reducing it to insensible parts can never take away either Solidity Extension Figure or Mobility from any Body but only makes two distinct Bodies or more of one which altogether after division have their certain number § 11. The next thing to be considered is how Bodies operate one upon another and that is manifestly by impulse and nothing else It being impossible to conceive that Body should operate on what it does not touch which is all one as to imagine it can operate where it is not or when it does touch operate any other way than by Motion § 12. If then Bodies cannot operate at a distance if external Objects be not united to our Minds when they produce Ideas in it and yet we perceive these original Qualities in such of them as singly fall under our Senses 't is evident that some motion must be thence continued by our Nerves or animal Spirits by some parts of our Bodies to the Brains the seat of Sensation there to produce in our Minds the particular Ideas we have of them And since the Extension Figure Number and Motion of Bodies of an observable bigness may be perceived at a distance by the sight 't is evident some singly imperceptible Bodies must come from them to the Eyes and thereby convey to the Brain some Motion which produces these Ideas we have of them in us § 13. After the same manner that the Ideas of these original Qualities are produced in us we may conceive that the Ideas of secundary Qualities are also produced viz. by the operation of insensible particles on our Senses For it being manifest that there are Bodies and good store of Bodies each whereof is so small that we cannot by any of our Senses discover either their bulk figure or motion as is evident in the Particles of the Air and Water and other extreamly smaller than those perhaps as much less than the Particles of Air or Water as the Particles of Air or Water are smaller than Pease or Hail-stones Let us suppose at present that the different Motions and Figures Bulk and Number of such Particles affecting the several Organs of our Senses produce in us those different Sensations which we have from the Colours and Smells of Bodies v. g. a Violet by which impulse of those insensible Particles of Matter of different figures and bulks and in a different Degree and Modification we may have the Ideas of the blue Colour and sweet Scent of a Violet produced in our Minds It being no more conceived impossible to conceive that God should annex such Ideas to such Motions with which they have no similitude than that he should annex the Idea of Pain to the motion of a piece of Steel dividing our Flesh with which that Idea hath no resemblance § 14. What I have said concerning Colours and Smells may be understood also of Tastes and Sounds and other the like sensible Qualities which whatever reality we by mistake attribute to them are in truth nothing in the Objects themselves but Powers to produce various Sensations in us and depend on those primary Qualities viz. Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of Parts and therefore I call them Secundary Qualities § 15. From whence I think it is easie to draw this Observation That the Ideas of primary Qualities of Bodies are Resemblances of them and their Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves but the Ideas produced in us by these Secundary Qualities have no resemblance of them at all There is nothing like our Ideas existing in the Bodies themselves They are in the Bodies we denominate from them only a Power to produce those Sensations in us And what is Sweet Blue or Warm in Idea is but the certain Bulk Figure and Motion of the insensible Parts in the Bodies themselves we call so § 16. Flame is denominated Hot and Lighâ—â— Snow White and Cold and Manna White and Sweet from the Ideas thâ—â— produce in us Which Qualities are commonly thought to be the same in those Bodies that those Ideas are in us the one the perfect resemblance of the other as they are in a Mirror and it would by most Men be judged very extravagant if one should say otherwise And yet he that will consider that the same Fire that at one distance produces in us the Sensation of Warmth does at a nearer approach produce in us the far different Sensation of Pain ought to bethink himself what Reason he has to say That his Idea of Warmth which was produced in him by the Fire is actually in the Fire and his Idea of Pain which the same Fire produced in him the same way is not in the Fire Why is Whiteness and Coldness in Snow and pain not when it produces the one and the other Idea in us and can do neither but by the Bulk Figure Number and Motion of its solid Parts § 17. The particular Bulk Number Figure and Motion of the parts of Fire or Snow are really in them whether any ones Senses perceive them or no and therefore they may be called real Qualities they really exist in those Bodies But Light Heat Whiteness or Coldness are no more really in them than Sickness or Pain is in Manna Take away the Sensation of them let not the Eyes see Light or Colours nor the Ears hear Sounds let the Palate not Taste nor the Nose Smell and all Colours Tastes Odors and Sounds as they are such particular Ideas vanish and cease and are reduced to their Causes i. e. Bulk Figure and Motion of Parts § 18. A piece of Manna of a sensible Bulk is able to produce in us the Ideas of a round or square Figure and by being removed from one place to another the Idea of Motion This Idea of Motion represents it as it really is in the Manna moving A Circle or Square are the same whether in Idea or Existence in the Mind or in the Manna And this both Motion and Figure are really in the Manna whether we take notice of them or no This every Body is ready to agree to Besides Manna by the Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of its Parts has a Power to produce the Sensations of Sickness and sometimes of acute Pains or Gripings in us That these Ideas of Sickness and Pain are not in the Manna but Effects of its Operations on us and are no where when we feel them not This also every one readily agrees to And yet Men are hardly to be brought to think that Sweetness and Whiteness are not really in Manna which are but the effects of the operations of Manna by the motion size and figure of its Particles on the Eyes and Palate as the pain and sickness caused by Manna are confessedly nothing but the effects of its operations on the Stomach and Guts by the size motion and figure of its insensible parts for by nothing else can a Body operate as has been proved As if it could not operate on the Eyes and Palate and
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
say that Body moves let us say that Extension moves and see how it will look And he that should say that one Extension by Impulse moves another Extension would by the bare Expression sufficiently shew the absurdity of such a Notion The Essence of any thing in respect of us is the whole complex Idea comprehended and marked by that Name and in Substances besides the several distinct simple Ideas that make them up the confused one of Substance or of an unknown Support and Cause of their Union is always a part And therefore the Essence of Body is not bare Extension but an extended solid thing and so to say an extended solid thing moves or impels another is all one and as intelligible as to say Body moves or impels Likewise to say that a rational Animal is capable of Conversation is all one as to say a Man But no one will say That Rationality is capable of Conversation because it makes not the whole Essence to which we give the Name Man § 22. There are Creatures in the World that have shapes like ours but are hairy and want Language and Reason There are Naturals amongst us that have perfectly our shape but want Reason and some of them Language too There are Creatures as 't is said sit fides penes Authorem but there appears no contradiction that there should be such that with Language and Reason and a shape in other Things agreeing with ours have hairy Tails others where the Males have no Beards and others where the Females have If it be asked whether these be all Men or no all of humane Species 't is plain the Question refers only to the nominal Essence For those to whom the definition of the Word Man or the complex Idea signified by that Name agrees they are Men and the other not But if the Enquiry be made concerning the supposed real Essence and whether the internal Constitution and Frame of these several Creatures be specifically different it is wholly impossible for us to answer no part of that going into our specifick Idea only we have Reason to think that where the Faculties or outward Frame so much differs the internal Constitution is not exactly the same But what difference in the internal real Constitution makes a specifick difference is in vain to enquire whilst our measures of Species be as they are only our abstract Ideas which we know and not that internal Constitution which makes no part of them Shall the difference of Hair only on the Skin be a mark of a different internal specifick Constitution between a Changeling and a Drill when they agree in Shape and want of Reason and Speech And shall not the want of Reason and Speech be a sign to us of different real Constitutions and Species between a Changeling and a reasonable Man And so of the rest if we pretend that the distinction of Species is fixedly established by the real Frame and secret Constitutions of Things § 23. Nor let any one say that the real Species of Animals are distinguished by a Power of Propagation by the mixture of Male and Female and Plants by Seeds for this would help us no farther than in the distinction of the Species of Animals and Vegetables What must we do for the rest Nor is it sufficient in them For if History lie not Women have conceived by Drills and what real Species by that measure such a Production will be in Nature will be a new Question and we have Reason to think this not impossible since Mules and Gimars the one from the mixture of an Horse and an Ass the other from the mixture of a Bull and a Mare are so frequent in the World I once saw a Creature that was the Issue of a Cat and a Rat and had the plain marks of both about it wherein Nature appear'd to have followed the pattern of neither sort alone but to have jumbled them both together § 24. Upon the whole matter 't is evident that 't is their own Collections of sensible Qualities that Men make the Essences of their several sorts of Substances and that their real internal Structures are not considered by the greatest part of Men in the sorting them much less any substantial Forms were ever thought on by any but those who have in this one part of the World learned the Language of the Schools and yet those ignorant Men who pretend not any insight into the real Essences nor trouble themselves about substantial Forms but are content with knowing Things one from another by their sensible Qualities are often better acquainted with their Differences can more nicely distinguish them for their uses and better know what they may expect from each than those learned quick-sighted Men who look so deep into them and talk so confidently of something more hidden and essential § 25. But supposing that the real Essences of Substances were discoverable by those that would severely apply themselves to that Enquiry yet we could not reasonably think that the ranking of Things under general Names was regulated by those internal real Constitutions or any thing else but their obvious appearances Since Languages in all Countries have been established long before Sciences so that they have not been Philosophers or Logicians or such who have troubled themselves about Forms and Essences that have made the general Names that are in use amongst the severel Nations of Men But those more or less comprehensive terms have for the most part in all Languages received their Birth and Signification from ignorant and illiterate People who sorted and denominated Things by those sensible Qualities they found in them thereby to signifie them when absent to others whether they had an occasion to mention a Sort or a particular Thing § 25. Since then it is evident that we sort and name Substances by their nominal and not by their real Essences the next thing to be considered is how and by whom these Essences come to be made As to the latter 't is evident they are made by the Mind and not by Nature For were they Nature's Workmanship they could not be so various and different in several Men as 't is evident they are For if we will examine it we shall not find the nominal Essence of any one Species of Substances in all Men the same no not of that which of all others we are the most intimately acquainted with It could not possibly be that the abstract Idea to which the name Man is given should be different in several Men if it were of Nature's making and that to one it should be Animal rationale and to another Animal implume bipes latis unguibus He that annexes the name Man to a complex Idea made up of Sense and spontaneous Motion join'd to a Body of such a shape has thereby one Essence of the Species Man And he that upon farther examination adds Rationality has another Essence of the Species he calls Man By which means
not seek long for Instances of his Ignorance The meanest and most obvious Things that come in our way have dark sides that the quickest Sight cannot penetrate into The clearest and most enlarged Understandings of thinking Men find themselves puzled and at a loss in every Particle of Matter which we shall the less wonder at when we consider the Causes of our Ignorance which from what has been said I suppose will be found to be chiefly these three First Want of Ideas Secondly Want of a discoverable Connexion between the Ideas we have Thirdly Want of tracing and examining our Ideas § 23. First There are some Things and those not a few that we are ignorant of for want of Ideas First all the simple Ideas we have are confined as I have shewn to the Observation of our Senses and the Operations of our own Minds that we are conscious of in our selves But how much these few and narrow â—nlets are disproportionate to the vast whole Extent of all Beings will not be hard to persuade those who are not so foolish as to think their span the measure of all Things What other simple Ideas 't is possible the Creatures in other parts of the Universe may have by the Assistence of Senses and Faculties more or perfecter than we have or different from ours 't is not for us to determine But to say or think there are no such because we conceive nothing of them is no better an Argument than if a blind Man should be positive in it that there was no such thing as Sight and Colours because he had no manner of Idea of any such thing nor could by any means frame to himself any Notions about Seeing The Ignorance and Darkness that is in us no more hinders nor confines the Knowledge that is in others than the Blindness of a Mole is an Argument against the quick sightedness of an Eagle He that will consider the infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator of all Things will find Reason to think it was not all laid out upon so inconsiderable mean and impotent a Creature as he will find Man to be who in all probability is one of the lowest of all intellectual Beings What Faculties therefore other Species of Creatures have to penetrate into the Nature and inmost Constitutions of Things what Ideas they may receive of them far different from ours we know not This we know and certainly find that we want several other views of them besides those we have to make Discoveries of them more perfect And we may be convinced that the Ideas we can attain to by our Faculties are very disproportionate to Things themselves when a positive clear distinct one of Substance it self which is the Foundation of all the rest is concealed from us But want of Ideas of this kind being a Part as well as Cause of our Ignorance cannot be described Only this I think I may confidently say of it That the intellectual and sensible World are in this perfectly alike That that part which we see of either of them holds no proportion with what we see not And whatsoever we can reach with our Eyes or our Thoughts of either of them is but a point almost nothing in comparison of the rest § 24. Secondly Another great Cause of Ignorance is the want of Ideas we are capable of As the want of Ideas which our Faculties are not able to give us shuts us wholly from those views of Things which 't is reasonable to think other perfecter Beings than we have of which we know nothing so the want of Ideas I now speak of keeps us in Ignorance of Things we conceive capable of being known to us Bulk Figure and Motion we have Ideas of But though we are not without Ideas of these primary Qualities of Bodies in general yet not knowing what is the particular Bulk Figure and Motion of the greatest part of the Bodies of the Universe we are ignorant of the several Powers Efficacies and Ways of Operation whereby the Effects we daily see are produced These are hid from us in some Things by being too remote and in others by being too minute When we consider the vast distance of the known and visible parts of the World and the Reasons we have to think that what lies within our Ken is but a small part of the immense Universe we shall then discover an huge Abyss of Ignorance What are the particular Fabricks of the great Masses of Matter which make up the whole stupendious frame of corporeal Beings how far they are extended what is their Motion and how continued or communicated and what Influence they have one upon another are Contemplations that at first glimpse our Thoughts lose themselves in If we narrow our Contemplation and confine our Thoughts to this little Canton I mean this System of our Sun and the grosser Masses of Matter that visibly move about it what several sorts of Vegetables Animals and intellectual corporeal Beings infinitely different from those of our little spot of Earth may probably be in the other Planets to the Knowledge of which even of their outward Figures and Parts we can no way attain whilst we are confined to this Earth there being no natural Means either by Sensation or Reflection to convey their certain Ideas into our Minds They are out of the reach of those Inlets of all our Knowledge and what sorts of Furniture and Inhabitants those Mansions contain in them we cannot so much as guess much less have clear and distinct Ideas of them § 25. If a great nay for the greatest part of the several ranks of Bodies in the Universe scape our notice by their remoteness there are others that are no less concealed from us by their Minuteness These insensible Corpuscles being the active parts of Matter and the great Instruments of Nature on which depend not only all their secondary Qualities but also most of their natural Operations our want of precise distinct Ideas of their primary Qualities keeps us in an uncureable Ignorance of what we desire to know about them I doubt not but if we could discover the Figure Size Connexion and Motion of the minute constituent parts of any two Bodies we should know without Trial several of their Operations one upon another as we do now the Properties of a Square or a Triangle and we should be able to tell before Hand that Rubarb would purge Hemlock kill and Opium make a Man sleep as well as a Watch-maker does that a little piece of Paper laid on the Ballance will keep the Watch from going till it be removed or that some small part of it being rubb'd by a File the Machin would quite lose its Motion and the Watch go no more Did we know the mechanical Affections of the Particles of Rubarb Hemlock Opium and a Man as a Watch-maker does those of a Watch whereby it performs all its Operations and of a File which by rubbing on them will alter
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
saw nor heard of any such thing before there the whole Probability relies on Testimony And as the Relators are more in number and of more Credit and have no Interest to speak contrary to the Truth so that matter of fact is like to find more or less belief Though to a Man whose Experience has been always quite contrary and has never heard of any thing like it the most untainted Credit of a Witness will scarce be able to find belief As it happened to a Dutch Ambassadour who entertaining the King of Siam with the particularities of Holland which he was inquisitive after amongst other things told him that the Water in his Country would sometimes in cold weather be so hard that Men walked upon it and that it would bear an Elephant if he were there To which the King replied Hitherto I have believed the strange Things you have told me because I look upon you as a sober fair Man but now I am sure you lye § 6. Upon these grounds depends the Probability of any Proposition And as the conformity of our Knowledge as the certainty of Observations as the frequency and constancy of Experience and the number and credibility of Testimonies do more or less agree or disagree with it so is any Proposition in it self more or less probable There is another I confess which though by it self it be no true ground of Probability yet is often made use of for one by which Men most commonly regulate their Assent and upon which they pin their Faith more than any thing else any that is the Opinion of others though there cannot be a more dangerous thing to rely on nor more likely to mislead one since there is much more Falshood and Errour amongst Men than Truth and Knowledge And if the Opinions and Persuasions of others whom we know and think well of be a ground of Assent Men have Reason to be Heathens in Iapan Mahumetans in Turkey Papists in Spain Protestants in England and Lutherans in Sueden But of this wrong ground of Assent I shall have occasion to speak more at large in another place CHAP. XVI Of the Degrees of Assent § 1. THe grounds of Probability we have laid down in the foregoing Chapter as they are the foundations on which our Assent is built so are they also the measure whereby its several degrees are or ought to be regulated only we are to take notice that whatever grounds of Probability there may be they yet operate no farther on the Mind which searches after Truth and endeavours to judge right than they appear at least in the first Judgment or Search that the Mind makes I confess in the Opinions Men have and firmly stick to in the World their Assent is not always from an actual view of the Reasons that at first prevailed with them It being in many cases almost impossible and in most very hard even for those who have very admirable Memories to retain all the Proofs which upon a due examination made them embrace that side of the Question It suffices that they have once with care and fairness examined the matter as far as they could and that they have searched into all the Particulars that they could imagine to give any light to the Question and with the best of their Skill cast up the account upon the whole Evidence and thus having once found on which side the Probability appeared to them after as full and exact an enquiry as they can make they lay up the conclusion in their Memories as a Truth they have discovered and for the future they remain satisfied with the Testimony of their Memories that this is the Opinion that by the Proofs they have once seen of it deserves such a degree of their Assent as they afford it § 2. This is all that the greatest part of Men are capable of doing in regulating their Opinions and Judgments unless a Man will exact of them either to retain distinctly in their Memories all the Proofs concerning any probable Truth and that too in the same order and regular deduction of Consequences in which they have formerly placed or seen them which sometimes is enough to fill a large Volume upon one single Question Or else they must require a Man for every Opinion that he embraces every day to examine the Proofs both which are impossible It is unavoidable therefore that the Memory be relied on in the case and that Men be persuaded of several Opinions whereof the Proofs are not actually in their Thoughts nay which perhaps they are not able actually to re-call Without this the greatest part of Men must be either very Scepticks or change every moment and yield themselves up to whoever having lately studied the Question offers them Arguments which for want of Memory they are not able presently to answer § 3. I cannot but own that Men's sticking to their past Iudgment and adhering firmly to Conclusions formerly made is often the cause of great obstinacy in Errour and Mistake But the fault is not that they rely on their Memories for what they have before well judged but because they judged before they had well examined May we not find a great number not to say the greatest part of Men that think they have formed right Judgments of several matters and that for no other reason but because they never thought otherwise That imagine themselves to have judged right only because they never questioned never examined their own Opinions Which is indeed to think they judged right because they never judged at all And yet these of all Men hold their Opinions with the greatest stiffness those being generally the most fierce and firm in their Tenets who have least examined them What we once know we are certain is so and we may be secure that there are no latent Proofs undiscovered which may overturn our Knowledge or bring it in doubt But in matters of Probability 't is not in every case that we can be sure that we have all the Particulars before us that any way concern the Question and that there is no evidence behind and yet unseen which may cast the Probability on the other side and out-weigh all that at present seems to preponderate with us Who almost is there that hath the leisure patience and means to collect together all the Proofs concerning most of the Opinions he has so as safely to conclude that he hath a clear and full view and that there is no more to be alledged for his better information And yet we are forced to determine our selves on the one side or other The conduct of our Lives and the management of our great Concerns will not bear delay for those depend for the most part on the determination of our Judgment in points wherein we are not capable of certain and demonstrative Knowledge and wherein it is necessary for us to embrace the one side or the other § 4. Since therefore it is unavoidable to the greatest
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
both for the Enlargement of our Knowledge and regulating our Assent For it hath to do both in Knowledge and Opinion and is necessary and assisting to all our other intellectual Faculties and indeed contains two of them viz. Sagacity and Illation By the one it finds out and by the other it so orders the intermediate Ideas as to discover what connexion there is in each link of the Chain whereby the Extremes are held together and thereby as it were to draw into view the Truth sought for which is that we call Illation or Inference and consists in nothing but the Perception of the connexion there is between the Ideas in each step of the deduction whereby the Mind comes to see either the certain Agreement or Disagreement of any two Ideas as in Demonstration in which it arrives at Knowledge or their probable connexion on which it gives or with-holds its Assent as in Opinion Sense and Intuition reach but a very little way the greatest part of our Knowledge depends upon Deductions and intermediate Ideas And in those Cases where we are fain to substitute Assent instead of Knowledge and take Propositions for true without being certain they are so we have need to find out examine and compare the grounds of their Probability In both these Cases the Faculty which finds out the Means and rightly applies them to discover Certainty in the one and Probability in the other is that which we call Reason For as Reason perceives the necessary and indubitable connexion of all the Ideas or Proofs one to another in each step of any Demonstration that produces Knowledge so it likewise perceives the probable connexion of all the Ideas or Proofs one to another in every step of a Discourse to which it will think Assent due This is the lowest degree of that which can be truly called Reason For where the Mind does not perceive this probable connexion where it does not discern whether there be any such connexion or no there Men's Opinions are not the product of Judgment or the Consequence of Reason but the effects of Chance and Hazard of a Mind floating at all Adventures without choice and without direction § 3. So that we may in Reason consider these four degrees the first and highest is the discovering and finding out of Proofs the second the regular and methodical Disposition of them and laying them in a clear and fit Order to make their Connexion and Force be plainly and easily perceived the third is the perceiving their connexion and the fourth the making a right conclusion These several degrees may be observed in any mathematical Demonstration it being one thing to perceive the connexion of each part as the Demonstration is made by another another to perceive the dependence of the conclusion on all the parts a third to make out a Demonstration clearly and neatly ones self and something different from all these to have first found out those intermediate Ideas or Proofs by which it is made § 4. There is one thing more which I shall desire to be considered concerning Reason and that is whether Syllogism as is generally thought be the proper instrument of it and the usefullest way of exercising this Faculty The Causes I have to doubt are these First Because Syllogism serves our Reason but in one only of the forementioned parts of it and that is to shew the connexion of the Proofs in any one instance and no more but in this it is of no great use since the Mind can perceive such connexion where it really is as easily nay perhaps better without it If we will observe the Actings of our own Minds we shall find that we reason best and clearest when we only observe the connexion of the Proofs without reducing it to any Rule of Syllogism and therefore we may take notice that there are many Men that reason exceeding clear and rightly who know not how to make a Syllogism He that will look into many parts of Asia and America will find Men reason there perhaps as acutely as himself who yet never heard of a Syllogism nor can reduce any one Argument to those Forms Indeed sometimes it may serve to discover a Fallacy hid in a rhetorical Flourish or cunningly wrapp'd up in a smooth Period and stripping an Absurdity of the Cover of Wit and good Language shew it in its naked Deformity But the Mind is not taught to reason by these Rules it has a native Faculty to perceive the Coherence or Incoherence of its Ideas and can range them right without any such perplexing Repetitions Tell a Country Gentlewoman that the Wind is South-West and the Weather louring and like to rain and she will easily understand 't is not safe for her to go abroad thin clad in such a day after a Fever she clearly sees the probable connexion of all these viz. South-West-Wind and Clouds Rain wetting taking Cold Relapse and Danger of Death without tying them together in those artificial and cumbersome Fetters of several Syllogisms that clog and hinder the Mind which proceeds from one part to another quicker and clearer without them and the Probability which she easily perceives in Things thus in their native State would be quite lost if this Argument were managed learnedly and proposed in Mode and Figure For it very often confounds the connexion and I think every one will perceive in mathematical Demonstrations that the Knowledge gain'd thereby comes shortest and clearest without Syllogism Secondly Because though Syllogism serves to shew the Force or Fallacy of an Argument made use of in the usual way of discoursing by supplying the absent Proposition and so setting it before the view in a clear Light yet it no less engages the Mind in the perplexity of obscure equivocal and fallacious Terms wherewith this artificial way of Reasoning always abounds it being adapted more to the attaining of Victory in Dispute than the discovery or confirmation of Truth in fair Enquiries § 5. But however it be in Knowledge I think I may truly say it is of far less or no use at all in Probabilities for the Assent there being to be determined by the preponderancy after a due weighing of all the Proofs with all Circumstances on both sides nothing is so unfit to assist the Mind in that as Syllogism which running away with one assumed Probability or one topical Argument pursues that till it has led the Mind quite out of sight of the thing under Consideration and forcing it upon some remote Difficulty holds it fast there intangled perhaps and as it were manacled in the Chain of Syllogisms without allowing it the liberty much less affording it the helps requisite to shew on which side all Things considered is the greater Probability § 6. But let it help us as perhaps may be said in convincing Men of their Errors or Mistakes and yet I would fain see the Man that was forced out of his Opinions by dint of Syllogism yet still it fails our
the Relation is the same whether the Rule any Action is compared to be true or false CHAP. XXVIII Of Clear and Distinct Obscure and Confused Ideas SECT 1. Ideas some clear and distinct others obscure and confused 2. Clear and Obscure explained by Sight 3. Causes of Obscurity 4. Distinct and confused what 5. Objection 6. Confusion of Ideas is in reference to their Names 7. Defaults which make Confusion First complex Ideas made up of too few simple ones 8. Secondly Or its simple ones jumbled disorderly together 9. Thirdly Or are mutable and undetermined 10. Confusion without reference to Names hardly conceivable 11. Confusion concerns always two Ideas 12. Causes of Confusion 13. Complex Ideas may be distinct in one part and confused in another 14. This if not heeded causes Confusion in our Arguings 15. Instance in Eternity 16 17. Divisibility of Matter CHAP. XXIX Of Real and Fantastical Ideas SECT 1. Real Ideas are conformable to their Archetypes 2. Simple Ideas all real 3. Complex Ideas are voluntary Combinations 4. Mixed Modes made of consistent Ideas are real 5. Ideas of Substances are real when they agree with the Existence of Things CHAP. XXX Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas SECT 1. Adequate Ideas are such as perfectly represent their Archetypes 2. Simple Ideas all adequate 3. Modes are all adequate 4 5. Modes in reference to settled Names may be inadequate 6 7. Ideas of Substances as referr'd to real Essences not adequate 8 11. Ideas of Substances as Collections of their Qualities are all inadequate 12. Simple Ideas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and adequate 13. Ideas of Substances are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inadequate 14. Ideas of Modes and Relations are Archetypes and cannot but be adequate CHAP. XXI Of true and false Ideas SECT 1. Truth and Falshood properly belongs to Propositions 2. Metaphysical Truth contains a tacit Proposition 3. No Idea as an appearance in the Mind true or false 4. Ideas referred to any thing may be true or false 5. Other Men's Ideas real Existence and supposed real Essences are what Men usually refer their Ideas to 6 8. The cause of such references 9. Simple Ideas may be false in reference to others of the same name but are least liable to be so 10. Ideas of mixed Modes most liable to be false in this sense 11. Or at least to be thought false 12. And why 13. As referred to real Existences none of our Ideas can be false but those of Substances 14 16. First Simple Ideas in this sense not false and why 15. Though one Man's Idea of Blue should be different from another's 17. Secondly Modes not false 18. Thirdly Ideas of Substances are false when the Combination is made of simple Ideas that do never co-exist or has in it the negation of any one that does constantly coexist 19. Truth or Falshood always supposes affirmation or negation 20. Ideas in themselves neither true nor false 21. But are false First when judged agreeable to another Man's Idea without being so 22. Secondly When judged to agree to real Existence when they do not 23. Thirdly When judged adequate without being so 24. Fourthly When judged to represent the real Essence 25. Ideas when false 26. More properly to be called Right or Wrong 27. Conclusion BOOK III. CHAP. I. Of Words or Language in general SECT 1. Man fitted to form articulate Sounds 2. To make them signs of Ideas 3 4. To make general Signs 5. Words ultimately derived from such as signifie sensible Ideas 6. Distribution CHAP. II. Of the Signification of Words LECT 1. Words are sensible Signs necessary for Communication 2 3. Words are the sensible Signs of his Ideas who uses them 4. Words often secretly referred First to the Ideas in other Men's Minds 5. Secondly To the reality of Things 6. Words by use readily excite Ideas 7. Words often used without signification 8. Their Signification perfectly arbitrary CHAP. III. Of general Terms SECT 1. The greatest part of Words general 2. For every particular thing to have a name is impossible 3 4. And useless 5. What things have proper names 6 8. How general Words are made 9. General Natures are nothing but abstract Ideas 10. Why the Genus is ordinarily made use of in Definitions 11. General and universal are Creatures of the Vnderstanding 12. Abstract Ideas are the Essences of the Genera and Species 13. They are the Workmanship of the Vnderstanding but have their foundation in the similitude of things 14. Each distinct abstract Idea is a distinct Essence 15. Real and nominal Essence 16. Constant connexion between the Name and nominal Essence 17. Supposition that Species are distinguished by their real Essences useless 18. Real and nominal Essence the same in simple Ideas and Modes different in Substances 19. Essences ingenerable and incorruptible 20. Recapitulation CHAP. IV. Of the Names of simple Ideas SECT 1. Names of simple Ideas Modes and Substances have each something peculiar 2. First Names of simple Ideas and Substances intimate real Existence 3. Secondly Names of simple Ideas and Modes signifie always both real and nominal Essence 4. Thirdly Names of simple Ideas undefinable 5. If all were definable 't would be a process in infinitum 6. What a Definition is 7. Simple Ideas why undefinable 8 9. Instances Motion 10. Light 11. Simple Ideas why undefinable farther explained 12 13. The contrary shewed in complex Ideas by instances of a Statue and Rainbow 14. The Names of complex Ideas when to be made intelligible by Words 15. Fourthly Names of simple Ideas least doubtful 16. Fifthly Simple Ideas have few Ascents in linea praedicamentali 17. Sixthly Names of simple Ideas stand for Ideas not at all arbitrary CHAP. V. Of the Names of mixed Modes and Relations SECT 1. They stand for abstract Ideas as other general Names 2. First The Ideas they stand for are made by the Vnderstanding 3. Secondly Made arbitrarily and without Patterns 4. How this is done 5. Evidently arbitrary in that the Idea is often before the Existence 6. Instances Murther Incest Stabbing 7. But still subservient to the end of Language 8. Whereof the intranslatable Words of divers Languages are a proof 9. This shews Species to be made for Communication 10 11. In mixed Modes 't is the Name that ties the Combination together and make it a Species 12. For the Originals of mixed Modes we look no farther than the Mind which also shews them to be the Workmanship of the Vnderstanding 13. Their being made by the Vnderstanding without Patterns shews the reason why they are so compounded 14. Names of mixed Modes stand always for their real Essences 15. Why their Names are usually got before their Ideas 16. Reason of my being so large on this Subject CHAP. VI. Of the Names of Substances SECT 1. The common Names of Substances stand for sorts 2. The Essence of each sort is the abstract Idea 3. The nominal and real Essence different 4 6. Nothing essential to Individuals 7 8. The
this case our Assent has a sufficient foundation to raise it self to a degree which we may call Confidence § 8. Thirdly In matters that happen indifferently as that a Bird should fly this or that way that it should thunder on a Man's right or left Hand c. when any particular matter of fact comes attested by the concurrent Testimony of unsuspected Witnesses there our Assent is also unavoidable Thus That there is such a City in Italy as Rome That about 1700 years ago there lived in it a Man called Iulius Caesar that he was a General and that he won a Battel again another called Pompey This though in the nature of the thing there be nothing for nor against it yet being related by Historians of credit and contradicted by no one Writer a Man cannot avoid believing it and can as little doubt of it as he does of the Being and Actions of his own Acquaintance whereof he himself is a Witness § 9. Thus far the matter goes easie enough Probability upon such grounds carries so much evidence with it that it naturally determines the Judgment and leaves us as little at liberty to believe or disbelieve as a Demonstration does whether we will know or be ignorant The difficulty is when Testimonies contradict common Experience and the report of History and Witnesses clashes with the ordinary course of Nature or with one another there it is where Diligence Attention and Exactness is required to form a right Judgment and to proportion the Assent to the different Evidence and Probability of the thing which rises and falls according as those two foundations of Credibility viz. Common Observation in like cases and particular Testimonies in that particular instance favours or contradicts it These are liable to so great variety of contrary Observations Circumstances Reports different Qualifications Tempers Designs Over-sights c. of the Reporters that 't is impossible to reduce to precise Rules the various degrees wherein Men give their Assent This only may be said in general That as the Arguments and Proofs pro and con upon due examination nicely weighing every particular circumstance shall to any one appear upon the whole matter in a greater or less degree to preponderate on either side so they are fitted to produce in the Mind such different entertainment as we call Belief Conjecture Guess Doubt Wavering Distrust Disbelief c. § 10. This is what concerns Assent in matters wherein Testimony is made use of concerning which I think it may not be amiss to take notice of a Rule observed in the Law of England which is That though the attested Copy of a Record be good proof yet the Copy of a Copy never so well attested and by never so credible Witnesses will not be admitted as a proof in Judicature This is so generally approved as reasonable and suited to the Wisdom and Caution to be used in our Enquiry after material Truths that I never yet heard of any one that blamed it This practice if it be allowable in the Decisions of Right and Wrong carries this Observation along with it viz. That any Testimony the farther off it is from the original Truth the less force and proof it has The Being and Existence of the thing it self is what I call the original Truth A credible Man vouching his Knowledge of it is a good proof But if another equally credible do witness it from his Report the Testimony is weaker and a third that attests the Hearsay of an Hearsay is yet less considerable So that in traditional Truths each remove weakens the force of the proof And the more hands the Tradition has successively passed through the less strength and evidence does it receive from them This I thought necessary to be taken notice of Because I find amongst some Men the quite contrary commonly practised who look on Opinions to gain force by growing older and what a thousand year since would not to a rational Man contemporary with the first Voucher have appeared at all probable is now urged as certain beyond all question only because several have since from him said it one after another Upon this ground Propositions evidently false or doubtful enough in their first beginning come by an inverted Rule of Probability to pass for authentick Truths and those which found or deserved little credit from the mouths of their first Authors are thought to grow venerable by Age and are urged as undeniable § 11. I would not be thought here to lessen the Credit and use of History 't is all the light we have in many cases and we receive from it a great part of the useful Truths we have with a convincing evidence I think nothing more valuable than the Records of Antiquity I wish we had more of them and more uncorrupted But this Truth it self forces me to say That no Probability can arise higher than its first Original What has no other Evidence than the single Testimony of one onely Witness must stand or fall by his onely Testimony whether good bad or indifferent and though cited afterwards by hundreds of others one after another is so far from receiving any strength thereby that it is only the Weaker Passion Interest Inadvertency Mistake of his Meaning and a thousand odd Reasons or Caprichios Men's Minds are acted by impossible to be discovered may make one Man quote another Man's Words or Meaning wrong He that has but ever so little examined the Citations of Writers cannot doubt how little Credit the Quotations deserve where the Originals are wanting and consequently how much less Quotations of Quotations can be relied on This is certain that what in one Age was affirmed upon slight grounds can never after come to be more valid in future Ages by being often repeated But the farther still it is from the Original the less valid it is and has always less force in the mouth or writing of him that last made use of it than in his from whom he received it § 12. The Probabilities we have hitherto mentioned are only such as concern matter of fact and such Things as are capable of Observation and Testimony there remains that other sort concerning which Men entertain Opinions with variety of Assent though the Things be such that falling not under the reach of our Senses are not capable of Testimony and such are 1. The Existence Nature and Operations of finite immaterial Beings without us as Spirits Angels Devils c. or the Existence of material Beings which either for their smalness in themselves or remoteness from us our Senses cannot take notice of as whether there be any Plants Animals and intelligent Inhabitants of the Planets and other Mansions of the vast Universe 2. Concerning the manner of Operation in most parts of the Works of Nature wherein though we see the sensible effects yet their causes are unknown and we perceive not the ways and manner how they are produced We see Animals are generated nourished and move the
Load-stone draws Iron and the parts of a Candle successively melting turn into flame and give us both light and heat These and the like Effects we see and know but the causes that operate and the manner they are produced in we can only guess and probably conjecture For these and the like coming not within the scrutiny of humane Senses cannot be examined by them or be attested by any body and therefore can appear more or less probable only as they more or less agree to Truths that are established in our Minds and as they hold proportion to other parts of our Knowledge and Observation Analogy in these matters is the only help we have and 't is from that alone we draw all our grounds of Probability Thus observing that the bare rubbing of two Bodies violently one upon another produces heat and very often fire it self we have reason to think that what we call Heat and Fire consists in a certain violent agitation of the imperceptible minute parts of the burning matter◠observing likewise that the different refractions of pellucid Bodies produce in our Eyes the different appearances of several Colours and also that the different ranging and laying the superficial parts of several Bodies as of Velvet watered Silk c. does the like we think it probable that the Colour and shining of Bodies is in them nothing but the different Arangement and Refraction of their minute and insensible parts Thus finding in all the parts of the Creation that fall under humane Observation that there is a gradual connexion of one with another without any great or discernable gaps between in all that great variety of Things we see in the World which are so closely linked together that in the several ranks of Beings it is not easie to discover the bounds betwixt them we have Reason to be persuaded that in such gentle steps Things in Perfection ascend upwards 'T is an hard Matter to say where Sensible and Rational begin and where Insensible and Irrational end and who is there quick-sighted enough to determine precisely which is the lowest Species of living Things and which the first of those which have no Life Things as far as we can observe lessen and augment as the quantity does in a regular Cone where though there be a manifest odds betwixt the bigness of the Diametre at remote distances yet the difference between the upper and under where they touch one another is hardly discernable The difference is exceeding great between some Men and some Animals But if we will compare the Understanding and Abilities of some Men and some Brutes we shall find so little difference that 't will be hard to say that that of the Man is either clearer or larger Observing I say such gradual and gentle descents downwards in those parts of the Creation that are beneath Man the Rule of Analogy may make it probable that it is so also in Things above us and our Observation and that there are several ranks of intelligent Beings excelling us in several degrees of Perfection ascending upwards towards the infinite Perfection of the Creator by gentle steps and differences that are every one at no great distance from the next to it This sort of Probability which is the best conduct of rational Experiments and the rise of Hypothesis has also its Use and Influence and a wary Reasoning from Analogy leads us often into the discovery of Truths and useful Productions which would otherwise lie concealed § 13. Though the common Experience and the ordinary Course of Things have justly a mighty Influence on the Minds of Men to make them give or refuse Credit to any thing proposed to their Belief yet there is one Case wherein the strangeness of the Fact lessens not the Assent to a fair Testimony given of it For where such supernatural Events are suitable to ends aim'd at by him who has the Power to change the course of Nature there under such Circumstances they may be the fitter to procure Belief by how much the more they are beyond or contrary to ordinary Observation This is the proper Case of Miracles which well attested do not only find Credit themselves but give it also to other Truths which need such Confirmation § 14. Besides those we have hitherto mentioned there is one sort of Propositions that challenge the highest degree of our Assent upon bare Testimony whether the thing proposed agree or disagree with common Experience and the ordinary course of Things or no. The Reason whereof is because the Testimony is of such an one as cannot deceive nor be deceived and that is of God himself This carries with it Certainty beyond Doubt Evidence beyond Exception This is called by a peculiar Name Revelation and our Assent to it Faith which has as much Certainty as our Knowledge it self and we may as well doubt of our own Being as we can whether any Revelation from GOD be true So that Faith is a setled and sure Principle of Assent and Assurance and leaves no manner of room for Doubt or Hesitation Only we must be sure that it be a divine Revelation and that we understand it right else we shall expose our selves to all the Extravagancy of Enthusiasm and all the Error of wrong Principles if we have Faith and Assurance in what is not divine Revelation And therefore in those Cases our Assent can be rationally no higher than the Evidence of its being a Revelation and that this is the meaning of the Expressions it is delivered in If the Evidence of its being a Revelation or that this its true Sense be only on probable Proofs our Assent can reach no higher than an Assurance or Diffidence arising from the more or less apparent Probability of the Proofs But of Faith and the Precedency it ought to have before other Arguments of Persuasion I shall speak more hereafter where I treat of it as it is ordinarily placed in contradistinction to Reason though in Truth it be nothing else but an Assent founded on the highest Reason CHAP. XVII Of Reason § 1. THE Word Reason in the English Language has different Significations sometimes it is taken for true and clear Principles Sometimes for clear and fair deductions from those Principles and sometimes for the Cause and particularly the final Cause but the Consideration I shall have of it here is in a Signification different from all these and that is as it stands for a Faculty in Man That Faculty whereby Man is supposed to be distinguished from Beasts and wherein it is evident he much surpasses them § 2. If general Knowledge as has been shewn consists in a Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our own Ideas and the Knowledge of the Existence of all Things without us except only of GOD be had only by our Senses What room then is there for the Exercise of any other Faculty but outward Sense and inward Perception What need is there of Reason Very much