but the cohesion of solid parts he that shall well consider it in his Mind may have reason to conclude That 't is as easie for him to have a clear Idea how the Soul thinks as how Body is extended For since Body is no farther nor otherwise extended than by the union and cohesion of its solid parts we shall very ill comprehend the extension of Body without understanding wherein consists the union and cohesion of its parts which seems to me as incomprehensible as the manner of Thinking and how it is performed § 25. I allow it is usual for most People to wonder how any one should find a difficulty in what they think they every day observe Do we not see will they be ready to say the parts of Bodies stick firmly together Is there any thing more common And what doubt can there be made of it And the like I say concerning Thinking and voluntary Motion Do we not every moment experiment it in our selves and therefore can it be doubted The matter of fact is clear I confess but when we would a little nearer look into it and consider how it is done there I think we are at a loss both in the one and the other and can as little understand how the parts of Body cohere as how we our selves perceive or move I would have any one intelligibly explain to me how the parts of Gold or Brass that but now in fusion were as loose from one another as the Particles of Water or the Sands of an Hour-glass come in a few moments to be so united and adhere so strongly one to another that the utmost force of Mens arms cannot separate them A considering Man will I suppose be here at a loss to satisfie his own or another Man's Understanding § 26. The little Bodies that compose that Fluid we call Water are so extreamly small that I have never heard of any one who by a Microscope and yet I have heard of some that have magnified to 10000 nay to much above 100,000 times pretended to perceive their distinct Bulk Figure or Motion And the Particles of Water are also so perfectly loose one from another that the least force sensibly separates them Nay if we consider their perpetual motion we must allow them to have no cohesion one with another and yâ—t let but a sharp cold come and they unite they consolidate these little Atoms cohere and are not without great force separable He that could find the Bonds that tie these heaps of loose little Bodies together so firmly he that could make known the Cement that makes them stick so fast one to another would discover a great and yet unknown Secret And yet when that was done would he be far enough from making the extension of Body which is the cohesion of its solid parts intelligible till he could shew wherein consisted the union or consolidation of the parts of those Bonds or of that Cement or of the least Particle of Matter that exists Whereby it appears that this primary and supposed obvious Quality of Body will be found when examined to be as incomprehensible as any thing belonging to our Minds and a solid extended Substance as hard to be conceived as a thining one whatever difficulties some would raise against it § 27. For to extend our Thoughts a little farther that pressure which is brought to explain the cohesion of Bodies is as unintelligible as the cohesion it self For if Matter be considered as no doubt it is finite let any one send his Contemplation to the Extremities of Universe and there see what conceivable Hoops what Bond he can imagine to hold this mass of Matter in so close a pressure together from whence Steel has its firmness and the parts of a Diamond their hardness and indissolubility If Matter be finite it must have its Extreams and there must be something to hinder it from scattering asunder If to avoid this difficulty any one will throw himself into the Supposition and Abyss of infinite Matter let him consider what light he thereby brings to the cohesion of Body and whether he be ever the nearer making it intelligible by resolving it into a
I plainly perceive I cannot discover the farthest I can go is only to presume that it being nothing but Body its real Essence or internal Constitution on which these Qualities depend can be nothing but the Figure Size and Connexion of its solid Parts of neither of which I having any distinct perception at all I can have no Idea of its real Essence which is the cause that it has that particular shining yellowness a greater weight than any thing I know of the same bulk and a fitness to have its Colour changed by the touch of Quicksilver If any one will say that the real Essence and internal Constitution on which these Properties depend is not the Figure Size and Arangement or Connexion of its solid Parts but something else call'd its particular form I am farther from having any Idea of its real Essence than I was before For I have an Idea of Figure Size and Situation of solid Parts in general though I have none of the particular Figure Size or putting together of Parts whereby the Qualities above-mentioned are produced which Qualities I find in that particular parcel of Matter that is on my Finger and not in another parcel of Matter with which I cut the Pen I write with But when I am told that something besides the Figure Size and Posture of the solid Parts of that Body is its Essence something called substantial form of that I confess I have no Idea at all but only of the sound Form which is far enough from an Idea of its real Essence or Constitution The like ignorance as I have of the real Essence of this particular Substance I have also of the real Essence of all other natural ones Of which Essences I confess I have no distinct Ideas at all and I am apt to suppose others when they examine their own Knowledge will find in themselves in this one point the same sort of ignorance § 7. Now then when Men apply to this particular parcel of Matter on my Finger a general Name already in use and denominate it Gold Do they not ordinarily or are they not understood to give it that Name as belonging to a particular Species of Bodies having a real internal Essence by having of which Essence this particular Substance comes to be of that Species and to be called by that Name If it be so as it is plain it is the name by which Things are marked as having that Essence must be referred primarily to that Essence and consequently the Idea to which that name is given must be referred also to that Essence and be intended to represent it which Essence since they who so use the Names know not their Ideas of Substances must be all inadequate in that respect as not containing in them that real Essence which the Mind intends they should § 8. Secondly Those who neglecting that useless Supposition of unknown real Essences whereby they are distinguished endeavour to copy the Substances that exist in the World by putting together the Ideas of those sensible Qualities which are sound co-existing in them though they come much nearer a likeness of them than those who imagine they know not what real specifick Essences yet they arrive not at perfectly adequate Ideas of those Substances they would thus copy into their Minds nor do those Copies exactly and fully contain all that is to be found in their Archetypes Because those Qualities and Powers of Substances whereof we make their complex Ideas are so many and various that no Man's complex Idea contains them all That our abstract Ideas of Substances do not contain in them all the simple Ideas that are united in the Things themselves is evident in that Men do rarely put into their complex Idea of any Substance all the simple Ideas they do know to exist in it Because endeavouring to make the signification of their specifick Names as clear and as little cumbersome as they can they make their specifick Ideas of the sorts of Substances for the most part of a few of those simple Ideas which are to be found in them But these having no original precedency or right to be put in and make the specifick Idea more than others that are left out 't is plain that both these ways our Ideas of Substances are deficient and inadequate The simple Ideas whereof we make our complex ones of Substances are all of them baâ—ing only the Figure and Bulk of some sorts Powers which being Relations to other Substancesâ— we can never be sure we know all the Powers that are in any one Body till we have tried what Changes it is fitted to give to or receive from other Substances in their several ways of application which being impossible to be tried upon any one Body much less upon all it is impossible we should have adequate Ideas of any Substance made up of a Collection of all its Properties § 9. Whosoever first light on a parcel of that sort of Substance we denote by the word Gold could not rationally take the Bulk and Figure he observed in that lump to depend on its real Essence on its internal Constitution Therefore those never went into his Idea of that Species of Body but its peculiar Colour perhaps and Weight were the first he abstracted from it to make the complex Idea of that Species Which bothâ— are but Powers the one to affect our Eyes after such a manner and to produce in us that Idea we call Yellow and the other to force upwards any other Body of equal bulk they being put into a pair of equal Scales one against another Another perhaps added to these the Ideas of Fusibility and Fixedness two other passive Powers in relation to the operation of Fire upon it Another its Ductility and Solubility in Aq. Regia two other Powers relating to the operation of other Bodies in changing its outward Figure or Separation of it into sensible Parts These or part of these put together usually make the complex Idea in Mens Minds of that sort of Body we call Gold § 10. But no one who hath considered the Properties of Bodies in general or this sort in particular can doubt that this call'd Gold has infinite other Properties not contained in that complex Idea Some who have examined this Species more accurately could I believe enumerate ten times as many Properties in Gold all of them as inseparable from its internal Constitution as its Colour or Weight And 't is probable if any one knew all the Properties that are by divers Men known of this Metal there would an hundred times as many Ideas go to the complex Idea of Gold as any one Man yet has in his and yet that not perhaps be the thousandth part of what is to be discovered in it The changes that that one Body is apt to receive and make in other Bodies upon a due application exceeding far not only what we know but what we are apt to imagine Which will
Nor can we conceive this Relation this connexion of these two Ideas to be possibly mutable or depend on any arbitrary Power which of choice made it thus or could make it otherwise But the coherence and continuity of the parts of Matter the production of Sensation in us of Colours and Sounds c. by impulse and motion nay the original Rules and Communication of Motion being such wherein we can discover no natural connexion with any Ideas we have we cannot but ascribe them to the arbitrary Will and good Pleasure of the Wise Architect I need not I think here mention the Resurrection of our Bodies the future state of this Globe of Earth and such other Things which are by every one acknowledged to depend wholly on the Determination of a free Agent The Things that as far as our Observation reaches we constantly find to proceed regularly we may conclude do act by a Law set them but yet a Law that we know not whereby though Causes work steddily and Effects constantly flow from them yet their Connexions and Dependencies being not discoverable in our Ideas we can have but an experimental Knowledge of them From all which 't is easie to perceive what a darkness we are involved in how little 't is of being and the things that are that we are capable to know And therefore we shall do no injury to our Knowledge when we modestly think with our selves that we are so far from being able to comprehend the whole nature of the Universe and all the things contained in it that we are not capable of a philosophical Knowledge of the Bodies that are about us and make a part of us Concerning their secundary Qualities Powers and Operations we can have no universal certainty Several Effects come every day within the notice of our Senses of which we have so far sensitive Knowledge but the causes manner and certainty of their production for the two foregoing Reasons we must be content to be ignorant of In these we can go no farther than particular Experience informs us of matter of fact and by Analogy to guess what Effects the like Bodies are upon other tryals like to produce But as to a perfect Science of natural Bodies not to mention spiritual Beings we are I think so far from being capable of any such thing that I conclude it lost labour to seek after it § 30. Thirdly Where we have adequate Ideas and where there is a certain and discoverable connexion between them yet we are often ignorant for want of tracing those Ideas we have or may have and finding out those intermediate Ideas which may shew us what habitude of agreement or disagreement they have one with another And thus many are ignorant of mathematical Truths not out of any imperfection of their Faculties or uncertainty in the Things themselves but for want of application in acquâ—ring examining and by due ways comparing those Ideas That which has most contributed to hinder the due tracing of our Ideas and finding out their Relations and Agreements or Disagreements one with another has been I suppose the ill use of Words It is impossible that Men should ever truly seek or certainly discover the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas themselves whilst their Thoughts flutter about or stick only in Sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations Mathematicians abstracting their Thoughts from Names and accustoming themselves to set before their Minds the Ideas themselves that they would consider and not Sounds instead of them have avoided thereby a great part of that perplexity puddering and confusion which has so much hindred Mens progress in other parts of Knowledge who sticking in Words of undetermined and uncertain signification were unable to distinguish True from False Certain from Probable Consistent from Inconsistent in their own Opinions Whereby the increase brought into the Stock of real Knowledge has been very little in proportion to the Schools Disputes and Writings the World has been fill'd with whilst Men being lost in the great Wood of Words knew not whereabout they were how far their Discoveries were advanced or what was wanting in their own or the general Stock of Knowledge Had Men in their discoveries of the material done as they have in those of the intellectual World involved all in the obscurity of uncertain and doubtful terms and ways of talking Volumes writ of Navigation and Voyages Theories and Stories of Zones and Tydes multiplied and disputed nay Ships built and Fleets set out would never have taught us the way beyond the Line and the Antipodes would be still as much unknown as when it was declared Heresie to hold there were any But having spoken sufficiently of Words and the ill or careless use that is commonly made of them I shall not say any thing more of it here § 31. Hitherto we have examined the extent of our Knowledge in respect of the several sorts of Beings that are There is another extent of it in respect of Vniversality which will also deserve to be considered and in this regard our Knowledge follows the Nature of our Ideas If the Ideas are abstract whose agreement or disagreement we perceive our Knowledge is universal For what is known of such general Ideas will be true of every particular thing in whom that Essence i. e. that abstract Idea is to be found and what is once known of such Ideas will be perpetually and for ever true So that as to all general Knowledge we must search and find it only in our own Minds and 't is only the examining of our own Ideas that furnisheth us with that Truths belonging to Essences of Things that is to abstract Ideas are eternal and are to be found out by the contemplation only of those Essences as the Existence of Things is to be known only from Experience But having more to of this in the Chapters where I shall speak of general and real Knowledge this may here suffice as to the Universality of our Knowledge in general CHAP. IV. Of the Reality of our Knowledge § 1. I doubt not but my Reader by this time may be apt to think that I have been all this while only building a Castle in the Air and be ready to say to me To what purpose all this stir Knowledge say you is only the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own Ideas but who knows what those Ideas may be Is there any thing so extravagant as the Imaginations of Men's Brains Where is the Head that has no Chimeras in it Or if there be a sober and a wise Man what difference will there be by your Rules between his Knowledge and that of the most extravagant Fancy in the World They both have their Ideas and perceive their agreement and disagreement one with another If there be any difference between them the advantage will be on the warm-headed Man's side as having the more Ideas and the more lively And so by your Rules he will be the more
so remote from that internal real Constitution on which their sensible Qualities depend and are made up of nothing but an imperfect Collection of those apparent Qualities our Senses can discover there can be very few general Propositions concerning Substances of whose real Truth we can be certainly assured since there are but few simple Ideas of whose connexion and necessary co-existence we can have certain and undoubted Knowledge I imagine amongst all the secundary Qualities of Substances and the Powers relating to them there cannot any two be named whose necessary co-existence or repugnance to co-exist can certainly be known unless in those of the same sense which necessarily exclude one another as I have elsewhere shewed No one I think by the Colour that is in any Body can certainly know what Smell Taste Sound or tangible Qualities it has nor what Alterations it is capable to make or receive on or from other Bodies the same may be said of the Sound or Taste c. Our specifick Names of Substances signifying any Collections of such Ideas 't is not to be wondred that we can with them make very few general Propositions of undoubted real certainty but yet so far as any complex Idea of any sort of Substances contains in it any simple Idea whose necessary co-existence with any other may be discovered so far universal Propositions may with certainty be made concerning it v. g. Could any one discover a necessary connexion between Malleableness and the Colour or Weight of Gold or any other part of the complex Idea signified by that Name he might make a certain universal Proposition concerning Gold in this respect and the real Truth of this Proposition That all Gold is malleable would be as certain as of this The three Angles of all right-lined Triangles are equal to two right ones § 11. Had we such Ideas of Substances as to know what real Constitutions produce those sensible Qualities we find in them and how those Qualities flowed from thence we could by the specifick Ideas of their real Essences in our own Minds more certainly find out their Properties and discover what Qualities they had or had not than we can now by our Senses and to know the Properties of Gold it would be no more necessary that Gold should exist and that we should make Experiments upon it than it is necessary for the knowing the Properties of a Triangle that a Triangle should exist in any Matter the Idea in our Minds would serve for the one as well as the other But we are so far from being admitted into the Secrets of Nature that we scarce so much as ever approach the first entrance towards them For we are wont to consider the Substances we meet with each of them as an entire thing by it self having all its Qualities in it self and independent of other Things overlooking for the most part the Operations of those invisible Fluids they are encompassed with and upon whose Motions and operations depend the greatest part of those qualities which are taken notice of in them and are made by us the inherent marks of Distinction whereby we know and denominate them Put a piece of Gold any where by it self let no other Body encompass it it will immediately lose all its Colour and Weight and perhaps Malleableness too which for ought I know would be changed into a perfect Friability Water in which to us Fluidity is an essential Quality left to it self would cease to be fluid But if inanimate Bodies owe so much of their present state to other Bodies without them that they would not be what they appear to us were those Bodies that environ them removed it is yet more so in Vegetables which are nourished grow and produce Leaves Flowers and Seeds in a constant Succession And if we look a little nearer into the state of Animals we shall find that their Dependence as to Life Motion and the most considerable Qualities to be observed in them is so wholly on extrinsical Causes and Qualities of other Bodies that make no part of them that they cannot subsist a moment without them though yet those Bodies on which they depend are little taken notice of and make no part of the complex Ideas we frame of those Animals Take the Air but a minute from the greatest part of living Creatures and they presently lose Sense Life and Motion This the necessity of breathing has forced into our Knowledge But how many other extrinsical and possibly very remote Bodies do the Springs of those admirable Machines depend on which are not vulgarly observed or so much as thought on and how many are there which the severest Enquiry can never discover The Inhabitants of this spot of the Universe though removed so many millions of Miles from the Sun yet depend so much on the duly tempered motion of Particles coming from or agitated by it that were this Earth removed but a small part of that distance out of its present situation and placed a little farther or nearer that Source of Heat 't is more than probable that the greatest part of the Animals in it would immediately perish since we find them so often destroy'd by an excess or defect of the Sun's warmth which an accidental position in some parts of this our little Globe exposes them to The Qualities observed in a Load-stone must needs have their Source far beyond the Confines of that Body and the ravage made often on several sorts of Animals by invisible Causes the certain death as we are told of some of them by barely passing the Line or as 't is certain of others by being removed into a Neighbouring-Country evidently shew that the Concurrence and Operation of several Bodies with which they are seldom thought to have any thing to do is absolutely necessary to make them be what they appear to us and to preserve those Qualities we know and distinguish them by We are then quite out of the way when we think that Things contain within themselves the Qualities that appear to us in them And we in vain search for that Constitution within the Body of a Fly or an Elephant upon which depend those Qualities and Powers we observe in them for which perhaps to understand them aright we ought to look not only beyond this our Earth and Atmosphere but even beyond the Sun or remotest Star our Eyes have yet discovered For how much the Being and Operation of particular Substances in this our Globe depend on Causes utterly beyond our view is impossible for us to determine We see and perceive some of the Motions and grosser Operations of Things here about us but whence the Streams come that keep all these curious Machines in motion and repair how conveyed and modified is beyond our notice and apprehension and the great Parts and Wheels as I may so say of this stupendious Structure of the Universe may for ought we know have such a connexion and dependence in their Influences
part of Men if not all to have several Opinions without certain and indubitable Proofs of their Truths and it carries too great an imputation of ignorance lightness or folly for Men to quit and renounce their former Tenets presently upon the offer of an Argument which they cannot immediately answer and shew the insufficiency of It would methinks become all Men to maintain Peace and the common Offices of Humanity and Friendship in the diversity of Opinions since we cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsequiously quit his own Opinion and embrace ours with a blind resignation to an Authority which the Understanding of Man acknowledges not For however it may often mistake it can own no other Guide but Reason nor blindly submit to the Will and Dictates of another If he you would bring over to your Sentiments be one that examines before he assents you must give him leave at his leisure to go over the account again and re-calling what is out of his Mind examine all the Particulars to see on which side the advantage lies And if he will not think our Arguments of weight enough to engage him anew in so much pains 't is but what we do often our selves in the like case and we should take it amiss if others should prescribe to us what points we should study And if he be one who takes his Opinions upon trust How can we imagine that he should renounce those Tenets which Time and Custom have so setled in his Mind that he thinks them self-evident and of an unquestionable Certainty or which he takes to be impressions he has received from GOD Himself or from Men sent by Him How can we expect I say that Opinions thus setled should be given up to the Arguments or Authority of a Stranger or Adversary especially if there be any suspicion of Interest or Design as there never fails to be where Men find themselves ill treated We should do well to commiserate our mutual Ignorance and endeavour to remove it in all the gentle and fair ways of Information and not instantly treat others ill as obstinate and perverse because they will not renounce their own and receive our Opinions or at least those we would force upon them when 't is more than probable that we are no less obstinate in not embracing theirs For where is the Man that has uncontestible Evidence of the Truth of all that he holds or of the Falshood of all he condemns or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own or other Men's Opinions The necessity of believing without knowledge nay often upon very slight grounds in this fleeting slate of Action and Blindness we are in should make us more busie and careful to inform our selves than constrain others At least those who have not throughly examined to the bottom all their own Tenets must confess they are unfit to prescribe to others and are unreasonable in imposing that as a Truth on other Men's Belief which they themselves have not searched into nor weighed the Arguments of Probability on which they should receive or reject it Those who have fairly and truly examined and are thereby got past doubt in all the Doctrines they profess and govern themselves by would have a juster pretence to require others to follow them But these are so few in number and find so little reason to be magisterial in their Opinions that nothing insolent and imperious is to be expected from them And there is reason to think that if Men were better instructed themselves they would be less imposing on others § 5. But to return to the grounds of Assent and the several degrees of it we are to take notice that the Propositions we receive upon Inducements of Probability are of two sorts either concerning some particular Existence or as it is usually termed matter of fact which falling under our Observation is capable of humane Testimony or else concerning Things which being beyond the discovery of our Senses are not capable of any such Testimony § 6. Concerning the first of these viz. particular matter of fact First Where any particular thing consonant to the constant Observation of our selves and others in the like case comes attested with the concurrent Reports of all that mention it we receive it as easily and build as firmly upon it as if it were certain knowledge and we reason and act thereupon with as little doubt as if it were perfect demonstration Thus if all English-men who have occasion to mention it should affirm that it froze in England the last Winter or that there were Swallows seen there in the Summer I think a Man could almost as little doubt of it as that Seven and Four are Eleven The first therefore and highest degree of Probability is when the general consent of all Men in all Ages as far as it can be known concurrs with a Man's constant and never-failing Experience in like cases to confirm the Truth of any particular matter of fact attested by fair Witnesses such are all the stated Constitutions and Properties of Bodies and the regular proceedings of Causes and Effects in the ordinary course of Nature This we call an Argument from the nature of Things themselves For what our own and other Men's constant Observation has found always to be after the same manner that we with reason conclude to be the Effects of steddy and regular Causes though they come not within the reach of our Knowledge Thus That Fire warmed a Man made Lead fluid and changed the colour or consistency in Wood or Charcoal that Iron sunk in Water and swam in Quicksilver These and the like Propositions about particular facts being agreeable to our constant Experience as often as we have to do with these matters and being generally spoke of when mentioned by others as things found constantly to be so and therefore not so much as controverted by any body we are put past doubt that a relation affirming any such thing to have been or any predication that it will happen again in the same manner is very true These Probabilities rise so near to Certainty that they govern our Thoughts as absolutely and influence all our Actions as fully as the most evident demonstration and in what concerns us we make little or no difference between them and certain Knowledge And our Belief thus grounded rises to Assurance § 7. Secondly The next degree of Probability is when I find by my own Experience and the Agreement of all others that mention it a thing to be for the most part so and that the particular instance of it is attested by many and undoubted Witnesses v. g. History giving us such an account of Men in all Ages and my own Experience as far as I had an opportunity to observe confirming it that most Men prefer their private Advantage to the publick If all Historians that write of Tiberius say that Tiberius did so it is extreamly probable And in