Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A30485
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Second remarks upon An essay concerning humane understanding in a letter address'd to the author, being a vindication of the first remarks against the answer of Mr. Lock, at the end of his reply to the Lord Bishop of Worcester.
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Burnet, Thomas, 1635?-1715.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing B5946; ESTC R20232
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13,975
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33
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reads the State of their Principles with their Consequences especially as to Moral things that he might make a sure Judgment of them I am sensible that when Men have a different Set of Ideas and First Principles they may be easily mistaken in judging of one anothers Meaning or in drawing Consequences from one anothers Principles But that methinks ought to give no offence but rather to be gently rectified without ill Language by the Authors themselves who best know their own Mind And as I find that you say you are often at a loss in understanding the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Remarks upon some of your Notions so I hope you will not think it strange if I am sometimes at a loss also how to understand your Writings which we may reasonably presume are not more clear either as to Sense or Words You tell me in your Answer That I pretend to have writ that Letter to be inform'd And so I did but withal gave you some Reasons for my Doubts Will you not allow a Learner to desire his Master to explain himself when he does not understand his Dictates and also to propose Objections when his Teacher's Sense seems to him contrary to Reason We are taught by your self not to give up our Assent to the Authority of others without good Evidence and you make it one great Cause of Errour To relie blindly upon the Opinions of others I hope therefore I have obey'd your Precepts in this as I am ready to do in all other things that are reasonable I can truly and sincerly say That I do not write out of any Spirit of Opposition nor for any By-ends whatsoever but for my own Instruction and Satisfaction and for the Discovery of Truth in those great Points When I doubt of your Sense if you please to direct me and when I make Objections if you please to answer them I have my Design and desire onely that the Merits of the Cause may be spoken to on either hand without course Language and Personal Reflexions which I think is your own Advice In your Conclusion you tell me again of my Fault in not setting my Name to my Paper in these hard Words To conclude Were there nothing else in it I should not think it fit to trouble my self about the Questions of a Man which he himself does not think wortby owning To which I answer Tho' in some Cases I think the Sense is more impartially consider'd without Favour or Prejudice when the Author is unknown yet if that will satisfie you Do you put your Name to all the Books and Pamphlets you have writ and I will put my Name to this how unusual soever it is to put a Name to such small Papers SIR Your Humble Servant FINIS Answ. p. 3. Pag. 4. Remarks p. 5 Pag. 4. Pag. 5. Pag. 5 6. Pag. 74 75. Effay p. 44. Pag. 68 fect 10. P. 44 45. Lib. 2. c. 27. Pag. 180. sect 6. Pag. 272. P. 17. sect 5 6. P. 192. sect 5. P. 86. sect 19. P. 197. sect 2. De fin Bon. Mal. c. 18 Pag. 2. Essay p. 405. sect 17. * No bodies Notions I think are the better or truer for ill-manners joined with them and I conclude your Lordship who so well knows the different Cast of Mens Heads and of the Opinions that possess them will not think it ill Manners in any one if his Notions differ from your Lordship's and that he owns that Difference and explains the Grounds of it as well as be can I have always thought that Truth and Knowledge by the ill and over-eager Management of Controversies lose a great deal of the Advantages they might receive from the Variety of Conceptions there is in Mens Understandings Could the Heats and Passions and ill Language be left out of them they would afford great Improvements to those who could separate them from By-interests and Personal Prejudices Answer to the Bishop of Worcester p. 222.
discourag'd from solliciting once more a further Explication of your Principles upon the Three grand Points The Immortality of the Soul Natural Religion and Reveal'd Religion And whereas you seem to say Those that do not like your Principles or think them false or defective let them find out better We cannot tell how good or how bad how full or defective your Principles are till we know the true State of them and their Consequences in reference to Moral Things And for that reason we desire a further Explanation of them upon those Heads I am apt to believe many of your Readers if not the generality do not so far understand your Principles as to see what Consequences they draw after them and possibly you did not reflect upon it your self Your Readers may easily be amus'd in a Multitude of Names and Notions and Signs of Notions They 're led into a Wood of Idea's Simple and Complex and Complex-collective Absolute Relative Real or Phantastical c. and there they are lost pleasantly indeed amongst Lights and Shades and many pretty Landskips but they know not where they are nor see to the end of the Wood. You know what Philosophers Ancient or Modern your Principles are said to imitate but I do not desire to make use of Names one way or other but to argue every thing fairly and upon the square as far as Reason will go And let those that are unconcern'd and impartial judge what is fairly objected what fairly answer'd and what not But if in these things which concern Religion and Morality you will give us no further Light or Answer I may reasonably conclude that I have not mistaken your Sense and that I have truly calculated the Elevation of those Principles Wherein notwithstanding I shall be always willing and desirous to be set right if I have committed any Errour But let us proceed to the Matters under debate As to the Immortality of the Soul In your Answer to the Lord Bishop of Worcester you acknowledge the Deficiency or Limitation of your Principles as to the Proof of its Immateriality but however you do not freely tell us what you make the Soul to be You say indeed 't is a Thinking Substance but so you say Matter may be made for any thing you know Then the Soul may be Mortal for any thing you know or any thing we know by your Principles Do you think the Soul to be a permanent Substance distinct from the Body or a Modification or Power of the Body or Life onely or a certain Influence from without acting in Matter so and so qualified or in such and such Systems Which Dispositions or Systems when they come to be dissolved or destroy'd that Power ceases to act there either perishing as a Flame when the Fewel is spent or returning to its Fountain whatsoever it was This Notion seems to me to suit best to the general Air of your Discourse about the Soul and with several particular Passages relating to it As when you make Cogitation in us to be like Motion in Matter which receives its Motion from external Impression And when you speak about the Sleep of the Soul or the Suspension of Cogitation when we sleep the Body not being then receptive of the Thinking Influence You say the Soul hath no Extension nor at certain Fits any Cogitation What can the Soul be then but a certain Power acting in the Body when the Body is prepar'd for the exercise of it and ceasing to act when the Body is indisposed But whether that be a Superiour Divine Power distinct from Matter as a vis movens or a Power fastned I know not how to the Body or upon such and such Systems of Matter Whether I say of these two Suppositions better agrees with your Doctrine I cannot certainly tell but either of them destroys the Immortality of the Soul upon the Dissolution of the Body Furthermore this seems to be the Supposition you go upon when you question whether a Man waking and sleeping without Thoughts be the same Man If there be still sleeping or waking the same Soul the same permanent Substance I see no room for that Question or Doubt which you make and your making of it would induce one to believe that it is a Difficulty that arises to you particularly and upon that Principle That the Soul of Man is not a permanent and distinct Substance but an extrinsick or intrinsick Power that acts or is suspended according to the Disposition or Indispositions of the Body Accordingly I do not see by your Discourse how St. Peter suppose at the Resurrection will be the same Man unless he have the same Body or the same Organization of Parts tho' his Soul be the same with the same Dispositions and Habits Nor how our Saviour now in Heaven is the same Man that was crucified at Jerusalem or that He that was crucified at Jerusalem is the same Man that will come again to judge the Quick and the Dead But I do not love to walk in the dark and therefore I refer these things to your further Explication if you so please Your Doctrine of the Soul seems to me obscure and ambiguous Men write I think to be understood and I hope I may without offence use the same Sentence to you which you have used to others Si monvis intelligi debes negligi However if you please to let us into the Secret if there be a Secret I shall make no other use of it than to give it a fair and free Examination I proceed now to another Difficulty in your Doctrine of the Soul which I mentioned formerly You think the Soul when we are asleep is without any Thoughts or Perceptions I am still at a loss I confess how to frame any Idea of a thoughtless senseless lifeless Soul This Carcase of a Soul I cannot understand If it neither have Cogitation nor Extension as you suppose what Being or manner of Being it hath I am not able to comprehend It must be a Substance and a particular finite Substance and yet without any Mode If you say you have no Idea of it why then do you affirm or introduce a new and unintelligible State of the Soul whereof neither you nor others can have any Conception However you ought to tell us how you bring the Soul out of this unintelligible State What Cause can you assign able to produce the first Thought at the end of this Sleep and Silence in a total Ecclipse and intermission of Thinking Upon your Supposition That all our Thoughts perish in sound Sleep and all Cogitation is extinct we seem to have a new Soul every Morning If a Flame be extinct the same cannot return but a new one may be made If a Body cease to move and come to perfect rest the Motion it had cannot be restord but a new Motion may be produc'd If all Cogitation be extinct all our Ideas are extinct so far as they