to be what it is And I conceive and call Body according to the former of these Considerations Power or Matter and according to the later Act or Form and I frame a Complex Idea of it as 't is a Body accordingly Hitherto I treat of the Thing as a Metaphysician and regard it only according to some Order it has to Being Proceeding further on and dividing still the common Line of Ens or what I am now arriv'd at Body by Intrinsecal Differences or by more and less of the Generical Notion of which Quantity or Divisibility is the Primary Affection or that of which all the other Modes are made I find that some Bodies must be more Divisible or Rare other less Divisible or Dense and by this means we approach something nearer to Natural or Physical Considerations of that thing as 't is call'd Body and the Science that treats of it as being immediately under Metaphysicks and immediately above Physicks may not unfitly be called Archi-Physical as giving the immediate Principles to Physicks This way of Considering Body grounds the Notions of Simple Bodies called Elements which differ in Nothing but Rarity and Density and also the Notions of Compound Bodies made up of those Simple ones So that now my former Complex Notions of Capable to be and Actual Being and of having Determinate and Indeterminate Respects to that Ens as it is Body call'd Form and Matter has annext to it in the Thing many Secondary Qualities made up of those Primary ones such as are Heat and Cold Moisture and Driness c. and so we are come to that Science call'd Physicks or Natural Philosophy and my former Complex Notion of such an Individuum takes in these Second Qualities over and above what it contain'd before Advancing farther we come to consider this Thing or Body with its Parts so diversify'd by those First and Second Qualities or so Organiz'd that one part the common Causes of the World suppos'd is able to work on another which kind of Thing we call Self-moving or Living And still proceeding on by a fâ—rther Complexion of such Parts we come to a Thing that is Sensitive or Moving it self by the least Effluviums affecting those tender Organs call'd the Senses All which give so many New Additions to my former Notion of that Individuum and make it more Complex Moreover we can find in this Sensitive Thing or this Animal now spoken of both as to its peculiar Matter and Form a Disposition to work comparatively that is to judge and reason or discourse and consequently to have in it a Knowing Power which is to be a Man And Lastly Such a peculiar Degree of this Power of Comparing which restrains the Specifick Notion of Man to be this Individual Man So that by this time such a Vast Assembly of Modes or Accidents the Croud of which make that most Complex Notion call'd the Suppositum so blindly confused do meet in my Complex Idea of this Individual Man that tho' I see he is a Thing and a Distinct Thing because I see he exists and operates Independently of all other Things yet I can have no Distinct and Clear Notion of his Essence but by taking it in pieces as it were both as to those several Considerations belonging to him according to the Line of Being as was now explain'd and also as to those Conceptions I make of him according to all the Physical Modes or Accidents which are in him Which Modes so to gain an exacter Knowledge of him as Affected with those Modes and the same may be said of all other Things we divide and sub-divide as we see agreeable to their Distinct Natures or Notions This Discourse may if well weigh'd be perhaps useful for many Ends. But to apply it to our present purpose All this Multitude of less Complex or more simple Ideas belonging to the Line of Substance are found Connected in this Individuum and did we add the least of them by our Mind which was not found Conjoin'd in the Thing my Notion or Idea of him would so far be Fantastick and False because there was nothing found in the Thing that answers to such a Complexion only which can make it Real but only in my Fancy counterfeiting such a Complexion and mis-informing my Understanding as it happens in the Illusive Representations made in those who are troubled with the Spleen Melancholy or Phrenzy as likewise in timerous People when they think they see Sprights or in Horses when they boggle Add that the Mind cannot of its self begin to act as was proved formerly but all New Acts or Excitation of Former Notions in her are the Acts of the whole Man and must naturally arise first from the Bodily Part or the Fancy either Imprinting Phantasms which it receives from the Objects orderly and genuinly on the Seat of Knowledge or Disorderly as its Irregular and Extravagant Motions happen to conjoyn them Whence we say that a Man who does not correct such incoherent Connexions by Judgment is led by Fancy or Caprichious 6. While we are discoursing about the manner how we come by all our Ideas whether Simple or Complex it would not perhaps be improper to set before the Reader 's view what is my Tenet the Cartesians and Mr. Lockes and how we differ The Cartesians do not own themselves at all beholding to outward Objects for their Ideas as least as some of them say for the chiefest ones but they say they are Innate or imprinted on the Soul by Gods immediate hand tho' some of them which makes the matter much worse chose rather to say they are Elicited or produced by the Soul it self upon such a Motion from without as also that they are re-excited by such Motions in which last Tenet Mr. Locke seems to agree with them But this Learned Author denies all Innate Ideas and holds that the Simple ones at least are caused by the Objects whether they be Internal or External but that the Complex Ideas are framed by the Mind which he conceives to have a virtue of Compounding them as she pleases Whereas my Principles force me to oppose them both and to hold That all Ideas whether Simple or Complex provided that by Ideas be meant Notions and not Imaginations are to be taken intirely from the Objects or Things in Nature as also that when we excite them a new something that is in Act it self must cause that Action because a meer Power to do any Thing whether in the Soul or out of it cannot determin it self to any Action in particular And if I may freely and impartially pass my Verdict between them I should frankly declare that Mr. Locke's way has far more of Nature in it and consequently is more Solid than the Cartesian in regard he holds all our Ideas are originally taken from the Outward Objects either emmediately as to his Simple Ideas or mediately as to those which are compounded of them by the Soul Whereas the
Judicious Decision of this Point Of the Extent of our Knowledge settles the Golden Mean between both I have endeavour'd in my Method B. 1. Less 2. to § 12. to establish from Clear Grounds the Just Pitch of our Knowledge in this State Mr. Locke does with his usual Candour attempt to do the same in his Way Concerning which I am to give him my Thoughts which are these 11. There is no doubt but we have less Knowledge than we might have had through our Want of some Notions as also for want of discerning the Agreement or Disagreement of them in the same Thing No doubt too but Intuitive Knowledge which is only of Self-evident Truths cannot reach to all that belongs to our Notions or Ideas and that we too often want proper Mediums to connect those Notions in order to Demonstration As also that our Sensitive Knowledge I suppose he means that which is had by Experiments does not reach very far otherwise our Senses giving us as we do both of us hold all the First Natural Notions we have I believe it cannot be deny'd but that they give us withall the Ground of all our Knowledge Whence I cannot see why he limits Sensitive Knowledge to the Notion of Existence onely or that our Senses do make us know onely that a Thing is For certainly our Senses do as well tell us the Wall is white as that the Wall is tho' in proper Speech it does neither but by means of our Mind comparing the Notions of the two Terms given us by the Object in order to the seeing their Co-existence in the Thing All they do is to give us our Notions which the Soul that is the Man according to his Spiritual Part compounds into a Proposition and so frames a Judgment of the said Co-existence or Inconsistency of those Terms or which is the same of what is signify'd by them in the same Thing Nor do I think Mr. Locke will much deny any of this however we may express our selves diversly 12. 'T is very true that our Experience gives us some Light to know what Qualities do belong to such Substances yet I cannot think it impossible to know this very often a priori by Demonstrative Reason tho' we do not know the Constitution of the Minute Parts on which those Qualities do depend much less do I judge that tho' we did not know them yet we could not discover any necessary Connexion between them and any of the Secondary Qualities he means those Qualities which are the Objects of our Senses Nor do I wonder Mr. Locke thinks thus because he does all along pitch his Thoughts on the Corpuscularian Hypothesis as on that which in some Men's Opinion goes farthest in an Intelligible Explication of the Qualities of Body Now my Judgment is that 't is demonstrable that the Principles of the Corpuscularians cannot possibly give Account of the Constitution either of the Minute Parts or of the least Atom nor consequently of any Body in Nature or which is the Proper Work of a Philosopher refund any Quality into its Proper Causes I mean such Causes as they can prove to be such or must be such however they may fancy them to be such by allowing to themselves Voluntary Suppositions for Principles I have shewn in my Appendix to my Method that the most Celebrated of the Corpuscularian Philosophers the Cartesians cannot know the Constitution of the most minute Part of any of their Elements since they can never tell us by their Grounds the Primary Qualities of their First Matter of which their three Elements and consequently all Natural Bodies are made To shew we can I will give a short Summary of the Aristotelian Doctrine in this particular truly represented and cleared from the Mis-conceits of some late School-men 13. 'T is confess'd and Evident that Quantity is the Primary Affection of Body of which re-modify'd as I may say all Qualities are made We can shew that by it Body is Divisible and therefore Quantity for that and and many other Reasons is Divisibility especially taking it as consider'd Physically however taking it as capable to be Measur'd Proportion'd and Figur'd as Mathematicians do it may not very unfitly be called Extension But take it as I said as affecting Bodies in order to Natural Action and Passion in which the Course of Nature consists as a Natural Philosopher ought to consider it and 't is Divisibility or a Capacity to be divided by those Causes Nor can the Greatest Cartesian deny this since he grants that the First Operation in Nature is the making their three Elements by Grinding as it were or dividing their First Matter Proceeding by immediate Steps we are to seek out the first Sorts of this Divisibility and this must be done by finding the most Simple Intrinsecal Differences of that or any other Notion which can only be more and less of the Common Notion Now more and less of Divisibility Consider'd in order to Natural Agents is the same as to be more easily and less easily Divisible by by those Agents which we call to be Rare and Dense Rarity therefore and Density do constitute the Simplest Sorts or Kinds of Bodies And since it is inconceivable that Matter should be divided at all by Second Causes but the Divider must be more Dense or more able to divide than the Matter that is to be divided by it it follows that Rare and Dense Bodies were originally such or that there were Created at first some sorts of Bodies that are more and others that were less divisible as is clearly express'd in the two first Verses of Genesis And Reason abets it for otherwise the Course of Nature consisting in Motion could never have been Connaturally made because had all the Parts of Matter been equally Divisible there could be no Reason why one part of the Matter should be the Divider rather than the other and so there could have been no Motion nor consequently any Course of Nature at all 14. By the Division of Rare Bodies by Dense ones and the Division of their first Compounds the Number of Parts increasing there naturally follow'd the various Size and the Grossness and Minuteness of those Parts as also their various Figures Situations c. All which contribute to compound the Species and Individuums Of these variously mingled and remingled all the rest are made From Simple Division two Things are made of one whence follows the Individual Diversity of Bodies according to the Notion of Substance or Ens. More Accidents are as was said before still taken in to make the Subaltern Genera and Species even to the lowest Sort or Kind and innumerably more of them to distinguish and constitute Individual Bodies 15. To come a little nearer our main Point unless those Qualities Rarity and Density which are the Primary ones be admitted the World could never have been form'd connaturally nor the Course of Nature carried on because as was now shewn in
could it have this Power to alter the Natures of things or turn them from Corporeal into Spiritual when as yet it had no Knowledge at all in it as before those Species were refined and fitted to be received in it it had none Lastly Are those Species they put when purify'd perfectly like the Thing or imperfectly If perfectly like then they are the same with it as our Notions are and so the Thing it self is in the Soul and then those Species of theirs are to no purpose for the Thing being there in Person as it were there can need no Proxy of Species to stand for it nor can it bear any Sense to call the Thing a Species of it self If they be imperfectly like the Thing they are no more but Resemblances of it and then 't is already abundantly demonstrated that the Thing can never be known by them So that they could make nothing cohere how our first Rudiments or Materials of Knowledge could get into the Soul or how the Thing could come to be known by them 5. The Ideists on this Occasion have taken two ways and both of them very short ones which is to skip over all those Difficulties at one Leap The Cartesians tell us in one Word That God gave the Soul her Ideas or as some of them say some of them at the same time he gave her her Being and that by having those Ideas in her she comes to know and so by making this quick work the Question is at an End This is soon said but not so easily proved Some Rubs I have put in the way of this Pretence to hinder its Currency in the Preface to my Method and in the Book it self as Occasion presented and shall add many more in case their Opposition shall invite me to it But what needs any more since Mr. Locke has already Confuted that Position beyond possibility of any Rational Reply Other Ideists there are who think it their best Play to abstract totally from that hard Question and finding by Experience that they have Ideas and Resemblances in their Head when they know they content themselves with That without proceeding to examin distinctly what they are or how they bring us to the Knowledge of the Things in Nature These Men do certainly act more prudently than the former for 't is much more wise and safe in order to the Common Good of Learning to wave an obscure Point totally than by advancing false Positions in a matter of universal Concern in Philosophy to affirm what cannot be maintain'd Tho' I must declare that I cannot see but that such a Fundamental Point which influences the whole Body of Science ought not to be pretermitted For which reason I have thought fit to lay the Grounds for it in the two first Lessons of my Method reserving a more particular Account of it till further Occasion should be presented which seems to offer it self at present 6. Yet I do not judge this Opportunity so pressing or proper as to oblige me to treat such a large Point fully or to set my self to demonstrate and smooth every Step I take in this untrodden and rugged way This of right belongs to that part of Metaphysicks that treats of the Nature of the Soul and particularly as it is the Form of such an Animal Body which may not improperly be called Physicks or Animasticks Besides it were too great a Boldness to pretend to pursue such an abstruse Point quite thorough with Evident Demonstration Yet I think I may promise my Readers that the Positions I shall lay down orderly to clear it will have that Coherence amongst themselves and be so Agreeable to the Natures of Things and to the Maxims of divers other Sciences that it will be hard in just Reason to find any considerable Flaw in it I take my Rise from the remotest Principles that can concern that Point and these are my Thoughts 7. It belongs to the Divine Wisdom to carry on the Ordinary Course of his World by Causes and Effects and on the Matter 's side by Dispositions to further Productions Thus Wood is heated by Degrees e're it becomes Fire and breaks out into a Flame and in the Generation of every thing in Nature there are are many Previous Alterations of the Matter ere it acquires Another Form or becomes Another Thing 8. Wherefore it belongs also to the same Wisdom and Goodness of God as he is the First Cause that if in the Ordinary Course of the World the Subject be dispos'd for something that cannot be compassed by the Power of Second Causes to step in to Nature's Assistance and help her immediately by his own Hand Thus when the Individuality is compleated that is when the Potentiality of the Matter is Ultimately Determin'd and Particulariz'd by Second Causes so that it is become distinct from all other Entities or apt to be This and so fitted for Existence which Existence Second Causes cannot give God whose Generous Bounty stands ever ready to bestow unenviously on his Creatures all the Good they are capable of does give them Existence immediately by himself 9. Therefore if there can be such a Disposition in the Brain of an Embryo that grown riper it is apt as far as is on the Matters side to act Comparatively which is the Disposition for Rationality And that this cannot be done but by having a Form in it of a Superior or Spiritual Nature which Second Causes cannot produce it is certain God will by himself assist it by infusing such a Form 10. There can be such a Disposition in the Brain of an Embryo to work Comparatively that is to Judge and Discourse since we experience that we do this actually now in part by the means of the Brain or something that 's near it or belongs to it 11. Wherefore since this cannot be done without having those Materials in us of which Compounded or Compared we are to Judge and Discourse which we call Simple Apprehensions or Notions it follows that there must be such a Disposition in some Bodily Part as to convey into the Soul such Notions 12. Wherefore since Bodies in their whole Quantity or Bulk cannot be convey'd by the Senses into the Brain the Author of Nature has order'd that all Bodies upon the least Motion of Natural Causes Internal or External which is never wanting should send out Effluviums or most minute and imperceptible Particles which may pass through the Pores of those Peruious Organs called the Senses and so be carried to the Brain 13. This Natural Compound called Man is truly One Thing and not aggregated of more Things Actually Distinct since the Form called the Soul did tho' not so Naturally yet as necessarily follow out of the Disposition of the Matter taking it as Seconded and its Exigency and Deficiency supply'd by the First Cause as the Form of Fire or of any other Body in Nature does out of the
Name For to endure is to be which has Steadiness and Permanency in its Notion whereas Succession is essentially Change and so rather opposit to Duration or Being Nor is any thing said to Endure because it succeeds but because it is all the while other things succeed or rather while it self undergoes some Accidental Change Whence our Being is not Commensurate to Succession as it is Being but as it is Changeable one way or other which Changes being accompany'd with Motion must consequently be Successive as it is Angels and Pure Spirits have Duration tho' they are Unchangeable and therefore Unsuccessive having no Parts or Vicissitudes in their Natures or Operations as Material and Quantitative Things or Bodies have Moreover the Notion of meer Being is Indivisible whereas the Notion of Suceession is essentially Divisible whence they can have no Commensuration to one another For which Reason before as we apprehend it Motion or Succession begun or after it is ended the things afford us no Ground to conceive any thing like before or after but only one Ever-standing or Unchangeable and Indivisible Instant which better expresses our Eternity or constantly being ever than any Correspondence to Succession or Motion can whose Natures are Finite in Duration and so can never reach Infinite Duration or that ever-constant Being call'd Eternity 3. I deny absolutely That the Notion of Succession ought to be taken from the Train of Ideas running in our Heads but from the Things in Nature and Mr. Locke Chap. 5. makes Motion which is the same with Succession one of his Simple Ideas which comes into the Mind by divers Senses from Outward Objects Which how to reconcile with his Doctrine here I am at a Loss Nor can I see why the Rowling of a Cart-wheel in the Street or the Flying of a Bird in the Air should not more naturally and more solidly give us the Idea of Succession than our observing the Gliding of Ideas in our Fancy or Mind 4. I deny that his Argument drawn from our not perceiving Duration when we sleep does conclude that this Successive Train of Ideas gives us or is the Notion of our Duration For none can think he endures not whether he perceives it or no or that our Duration ceases or is interrupted tho' he thinks not of it or that its being longer or shorter depends on our having Attention to those Ideas but on its Correspondence to more or less of the Sun's Motion Nor had we endur'd more or less or been a Jot more or less Old whether we had wak'd or slept all our Life-time Nor is this peculiar to the Idea of Duration that we have no Perception of it in our Sleep but common to Extension and all other Modes whatever which nevertheless are or continue in being after their manner whether we perceive them or not Wherefore his Notion of Duration taken from our Co-existence to such a Train of Ideas is ill-grounded as not having any the least Foundation in Solid Nature but in Witty Fancy 5. I deny also that the Idea or Notion of Succession comes by Reflexion on our Train of Ideas Because Experience tells us it comes naturally by a Direct Impression from Outward Objects which we see move or succeed 6. I deny absolutely that tho' all that 's said be wav'd a Train of our Ideas can either be a proper Cause of the Notion of Succession or represent it For Succession or Motion has of it self no distinguishable much less Actually distinct Parts any more than Permanent Quantity or Extension has any Nicks or Notches to butt bound determin or distinguish it here and there but they both proceed in one Even Confus'd and Undistinguishable Tenour whereas in the Train of Ideas each Idea is actually Distinct from the other Whence the Notion of such a Succession ought to be One continued Idea or the Idea of a Continuance or else it resembles not the Thing as it is in Nature nor consequently is it a Similitude or Idea of the Thing or outward Object that is 't is no Idea at all nor so much as a good Phantasm much less is it a Notion or the Thing so in the Understanding as it is out of it Whence I must utterly deny what he says here § 6. that Motion produces in the Mind an Idea of Succession any otherwise than as it produces there a continued train of Distinguishable Ideas For Distinction can never represent that which is essentially Indistinct as Succession is Or if he means the Interval's between the Appearances of one Idea and another are Indistinct and Confused it will be ask't by what Idea this Indistinct Interval is made known to us and why the same Idea may not as connaturally be imprinted by the Motion of Bodies in Nature the Succession of which our Eyes Ears and Touch do testify 7. I must deny too that Duration as he takes it and Succession cannot one of them be a Measure to the other For all that can be conceiv'd of the Notion of Duration besides Being fitting it to be a Measure is some Designed Part of Motion or Succession And when two things move that which moves more regularly provided it be evidently knowable and its Quantity some way or other Determin'd is in all points fitted to be the Measure of the others Motion Nor is it more difficult to measure the less Regular Motion by the More Regular one if the other requisites be not wanting than 't is to measure the Extended Quantity of a Permanent Body v. g. a Yard of Cloth which as found in the Piece is Undetermin'd by a yard-wand whose Quantity is Stated and determin'd For Example when I write or walk an hour the Motion of Sand in an Hour-glass which is more known and Determinate measures the Motions of my Pen or Legs whose Successive Quantity or Motion is less certainly known or Determinate than the other is And as that Determinate Motion measures the other so the Motion of the Sun which is knowable to all mankind which the Glass was not and to their apprehension Regular brought to Proportionate and Determinate parts by help of our Understanding is apt to measure all our Motions whatever which Measure we call Time as I think Mr. L. grants Whence I deny that Time is measur'd by the Motion of the Sun as Mr. L. objects and justly wonders at for it is that very Motion fitted as is now said to be a Common Measure to all others He mentions many other Signes or Marks of Periods supposed Equidistant as the Returning of Birds at such Seasons the Ripening of Fruit or Fire lighted up at the same distance of Time increast in Heat c. but what must measure the distance between those Periods Or what 's this to our Time as it is now St. Austin was puzzled to know whether if Rota figuli moveretur and all things else stood still there would in that Case be Time or no. But all
all its parts Continued or Coherent as Duality does make a Stone and a Tree formally Two or Rotundity in a Body makes it Round or any other Formal Cause is engag'd by its very Essence to put its Formal Effect which would induce a Clear Contradiction if it should not 10. 'T is not in this Occasion only but in many others too that Great Scholars puzzle their Wits to find out Natural Causes for divers Effects the true Reason for which is only owing to Trans-natural ones or from these Altissimae Causae which only Metaphysicks give us and it happens also not seldom that Men beat their Brains to find out Efficients for that which depends only on Formal Causes whose most certain Causality depends on no Second Causes but only on the First Cause God's Creative Wisdom which establish'd their Essences to be what they are Let any one ask a Naturalist why Rotundity does formally make a Thing Round and you will see what a Plunge he will be put to not finding in all Nature a Proper Reason for it The same in other Terms is the Ground of Mr. Locke's Perplexity how Extended Parts do cohere to which the properest and most Satisfactory Answer is because there is Quantity in them which is Essentially Continued and so does Formally give Coherence of Parts to Body its Subject By the same means we have a Clear Reason afforded us why Bodies impell one another which Mr. Locke thinks is Inexplicable For putting one Body to be thrust against another the Body that is Passive must either be shov'd forwards or there must necessarily be Penetration of Parts unless perhaps at first the Impulsive Force be so slight and leisurely that it is able to cause only some Degree of Condensation Every thing therefore acting as it is if the Body or the Quantity of it be Extended or have one Part without the other and therefore it be impossible its Parts should be penetrated or be one within the other the Motion of the Passive Body must necessarily ensue 11. To proceed Mr. Locke makes account we have as clear a Knowledge of Spirits as we have of Bodies and then argues that we ought no more to deny the Existence of Those than of These Which I should like well did he maintain and prove first that the Nature of Bodily Substances is clearly Intelligible But to make those Notions which are most Essential and Proper to Bodies and most Obvious of all others viz. their Entity or Substance and their Extension to be Unintelligible and then to tell us that The Idea of Spiritual Natures are as Clear as that of Bodily Substance which he takes such pains to shew is not Clear at all is as I conceive no great Argument for their Clearness nor their Existence neither but rather a strong Argument against both The Parallel amounting to this that we know not what to make either of the one or of the other 12. As for the Knowledge we have of Spiritual Natures my Principles oblige me to discourse it thus We can have no Proper or Direct Notions of Spiritual Natures because they can make no Impressions on our Senses yet as was shewn above our Reflexion on the Operations and Modes which are in our Soul make us acknowledge those Modes are not Corporeal and therefore that the Immediate Subject of those Modes our Soul is not a Body but of another nature vastly different which we call Spiritual Our Reason assures us also by demonstrating that the first Motion of Bodies could neither proceed immediately from God nor from our Soul which presupposes both that and many other Motions to her Being that there must be another sort of Spiritual Nature distinct from our Soul from which that Motion proceeds which therefore being Active and so in Act it self is not a Compart but a Whole and Subsistent alone which we call Angels Their Operations prove they have Actual Being and therefore a fortiori they are capable to be or Things Whence we must correct our Negative Expressions of them by our Reason and hold they are Positive Things all Notions of Thing being Positive Farther we can as evidently discourse of those Beings or Things tho' Negatively express'd as we can of any Body v. g. if an Angel be Non-quantus we can demonstrate it is Non-extensus Non-locabilis c. and from its having no Matter or Power which is the Ground of all Potentiality and Change 't is hence collected that 't is a Pure Act and therefore that once Determin'd it is Immutable at least Naturally Lastly I affirm that this presupposed we can discourse far more clearly of Spirit than of Bodies For there are thousands of Accidents belonging intrinsecally or extrinsecally to every Individual Body whence all our Confusion and Ignorance of it comes whereas in a Pure Spirit there are only three or four Notions viz. Being Knowledge Will and Operation for us to Reflect on and Manage and therefore the Knowledge of them is as far as this Consideration carries more Clearly attainable than is the Knowledge of Bodies REFLEXION Fourteenth ON The 24th 25th 26th and 27th CHAPTERS 1. THE 24th Chapter Of the Collective Ideas of Substance gives me no Occasion to reflect Only when he lays as it were for his Ground that the Mind has a Power to compare or collect many Ideas into one I am to suppose he means that the Mind does not this of her self alone without the Joint-acting of the Body as has been often prov'd above for otherwise the whole or the Man cannot be said to be the Author of that Action 2. The 25th Chapter gives us the true Notion of Relation and very clearly express'd which he seconds with divers other Solid Truths viz. That some Terms which seem Absolute are Relatives that Relation can be only betwixt two Things and that All things are capable of Relation What I reflect on is that he gives us not the true Difference between Real and meerly Verbal Relations nor the true Reason why some Relative Terms have and others have not Correlates He thinks the Reasons why we call some of them ExtrinsecalDenominations which is the same with Verbal Relations proceed from Defect in our Language or because we want a Word to signifie them Whereas this matters not a Jot since we can have the Idea or Notion of Relation in our Minds if we have good Ground for it whether we have a Word to signifie it or no or rather if we have a Real Ground for it we shall quickly invent either some one Word or else some Circumlocution to express it Let us see then what our Principles in this Affair say to us 3. Relation is not here taken for our Act of Relating for then it would belong to another common Head of Notions call'd Action but for the Thing as it is referred by our Comparative Power to another Wherefore there must be some Ground in the Thing for our thus referring in
Sensation our own Existence as well as that of any other Body whatever I doubt not but Mr. Locke will grant they would Since then the Embryo in the Womb lies in a Roundish Posture why may not one part of it by touching another or operating upon it cause in us as soon as the Soul which has a Capacity of Receiving Notions is in it a Notion of our own Existence by way of Sensation Especially since Operation is nothing but the Existence of the Agent Body press'd or imprinted as it were upon another by Motion Certainly it becomes us who deny Innate Ideas to shew how all our First Notions do come into us by Impressions on the Senses and not to say rawly that some of them come by Intuition which is the Way of Knowing Proper to Angels whose Knowledges are all Innate and none of them Acquir'd either by Sense or Discourse for they have neither This I say is certainly best for the Interest of our Tenet of which Intuition gives but a slender Account I believe Mr. Locke proceeds upon this that he finds he not only does but must as firmly assent to the Proposition Ego sum as he does to the most Evident Proposition whatever nor can he at all doubt of it nor can it need Proof But my Judgment is that this Introversion and Studying our own Interiour is a very Fallacious Guide and will often lead us astray if we keep not a steady Eye attentively bent to our Principles which he seems here to neglect For many Positions need no Proof and force our Assent and yet their Certainty may depend on Different Causes 10. The 12th Chapter treats of the Improvement of our Knowledge which Mr. Locke says does not depend on Maxims But First he mistakes the Use of General Maxims They are not made for the Vulgar or Beginners to gather Knowledge by them tho' it may be observ'd that Men of all sorts do naturally use them when they sute their purpose nay sometimes make Proverbs of them Nor was this Maxim a Whole is bigger than a Part ever intended for Boys or to teach them that their Hand is bigger than their Little Finger or such like but being premised to the ensuing Proofs they are occasionally made use of by Learned Men in the Process of their Discourse to clinch the Truth of the Point when it needs it by their Self-Evidence In the same manner as my self have very frequently had recourse to Metaphysical Principles and made use of them in my Preliminaries and Reflexions as Occasion presented to make my Discourses Evident and to rivet the Truths I advance in the Minds of my Readers as any Attentive Peruser of them may easily observe He speaks against our Receiving Principles without Examination and of Principles that are not Certain that is against such Sayings as are no Principles for if they can either need or admit of Examination or if they be not Certain none but meer Fops will let them pass for Prinples Yet tho' Mr. Locke does thus oppose Maxims and Principles 't is notwithstanding very evident that himself must make use of some Maxims and Principles all the while he disputes aganst their Usefulness otherwise he cannot discourse at all or his Discourse can have no Force In the same manner as he that wrastles with another must either fix his Foot on some Firm Ground or he will fall himself instead of overthrowing his Adversary Let us then examin his Principles He alledges that the Knowledge of the Certainty of Principles depends only upon the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas This then is one of his Principles both because it runs through good part of his 3d and 4th Books as also because 't is Equivalent to this Universal All Certainty of Principles depends c. Now this is so far from Self-evident that it needs Examination enough and is one of those I judge not Certain and therefore can be no Ground or Principle at all Nor is it possible it should unless the Word Idea be cleared to mean Spiritual Notions in our Mind and not meer Resemblances or Material Representations in our Fancy to clear which tho' the whole Treatise needs it no Provision is made but on the contrary those two vastly different things are rather carelesly confounded as is shewn in my First Preliminary Another Principle seems to be this None ought with a Blind and Implicit Faith to Receive and Swallow Principles This is of Universal Influence and Self-Evident and therefore in all Points well qualify'd for a Principle For Principles were not Principles if they needed either Faith or Deductions of Reason to make them go down since they ought to be Evident by their own Light But what Good can this do to any but to such as have renounc'd Common Sense even to Ridiculousness And perhaps Mr. Locke had some such weak Writers in his Eye when he advanc'd this cautious Position as a Warning to Learners 11. Now the General Maxims and Principles on which the Learned Part of the World has hitherto proceeded can onely be overthrown if they must needs be so by other Principles more Evident than themselves are or else it will be but a drawn Match and so they may hope still to stand as the Lawyers phrase it in their full Force Effect and Vertue We are to consider then what Principle Mr. Locke has substituted in their room when they are discarded for 't is a very ill Case to be left without any Principles at all 'T is this All Knowledge of the Certainty of Principles and consequently the Way to improve our Knowledge is to get and fix in our Minds Clear Distinct and Compleat Ideas as far as they are to be had and annex to them Proper and Constant Names Now if the Ideas must be Clear the Terms must be very Simple and consequently as was shewn above General ones and this will force us back upon General Maxims which it was intended we should avoid as good for little To be Distinct if we go to work like Artists we must distinguish those General and Common Notions which will bring us back into the old Road of those Ten Common Heads called Predicaments and consequently of Genus Species and Differences which was lately dislik'd I suppose because it was too much travell'd in and beaten tho' I think such a Common Path should not be left because some may have here and there laid a Block or Briar in the way Lastly Compleat Ideas as he grants are not to be had of the Species much less of the Individuums And as for Names 't is not we that are to annex them but the Common Usage of the Vulgar or of the Generality of Learned Men in case they be Artificial ones for these are they who gave them their Constant and Proper Signification Whence is seen that so many Difficulties are involv'd in this one Thesis or Principle besides what is said
of Humane Nature which abhors Contradiction reclaims vehemently against such an unnatural Depravation of Common Sense as to take is while thus express'd for is not yet taking the meaning of the Word Existence as it is disguised by another Word which is by consequence Equivalent to it those Deserters of Humane Nature the Scepticks do take occasion from the altering the Expression to misapprehend even what is Self-evident For 't is the same Sense when we speak affirmatively to say a thing is True or Certain as to say it is since nothing can be True or Certain that is not and therefore when these Men talk of Moral and Probable Truth and Probable or Moral Certainty which mincing Expressions mean possible not to be so they in effect say that what is may whilst it is possibly not be Which manners of Expression tho' they may seem to some but a meer Unconcerning School-Speculation and Unreflecting Men may think it deserves no other Note but that of being Ridiculous yet I judge my self obliged to declare that it is moreover most enormously Mischievous and that it quite perverts and destroys by a very immediate Consequence the Nature and Notion of all Certainty and Truth whatsoever and of Being too and quite overthrows all possibility of Knowing any thing at all Had they said I think it true or certain none would blame them rather 't is a Credit for such Men even to think heartily there is any Truth or Certainty at all in Philosophy but to joyn as they do Moral or Probable to Truth and Certainty as a kind of Mode affecting them is to clap these most unconsociable Things Light and Darkness into one Dusky Compound to abet Nonsense and palliate Ignorance 4. The Notion immediately next in order to Existence as that which has the very least Potentiality that can be in the Line of Being is that of Ens or Thing Wherefore the meaning of that word can be no other but that of Capable to be for no Created Thing has Actual Being or Existence in its Essential-Notion but of its own Nature may be or not be as besides what 's proved in my Method is seen in the very Notion of Creature which signifies That which has its Being from Another which therefore can of its self be only Capable of Being That the Notion of Ens is distinct from that of Existence is demonstrated elsewhere and is farther evident hence that the Notion of what has Existence must be different from what 's had by it or from Existence it self All Mankind has this Notion of Thing in them for they experience that every Thing can exist by seeing it does so and they know also they are not of themselves whether they hold a first Being or no because they do generally see that Causes produced them Wherefore all that can be said or thought of the word Ens is that it signifies the Thing precisely as 't is Capable of Being 5. Whence follows that the Abstract Terms Entity or Essence do properly signify A Capacity of Being which is the Abstract Term of Capable of Being Tho' Entity is often us'd as a Concrete for the Thing it self Moreover Essence is the Total Form of Ens its Suppositum or Subject which adequately and intirely constitutes it such as Humanitas is the Total Form of Homo I call it the Total Form to distinguish it from the Partial Form of Body which with the Matter its compart do compound the entire Notion or Total Form of Corporeity 6. To understand which more clearly we are to Note that the Notion and Signification of the word Matter signifies the Thing or Body precisely as it is a Power to be a Thing and Form signifies the same Thing according to that in it which determins it to be a Thing Actually We are to reflect too that Power and Act considered in the Line of Being are the same as Matter and Form only the Former words are purely Metaphysical because they express the parts of Ens as Ens in regard no other conceptions in the Line of Being can possibly be framed of a Body but as it is Determinable or Determinative which are the very Notions of Power and Act whereas Matter and Form tho' in Bodies they signify the same as the former seem rather to incline to the parts of such an Ens or Body Physically consider'd 7. To show literally what 's meant by this saying that Matter and Form constitute the compleat Ens or make the Subject capable of Existing I discourse thus Nothing as 't is Indeterminate or Common to more can be ultimately Capable to be v. g neither a Man in Common nor a Horse in Common can possibly exist but This Man or This Horse Whatever therefore does determin the Potentiality or Indifferency of the Subject as it is Matter or which is the same a Power to be of such or such a Nature which is what we call to have such a Form in it does make it This or That and consequently disposes it for Existence Wherefore since the particular Complexion of the several Modes and Accidents do determin the Power or Matter so as to make it Distinct from all others it does by Consequence determin it to be This and so makes it Capable of Existing that is an Ens or Thing I enlarge not upon this Point because I have treated it so amply in the Appendix to my Method to Science 8. Hence is seen what is or can with good Sense be meant by that Metaphysical or Entitative part called by the Schools the Substantial or Essential Form which they say does with the Matter make up that compound Ens call'd Body and that in Literal Truth it can be nothing else but that Complexion of the Modes or Accidents which conspire to make that peculiar or primigenial Constitution of every Body at the first Instant of its being thus ultimately Determin'd to be This. For this Original Temperature of the Mixt or Animal being once settled by the Steady Concurrence of its Causes whatever Particles or Effluviums or how many soever which are Agreeable to it do afterwards accrue to it are so digested into or assimilated to its Nature that they conserve nourish and dilate and not destroy it Whereas if they be of an opposit Nature they alter it from its own temperature and in time quite destroy and corrupt it To explicate which more fully let us consider how the Causes in Nature which are many times of a Different sometimes of a Contrary Temper to the Compound do work upon a Body and how they make as they needs must preternatural Dispositions in it till when those Disagreeable Alterations arrive to such a pitch as quite to pervert the former Complexion of Accidents which we call its Form a new Form or new Complexion succeeds determining the Matter to be Another Thing till it self also wrought upon in the same Manner comes to be Corrupted and so makes
all likewise that is all Bodies or the whole Nature of Body that is the Entire Bulk of Body must be Continued And therefore 't is as great a Contradiction that some Bodies or some Parts of Body should not be Continued or which is the same that there should be a Vacuum as that Triangularity should be in some one Body and yet it should not be Triangular that Whiteness should be in a Wall and yet it should not be White or Unity in a Thing and yet it self should not be Unum This is my Way of Demonstrating against Vacuum within the World to prove and not suppose the World Full or Continued which I draw out of the Abstract Notion of Quantity or of Body consider'd as Quantitative and out of those Notions most Intimately and Essentially Connected with it Which why it should not be as Evident as any Demonstration in Mathematicks or why we cannot draw as clear a Demonstration from the Nature of Quantity in Common as we can from the Nature of such a Quantity I desire any Man who is so wise as to know that all Science and Demonstration do consist in the Connexion of Terms to inform me I say any such Man for if he knows not This it is Impossible he should know any Thing at all in Philosophy or even in Logick and so he is not worth discoursing with 6. Hence is seen that it is impossible that a Sucker in a Pump may draw up Water and yet the next Body not follow We may Fancy it if we please but our Fancy cannot change the Natures of Things It cannot make Continuity not to be Continuity Quantitative Unity not to be such an Unity nor Quantity not to be Quantity any more than his Solidity can be Non-Solidity or the Parts of Body penetrate one another Had Mr. Locke had a Notion of Space taken indifferently from Body and something that 's not Body as we have of Sensitiveness from Man and Brute he might in that Case have fram'd an Abstract Notion of it Common and Indifferent to Body and Vacuum for then it had been grounded on the Thing and had been a solid and true Notion but since he had the Idea or Notion of Space from Body only and therefore as was largely prov'd above it could be of nothing else but of Body thus Modified it must be confin'd to Body with which as all Modes are it is Identified and therefore the Idea or Notion of it can never be applicable to what is not a Body REFLEXION Fourth ON The Seventh and Eighth CHAPTERS 1. HAving already shewn that our only Simple Notion is that of Existence I have no Occasion to make any Remarks on his 7th Chapter but that 't is highly Commendable in the Author to reduce his Speculations to Piety and Contemplation This being not only our Duty but that Best End to which all Solid Speculation naturally leads us 2. As for his 8th Chapter I grant that all the Ideas or Notions we have are Positive in the Understanding at least in part but the Reason of it is because they do all of them include the Thing as 't is thus consider'd without which we could have no Ideas of Privations or Negations at all For Non-Ens formally as such or as totally Excluding Ens can have no Intelligibility nor consequently any Notion by which we can understand it And Privations differ from Negations only in this that they include in their Notion a Capacity of the Subjects having such or such a Mode annex'd to its not having it which Capacity clearly Connotates the Thing since there cannot be a Capacity without some Thing that is Capable or has that Capacity Add that I see not how Ideas being Resemblances an Idea consider'd by us as a Positive real Being can ever resemble or represent Privations they being of at least Subcontrary Natures What I hold is that when we conceive a Thing as having some Privation in it the Idea of it is partly Positive partly Privative and the Material Part of it is the Thing the Formal as Privative or as thus Modify'd For Ideas I mean Notions of Privations without including the Thing are Unconceivable and Impossible as whoever looks into their Definition will discern clearly Of this Nature in Common are all the Notions we have of the Modes or Accidents no Notion being truly or perfectly Positive but that of Ens or Thing I cannot grant that our Ideas or Notions or even Phantasms are caus'd in us by meer Motions continued from our Senses to the Brain or the Seat of Sensation but must judge for the Reasons alledg'd above that this is perform'd by those Imperceptible Bodies there spoken of or by the Effluviums themselves convey'd thither and afterwards lodged there In embracing which Opinion of our Knowledge being wrought by meer Motions made by the Objects his Excellent Wit suffers it self to be led astray by our Moderns His Reason which I conceive is also theirs is because it is not more impossible to conceive that God should annex such Ideas to such Motions than Pain to a piece of Steel dividing the Body with which that Idea has no Resemblance How unlike a Reason this is appears at first fight and I am sure this Parallel has no Resemblance at all with the Thing it is brought for I know of no Annexing the Idea of Pain to a piece of Steel but must think 't is a most highly extravagant Conceit The Business passes thus in Nature A piece of Steel being Denser and withall sharp is a proper Cause of Dividing the Body the Dividing of it is a proper Cause of its being disorder'd and render'd unable to assist the Soul or the Man in his necessary Operations This breeds naturally a Conception in the Soul or the Man that he is hurt which Naturally produces in the Knower who is highly concern'd in it Grief or Pain So that all is here carry'd on by a Train of proper Causes to proper Effects and needs no Annexing by God more than to conserve the Order of Second Causes which himself has establish'd On the other side there is no Natural Resemblance of such a Motion to such an Idea as is confess'd nor is the former a Proper Cause of the other which puts them to have recourse to this Voluntary Annexion to them by God Add that it is an odd kind of Argument to alledge that it is not impossible to conceive that God may do this or that without proving he has done it Nor is it at all allowable in Philosophy to bring in a Deus è Machinâ at every turn when our selves are at a loss to give a Reason for our Thesis Nor is it to be expected that God will alter the Nature of Things for the Interest of any Man's Tenet but since his Wisdom in his Ordinary Government of the World carries on the Course of it according to the Nature of Second Causes it must first
be prov'd that what we maintain is Agreeable to the Course of Natural Causes e'er we ought to think or imagin that God will have any hand in it And if we can prove this we need no Immediate or particular Recourse to God's favouring us by doing This or That to make good our Argument 4. I must deny too consequently to my former Doctrine that Sensible Qualities are nothing in the Objects but Powers to produce various Sensations in us unless it be meant that they have Powers to send out such Effluviums into the Brain by the Senses as imprint their very Natures in our Mind and not barely to produce Motions in our Nerves Nor can I conceive why the Ideas of the Secondary Qualities should have nothing like them existing in the Bodies themselves nor be Resemblances of them If this be true why are they call'd Ideas which either signifies Resemblances or Nothing Again since the Bodies are put to cause them how can we think they are nothing like them Can any Man think the Effect is nothing like the Cause when every Effect can be nothing but a Participation of the Cause or something coming into the Subject from the Efficient which was in it some way or other before Lastly If these Secondary Qualities be compounded of the Primary ones viz. of Solidity Extension Figure and Mobility in our Understanding why should not those Primary Qualities in re as well compound those Secondary ones in the Thing or out of our Understanding And if they do as 't is evident they must since they are all there then why are not those Secondary Ideas full as like those Secondary or Compounded Qualities found in the Thing as the Primary Ideas were like the Primary Qualities in the same Thing and consequently resemble them as well as the others did their proper Originals I much doubt that the Author rather consulted his Fancy in this particular than his good Reason And because those Effluviums or the Figures of Parts which cause our Sensations are too Subtile and Indiscernable to cause Distinct Phantasms of themselves as the Primary ones did but are of a Confus'd Uniformness in Appearance he judges hence they are Nothing like the others Whereas Reason will inform Reflecters that since Colour is nothing but the Surface of a Body as 't is apt to reflect Light the manner of Reflexion found in the Surface of a White Thing which is apt to reflect much Light is to our Reason and in our Notion such as it was in the Thing imprinting it and consequently every thing Acting as it is such as came from it Whence those who by Reflex Thoughts and using their Reason do go about to explain or define the Nature or Notion of Whiteness do make it consist in such a Reflexion of Light bringing Effluviums with it from a Surface so advantagiously Figur'd And so the Notion of Whiteness is the same in the Thing and in the Understanding viz. those Effluviums thus Figur'd or Modified however the Appearance of it in the Fancy reaches not the true Nature of the Thing as 't is White which indeed Fancy never does 5. The Reason why the Pain which we feel is not in the Thing that Caus'd it and Sensible Qualities are so is because these last are Proper Univocal and Immediate Effects of Bodies sending out Effluviums of their own Natures but Pain being an Affection of the Soul springing from a Perception that its dear Compart is hurt and disorder'd is an Improper Remoter and Equivocal Production The Altering Disordering or Spoiling the Temperature or Continuity of the Bodily Parts due to their Nature is as was shewn the Immediate and Proper Effect of those Offensive Agents but 't is Accidental to their manner of Operating that they cause Pain or Pleasure even remotely and it lights only that sometimes they do this because the Subject or the Body in which they produce these their proper Effects haps to be Identified with a Knowing Nature only which is properly capable to Grieve or be Delighted when a Harmful or Pleasing Impression is made on the Body which is Part of the Man and in some sort himself The like is to be said of Manna and other such Instances The Alterations or Disorder made in the Guts and Stomach are Natural Proper and Immediate Effects of it but the Pain ensuing thence which is a Spiritual Disposition of the Mind is a Remote Accidental and Improper Effect of it 6. By this Time Mr. Locke sees that I agree with him that the Bodies in Nature have a Power in them to cause our several Sensations and that this Power is that which we call such a Quality of it But I disagree with him that they are only Powers to cause such a Motion and affirm it is a Power when duly Circumstanced with other Requisites as with Light to convey Visible Qualities Moisture Gustable ones c. to send out Effluviums of their own Nature to the Brain which therefore are Inherent in and Proper Parts of those Objects whether they cause Actual Sensation or no. The Sun sends out his Beams which scatter'd thinly at this remote distance from the Fountain are therefore one of Mr. Locke's Secondary Qualities which we call Light yet contracted by a Burning-Glass they perform the Proper Effect of Fire Burning whence we ought to conclude they are of the Nature of Fire Can we then deny or doubt but that the Body of the Sun which communicates or sends them out is it self Fire or that being such those Rays and the Sun have no Similitude with one another Or that when they strike the Eye they stop there and are not carry'd into the Brain Hippocrates tells us that Omnes partes corporis sunt permeabiles meaning that they are pervious to the Humours which are gross Things in comparison of the Sun-Beams How can it then be doubted but that they reach the Fancy and thence the Soul and imprint their Notions or Natures there And tho' some may deny they are the same in the Mind as they are in Nature yet can it with any Shew of Reason be deny'd they are at all like the Cause that produced them The like Discourse holds in all other Sensible Qualities to what Sense soever they belong 7. To close this Discourse I am apt to think that Mr. Locke intended to oppose those who hold that the Sensible Qualities are a little kind of Distinct Entities Next I declare that tho' the Thing has accidentally a Power in it to make it self perceiv'd yet taking the Thing as an Object as he does it is but Improperly called a Power and not Properly as are our Powers or Faculties of Seeing Hearing Knowing c. are For the Act being the End for which the Power was given the Faculties or Powers are better'd and perfected by being reduced to Act and so there is a real Ground for their being Related to the Object Whereas neither the Object or Thing nor
Will and consequently of its Acts of Love is an Appearing Good and the Lively Appearance of that Good is that which makes the Will prompt to act effectually whence since that which breeds Pleasure in us must needs appear Lively to be a Good to us there needs no more but to chuse wisely what is most Pleasant or most Agreeable to our True Nature Reason such as the best Spiritual Goods are and we may be sure by such a well-made Choice to arrive at that Best Greatest and Purest Pleasure Eternal Glory REFLEXION Twelfth ON The 21th CHAPTER 1. IN this Chapter of Power I find more to admire than confute The Author always Ingenious even when he errs has here much out done his former self Particularly his Explication of Freewill is generally speaking both Solid and Acute and his Doctrine that Liberty is consistent with a perfect Determination to Goodness and Virtue is both Learned and Pious Yet I am forced to disagree with him in some particulars In giving my Thoughts of which I will imitate Mr. Locke's laudable Method in making my Discourses Subservient and in shewing them to be Agreeable to Christian Principles 2. 'T is an excellent Thought that The Clearest Idea of Active Power is had from Spirit For Bodies can act no otherwise than as they are acted on themselves nor can the first mov'd Body that moves the rest push others forwards farther than it self is moved by something that is not Body or by some Spiritual Agent which therefore has the truest Notion of Agency in it without any Mixture of Patiency because the Body mov'd cannot react upon it Tho' therefore we may have by our Senses the Idea of Action and Passion from the Effects we see daily wrought by Natural Causes on fit Subjects yet the Clearest Idea of Action is given us by our Reason finding out that the Beginner of Corporeal Action is a Separated Spirit or pure Act and therefore not at all Passive from any other Creature nor from the Body it operates on by Reaction as is found in Corporeal Agents And our Reason gives us this Idea as it does many other Reflex ones by seeing clearly that neither can there possibly be Processus in infinitum amongst Corporeal Agents nor can they of themselves alone begin to move themselves nor move one another Circularly and therefore the First Corporeal Motion must necessarily be Originiz'd from some Pure Spirit or Angel Now Mr. Locke conceives that the Soul according to her Faculty call'd Will moving the Body gives him this clearest Idea of Active Power which Tenet I have in diverse places disprov'd formerly and shown that the Soul by reason of her Potential State here cannot principiate any Bodily Action nor the Man neither unless wrought upon by some External or Internal Agent which is in act it self 3. He Judges with good reason that the Vulgar mistake of Philosophers in making every Faculty or Power a Distinct Entity has caus'd much Obscurity and Uncertainty in Philosophy which humour of Multiplying Entities I am so far from abetting that perhaps he will think me to err on the other hand in making the Understanding and Will to be one and the same Power and affirming that they only differ formally in Degree He shows clearly how in proper Speech the Will is not Free but the Man unless it be signified with a Reduplication that by the Word Will is meant Man according to that Power in him call'd the Will For Powers as he discourses well belong only to Agents and are Attributes only of Substances and not of the Powers themselves Perhaps this reason of his will abet my position that the Understanding and Will are the same Power Those who make them two do this because they find in the Notion of Will only a Power of Acting and not of knowing and in the Notion of Understanding only a Power of knowing and not of Acting But the same Men make the Understanding direct the Will which they call a Blind Power by which they make one of those Powers formally as such to work upon the other as if the former were an Agent and the latter a Patient I add moreover that they do this with the worst Grace that is possible for what avails it the Will to be directed by the Understanding if it does not know how the Understanding directs it And to make the Will to know is to make it a knowing Power which is to make the Will tho' they never meant it to be the Understanding Not reflecting in the mean time when our Understanding is full of any Apparent Good the Man pursues it and so becomes or has in him a Principle or Power of Acting which is what we call Will. 4. Perhaps a Philosophical Discourse beginning from the Principles in this affair if exprest Literally and pursu'd home by Immediate Consequences may set this whole business in a Clearer Light and show us very evidently how Man determins himself to Action and therefore is Free as also how he is Predetermin'd to determin himself than any particular Reflexions on our own Interiour Which tho' they may oftentimes have some Truth in them yet not beginning from the bottom-Truths that concern the point in hand they can never be steady but are now and then liable to some Errours 5. Beginning then with the Animal part in Man and considering him barely as an Animal and wrought upon as other Animals are I discourse thus Particles agreeable to the Nature of the Animal being by the Senses convey'd into the Brain do if they be but Few lightly affect it and work no other effect but a kind of small Liking of it If more they make it as we say begin to Fancy it But if they be very many and sent from an Object very Agreeable or Good to such a Nature they will in proportion to their Multitude and Strength cause naturally a Tendency towards it and powerfully excite the Spirits so as to make the Animal pursue it that is they will become such a Principle of Action which in meer Animals we call Appetite To which Action that meer Animal is not carry'd thro' Choice or Freely but is naturally and necessarily Determin'd to Act for the Attainment of that Good in the same manner as Iron follows the Load-stone But if we consider this Animal as having now a Rational and Knowing Compart join'd to it things will be order'd after another manner For those Impressions are carry'd farther than the Region of the Brain even into the Soul it self which is endow'd with a Faculty of Reflecting upon those her Notions whence she gains exacter Knowledge of those Bodies that imprinted them Nor only so but she can reflect upon her own Operations too and know that she knows them by which means she comes acquainted with her own Nature and comes to see that Knowledge and Reason is that Nature of hers which she finds is a Nobler part of the
or Natures of Thing or of such a Thing and both the first of them and also all the rest are nothing but the Thing diversly Consider'd The Conceptions or Notions of the Modes or Accidents are innumerable but there is only One which is the Conception of Thing it self which we find to be this that 't is Capable to be or exist and this Notion or which is the same the Object thus consider'd we call Ens Res Substance or Thing The other Notions we have of it such as are Big Qualify'd Related c. have neither Being nor any Order to Being in their signification or peculiar Notion as had the other Wherefore since Nature tells us that we must first conceive the Thing to be ere we can conceive it to be after such and such a manner nor can the Mode or Manner be apprehended to be of its single self capable to be otherwise than as it is annext to what 's Capable to be by its self or by its own peculiar Nature that is as it is identify'd with it therefore no Mode or Accident can exist by Virtue of its own Idea or Notion but in Virtue of the Notion of Thing or Substance with which therefore tho' formally Different they are all materially Identify'd Or thus more briefly Had not the Thing somewhat in it which grounds this true Conception of it that 't is Capable to be none of the Accidents they all wanting in their Notion any Order to Being could be conceiv'd to be at all And this in Literal Truth is the great Mystery of those Positions about which Disputants in the Schools blinded with their own ill-understood Metaphors have so long like Andabatae fought in the dark about such Questions as these viz. Whether the Essence of the Accidents is their Inexistence or Inherence in the Substance Whether the Substance supports them in Being Is their Substratum or the Subject in which those Accidental Forms do Inhere Then in pursuance of their Fanciful Metaphor some of them begin to cast about how those Forms are United to the Subject or Substance or come to be received in it in order to which and that nothing may be wanting to do the work thorowly they coyn a new connecting little Entity call'd an Union to soder them together and so instead of making it One Entity they very wisely make Three All which Conceits if we look narrowly into them have at the bottom this mistake that all our several Conceptions have so many distinct Entities in the Thing corresponding to them Which vast Errour both perverts all true Philosophy and is against a First Principle in Metaphysicks by making Unum to be Divisum in se or One Entity to be Many Now if these Modes be Things or to speak more properly if the Notion of every manner of a Thing be the formal Notion of the Thing it self or of what 's Capable of Existing first the Nature of Modes is destroy'd for they will be no longer the How but the What and the Nature or Notion of Substance or Ens is lost too for if all the Modes are Distinct Entities or Capable of Existing they must all be Substances which blends all the Notions Mankind has or can have on the perfect Distinction of which all Science is grounded in a perfect Confusion and consequently reduces all our Knowledge to a Chaos of Ignorance 8 But I wonder most how this Learned Man can think none knows what Extension is We cannot open our Eyes but they inform us that the Air and other Bodies which which we see are not cramp'd into an Indivisible but are vastly Expanded or which is the same Extended May we not as well say we may see Light and yet have no Notion of it And does not himself make Extension to be one of his Simple Ideas the Knowledge of which goes along with all the Knowledges we have of Bodies and withall resembles the Thing For what thinks he serves an Idea but to make Men Know by it what it represents or consequently an Idea of Extension but to make us know Extension Perhaps he may think we cannot know it because we cannot define or explicate it but in Words Equivalent to it But first this Objection has no Ground because all Definitions and Explications in the World are the same Sense with the Notion they Define and Explicate and were it not so they would be no Definitions nor Explications of that Notion for they do no more but give us all the Parts of the Entire Notion and all the Parts are the same as the Whole Next how does it follow that because we cannot explicate it we do not know it Whereas the direct contrary follows in our present Case For the commonest Notions can the worst be defin'd because they least need it being Self-known or Self-evident Not all the Wit of Man can Define and Explicate what it is to be and yet all Mankind knows it perfectly or else it is impossible they not knowing what the Copula means should know the Truth or Falshood of any Proposition whatever Thirdly He seems to think that as some of the School-men do imagin Contradictory Positions may follow out of the Notion of Extension else why should he imagin the Difficulties concerning it are Inextricable Which I must declare against as the the worst piece of Scepticism next to the denying all First Principles For if Contradictory Positions may follow out of any Notion taken from the Thing then that Notion and consequently the Thing it self would not have any Metaphysical Verity in it but be purely Chimerical Add that the learned Thomas Albius in his Excellent Preface before the Latin Edition of Sir Kenelm Digby's Treatise of Bodies has clearly solv'd those Imaginary Contradictions 9. To shew the Difficulty of Knowing Extension he objects that no Reason can be given for the Cohesion of the Parts of Extended Matter If he means that we can give no. Physical Reason for it or such an one as fetch'd from the Qualities or Operations of Bodies I grant it for all those Qualities and Operations are Subsequent to the Notion of Extension and Grounded on it But if he thinks there cannot be a far Better and Clearer Reason given from the Supream Science Metaphysicks I deny it I explain my self All Positions that concern the Essences of Things or Modes either do belong to the Object of Metaphysicks so that whoever makes the Natures or Essences of any of these not to be what they are is most clearly convinced by his violating that Metaphysical First Principle A Thing is what it is to maintain a clear Contradiction If then Divisibility be the Essence of Quantity and Divisibility signifies Unity of the Potential Parts of Quantity and Continuity as making those Parts formally Indivisas in se be evidently the Unity proper to those Parts it follows that Quantity being the Common Affection of Body does formally and as necessarily make its whole Subject that is
and consequently if the Relation be new or such a one as before was not there must be some Novelty in the Thing it self to ground it Whence follows that if there be such a Real Ground on the one side only and no Real Ground on the other there will be a Real Relation on the one side and no Real Relation on the other but only a Verbal one or an Extrinsecal Denominatien Answering or as it were Chiming Grammatically to the Term which is really Relative v. g. Our Powers of Seeing or Understanding any thing have a Real Relation to their proper Objects both because such Objects Specifie the Power or make it such a Power that is give it its peculiar or distinct Essence as also because the Power is by the Object actuated and determin'd to act that is the Power is intrinsecally Chang'd or otherwise than it was by means of the Object but the Object suffers no kind of Change nor is it at all Alter'd or otherwise than it was by being known or seen Whence the Intellective or Visive Powers are really Related to the Object but the Objects for want of a Real Ground are not really Related back to the Powers however the Words Understood or seen do Verbally answer to the Acts of Understanding and Seeing which is therefore call'd by the Schools in their barbarous Language Relatio dedici or an Extrinsecal Denomination For farther Light in this very necessary Particular I refer my Reader to my Method Book 1. Less 7. where if I flatter not my self he will find the Notion of Relation treated of very fully and clearly Especially I recommend to his Perusal the 9th 10th 11th and 12th Section where I discourse of that Unmutual Relation of the Measure to the Thing measured the exact Knowledge of which is far more useful than any other piece of this Subject however it lay out of Mr. Locke's Road to take notice of such Speculations as regard or not regard the Thing as their Ground 3. Reviewing his 26th Chapter of Cause and Effect c. I found that he acquaints us very exactly how we gain the Ideas of them by our Senses but he proceeds not to show us which yet he often does in other occasions in what the nature of Causality consists which is of the Chiefest use in Philosophy For what is the Learned part of the World the better for having those rudest Draughts or as Mr. L. well calls them materials of Knowledge Ideas or Notions or for knowing how we come by them in which he very frequently terminates his Enquiries if we do not by Reflexion and Reason polish and refine them and thence attain to true Knowledge of the Things from which we glean'd them or by what virtue they come to be Causes of such Effects What I conceive of Causality is that 't is the Power of Participating or Communicating some Thing or some mode of Thing to the Patient which was before some way or other in the Thing that caus'd it On which point I have no occasion to to dilate here particularly Only which concerns our present purpose I am to note that that which is thus communicated is the Real Ground on which the Real Relation of the Effect to its Cause is founded Whence follows that the Cause also when it has some Real Change by being reduced from the Imperfecter State of meer Power to the Perfecter one of Act or as we say gets something by producing such an Effect will have a Real Ground and Consequently a Real Relation to the Effect and not otherwise And hence it is that God our Creatour has no Real Relation to his Creatures tho' they have many to him because he is no otherwise nor better in the least by Creating them than he had been in Case he had not Created any thing at all and therefore there is no Ground in Him of a Real Correlation to them 4. The 27th Chapter of Identity and Diversity requires a deeper Consideration In order to which I know no more Compendious way to clear the Point in dispute between us than to fetch my Discourse from those Principles that concern it The Subject does indeed properly belong to Metaphysicks but I will endeavour to do what I can to avoid those Abstracted Mediums which are made use of in that Supreme Science And first as the Ground work of my Discourse I am to settle the Principle of Individuation or how a particular Thing or Substance comes to be what it is for this done it will be easily seen whence we are to take our Measures to judge when it continues the same and when it is to be another or a Different Thing from its former self I discourse thus nor will it be Tedious I hope to repeat often what is so Useful to be remember'd as being the sure Ground of all our Knowledge 5. All our Conceptions by which only we can discourse of Things are either of Res or Modus rei that is they are either the Notions of Substance or Thing precisely or else the Notions of Accidents Of these the Word Thing has a very Abstracted Notion and is perfectly Indifferent and Indeterminate to all Particulars Wherefore the Notion of such a Species or sort of Thing being as was said above more Determinate must have something superadded to it to determin it and compound or constitute it of such a Species which can be nothing but such a Complexion of Accidents or Modes there being as was said nothing else imaginable that can be added to the Notion of Thing Now Philosophers agreeing to call that which determins the common Notion of thing and so constitutes such and such Species or Kinds of Things A Substantial or Essential Form hence the Substantial Form of all the Sorts Kinds or Species of Natural Bodies can be nothing else but such a Complexion of Accidents as fit the Thing for such a kind of Operation in Nature And hitherto if I mistake not Mr. Locke and I may agree in the main however we may differ in the manner of Explicating our selves 6. Descending then to the Individuals it is evident that a Greater Complexion of Accidents is necessary to determine and constitute the several Individuums than would serve to constitute the Species for the Species or Kinds of Things are but few but the Individuums under those Kinds are Innumerable and therefore more goes to distinguish these from one another than was needful to distinguish or determine the other Whence it comes that we can never comprehend or reach all that belongs to the Suppositum or Individuum Wherefore it being a certain Maxim that what distinguishes does constitute this Medly of Innumerable Accidents which differences or distinguishes each Individuum from all the rest does also intrinsecally constitute those Individuums or is the Intrinsecal or Formal Principle of Individuation Moreover since nothing in Common or not ultimately determin'd to be This or That is capable of Existing
of Substance The Essences are no otherwise Ingenerable but as they are from Eternity in the Divine Ideas nor Incorruptible but as they are either there or else in some Humane or Angelical Understanding out of which they can never be effaced Lastly What have Names or Words which are nothing but Articulate Air or Figur'd Ink excepting what is Annexed to them by our Minds to do with the Intrinsecal Natures of Things that they should be one Sort or Kind of Essences 13. This Learned Author justly complains that we have so few Definitions and my self have both resented it in my Preface to my Method and have also excited and encourag'd Learned Men to make good that Defect But till the Best and only Proper Way which I mention'd lately to make Definitions be allow'd and taken I am sure there will be no new ones made that will deserve that Name and those Few that are already made will still be exposed to the baffling Attacks of Fancy Aristotle was certainly the best Definer of any Philosopher yet extant yet his Definitions are excepted against by Witty Men and which is worse for no other Reason but because they are too Learned that is too Good Mr. Locke expresses here great Dis-satisfaction at two of them which to my best Judgment not all the Wit of Man can mend The First is of Motion which Aristotle defines to be Actus Entis in potentia quatenus in potentia Now I wonder not that Mr. Locke who in his large Chapter of Power never so much as mention'd the Idea of Power to be a Thing nor the Power to have such an Accident or Mode nor consequently the Idea of an Act answering to such a Power should conceit this Definition to be Gibberish However he came to pretermit them it is most manifest that we have Natural Ideas or Notions of both these We cannot see a Thing made actually of Another or Alter'd to be any way otherwise than it was but Nature obliges us to see and say that that Thing of which the new one was made could or had a Power to be It or have Another made of it Or when we see 't is anew made Hot Cold Round White Moved Placed c. but that it could or had a Power to become such ere it was Actually such These Ideas then of Act and Power are so Natural that Common Sense forces us to acknowledge them and Common Language must use them And 't is a strange Fastidiousness not to allow those Transcendent that is most Common and most Clear Words in Definitions whose Notions or Meanings Nature gives us and which Words or Equivalent Expressions Common Discourse forces us to use Yet in the Uncouthness of these Words to some Men's Fancies consists all the Difficulty which they so boggle at in this Definition The Ens or Body was only Capable or had a Power to be moved ere Motion came and now by Motion it is Actually moved It is evident then that Motion is the Act or which is the same the Formal Cause which reduced that Power into Act or formally denominated it moved Actually Act then was a Proper Genus as far as those most Common Notions can have one Now comes the Difference in potentia which is to determine what kind of Act Motion is To understand which we may reflect that a Body has many other Acts or as we conceive and call them Forms in it such as are Quantity Figure and all Qualities whatever as Roundness Length Breadth Health c. But they are not Acts of that Body as 't is in power to be otherwise than it is but as 't is actually such or such For they truly denominate it to be actually Round Long Healthful c. Whereas Motion being formally a meer Tendency to an Effect not yet produced constitutes and denominates a Body to be only in power to be what by that Motion it is to be afterwards For reflecting on all Motions whatever v. g. Generation Alteration Augmentation Sanation c. none of them affect the Subject or Body in order to what it has already fixedly but in order to a newly generated or rather producible Thing Quality Quantity Disposition Health c. which the Matter or Subject has only a Power to have or acquire by means of those respective Motions The last Words quatenus in potentia signifie that the Thing as affected with Motion is formally and precisely consider'd to be in power to be such or such and not at all as actually so Matter has the Notion of Power to be another Thing but in regard it is a kind of Compart constituting actually the stable and entire Ens the Thing or Body which has Matter in it cannot be said to be meerly in power to have Matter which it has Already Whereas by having Motion in it which is only the Way or Means to attain what Nature aims to produce it must be thus meerly and formally in Power to that to which it is Tending Wherefore this Definition most appositely fits the Notion of Motion by distinguishing it most perfectly from all other Sorts of Acts whatever without a Tittle conceivable in it that is Defective Superfluous or Disparate Yet this is here character'd to be Exquisite Jargon and a Famous Absurdity I should be glad to see how one of our new Philosophers would define Motion I doubt he would find it a puzzling Task to explicate its Formal and Proper Nature in regard that besides its being very General it is the Blindest and most Imperfect Notion we have and most approaching to Non-Entity being neither the Thing as it is in it self nor as it is yet another but hovering as it were between both And I am certain it is impossible to perform it without varying the Words used by Aristotle to others of the same Sense or even to give some tolerable Explication of it which can sute with its Formal Notion 14. The other Definition which Mr. Locke mislikes is that of Light which he says Aristotle defines The Act of a Perspicuous Thing as it is Perspicuous Now tho' Light be Fire were the Particles of it contracted into one closer Body as it is by a Burning-Glass yet the Rays of it thinly scatter'd have like all other Effluviums the Notion of a Quality or Mode of the Body they are receiv'd in and Modes or Accidents have their Analogical Essences from the manner they affect their Subjects The Question then is What is the Proper Subject of Light Mr. Locke's Principles deny the Sun is the Subject and put it to be onely the Cause of it Nor can an Opacous Body be the Subject of it for it affects not that Body it self but the Surface which reflects it and then it has the Notion of Colour 'T is left then that the Proper Subject of Light must be a Medium which is Perspicuous or which has a Power in it to let it pass through it to our Eyes and therefore
that Supposition there would have been no Motion For Motion of Material Entities is perform'd by the Intervening of the Parts of the one between the Parts of the other and so Dividing it which is impossible unless the one had been Rarer or more yielding the other Denser or less yielding But this once settled 't is evident from the very Terms that there are Proper Causes both on the Agent 's and Patient's Side for the one's Dividing and the other's being Divided For the Rare being more Divisible than the Dense 't is demonstrable that the Dense being impell'd against the Rare by Motion which comes from a Superior Agent the Rare being more Divisible will give way and be divided by the Dense which is clearly impossible in the Corpuscularian Hypothesis which puts all Parts of their Matter to be equally Rare or Dense or rather as the Cartesians do neither Rare nor Dense all Qualities according to them being made by mingling their three Elements which Elements are themselves made by and presuppose the Motion of their First Matter Whereas yet it is impossible to conceive but those Parts of that Matter must be either Rare or else Dense at least to some Degree And as denying the Rarity and Density in the First Bodies does by making Motion impossible put the Course of Nature out of Frame both in its Beginning and Progress so it utterly destroys all Demonstration in Physicks which is grounded on Mediums from Proper Causes and Proper Effects 16. Passing over many Immediate Steps which shew how those Four Principal Qualities Heat Cold Moisture and Driness are made of Rarity and Density acted upon by the common Causes in Nature we come to shew how these two Primary Qualities do constitute many Secondary ones and how these last are refunded into the other as their Proper Causes and therefore are Demonstrable by them as by their Proper Mediums A few Instances may serve as Hints to explicate others That great Pellucidity in the Air is necessarily and properly refunded into its extream Divisibility or Rarity by which it becomes easily penetrable in all its Parts by those Spicula Ignea the Rays of the Sun and Opacity for the same Reason is the Proper Effect of Density which hinders its Subject from being penetrated or Divided by them whence also it is a Proper Cause of Repelling or Reflecting them Again Who sees not that Liquidity which makes its Subject easily yielding to be flatted evenly as we see in Ponds or driven to run into Cavities by the common Motion of Gravitation is a proper Effect of Rarity as Consistency is of Density Spissitude is a Constipation of Dense Parts or the Want of Pores to admit the Ingress of other Bodies Grossitude is clearly nothing but Density in a bigger Quantity of its Parts Friability is refunded into great Dense Parts and very large Rare ones Whence those Rare Parts which were they less would better cement those Parts together being now very large and withal very Divisible are easily divided and consequently the Body is soon shatter'd As we find in Dry Clods out of which while they were yet Wet Dirt those Parts which were Watry being drawn by Heat large Cavities are left which the Air now possesses On the other side Ductility and Malleability are the Effects of the very smallest Rare Parts finely compacted with the minutest Dense ones Those Small Dense Parts so closely woven and in a manner Contiguous keep the Rare from evaporating and the Rare by being such and interwoven with the Dense all over make the Compound yield to Expansion without Breaking being very small are not easily separable and yet tho' rarify'd farther by the subtilest Agent Fire they render it Fusible 17. Were these Principles which I rawly and briefly touch on here pursu'd by Learned Men with Immediate Consequences which true Logick assisting is far from impossible the Nature of those first-mixt Qualities and by their means of many others would not be very hard to explicate But if Men are resolv'd to neglect all Natural Principles and the Intrinsecal Constitution of the First Bodies in Nature and will needs run upon nothing but Mathematical Notions which pre-suppose those Principles nor could be found in Nature unless the other be first admitted or Division made Possible for neither Parts nor consequently Figures of Parts could be made without Division nor Division unless some Bodies were naturally apt to divide others to be divided that is unless some were Rare others Dense or if instead of demonstrating their Natural Principles by the Superiour Science they will needs have recourse to Voluntary Suppositions and violate the Nature of Causality and of the Deity it self by making him whose Proper Effect he being Essentially Self-existence is to give Existence or create to be the Proper and Immediate Cause of Motion and go about to prove Ignotum per Ignotissimum by supposing as they sometimes do that God wills this or that which is for the Interest of their Tenet and too hard to prove If I say Men are resolv'd to follow such Untoward Methods 't is no Wonder Science does not advance but the World is detain'd in Ignorance of many things which otherwise it might know Did Learned Men set themselves to carry forwards the Grounds of Nature in Euclides Physicus where they will find Demonstrations enow to farther Conclusions with the same Zeal as they do the Mathematicks I doubt not but the Evident Truths which would by Degrees disclose themselves would both encourage and enable them to make a farther Progress in Knowledge nor would the Science of Second Qualities about which Physical Demonstrations ought in great part be employ'd be held so Desperate But to leave these Discourses and apply my self to Mr. L. I cannot but wonder that amongst all his Ideas of Qualities he not so much as once mentions as far as I remember those two Chiefest ones of Rarity and Density tho' nothing is more obvious in the whole Course of Nature than these are Which with many other Reasons makes me think he had not seen or at least well weigh'd the true Aristotelian System which he might have seen in Sir Kenelm Digby's Treatise of Bodies and its Latin Preface as also in Institutiones Peripateticae but took it as represented by the Modern Schools For my self I must declare I verily judge that the Grounds I here insist on are the only true ones that a Natural Philosopher can have that they are Demonstrable and I do offer my self to maintain them to be such if it shall please any Learned Objector to attempt to show these Principles Faulty or that we build on any Supposition at all and not on what 's either Self-evident or easily and immediately Reducible to Self-evidence Which I believe no other Sect of Philosophers did ever so much as pretend to 18. To come to those Qualities which are the Formal Object of our Senses called by Mr. Locke Secondary Qualities I
consequently become Opacous or Visible or it may by the same Causes become Rarer and be turn'd into Fire Also being Divisible it may have parts of which one must be without the other that is it must be Impenetrable as to its own parts and thence be able to protrude another Material being and be Solid too in his Sense of that Word which is the same with Impenetrable Moreover since it must be Divisible it must be Quantitative or Extended and this not Infinitely but Finitely that is it must be Terminated wherefore Termination of Quantity being the Notion of Figure it may have Figure too In a Word if it may possibly be Material there is no Property of Body but may agree to the Soul and therefore the Soul tho' Spiritual may be Corporeal and so the Nature of Body and Spirit may be one and the same But what needs more than meerly his ascribing Materiality to it at least permitting it to belong to it Our Notion of Matter is taken from Body and from nothing else and therefore can be nothing but Body consider'd as not what it actually is but as 't is Alterable Changeable or apt to be another Thing that is as 't is Corruptible which I am sure Mr. L. will not say or think of our Soul Perhaps he may say that he only means that it may have Matter annex'd to its Spirituality But then he must grant that since this Materiality did not as an Accident accrue to the Soul afterwards she had it from her Nature and therefore it must be Intrinsecal to her and help to constitute her peculiar Nature and if this be so then when this Material kind of Compart is dissolv'd or corrupted for if Material it may be Alter'd wrought upon and Corrupted as other Material Compounds may the Complex or Compound it self is dissolv'd and so no longer the same but perish'd Besides what should the Soul do with two Material Comparts one Organical the other Inorganical Especially since there are as subtil Parts in this Visible Body of ours with which as the Form of the Body she is united viz. the Spirits as any perhaps Mr. Locke can conceive to be annex'd to her 4. To proceed He does but think it possible for any thing he knows that the Soul may have some Materiality but he positively judges that Brutes have Reason nay that 't is as Evident to him as that they have Sense Now if they have Reason they must know how to draw Consequences this being Essential to the Notion of Reason or rather the same Thing in other Words Again If they can Reason they can compare what 's meant by our Terms and have the Sense of those Sayings we call Propositions in their Knowing Power And since that Reason is not given them for nothing but for their Preservation they can compare Agreeable and Disagreeable Objects and pursue out of that Reason that which is most Agreeable that is they can Will Chuse and Act freely which are naturally consequent to their gathering by their Reason what is better or worse for them and thence Determining themselves to it accordingly I say themselves for if they have Reason then Reason is part of Themselves and not a Distinct Thing from them Out of which Two Things follow One That the Nature of Man and Brute are Confounded since all those Chief Operations Proper to Man are Communicable to Brutes Secondly That Mr. Locke will be at a loss to get an Idea of the Spirituality of his Soul or of other Spiritual Beings by reflecting on the Operations of his Mind since the same may possibly be found in such Beings as are meerly Corporeal Wherefore to conclude this Discourse all our Natural Notions of Body and Spirit and of all their Operations must be jumbled together in a kind of Indifferency to either and therefore those two Natures must be Confounded if either the Soul which is Spiritual may have Materiality Annex'd to her or Brutes which are material Entities may have Thought Knowledge and Reason Annex'd to them And since Mr. Locke affirms very rationally that one of his Ideas is not Another I cannot but think he becomes the more oblig'd to shew out of the Natures of those two Things liquidly and precisely how those two Natures are distinguish'd or else his way of Ideas will be conceiv'd to be meerly Phantastick and Unphilosophical being most unlike the Ideas in the Divine Understanding the Original Ground of all Truth which do not confound Natures but establish them in a most perfect Distinction to be what they are and no other I press not here how no Discourse at all in Philosophy can be Conclusive unless the Nature of Body and Spirit be perfectly and clearly contradistinguish'd nor repeat what I have shewn Reflex 9. § 7. that our Natural Notions teach us to distinguish perfectly between Body and Spirit which his Ideas do not but confound them and thence deprave our Natural Knowledge of Things I know he says but proves not that the having General Ideas puts a perfect Difference between Brutes and us to which I have spoken formerly I add that 't is a thousand times easier to have General Ideas they being but Imperfect Perceptions of the Thing than to have Reason as is easie to be demonstrated and has been manifested above 5. As for making something out of Nothing or Creating after we have prov'd that Existence is Essential to God and not Accidental to him which Mr. L. clearly demonstrates it follows thence and out of the Commonest Notion of Causality that it is not a matter of Wonderment or hard to believe that he should Create but that if he pleases to operate ad extra this is his Peculiar Action since nothing is more Evident than that Every Thing acts as it is Whence if God's Essence and his very Nature be Existence or Actual Being 't is demonstrable that it is not onely as peculiar to him to cause Actual Being or Create as it is for Fire to heat or Light to enlighten but moreover that this is the onely Effect that can immediately or without the intervention of Second Causes proceed from him 6. I much fear that it may seem something to weaken the true Argument for the Possibility of Creation to bring the Instance of our Thought moving our Body whence he concludes that Gods Power to do a Thing is not to be deny'd because we cannot comprehend its Operation For 1. Mr. Locke thinks he experiences this viz. that the Soul moves the Body whereas we do not experience that God Created any thing 2. As Mr. Locke has shown very ingeniously that onely the Man is Free So I affirm 't is the Man that wrought upon himself moves his Body and not his Thought onely And that as when we gaind our First Notions the Man was acted upon both according to his Corporeal and Spiritual Part so every New Act he had afterwards that proceeded from him as he was
above of the Word Ideas that we can build no Degree of Certainty nor Improvement of Knowledge upon it especially since Mr. Locke himself according to his usual Candour and Modesty declares here he does but think it true But which is the hardest Case of all to embrace this Principle we must be oblig'd to quit all our Self-evident Maxims as of little Use upon which our selves and all the Learned part of the World have proceeded hitherto 12. 'T is a great Truth that it is a right Method of advancing Knowledge to Consider our Abstract Notions But if these be not the Things nor as Mr. Locke's Complex Ideas are so much as like them I see not but that let us Consider them as much as we will we shall be never the nearer attaining any Real Knowledge by such a Consideration I add that it is also as necessary to find out Middle Terms that are Proper without which no Science can be had of any New Conclusion nor consequently can we without this advance one Step in Exact Knowledge 'T is a certain Truth also that Morality is capable of Demonstration tho' I do not remember that any Author but Mr. Locke and my self have been so bold as openly to profess it The Current of Slight Speculaters having long endeavour'd to make it pass for a kind of Maxim that there is no perfect Certainty to be had but only in Lines and Numbers Whereas the Principles of Morality are as Evident and the Notions belonging to such Subjects as Clear as those in Natural Philosophy perhaps Clearer as this worthy Author has shewn most manifestly 'T is also True that Knowledge may be better'd by Experience But if he means Scientifical Knowledge which is the Effect of Demonstration I must deny it unless Common Principles of Nature do guide Experience and give it Light of the True and Proper Causes of what Experience inform'd our Senses for without their Assistance as I have shewn in the Preface to my my Method Experimental Knowledge can never produce any one Scientifical Conclusion I add that True Science would be a Thousand times more advanc'd did Learned Men bend their Endeavours to begin with the Primary Affections of Body and thence proceed gradually to Secondary or more Compounded ones For this Method would furnish Studious Men with good Store of Proper Middle Terms to deduce their Demonstrations Lastly 'T is true that we must beware of Hypotheses and Wrong Principles But where shall we find any Sect. of Philosophers who for want of Exact Skill in Logick and Metaphysicks are not forc'd to build upon Hypotheses and those generally False ones too but our Anti-Ideists whom I take to be true Followers of Aristotle in his main Principles and the only true Understanders of his Doctrine It being indeed scarce possible that those who are not well qualify'd with those two Sciences should be capable to Comprehend his True Sense 13. Mr. Locke judges that a Man may pore long enough on those Maxims us'd by Euclid without seeing one jot the more of Mathematical Truths Self-evident Truths need not be por'd upon at all nor were they ever meant for the attaining New Knowledges by poring on those Propositions singly consider'd Yet these Maxims must be pre-supposed to be True and admitted or the Arguments would very often want their best Cement that gives them an evident and necessary Coherence They are prefix'd by Euclid at first both because they may often come in play afterwards as also because it would throw off the Tenour of the Discourse to mention them still expresly every time there needs Recourse to them Whence it was judg'd fit by him and others like him to premise them at first and then refer to them Let Men but observe how and in what Occasions Euclid makes use of them and it will then be best seen what they are good for But if they are good for nothing at all I am sure it must be concluded that both Euclid himself and such Writers and Users of Maxims were all of them a Company of vain idle Fops to amuse their Readers by proposing so solemnly such Ridiculous Trifles and dubbing those Insignificant Baubles with the Honourable Titles of Maxims and Principles To fix which Dis-repute upon him and his Imitaters will I doubt much Scandalize every True Member of the Commonwealth of Learning REFLEXION 21th ON The Fourteenth Fifteenth and Sixteenth CHAPTERS 1. I Am sorry I must declare that in Mr. Locke's 14th Chapter which treats Of Judgment there is scarce one Line that I can yield to I discourse thus Judgment does most evidently import the Fixure of our Understanding in its Assent to the Truth or Falshood of any Proposition For to say I judge a thing to be so is the same as to say I am fully and firmly persuaded it is so Now this Fixure of the Mind may arise from two Causes Reason and Passion Under the Word Reason taken at large I comprehend all kind of Evident Knowledge whatever that can belong to a Rational Creature To Passion belongs all Precipitancy of Assent from what Motive or Cause soever it springs The Former makes us adhere to what we judge upon such Motives as by their Evidence do determine the Understanding to Assent and fix it in that Assent which Motives therefore can be only such as are purely Intellectual or such as by our Proceeding upon them we see clearly the Thing must be so or not so as we apprehend The Later springs from the Will corrupted and byassed by some Interest or Pleasure which inveigles our Understanding to adhere to it as a Truth because the Will would have it so Again there are two sorts of Objects Man as having two Natures in him may be employ'd about viz. Outward Action and Inward Assent The former does generally concern the External Conveniences or Necessities of our Temporal Life here the Later the Interiour and Natural Perfection of our Soul which is the Adhering to Truth and rejecting of Errour In the Former of these we can have no Clear Evidence or very seldom both because Outward Actions are employ'd about Particulars of which we can have no Science as also because those Particulars about which we are to Act are surrounded with almost Innumerable Circumstances which we cannot Comprehend and way-laid by the Undiscoverable Ambushes of Fortune so that we can seldom or never with absolute Certainty know whether they may or may not prove Successful Notwithstanding which Dangers when there is Necessity or great Conveniency to Act Outwardly we may without disparaging our Reason fall to acting upon a Probability the Necessity obliging us to do so and the Impossibility of perfect Assurance acquitting us of Imprudence But of Assenting or of Judging Inwardly that a Proposition is True or False there can be no Necessity unless Evidence forces us to it in regard God's Goodness has furnish'd us with a Faculty of Suspending our Judgment in such Cases lest we