them no more than their Names but got afterwards So that in all Propositions that are assented to at first hearing the Terms of the Proposition their standing for such Idea's and the Idea's themselves that they stand for being neither of them innate I would fain know what there is remaining in such Propositions that is innate For I would gladly have any one name that Proposition whose Terms or Idea's were either of them innate We by degrees get Idea's and Names and learn their appropriated connection one with another and then to Propositions made in such Terms whose signification we have learnt and wherein the Agreement or Disagreement we can perceive in our Idea's when put together is expressed we at first hearing assent though to other Propositions in themselves as certain and evident but which are concerning Idea's not so soon nor easily got we are at the same time no way capable of assenting For though a Child quickly assent to this Proposition That an Apple is not Fire when by familiar Acquaintance he has got the Idea's of those two different things distinctly imprinted on his Mind and has learnt that the Names Apple and Fire stand for them yet it will be some years after perhaps before the same Child will assent to this Proposition That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be Because that though perhaps the Words are as easie to be learnt yet the signification of them being more large comprehensive and abstract than of the Names annexed to those sensible things the Child hath to do with it is longer before he learns their precise meaning and it requires more time plainly to form in his Mind those general Idea's they stand for Till that be done you will in vain endeavour to make any Child assent to a Proposition made up of such general Terms But as soon as ever he has got those Idea's and learn'd their Names he forwardly closes with the one as well as the other of the forementioned Propositions and with both for the same Reason viz. because he finds the Idea's he has in his Mind to agree or disagree according as the Words standing for them are affirmed or denied one of another in the Proposition But if Propositions be brought to him in Words which stand for Idea's he has not yet in his Mind to such Propositions however evidently true or false in themselves he affords neither assent nor dissent but is ignorant For Words being but empty sounds any farther than they are signs of our Idea's we cannot but assent to them as they correspond to those Idea's we have but no farther than that But the shewing by what Steps and Ways Knowledge comes into our Minds and the grounds of several degrees of assent being the Business of the following Discourse it may suffice to have only touched on it here as one Reason that made me doubt of those innate Principles § 24. To conclude this Argument of universal Consent I agree with these Defenders of innate Principles That if they are innate they must needs have universal assent For that a Truth should be innate and yet not assented to is to me as unintelligible as for a Man to know a Truth and be ignorant of it at the same time But then by these Men's own Confession they cannot be innate since they are not assented to by those who understand not the Terms nor by a great part of those who do understand them but have yet never heard nor thought of those Propositions which I think is at least one half of Mankind But were the Number far less it would be enough to destroy universal assent and thereby shew these Propositions not to be innate if Children alone were ignorant of them § 25. But that I may not be accused to argue from the thoughts of Infants which are unknown to us and to conclude from what passes in their Understandings before they express it I say next That these two general Propositions are not the Truths that first possess the Minds of Children nor are antecedent to all acquired and adventitious Notions which if they were innate they must needs be Whether we can determine it or no it matters not there is certainly a time when Children begin to think and their Words and Actions do assure us that they do so When therefore they are capable of Thought of Knowledge of Assent can it rationally be supposed they can be ignorant of those Notions that Nature has imprinted were there any such Can it be imagin'd with any appearance of Reason That they perceive the Impressions from things without and be at the same time ignorant of those Characters which Nature it self has taken care to stamp within Can they receive and assent to adventitious Notions and be ignorant of those which are supposed woven into the very Principles of their Being and imprinted there in indelible Characters to be the Foundation and Guide of all their acquired Knowledge and future Reasonings This would be to make Nature take Pains to no Purpose Or at least to write very ill since its Characters could not be read by those Eyes which saw other things very well and those are very ill supposed the clearest parts of Truth and the Foundations of all our Knowledge which are not first known and without which the undoubted Knowledge of several other things may be had The Child certainly knows that the Nurse that feeds it is neither the Cat it plays with nor the Blackmoor it is afraid of That the Wormseed or Mustard it refuses is not the Apple or Sugar it cries for this it is certainly and undoubtedly assured of But will any one say it is by Virtue of this Principle That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be that it so firmly assents to these and other parts of its Knowledge Or that the Child has any Notion or Apprehension of that Proposition at an Age wherein yet 't is plain it knows a great many other Truths He that will say Children join these general abstract Speculations with their sucking Bottles and their Rattles may perhaps with Justice be thought to have more Passion and Zeal for his Opinion but less Sincerity and Truth than one of that Age. § 26. Though therefore there be several general Propositions that meet with constant and ready assent as soon as proposed to Men grown up who have attained the use of more general and abstract Idea's and Names standing for them yet they not being to be found in those of tender Years who nevertheless know other things they cannot pretend to universal assent of intelligent Persons and so by no means can be supposed innate It being impossible that any Truth which is innate if there were any such should be unknown at least to any one who knows any thing else Since if they are innate Truths they must be innate thoughts there being nothing a Truth in the Mind that it has never
Evil And would not quickness of Sensation be an Inconvenience to an Animal that must lie still where Chance has once placed it and there receives the afflux of colder or warmer clean or foul Water as it happens to come to it § 14. But yet I cannot but think there is some small dull Perception whereby they are distinguished from perfect Insensibility And that this may be so we have plain instances even in Mankind it self Take one in whom decrepid old Age has blotted out the Memory of his past Knowledge and clearly wiped out the Ideas his Mind was formerly stored with and has by destroying his Sight Hearing and Smell quite and his Taste to a great degree stopp'd up almost all the Passages for new ones to enter Or if there be some of the inlets yet half open the Impressions made are scarce perceived or not at all retained How far such an one notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate Principles is in his Knowledge and intellectual Faculties above the Condition of a Cockle or an Oyster I leave to be considered And if a Man had passed Sixty Years in such a State as 't is possible he might as well as three Days I wonder what difference there would have been in any intellectual Perfections between him and the lowest degrees of Animals Perception then being the first step and degree towards Knowledge and the inlet of all the Materials of it the fewer Senses any Man as well as any other Creature hath and the fewer and duller the Impressions are that are made by them and the duller the Faculties are that are employed about them the more remote are they from that Knowledge which is to be found in some Men. But this being in great variety of Degrees as may be perceived amongst Men cannot certainly be discovered in the several Species of Animals much less in their particular Individuals It suffices me only to have remarked here that Perception is the first Operation of all our intellectual Faculties and the inlet of all Knowledge into our Minds And I am apt too to imagine That it is Perception in the lowest degree of it which puts the Boundaries between Animals and the inferior ranks of Creatures But this I mention only as my conjecture by the bye it being indifferent to the Matter in Hand which way the Learned shall determine of it CHAP. X. Of Retention § 1. THE next Faculty of the Mind whereby it makes a farther Progress towards Knowledge is that I call Retention or the keeping of those simple Ideas which from Sensation or Reflection it hath received which is done two ways First either by keeping the Idea which is brought into it for some time actually in view which is called Contemplation § 2. The other is the Power to revive again in our Minds those Ideas which after imprinting have disappeared or have been as it were laid aside out of Sight And thus we do when we conceive Heat or Light Yellow or Sweet the Object being removed and this is Memory which is as it were the Store-house of our Ideas For the narrow Mind of Man not being capable of having many Ideas under View and Consideration at once it was necessary to have a Repository to lay up those Ideas which at another time it might have use of And thus it is by the Assistance of the Memory that we are said to have all those Ideas in our Understanding which though we do not actually contemplate yet we can bring in sight and make appear again and be the Objects of our Thoughts without the help of those sensible Qualities which first imprinted them there § 3. Attention and Repetition help much to the fixing any Ideas in our Memory But those which naturally at first make the deepest and most lasting Impression are those which are accompanied with Pleasure or Pain The great Business of the Senses being to make us take notice of what hurts or advantages the Body it is wisely ordered by Nature as has been shewn that Pain should accompany the Reception of several Ideas which supplying the Place of Consideration and Reasoning in Children and acting quicker than Consideration in grown Men makes both the Young and Old avoid painful Objects with that haste which is necessary for their Preservation and in both settles in the Memory a caution for the Future § 4. But concerning the several degrees of lasting wherewith Ideas are imprinted on the Memory we may observe First That some of them being produced in the Understanding either by the Objects affecting the Senses once barely and no more especially if the Mind then otherwise imployed took but little notice of it and set not on the stamp deep into it self or else when through the Temper of the Body or otherwise the Memory is very weak such Ideas quickly fade ad vanish quite out of the Understanding and leave it as clear without any Foot-steps or remaining Characters as Shadows do flying over Fields of Corn and the Mind is as void of them as if they never had been there § 5. Thus many of those Ideas which were produced in the Minds of Children in the beginning of their Sensation some of which perhaps as of some Pleasures and Pains were before they were born and others in their Infancy if in the future Course of their Lives they are not repeated again are quite lost without the least glimpse remaining of them This may be observed in those who by some Mischance have lost their sight when they were very young in whom the Ideas of Colours having been but slightly taken notice of and ceasing to be repeated do quite wear out so that some years after there is no more Notion nor Memory of Colours left in their Minds than in those of People born blind The Memory in some Men 't is true is very tenacious even to a Miracle But yet there seems to be a constant decay of all our Ideas even those which are struck deepest and in the Minds the most retentive so that if they be not sometimes renewed by repeated Exercise of the Senses or Reflection about those kind of Objects which at first occasioned them the Print wears out and at last there remains nothing to be seen Thus the Ideas as well as Children of our Youth often die before us And our Minds represent to us those Tombs to which we are approaching where though the Brass and Marble remain yet the Inscriptions are effaced by time and the Imagery moulders away The Pictures drawn in our Minds are laid in fading Colours and if not sometimes refreshed vanish and disappear How much the Constitution of our Bodies are concerned in this and whether the Temper of the Spirits and Brain make this difference that some retain the Characters drawn on it like Marble others like free Stone and others little better than Sand I shall not here enquire though it may seem probable that the Constitution of the Body does sometimes influence the Memory
stand for therefore to define their Names right natural History is to be enquired into and their Properties are with care and examination to be found out For it is not enough for the avoiding Inconveniences in Discourses and Arguings about natural Bodies and substantial Things to have learned from the Propriety of the Language the common but confused or very imperfect Idea to which each Word is applied and to keep them to that Idea in our use of them but we must by acquainting our selves with the History of that sort of Things rectifie and setle our complex Idea belonging to each specifick Name and in discourse with others if we find them mistake us we ought to tell what the complex Idea is that we make such a Name stand for This is the more necessary to be done by all those who search after Knowledge and philosophical Verity in that Children being taught Words whilst they have but imperfect Notions of Things apply them at random and without much thinking or framing clear distinct Ideas which Custom it being easie and serving well enough for the ordinary Affairs of Life and Conversation they are apt to continue when they are Men And so begin at the wrong end learning Words first and perfectly but make the Notions to which they apply those Words afterwards very overtly By this means it comes to pass that Men speaking the proper Language of their Country i. e. according to Grammar-Rules of that Language do yet speak very improperly of Things themselves and by their arguing one with another make but small progress in the discoveries of useful Truths and the knowledge of Things as they are to be found in themselves and not in our Imaginations and it matters not much for the improvement of our Knowledge how they are call'd § 25. It were therefore to be wished That Men versed in physical Enquiries and acquainted with the several sorts of natural Bodies would set down those simple Ideas wherein they observe the Individuals of each sort constantly to agree This would remedy a great deal of that confusion which comes from several Persons applying the same Name to a Collection of a smaller or greater number of sensible Qualities proportionably as they have been more or less acquainted with or accurate in examining the Qualities of any sort of Things which come under one denomination But a Dictionary of this sort containing as it were a Natural History requires too many hands as well as too much time cost pains and sagacity ever to be hoped for and till that be done we must content our selves with such Definitions of the Names of Substances as explain the sense Men use them in And 't would be well where there is occasion if they would afford us so much This yet is not usually done but Men talk to one another and dispute in Words whose meaning is not agreed between them out of a mistake that the signification of common Words are certainly established and the precise Ideas they stand for perfectly known and that it is a shame to be ignorant of them Both which Suppositions are false no Names of complex Ideas having so setled determined Significations that they are constantly used for the same precise Ideas Nor is it a shame for a Man not to have a certain knowledge of any thing but by the necessary ways of attaining it and so it is no discredit not to know what precise Idea any Sound stands for in another Man's Mind without he declare it to me by some other way than barely using that Sound there being no other way without such a Declaration certainly to know it Indeed the necessity of Communication by Language brings Men to an agreement in the signification of common Words within some tolerable latitude that may serve for ordinary Conversation and so a Man cannot be supposed wholly ignorant of the Ideas which are annexed to Words by common Use in a Language familiar to him But common Use being but a very uncertain Rule which reduces it self at last to the Ideas of particular Men proves often but a very variable Standard But though such a Dictionary as I have above mentioned will require too much time cost and pains to be hoped for in this Age yet methinks it is not unreasonable to propose that Words standing for Things which are known and distinguished by their outward shapes should be expressed by little Draughts and Prints made of them A Vocabulary made after this fashion would perhaps with more ease and in less time teach the true signification of many Terms especially in Languages of remote Countries or Ages and setle truer Ideas in Mens Minds of several Things whereof we read the Names in ancient Authors than all the large and laborious Comments of learned Criticks Naturalists that treat of Plants and Animals have found the benefit of this way And he that has had occasion to consult them will have reason to confess that he has a clearer Idea of Apium or Ibex from a little Print of that Herb or Beast than he could have from a long definition of the Names of either of them And so no doubt he would have of Strigil and Sistrum if instead of a Curry-comb and Cymbal which are the English names Dictionaries render them by he could see stamp'd in the Margin small Pictures of these Instruments as they were in use amongst the Ancients Toga Tunica Pallium are Words easily translated by Gown Coat and Cloak but we have thereby no more true Ideas of the fashion of those Habits amongst the Romans than we have of the Faces of the Taylors who made them Such Things as these which the Eye distinguishes by their shapes would be best let into the Mind by Draughts made of them and more determine the signification of such Words than any other Words set for them or made use of to define them But this only by the bye § 26. Fifthly If Men will not be at the pains to declare the meaning of their Words and Definitions of their Terms are not to be had yet this is the least that can be expected that in all Discourses wherein one Man pretends to instruct or convince another he should use the same Word constantly in the same sense If this were done which no body can refuse without great disingenuity many of the Books extant might be spared many of the Controversies in Dispute would be at an end several of those great Volumes swollen with ambiguous Words now used in one sense and by and by in another would shrink into a very narrow compass and many of the Philosophers to mention no others as well as Poets Works might be contained in a Nut-shell § 27. But after all Words are so scanty in respect of that infinite variety is in Mens Thoughts that Men wanting Terms to suit their precise Notions will notwithstanding their utmost caution be forced often to use the same Word in somewhat different senses And though in the
examining the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas by the intervention of some others Or 3. By Sensation perceiving the Existence of particular Things Hence it also follows § 3. Thirdly That we cannot have an intuitive Knowledge that shall extend it self to all our Ideas and all that we would know about them because we cannot examine and perceive all the Relations they have one to another by juxta-position or an immediate comparison one with another Thus having the Ideas of an Obtuse and an acute angled Triangle both drawn from equal Bases and between Parallels I can by intuitive Knowledge perceive the one not to be the other but cannot that way know whether they be equal or no because their Agreement or Disagreement in equality can never be perceived by an immediate comparing them The difference of Figure makes their parts uncapable of an exact immediate application and therefore there is need of some intervening Quantities to measure them by which is Demonstration or rational Knowledge § 4 Fourthly It follows also from what is above observed that our rational Knowledge cannot reach to the whole extent of our Ideas Because between two different Ideas we would examine we cannot always find such Mediums as we can connect one to another with an intuitive Knowledge in all the parts of the Deduction and where-ever that fails we come short of Knowledge and Demonstration § 5. Fifthly Sensitive Knowledge reaching no farther than the Existence of Things actually present to our Senses is yet much narrower than either of the former § 6. From all which it is evident that the extent of our Knowledge comes not only short of the reality of Things but even of the extent of our own Ideas Though our Knowledge be limited to our Ideas and cannot exceed them either in extent or perfection and though these be very narrow bounds in respect of the extent of All-being and far short of what we may justly imagine to be in some even created Understandings not tied down to the dull and narrow Information is to be received from some few and not very acute ways of Perception such as are our Senses yet it would be well with us if our Knowledge were but as large as our Ideas and there were not many Doubts and Enquiries concerning the Ideas we have whereof we are not nor I believe ever shall be in this World resolved Nevertheless I do not yet Question but that Humane Knowledge under the present Circumstances of our Beings and Constitutions may be carried much farther than it hitherto has been if Men would sincerely and with freedom of Mind employ all that Industry and labour of Thought in improving the means of discovering Truth which they do for the colouring or support of Falshood to maintain a System Interest or Party they are once engaged in But yet after all I think I may without injury to humane Perfection be confident that our Knowledge would never reach to all we might desire to know concerning those Ideas we have nor be able to surmount all the Difficulties and resolve all the Questions might arise concerning any of them We have the Ideas of a Square a Circle and Equality and yet perhaps shall never be able to find a Circle equal to a Square and certainly know that it is so We have the Ideas of Matter and Thinking but possibly shall never be able to know whether Matter thinks or no it being impossible for us by the contemplation of our own Ideas without revelation to discover whether Omnipotency has given to Matter fitly disposed a power to perceive and think or else joined and fixed to Matter so disposed a thinking immaterial Substance It being equally easie in respect of our Notions to conceive that GOD can if he pleases superadd to our Idea of Matter a Faculty of Thinking as that he should superadd to it another Substance with a Faculty of Thinking since we know not wherein Thinking consists nor to what sort of Substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power which cannot be in any created Being but meerly by the good Pleasure and Bounty of the Creator For what assurance of Knowledge can any one have that certain Thoughts such as v. g. Pleasure and Pain should not be in Body it self after a certain manner modified and moved as well as that it should be in an immaterial Substance upon the Motion of the parts of Body Motion according to the utmost reach of our Ideas being able to produce nothing but Motion so that when we allow it to produce Pleasure or Pain or the Idea of a Colour or Sound we are fain to quit our Reason go beyond our own Ideas and attribute it wholly to the good Pleasure of our Maker For since we must allow he has annexed Effects to Motion which we can no way conceive Motion able to produce what Reason have we to conclude that he could not order them as well to be produced in a Subject we cannot conceive capable of them as well as in a Subject we cannot conceive the motion of Matter can any way operate upon I say not this that I would any way lessen the belief of the Soul's Immateriality I am not here speaking of Probability but Knowledge and I think not only that it becomes the Modesty of Philosophy not to pronounce Magisterially where we want that Evidence that can produce Knowledge but also that it is of use to us to discern how far our Knowledge does reach for the state we are at present in not being that of Vision we must in many Things content our selves with Faith and Probability And in the present Question about the Immateriality of the Soul if our Faculties cannot arrive at demonstrative Certainty we need not think it strange All the great Ends of Morality and Religion are well enough secured without philosophical Proofs of the Soul's Immateriality since it is evident that he who made us at first begin to subsist here sensible intelligent Beings and for several years continued us in such a state can and will restore us to the like state of Sensibility in another World and make us capable there to receive the Retribution he has designed to Men according to their doings in this Life But to return to the Argument in hand our Knowledge I say is not only limited to the Paucity and Imperfections of the Ideas we have and which we employ it about but even comes short of that too But how far it reaches let us now enquire § 7. The affirmations or negations we make concerning the Ideas we have may as I have before intimated in general be reduced to these four sorts viz. Identity Co-existence Relation and real Existence I shall examine how far our Knowledge extends in each of these § 8. First As to Identity and Diversity in this way of the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas our intuitive Knowledge is as far extended as our Ideas themselves and there can be no Idea
not seek long for Instances of his Ignorance The meanest and most obvious Things that come in our way have dark sides that the quickest Sight cannot penetrate into The clearest and most enlarged Understandings of thinking Men find themselves puzled and at a loss in every Particle of Matter which we shall the less wonder at when we consider the Causes of our Ignorance which from what has been said I suppose will be found to be chiefly these three First Want of Ideas Secondly Want of a discoverable Connexion between the Ideas we have Thirdly Want of tracing and examining our Ideas § 23. First There are some Things and those not a few that we are ignorant of for want of Ideas First all the simple Ideas we have are confined as I have shewn to the Observation of our Senses and the Operations of our own Minds that we are conscious of in our selves But how much these few and narrow â—nlets are disproportionate to the vast whole Extent of all Beings will not be hard to persuade those who are not so foolish as to think their span the measure of all Things What other simple Ideas 't is possible the Creatures in other parts of the Universe may have by the Assistence of Senses and Faculties more or perfecter than we have or different from ours 't is not for us to determine But to say or think there are no such because we conceive nothing of them is no better an Argument than if a blind Man should be positive in it that there was no such thing as Sight and Colours because he had no manner of Idea of any such thing nor could by any means frame to himself any Notions about Seeing The Ignorance and Darkness that is in us no more hinders nor confines the Knowledge that is in others than the Blindness of a Mole is an Argument against the quick sightedness of an Eagle He that will consider the infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator of all Things will find Reason to think it was not all laid out upon so inconsiderable mean and impotent a Creature as he will find Man to be who in all probability is one of the lowest of all intellectual Beings What Faculties therefore other Species of Creatures have to penetrate into the Nature and inmost Constitutions of Things what Ideas they may receive of them far different from ours we know not This we know and certainly find that we want several other views of them besides those we have to make Discoveries of them more perfect And we may be convinced that the Ideas we can attain to by our Faculties are very disproportionate to Things themselves when a positive clear distinct one of Substance it self which is the Foundation of all the rest is concealed from us But want of Ideas of this kind being a Part as well as Cause of our Ignorance cannot be described Only this I think I may confidently say of it That the intellectual and sensible World are in this perfectly alike That that part which we see of either of them holds no proportion with what we see not And whatsoever we can reach with our Eyes or our Thoughts of either of them is but a point almost nothing in comparison of the rest § 24. Secondly Another great Cause of Ignorance is the want of Ideas we are capable of As the want of Ideas which our Faculties are not able to give us shuts us wholly from those views of Things which 't is reasonable to think other perfecter Beings than we have of which we know nothing so the want of Ideas I now speak of keeps us in Ignorance of Things we conceive capable of being known to us Bulk Figure and Motion we have Ideas of But though we are not without Ideas of these primary Qualities of Bodies in general yet not knowing what is the particular Bulk Figure and Motion of the greatest part of the Bodies of the Universe we are ignorant of the several Powers Efficacies and Ways of Operation whereby the Effects we daily see are produced These are hid from us in some Things by being too remote and in others by being too minute When we consider the vast distance of the known and visible parts of the World and the Reasons we have to think that what lies within our Ken is but a small part of the immense Universe we shall then discover an huge Abyss of Ignorance What are the particular Fabricks of the great Masses of Matter which make up the whole stupendious frame of corporeal Beings how far they are extended what is their Motion and how continued or communicated and what Influence they have one upon another are Contemplations that at first glimpse our Thoughts lose themselves in If we narrow our Contemplation and confine our Thoughts to this little Canton I mean this System of our Sun and the grosser Masses of Matter that visibly move about it what several sorts of Vegetables Animals and intellectual corporeal Beings infinitely different from those of our little spot of Earth may probably be in the other Planets to the Knowledge of which even of their outward Figures and Parts we can no way attain whilst we are confined to this Earth there being no natural Means either by Sensation or Reflection to convey their certain Ideas into our Minds They are out of the reach of those Inlets of all our Knowledge and what sorts of Furniture and Inhabitants those Mansions contain in them we cannot so much as guess much less have clear and distinct Ideas of them § 25. If a great nay for the greatest part of the several ranks of Bodies in the Universe scape our notice by their remoteness there are others that are no less concealed from us by their Minuteness These insensible Corpuscles being the active parts of Matter and the great Instruments of Nature on which depend not only all their secondary Qualities but also most of their natural Operations our want of precise distinct Ideas of their primary Qualities keeps us in an uncureable Ignorance of what we desire to know about them I doubt not but if we could discover the Figure Size Connexion and Motion of the minute constituent parts of any two Bodies we should know without Trial several of their Operations one upon another as we do now the Properties of a Square or a Triangle and we should be able to tell before Hand that Rubarb would purge Hemlock kill and Opium make a Man sleep as well as a Watch-maker does that a little piece of Paper laid on the Ballance will keep the Watch from going till it be removed or that some small part of it being rubb'd by a File the Machin would quite lose its Motion and the Watch go no more Did we know the mechanical Affections of the Particles of Rubarb Hemlock Opium and a Man as a Watch-maker does those of a Watch whereby it performs all its Operations and of a File which by rubbing on them will alter
the Figure of any of the Wheels the dissolving of Silver in aqua fortis and Gold in aq regia and not vice versa would be then perhaps no more difficult to know than it is to a Smith to understand why the turning of one Key will open a Lock and not the turning of another But whilst we are destitute of Senses acute enough to discover the minute Particles of Bodies and to give us Ideas of their mechanical Affections we must be content to be ignorant of their properties and ways of Operation nor can we be assured about them any farther than some few Trials we make are able to reach But whether they will succeed again another time we cannot be certain This hinders our certain Knowledge of universal Truths concerning natural Bodies And our Reason carries us herein very little beyond particular matter of Fact § 26. And therefore I am apt to doubt that how far soever humane Industry may advance useful and experimental Philosophy in physical Things scientifical will still be out of our reach because we want perfect and adequate Ideas of those very Bodies which are nearest to us and most under our Command Those which we have ranked into Classes under names and we think our selves best acquainted with we have but very imperfect and incompleat Ideas of Distinct Ideas of the several sorts of Bodies that fall under the Examination of our Senses perhaps we may have but adequate Ideas I suspect we have not of any one amongst them And though the former of these will serve us for common Use and Discourse yet whilst we want the latter we are not capable of scientifical Knowledge nor shall ever be able to discover general instructive Truths concerning them Certainty and Demonstration are Things we must not in these Matters pretend to By the Colour Figure Taste and Smell and other sensible Qualities we have as clear and distinct Ideas of Sage and Hemlock as we have of a Circle and a Triangle But having no Ideas of the particular primary Qualities of the minute parts of either of these Plants nor of other Bodies we would apply them to we cannot tell what effects they will produce Nor when we see those Effects can we so much as guess much less know their manner of production Thus having no Ideas of the particular mechanical Affections of the minute parts of Bodies that are within our view and reach we are ignorant of their Constitutions Powers and Operations and of Bodies more remote we are ignorant of their very outward Shapes and Beings § 27. This at first sight will shew us how disproportionate our Knowledge is to the whole extent even of material Beings to which if we add the Consideration of that infinite number of Spirits that may be and probably are which are yet more remote from our Knowledge whereof we have no cognizance nor can frame to our selves any distinct Ideas of their several ranks and sorts we shall find this cause of Ignorance conceal from us in an impenetrable obscurity almost the whole intellectual World a greater certainly and more beautiful World than the material For bating some very few and those if I may so call them superficial Ideas which Spirit we by reflection get of our own and of the Father of all Spirits the eternal independent Author of them and us and all Things we have no certain information so much as of their Existence but by revelation Angels of all sorts are naturally beyond our discovery And all those Intelligences whereof 't is likely there are more Orders than of corporeal Substances are Things whereof our natural Faculties give us no certain account at all That there are Minds and thinking Beings in other Men as well as himself every Man has a reason from their Words and Actions to be satisfied But between us and the Great GOD we can have no certain knowledge of the Existence of any Spirits but by revelation much less have we distinct Ideas of their different Natures Conditions States Powers and several Constitutions wherein they agree or differ from one another and from us And therefore in what concerns their different Species and Properties we are under an absolute ignorance § 28. Secondly What a small part of the substantial Beings that are in the Universe the want of Ideas leave open to our Knowledge we have seen In the next place another cause of Ignorance of no less moment is the want of a discoverable Connexion between those Ideas we have For where-ever we want that we are utterly uncapable of universal and certain Knowledge and are as in the former case left only to Observation and Experiment which how narrow and confined it is how far from general Knowledge we need not be told I shall give some few instances of this cause of our Ignorance and so leave it 'T is evident that the bulk figure and motion of several Bodies about us produce in us several Sensations as of Colours Sounds Tastes or Smells Pleasure and Pain c. those mechanical Affections of Bodies having no affinity at all with these Ideas they produce in us there being no conceivable connexion between any impulse of any sort of Body and any perception of a Colour or Smell we find in our Minds we can have no distinct knowledge of such Operations beyond our Experience and can reason no otherwise about them than as the effects or appointment of an infinitely Wise Agent which perfectly surpass our Comprehensions As the Ideas of sensible secundary Qualities we have in our Minds can by us be no way deduced from bodily Causes nor any correspondence or connexion be found between them and those primary Qualities which Experience shews us produce them in us so on the other side the Opetions of our Minds upon our Bodies is as unconceivable How any thought should produce a motion in Body is as remote from the nature of our Ideas as how any Body should produce any Thought in the Mind That it is so if Experience did not convince us the Considerations of the Things themselves would never be able in the least to discover to us These and the like though they have a constant and regular connexion in the ordinary course of Things yet that connexion being not discoverable in the Ideas themselves which appearing to have no necessary dependence one on another we can attribute their connexion to nothing else but the arbitrary Determination of that All-wise Agent who has made them to be and to operate as they do in a way utterly above our weak Understanding to conceive § 29. In some of our Ideas there are certain Relations Habitudes and Connexions so visibly included in the Nature of the Ideas themselves that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any Power whatsoever And in these only we are capable of certain and universal Knowledge Thus the Idea of a right-lined Triangle necessarily carries with it an equality of its Angles to two right ones
agree to several abstract Ideas of which we make those Names the Signs is to confound Truth and introduce Uncertainty into all general Propositions that can be made about them Though therefore these Things might to People not possessed with scholastick Learning be perhaps treated of in a better and clearer way yet those wrong Notions of Essences and Species having got root in most Peoples Minds who have received any tincture from the Learning which has prevailed in this part of the World are to be discovered and removed to make way for that use of Words which should convey certainty with it § 5. The Names of Substances then wheâ—ever made to stand for Species which are supposed to be constituted by real Essences which we know not are not capable to convey Certainty to the Vnderstanding Of the Truth of general Propositions made up of such Terms we cannot be sure § 6. On the other side the Names of Substances when made use of as they should be for the Ideas Men have in their Minds though they carry a clear and determinate signification with them will not yet serve us to make many universal Proposition of whose Truth we can be certain Not because in this use of them we are uncertain what Things are signified by them but because the complex Ideas they stand for are such Combinations of simple ones as carry not with them any discoverable connexion or repugnancy but with a very few other Ideas § 7. The complex Ideas that our Names of Substances properly stand for are Collections of such Qualities as have been observed to co-exist but what other Qualities necessarily co-exist with such Combinations we cannot certainly know unless we can discover their natural dependence which in their primary Qualities we can go but a very little way in and in all their secundary Qualities we can discover no connexion at all for the Reasons mentioned Chap. 3. viz. 1. Because we know not the real Constitutions of Substances on which each secundary Quality particularly depends 2. Did we know that it would serve us only for experimental not universal Knowledge and reach with certainty no farther than that bare instance because our Understandings can discover no conceivable connexion between any secundary Quality and any modification whatsoever of any of the primary ones And therefore there are very few general Propositions to be made concerning Substances which can carry with them undoubted Certainty § 8. All Gold is fixed is a Proposition whose Truth we cannot be certain of how universally soever it be believed For if according to the useless Imagination of the Schools any one supposes the term Gold to stand for a Species of Things set out by Nature by a real Essence belonging to it 't is evident he knows not what particular Substances are of that Species and so cannot with certainty affirm any thing universally of Gold But if he make Gold stand for a Species determined by its nominal Essence let the nominal Essence for example be the complex Idea of a Body of a certain yellow colour malleable susible and heavier than any other known in this proper use of the word Gold there is no difficulty to know what is or is not Gold but yet no other Quality can with certainty be universally affirmed or denied of Gold but what hath a discoverable connexion or inconsistency with that nominal Essence Fixedness for example having no necessary connexion that we can discover with the Colour Weight or any other simple Idea of our complex one or with the whole Combination together it is impossible that we should certainly know the Truth of this Proposition That all Gold is fixed § 9. As there is no discoverable connexion between Fixedness and the Colour Weight and other simple Ideas of that nominal Essence of Gold â— so if we make our complex Idea of Gold a Body yellow fusible ductile weighty and fixed we shall be at the same uncertainty concerning Solubility in Aq. regia and for the same reason since we can never from consideration of the Ideas themselves with certainty affirm or deny of a Body whose complex Idea is made up of yellow very weighty ductile fusible and fixed that it is soluble in Aq. regia and so on of the rest of its Qualities I would gladly meet with one general Affirmation concerning any Quality of Gold that any one can certainly know is true It will no doubt be presently objected Is not this an universal certain Proposition All Gold is malleableâ— To which I answer It is a very certain Proposition if Malleableness be a part of the complex Idea the word Gold stands for But then here is nothing affirmed of Gold but that that Sound stands for an Idea in which Malleableness is contained and such a sort of Truth and Certainty as this it is to say a Centaur is four-footed But if Malleableness make not a part of the specifick Essence the name Gold stands for 't is plain All Gold is malleable is not a certain Proposition because let the complex Idea of Gold be made up of whichsoever of its other Qualities you please Malleableness will not appear to depend on that complex Idea nor follow from any simple one contained in it The connexion that Malleableness has if it has any with those other Qualities being only by the intervention of the real Constitution of its insensible parts which since we know not 't is impossible we should perceive that connexion unless we could discover that which ties them together § 10. The more indeed of these co-existing Qualities we unite into one complex Idea under one name the more precise and determinate we make the signification of that Word but yet never make it more capable of universal Certainty in respect of other Qualities not contained in our complex Idea since we perceive not their connexion or dependence one on another being ignorant both of that real Constitution in which they are all founded and also how they flow from it For the chief part of our Knowledge concerning Substances is not as in other Things barely of the relation of two Ideas that may exist separately but of the necessary connexion and co-existence of several distinct Ideas in the same Subject or of their repugnancy so to co-exist Could we begin at the other end and discover what it was wherein that Colour consisted what made a Body lighter or heavier what texture of Parts made it malleable fusible and fixed and fit to be dissolved in this sort of Liquor and not in another if I say we had such an Idea as this of Bodies and could perceive wherein all sensible Qualities originally consist and how they are produced we might frame such abstract Ideas of them as would furnish us with matter of more general Knowledge and enable us to make universal Propositions that should carry general Truth and Certainty with them But whilst our complex Ideas of the sorts of Substances are
not to no more than I would argue with pure nothing or endeavour to convince Non-entity that it were something If any one pretend to be so sceptical as to deny his own Existence for really to doubt of it is manifesâ—ly impossible let him for me enjoy his beloved Happiness of being nothing until Hunger or some other Pain convince him of the contrary This then I think I may take for a Truth which every ones certain Knowledge assures him of beyond the liberty of doubting viz. that he is something that actually exists § 3. In the next place Man knows by an intuitive Certainty that bare nothing can no more produce any real Being than it can be equal to two right Angles If a Man knows not that Non-entity or the Absence of all Being cannot be equal to two right Angles it is impossible he should know any demonstration in Euclid If therefore we know there is some real Being and that Non-entity cannot produce any real Being it is an evident demonstration that from Eternity there has been something Since what was not from Eternity had a Beginning and what had a Beginning must be produced by something else § 4. Next it is evident that what had its Being and Beginning from another must also have all that which is in and belongs to its Being from another too All the Powers it has must be owing to and received from the same Source This eternal Source then of all being must also be the Source and Original of all Power and so this eternal Being must be also the most powerful § 5. Again a Man finds in himself Perception and Knowledge We have then got one step farther and we are certain now that there is not only some Being but some knowing intelligent Being in the World There was a time then when there was no knowing Being and when Knowledge began to be or else there has been also a knowing Being from Eternity If it be said there was a time when no Being had any Knowledge when that eternal Being was void of all Understanding I reply that then it was impossible there should ever have been any Knowledge It being as impossible that Things wholly void of Knowledge and operating blindly and without any Perception should produce a knowing Being as it is impossile that a Triangle should make it self three Angles bigger than two right ones For it is as repugnant to the Idea of sensless Matter that it should put into it self Sense Perception and Knowledge as it is repugnant to the Idea of a Triangle that it should put into it self greater Angles than two right ones § 6. Thus from the Consideration of our selves and what we infallibly find in our own Constitutions our Reason leads us to the Knowledge of this certain and evident Truth That there is an eternal most powerful and most knowing Being which whether any one will please to call God it matters not The thing is evident and from this Idea duly considered will easily be deduced all those other Attributes we ought to ascribe to this eternal Being From what has been said it is plain to me we have a more certain Knowledge of the Existence of a GOD than of any thing our Senses have not immediately discovered to us Nay I presume I may say that we more certanly know that there is a GOD than that there is any thing else without us When I say we know I mean there is such a Knowledge within our reach which we cannot miss if we will but apply our Minds to that as we do to several other Enquiries § 7. How far the Ideas of a most perfect Being which a Man may frame in his Mind does or does not prove the Existence of a God I will not here examine For in the different Make of Men's Tempers and Application of their Thoughts some Arguments prevail more on one and some on another for the Confirmation of the same Truth But yet I think this I may say that it is an ill way of establishing this Truth and silencing Atheists to lay the whole stress of so important a Point as this upon that sole Foundation and take some Men's having that Idea of God in their Minds for 't is evident some Men have none and some worse than none and the most very different for the only proof of a Deity and out of an over fondness of that Darling Invention cashier or at least endeavour to invalidate all other Arguments and forbid us to hearken to those proofs as being weak or fallacious which our own Existence and the sensible parts of the Universe offer so clearly and cogently to our Thoughts that I deem it impossible for a considering Man to withstand them For I judge it as certain and clear a Truth as can any where be delivered That the invisible Things of God are clearly seen from the Creation of the World being understood by the Things that are made even his Eternal Power and God-head Though our own Being furnishes us as I have shewn with an evident and incontestable proof of a Deity And I beleive no Body can avoid the Cogency of it who will but as carefully attend to it as to any other Demonstration of so many parts yet this being so fundamental a Truth and of that Consequence that all Religion and genuine Morality depend thereon I doubt not but I shall be forgiven by my Reader if I go over some parts of this Argument again and enlarge a little more upon them § 8. There is no Truth more evident than that something must be from Eternity I never yet heard of any one so unreasonable or that could suppose so manifest a Contradiction as a Time wherein there was perfectly nothing This being of all Absurdities the greatest to imagine that pure nothing the perfect Negation and Absence of all Beings should ever produce any real Existence It being then unavoidable for all rational Creatures to conclude that something has existed from Eternity Let us next see what kind of thing that must be § 9. There are but two sorts of Beings in the World that Man knows or conceives First Such as are purely material without Sense Perception or Thought as the clippings of our Beards and paring of our Nails Secondly Sensible thinking perceiving Beings such as we find our selves to be which if you please we will hereafter call cogitative and incogitative Beings which to our present purpose if for nothing else are perhaps better Terms than material and immaterial § 10. If then there must be something eternal let us see what sort of Being it must be And to that it is very obvious to Reason that it must necessarily be a cogitative Being For it is as impossible to conceive that ever bare incogitative Matter should produce a thinking intelligent Being as that nothing should of it self produce Matter Let us suppose any part of Matter eternal great or small we shall find it in it self able to produce
nothing For Example let us suppose the Matter of the next Peble we meet with eternal closely united and the parts firmly at rest together if there were no other Being in the World Must it not eternally remain so a dead inactive Lump Is it possible to conceive it can add Motion to it self being purely Matter or produce any thing Matter then by its own Strength cannot produce in it self so much as Motion the Motion it has must also be from Eternity or else be produced and added to Matter by some other Being more powerful than Matter Matter as is evident having no◠Power to produce Motion in it self But let us suppose Motion eternal too yet Matter incogitative Matter and Motion whatever changes it might produce of Figure and Bulk could never produce Thought Knowledge will still be as far beyond the Power of Motion and Matter to produce as Matter is beyond the Power of nothing to produce And I appeal to every one 's own Thoughts whether he cannot as easily conceive Matter produced by nothing as Thought to be produced by pure Matter when before there was no such thing as Thought or an intelligent Being existing Divide Matter into as minute parts as you will which we are apt to imagine a sort of spiritualizing or making a thinking thing of it vary the Figure and Motion of it as much as you please a Globe Cube Cone Prism Cylinder c. whos 's Diametres are but 1000000th part of a Gry will operate no otherwise upon other Bodies of proportionable Bulk than those of an inch or foot Diametre and you may as rationally expect to produce Sense Thought and Knowledge by putting together in a certain Figure and Motion gross Particles of Matter as by those that are the very minutest that do any where exist They knock impell and resist one another just as the greater do and that is all they can do So that if we will suppose nothing first or eternal Matter can never begin to be If we suppose bare Matter without Motion eternal Motion can never begin to be If we suppose only Matter and Motion first or eternal Thought can never begin to be Whatsoever therefore is eternal must be a cogitative Being a Spirit Whatsoever is first of all Things must necessarily contain in it and actually have at least all the Perfections that can ever after exist nor can it ever give to another any perfection that it hath not either actually in it self or at least in a higher degree § 11. If therefore it be evident that something necessarily must exist from Eternity 't is also as evident that that Something must necessarily be a cogitative Being For it is as impossible that incogitative Matter should produce a cogitative Being as that nothing or the negation of all Being should produce a positive Being or Matter § 12. Though this discovery of the necessary Existence of an eternal Mind do sufficiently lead us into the Knowledge of a GOD since it will hence follow that all other knowing Beings that have a beginning must depend on him and have no other ways of Knowledge or extent of Power than what he gives them and therefore if he made those he made also the less-excellent pieces of this Universe all inanimate Beings whereby his Omniscience Power and Providence will be established and all his other Attributes necessarily follow yet to clear up this a little farther we will see what Doubts can be raised against it § 13. First Perhaps it will be said that though it be as clear as demonstration can make it that there must be an eternal Being and that Being must also be knowing Yet i◠does not follow but that thinking Being may also be material Let it be so it equally still follows that there is a GOD. For if there be an Eternal Omniscient Omnipotent Being it is certain that there is a GOD whether you imagine that Being to be material or no. But herein I suppose lies the danger and deceit of that Supposition There being no way to avoid the demonstration that there is an eternal knowing Being Men devoted to Matter would willingly have it granted that this knowing Being is material and then letting slide out of their Minds or the Discourse the demonstration whereby an eternal knowing Being was proved necessarily to exist would argue all to be Matter and so deny a GOD that is an eternal cogitative Being whereby they are so far from establishing that they destroy their own Hypothesis For if there can be in their Opinion eternal Matter without an eternal cogitative Being they manifestly separate Matter and Thinking and suppose no necessary connexion of the one with the other and so establish the necessity of an eternal Spirit but not of Matter since it has been proved already that an eternal cogitative Being is unavoidably to be granted Now if Thinking and Matter may be separated the eternal Existence of Matter will not follow from the eternal Existence of a cogitative Being and they suppose it to no purpose § 14. But now let us see how they can satisfie themselves or others that this eternal thinking Being is material First I would ask them Whether they imagine that all Matter every particle of Matter thinks This I suppose they will scarce say since then there would be as many eternal thinking Beings as there are Particles of Matter and so an infinity of Gods And yet if they will not allow Matter as Matter that is every Particle of Matter to be as well cogitative as extended they will have as hard a task to make out to their own Reason cogitative Being out of incogitative Particles as an extended Being out of unextended Parts if I may so speak § 15. Secondly If all Matter do not think I next ask Whether it be only one Atom that does so This has as many Absurdities as the other for then this Atom of Matter must be alone eternal or not If this alone be eternal then this alone by its powerful Thought or Will made all the rest of Matter And so we have the creation of Matter by a powerful Thought which is that the Materialists stick at For if they suppose one single thinking Atom to have produced all the rest of Matter they cannot ascribe that Pre-eminency to it upon any other account than that of its Thinking the only supposed difference But allow it to be by some other way which is above our conception it must be still Creation and these Men must give up their great Maxim Ex nihilo nil fit If it be said that all the rest of Matter is equally eternal as that thinking Atom it will be to say any thing at pleasure though never so absurd For to suppose all Matter eternal and yet one small particle in Knowledge and Power infinitely above all the rest is without any the least appearance of Reason to frame any Hypothesis Every particle of Matter as Matter is capable of all the
same Figures and Motions of any other and I challenge any one in his Thoughts to add any Thing else to one above another § 16. Thirdly If then neither one peculiar Atom alone can be this eternal thinking Being nor all Matter as Matter i. e. every particle of Matter can be it it only remains that it is some certain System of Matter duly put together that is this thinking eternal Being This is that which I imagine is that Notion which Men are aptest to have of GOD who would have him a material Being as most readily suggested to them by the ordinary conceit they have of themselves and other Men which they take to be material thinking Beings But this Imagination however more natural is no less absurd than the other For to suppose the eternal thinking Being to be nothing else but a composition of Particles of Matter each whereof is incogitative is to ascribe all the Wisdom and Knowledge of that eternal Being only to the juxta-position of parts than which nothing can be more absurd For unthinking Particles of Matter however put together can have nothing thereby added to them but a new relation of Position which 't is impossible should give thought and knowledge to them § 17. But farther this corporeal System either has all its parts at rest or it is a certain motion of the parts wherein its Thinking consists If it be perfectly at rest it is but one lump and so can have no privileges above one Atom If it be the motion of its parts on which its Thinking depends all the Thoughts there must be unavoidably accidental and limitted since all the Particles that by Motion cause Thought being each of them in it self without any Thought cannot regulate its own Motions much less be regulated by the Thought of the whole since that Thought is not the cause of Motion for then it must be antecedent to it and so without it but the consequence of it whereby Freedom Power Choice and all rational and wise thinking or acting will be quite taken away So that such a thinking Being will be no better nor wiser than pure blind Matter since to resolve all into the accidental unguided motions of blind Matter or into Thought depending on unguided motions of blind Matter is the same thing not to mention the narrowness of such Thoughts and Knowledge that must depend on the motion of such parts But there needs no enumeration of any more Absurdities and Impossibilities in this Hypothesis however full of them it be than that before-mentioned since let this thinking System be all or a part of the Matter of the Universe it is impossible that any one Particle should either know its own or the motion of any other Particle or the Whole know the motion of every Particular and so regulate its own Thoughts or Motions or indeed have any Thought resulting from such Motion § 18. Others would have Matter to be eternal notwithstanding that they allow an eternal cogitative immaterial Being This tho' it take not away the Being of a God yet since it denies one and the first great piece of his Workmanship the Creation let us consider it a little Matter must be allow'd eternal Why Because you cannot conceive how it can be made out of nothing why do you not also think your self eternal You will answer perhaps Because about twenty or forty years since you began to be But if I ask you what that You is which began to be you can scarce tell me The Matter whereof you are made began not then to be for if it did then it is not eternal But it began to be put together in such a fashion and frame as makes up your Body but yet that frame of Particles is not You it makes not that thinking Thing You are for I have now to do with one who allows an eternal immaterial thinking Being but would have unthinking Matter eternal too therefore when did that thinking Thing begin to be If it did never begin to be then have you always been a thinking Thing from Eternity the absurdity whereof I need not confute till I meet with one who is so void of Understanding as to own it If therefore you can allow a thinking Thing to be made out of nothing as all Things that are not eternal must be why also can you not allow it possible for a material Being to be made out of nothing by an equal Power but that you have the experience of the one in view and not of the other Though when well considered Creation of one as well as t'other requires an equal Power And we have no more reason to boggle at the effect of that Power in one than in the other because the manner of it in both is equally beyond our comprehension For the Creation or beginning of any one thing out of nothing being once admitted the Creation of every thing else but the CREATOR Himself may with the same ease be supposed § 19. But you will say Is it not impossible to admit of the making any thing out of nothing since we cannot possibly conceive it I answer No 1. Because it is not reasonable to deny the power of an infinite Being because we cannot comprehend its Operations We do not deny other effects upon this ground because we cannot possibly conceive their Production we cannot conceive how Thought or any thing but motion in Body can move Body and yet that is not a Reason sufficient to make us deny it possible against the constant Experience we have of it in our selves in all our voluntary Motions which are produced in us only by the free Thoughts of our own Minds and are not nor cannot be the effects of the impulse or determination of the motion of blind Matter in or upon our Bodies for then it could not be in our power or choice to alter it For example My right Hand writes whilst my left Hand is still What causes rest in one and motion in the other Nothing but my Will a Thought of my Mind my Thought only changing the right Hand rests and the left Hand moves This is matter of fact which cannot be denied Explain this and make it intelligible and then the next step will be to understand Creation In the mean time 't is an overvaluing our selves to reduce all to the narrow measure of our Capacities and to conclude all things impossible to be done whose manner of doing exceeds our Comprehension This is to make our Comprehension infinite or GOD finite when what he can do is limitted to what we can conceive of it If you do not understand the Operations of your own finite Mind that thinking Thing within you do not deem it strange that you cannot comprehend the Operations of that eternal infinite Mind who made and governs all Things and whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain CHAP. XI Of our Knowledge of the Existence of other Things § 1. THe Knowledge of our own Being
World but perishing quickly The wholesomness of his Meat or Drink would be scarce capable of certainty enough to give him reason to venture on it And I would fain know what 't is he could do upon such grounds as were capable of no doubt no Objections § 11. As when our Senses are actually employ'd about any Object we do know that it does exist so by our Memory we may be assured that heretofore Things that affected our Senses have existed And thus we have knowledge of the past Existence of several Things whereof our Senses having informed us our Memories still retain the Ideas and of this we are past all doubt so long as we remember well But this Knowledge also reaches no farther than our Senses have formerly assured us Thus seeing Water at this instant 't is an unquestionable Truth to me that Water doth exist and remembring that I saw it yesterday it will also be always true and as long as my Memory retains it always an undoubted Proposition to me that Water did exist 10th Iuly 1688. as it will also be equally true that a certain number of very fine Colours did exist which at the same time I saw upon a bubble of that Water But being now quite out of the sight both of the Water and Bubles too it is no more certainly known to me that the Water doth exist than that the Bubbles or Colours therein it being no more necessary that Water should exist to day because it existed yesterday than that the Colours or Bubbles exist to day because they existed yesterday though it be exceedingly much more probable because Water hath been observed to continue long in Existence but Bubbles and the Colours on them quickly cease to be § 12. What Ideas we have of Spirits and how we come by them I have already shewn But though we have those Ideas in our Minds and know we have them there the having the Ideas of Spirits does not make us know that any such Things do exist without us or that there are any finite Spirits or any other spiritual Beings but the eternal GOD. We have ground from revelation and several other Reasons to believe with assurance that there are such Creatures but our Senses not being able to discover them we want the means of knowing their particular Existences For we can no more know that there are finite Spirits really existing by the Idea we have of such Beings in our Minds than by the Ideas any one has of Fairies or Centaurs he can come to know that Things answering those Ideas do really exist And therefore concerning the Existence of finite Spirits as well as several other Things we must content our selves with the Evidence of Faith but universal certain Propositions concerning this matter are beyond our reach For however true it may be v. g. that all the intelligent Spirits that GOD ever created do still exist yet it can never make a part of our certain Knowledge These and the like Propositions we may assent to as highly probable but are not I fear in this sâ—ate capable of knowing We are not then to put others upon demonstrating nor our selves upon search of universal Certainty in all those matters wherein we are not capable of any other Knowledge but what our Senses give us in this or that particular § 13. By which it appears that there are two sorts of Propositions one concerning the Existence of any thing answerable to such an Idea as having the Idea of an Elephant Phoenix Motion or an Angel in my Mind the first and natural enquiry is Whether such a thing does any where exist And this Knowledge is only of Particulars No existence of any thing without us but only of GOD can certainly be known farther than our Senses inform us There is another fort of Propositions wherein is expressed the Agreement or Disagreement of our abstract Ideas and their dependence one on another and such Propositions may be universal and certain So having the Idea of GOD and my self of Fear and Obedience I cannot but be sure that GOD is to be feared and obeyed by me and this Proposition will be certain concerning Man in general if I have made an abstract Idea of such a Species whereof I am one particular But yet this Proposition how certain soever that Men ought to fear and obey GOD proves not to me the Existence of Men in the World but will be true of all such Creatures whenever they do exist Which certainty of such general Propositions depends on the Agreement or Disagreement is to be discovered in those abstract Ideas § 14. In the former case our Knowledge is the consequence of the Existence of Things producing Ideas in our Minds by our Sensesâ— in the latter Knowledge is the consequence of the Ideas that are in our Minds whatsoever they are and produce general certain Propositions many whereof are called aeterâ—ae Veritates and are indeed so not from being written in the Minds of all Men or that they were before the World But wheresoever we can suppose such a Creature as Man is endowed with such Faculties and thereby furnished with such Ideas as we have we must conclude he must needs when he applies his Thoughts to the consideration of his Ideas know the Truth of certain Propositions that will arise from the Agreement or Disagreement he will perceive amongst them For Names being supposed to stand perpetually for the same Ideas and the same Ideas having immutably the same Habitudes one to another Propositions concerning any abstract Ideas that are onâ—e true must needs be eternal Verities CHAP. XII Of the Improvement of our Knowledge § 1. IT having been the common received Opinion amongst Men of Letters that Maxims were the foundations of all Knowledge and that the Sciences were each of them built upon certain praecognita from whence the Understanding was to take its rise and by which it was to conduct it self in its enquiries into the matters belonging to that Science the beaten road of the Schools has been to lay down in the beginning one or more general Propositions as Foundations whereon to build the Knowledge was to be had of that Subject These Doctrines thus laid down for Foundations of any Science were called Principles as the beginnings from which we must set out and look no farther backwards in our Enquiries but take these for certain and unquestionable Truths and established Principles § 2. That which gave occasion to this way of proceeding in other Sciences was as I suppose the good success it seemed to have in Mathematicks wherein Men being observed to attain a great certainty of Knowledge these Sciences came by pre-eminence to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Learning or things learn'd throughly learn'd as having of all other the greatest certainty clearness and evidence in them § 3. But if any one will consider he will I guess find that the great advancement and certainty of real
than possibly we are apt to imagine § 8. This gave me the confidence to advance that Conjecture which I suggest Chap. 3. viz. That Morality is capable of Demonstration as well as Mathematicks For the Ideas that Ethicks are conversant about being all real Essences and such as I imagine have a discoverable connexion and agreement one with another so far as we can find their Habitudes and Relations so far we shall be possessed of certain real and general Truths and I doubt not but if a right method were taken a great part of Morality might be made out with that clearness that could leave to a considering Man no more reason to doubt than he could have to doubt of the Truth of Propositions in Mathematicks which have been demonstrated to him § 9. In our search after the Knowledge of Substances our want of Ideas that are suitable to such a way of proceeding obliges us to a quite different method We advance not here as in the other where our abstract Ideas are real as well as nominal Essences by contemplating our Ideas and considering their Relations and Correspondencies that helps us very little for the Reasons that in another place we have at large shewed By which I think it is evident that Substances afford Matter of very little general Knowledge and the bare Contemplation of their abstract Ideas will carry us but a very little way in the search of Truth and Certainty What then are we to do for the improvement of our Knowledge in substantial Beings Here we are to take a quite contrary Course the want of Ideas of their real Essences sends us from our own Thoughts from contemplating and drawing Consequences from our own Ideas to the Things themselves as they exist Experience must teach me what Reason cannot and by trying 't is alone that I can certainly know what other Qualities co-exist with those of my complex Idea v. g. whether that yellow heavy fusible Body I call Gold be malleable or no which Experience which way ever it prove in that particular Body I examine makes me not certain that it is so in all or any other yellow heavy fusible Body but that which I have tried Because it is no Consequence one way or t' other from my complex Idea the Necessity or Inconsistence of Malleability hath no visible connection with the Combination of that Colour Weight and Fusibility in any body What I have said here of the nominal Essence of Gold supposed to consist of a Body of such a determinate Colour Weight and Fusibility will hold true if Malleableness Fixedness and Solubility in Aqua Regia be added to it our Reasonings from these Ideas will carry us but a little way in the certain discovery of the other Properties in those Masses of Matter wherein all these are to be found Because the other Properties of such Bodies depending not on these but on that unknown real Essence on which these also depend we cannot by them discover the rest we can go no farther than the simple Ideas of our nominal Essence will carry us which is very little beyond themselves and so afford us but very sparingly any certain universal and useful Truths For upon Trial having found that particular piece and all others of that Colour Weight and Fusibility that I ever tried malleable that also makes now perhaps a part of my complex Idea part of my nominal Essence of Gold whereby though I make my complex Idea to which I affix the Name Gold to consist to more simple Ideas than before yet still it not containing the real Essence of any Species of Bodies it helps me not certainly to know I say to know perhaps it may to conjecture the other remaining Properties of that Body farther than they have a visible connection with some or all of the simple Ideas that make up my nominal Essence For Example I cannot be certain from this complex Idea whether Gold be fixed or no Because as before there is no necessary connection or inconsistence to be discovered betwixt a complex Idea of a Body yellow heavy fusible malleable betwixt these I say and Fixedness so that I may certainly know that in whatsoever Body those are found there Fixedness is sure to be Here again for assurance I must apply my self to Experience as far as that reaches I may have certain Knowledge but no farther § 10. I deny not but a Man accustomed to rational and regular Experiments shall be able to see farther into the Nature of Bodies and guess righter at their yet unknown Properties than one that is a Stranger to them But yet as I have said this is but Judgment and Opinion not Knowledge and Certainty This way of attaining and improving our Knowledge in Substances only by Experience and History to which the weakness of our Faculties in this State of Mediocrity we are in in this World makes me suspect that natural Philosophy is not capable of being made a Science We are able I imagine to reach very little general Knowledge concerning the Species of Bodies and their several Properties Experiments and Historical Observations we may have from which we may draw Advantages of Ease and Health and thereby increase our stock of Conveniences for this Life but beyond this our Talents reach not our Faculties cannot attain § 11. From whence it is obvious to conclude that since our Faculties are not fitted to penetrate into the internal Fabrick and real Essences of Bodies but yet plainly discover to us the Being of a God and the Knowledge of our selves enough to lead us into a full and clear discovery of our Duty and great Concernment it will become us as rational Creatures to employ our Faculties about what they are most adopted to and follow the direction of Nature where it seems to point us out the way For 't is rational to conclude that our proper Imployment lies in those Enquiries and in that sort of Knowledge which is most suited to our natural Capacities and carries in it our greatest interest i. e. the Condition of our eternal Estate and therefore it is I think that Morality is the proper Science and Business of Mankind in general who are both concerned and fitted to search out their Summum Bonum as several Arts conversant about several parts of Nature are the Lot and private Talent of particular Men for the common Convenience of humane Life and their own particular Subsistence in this World Of what Consequence the discovery of one natural Body and its Properties may be to humane Life the whole great Continent of America is a convincing instance whose Ignorance in useful Arts and want of the greatest part of the Conveniencies of Life in a Country that abounded with all sorts of natural Plenty I think may be attributed to their Ignorance of what was to be found in a very ordinary despicable Stone I mean the Mineral of Iron And whatever we think of our Parts or Improvements in
part of Men if not all to have several Opinions without certain and indubitable Proofs of their Truths and it carries too great an imputation of ignorance lightness or folly for Men to quit and renounce their former Tenets presently upon the offer of an Argument which they cannot immediately answer and shew the insufficiency of It would methinks become all Men to maintain Peace and the common Offices of Humanity and Friendship in the diversity of Opinions since we cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsequiously quit his own Opinion and embrace ours with a blind resignation to an Authority which the Understanding of Man acknowledges not For however it may often mistake it can own no other Guide but Reason nor blindly submit to the Will and Dictates of another If he you would bring over to your Sentiments be one that examines before he assents you must give him leave at his leisure to go over the account again and re-calling what is out of his Mind examine all the Particulars to see on which side the advantage lies And if he will not think our Arguments of weight enough to engage him anew in so much pains 't is but what we do often our selves in the like case and we should take it amiss if others should prescribe to us what points we should study And if he be one who takes his Opinions upon trust How can we imagine that he should renounce those Tenets which Time and Custom have so setled in his Mind that he thinks them self-evident and of an unquestionable Certainty or which he takes to be impressions he has received from GOD Himself or from Men sent by Him How can we expect I say that Opinions thus setled should be given up to the Arguments or Authority of a Stranger or Adversary especially if there be any suspicion of Interest or Design as there never fails to be where Men find themselves ill treated We should do well to commiserate our mutual Ignorance and endeavour to remove it in all the gentle and fair ways of Information and not instantly treat others ill as obstinate and perverse because they will not renounce their own and receive our Opinions or at least those we would force upon them when 't is more than probable that we are no less obstinate in not embracing theirs For where is the Man that has uncontestible Evidence of the Truth of all that he holds or of the Falshood of all he condemns or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own or other Men's Opinions The necessity of believing without knowledge nay often upon very slight grounds in this fleeting slate of Action and Blindness we are in should make us more busie and careful to inform our selves than constrain others At least those who have not throughly examined to the bottom all their own Tenets must confess they are unfit to prescribe to others and are unreasonable in imposing that as a Truth on other Men's Belief which they themselves have not searched into nor weighed the Arguments of Probability on which they should receive or reject it Those who have fairly and truly examined and are thereby got past doubt in all the Doctrines they profess and govern themselves by would have a juster pretence to require others to follow them But these are so few in number and find so little reason to be magisterial in their Opinions that nothing insolent and imperious is to be expected from them And there is reason to think that if Men were better instructed themselves they would be less imposing on others § 5. But to return to the grounds of Assent and the several degrees of it we are to take notice that the Propositions we receive upon Inducements of Probability are of two sorts either concerning some particular Existence or as it is usually termed matter of fact which falling under our Observation is capable of humane Testimony or else concerning Things which being beyond the discovery of our Senses are not capable of any such Testimony § 6. Concerning the first of these viz. particular matter of fact First Where any particular thing consonant to the constant Observation of our selves and others in the like case comes attested with the concurrent Reports of all that mention it we receive it as easily and build as firmly upon it as if it were certain knowledge and we reason and act thereupon with as little doubt as if it were perfect demonstration Thus if all English-men who have occasion to mention it should affirm that it froze in England the last Winter or that there were Swallows seen there in the Summer I think a Man could almost as little doubt of it as that Seven and Four are Eleven The first therefore and highest degree of Probability is when the general consent of all Men in all Ages as far as it can be known concurrs with a Man's constant and never-failing Experience in like cases to confirm the Truth of any particular matter of fact attested by fair Witnesses such are all the stated Constitutions and Properties of Bodies and the regular proceedings of Causes and Effects in the ordinary course of Nature This we call an Argument from the nature of Things themselves For what our own and other Men's constant Observation has found always to be after the same manner that we with reason conclude to be the Effects of steddy and regular Causes though they come not within the reach of our Knowledge Thus That Fire warmed a Man made Lead fluid and changed the colour or consistency in Wood or Charcoal that Iron sunk in Water and swam in Quicksilver These and the like Propositions about particular facts being agreeable to our constant Experience as often as we have to do with these matters and being generally spoke of when mentioned by others as things found constantly to be so and therefore not so much as controverted by any body we are put past doubt that a relation affirming any such thing to have been or any predication that it will happen again in the same manner is very true These Probabilities rise so near to Certainty that they govern our Thoughts as absolutely and influence all our Actions as fully as the most evident demonstration and in what concerns us we make little or no difference between them and certain Knowledge And our Belief thus grounded rises to Assurance § 7. Secondly The next degree of Probability is when I find by my own Experience and the Agreement of all others that mention it a thing to be for the most part so and that the particular instance of it is attested by many and undoubted Witnesses v. g. History giving us such an account of Men in all Ages and my own Experience as far as I had an opportunity to observe confirming it that most Men prefer their private Advantage to the publick If all Historians that write of Tiberius say that Tiberius did so it is extreamly probable And in
it self not to all the Relations of all our Ideas 4. Fourthly Nor demonstrative Knowledge 5. Fifthly Sensitive Knowledge narrower than either 6. Sixthly Our Knowledge therefore narrower than our Ideas 7. How far our Knowledge reaches 8. First Our Knowledge of Identity and Diversity as far as our Ideas 9. Secondly Of Co-existence a very little way 10. Because the connexion between most simple Ideas is unknown 11. Especially of Secondary Qualities 12 14. And farther because all connexion between any secondary aâ—d primary Qualities is undiscoverable 15. Of Repugnancy to co-exist larger 16. Of the Co-existence of Powers a very little way 17. Of the Spirits yet narrower 18. Thirdly Of other Relations it is not easie to say how far Morality capable of Demonstration 19. Two Things have made moral Ideas thought uncapable of Demonstration Their Complexedness and want of sensible Representations 20. Remedies of those Difficulties 21. Fourthly of real Existence we have an intuitive Knowledge of our own demonstrative of God's sensible of some few other Things 22. Our Ignorance great 23. First One Cause of it want of Ideas either such as we have no Conception of or such as particularly we have not 24. Because of their Remoteness or 25. Because of their Minuteness 26. Hence no Science of Bodies 27. Much less of Spirits 28. Secondly Want of a discoverable connexion between Ideas we have 29. Instances 30. Thirdly Want of tracing our Ideas 31. Extent in respect of Vniversality CHAP. IV. Of the Reality of our Knowledge SECT 1. Objection Knowledge placed in Ideas may be all bare Vision 2 3. Answer Not so where Ideas agree with Things 4. As First All simple Ideas do 5. Secondly All complex Ideas except of Substances 6. Hence the Reality of mathematical Knowledge 7. And of moral 8. Existence not required to make it real 9. Nor will it be less true or certain because moral Ideas are of our own making and naming 10. Mis-naming disturbs not the Certainty of the Knowledge 11. Ideas of Substances have their Archetypes without us 12. So far as they agree with those so far our Knowledge concerning them is real 13. In our Enquiries about Substances we must consider Ideas and not consine our Thoughts to Names or Species supposed set out by Names 14 17. Objection against a Changeling being something between Man and Beast answered 18. Recapitulation CHAP. V. Of Truth in General SECT 1. What Truth is 2. A right joining or separating of Signs i. e. Ideas or Words 3. Which make mental or verbal Propositions 4. Mental Propositions are very hard to be treated of 5 Being nothing but the joining or separating Ideas without Words 6. When mental Propositions contain real Truth and when verbal 7. Objection against verbal Truth that it may be thus alchimerical 8. Answered real Truth is about Ideas agreeing to Things 9. Falshood is the joining of Names otherwise than their Ideas agree 10. General Propositions to be treated of more at large 11. Moral and metaphysical Truth CHAP. VI. Of Universal Propositions their Truth and Certainty SECT 1. Treating of Words necessary to Knowledge 2. General Truths hardly to be understood but in verbal Propositions 3. Certainty two-fold of Truth and of Knowledge 4. No Proposition can be known to be true where the Essence of each Species mentioned is not known 5. This more particularly concerns Substances 6. The Truth of few universal Propositions concerning Substances is to be known 7. Because Co-existence of Ideas in few Cases to be known 8 9. Instance in Gold 10. As far as any such Co-existence can be known so far universal Propositions may be certain But this will go but a little way because 11 12. The Qualities which make our complex Ideas of Substances depend mostly on external remote and unperceived Causes 13. Iudgment may reach farther but that is not Knowledge 14. What is requisite for our Knowledge of Substances 15. Whilst our Ideas of Substances contain not their real Constitutions we can make but few general certain Propositions concerning them 16. Wherein lies the general Certainty of Propositions CHAP. VII Of Maxims SECT 1. They are self-evident 2. Wherein that Self-evidence consists 3. Self-evidence not peculiar to received Axioms 4. First As to Identity and Diversity all Propositions are equally self-evident 5. Secondly In Co-existence we have few self-evident Propositions 6. Thirdly In other Relations we may have 7. Fourthly Concerning real Existence we have none 8. These Axioms do not much influence our other Knowledge 9 10. Because they are not the Truths the first known 11. What use these general Maxims have 12. Maxims if care be not taken in the use of Words may prove contradictioâ—s 13. Instance in Vacuum 14. They prove not the Existence of Things without us 15. Their Application dangerous about complex Ideas 16 18. Instance in Man 19. Little use of these Maxims in Proofs where we have clear and distinct Ideas 20. Their use dangerous where our Ideas are confused CHAP. VIII Of Trifling Propositions SECT 1. Some Propositions bring no increase to our Knowledge 2 3. As First Identical Propositions 4. Secondly When a part of any complex Idea is predicated of the whole 5. As part of the definition of the defined 6. Instance Man and Palfry 7. For this teaches but the signification of Words 8. But no real Knowledge 9. General Propositions concerning Substances are often trifling 10. And why 11. Thirdly Vsing Words variously is trifling with them 12. Marks of verbal Propositions First Predication in abstract 13. Secondly A part of the Definition predicated of any term CHAP. IX Of our Knowledge of Existence SECT 1. General certain Propositions concern not Existence 2. A threefold Knowledge of Existence 3. Our Knowledge of our own Existence is intuitive CHAP. X. Of the Existence of a GOD. SECT 1. We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a GOD. 2. Man knows that he himself is 3. He knows also that Nothing cannot produce a Being therefore something eternal 4. That eternal Being must be most powerful 5. And most knowing 6. And therefore GOD. 7. Our Idea of a most perfect Being not the sole proof of a GOD. 8. Something from Eternity 9. Two sorts of Beings Cogitative and Incogitative 10. Incogitative Being cannot produce a Cogitative 11 12. Therefore there has been an eternal Wisdom 13. Whether material or no. 14. Not material First Because every particle of Matter is not cogitative 15. Secondly One particle alone of Matter cannot be cogitative 16. Thirdly A System of incogitative Matter cannot be cogitative 17. Whether in motion or at rest 18 19. Matter not co-eternal with an eternal Mind CHAP. XI Of the Knowledge of the Existence of other Things SECT 1. Is to be had only by Sensation 2. Instance whiteness of this Paper 3. This though not so certain as demonstration yet may be called Knowledge and proves the existence of things without us 4. First Because we cannot have them but by the inlet of
Knowledge may come of an universal or perfect Comprehension of whatsoever is it yet secures their great Concernments that they have Light enough to lead them to the Knowledge of their Maker and the Discovery of their own Duties Men may find Matter sufficient to busie their Heads and employ their Hands with Variety Delight and Satisfaction if they will not boldly quarrel with their own Constitution and throw away the Blessings their Hands are fill'd with because they are not big enough to grasp every thing We shall not have much Reason to complain of the narrowness of our Minds if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us for of that they are very capable And it will be an unpardonable as well as Childish Peevishness if we undervalue the Advantages of our Knowledge and neglect to improve it to the ends for which is was given us because there are some Things that are set out of the reach of it It will be no Excuse to an idle and untoward Servant who would not attend his Business by Candle-light to plead that he had not broad Sun-shine The Candle that is set up in us shines bright enough for all our Purposes The Discoveries we can make with this ought to satisfie us And we shall then use our Understandings right when we entertain all Objects in that Way and Proportion that they are suited to our Faculties and upon those Grounds they are capable of being propos'd to us and not peremptorily or intemperately require Demonstration and demand Certainty where Probability only is to be had and which is sufficient to govern all our Concernments If we will disbelieve every thing because we cannot certainly know all things we shall do much-what as wisely as he who would not use his Legs but sit still and perish because he had no Wings to fly § 6. When we know our own Strength we shall the better know what to undertake with hopes of Success And when we have well survey'd the Powers of our own Minds and made some Estimate what we may expect from them we shall not be inclined either to sit still and not set our Thoughts on work at all in Despair of knowing any thing nor on the other side question every thing and disclaim all Knowledge because some Things are not to be understood 'T is of great use to the Sallor to know the length of his Line though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the Ocean 'T is well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom at such Places as are necessary to direct his Voyage and caution him against running upon Shoals that may ruine him Our Business here is not to know all things but those which concern our Conduct If we can find out those Measures whereby a rational Creature put in that State which Man is in in this World may and ought to govern his Opinions and Actions depending thereon we need not be troubled that some other things scape our Knowledge § 7. This was that which gave the first Rise to this Essay concerning the Understanding For I thought that the first Step towards satisfying several Enquiries the Mind of Man was very apt to run into was To take a Survey of our own Understandings examine our own Powers and see to what things they were adapted Till that was done I suspected we began at the wrong end and in vain sought for Satisfaction in a quiet and secure Possession of Truths that most concern'd us whilst we let loose our Thoughts into the vast Ocean of Being as if all that boundless Extent were the natural and undoubted Possession of our Understandings wherein there was nothing exempt from its Decisions or that escaped its Comprehension Thus Men extending their Enquiries beyond their Capacities and letting their Thoughts wander into those depths where they can find no sure Footing 't is no Wonder that they raise Questions and multiply Disputes which never coming to any clear Resolution are proper only to continue and increase their Doubts and to confirm them at last in perfect Scepticism Whereas were the Capacities of our Understandings well considered the Extent of our Knowledge once discovered and the Horizon found which sets the Bounds between the enlightned and dark Parts of Things between what is and what is not comprehensible by us Men would perhaps with less scruple acquiesce in the avow'd Ignorance of the one and imploy their Thoughts and Discourse with more Advantage and Satisfaction in the other § 8. Thus much I thought necessary to say concerning the Occasion of this Enquiry into humane Understanding But before I proceed on to what I have thought on this Subject I must here in the Entrance beg Pardon of my Reader for the frequent use of the Word Idea which he will find in the following Treatise It being that Term which I think serves best to stand for whatsoever is the Object of the Understanding when a Man thinks I have used it to express whatever is meant by Phantasm Notion Species or whatever it is which the Mind can be employ'd about in thinking and I could not avoid frequently using it I presume it will be easily granted me that there are such Idea's in Men's Minds every one is conscious of them in himself and a Man's Words and Actions will satisfie him that they are in others Our first Enquiry then shall be how they come into the Mind CHAP. II. No innate Principles in the Mind § 1. IT is an established Opinion amongst some Men That there are in the Understanding certain innate Principles some primary Notions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Characters as it were stamped upon the Mind of Man which the Soul receives in its very first Being and brings into the World with it It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced Readers of the falseness of this Supposition if I should only shew as I hope I shall in the following Parts of this Discourse how Men barely by the Use of their natural Faculties may attain to all the Knowledge they have without the help of any innate Impressions and may arrive at Certainty without any such Original Notions or Principles For I imagine any one will easily grant That it would be impertinent to suppose the Idea's of Colours innate in a Creature to whom God hath given Sight and a Power to receive them by the Eyes from external Objects and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several Truths to the Impressions of Nature and innate Characters when we may observe in our selves Faculties fit to attain as easie and certain Knowledge of them as if they were Originally imprinted on the Mind But because a Man is not permitted without Censure to follow his own Thoughts in the search of Truth when they lead him ever so little out of the common Road I shall set down the Reasons that made me doubt of the Truth of that Opinion as an Excuse for my Mistake if
as the inviolable Rules of their own Practice Since we find that self-Interest and the Conveniences of this Life make many Men own an outward Profession and Approbation of them whose Actions sufficiently prove that they very little consider the Law-giver that prescribed these Rules nor the Hell he has ordain'd for the Punishment of those that transgress them § 7. For if we will not in Civility allow too much Sincerity to the Professions of most Men but think their Actions to be the Interpreters of their Thoughts we shall find that they have no such internal Veneration for these Rules nor so full a Perswasion of their Certainty and Obligation The great Principle of Morality To do as one would be done to is more commended than practised But the Breach of this Rule cannot be a greater Vice than to teach others That it is no Moral Rule nor Obligatory would be thought Madness and contrary to that Interest Men sacrifice to when they break it themselves Perhaps Conscience will be urged as checking us for such Breaches and so the internal Obligation and Establishment of the Rule be preserved § 8. To which I answer That I doubt not but without being written on their Hearts many Men may by the same way that they come to the Knowledge of other things come to assent to several Moral Rules and be convinced of their Obligation Others also may come to be of the same Mind from their Education Company and Customs of their Country which Perswasion however got will serve to set Conscience on work which is nothing else but our own Opinion of our own Actions And if Conscience be a Proof of innate Principles contraries may be innate Principles Since some Men with the same bent of Conscience prosecute what others avoid § 9. But I cannot see how any Men should ever transgress those Moral Rules with Confidence and Serenity were they innate and stamped upon their Minds View but an Army at the sacking of a Town and see what Observations or Sense of Moral Principles or what touch of Conscience for all the Outrages they do Robberies Murders Rapes are the Sports of Men set at Liberty from Punishment and Censure Have there not been whole Nations and those of the most civilized People amongst whom the exposing their Children and leaving them in the Fields to perish by Want or wild Beasts has been the Practice as little condemned or scrupled as the begetting them Do they not still in some Countries put them into the same Graves with their Mothers if they die in Child-birth Or dispatch them if a pretended Astrologer declares them to have unhappy Stars And are there not Places where at a certain Age they kill or expose their Parents without any remorse at all In a Part of Asia the Sick when their Case comes to be thought desperate are carried out and laid on the Earth before they are dead and left there exposed to Wind and Weather to perish without Assistance or Pity It is familiar amongst the Mengrelians a People professing Christianity to bury their Children alive without scruple There are Places where they eat their own Children The Caribes were wont to geld their Children on purpose to fat and eat them And Garcilasso de la Vega tells us of a People in Peru which were wont to fat and eat their Children they got on their female Captives which they kept as Concubines for that Pupose The Virtues whereby the Tououpinambas believed they merited Paradise were Revenge and eating abundance of their Enemies They have not so much as a Name for God Lery pag. 216. No Acknowledgment of any God no Religion no Worship pag. 231. The Saints who are canoniz'd amongst the Turks lead Lives which one cannot with Modesty relate A remarkable Passage to this Purpose out of the Voyage of Baumgarten which is a Book not every Day to be met with I shall set down at large in the Language it is published in Ibi sc. prope Belbes in AEgypto vidimus sanctum unum Saracenicum inter arenarum cumulos ita ut ex utero matris prodiit nudum sedentem Mos est ut didicimus Mahometistis ut eos qui amentes sine ratione sunt pro sanctis colant venerentur Insuper eos qui cumdiu vitam egerint inquinatissimam voluntariam demum paenitentiam paupertatem sanctitate venerandos deputant Ejusmodi verò genus hominum libertatem quandam effraenem habent domos quas volunt intrandi edendi bibendi quod majus est concumbendi ex quo concubitu si proles secuta suerit sancta similiter habetur His ergo hominibus dum vivunt magnos exhibent honores mortuis verò vel templa vel monumenta extruunt amplissima eosque contingere ac sepelire maximae fortunae ducunt loco Audivimus haec dicta dicenda per interpretem à Mucrelo nostro Insuper sanctum illum quem eo loci vidimus publicitus apprimè commendari eum esse Hominem sanctum divinum ac integritate praecipuum eo◠quod nec faeminarum unquam esset nec puerorum sed tantummodo asellarum concubitor atque mularum Peregr Baumgarten l. 2. c. 1. p. 73. Where then are those innate Principles of Justice Piety Gratitude Equity Chastity Or where is that universal Consent that assures us there are such inbred Rules Murders in Duels when Fashion has made them honourable are committed without remorse of Conscience Nay in many Places Innocence in this Case is the greatest Ignominy And if we will look abroad to take a view of Men as they are we shall find that they have a remorse in one Place for doing or omitting that which others in another Place think they merit by § 10. He that will carefully peruse the History of Mankind and look abroad into the several Tribes of Men and with indifferency survey their Actions will be able to satisfie himself That there is scarce that Principle of Morality to be named or Rule of Vertue to be thought on those only excepted that are absolutely necessary to hold Society together which commonly too are neglected betwixt distinct Societies which is not somewhere or other slighted and condemned by the general Fashion of whole Societies of Men governed by practical Opinions and Rules of living quite opposite to others § 11. Here perhaps 't will be objected that it is no Argument that the Rule is not known because it is broken I grant the Objection good where Men though they transgress yet disown not the Law where fear of Shame Censure or Punishment carries the Mark of some awe it has upon them But it is impossible to conceive that a whole Nation of Men should all publickly reject and renounce what every one of them certainly and infallibly knew to be a Law For so they must who have it naturally imprinted on their Minds 'T is possible Men may sometimes own Rules of Morality which in their private Thoughts
Reason and the natural Propensity of their own Thoughts would afterwards propagate and continue amongst them § 12. Indeed it is urged That it is suitable to the goodness of God to imprint upon the Minds of Men Characters and Notions of himself and not leave them in the dark and doubt in so grand a Concernment and also by that means to secure to himself the Homage and Veneration due from so intelligent a Creature as Man and therefore he has done it This Argument if it be of any Force will prove much more than those who use it in this case expect from it For if we may conclude that God hath done for Men all that Men shall judge is best for them because it is suitable to his goodness so to do it will prove not only that God has imprinted on the minds of Men an Idea of himself but that he hath plainly stamped there in fair Characters all that men ought to know or believe of him all that they ought to do in obedience to his Will and that he hath given them a Will and Affection conformable to it This no doubt every one will think it better for men than that they should in the dark grope after Knowledge as St. Paul tells us all Nations did after God Acts XVII 27 than that their Wills should clash with their Understandings and their Appetites cross their Duty The Romanists say 'T is best for men and so suitable to the goodness of God that there should be an infallible Judge of Controversies on Earth and therefore there is one and I by the same Reason say 'T is better for men that every man himself should be infallible I leave them to consider whether by the force of this Argument they shall think that every man is so I think it a very good Argument to say the infinitely wise God hath made it so And therefore it is best But it seems to me a little too much Confidence of our own Wisdom to say I think it best and therefore God hath made it so and in the matter in Hand it will be in vain to argue from such a Topick that God hath done so when certain Experience shews us that he hath not But the Goodness of God hath not been wanting to men without such Original Impressions of Knowledge or Idea's stamped on the mind since he hath furnished Man with those Faculties which will serve for the sufficient discovery of all things requisite to the end of such a Being and I doubt not but to shew that a Man by the right use of his natural Abilities may without any innate Principles attain the knowledge of a God and other things that concern him God having endued Man with those Faculties of knowing which he hath was no more obliged by his Goodness to implant those innate Notions in his Mind than that having given him Reason Hands and Materials he should build him Bridges or Houses which some people in the World however of good parts do either totally want or are but ill provided of as well as others are wholly without Idea's of God and Principles of Morality or at least have but very ill ones The reason in both cases being That they never employ'd their Parts Faculties and Powers industriously that way but contented themselve with the Opinions Fashions and Things of their Country as they found them without looking any farther Had you or I been born at the Bay of Soldania possibly our Thoughts and Notions had not exceeded those bruitish ones of the Hotentots that inhabit there And had the Verginia King Apochancana been educated in England he had perhaps been as knowing a Divine and as good a Mathematician as any in it The difference between him and a more improved English-man lying barely in this That the exercise of his Faculties was bounded within the Ways Modes and Notions of his own Country and never directed to any other or farther Enquiries And if he had not any Idea of a God it was only because he pursued not those Thoughts that would have led him to it § 13. I grant That if there were any Idea's to be found imprinted on the Minds of Men we have reason to expect it should be the notion of his Maker as a mark GOD set on his own Workmanship to mind Man of his dependence and Duty and that herein should appear the first instances of humane Knowledge But how late is it before any such notion is discoverable in Children And when we find it there How much more does it resemble the Opinion and Notion of the Teacher than represent the True God He that shall observe in Children the progress whereby their Minds attain the knowledge they have will think that the Objects they do first and most familiarly converse with are those that make the first impressions on their Understandings Nor will he find the least footsteps of any other It is easie to take notice how their Thoughts enlarge themselves only as they come to be acquainted with a greater variety of sensible Objects to retain the Idea's of them in their memories and to get the skill to compound and enlarge them and several ways put them together How by these means they come to frame in their minds an Idea of a Deity I shall hereafter shew § 14. Can it be thought that the Idea's Men have of God are the Characters and Marks of Himself engraven in their Minds by his own finger when we see that in the same Country under one and the same Name Men have far different nay often contrary and inconsistent Idea's and conceptions of him Their agreeing in a name or sound will scarce prove an innate notion of Him § 15. What true or tolerable notion of a Deity could they have who acknowledged and worshipped hundreds Every Deity that they owned above one was an infallible evidence of their ignorance of Him and a proof that they had no true notion of God where Unity Infinity and Eternity were always excluded To which if we add their gross Conceptions of Corporiety expressed in their Images and Representations of their Deities the Amours Marriages Copulations Lusts Quarrels and other mean Qualities attributed by them to their gods we shall have little reason to think that the heathen World i. e. the greatest part of Mankind had such Idea's of God in their Minds as he himself out of care that they should not be mistaken about him was Author of And this universality of consent so much argued if it prove any native impressions 't will be only this That God imprinted on the Minds of all Men speaking the same Language a Name for Himself but not any Idea Since those People who agreed in the Name had at the same time far different apprehensions about the thing signified If they say That the variety of Deities worshipped by the heathen World were but figurative ways of expressing the several Attributes of that imcomprehensible Being or several parts of
other and then they will also begin to assent to that Proposition and make very little question of it ever after But such an assent upon hearing no more proves the Ideas to be innate than it does That one born blind with Cataracts which will be couched to morrow had the innate Ideas of the Sun or Light or Saffron or Yellow because when his Sight is cleared he will certainly assent to this Proposition That the Sun is lucid or that Saffron is yellow And therefore if such an assent upon hearing cannot prove the Ideas innate it can much less the Propositions made up of those Ideas If they have any innate Ideas I would be glad to be told what and how many they are § 20. Besides what I have already said there is another Reason why I doubt that neither these nor any other Principles are innate I that am fully perswaded that the infinitely Wise GOD made all Things in perfect Wisdom cannot satisfie my self why he should be supposed to print upon the Minds of Men some universal Principles whereof those that are pretended innate and concern Speculation are of no great use and those that concern Practice not self-evident and neither of them distinguishable from some other Truths not allowed to be innate For to what purpose should Characters be graven on the Mind by the finger of God which are not clearer there than those which are afterwards introduced or cannot be distinguish'd from If any one thinks there are such innate Ideas and Propositions which by their clearness and usefulness are distinguishable from all that is adventitious in the Mind and acquired it will not be a hard matter for him to tell us which they are and then every one will be a fit Judge whether they be so or no. Since if there be such innate Idea's and Impressions plainly different from all our other perceptions and knowledge every one will find it true in himself Of the evidence of these supposed innate Maxims I have spoken already of their usefulness I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter § 21. To conclude some Ideas forwardly offer themselves to all mens Understandings and some sorts of Truths result from any Ideas as soon as the Mind puts them into Propositions Other Truths require a train of Ideas placed in order a due comparing of them and deductions made with attention before they can be discovered and assented to Some of the first sort because of their general and easie reception have been mistaken for innate But the truth is Ideas and Notions are no more born with us than Arts and Sciences though some of them indeed offer themselves to our Faculties more readily than others and therefore are more generally received though that too be according as the Organs of our Bodies and Powers of our Minds happen to be employ'd God having fitted Men with faculties and means to discover observe and retain Truths accordingly as they are employ'd The great difference that is to be found in the Notion of Mankind is from the different use they put their Faculties to whilst some and those the most taking things upon trust misemploy their power of Assent by lazily enslaving their Minds to the Dictates and Dominion of others in Doctrines which it is their Duty carefully to examine and not blindly with an implicit saith to swallow Others employing their Thoughts only about some few things grow acquainted sufficiently with them attain great degrees of knowledge in them and are ignorant of all other having never let their Thoughts loose in the search of other Enquiries Thus that the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two Right ones is a Truth as certain as any thing can be and I think more evident than many of those Propositions that go for Principles and yet there are millions however expert in other things know not this at all because they never set their Thoughts on work about such Angles And he that certainly knows this Proposition may yet be utterly ignorant of the truth of other Propositions in Mathematicks it self which are as clear and evident as this because in his search of those mathematical Truths he stopp'd his Thoughts short and went not so far The same may happen concerning the notions we have of the Being of a Deity for though there be no Truth which a Man may more evidently make out to himself than the Existence of a God yet he that shall content himself with things as he finds them in this World as they minister to his Pleasures and Passions and not make enquiry a little farther into their Causes Ends and admirable Contrivances and pursue the thoughts thereof with diligence and attention may live long without any notion of such a Being And if any Person hath by talk put such a notion into his head he may perhaps believe it But if he hath never examined it his knowledge of it will be no perfecter than his who having been told that the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two Right ones takes it upon trust without examining the demonstration and may yield his assent as to a probable Opinion but hath no knowledge of the truth of it which yet his Faculties if carefully employ'd were able to make clear and evident to him But this only by the by to shew how much our knowledge depends upon the right use of those powers Nature hath bestowed upon us and how little upon those innate Principles which are in vain supposed to be in all Mankind for their direction which all Men could not but know if thy were there or else they would be there to no purpose § 22. What censure doubting thus of innate Principles may deserve from Men who will be apt to call it Pulling up the old foundation of Knowledge and Certainty I cannot tell I perswade my self at least that the way I have pursued being conformable to Truth lays those foundations surer This I am certain I have not made it my business either to quit or follow any Authority in the ensuing Discourse Truth has been my only aim and where-ever that has appeared to lead my Thoughts have impartially followed without minding whether the footsteps of any other lay that way or no. Not that I want a due respect to other Mens Opinions but after all the greatest reverence is due to Truth and I hope it will not be thought arrogance to say That perhaps we should make greater progress in the discovery of rational and contemplative Knowledge if we sought it in the Fountain in the consideration of Things themselves and made use rather of our own Thoughts than other Mens to find it For I think we may as rationally hope to see with other Mens Eyes as to know by other Mens Understandings So much as we our selves consider and comprehend of Truth and Reason so much we possess of real and true Knowledge The floating of other mens Opinions in our brains makes us not one jot the more
knowing though they happen to be true What in them was Science is in us but Opiniatrity whilst we give up our Assent only to reverend Names and do not as they did employ our own Reason to understand those Truths which gave them reputation Aristotle was certainly a knowing Man but no body ever thought him so because he blindly embraced and confidently vented the Opinions of another And if the taking up of another's Principles without examining them made not him a Philosopher I suppose it can make no body else so In the Sciences every one has so much as he really knows and comprehends What he believes only and takes upon trust are but shreads which however well in the whole piece make no considerable addition to his stock who gathers them Such borrowed Wealth like Fairy-money though it were Gold in the hand from which he received it will be but Leaves and Dust when it comes to use § 23. When Men have found some general Propositions that could not be doubted of as soon as understood it was I know a short and easie way to conclude them innate This being once received it eased the lazy from the pains of search and stopp'd the enquiry of the doubtful concerning all that was once stiled innate And it was of no small advantage to those who affected to be Masters and Teachers to make this the Principle of Principles That Principles must not be questioned For having once established this Tenet That there are innate Principles it put their Followers upon a necessity of receiving some Doctrines as such which was to take them off from the use of their own Reason and Judgment and put them upon believing and taking them upon trust without farther examination In which posture of blind Credulity they might be more easily governed by and made useful to some sort of Men who had the skill and office to principle and guide them Nor is it a small power it gives one Man over another to have the Authority to be the Dictator of Principles and Teacher of unquestionable Truths and to make a man swallow that for an innate Principle which may serve to his purpose who teacheth them Whereas had they examined the ways whereby men came to the knowledge of many universal Truths they would have found them to result in the Minds of men from the being of things themselves when duely considered and that they were discovered by the application of those Faculties that were fitted by Nature to receive and judge of them when duely employ'd about them § 24. To shew how the Vnderstanding proceeds herein is the design of the following Discourse which I shall proceed to when I have first premised that hitherto to clear my way to those foundations which I conceive are the only true ones whereon to establish those Notions we can have of our own Knowledge it hath been necessary for me to give you an account of the Reasons I had to doubt of innate Principles And since the Arguments which are against them do some of them rise from common received Opinions I have been forced to take several things for granted which is hardly avoidable to any one whose Task it is to shew the falshood or improbability of any Tenet it happening in Controversial Discourses as it does in assaulting of Towns where if the ground be but firm whereon the Batteries are erected there is no farther enquiry of whom it is borrowed nor whom it belongs to so it affords but a fit rise for the present purpose But in the future part of this Discourse designing to raise an Edifice uniform and consistent with it self as far as my own Experience and Observation will assist me I hope to lay the foundation so that the rest will easily depend upon it And I shall not need to shore it up with props and buttrices leaning on borrowed or begg'd foundations Or at least if mine prove a Castle in the Air I will endeavour it shall be all of a piece and hang together Wherein I tell you before-hand you are not to expect undeniable cogent demonstrations unless you will suffer me as others have done to take my Principles for granted and then I doubt not but I can demonstrate too All that I shall say for the Principles I proceed on is that I can only appeal to mens own unprejudiced Experience and Observations whether they be true or no and this is enough for a man who professes no more than to lay down candidly and freely his own Conjectures concerning a Subject not very obvious without any other design than an unbiass'd enquiry after Truth BOOK II. CHAP. I. Of Ideas in general and their Original § 1. EVery Man being conscious to himself That he thinks and that which his Mind is employ'd about whilst thinking being the Ideas that are there 't is past doubt than Men have in their Minds several Ideas such as are those expressed by the words Whiteness Hardness Sweetness Thinking Motion Man Elephant Army Drunkenness and others It is in the first place then to be enquired How he comes by them I know it is a received Doctrine That Men have native Ideas and original Characters stamped upon their Minds in their very first being This Opinion I have at large examined already and I suppose what I have said in the fore-going Book will be much more easily admitted when I have shewed whence the Understanding may get all the Ideas it has and by what ways and degrees they may come into the Mind for which I shall appeal to every one 's own Observation and Experience § 2. Let us then suppose the Mind to be as we say white Paper void of all Characters without any Ideas How comes it to be furnished Whence comes it by that vast store which the busie and boundless Fancy of Man has painted on it with an almost endless variety Whence has it all the materials of Reason and Knowledge To this I answer in one word From Experience In that all our Knowledge is founded and from that it ultimately derives it self Our Observation employ'd either about external sensible Objects or about the internal Operations of our Minds perceived and reflected on by our selves is that which supplies our Vnderstandings with all the materials of thinking These two are the Fountains of Knowledge from whence all the Ideas we have or can naturally have do spring § 3. First Our Senses conversant about particular sensible Objects do convey into the Mind several distinct Perceptions of things according to those various ways wherein those Objects do affect them And thus we come by those Ideas we have of Yellow White Heat Cold Soft Hard Bitter Sweet and all those which we call sensible qualities This great Source of most of the Ideas we have depending wholly upon our Senses and derived by them to our Understanding I call SENSATION § 4. Secondly The other Fountain from which Experience furnisheth the Understanding with Ideas is the Perception
of the Operations of our own Minds within us as it is employ'd about the Idea's it has got which Operations when the Soul comes to reflect on and consider do furnish the Understanding with another sett of Ideas which could not be had from things without and such are Perception Thinking Doubting Believing Reasoning Knowing Willing and all the different actings of our own Minds which we being conscious of and observing in our selves do from these receive into our Understanding as distinct Ideas as we do from Bodies affecting our Senses This Source of Ideas every Man has wholly in himself And though it be not Sense as having nothing to do with external Objects yet it is very like it and might properly enough be call'd internal Sense But as I call the other Sensation so I call this REFLECTION the Ideas it affords being such only as the Mind gets by reflecting on its own Operations within it self By REFLECTION then in the following part of this Discourse I would be understood to mean that notice which the Mind takes of its own Operations and the manner of them by reason whereof there come to be Ideas of these Operations in the Understanding These two I say viz. External Material things as the Objects of SENSATION and the Operations of our own Minds within as the Objects of REFLECTION are to me the only Originals from whence all our Idea's take their beginnings The term Operations here I use in a large sence as comprehending not barely the Actions of the Mind about its Ideas but some sort of Passions arising sometimes from them such as is the satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any thought § 5. The Understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any Ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two Eternal Objects furnish the Mind with the Ideas of sensible qualities which are all those different perceptions they produced in us And the Mind furnishes the Vnderstanding with Ideas of its own Operations These when we have taken a full survey of them and their several modes and the Compositions made out of them we shall find to contain all our whole stock of Ideas and that we have nothing in our Minds which did not come in one of these two ways Let any one examine his own Thoughts and throughly search into his Understanding and then let him tell me Whether all the original Ideas he has there are any other than of the Objects of his Senses or of the Operations of his Mind considered as Objects of his Reflection and how great a mass of Knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there he will upon taking a strict view see that he has not any Idea in his Mind but what one of those two have imprinted though perhaps with infinite variety compounded and enlarged by the Understanding as we shall see hereafter § 6. He that attentively considers the state of a Child at his first coming into the World will have little reason to think him stored with plenty of Ideas that are to be the matter of his future Knowledge 'T is by degrees he comes to be furnished with them And though the Ideas of obvious and familiar qualities imprint themselves before the Memory begins to keep a Register of Time and Order yet 't is often so late before some unusual qualities come in the way that there are few Men that cannot recollect the beginning of their acquaintance with them And if it were worth while no doubt a Child might be so ordered as to have but a very few even of the ordinary Ideas till he were grown up to a Man But being surrounded with Bodies that perpetually and diversly affect us variety of Idea's whether care be taken about it or no are imprinted on the Minds of Children Light and Colours are busie and at hand every-where when the Eye is but open Sounds and some tangible Qualities fail not to sollicite their proper Senses and force an entrance to the Mind but yet I think it will be granted easily That if a Child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but Black and White till he were a Man he would have no more Ideas of Scarlet or Green than he that from his Childhood never tasted an Oyster or a Pine-Apple has of those particular Relishes § 7. Men then come to be furnished with sewer or more simple Ideas from without according as the Objects they converse with afford greater or lesser variety and from the Operation of their Minds within according as they more or less reflect on them For though he that contemplates the Operations of his Mind cannot but have plain and clear Ideas of them yet unless he turn his Thoughts that way and considers them attentively he will no more have clear and distinct Ideas of all the Operations of his Mind and all that may be observed therein than he will have all the particular Ideas of any Landscape or of the Parts and Motions of a Clock who will not turn his Eyes to it and with attention heed all the Parts of it The Picture or Clock may be so placed that they may come in his way every Day but yet he will have but a confused Idea of all the Parts they are made up of till he applies himself with attention to consider them each in particular § 8. And hence we see the Reason why 't is pretty late before most Children get Ideas of the Operations of their own Minds and some have not any very clear or perfect Ideas of the greatest part of them all their Lives Because though they pass there continually yet like floating Visions they make not deep Impressions enough to leave in the Mind clear and distinct lasting Ideas till the Understanding turn inwards upon its self and reflect on its own Operations and make them the Object of its own Contemplation Whereas Children at their first coming into the World seek particularly after nothing but what may ease their Hunger or other Pain but take all other Objects as they come are generally pleased with all new ones that are not painful and so growing up in a constant attention to outward Sensations seldom make any considerable Reflection on what passes within them till they come to be of riper Years and some scarce ever at all § 9. To ask at what time a Man has first any Ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive having Ideas and Perception being the same thing I know it is an Opinion that the Soul always thinks and that it has the actual Perception of Ideas in its self constantly as long as it exists and that actual thinking is as inseparable from the Soul as actual Extension is from the Body which if true to enquire after the beginning of a Man's Idea's is the same as to enquire after the beginning of his Soul For by this Account Soul and Ideas as Body and Extension will begin to exist both at the same
since we oftentimes find a Disease quite strip the Mind of all its Ideas and the flames of a Fever in a few days calcines all those Images to dust and confusion which seem'd to be as lasting as if carved in Marble § 6. But concerning the Ideas themselves it is easie to remark That those that are oftenest refreshed amongst which are those that are conveyed into the Mind by more ways than one by a frequent return of the Objects or Actions that produce them fix themselves best in the Memory and remain clearest and longest there and therefore those which are of the original Qualities of Bodies viz. Solidity Extension Figure Motion and Rest and those that almost constantly affect our Bodies as Heat and Cold and those which are the Affections of all kind of Beings as Existence Duration and Number which almost every Object that affects our Senses every Thought which imploys our Minds bring along with them These I say and the like Ideas are seldom quite lost whilst the Mind retains any Ideas at all § 7. In this secundary Perception as I may so call it or viewing again the Ideas that are lodg'd in the Memory the Mind is oftentimes more than barely passive the appearance of those dormant Pictures depending sometimes on the Will The Mind very often sets it self on work in search of some hidden Idea and turns as it were the Eye of the Soul upon it though sometimes too they start up in our Minds of their own accord and offer themselves to the Understanding and very often are rouzed and tumbled out of their dark Cells into open Day-light by some turbulent and tempestuous Passion our Affections bringing Ideas to our Memory which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded § 8. Memory in an intellectual Creature is necessary in the next degree to Perception It is of so great moment that where it is wanting all the rest of our Faculties are in a great measure useless And we in our Thoughts Reasonings and Knowledge could not proceed beyond present Objects were it not for the assistance of our Memories wherein there may be two defects First That it loses the Idea quite and so far it produces perfect Ignorance For since we can know nothing farther than we have the Ideas of it when they are gone we are in perfect ignorance Secondly That it moves slowly and retrieves not the Ideas that it has and are laid up in store quick enough to serve the Mind upon occasions This if it be to a great degree is Stupidity and he who through this default in his Memory has not the Ideas that are really preserved there ready at hand when need and occasion calls for them were almost as good be without them quite since they serve him to little purpose The dull Man who loses the opportunity whilst he is seeking in his Mind for those Ideas that should serve his turn is not much more happy in his Knowledge than one that is perfectly ignorant 'T is the business therefore of the Memory to furnish to the Mind those dormant Ideas which it has present occasion for and in the having them ready at hand on all occasions consists that which we call Invention Fancy and quickness of Parts § 9. This faculty of laying up and retaining the Ideas that are brought into the Mind several other Animals seem to have to a great degree as well as Man For to pass by other instances Birds learning of Tunes and the endeavours one may observe in them to hit the Notes right put it past doubt with me that they have Perception and retain Ideas in their Memories and use them for Patterns For it seems to me impossible that they should endeavour to conform their Voices to Notes as 't is plain they do of which they had no Ideas For tho' I should grant Sound may mechanically cause a certain motion of the animal Spirits in the Brains of those Birds whilst the Tune is actually playing and that motion may be continued on to the Muscles of the Wings and so the Bird mechanically be driven away by certain noises because this may tend to the Birds preservation yet that can never be supposed a Reason why it should cause mechanically either whilst the Tune was playing much less after it has ceased such a motion in the Organs of the Bird's voice as should conform it to the Notes of a foreign Sound which imitation can be of no use to the Birds preservation But which is more it cannot with any appearance of Reason be suppos'd much less proved that Birds without Sense and Memory can approach their Notes nearer and nearer by degrees to a Tune play'd yesterday which if they have no Idea of in their Memory is now no-where nor can be a Pattern for them to imitate or which any repeated Essays can bring them nearer to Snce there is no reason why the sound of a Pipe should leave traces in their Brains which not at first but by their after-endeavours should produce the like Sounds and why the Sounds they make themselves should not make traces which they should follow as well as those of the Pipe is impossible to conceive CHAP. XI Of Discerning and other Operations of the Mind § 1. ANother Faculty we may take notice of in our Minds is that of Discerning and distinguishing between the several Ideas it has It is not enough to have a confused perception of something in general Unless the Mind had a distinct perception of different Objects and their Qualities it would be capable of very little Knowledge though the Bodies that affect us were as busie about us as they are now and the Mind were continually employ'd in thinking On this faculty of Distinguishing one thing from another depends the evidence and certainty of several even very general Propositions which have passed for innate Truths because Men over-looking the true cause why those Propositions find universal assent impute it wholly to native uniform Impressions whereas it in truth depends upon this clear discerning Faculty of the Mind whereby it perceives two Ideas to be the same or different But of this more hereafter § 2. How much the imperfection of accurately discriminating Ideas one from another lies either in the dulness or faults of the Organs of Sense or want of accuteness exercise or attention in the Understanding or hastiness and precipitancy natural to some Tempers I will not here examine It suffices to take notice that this is one of the Operations that the Mind may reflect on and observe in it self It is of that consequence to its other Knowledge that so far as this faculty is in it self dull or not rightly made use of for the distinguishing one thing from another so far our Notions are confused and our Reason and Judgment disturbed or misled If in having our Ideas in the Memory ready at hand consists quickness of parts in this of having them unconfused and being able nicely to distinguish one thing
from another where there is but the least difference consists in a great measure the exactness of Judgment and clearness of Reason which is to be observed in one Man above another And hence perhaps may be given some Reason of that common Observation That Men who have a great deal of Wit and prompt Memories have not always the clearest Judgment or deepest Reason For Wit lying most in the assemblage of Ideas and putting those together with quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity thereby to make up pleasant Pictures and agreeable Visions in the Fancy Iudgment on the contrary lies quite on the other side in separating carefully Ideas one from another wherein can be found the least difference thereby to avoid being misled by Similitude and by affinity to take one thing for another This is a way of proceeding quite contrary to Metaphor and Allusion wherein for the most part lies that entertainment and pleasantry of Wit which strikes so lively on the Fancy and therefore so accepable to all People because its Beauty appears at first sight and there is required no labour of thought to examine what Truth or Reason there is in it The Mind without looking any farther rests satisfied with the pleasantness of the Picture and the gayety of the Fancy And it is a kind of an affront to go about to examine it by the severe Rules of Truth and good Reason whereby it appears that it consists in something that is not perfectly conformable to them § 3. To the well distinguishing our Ideas it chiefly contributes that they be clear and determinate And when they are so it will not breed any confusion or mistake about them though the Senses should as sometimes they do convey them from the same Object differently on different occasions and so seem to err For though a Man in a Fever should from Sugar have a bitter taste which at another time would produce a sweet one yet the Idea of Bitter in that Man's Mind would be as clear and distinct from the Idea of Sweet as if he had tasted only Gall. Nor does it make any more confusion between the two Ideas of Sweet and Bitter that the same sort of Body produces at one time one and at another time another Idea by the taste than it makes a confusion in the two Ideas of White and Sweet or White and Round that the same piece of Sugar produces them both in the Mind at the same time And the Ideas of Orange-colour and Azure that are produced in the Mind by the same parcel of the infusion of Lignum Nephriticum are no less distinct Ideas than those of the same Colours taken from two very different Bodies § 4. The COMPARING them one with another in respect of Extent Degrees Time Place or any other circumstances is another operation of the Mind about its Ideas and is that upon which depends all that large tribe of Ideas comprehended under Relation which of how vast an extent it is I shall have occasion to consider hereafter § 5. How far Brutes partake in this faculty is not easie to determine I imagine they have it not in any great degree For though they probably have several Ideas distinct enough yet it seems to me to be the Prerogative of Humane Understanding when it has sufficiently distinguished any Ideas so as to perceive them to be perfectly different and so consequently two to cast about and consider in what circumstances they are capable to be compared And therefore I think Beasts compare not their Ideas farther than some sensible Circumstances annexed to the Objects themselves The other power of Comparing which may be observed in Men belonging to general Ideas and useful only to abstract Reasonings we may probably conjecture Beasts have not § 6. The next Operation we may observe in the Mind about its Ideas is COMPOSITION whereby it puts together several of those simple ones it has received from Sensation and Reflection and combines them into complex ones Under this of Composition may be reckon'd also that of ENLARGING wherein though the Composition does not so much appear as in more complex ones yet it is nevertheless a putting several Ideas together though of the same kind Thus by adding several Unites together we make the Idea of a dozen and putting together the repeated Ideas of several Perches we frame that of a Furlong § 7. In this also I suppose Brutes come far short of Man For though they take in and retain together several Combinations of simple Ideas as possibly the Shape Smell and Voice of his Master make up a complex Idea a Dog has of him or rather are so many distinct Marks whereby he knows him yet I do not think they do of themselves ever compound them and make complex Ideas And perhaps even where we think they have complex Ideas 't is only one simple one that directs them in the knowledge of several things which possibly they distinguish less by their Sight than we imagine For I have been credibly infomed that a Bitch will nurse play with and be fond of young Foxes as much as and in place of her Puppies if you can but get them once to suck her so long that her Milk may go through them § 8. When Children have by repeated Sensations got Ideas fixed in their Memories they begin by degrees to learn the use of Signs And when they have got the skill to apply the Organs of Speech to the framing of articulate Sounds they begin to make use of Words to signifie their Ideas to others which words they sometimes borrow from others and sometimes make themselves as one may observe among the new and unusual Names Children often give to things in their first use of Language § 9. The use of Words then being to stand as outward Marks of our internal Ideas and those Ideas being taken from particular things if every particular Idea we take in should have a distinct Name Names must be endless To prevent this the Mind makes the particular Ideas received from particular Objects to become general which is done by considering them as they are in the Mind such Appearances separate from all other Existencies and the circumstances of real Existence as Time Place or any other concomitant Ideas This is called ABSTRACTION whereby Ideas taken from particular Beings become general Representatives of all of the same kind and their Names general Names applicable to whatever exists conformable to such abstract Ideas Such precise naked Appearances in the Mind without considering how whence or with what others they came there the Understanding lays up with Names commonly annexed to them as the Standards to rank real Existencies into sorts as they agree with these Patterns and to denominate them accordingly Thus the same Colour being observed to day in Chalk or Snow which the Mind yesterday received from Milk it considers that Appearance alone makes it a representative of all of
be reckoned its active Powers and passive Capacities which though not strictly simple Ideas yet in this respect for brevities sake may conveniently enough be reckoned amongst them Thus the power of drawing Iron is one of the Ideas of the Complex one of that substance we call a Load-stone and a Power to be so drawn is a part of the Complex one we call Iron which Powers pass for inherent Qualities in those Subjects Because every Substance being as apt by the Powers we observe in it to change some sensible Qualities in other Subjects as it is to produce in us those simple Ideas we receive immediately from it does by those new sensible Qualities introduced into other Subjects discover to us those Powers which do thereby mediately affect our Senses as regularly as its sensible Qualities do it immediately v. g. we immediately by our Senses perceive in Fire its Heat and Colour which are if rightly considered nothing but Powers in it to produce those Ideas in us We also by our Senses perceive the colour and brittleness of Charcoal whereby we come by the Knowledge of another Power in Fire which it has to change the colour and consistency of Wood By the former Fire immediately by the later it mediately discovers to us these several Powers which therefore we look upon to be a part of the Qualities of Fire and so make them a part of the complex Ideas of it For all those Powers that we take Cognizance of terminating only in the alteration of some sensible Qualities in those Subjects on which they operate and so making them exhibit to us new sensible Ideas therefore it is that I have reckoned these Powers amongst the simple Ideas which make the complex ones of the sorts of Substances though these Powers considered in themselves are truly complex Ideas And in this looser sense I crave leave to be understood when I name any of these Potentialities amongst the simple Ideas which we recollect in our Minds when we think of particular Substances For the Powers that are severally in them are necessary to be considered if we will have true distinct Notions of Substances § 8. Nor are we to wonder that Powers make a great part of our complex Ideas of Substances since their secondary Qualities are those which in most of them serve principally to distinguish Substances one from another and commonly make a considerable part of the complex Idea of the several sorts of them For our Senses failing us in the discovery of the Bulk Texture and Figure of the minute parts of Bodies on which their real Constitutions and Differences depend we are fain to make use of their secondary Qualities as the characteristical Notes and Marks whereby to frame Ideas of them in our Minds and distinguish them one from another All which secondary Qualities as has been shewn are nothing but bare Powers For the Colour and Taste of Opium are as well as its foporifick or anodyn Virtues meer Powers depending on its primary Qualities whereby it is sitted to produce different Operations on different parts of our Bodies The Ideas that make our complex ones of corporeal Substances are of these three sorts First The Ideas of the primary Qualities of things which are discovered by our Senses and are in them even when we perceive them not such are the Bulk Figure Number Situation and Motion of the Parts of Bodies which are really in them whether we perceive them or no. Secondly The sensible secondary Qualities which depending on these are nothing but the Powers those Substances have to produce several Ideas in us by our Senses which Ideas are not in the things themselves otherwise than as any thing is in its Cause Thirdly The aptness we consider in any Substance to give or receive such alterations of primary Qualities as that the Substance so altered should produce in us different Ideas from what it did before these are called active and passive Powers all which Powers as far as we have any Notice or Notion of them terminate only in sensible simple Ideas for whatever alteration a Load-stone has the Power to make in the minute Particles of Iron we should have no Notion of any Power it had at all to operate on Iron did not its sensible Motion discover it and I doubt not but there are a thousand Changes that Bodies we daily handle have a Power to cause in one another which we never suspect because they never appear in sensible effects § 10. Powers therefore justly make a great part of our complex Ideas of Substances He that will examine his complex Idea of Gold will find several of its Ideas that make it up to be only Powers as the Power of being melted but of keeping its weight in the Fire of being dissolved in Aq. Regia are Ideas as necessary to make up our complex Idea of Gold as its Colour and Weight which if duly considered are also nothing but different Powers For to speak truly Yellowness is not actually in Gold but is a Power in Gold to produce that Idea in us by our Eyes when placed in a due Light and the Heat which we cannot leave out of our Idea of the Sun is no more really in the Sun than the white Colour it introduces in Wax These are both equally Powers in the Sun operating by the Motion and Figure of its insensible Parts so on a Man as to make him have the Idea of Heat and so on Wax as to make it capable to produce in a Man the Idea of White § 11. Had we Senses acute enough to discern the minute particles of Bodies and the real Constitution on which their sensible Qualities depend I doubt not but they would produce quite different Ideas in us and that which is now the yellow Colour of Gold would then disappear and instead of it we should see an admirable Texture of parts of a certain Size and Figure This Microscopes plainly discover to us for what to our naked Eyes produces a certain Colour is by thus augmenting the acuteness of our Senses discovered to be quite a different thing and the thus altering as it were the proportion of the Bulk of the minute parts of a coloured Object to our usual Sight produces different Ideas from what it did before Thus Sand or pounded Glass which is opaque and white to the naked Eye is pellucid in a Microscope and a Hair seen this way looses its former Colour and is in a great measure pellucid with a mixture of some bright sparkling Colours such as appear from the refraction of Diamonds and other pellucid Bodies Blood to the naked Eye appears all red but by a good Microscope wherein its lesser parts appear shews only some few Globules of Red swimming in a pellucid Liquor and how these red Globules would appear if Glasses could be found that yet could magnifie them 1000 or 10000 times more is uncertain § 12. The infinitely wise contriver of us and
all things about us hath fitted our Senses Faculties and Organs to the conveniences of Life and the Business we have to do here We are able by our Senses to know and distinguish things and to examine them so far as to apply them to our Uses and several ways accommodate the Exigences of this Life We have insight enough into their admirable Contrivances and wonderful Effects to admire and magnifie the Wisdom Power and Goodness of their Author Such a Knowledge as this which is suited to our present Condition we want not Faculties to attain But it appears not that God intended we should have a perfect clear and adequate Knowledge of them that perhaps is not in the Comprehension of any finite Being We are furnished with Faculties dull and weak as they are to discover enough in the Creatures to lead us to the Knowledge of the Creator and the Knowledge of our Duty and we are fitted well enough with Abilities to provide for the Conveniences of living These are our Business in this World But were our Senses altered and made much quicker and acuter the appearance and outward Scheme of things would have quite another Face to us and I am apt to think would be inconsistent with our Being or at least well-being in this part of the Universe we inhabit He that considers how little our Constitution is able to bear a remove into parts of this Air not much higher than that we commonly breath in will have reason to be satisfied that in this Globe of Earth alotted for our Mansion the all-wise Architect has suited our Organs and the Bodies that are to affect them one to another If our Sense of Hearing were but 1000 times quicker than it is how would a perpetual noise distract us And we should in the quietest Retirement be less able to sleep or meditate than in the middle of a Sea-fight Nay if that most instructive of our Senses Seeing were in any Man 1000 or 100000 more acute than it is now by the best Microscope he would see things 1000 or 100000 less than he does now and so come nearer the Discovery of the Texture and Motion of the minute Parts of corporeal things and in many of them probably get Ideas of their internal Constitutions But then he would be in a quite different World from other People Nothing would appear the same to him and others the visible Ideas of every thing would be different So that I doubt Whether he and the rest of Men could discourse concerning the Objects of Sight or have any Communication about Colours their appearances being so wholly different And perhaps such a quickness and tenderness of Sight could not endure bright Sun-shine or so much as open Day-light nor take in but a very small part of any Object at once and that too only at a very near distance And if by the help of such Microscopical Eyes if I may so call them a Man could penetrate farther than ordinary into the secret Composition and radical Texture of Bodies he would not make any great advantage by the change if such an acute Sight would not serve to conduct him to the Market and Exchange If he could not see things he was to avoid at a convenient distance nor distinguish things he had to do with by those sensible Qualities others do He that was sharp-sighted enough to see the Configuration of the minute Particles of the Spring of a Clock and observe upon what peculiar Structure and Impulse its elastick Motion depends would no doubt discover something very admirable But if Eyes so framed could not view at once the Hand and the Characters of the Hour-plate and thereby at a distance see what a-Clock it was their Owner could not be much benefited by that acuteness which whilst it discovered the secret contrivance of the Parts of the Machin made him loose its use § 13. And here give me leave to propose an extravagant conjecture of mine viz. That since we have some Reason if there be any Credit to be given to the report of things that our Philosophy cannot account for to imagine that Spirits can assume to themselves Bodies of different Bulk Figure and Conformation of Parts Whether one great advantage some of them have over us may not lie in this that they can so frame and shape to themselves Organs of Sensation or Perception as to suit them to their present Design and the Circumstances of the Object they would consider For how much would that Man exceed all others in Knowledge who had but the Faculty so to alter the Structure of his Eyes that one Sense as to make it capable of all the several degrees of Vision which the assistence of Glasses casually at at first light on has taught us to conceive What wonders would he discover who could so fit his Eye to all sorts of Objects as to see when he pleased the Figure and Motion of the minute Particles in the Blood and other juices of Animals as distinctly as he does at other times the shape and motion of the Animals themselves But to us in our present State unalterable Organs so contrived as to discover the Figure and Motion of the minute parts of Bodies whereon depend those sensible Qualities we now observe in them would perhaps be of no advantage God has no doubt made us so as is best for us in our present Condition He hath fitted us for the Neighbourhood of the Bodies that surround us and we have to do with And though we cannot by the Faculties we have attain to a perfect Knowledge of Things yet they will serve us well enough for those ends above mentioned which are our great Concernment I beg my Reader 's Pardon for laying before him so wild a Phansie concerning the ways of Conception in Beings above us But how extravagant soever it be I doubt whether we can imagine any thing about the Knowledge of Angels but after this manner some way or other in proportion to what we find and observe in our selves And tho' we cannot but allow that the infinite Power and Wisdom of God may frame Creatures with a thousand other Faculties and ways of perceiving things without them than what we have Yet our Thoughts can go no farther than our own so impossible it is for us to enlarge our very Guesses beyond the Ideas received from our own Sensation and Reflection The Supposition at least that Angels do sometimes assume Bodies need not startle us since some of the most ancient and most learned Fathers of the Church seemed to believe that they had Bodies And this is certain that their state and way of Existence is unknown to us § 14. But to return to the Matter in Hand the Ideas we have of Substances and the ways we come by them I say our Ideas of Substances are nothing else but a Collection of a certain number of simple Ideas considered as united in one thing These Ideas of Substances though they
from another and having as clear and distinct Ideas in us of Thinking as of Solidity I know not why we may not as well allow a thinking thing without Solidity i. e. Immaâ—erial to exist as a solid thing without Thinking i. e. Matter to exist especially since it is no harder to conceive how Thinking should exist without Matter than how Matter should think For whensoever we would proceed beyond these simple Ideas we have from Sensation and Reflection and dive farther into the Nature of Things we fall presently into Darkness and Obscurity Perplexedness and Difficulties and can discover nothing farther but our own Blindness and Ignorance But which ever of these complex Ideas be clearest that of Body or Spirit this is evident that the simple Ideas that make them up are no other than what we have received from Sensation or Reflection and so is it of all our other Ideas of Substances even of God himself § 33. For if we examine the Idea we have of the incomprehensible supreme Being we shall find that we come by it the same way and that the complex Ideas we have both of God and separate Spirits are made up of the simple Ideas we receive from Reflection v. g. having from what we experiment in our selves got the Ideas of Existence and Duration of Knowledge and Power of Pleasure and Happiness and of several other Qualities and Powers which it is better to have than to be without when we would frame an Idea the most suitable we can to the supreme Being we enlarge every one of these with our Idea of Infinity and so putting them together make our complex Idea of God For that the Mind has such a power of enlarging some of its Ideas received from Sensation and Reflection has been already shewed § 34. If I find that I know some few things and some of them or all perhaps imperfectly I can frame an Idea of knowing twice as many which I can double again as often as I can add to number and thus enlarge my Idea of Knowledge by extending its Comprehension to all things existing or possible The same also I can do of knowing them more perfectly i. e. all their Qualities Powers Causes Consequences and Relations c. till all be perfectly known that is in them or can any way relate to them and thus frame the Idea of infinite or boundless Knowledge The same may also be done of Power till we come to that we call infinite and also of the Duration of Existence without beginning or end and so frame the Idea of an eternal Being The Degrees or Extent wherein we ascribe Existence Power Wisdom and all other Perfection which we can have any Ideas of to that Sovereign Being which we call God being all boundless and infinite we frame the best Idea of him our Minds are capable of all which is done I say by enlarging those simple Ideas we have taken from the Operations of our own Minds by reflection or by our Senses from exterior things to that vastness to which Infinity can extend them § 35. For it is Infinity which joined to our Ideas of Existence Power Knowledge c. makes that complex Idea whereby we represent to our selves the best we can the supreme Being For though in his own Essence which certainly we do not know not knowing the real Essence of a Peble or a Fly or of our own selves God be simple and uncompounded yet I think I may say we have no other Idea of him but a complex one of Existence Knowledge Power Happiness c. infinite and eternal which are all distinct Ideas and some of them being relative are again compounded of others all which being as has been shewn originally got from Sensation and Reflection go to make up the Idea or Notion we have of God § 36. This farther is to be observed that there is no Idea we attribute to God bating Infinity which is not also a part of our complex Idea of other Spirits Because being capable of no other simple Ideas belonging to any thing but Body but those which by reflection we receive from the Operation of our own Minds we can attribute to Spirits no other but what we receive from thence And all the difference we can put between them in our Contemplation of Spirits is only in the several Extents and Degrees of their Knowledge Power Duration Happiness c. For that in our Ideas as well of Spirits as of other things we are restrained to those we receive from Sensation and Reflection is evident from hence that in our Ideas of Spirits how much soever advanced in Perfection beyond those of Bodies even to that of Infinite we cannot yet have any Idea of the manner wherein they discover their Thoughts one to another Though we must necessarily conclude that Spirits which are Beings that have perfecter Knowledge and greater Happiness than we must needs have also a perfecter way of communicating their Thoughts than we have who are fain to make use of corporeal Signs and particularly Sounds which are therefore of most general use as being the best and quickest we are capable of But of immediate Communication having no Experiment in our selves and consequently no Notion of it at all we have no Idea how Spirits which use not Words can with quickness or much less how Spirits that have no Bodies can be Masters of their own Thoughts and communicate or conceal them at Pleasure though we cannot but necessarily suppose they have such a Power § 37. And thus we have seen what kind of Ideas we have of Substances of all kinds wherein they consist and how we come by them From whence I think it is very evident First That all our Ideas of the several sorts of Substances are nothing but Collections of simple Ideas with a Supposition of something to which they belong and in which they subsist though of this supposed something we have no clear distinct Idea at all Secondly That all the complex Ideas we have of Substances are made up of no other simple Ideas but such as we have received from Sensation or Reflection So that even in those which we think we are most intimately acquainted with and come nearest the Comprehension of our most enlarged Conceptions cannot reach beyond those simple Ideas And even in those which seem most remote from all we have to do with and do infinitely surpass any thing we can perceive in our selves by Reflection or discover by Sensation in other things we can attain to nothing but these simple Ideas which we originally received from Sensation or Reflection as is evident in the complex Ideas we have of Angels and particularly of God himself Thirdly That most of the simple Ideas that make up our complex Ideas of Substances when truly considered are only Powers however we are apt to take them for positive Qualities v. g. the greatest part of the Ideas that make our complex Idea of Gold are
absolute because they neither signifie nor intimate any thing but what does or is supposed really to exist in the Man thus denominated But Father Brother King Husband Blacker Merrier c. are Words which together with the thing they denominate imply also something else separate and exterior to the existence of that thing § 11. Having laid down these Premises concerning Relation in general I shall now proceed to shew in some instances how all the Ideas we have of Relation are made up as the others are only of simple Ideas and that they all how refined or remote from Sense soever they seem terminate at last in simple Ideas I shall begin with the most comprehensive Relation wherein all things that do or can exist are concerned and that is the Relation of Cause and Effect The Idea whereof how derived from the two Fountains of all our Knowledge Sensation and Reflection I shall in the next place consider CHAP. XXVI Of Cause and Effect and other Relations § 1. IN the notice that our Senses take of the constant Vicissitude of Things we cannot but observe that several particular both Qualities and Substances begin to exist and that they receive this their Existence from the due Application and Operation of some other Being From this Observation we get our Ideas of Cause and Effect That which produces any simple or complex Idea we denote by the general Name Cause and that which is produced Effect Thus finding that in that Substance which we call Wax Fluidity which is a simple Idea that was not in it before is constantly produced by the Application of a certain degree of Heat we call the simple Idea of Heat in relation to Fluidity in Wax the Cause of it and Fluidity the Effect So also finding that the Substance Wood which is a certain Collection of simple Ideas so called will by the Application of Fire be turned into another Substance called Ashes i. e. another complex Idea consisting of a Collection of simple Ideas quite different from that complex Idea which we call Wood we consider Fire in relation to Ashes as Cause and the Ashes as Effect So that whatever is considered by us to conduce or operate to the producing any particular simple Idea or Collection of simple Ideas whether Substance or Mode which did not before exist hath thereby in our Minds the relation of a Cause and so is denominated by us § 2. Having thus from what our Senses are able to discover in the Operations of Bodies on one another got the Notion of Cause and Effect viz. That a Cause is that which makes any other thing either simple Idea Substance or Mode begin to be and an Effect is that which had its Beginning from some other thing The Mind finds no great difficulty to distinguish the several Originals of things into two sorts First When the thing is wholly made new so that no part thereof did ever exist before as when a new Particle of Matter doth begin to exist in rerum natura which had before no Being and this we call Creation Secondly When a thing is made up of Particles which did all of them before exist but that very thing so constituted of pre-existing Particles which considered altogether make up such a Collection of simple Ideas had not any Existence before as this Man this Egg Rose or Cherry c. And this when referred to a Substance produced in the ordinary course of Nature by an internal Principle but set on work by and received from some external Agent or Cause and working by insensible ways which we perceive not we call Generation when the Cause is extrinsical and the Effect produced by a sensible Separation or juxta Position of discernable Parts we call it Making and such are all artificial things When any simple Idea is produced which was not in that Subject before we call it Alteration Thus a Man is generated a Picture made and either of them altered when any new sensible Quality or simple Idea is produced in either of them which was not there before and the things thus made to exist which were not there before are Effects and those things which operated to the Existence Causes In which and all other Cases we may observe that the Notion of Cause and Effect has its rise from Ideas received by Sensation or Reflection and that this Relation how comprehensive soever terminates at last in them For to have the Idea of Cause and Effect it suffices to consider any simple Idea or Substance as beginning to exist by the Operation of some other without knowing the manner of that Operation § 3. Time and Place are also the Foundations of very large Relations and all finite Beings at least are concerned in them But having already shewn in another Place how we got these Ideas it may suffice here to intimate that most of the Denominations of things received from time are only Relations thus when any one says that Queen Elizabeth lived sixty nine and reigned forty five years these Words import only the Relation of that Duration to some other and means no more but this that the Duration of her Existence was equal to sixty nine and the Duration of her Government to forty five Annual Revolutions of the Sun and so are all Words answering how long Again William the Conqueror invaded England about the year 1070. which means this that taking the Duration from our Saviour's Time till now for one entire great length of time it shews at what distance this Invasion was from the two Extremes and so do all Words of time answering to the Question when which shew only the distance of any point of time from the Period of a longer Duration from which we measure and to which we thereby consider it as related § 4 There are yet besides those other Words of time that ordinarily are thought to stand for positive Ideas which yet will when considered be found to be relative such as are Young Old c. which include and intimate the Relation any things has to a certain length of Duration whereof we have the Idea in our Minds Thus having setled in our Thoughts the Idea of the ordinary Duration of a Man to be seventy years when we say a Man is Young we mean that his Age is yet but a small part of that which usually Men attain to And when we denominate him Old we mean that his Duration is run out almost to the end of that which Men do not usually exceed And so 't is but comparing the particular Age or Duration of this or that Man to the Idea of that Duration which we have in our Minds as ordinarily belonging to that sort of Animals Which is plain in the application of these Names to other Things for a Man is called young at twenty years and very young at seven years old But yet a Horse we call old at twenty and a Dog at seven years because in each of these
find the Colour of Gold we are apt to imagine all the other Qualities comprehended in our complex Idea to be there also and we commonly take these two obvious Qualities viz. Shape and Colour for so presumptive Ideas of several Species that in a good Picture we readily say this is a Lion and that a Rose this is a Gold and that a Silver Goblet only by the different Figures and Colours represented to the Eye by the Pencil § 29. But though this serves well enough for gross and confused Conceptions and unaccurate ways of Talking and Thinking yet Men are far enough from having agreed on the precise number of simple Ideas or Qualities belonging to any sort of Things signified by its name Nor is it a wonder since it requires much time pains and skill strict enquiry and long examination to find out what and how many those simple Ideas are which are constantly and inseparably united in Nature and are always to be found together in the same Subject Most Men wanting either Time Inclination or Industry enough for this even to some tolerable degree content themselves with some few obvious and outward appearances of Things thereby readily to distinguish and sort them for the common Affairs of Life And so without farther examination give them names or take up the names already in use Which though in common Conversation they pass well enough for the signs of some few obvious Qualities co-existing are yet far enough from comprehending in a setled signification a precise number of simple Ideas much less all those which are united in Nature He that shall consider after so much stir about Genus and Species and such a deal of talk of specifick Differences how few Words we have yet setled Definitions of may with Reason imagine that those Forms there hath been so much noise made about are only Chimaeras which give us no light into the specifick Natures of Things◠And he that shall consider how far the names of Substances are from having Significations wherein all who use them do agree will have reason to conclude that though the nominal Essences of Substances are all supposed to be copied from Nature◠yet they are all or most of them very imperfect Since the composition of those complex Ideas are in seveveral Men very different and therefore that these Boundaries of Species are as Men and not as Nature makes them if at least there are in Nature any such prefixed bounds 'T is true that many particular Substances are so made by Nature that they have agreement and likeness one with another and so afford a fundation of being ranked into Sorts But the sorting of Things by us or the making of determinate Species being in order to naming and comprehending them under general terms I cannot see how it can be properly said that Nature sets the Boundaries of the Species of Things Or if it be so our Boundaries of Species are not exactly conformable to those in Nature For we having need of general names for present use stay not for a perfect discovery of all those Qualities which would best shew us their most material differences and agreements but we our selves divide them by certain obvious appearances into Species that we may the easier under general names communicate about them For having no other knowledge of any Substance but of the simple Ideas that are united in it and observing several particular Things to agree with others in several of those simple Ideas we make that collection our specifick Idea and give it a general name that in recording our own Thoughts and Discourse with others we may in one short word design all the Individuals that agree in that complex Idea without enumerating the simple Ideas that make it up and so not waste our Time and Breath in tedious Descriptions which we see they are fain to do who would discourse of any new sort of Things they have not yet a name for § 30. But however these Species of Substances pass well enough in ordinary Conversation it is plain enough that this complex Idea wherein they observe several Individuals to agree is by different Men made very differently by some more and others less accurately In some this complex Idea contains a greater and in others a smaller number of Qualities and so is apparently such as the Mind makes it The yellow shining colour makes Gold to Children others add Weight Malleableness and Fusibility and others yet other Qualities they find joined with that yellow Colour as constantly as its Weight or Fusibility For in all these and the like Qualities one has as good a right to be put into the complex Idea of that Substance wherein they are all join'd as another And therefore different Men leaving out or putting in several simple Ideas which others do not according to their various Examination Skill or Observation of that subject have different Essences of Gold which must therefore be of their own and not of Nature's making § 31. If the number of simple Ideas that make the nominal Essence of the lowest Species or first sorting of Individuals depend on the Mind of Man variously collecting them it is much more evident that they do so in the more comprehensive Classes which by the Masters of Logick are called Genera which are complex Ideas designedly imperfect out of which are purposely left out several of those Qualities that are to be found in the Things themselves For as the Mind to make general Ideas comprehending several particulars leaves out those of Time and Place and such other that make them incommunicable to more than one Individual so to make other yet more general Ideas that may comprehend different sorts it leaves out those Qualities that distinguish them and puts into its new Collection only such Ideas as are common to several sorts The same convenience that made Men express several parcels of yellow Matter coming from Guiny and Peru under one name sets them also upon making of one name that may comprehend both Gold and Silver and some other Bodies of different sorts which it does by the same way of leaving out those Qualities which are peculiar to each sort and retaining a complex Idea made up of those that are common to each Species to which the name Metal being annexed there is a Genus constituted the Essence whereof being that abstract Idea containing only Malleableness and Fusibility with certain degrees of Weight and Fixedness wherein Bodies of several kinds agree leaves out the Colour and other Qualities peculiar to Gold and Silver and the other sorts comprehended under the name Metal Whereby it is plain that Men follow not exactly the Patterns set them by Nature when they make their general Ideas of Substances since there is no Body to be found which has barely Malleableness and Fusibility in it without other Qualities as inseparable as those But Men in making their general Ideas seeking more the convenience of Language and quick
continuation of a Discourse or the pursuit of an Argument there be hardly room to digress into a particular Definition as often as a Man varies the signification of any Term yet the import of the Discourse will for the most part if there be no designed fallacy sufficiently lead candid and intelligent Readers into the true meaning of it but where that is not sufficient to guide the Reader there it concerns the Writer to explain his meaning and shew in what sense he there uses that Term. BOOK IV. CHAP. I. Of Knowledge in general § 1. SInce the Mind in all its Thoughts and Reasonings hath no other immediate Object but its own Ideas which it alone does or can contemplate it is evident that our Knowledge is only conversant about them § 2. Knowledge then seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas In this alone it consists Where this Perception is there is Knowledge and where it is not there though we may fansie guess or believe yet we always come short of Knowledge For when we know that White is not Black what do we else but perceive that these two Ideas do not agree When we possess our selves with the utmost security of the Demonstration that the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones What do we more but perceive that Equality to two right ones does necessarily agree to and is inseparable from the three Angles of a Triangle § 3. But to understand a little more distinctly wherein this Agreement of Disagreement consists I think we may reduce it all to these four sorts 1. Identity or Diversity 2. Relation 3. Co-existence or necessary Connexion 4. Real Existence § 4. First As to the first sort of Agreement or Disagreement viz. Identiy or Diversity 'T is the first Act of the Mind when it has any Sentiments or Ideas at all to perceive its Ideas and so far as it perceives them to know each what it is and thereby also to perceive their difference and that one is not another This is so absolutely necessary that without it there could be no Knowledge no Reasoning no Imagination no distinct Thoughts at all By this the Mind clearly and infallibly perceives each Idea to agree with it self and to be what it is and all distinct Ideas to disagree i. e. the one not to be the other And this it does without any pains labour or deduction but at first view by its natural power of Perception and Distinction And though Men of Art have reduced this into those general Rules What is is and it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be for ready application in all cases wherein there may be occasion to reflect on it yet it is certain that the first exercise of this Faculty is about particular Ideas A Man infallibly knows as soon as ever he has them in his Mind that the Ideas he calls White and Round are the very Ideas they are and that they are not other Ideas which he calls Red or Square Nor can any Maxim or Proposition in the World make him know it clearer or surer than he did before or without any such general Rule This then is the first agreement or disagreement which the Mind perceives in its Ideas which it always perceives at first sight And if there ever happen any doubt about it 't will always be found to be about the Names and not the Ideas themselves whose Identity and Diversity will always be perceived as soon and as clearly as the Ideas themselves are nor can it possibly be otherwise § 5. Secondly The next sort of Agreement or Disagreement the Mind perceives in any of its Ideas may I think be called Relative and is nothing but the Perception of the Relation between any two Ideas of what kind soever whether Substances Modes or any other For since all distinct Ideas must eternally be known not to be the same and so be universally and constantly denied one of another there could be no room for any positive Knowledge at all if we could not perceive any Relation between our Ideas and find out the Agreement or Disagreement they have one with another in several ways the Mind takes of comparing them § 6. Thirdly The third sort of Agreement or Disagreement to be found in our Ideas which the Perception of the Mind is employ'd about is Co-existence or non-Co-existence in the same Subject and this belongs particularly to Substances Thus when we pronounce concerning Gold that it is fixed our Knowledge of this Truth amounts to no more but this that Fixedness or a power to remain in the Fire unconsumed is an Idea that always accompanies and is join'd with that particular sort of Yellowness Weight Fusibility Malleableness and Solubility in Aq. Regia which make our complex Idea signified by the word Gold § 7. Fourthly The fourth and last sort is that of actual real Existence agreeing to any Idea Within these four sorts of Agreement or Disagreement is I suppose contained all the Knowledge we have or are capable of For all the Enquiries that we can make concerning any of our Ideas all that we know or can affirm concerning any of them is That it is or is not the same with some other that it does or does not always co-exist with some other Idea in the same Subject that it has this or that Relation to some other Idea or that it has a real Existence without the Mind Thus Blue is not Yellow is of Identity Two Triangles upon equal Basis between two Parallels are equal is of Relation Iron is susceptible of magnetical Impressions is of Co-existence GOD is is of real Existence Though Identity and Co-existence are truly nothing but Relations yet they are so peculiar ways of Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas that they deserve well to be considered as distinct Heads and not under Relation in general since they are so different grounds of Affirmation and Negation as will easily appear to any one who will but reflect on what is said in several places of this Essay I should now proceed to examine the several degrees of our Knowledge but that it is necessary first to consider the different acceptations of the word Knowledge § 8. There are several ways wherein the Mind is possessed of Truth each of which is called Knowledge 1. There is actual Knowledge which is the present view the Mind has of the Agreement or Disagreement of any of its Ideas or of the Relation they have one to another 2. A Man is said to know any Proposition which having been once laid before his Thoughts he evidently perceived the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas whereof it consists and so lodg'd it in his Memory that whenever that Proposition comes again to be reflected on he without doubt or hesitation embraces the right side assents to and is certain of the Truth of it
ordered as to reflect the greater number of Globules of Light and to give them that proper Rotation which is fit to produce this Sensation of White in us the more White will that Body appear that from an equal space sends to the Retina the greater number of such Corpuscles with that peculiar sort of Motion I do not say that the nature of Light consists in very small round Globules nor of Whiteness in such a texture of parts as gives a certain Rotation to these Globules when it reflects them for I am not now treating physically of Light or Colours But this I think I may say that I cannot and I would be glad any one would make intelligible that he did conceive how Bodies without us can any ways affect our Senses but by the immediate contact of the sensible Bodies themselves as in Tasting and Feeling or the impulse of some insensible Particles coming from them as in Seeing Hearing and Smelling by the different impulse of which Parts caused by their different Size Figure and Motion the variety of Sensations is produced in us § 12. Whether then they be Globules or no or whether they have a Verticity about their own Centres that produce the Idea of Whiteness in us this is certain that the more Particles of Light are reflected from a Body fitted to give them that peculiar Motion which produces the Sensation of Whiteness in us and possibly too the quicker the peculiar Motion is the whiter does the Body appear from which the greater number are reflected as is evident in the same piece of Paper put in the Sun-beams in the Shade and in a dark Hole in each of which it will produce in us the Idea of Whiteness in far different degrees § 13. Not knowing therefore what number of Particles nor what Motion of them is fit to produce any precise degree of Whiteness we cannot demonstrate the certain Equality of any two degrees of Whiteness because we have no certain Standard to measure them by nor Means to distinguish every the least real difference the only help we have being from our Senses which in this point fail us But where the difference is so great as to produce in the Mind clearly distinct Ideas whose differences can be perfectly retained there these Ideas of Colours as we see in different kinds as Blue and Red are as capable of Demonstration as Ideas of Number and Extension What I have here said of Whiteness and Colours I think holds true in all secundaries Qualities and their Modes § 14. These two viz. Intuition and Demonstration are the degrees of our Knowledge whatever comes short of one of these with what assurance soever embraced is but Faith or Opinion but not Knowledge at least in all general Truths There is indeed another Perception of the Mind employ'd about the particular existence of finite Beings without us which going beyond bare probability and yet not reaching perfectly to either of the fore-going degrees of Certainty passes under the name of Knowledge There can be nothing more certain than that the Idea we receive from an external Object is in our Minds this is intuitive Knowledge But whether there be any thing more than barely that Idea in our Minds whether we can thence certainly infer the existence of any thing without us which corresponds to that Idea is that whereof some Men think there may be a Question made because Men may have such Ideas in their Minds when no such Thing exists no such Object affects their Senses But yet here I think we are provided with an Evidence that puts us past doubting For I ask any one Whether he be not invincibly conscious to himself of a different Perception when he looks on the Sun by day and thinks on it by night when he actually tastes Wormwood or smells a Rose or only thinks on that Savour or Odour We as plainly find the difference there is between any Idea revived in our Minds by our own Memory and actually coming into our Minds by our Senses as we do between any two distinct Ideas If any one say a Dream may do the same thing and all these Ideas may be produced in us without any external Objects he may please to dream that I make him this answer 1. That 't is no great matter whether I remove his Scruple or no Where all is but dream Reasoning and Arguments are of no use Truth and Knowledge nothing 2. That I believe he will allow a very manifest difference between dreaming of being in a Fire and being actually in it But yet if he be resolved to appear so sceptical as to maintain that what I call being actually in the Fire is nothing but a dream and that we cannot thereby certainly know that any such thing as Fire actually exists without us I answer That we certainly finding that Pleasure or Pain follows upon the application of certain Objects to us whose Existence we perceive or dream that we perceive by our Senses this Certainty is as great as our Happiness or Misery beyond which we have no concernment to know or to be So that I think we may add to the two former sorts of Knowledge this also of the existence of particular external Objects by that perception and consciousness we have of the actual entrance of Ideas from them and allow these three degrees of Knowledge viz. Intuitive Demonstrative and Sensitive in each of which there are different degrees and ways of Evidence and Certainty § 15. But since our Knowledge is founded on and employ'd about only our Ideas Will it not follow from thence that it is conformable to our Ideas and that where our Ideas are clear and distinct or obscure and confused our Knowledge will be so too To which I answer No For our Knowledge consisting in the perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of any two Ideas its clearness or obscurity consists in the clearness or obscurity of that Perception and not in the clearness or obscurity of the Ideas themselves v. g. a Man that has as clear Ideas of the Angles of a Triangle and of Equality to two right ones as any Mathematician in the World may yet have but a very obscure Perception of their Agreement and so have but a very obscure Knowledg of it But obscure and confused Ideas can never produce any clear or distinct Knowledge because as far as any Ideas are confused or obscure so far the Mind can never perceive clearly whether they agree or disagree CHAP. III. Of the Extent of Humane Knowledge § 1. KNowledge as has been said lying in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of any of our Ideas it follows from hence That First We can have Knowledge no farther than we have Ideas § 2. Secondly That we can have no Knowledge farther than we can have Perception of that Agreement or Disagreement Which Perception being 1. Either by Intuition or the immediate comparing any two Ideas or 2. By Reason
it may be gone over more than once without any danger of the least change in the Ideas This cannot be thus done in moral Ideas we have no sensible marks that resemble them whereby we can set them down we have nothing but Words to express them by which though when written they remain the same yet the Ideas they stand for may change in the same Man and 't is very seldom that they are not different in different Persons Secondly Another thing that makes the greater difficulty in Ethicks is That moral Ideas are commonly more complex than those of the Figures ordinarily considered in Mathematicks from whence these two Inconveniences follow First That their names are of more uncertain Signification the precise Collection of simple Ideas they stand for not being so easily agreed on and so the Sign that is used for them in Communication always and in Thinking often does not always carry with it the same Idea Upon which the same Disorder Confusion and Error follows as would if a Man going to demonstrate something of an Heptagon should in the Diagram he took to do it leave out one of the Angles and by oversight make the Figure with one Angle less than the name ordinarily imported or he intended it should when at first he thought of his Demonstration This often happens and is hardly avoidable in very complex moral Ideas where the same name being retained one Angle i. e. one simple Idea is left out or put in in the complex one still called by the same name more at one time than another Secondly From the Complexedness of these moral Ideas there follows another Inconvenience viz. that the Mind cannot easily retain those precise Combinations so exactly and perfectly as is necessary in the Examination of the Habitudes and Correspondencies Agreements or Disagreements of several of them one with another especially where it is to be judged of by long Deductions and the intervention of several other complex Ideas to shew the Agreement or Disagreement of two remote ones The great help against this which Mathematicians find in Diagrams and Figures which remain unalterable in their Draughts is very apparent and the memory would often have great difficulty otherwise to retain them so exactly whilst the Mind went over the parts of them step by step to examine their several Correspondencies And though in casting up a long Summ either in Addition Multiplication or Division every part be only a Progression of the Mind taking a view of its own Ideas and considering their Agreement or Disagreement and the Resolution of the Question be nothing but the Result of the whole made up of such paticulars whereof the Mind has a clear Perception yet without setting down the several Parts by marks whose precise Significations are known and by marks that last and remain in view when the memory had let them go it would be almost impossible to carry so many different Ideas in Mind without confounding or letting slip some parts of the Reckoning and thereby making all our Reasonings about it useless In which Case the Cyphers or Marks help not the Mind at all to perceive the Agreement of any two or more Numbers their Equalities or Proportions That the Mind has only by Intuition of its own Ideas of the Numbers themselves But the numerical Characters are helps to the memory to record and retain the several Ideas about which the Demonstration is made whereby a man may know how far his intuitive Knowledge in surveying several of the particulars has proceeded that so he may without Confusion go on to what is yet unknown and at last have in one view before him the Result of all his Perceptions and Reasonings § 20 One part of these Disadvantages in moral Ideas which has made them be thought not capable of Demonstration may in a good measure be remedied by Definitions setting down that Collection of simple Ideas which every Term shall stand for and then using the Terms stedily and constantly for that precise Collection And what methods Algebra or something of that kind may hereafter suggest to remove the other difficulties is not easie to foretell Confident I am that if Men would in the same method and with the same indifferency search after moral as they do mathematical Truths they would find them to have a stronger Connexion one with another and a more necessary Consequence from our clear and distinct Ideas and to come nearer perfect Demonstration than is commonly imagined But much of this is not to be expected whilst the desire of Esteem Riches or Power makes Men espouse the well endowed Opinions in Fashion and then seek Arguments either to make good their Beauty or varnish over and cover their Deformity nothing being so beautiful to the Eye as Truth is to the Mind nothing so deformed and irreconcileable to the Understanding as a Lye For though many a Man can with satisfaction enough own a no very handsome Wife in his Bosom yet who is bold enough openly to avow that he has espoused a Falshood and received into his Breast so ugly a thing as a Lye Whilst the Parties of Men I say cram their Tenents down all Men's Throats whom they can get into their Power without permitting them to examine their Truth or Falshood and will not let Truth have fair Play in the World nor Men the Liberty to search after it What Improvements can be expected of this kind What greater Light can be hoped for in the moral Sciences The Subject part of Mankind in most Places might instead thereof with Egyptian Bondage expect Egyptian Darkness were not the Candle of the Lord set up by himself in Men's Minds which it is impossible for the Breath or Power of Man wholly to extinguish § 21. As to the fourth sort of our Knowledge viz. of the real actual Existence of Things without us we have an intuitive Knowledge of our own Existence a demonstrative Knowledge of the Existence of a God of the Existence of any thing else we have no other but a sensitive Knowledge which extends not beyond the Objects present to our Senses § 22. Our Knowledge being so narrow as I have shew'd it will perhaps give us some Light into the present State of our Minds if we look a little into the dark side and take a view of our Ignorance which being infinitely larger than our Knowledge may serve much to the quieting of Disputes and improvement of useful Knowledge if discovering how far we have clear and distinct Ideas we confine our Thoughts within the Contemplation of those Things that are within the reach of our Understandings and lanch not out into that Abyss of Darkness where we have not Eyes to see nor Faculties to perceive any thing out of a Presumption that nothing is beyond our Comprehension But to be satisfied of the Folly of such a Conceit we need not go far He that knows any thing knows this in the first place that he need
Nor can we conceive this Relation this connexion of these two Ideas to be possibly mutable or depend on any arbitrary Power which of choice made it thus or could make it otherwise But the coherence and continuity of the parts of Matter the production of Sensation in us of Colours and Sounds c. by impulse and motion nay the original Rules and Communication of Motion being such wherein we can discover no natural connexion with any Ideas we have we cannot but ascribe them to the arbitrary Will and good Pleasure of the Wise Architect I need not I think here mention the Resurrection of our Bodies the future state of this Globe of Earth and such other Things which are by every one acknowledged to depend wholly on the Determination of a free Agent The Things that as far as our Observation reaches we constantly find to proceed regularly we may conclude do act by a Law set them but yet a Law that we know not whereby though Causes work steddily and Effects constantly flow from them yet their Connexions and Dependencies being not discoverable in our Ideas we can have but an experimental Knowledge of them From all which 't is easie to perceive what a darkness we are involved in how little 't is of being and the things that are that we are capable to know And therefore we shall do no injury to our Knowledge when we modestly think with our selves that we are so far from being able to comprehend the whole nature of the Universe and all the things contained in it that we are not capable of a philosophical Knowledge of the Bodies that are about us and make a part of us Concerning their secundary Qualities Powers and Operations we can have no universal certainty Several Effects come every day within the notice of our Senses of which we have so far sensitive Knowledge but the causes manner and certainty of their production for the two foregoing Reasons we must be content to be ignorant of In these we can go no farther than particular Experience informs us of matter of fact and by Analogy to guess what Effects the like Bodies are upon other tryals like to produce But as to a perfect Science of natural Bodies not to mention spiritual Beings we are I think so far from being capable of any such thing that I conclude it lost labour to seek after it § 30. Thirdly Where we have adequate Ideas and where there is a certain and discoverable connexion between them yet we are often ignorant for want of tracing those Ideas we have or may have and finding out those intermediate Ideas which may shew us what habitude of agreement or disagreement they have one with another And thus many are ignorant of mathematical Truths not out of any imperfection of their Faculties or uncertainty in the Things themselves but for want of application in acquâ—ring examining and by due ways comparing those Ideas That which has most contributed to hinder the due tracing of our Ideas and finding out their Relations and Agreements or Disagreements one with another has been I suppose the ill use of Words It is impossible that Men should ever truly seek or certainly discover the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas themselves whilst their Thoughts flutter about or stick only in Sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations Mathematicians abstracting their Thoughts from Names and accustoming themselves to set before their Minds the Ideas themselves that they would consider and not Sounds instead of them have avoided thereby a great part of that perplexity puddering and confusion which has so much hindred Mens progress in other parts of Knowledge who sticking in Words of undetermined and uncertain signification were unable to distinguish True from False Certain from Probable Consistent from Inconsistent in their own Opinions Whereby the increase brought into the Stock of real Knowledge has been very little in proportion to the Schools Disputes and Writings the World has been fill'd with whilst Men being lost in the great Wood of Words knew not whereabout they were how far their Discoveries were advanced or what was wanting in their own or the general Stock of Knowledge Had Men in their discoveries of the material done as they have in those of the intellectual World involved all in the obscurity of uncertain and doubtful terms and ways of talking Volumes writ of Navigation and Voyages Theories and Stories of Zones and Tydes multiplied and disputed nay Ships built and Fleets set out would never have taught us the way beyond the Line and the Antipodes would be still as much unknown as when it was declared Heresie to hold there were any But having spoken sufficiently of Words and the ill or careless use that is commonly made of them I shall not say any thing more of it here § 31. Hitherto we have examined the extent of our Knowledge in respect of the several sorts of Beings that are There is another extent of it in respect of Vniversality which will also deserve to be considered and in this regard our Knowledge follows the Nature of our Ideas If the Ideas are abstract whose agreement or disagreement we perceive our Knowledge is universal For what is known of such general Ideas will be true of every particular thing in whom that Essence i. e. that abstract Idea is to be found and what is once known of such Ideas will be perpetually and for ever true So that as to all general Knowledge we must search and find it only in our own Minds and 't is only the examining of our own Ideas that furnisheth us with that Truths belonging to Essences of Things that is to abstract Ideas are eternal and are to be found out by the contemplation only of those Essences as the Existence of Things is to be known only from Experience But having more to of this in the Chapters where I shall speak of general and real Knowledge this may here suffice as to the Universality of our Knowledge in general CHAP. IV. Of the Reality of our Knowledge § 1. I doubt not but my Reader by this time may be apt to think that I have been all this while only building a Castle in the Air and be ready to say to me To what purpose all this stir Knowledge say you is only the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own Ideas but who knows what those Ideas may be Is there any thing so extravagant as the Imaginations of Men's Brains Where is the Head that has no Chimeras in it Or if there be a sober and a wise Man what difference will there be by your Rules between his Knowledge and that of the most extravagant Fancy in the World They both have their Ideas and perceive their agreement and disagreement one with another If there be any difference between them the advantage will be on the warm-headed Man's side as having the more Ideas and the more lively And so by your Rules he will be the more
knowing If it be true that all Knowledge lies only in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own Ideas the Visions of an Enthusiast and the Reasonings of a sober Man will be equally certain 'T is no matter how Things are so a Man observe but the agreement of his own Imaginations and talk conformably it is all Truth all Certainty Such Castles in the Air will be as strong Holds of Truth as the Demonstrations of Euclid That an Harpy is not a Centaur is by this way as certain knowledge and as much a Truth as that a Square is not a Circle But of what use is all this fine Knowledge of Men's own Imaginations to a Man that enquires after the reality of Things It matters not what Men's Fancies are 't is the Knowledge of Things that is only to be prized 't is this alone gives a value to our Reasonings and preference to one Man's Knowledge over another's that it is of Things as they really are and not of Dreams and Fancies § 2. To which I answer That if our Knowledge of our Ideas terminate in them and reach no farther where there is something farther intended our most serious Thoughts would be of little more use than the Resveries of a crazie brain and the Truths built thereon of no more weight than the Discourses of a Man who sees Things clearly in a Dream and with great assurance utters them But I hope before I have done to make it evident that this way of certainty by the knowledge of our own Ideas goes a little farther than bare Imagination and I believe it will appear that all the certainty of general Truths a Man has lies in nothing else § 3. 'T is evident the Mind knows not Things immediately but only by the intervention of the Ideas it has of them Our Knowledge therefore is real only so far as there is a conformity between our Ideas and the reality of Things But what shall be here the Criterion How shall the Mind when it perceives nothing but its own Ideas know that they agree with Things themselves This though it seem not to want difficulty yet I think there be two sorts of Ideas that we may be assured agree with Things § 4. First The first are simple Ideas which since the Mind as has been shewed can by no means make to it self must necessarily be the product of Things operating on the Mind in a natural way and producing therein those Perceptions which by the Wisdom and Will of our Maker they are ordained and adapted to From whence it follows that simple Ideas are not fictions of our Fancies but the natural and regular productions of Things without us really operating upon us and so carry with them all the conformity our state requires which is to represent Things under those appearances they are fitted to produce in us whereby we may distinguish the Substances they are in and apply them to our Uses Thus the Idea of Whiteness or Bitterness as it is in the Mind exactly answering that Power which is in any Body to produce it there has all the real conformity it can or ought to have with Things without us And this conformity between our simple Ideas and the existence of Things is sufficient for real Knowledge § 5. Secondly All our complex Ideas except those of Substances being Archetypes of the Mind 's own making not intended to be the Copies of any thing nor referred to the existence of any thing as to their Originals cannot want any conformity necessary to real Knowledge For that which is not designed to represent any thing but it self can never be capable of a wrong representation nor mislead us from the true apprehension of any thing by its dislikeness to it and such excepting those of Substances are all our complex Ideas which as I have shewed in another place are Combinations of Ideas which the Mind by its free choice puts together without considering any connexion they have in Nature And hence it is that in all these sorts the Ideas themselves are considered as the Archetypes and Things no otherwise regarded but as they are conformable to them So that we cannot but be infallibly certain that all the Knowledge we attain concerning these Ideas is real and reaches Things themselves Because in all our Thoughts Reasonings and Discourses of this kind we intend Things no farther than as they are conformable to our Ideas so that in these we cannot miss of a certain undoubted reality § 6. I doubt not but it will be easily granted that the Knowledge we may have of mathematical Truths is not only certain but real Knowledge not idle Chimeras of Men's Brains And yet if we will consider we shall find that it is only of our own Ideas The Mathematician considers the Truth and Properties belonging to a Rectangle or Circle only as they are in Idea in his own Mind for 't is possible he never found either of them existing mathematically i. e. precisely true in his Life But yet the knowledge he has of any Truths or Properties belonging to a Circle or any other mathematical Figure are nevertheless true and certain even of real Things existing because real Things are no farther concerned nor intended to be meant by any such Propositions than as Things really agree to those Archetypes in his Mind Is it true of the Idea of a Triangle that its three Angles are equal to two right ones It is true also of a Triangle where-ever it really exists What ever other Figure exists that is not exactly answerable to that Idea of a Triangle in his Mind is not at all concerned in that Proposition And therefore he is certain all his Knowledge concerning such Ideas is real Knowledge because intending Things no farther than they agree with those his Ideas he is sure what he knows concerning those Figures when they have barely an Ideal existence in his Mind will hold true of them also when they have a real existence in Matter his consideration being barely of those Figures which are the same where-ever or however they exist § 7. And hence it follows that moral Knowledge is as capable of real Certainty as Mathematicks For Certainty being but the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas and Demonstration nothing but the Perception of such Agreement by the Intervention of other Ideas or Mediums our moral Ideas as well as mathematical being Archetypes themselves and so adequate and compleat Ideas all the Agreement or Disagreement we shall find in them will produce real Knowledge as well as in mathematical Figures § 8. That which is requisite to make our Knowledge certain is the Clearness of our Ideas and that which is required to make it reâ—l is that they answer their Archetypes Nor let it be wondred that I place the Certainty of our Knowledge in the Consideration of our Ideas with so little Care and Regard as it may seem to the real Existence of
Things Since most of those Discourses which take up the Thoughts and engage the Disputes of those who pretend to make it their Business to enquire after Truth and Certainty will I presume upon Examination be found to be general Propositions and Notions in which Existence is not at all concerned All the Discourses of the Mathematicians about the squaring of a Circle conick Sections or any other part of Mathematicks concern not the Existence of any of those Figures but their Demonstrations which depend on their Ideas are the same whether there be any square or Circle existing in the World or no. In the same manner the Truth and Certainty of moral Discourses abstracts from the Lives of Men and the Existence of those Vertues in the World whereof they treat Nor is Tully's Offices less true because there is no Body in the World that exactly practices his Rules and lives up to that pattern of a vertuous Man which he has given us and which existed no where when he writ but in Idea If it be true in Speculation i. e. in Idea that Murther deserves Death it will also be true in Reality of any Action that exists comformable to that Idea of Murther As for other Actions the Truth of that Proposition concerns them not And thus it is of all other Species of Things which have no other Essences but those Ideas which are in the Minds of Men. § 9. But it will here be said that if moral Knowledge be placed in the Contemplation of our own moral Ideas and those as other Modes be of our own making What strange Notions will there be of Iustice and Temperance What confusion of Vertues and Vices if every one may make what Ideas of them he pleases No confusion nor disorder in the Things themselves nor the Reasonings about them no more than in Mathematicks there would be a disturbance in the Demonstration or a change in the Properties of Figures and their Relations one to another if a Man should make a Triangle with four Corners or a Trapezium with four right Angles that is in plain English change the Names of the Figures and call that by one Name which Mathematicians call'd ordinarily by another For let a Man make to himself the Idea of a Figure with three Angles whereof one is a right one and call it if he please Equilaterum or Trapezium or any thing else the Properties of and Demonstrations about that Idea will be the same as if he call'd it a Rectangular-Triangle I confess the change of the Name by the impropriety of Speech will at first disturb him who knows not what Idea it stands for but as soon as the Figure is drawn the Consequences and Demonstration are plain and clear And just the same is it in moral Knowledge let a Man have the Idea of taking from others without their Consent what their honest Industry has possessed them of and call this Iustice if he please He that takes the Name here without the Idea put to it will be mistaken by joining another Idea of his own to that Name But strip the Idea of that Name or take it such as it is in the Speaker's Mind and the same Things will agree to it as if you call'd it Injustice Indeed wrong Names in moral Discourses breed usually more disorder because they are not so easily rectified as in Mathematicks where the Figure once drawn and seen makes the Name useless and of no force For what need of a Sign when the Thing signified is present and in view But in moral Names that cannot be so easily and shorty done because of the many decompositions that go to the making up the complex Ideas of those Modes But yet for all this the miscalling of any of those Ideas contrary to the usual signification of the Words of that Language hinders not â— but we may have certain and demonstrative Knowledge of their several Agreements and Disagreements if we will carefully as in Mathematicks keep to the same precise Ideas and trace them in their several Relations one to another without being led away by their Names If we but separate the Idea under consideration from the Sign that stands for it our Knowledge goes equally on in the discovery of real Truth and Certainty whatever Sounds we make use of § 10. One thing more we are to take notice of That where GOD or any other Law-maker hath defined any Moral Names there they have made the Essence of that Species to which that Name belongs and there it is not safe to apply or use them otherwise But in other cases 't is bare impropriety of Speech to apply them contrary to the common usage of the Country But yet even this too disturbs not the certainty of that Knowledge which is still to be had by a due contemplation and comparing of those even nick-nam'd Ideas § 11. Thirdly There is another sort of complex Ideas which being referred to Archetypes without us may differ from them and so our Knowledge about them may come short of being real and these are our Ideas of Substances which consisting of a Collection of simple Ideas supposed taken from the Works of Nature may yet vary from them by having more or different Ideas united in them than are to be found united in the Things themselves From whence it comes to pass â—hat they may and often do fail of being exactly conformable to Things themselves § 12. I say then that to have Ideas of Substances which by being conformable to Things may afford us real Knowledge it is not enough as in Modes to put together such Ideas as have no inconsistency though they did never before so exist v. g. the Ideas of Sacrilege or Perjury c. were as real and true Ideas before as after the existence of any such fact But our Ideas of Substances being supposed Copies and referred to Archetypes without us must still be taken from something that does or has existed they must not consist of Ideas put together at the pleasure of our Thoughts without any real pattern they were taken from though we can perceive no inconsistence in such a Combination The reason whereof is because we knowing not what real Constitution it is of Substances whereon our simple Ideas depend and which really is the cause of the strict union of some of them one with another and the exclusion of others there are very few of them that we can be sure are or are not inconsistent in Nature any farther than Experience and sensible Observation reaches Herein therefore is founded the reality of our Knowledge concerning Substances that all our complex Ideas of them must be such and such only as are made up of such simple ones as have been discovered to co-exist in Nature And our Ideas being thus true though not perhaps very exact Copies are yet the Subjects of real as far as we have any Knowledge of them which as has been already shewed will not be
found to reach very far But so far as it does it will still be real Knowledge Whatever Ideas we have the Agreement we find they have with others will still be Knowledge If those Ideas be abstract it will be general Knowledge But to make it real concerning Substances the Ideas must be taken from the real existence of Things whatever simple Ideas have been found to co-exist in any Substance these we may with confidence join together again and so make abstract Ideas of Substances For whatever have once had an union in Nature may be united again § 13. This if we rightly consider and confine not our Thoughts and abstract Ideas to Names as if there were or could be no other Sorts of Things than what known Names had already determined and as it were set out we should think of Things with greater freedom and less confusion than perhaps we do 'T would possibly be thought a bold Paradox if not a very dangerous Falshood if I should say that some Changelings who have lived forty years together without any appearance of Reason are something between a Man and a Beast Which prejudice is founded upon nothing else but a false Supposition that these two Names Man and Beast stand for distinct Species so set out by real Essences that there can come no other Species between them Whereas if we will abstract from those Names and the Supposition of such specifick Essences made by Nature wherein all Things of the same Denominations did exactly and equally partake if we would not fansie that there were a certain number of these Essences wherein all Things as in Molds were cast and formed we should find that the Idea of the Shape Motion and Life of a Man without Reason is as much as distinct Idea and makes as much a distinct sort of Things from Man and Beast as the Idea of the Shape of an Ass with Reason would be different from either that of Man or Beast and be a Species of an Animal between or distinct from both § 14. Here every body will be ready to ask if Changelings may be supposed something between Man and Beast 'Pray what are they I answer Changelings which is as good a Word to signifie something different from the signification of MAN or BEAST as the Names Man and Beast are to have significations different one from the other This well considered would resolve this matter and shew my meaning without any more ado But I am not so unacquainted with the Zeal of some Men which enables them to spin Consequences and to see Religion threatned whenever any one ventures to quit their forms of Speaking as not to foresee what Names such a Proposition as this is like to be charged with And without doubt it will be asked If Changelings are something between Man and Beast what will become of them in the other World To which I answer 1. It concerns me not to know or enquire To their own Master they stand or fall It will make their state neither better nor worse whether we determine any thing of it or no They are in the hands of a faithful Creator and a bountiful Father who disposes not of his Creatures according to our narrow Thoughts or Opinions nor distinguishes them according to Names and Species of our Contrivance And we that know so little of this present World we are in may I think content our selves without being peremptory in defining the different state Creatures shall come into when they go off this Stage It may suffice us that he hath made known to all those who are capable of Instruction Discourse and Reasoning that they shall come to an account and receive according to what they have done in this Body § 15. But Secondly I answer The force of these Men's Question viz. will you deprive Changelings of a future state is founded on one of two Suppositions which are both false The first is That all Things that have the outward Shape and appearance of a Man must necessarily be designed to an immortal future Being after this Life Or secondly that whatever is of humane Birth must be so Take away these Imaginations and such Questions will be groundless and ridiculous I desire then those who think there is no more but an accidental difference between themselves and Changelings the Essence in both being exactly the same to consider whether they can imagine Immortality annexed to any outward shape of the Body the very proposing it is I suppose enough to make them disown it No one yet that ever I heard of how much soever immersed in Matter allow'd that Excellency to any Figure of the gross sensible outward parts as to affirm eternal Life due to it or necessary consequence of it or that any mass of Matter should after its dissolution here be again restored hereafter to an everlasting state of Sense Perception and Knowledge only because it was molded into this or that Figure and had such a particular frame of its visible parts Such an Opinion as this placing Immortality in a certain superficial Figure turns out of doors all consideration of Soul or Spirit and upon whose account alone some corporeal Beings have hitherto been concluded immortal and others not This is to attribute more to the outside than inside of Things to place the Excellency of a Man more in the external Shape of his Body than internal Perfections of his Soul which is but little better than to annex the great and inestimable advantage of Immortality and Life everlasting which he has above other material Beings To annex it I say to the Cut of his Beard or the Fashion of his Coat for this or that outward Make of our Bodies no more carries with it the hopes of an eternal Duration than the Fashion of a Man's Suit gives him reasonable grounds to imagine it will never wear out or that it will make him immortal 'T will perhaps be said that no Body thinks that the Shape makes any thing immortal but 't is the Shape is the sign of a rational Soul within which is immortal I wonder who made it the sign of any such Thing for barely saying it will not make it so It would require some Proofs to persuade one of it No Figure that I know speaks any such Language For it may as rationally be concluded that the dead Body of a Man wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of Life than there is in a Statue has yet nevertheless a living Soul in it because of its shape as that there is a rational Soul in a Changeling because he has the outside of a rational Creature when his Actions carry far less marks of Reason with them in the whole course of his Life than what are to be found in many a Beast § 16. But 't is the issue of rational Parents and must therefore be concluded to have a rational Soul I know not by what Logick you must conclude so I am
the Truth of others without proof which are as self-evident as these And upon the very same grounds intuitive Knowledge neither requires nor admits any proof one part of it more than another He that will suppose it does take away the foundation of all Knowledge and Certainty And he that needs any proof to make him certain and give his Assent to this Proposition that Two is equal to Two will also have need of a proof to make him admit that What is is He that needs a probation to convince him that Two is not Three that White is not Black that a Triangle is not a Circle c. or any other two clear distinct Ideas are not one and the same will need also a demonstration to convince him that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be § 20. And as these Maxims are of little use where we have clear and distinct Ideas so they are as I have shewed of dangerous use where our Ideas are not clear and distinct and where we use Words that are not annexed to clear and distinct Ideas but to such as are of a loose and wandering signification sometimes standing for one and sometimes for another Idea from which follows mistake and errour which these Maxims brought as proofs to establish Propositions wherein the terms stand for confused or uncertain Ideas do by their Authority confirm and rivet CHAP. VIII Of Trifling Propositions § 1. WHether the Maxims treated of in the fore-going Chapter be of that use to real Knowledge as is generally supposed I leave to be considered This I think may confidently be affirmed That there are universal Propositions that though they be certainly true yet they add no light to our Understandings bring no increase to our Knowledge Such are § 2. First All purely identical Propositions These obviously and at first blush appear to contain no Instruction in them For when we affirm the same term of it self whether it be barely verbal or whether it contains any clear and real Idea it shews us nothing but what we must certainly know before whether such a Proposition be either made by or proposed to us Indeed that most general one What is is may serve sometimes to shew a Man the absurdity he is guilty of when by circumlocution or equivocal terms he would in particular instances deny the same thing of it self because no body will so openly bid defiance to common sense as to affirm visible and direct Contradictions in plain Words Or if he does a Man is excused if he break off any farther discourse with him But yet I think I may say that neither that received Maxim nor any other identical Proposition teaches us any thing And though in such kind of Propositions this great and magnified Maxim boasted to be the foundation of Demonstration may be and often is made use of to confirm them yet all it proves amounts to no more than this That the same Word may with great certainty be affirmed of it self without any doubt of the Truth of any such Proposition and let me add also without any real Knowledge § 3. For at this rate any very ignorant person who can but make a Proposition and knows what he means when he says Ay or No may make a million of Propositions of whose Truth he may be infallibly certain and yet not know one thing in the World thereby v. g. what is a Soul is a Soul◠or a Soul is a Soul a Spirit is a Spirit a Fetiche is a Fetiche c. These all being equivalent to this Proposition viz. What is is i. e. what hath Existence hath Existence or who hath a Soul hath a Soul What is this more than trifling with Words It is but like a Monkey shifting his Oyster from one hand to the other and had he had but Words might no doubt have said Oyster in right hand is subject and Oyster in left hand is predicate and so might have made a self-evident Proposition of Oyster i. e. Oyster is Oyster and yet with all this not have been one whit the wiser or more knowing and that way of handling the matter would much at one have satisfied the Monkey's Hunger or a Man's Understanding and they would have improved in Knowledge and bulk together § 4. Secondly Another sort of trifling Propositions is when a part of the complex Idea is predicated of the Name of the whole a part of the definition of the Word defined Such are all Propositions wherein the Genus is predicated of the Species or more comprehensive of less comprehensive terms◠For what Information what Knowledge carries this Preposition in it viz. Lead is a Metal to a Man who knows the complex Idea the name Lead stands for All the simple Ideas that go to the complex one signified by the term Metal being nothing but what he before comprehended and signified by the name Lead Indeed to a Man that knows the signification of the word Metal and not of the word Lead it is a shorter way to explain the signification of the word Lead by saying it is a Metal which at once expresses several of its simple Ideas than to enumerate them one by one telling him it is a Body very heavy fusible and malleable § 5. Alike trifling it is to predicate any other part of the Definition of the Term defined or to affirm any one of the simple Ideas of a complex one of the name of the whole complex Idea as all Gold is fusible For Fusibility being one of the simple Ideas that goes to the making up the complex one the sound Gold stands for what can it be but playing with Sounds by affirming that of the name Gold which is comprehended in its received signification 'T would be thought little better than ridiculous to affirm gravely as a Truth of moment that Gold is yellow and I see not how it is any jot more material to say It is fusible unless that Quality be left out of the complex Idea of which the sound Gold is the mark in ordinary speech What Instruction can it carry with it to tell one that which he hath been told already or he is supposed to know before For I am supposed to know the signification of the Word another uses to me or else he is to tell me And if I know that the name Gold stands for this complex Idea of Body Yellow Heavy Fusible Malleable 't will not much instruct me to put it solemnly afterwards in a Proposition and gravely say All Gold is fusible Such Propositions can only serve to shew the disingenuity of one who will go from the definition of his own Terms by re-minding him sometimes of it but carry no Knowledge with them but of the signification of Words however certain they be § 6. Every Man is an Animal or living Body is as certain a Proposition as can be but no more conducing to the Knowledge of Things than to say a Palfry
is an ambling Horse or a neighing ambling Animal both being only about the signification of Words and make me know but this That Body Sense and Motion or power of Sensation and Moving are three of those simple Ideas that I always comprehend and signifie by the word Man and where they are not to be found together the name Man belongs not to that Thing And so of the other that Body Sense and Motion and a certain way of going with a certain kind of Voice are some of those simple Ideas which I always comprehend and signifie by the word Palfry and when they are not to be found together the name Palfry belongs not to that thing 'T is just the same and to the same purpose when any term standing for any one or more of the simple Ideas that altogether make up that complex Idea which is called a Man is affirmed of the term Man v. g. suppose a Roman signified by the word Homo all these distinct Ideas united in one subject Corporeitas Sensibilitas Potentia se movendi Rationalitas Risibilitas he might no doubt with great certainty universally affirm one more or all of these together of the word Homo but did no more than say that the word Homo in his Country comprehended in its signification all these Ideas Much like a Romance Knight who by the word Palfry signified these Ideas Body of a certain figure four-legg'd with sense motion ambling neighing white used to have a Woman on his back might with the same certainty universally affirm also any or all of these of the word Palfry but did thereby teach no more but that the word Palfry in his or Romance-Language stood for all these and was not to be applied to any thing where any of theâ—e was wanting But he that shall tell me that in whatever thing Sense Motion Reason and Laughter were united that Thing had actually a notion of GOD or would be cast into a sleep by Opium made indeed an instructive Proposition because neither having the notion of GOD nor being cast into sleep by Opium being contained in the Idea signified by the word Man we are by such Propositions taught something more than barely what the word Man stands for And therefore the Knowledge contained in it is more than verbal § 7. Before a Man makes any Proposition he is supposed to understand the terms he uses in it or else he talks like a Parrot only making a noise by imitation and framing certain Sounds he has learnt of others but not as a rational Creature using them for signs of Ideas he has in his Mind The Hearer also is supposed to understand the Terms as the Speaker uses them or else he talks jargon and makes an untelligible noise And therefore he triâ—les with Words who makes such a Proposition which when it is made contains no more than one of the Terms does and which a Man was supposed to know before v. g. a Triangle hath three sides or Saffron is yellow And this is no farther tolerable than where a Man goes to explain his Terms to one who is supposed or declares himself not to understand him and then it teaches only the signification of that Word and the use of that Sign § 8. We can know then the Truth of two sorts of Propositions with perfect certainty the one is of those trifling Propositions which have a certainty in them but 't is but a verbal Certainty but not instructive And secondly we can know the Truth and so may be certain in Propositions which affirm something of another which is a necessary consequence of its precise complex Idea but not contained in it As that the external Angle of all Triangles is bigger than either of the opposite internal Angles which relation of the cutward Angle to either of the opposite internal Angles making no part of the complex Idea signified by the name Triangle this is a real Truth and conveys with it instructive real Knowledge § 9. We having no knowledge of what Combinations there be of simple Ideas existing together in Substances but by our Senses we cannot make any universal certain Propositions concerning them any farther than our nominal Essences lead us which being to a very few and inconsiderable Truths in respect of those which depend on their real Constitutions the general Propositions that are made about Substances if they are certain are for the most part but trifling and if they are instructive are uncertain and such as we can have no knowledge of their real Truth how much soever constant Observation and Analogy may assist our Judgments in guessing Hence it comes to pass that one may often meet with very clear and coherent Discourses that amount yet to nothing For 't is plain that Names of substantial Beings as well as others having constant and setled significations affixed to them may with great truth be joined negatively and affirmatively in Propositions as their Definitions make them fit to be so joined and Propositions consisting of such Termsâ— may with the same clearness be deduced one from another as those that convey the most real Truths and all this without any knowledge of the Nature or Reality of Things existing without us By this method one may make Demonstrations and undoubted Propositions in Words and yet thereby advance not one jot in the Knowledge of the Truth of Things v. g. he that having learnt these following Words with their ordinary Acceptations annexed to them v. g. Substance Man Animal Form Soul Vegetative Sensitive Rational may make several undoubted Propositions about the Soul without knowing at all what the Soul really is and of this sort a Man may find an infinite number of Propositions Reasonings and Conclusions in Books of Metaphysicks School-Divinity and some sort of natural Philosophy and after all know as little of GOD Spirits or Bodies as he did before he set out § 10. He that hath liberty to define i. e. determine the signification of his Names of Substances as certainly every ones does in effect who makes them stand for his own Ideas and makes their Significations at a venture taking them from his own or other Men's Fansies and not from an Examination and Enquiry into the Nature of Things themselves may with little trouble demonstrate them one of another wherein however Things agree or disagree in their own Nature he need mind nothing but his own Notions with the Names he hath bestowed upon them but thereby no more increases his own Knowledge than he does his Riches who taking a Bag of Counters calls one in a certain place a Pound another in another place a Shilling and a third in a third place a Penny and so proceeding may undoubtedly reckon right and cast up a great summ according to his Counters so placed and standing for more or less as he pleases without being one jot the richer or without even knowing how much a Pound Shilling or Penny is but only that one is
contained in the other twenty times and contains the other twelve which a Man may also do in the signification of Words by making them in respect of one another more or less or equally comprehensive § 11. Though yet concerning most Words used in Discourses especially Argumentative and Controversial there is this more to be complained of which is the worst sort of Trifling and which sets us yet farther from the certainty of Knowledge we hope to attain by them or find in them viz. that most Writers are so far from instructing us in the Nature and Knowledge of Things that they use their Words loosly and uncertainly and do not by using them constantly and steddily in the same signification make plain and clear deductions of Words one from another and make their Discourses coherent and clear how little soever it were instructive which were not difficult to do did they not find it convenient to shelter their Ignorance or Obstinacy under the obscurity and perplexedness of their Terms to which perhaps Inadvertency and ill Custom does in many Men much contribute § 12. To conclude barely verbal Propositions may be known by these following Marks First All Propositions wherein two abstract Terms are affirmed one of another are barely about the signification of Sounds For since no abstract Idea can be the same with any other but its self when its abstract Name is affirmed of any other Term it can signifie no more but this that it may or ought to be called by that Name or that these two Names signifie the same Idea Thus should any one say that Parsimony is Frugality that Gratitude is Justice that this or that Action is or â—s not Temperance However specious these and the like Propositions may at first sight seem yet when we come to press them and examine nicely what they contain we shall find that it all amounts to nothing but the signfication of those Terms § 13. Secondly All Propositions wherein a part of the complex Idea which any Term stands for is predicated of that Term are only verbal v. g. to say that Gold is a Metal or heavy And thus all Propositions wherein more comprehensive Words called Genera are affirmed of subordinate or less comprehensive called Species or Individuals are barely verbal When by these two Rules we have examined the Propositions that make up the Discourses we ordinarily meet with both in and out of Books we shall perhaps find that a greater part of them than is usually suspected are purely about the signification of Words and contain nothing in them but the Use and Application of these Signs This I think I may lay down for an infallible Rule that where-ever the distinct Idea any Words stand for is not known and considered and something not contained in that Idea is not affirmed or denied of it there our Thoughts stick wholly in Sounds and are able to attain no real Truth or Falshoood This perhaps if well heeded might save us a great deal of useless Amusement and Dispute and very much shorten our trouble and wandring in the search of real and true Knowledge CHAP. IX Of our Knowledge of Existence § 1. HItherto we have only considered the Essences of Things which being only abstract Ideas and thereby removed in our Thoughts from particular Existence that being the proper Operation of the Mind in Abstraction to consider an Idea under no other Existence but what it has in the Understanding gives us no Knowledge of real Existence at all Where by the way we take notice that universal Propositions of whose Truth or Falshood we can have certain Knowledge concern not Existence and farther that all particular Affirmations or Negations that would not be certain if they were made general are only concerning Existence they declaring only the accidental Union or Separation of Ideas in Things existing which in their abstract Natures have no known necessary Union or Repugnancy § 2. But leaving the Nature of Propositions and different ways of Predication to be considered more at large in another place Let us proceed now to enquire concerning our Knowledge of the Existence of Things and how we come by it I say then that we have the Knowledge of our own Existence by Intuition of the Existence of God by Demonstrationâ— and of other Things by Sensation § 3. As for our own Existence we perceive it so plainly and so certainly that it neither needs nor is capable of any proof For nothing can be more evident to us than our own Existence I think I reason I feel Pleasure and Pain Can any of these be more evident to me than my own Existence If I doubt of all other Things that very doubt makes me perceive my own Existence and will not suffer me to doubt of that For if I know I feel Pain it is evident I have as certain a Perception of my own Existence as of the Existence of the Pain I feel Or if I know I doubt I have as certain a Perception of the Existence of the thing doubting as of that Thought which I call doubt Experience then convinces us that we have an intuitive Knowledge of our own Existence and an internal infallible Perception that we are In every Act of Sensation Reasoning or Thinking we are conscious to our selves of our own Being and in this Matter come not short of the highest degree of Certainty CHAP. X. Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a GOD. § 1. THough God has given us no innate Ideas of himself though he has stamped no original Characters in our Minds wherein we may read his Being yet having furnished us with those Faculties our Minds are endowed with he hath not left himself without witness since we have Sense Perception and Reason and cannot want a clear proof of him as long as we carry our selves about us Nor can we justly complain of our Ignorance in this great Point since he has so plentifully provided us with the means to discover and know him so far as is necessary to the end of our Being and the great concernment of our Happiness But though this be the most obvious Truth that Reason discovers and though its Evidence be if I mistake not equal to mathematical Certainty yet it requires Thought and Attention and the Mind must apply its self to a regular deduction of it from some unquestionable parts of our Knowledge or else we shall be as uncertain and ignorant of this as of other Propositions which are in themselves capable of clear Demonstration To shew therefore that we are capable of knowing certainly knowing that there is a God and how we come by it I think we need look no farther than our selves and that undoubted Knowledge we have of our own Existence § 2. I think it is beyond Question that Man has a clear Perception of his own Being he knows certainly that he exists and that he is something He that can doubt whether he be any thing or no I speak
undeniable Truth that two Angles of a Figure which he measures by Lines and Angles of a Diagram should be bigger one than the other and yet doubt of the Existence of those Lines and Angles which by looking on he makes use of to measure that by § 7. Fourthly Our Senses in many cases bear witness to the Truth of each other's report concerning the Existence of sensible Things without us He that sees a Fire may if he doubt whether it be any thing more than a bare Fancy feel it too and be convinced by putting his Hand in it Which certainly could never be put into such exquisite pain by a bare Idea or Phantom unless that the pain be a fancy too Which yet he cannot when the Burn is well by raising the Idea of it bring upon himself again Thus I see whilst I write this I can change the Appearance of the Paper and by designing the Letters tell before-hand what new Idea it shall exhibit the very next moment barely by my drawing the Pen over it which will neither appear let me fansie as much as I will if my Hand stand still or though I move my Pen if my Eyes be shut Nor when those Characters are once made on the Paper can I chuse afterwards but see them as they are that is have the Ideas of such Letters as I have made Whence it is manifest that they are not barely the Sport and Play of my own Imagination when I find that the Characters that were made at the pleasure of my own Thoughts do not obey them nor yet cease to be whenever I shall fansie it but continue to affect my Senses constantly and regularly according to the Figures I made them To which if we will add that the sight of those shall from another Man draw such Sounds as I before-hand design they shall stand for there will be little reason left to doubt that those Words I write do really exist without me when they cause a long series of regular Sounds to affect my Ears which could not be the effect of my Imagination nor could my Memory retain them in that order § 8. But yet if after all this any one will be so sceptical as to distrust his Senses and to affirm that all we see and hear feel and taste think and do during our whole Being is but the series and deluding appearances of a long Dream whereof there is no reality and therefore will question the Existence of all Things or our Knowledge of any thing I must desire him to consider that if all be a Dream then he doth but dream that he makes the Question and so it is not much matter that a Man should answer But yet if he please he may dream that I make this answer That the certainty of Things existing in rerum Naturâ when we have the testimony of our Senses for it is not only as great as our frame can attain to but as our Condition needs For our Faculties being suited not to the full extent of Being nor to a perfect clear comprehensive Knowledge of things free from all doubt and scruple but to the preservation of us in whom they are and accommodated to the use of Life they serve to our purpose well enough if they will but give us certain notice of those Things which are convenient or inconvenient to us For he that sees a Candle burning and hath experimented the force of its Flame by putting his Finger in it will little doubt that this is something existing without him which does him harm and puts him to great pain which is assurance enough when no Man requires greater certainty to govern his Actions by than what is as certain as his Actions themselves And if our Dreamer pleases to try whether the glowing heat of a glass Fornace be barely a wandring Imagination in a drowsie Man's Fâ—ncy by putting his Hand into it he may perhaps be wakened into a certainty greater than he could wish that it is something more than bare Imaginationâ— So that this evidence is as great as we can desire being as certain to us as our Pleasure or Pain i. e. Happiness or Misery beyond which we have no concernment either of Knowing or Being Such an assurance of the Existence of Things without us is sufficient to direct us in the attaining the Good and avoiding the Evil which is caused by them which is the important concernment we have of being made acquainted with them § 9. In fine then when our Senses do actually convey into our Understandings any Idea we are well assured that there doth something at that time really exist without us which doth affect our Senses and by them give notice of its self to our apprehensive Faculties and actually produce that Idea which we then perceive and we cannot so far distrust their Testimony as to doubt that such Collections of simple Ideas as we have observed by our Senses to be united together do really exist together But this Knowledge extends as far as the present Testimony of our Senses employ'd about particular Objects that do then affect them and no farther For if I saw such a Collection of simple Ideas as is wont to be called Man existing together one minute since and am now alone I cannot be sure that the same Man exists now since there is no necessary connexion of his Existence a minute since with his Existence now by a thousand ways he may cease to be since I had the Testimony of my Senâ—es for his Existence And if I cannot be sure that the Man I saw last to day is now in being I can be less sure that he is so who hath been longer removed from my Senses and I have not seen since yesterday or since the last year and much less can I be certain of the Existence of Men that I never saw And therefore though it be highly probable that Millions of Men do now exist yet whilst I am alone writing of this I have no unquestionable Knowledge of it though the great likelihood of it puts me past doubt and it be reasonable for me to do several things upon the confidence that there are Men and Men also of my acquaintance with whom I have to do now in the World But this is but Probability not Knowledge § 10. Whereby yet we may observe how foolish and vain a thing it is for a Man of narrow Knowledge who having Reason given him to judge of the different evidence and probability of Things and to be sway'd accordingly how vain I say it is to expect Demonstration and Certainty in things not capable of it and refuse Assent to very rational Propositions and act contrary to very plain and clear Truths because they cannot be made out so evident as to surmount every the least I will not say Reason but pretence of doubting He that in ordinary Affairs of Life would admit of nothing but direct plain Demonstration would be sure of nothing in this
of Gradations or impatient of delay lightly survey or wholly pass over the Proofs and so without making out the Demonstration determine of the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas as it were by a view of them as they are at a distance and take it to be the one or the other as seems most likely to them upon such a loose survey This Faculty of the Mind when it is exercised immediately about Things is called Iudgment when about Truths delivered in Words is most commonly called Assent or Dissent which being the most usual way wherein the Mind has occasion to employ this Faculty I shall under these Terms treat of it as least liable in our Language to Equivocation § 4. Thus the Mind has two Faculties conversant about Truth and Falshood First Knowledge whereby it certainly perceives and is undoubtedly satisfied of the Agreement or Disagreement of any Ideas Secondly Judgment which is the putting Ideas together or separating them from one another in the Mind when their certain Agreement or Disagreement is not perceived but presumed to be so which is as the Word imports taken to be so before it certainly appears And if it so unites or separates them as in Reality Things are it is right Iudgment CHAP. XV. Of Probability § 1. AS Demonstration is the shewing the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas by the intervention of one or more Proofs which have a constant immutable and visible connexion one with another so Probability is nothing but the appearance of such an Agreement or Disagreement by the intervention of Proofs whose connexion is not constant and immutable or at least is not perceived to be so but is or appears for the most part to be so and is enough to induce the Mind to judge the Proposition to be true or false rather than the contrary For example In the demonstration of it a Man perceives the certain immutable connexion there is of Equality between the three Angles of a Triangle and those intermediate ones which are made use of to shew their Equality to two right ones and so by an intuitive Knowledge of the Agreement or Disagreement of the intermediate Ideas in each step of the progress the whole Series is continued with an evidence which clearly shews the Agreement or Disagreement of those three Angles in equality to two right ones And thus he has certain Knowledge that it is so But another Man who never took the pains to observe the Demonstration hearing a Mathematician a Man of credit affirm the three Angles of a Triangle to be equal to two right ones assents to it i. e. receives it for true In which case the foundation of his Assent is the Probability of the thing the Proof being such as for the most part carries Truth with it The Man on whose Testimony he receives it not being wont to affirm any thing contrary to or besides his Knowledge especially in matters of this kind So that that which causes his Assent to this Proposition that the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones that which makes him take these Ideas to agree without knowing them to do so is the wonted Veracity of the Speaker in other cases or his supposed Veracity in this § 2. Our Knowledge as has been shewn being very narrow and we not happy enough to find certain Truth in every thing we have occasion to consider most of the Propositions we think reason discourse nay act upon are such as we cannot have undoubted Knowledge of their Truth yet some of them border so near upon Certainty that we make no doubt at all about them but assent to them as firmly and act according to that Assent as vigorously as if they were infallibly demonstrated and that our Knowledge of them was perfect and certain But there being degrees herein from the very neighbourhood of Certainty and Evidence quite down to Improbability and Unlikeliness even to the Confines of Impossibility and also degrees of Assent from certain Knowledge and what is next it full Assurance and Confidence quite down to Conjecture Doubt Distrust and Disbelief I shall come now as having as I think found out the bounds of humane Knowledge and Certainty in the next place to consider the several degrees and grounds of Probability and Assent or Faith § 3. Probability then is likeliness to be true the very notation of the Word signifying such a Proposition for which there be Arguments or Proofs to make it pass or be received for true The entertainment the Mind gives this sort of Propositions is called Belief Assent or Opinion which is the admitting or receiving any Proposition for true upon Arguments or Proofs that are found to persuade us to receive it as true without certain Knowledge that it is so And herein lies the difference between Probability and Certainty Faith and Knowledge that in all the parts of Knowledge there is intuition each immediate Idea each step has its visible and certain connexion in Belief not so That which makes me believe is something extraneous to the thing I believe something not evidently joined on both sides to and so not manifestly shewing the Agreement or Disagreement of those Ideas that are under consideration § 4. Probability then being to supply the defect of our Knowledge and to guide us where that fails it is always conversant about things whereof we have no certainty but only some inducements to receive it for true The grounds of it are in short these two following First The conformity of any thing with our own Knowledge Observation and Experience Secondly The Testimony of others vouching their Observation and Experience In the Testimony of others is to be considered 1. The Number 2. The Integrity 3. The Skill of the Witnesses 4. The Design of the Author where it is a Testimony out of a Book cited 5. The Consistency of the Parts and Circumstances of the Relation 6. Contrary Testimonies § 5. Now Probability wanting that intuitive Evidence which infallibly determines the Understanding and produces certain Knowledge the Mind before it rationally assents or dissents to any probable Proposition ought to examine all the grounds of Probability and see how they make more or less for or against it and upon a due balancing the whole reject or receive it with a more or less firm assent proportionably to the preponderancy of the greater grounds of Probabily on one side or the other For example If I my self see a Man walk on the Ice it is past Probability 't is Knowledge but if another tells me he saw a Man in England in the midst of a sharp Winter walk upon Water harden'd with cold this has so great conformity with what is usually observed to happen that I am disposed by the nature of the thing it self to assent to it unless some manifest suspicion attend the Relation of that matter of fact But if the same thing be told to one born between the Tropicks who never
Reason in that part which if not its highest Perfection is yet certainly its hardest Task and that which we most need its help in and that is the finding out of Proofs and making new Discoveries The Rules of Syllogism serve not to furnish the Mind with those intermediate Ideas that may shew the connexion of remote ones This way of reasoning discovers no new Proofs but is the Art of marshalling and ranging the old ones we have already The 47th Proposition of the First Book of Euclid is very true but the discovery of it I think not owing to any Rules of common Logick A Man knows first and then he is able to prove syllogistically So that Syllogism comes after Knowledge and then a Man has little or no need of it But 't is chiefly by the finding out those Ideas that shew the connexion of distant ones that our stock of Knowledge is increased and that useful Arts and Sciences are advanced Syllogism at best is but the Art of fencing with the little Knowledge we have without making any Addition to it And if a Man should employ his Reason all this way he will not doe much otherwise than he who having got some Iron out of the Bowels of the Earth should have it beaten up all into Swords and put it into his Servants Hands to fence with and bang one another Had the King of Spain imploy'd the Hands of his People and his Spanish Iron so he had brought to Light but little of that Treasure that lay so long hid in the dark Entrails of America And I am apt to think that he who shall employ all the force of his Reason only in brandishing of Syllogisms will discover very little of that Mass of Knowledge which lies yet concealed in the secret recesses of Nature and which I am apt to think native rustick Reason as it formerly has done is likelier to open a way to and add to the common stock of Mankind rather than any scholastick Proceeding by the strict Rules of Mode and Figure § 7. I doubt not nevertheless but there are ways to be found to assist our Reason in this most useful part and this the judicious Hooker encourages me to say who in his Eccl. Pol. l. 1. § 6. speaks thus If there might be added the right helps of true Art and Learning which helps I must plainly confess this Age of the World carrying the Name of a learned Age doth neither much know nor generally regard there would undoubtedly be almost as much difference in Maturity of Iudgment between Men therewith inured and that which now Men are as between Men that are now and Innocents I do not pretend to have found or discovered here any of those right helps of Art this great Man of deep Thoughts mentions but this is plain that Syllogism and the Logick now in Use which were as well known in his days can be none of those he means It is sufficient for me if by a Discourse perhaps something out of the way I am sure as to me wholly new and unborrowed I shall have given Occasion to others to cast about for new Discoveries and to seek in their own Thoughts for those right Helps of Art which will scarce be found I fear by those who servilely confine themselves to the Rules and Dictates of others for beaten Tracts lead these sort of Cattel as an observing Roman calls them whose Thoughts reach only to Imitation Non quo eundum est sed quo itur But I can be bold to say that this Age is adorned with some Men of that Strength of Judgment and Largeness of Comprehension that if they would employ their Thoughts on this Subject could open new and undiscovered Ways to the Advancement of Knowledge § 8. Having here had Occasion to speak of Syllogism in general and the Use of it in Reasoning and the Improvement of our Knowledge 't is fit before I leave this Subject to take notice of one manifest Mistake in the Rules of Syllogism viz. That no Syllogistical Reasoning can be right and conclusive but what has at least one general Proposition in it As if we could not reason and have Knowledge about Particulars whereas in truth the Matter rightly considered the immediate Object of all our Reasoning and Knowledge is nothing but Particulars Every Man 's Reasoning and Knowledge is only about the Ideas existing in his own Mind which are truly every one of them particular Existences and our Knowledge and Reasoning about other Things is only as they correspond with those our particular Ideas So that the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our particular Ideas is the whole and utmost of all our Knowledge Universality is but accidental to it and consists only in this That the particular Ideas about which it is are such as more than one particular Thing can correspond with and be represented by But the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of any two Ideas and consequently our Knowledge is equally clear and certain whether either or both or neither of those Ideas be capable of representing more real Beings than one or no. § 9. Reason Though it penetrates into the Depths of the Sea and Earth elevates our Thoughts as high as the Stars and leads us through the vast Spaces and large Rooms of this mighty Fabrick yet it comes far short of the real Extent of even corporeal Being and there are many Instances wherein it fails us As First It perfectly fails us where our Ideas fail It neither does nor can extend it self farther than they do and therefore where-ever we have no Ideas our Reasoning stops and we are at an End of our Reckoning And if at any time we reason about Words which do not stand for any Ideas 't is only about those Sounds and nothing else § 10. Secondly Our Reason is often puzled and at a loss because of the scurity Confusion or Imperfection of the Ideas it is employed about and there we are involved in Difficulties and Contradictions Thus not having any perfect Idea of the least Extension of Matter nor of Infinity we are at a loss about the Divisibility of Matter but having perfect clear and distinct Ideas of Number our Reason meets with none of those inextricable Difficulties in Numbers nor finds it self involved in any Contradictions about them Thus we having but imperfect Ideas of the Operations of our Minds upon our Bodies or Thoughts and of the Beginning of either Motion or Thought in us and much imperfecter yet of the Operation of GOD run into great Difficulties about free created Agents which Reason cannot well extricate it self out of § 11. Thirdly Our Reason is often at a stand because it perceives not those Ideas which could serve to shew the certain or probable Agreement or Disagreement of any two other Ideas and in this some Men's Faculties far out-go others Till Algebra that great Instrument and Instance of Humane Sagacity was discovered Men with Amazement
current stream of Antiquity or to put it in the balance against that of some learned Doctor or otherwise approved Writer Whoever backs his Tenets with such Authorities thinks he ought thereby to carry the Cause and is ready to style it Impudence in any one who shall stand out against them This I think may be called Argumentum ad Verecundiam Secondly § 20. Another way that Men ordinarily use to drive others and force them to submit their Judgments and receive the Opinion in debate is to require the Adversary to admit what they alledge as a Proof or to assign a better And this I call Argumentum ad Ignorantiam § 21. Thirdly A third way is to press a Man with Consequences drawn from his own Principles or Concessions This is already known under the Name of Argumentum ad Hominem § 22. Fourthly The fourth is the using of Proofs drawn from any of the Foundations of Knowledge or Probability This I call Argumentum ad Iudicium This alone of all the four brings true Instruction with it and advances us in our way to Knowledge For 1. It argues not another Man's Opinion to be right because I out of respect or any other consideration but that of conviction will not contradict him 2. It proves not another Man to be in the right way nor that I ought to take the same with him because I know not a better 3. Nor does it follow that another Man is in the right way because he has shewn me that I am in the wrong I may be modest and therefore not oppose another Man's Persuasion I may be ignorant and not be able to produce a better I may be in an Errour and another may shew me that I am so This may dispose me perhaps for the reception of Truth but helps me not to it That must come from Proofs and Arguments and light arising from the nature of Things themselves and not from my Shamefacedness Ignorance or Errour § 23. By what has been before said of Reason we may be able to make some guess at th◠distinction of Things into those that are according to above and contrary to Reason 1. According to Reason are such Propositions whose Truth we can discover by examining and tracing those Ideas we have from Sensation and Reflexion and by natural deduction find to be true or probable 2. Above Reason are such Propositions whose Truth or Probability we cannot by Reason derive from those Principles 3. Contrary to Reason are such Propositions as are inconsistent with or irreconcileable to our clear and distinct Ideas Thus the Existence of one GOD is according to Reason the Existence of more than one GOD contrary to Reason the Resurrection of the Body after death above Reason Above Reason also may be taken in a double sense viz. Above Probability or above Certainty and in that large sense also Contrary to Reason is I suppose sometimes taken § 24. There is another use of the word Reason wherein it is opposed to Faith which though it be in it self a very improper way of speaking yet common Use has so authorized it that it would be folly either to oppose or hope to remedy it Only I think it may not be amiss to take notice that however Faith be opposed to Reason Faith is nothing but a firm Assent of the Mind which if it be regulated as is our Duty cannot be afforded to any thing but upon good Reason and so cannot be opposite to it He that believes without having any Reason for believing may be in love with his own Fansies but neither seeks Truth as he ought nor pays the Obedience due to his Maker who would have him use those discerning Faculties he has given him to keep him out of Mistake and Errour He that does not this to the best of his power however he sometimes lights on Truth is in the right but by chance and I know not whether the luckiness of the Accident will excuse the irregularity of his proceeding This at least is certain that he must be accountable for whatever Mistakes he runs into whereas he that makes use of the Light and Faculties GOD has given him and seeks sincerely to discover Truth by those Helps and Abilities he has may have this satisfaction in doing his Duty as a rational Creature that though he should miss Truth he will not miss the Reward of it For he governs his Assent right and places it as he should who in any case or matter whatsoever believes or disbelieves according as Reason directs him He that does otherwise transgresses against his own Light and misuses the Faculties which were given him to no other end but to search and follow the clearer Evidence and greater Probability But since Reason and Faith are by some Men opposed we will so consider them in the following Chapter CHAP. XVIII Of Faith and Reason and their distinct Provinces § 1. IT has been above shewn 1. That we are of necessity ignorant and want Knowledge of all sorts where we want Ideas 2. That we are ignorant and want rational Knowledge where we want Proofs 3. That we want general Knowledge and Certainty as far as we want clear and determined specifick Ideas 4. That we want Probability to direct our Assent in matters where we have neither Knowledge of our own nor Testimony of other Men to bottom our Reason upon From these things thus premised I think we may come to lay down the measures and boundaries between Faith and Reason the want whereof may possibly have been the cause if not of great Disorders yet at least of great Disputes and perhaps Mistakes in the World For till it be resolved how far we are to be guided by Reason and how far by Faith we shall in vain dispute and endeavour to convince one another in Matters of Religion § 2. I find every Sect as far as Reason will help them make use of it gladly and where it fails them they cry out 'T is matter of Faith and above Reason And I do not see how they can ever be convinced by any who makes use of the same plea without setting down strict boundaries between Faith and Reason which ought to be the first point established in all Questions where Faith has any thing to do Reason therefore here as contradistinguished to Faith I take to be the discovery of the Certainty or Probability of such Propositions or Truths which the Mind arrives at by Deductions made from such Ideas which it has got by the use of its natural Faculties viz. by Sensation or Reflexion Faith on the other side is the Assent to any Proposition not thus made out by the Deductions of Reason but upon the Credit of the Proposer as coming immediately from GOD which we call Revelation § 3. First Then I say That no Man inspired by GOD can by any Revelation communicate to others any new simple Ideas which they had not before from Sensation or Reflexion For
whatsoever impressions he himself may have from the immediate hand of GOD this Revelation if it be of new simple Ideas cannot be conveyed to another either by Words or any other signs because Words by their immediate Operation on us cause no other Ideas but of their natural Sounds and 't is by the Custom of using them for Signs that they excite and revive in our Minds latent Ideas but yet only such Ideas as were there before For Words seen or heard recall to our Thoughts those Ideas only which to us they have been wont to be Signs of but cannot introduce any perfectly new simple Ideas which were never there before The same holds in all other Signs which cannot signifie to us Things of which we have before never had any Ideas at all Thus whatever Things were discovered to St. Paul when he was rapp'd up into the Third Heaven whatever new Ideas his Mind there received all the description he can make to others of that Place is only this That there are such Things as Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath it entred into the Heart of Man to conceive And supposing God should discover to any one supernaturally a Species of Creatures inhabiting For Example Iupiter or Saturn for that it is possible there may be such no body can deny which had six Senses and imprint on his Mind the Ideas convey'd to theirs by that sixth Sense he could no more by Words produce in the Minds of other Men those Ideas imprinted by that sixth Sense than one of us could convey the Idea of any Colour by the sound of Words into a Man who having the other four Senses perfect had always totally wanted the fifth of Seeing For our simple Ideas then which are the Foundation and sole Matter of all our Notions and Knowledge we must depend wholly on our Reason I mean our natural Faculties and can by no means receive them or any of them from Traditional Revelation I say Traditional Revelation in distinction to Original Revelation By the one I mean that first Impression which is made immediately by GOD on the Mind of any Man to which I pretend not to set any Bounds and by the other those Impressions delivered over to others in Words and the ordinary ways of conveying our Conceptions one to another § 4. Secondly I say that the same Truths may be discovered and conveyed down from Revelation which are discoverable to us by Reason and those clear Ideas we have So God might by Revelation discover the Truth of any Proposition in Euclid as well as Men by the natural use of their Faculties come to make the discovery themselves In all Things of this Nature there is little need or use of Revelation GOD having furnished us with natural and surer means to arrive at the Knowledge of them For whatsoever Truth we come to the discovery of from the Knowledge and Contemplation of our own clear Ideas will always be certainer to us than those which are conveyed to us by Traditional Revelation for the Knowledge we have that this Revelation came at first from GOD can never be so sure as the Knowledge we have from our own clear and distinct Ideas As if it were revealed some Ages since That the three Angles of a Triangle were equal to two right ones I might assent to the Truth of that Proposition upon the Credit of the Tradition that it was revealed but that would never amount to so great a Certainty as the Knowledge of it upon the comparing and measuring my own clear Ideas of two right Angles and the three Angles of a Triangle The like holds in Matter of Fact knowable by our Senses v. g. the History of the Deluge is conveyed to us by Writings which had their Original from Revelation and yet no body I think will say he has as certain and clear a Knowledge of the Flood as Noah that saw it or that he himself would have had had he then been alive and seen it For he has no greater an assurance than that of his Senses that it is writ in the Book supposed writ by Moses but he has not so great an assurance that Moses writ that Book as if he had seen Moses write it so that the assurance of its being a Revelation is less still than the assurance of his Senses § 5. In Propositions then whose Certainty is built upon clear and perfect Ideas and evident Deductions of Reason we need not the assistence of Revelation as necessary to gain our Assent and introduce them into our Minds Because the natural ways of Knowledge could settle them there or had done it already which is the greatest assurance we can possibly have of any thing unless where God immediately reveals it to us and there too our Assurance can be no greater than our Knowledge is that it is a Revelation from God But yet nothing I think can under that Title shake or over-rule plain Knowledge nor rationally prevail with any Man to admit it for true in a direct contradiction to the clear Evidence of his own Understanding For since no Evidence of our Faculties by which we receive such Revelations can exceed if equal the Certainty of our intuitive Knowledge we can never receive for a Truth any thing that is directly contrary to our clear and distinct Knowledge v. g. The Idea of one Body and one Place does so clearly agree and the Mind has so evident a Perception of it that we can never assent to a Proposition that affirms the same Body to be in two distant Places at once however it should pretend to the Authority of a divine Revelation since the Evidence First That we deceive not our selves in ascribing it to GOD Secondly That we understand it right can never be so great as the Evidence of our own intuitive Knowledge whereby we discern it impossible for the same Body to be in two Places at once And therefore no Proposition can be received for divine Revelation or obtain the Assent due to all such if it be contradictory to our clear intuitive Knowledge Since this would be to subvert the Principles and Foundations of all Knowledge Evidence and Assent whatsoever and leave no difference between Truth and Falshood no measures of Credible and Incredible in the World if doubtful Propositions shall take place before self-evident and what we certainly know give way to what we may possibly be mistaken in In Propositions therefore contrary to our distinct and clear Ideas 't will be in vain to urge them as Matters of Faith They cannot move our Assent under that or any other Title whatsoever For Faith can never convince us of any thing that contradicts our Knowledge Because though Faith be founded on the Testimony of God revealing any Proposition to us who cannot lie yet we cannot have an assurance of the Truth of its being a divine Revelation greater than our own Knowledge since the whole strength of the Certainty depends upon
our Knowledge that God revealed it which in this Case where the Proposition suppos'd reveal'd contradicts our Knowledge or Reason will always have this Objection hanging to it viz. that we cannot tell how to conceive that to come from GOD the bountiful Author of our Being which if received for true must overturn all our Principles and Foundations of Knowledge render all our Faculties useless wholly destroy the most excellent part of his Workmanship our Understandings and put a Man in a Condition wherein he will have less Light less Conduct than the Beast that perisheth For if the Mind of Man can never have a clearer and perhaps not so clear an Evidence of any thing to be a divine Revelation as it has of the Principles of its own Reason it can never have a ground to quit the clear Evidence of its Reason to give place to a Proposition whose Revelation has not a greater Evidence § 6. Thus far a Man has use of Reason and ought to hearken to it even in immediate and original Revelation where it is supposedly made to himself But to all those who pretend not to immediate Revelation but are required to pay Obedience and to receive the Truths revealed to others which by the Tradition of Writings or Word of Mouth are conveyed down to them Reason has a great deal more to do and is that only which can induce us to receive them For Matter of Faith being only Divine Revelation and nothing else Faith as we use the Word called commonly Divine Faith has to do with no Propositions but those which are supposed to be divinely revealed So that I do not see how those who make Revelation alone the sole Object of Faith can say that it is a Matter of Faith and not of Reason to believe that such or such a Proposition to be found in such or such a Book is of Divine Inspiration unless it be revealed that that Proposition or all in that Book was communicated by Divine Inspiration Without such a Revelation the believing or not believing that Proposition or Book to be of Divine Authority can never be Matter of Faith but Matter of Reason and such as I must come to an Assent to only by the use of my Reason which can never require or enable me to believe that which is contrary to it self it being impossible for Reason ever to procure any Assent to that which to it self appears unreasonable In all Things therefore where we have clear Evidence from our Ideas and those Principles of Knowledge I have above mentioned Reason is the proper Judge and Revelation though it may in consenting with it confirm its Dictates yet cannot in such Cases invalidate its Decrees Nor can we be obliged where we have the clear and evident Sentence of Reason to quit it for the contrary Opinion under a Pretence that it is Matter of Faith § 7. But Thirdly There being many Things wherein we have very imperfect Notions or none at all and other Things of whose past present or future Existence by the natural Use of our Faculties we can have no Knowledge at all these as being beyond the Discovery of our natural Faculties and above Reason are when revealed the proper Matter of Faith Thus that part of the Angels rebelled against GOD and thereby lost their first happy State And that the Bodies of Men shall rise and live again These and the like being beyond the Discovery of Reason are purely Matters of Faith with which Reason has directly nothing to do § 8. But since all Things that are under the Character of Divine Revelation are esteemed Matter of Faith and there are amongst them several Things that fall under the Examen of Reason and are such as we could judge of by our natural Faculties without a Supernatural Revelation In these Revelation must carry it against the probable Conjectures of Reason because the Mind not being certain of the Truth of that it does not evidently know but is only probably convinced of is bound to give up its Assent to such a Testimony which it is satisfied comes from one who cannot err and will not deceive But yet it still belongs to Reason to judge of the Truth of its being a Revelation and of the signification of the Words wherein it is delivered Indeed if any thing shall be thought Revelation which is contrary to the plain Principles of Reason and the evident Knowledge the Mind has of its own clear and distinct Ideas there Reason must be hearkned to as to a Matter within its Province since a Man can never have so certain a Knowledge that a Proposition which contradicts the clear Principles and Evidence of his own Knowledge was divinely revealed or that he understands the Words rightly wherein it is delivered as he has that the Contrary is true and so is bound to consider and judge of it as a Matter of Reason and not swallow it without Examination as a Matter of Faith § 9. The Summ of all is First Whatever Proposition is revealed of whose Truth our Mind by its natural Faculties and Notions cannot judge that is purely Matter of Faith and above Reason Secondly All Propositions whereof the Mind by the use of its natural Faculties can come to determine and judge from natural acquired Ideas are Matter of Reason with this difference still that in those concerning which it has but an uncertain Evidence and so is persuaded of their Truth only upon probable Grounds which still admit a Possibility of the Contrary to be true without doing Violence to the certain Evidence of its own Knowledge and overturning the Principles of all Reason In such probable Propositions I say an evident Revelation ought to determine our Assent even against Probability For where the Principles of Reason have not determined a Proposition to be certainly true or false there clear Revelation as another Principle of Truth and Ground of Assent may determine and so it may be Matter of Faith and be also above Reason Because Reason in that particular Matter being able to reach no higher than Probability Faith gave the Determination where Reason came short and Revelation discovered on which side the Truth lay § 10. Thus far the Dominion of Faith reaches and that without any violence or hindrance to Reason which is not injured or disturbed but assisted and improved by new Discoveries of Truth coming from the Eternal Fountain of all Knowledge Whatever GOD hath revealed is certainly true no Doubt can be made of it This is the proper Object of Faith But whether it be a divine Revelation or no Reason must judge which can never permit the Mind to reject a greater Evidence to embrace what is less evident nor prefer less Certainty to the greater There can be no Evidence that any traditional Revelation is of divine Original in the Words we receive it and in the Sense we understand it so clear and so certain as those of the Principles of Reason And therefore
Nothing that is contrary to and inconsistent with the clear and self-evident Dictates of Reason has a Right to be urged or assented to as a Matter of Faith wherein Reason hath nothing to do Whatsoever is divine Revelation ought to over-rule all our Opinions Prejudices and Interests and hath a Right to be received with a full Assent Such a Submission as this of our Reason to Faith takes not away the Land-marks of Knowledge This shakes not the Foundations of Reason but leaves us that Use of our Faculties for which they were given us § 11. If the Provinces of Faith and Reason are not kept distinct by these Boundaries there will in matter of Religion be no more for Reason at all and those extravagant Opinions and Ceremonies that are to be found in the several Religions of the World will not deserve to be blamed For to this crying up of Faith in opposition to Reason we may I think in good measure ascribe those Absurdities that fill almost all the Religions which possess and divide Mankind For Men having been principled with an Opinion that they must not consult Reason in the Things of Religion however apparently contradictory to common Sense and the very Principles of all their Knowledge have let loose their Fansies and natural Superstition and have been by them lead into so strange Opinions and extravagant Practices in Religion that a considerate Man cannot but stand amazed at their Follies and judge them so far from being acceptable to the great and wise GOD that he cannot avoid thinking them ridiculous and offensive to a sober good Man So that in effect that which most properly ought to distinguish us from Beasts that wherein we are elevated as rational Creatures above Brutes in that we appear most irrational and more senseless than Beasts themselves Credo quia impossibile est I believe because it is impossible might in a good Man pass for a Sally of Zeal but would prove a very ill Rule for Men to chuse their Opinions or Religion by CHAP. XIX Of Wrong Assent or Errour § 1. KNowledge being to be had only of visible certain Truth Errour is not a Fault of our Knowledge but a Mistake of our Judgment giving Assent to that which is not true But if Assent be grounded on Likelihood if the proper Object and Motive of our Assent be Probability and that Probability consist in what is laid down in the foregoing Chapters it will be demanded how Men come to give their Assents contrary to Probability For there is nothing more common than Contrariety of Opinions nothing more obvious than that one Man wholly disbelieves what another only doubts of and a third stedfastly believes and firmly adheres to The Reasons whereof though they may be very various yet I suppose may all be reduced to these four 1. Want of Proofs 2. Want of Ability to use them 3. Want of Will to use them 4. Wrong Measures of Probability § 2. First By Want of Proofs I do not mean only the Want of those Proofs which are no where extant which are no where to be had but the Want even of those Proofs which are in Being or might be procured And thus Men want Proofs who have not the Convenience or Opportunity to make Experiments and Observations themselves tending to the Proof of any Proposition nor likewise the Convenience to enquire into and collect the Testimonies of others And in this State are the greatest part of Mankind who are given up to Labour and enslaved to the Necessity of their mean Condition whose Lives are worn out only in the Provisions for Living These Men's Opportunity of Knowledge and Enquiry are commonly as narrow as their Fortunes and their Understandings are but little instructed when all their whole Time and Pains is laid out to still the Croaking of their own Bellies or the Cries of their Children 'T is not to be expected that a Man who drudges on all his Life in a laborious Trade should be more knowing in the Variety of Things done in the World than a Pack-horse who is driven constantly forwards and backwards in a narrow Lane and dirty Road only to Market should be skilled in the Geography of the Country Nor is it at all more possible that he who wants Leisure Books and Languages and the Opportunity of Conversing with Variety of Men should be in a Condition to collect those Testimonies and Observations which are in Being and are necessary to make out many nay most of the Propositions that in the Societies of Man are judged of the greatest Moment or to find out Grounds of Assurance so great as the Belief of the Points he would build on them is thought necessary So that a great part of Mankind are by the natural and unalterable State of Things in this World and the Constitution of humane Affairs unavoidably given over to invincible Ignorance of those Prooss on which others build and which are necessary to establish those Opinions The greatest part of Men having much to do to get the Means of Living are not in a Condition to look after those of learned and laborious Enquiries § 3. What shall we say then Are the greatest part of Mankind by the necessity of their Condition subjected to unavoidable Ignorance in those Things which are of greatest Importance to them for of those 't is obvious to enquire Have the Bulk of Mankind no other Guide but Accident and blind Chance to conduct them to their Happiness or Misery Are the current Opinions and licensed Guides of every Country sufficient Evidence and Security to every Man to venture his greatest Concernments on nay his everlasting Happiness or Misery Or can those be the certain and infallible Oracles and Standards of Truth which teach one Thing in Christendom and another in Turkey Or shall a poor Country-man be eternally happy for having the Chance to be born in Italy or a Day-Labourer be unavoidably lost because he had the ill Luck to be born in England How ready some Men may be to say some of these Things I will not here examine but this I am sure that Men must allow one or other of these to be true let them chuse which they please or else grant that GOD has furnished Men with Faculties sufficient to direct them in the Way they should take if they will but seriously employ them that Way when their ordinary Vocations allow them the Leisure No Man is so wholly taken up with the Attendence on the Means of Living as to have no spare Time at all to think on his Soul and inform himself in Matters of Religion Were Men as intent upon this as they are on Things of lower Concernment there are none so enslaved to the Necessity of Life who might not find many Vacancies that might be husbanded to this Advantage of their Knowledge § 4. Besides thos◠whose Improvements and Informations are straitned by the narrowness of their Fortunes there are others whose largeness
the Senses 5. Because an Idea from actual Sensation and another from Memory are very distinct Perceptions 6. Thirdly Pleasure or Pain which accompanies actual Sensation accompanies not the returning of those Ideas without the external Objects 7. Fourthly Our Senses assist one another's Testimony of the Existence of outward Things 8. This Certainty is as great as our Condition needs 9. But reaches no farther than actual Sensation 10. Folly to expect demonstration in every thing 11. Past Existence is known by Memory 12. The Existence of Spirits not knowable 13. Particular Propositions concerning Existence are knowable 14. And general Propositions concerning abstract Ideas CHAP. XII Of the improvement of our Knowledge SECT 1. Knowledge is not from Maxims 2. The occasion of that Opinion 3. But from the comparing clear and distinct Ideas 4. Dangerous to build upon precarious Principles 5. This no certain way to Truth 6. But to compare clear compleat Ideas under steddy Names 7. The true method of advancing Knowledge is by considering our abstract Ideas 8. By which Morality also may be made clearer 9. But Knowledge of Bodies is to be improved only by Experience 10. This may procure us convenience not Science 11. We are fitted for moral Knowledge and natural Improvements 12. But must beware of Hypotheses and wrong Principles 13. The true use of Hypotheses 14. Clear and distinct Ideas with setled Names and the finding of those which shew their agreement or disagreement are the ways to enlarge our Knowledge 15. Mathematicks an instance of it CHAP. XIII Some other Considerations concerning our Knowledge SECT 1. Our Knowledge partly necessary partly voluntary 2. The application voluntary but we know as things are not as we please 3. Instances in Numbers CHAP. XIV Of Iudgment SECT 1. Our Knowledge being short we want something else 2. What use to be made of this twilight Estate 3. Iudgment supplies the want of Knowledge 4. Iudgment is the presuming things to be so without perceiving it CHAP. XV. Of Probability SECT 1. Probability is the appearance of agreement upon fallible proofs 2. It is to supply the want of Knowledge 3. Being that which makes us presume things to be true before we know them to be so 4. The grounds of Probability are two conformity with our own Experience or the Testimony of others Experience 5. In this all the agreements pro and con ought to be examined before we come to a Iudgment 6. They being capable of great variey CHAP. XVI Of the Degrees of Assent SECT 1. Our Assent ought to be regulated by the grounds of Probability 2. These cannot always be all actually in view and then we must content our selves with the remembrance that we once saw ground for such a degree of Assent 3. The ill consequence of this if our former Iudgment were not rightly made 4. The right use of it is mutual Charity and forbearance 5. Probability is either of matter of fact or speculation 6. The concurrent experience of all other Men with ours produces assurance approaching to Knowledge 7. Vnquestionable Testimony and Experience for the most part produce Confidence 8. Fair Testimony and the nature of the Thing indifferent produces also confident belief 9. Experiences and Testimonies clashing infinitely vary the degrees of Probability 10. Traditional Testimonies the more more their removed the less their Proof 11. Yet History is of great use 12. In things which Sense cannot discover Analogy is the great Rule of Probability 13. One case where contrary Experience lessens not the Testimony 14. The bare Testimony of Revelation is the highest certainty CHAP. XVII Of Reason SECT 1. Various significations of the word Reason 2. Wherein Reasoning consists 3. It s four parts 4. Syllogism not the great Instrument of Reason 5. Helps little in Demonstration less in Probability 6. Serves not to increase our Knowledge but fence with it 7. Other helps should be sought 8. We Reason about Particulars 9. First Reason fails us for want of Ideas 10. Secondly Because of obscure and imperfect Ideas 11. Thirdly For want of intermediate Ideas 12. Fourthly Because of wrong Principles 13. Fifthly Because of doubtful terms 14. Our highest degree of Knowledge is intuitive without reasoning 15. The next is Demonstration by reasoning 16. To supply the narrowness of this we have nothing but Iudgment upon probable reasoning 17. Intuition Demonstration Iudgment 18. Consequences of Words and Consequences of Ideas 19. Four sorts of Arguments First Ad Verecundiam 20. Secondly Ad Ignorantiam 21. Thirdly Ad Hominem 22. Fourthly Ad Judicium 23. Above contrary and according to Reason 24. Reason and Faith not opposite CHAP. XVIII Of Faith and Reason and their distinct Provinces SECT 1. Necessary to know their Boundaries 2. Faith and Reason what as contradistinguished 3. No new simple Idea can be conveyed by traditional Revelation 4. Traditional Revelation may make us know Propositions knowable also by Reason but not with the same certainty that Reason doth 5. Revelation cannot be admitted against the clear evidence of Reason 6. Traditional Revelation much less 7. Things above Reason 8. Or not contrary to Reason if revealed are matter of Faith 9. Revelation in matters where Reason cannot judge or but probably ought to be hearkened to 10. In matters where Reason can afford certain knowledge that is to be hearkened to 11. If the boundaries be not set between Faith and Reason no Enthusiasm or extravagancy in Religion can be contradicted CHAP. XIX Of Wrong Assent or Errour SECT 1. Causes of Errour 2. First Want of Proofs 3. Obj. What shall become of those who want them answered 4. People hindred from Enquiry 5. Secondly Want of skill to use them 6. Thirdly Want of Will to use them 7. Fourthly Wrong measures of Probability whereof 8 10. First Doubtful Propositions taken for Principles 11. Secondly Received Hypothesis 12. Thirdly predominant Passions 13. The means of evading Probabilities 1st Supposed fallacy 14. 2dly Supposed Arguments for the contrary 15. What Probabilities determine the Assent 16. Where it is in our power to suspend it 17. Fourthly Authority 18. Men not in so many Errours as is imagined CHAP. XX. Division of the Sciences SECT 1. Three sorts 2. First Physica 3. Secondly Practica 4. Thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5. This is the first Division of the Objects of Knowledge FINIS (α) Gruber apud Thevenot part 4. p. 23. (β) Lambert apud There-not p. 38. (γ) Vossius de Nili Origine c. 18.19 (δ) P. Mart. Dec. 1. Hes des Incas l. 1. c. 12. (ζ) Lery c. 16. (α) Rhoe apud Thevenot p 2. (β) Jo. de Lery c. 16. (α) A Gry is 1 â—â— of a line a line 1 10 of an inch an inch 1 1â— of a philosophical foot a philosophical foot 1 â— of a pendulum whose Diadromsâ— in the latitude of 45 degrees are each equal to one Second of time or 1 6â— of a minute I have affectedly made use of this measure here and the parts of it under a decimal division with names to theâ—â— because I think it would be of general convenience that this should be the common measure in the Commonwealth of Letters
complex Idea of Gold being made up of such simple ones as have no union in Nature may be termed false But if he leave out of this his complex Idea that of Fixedness quite without either actually joining to or separating of it from the rest in his Mind it is I think to be looked on as an inadequate and imperfect Idea rather than a false one since though it contains not all the simple Ideas that are united in Nature yet it puts none together but what do really exist together § 19. Though in compliance with the ordinary way of Speaking I have shewed in what sense and upon what ground our Ideas may be sometimes called true or false yet if we will look a little nearer into the matter in all cases where any Idea is call'd true or false it is from some Judgment that the Mind makes or is supposed to make that is true or false For Truth or Falshood being never without some Affirmation or Negation Express or Tacit it is not to be found but where signs are joined or separated according to the agreement or disagreement of the Things they stand for The signs we chiefly use are either Ideas or Words wherewith we make either mental or verbal Propositions Truth lies in so joining or separating these Representatives as the Things they stand for do in themselves agree or disagree and Falshood in the contrary as shall be more fully shewed hereafter § 20. Any Idea then we have in our Minds whether conformable or not to the existence of Things or to any Ideas in the Minds of other Men cannot properly for this alone be called false For these Representations if they have nothing in them but what is really existing in Things without cannot be thought false being exact Representations of something nor yet if they have any thing in them differing from the reality of Things can they properly be said to be false Representations or Ideas of Things they do not represent But the mistake and falshood is § 21. First When the Mind having any Idea it judges and concludes it the same that is in other Mens Minds signified by the same name or that it is conformable to the ordinary received signification or definition of that Word when indeed it is not Which is the most usual mistake in mixed Modes though other Ideas also are liable to it § 22 Secondly When it having a complex Idea made up of such a Collection of simple ones as Nature never puts together it judges it to agree to a Species of Creatures really existing as when it joins the weight of Tin to the colour fusibility and fixedness of Gold § 23. Thirdly When in its complex Idea it has united a certain number of simple Ideas that do really exist together in some sorts of Creatures but has also left out others as much inseparable it judges this to be a perfect compleat Idea of a sort of things which really it is not v. g. having joined the Ideas of substance yellow malleable most heavy and fusible it takes that complex Idea to be the compleat Idea of Gold when yet its peculiar fixedness and solubility in Aqua Regia are as inseparable from those other Ideas or Qualities of that Body as they are one from another § 24. Fourthly The Mistake is yet greater when I judge that this complex Idea contains in it the real Essence of any Body existing when at least it contains but some few of those Properties which flow from its real Essence and Constitution I say only some few of those Properties for those Properties consisting mostly in the active and passive Powers it has in reference to other Things all that are vulgarly known of any one Body and of which the complex Idea of that kind of Things is usually made are but a very few in comparison of what a Man that has several ways tried and examined it knows of that one sort of Things and all that the most expert Man knows are but few in comparison of what are really in that Body and depend on its internal or essential Constitution The essence of a Triangle lies in a very little compass consists in a very few Ideas three Lines meeting at three Angles make up that Essence But the Properties that flow from this Essence are more than can be easily known or enumerated So I imagine it is in Substances their real Essences lie in a little compass though the Properties flowing from that internal Constitution are endless § 25. To conclude a Man having no notion of any Thing without him but by the Idea he has of it in his Mind which Idea he has a power to call by what Name he pleases he may indeed make an Idea neither answering the reality of Things nor agreeing to the Ideas commonly signified by other Peoples Words but cannot make a wrong or false Idea of a Thing which is no otherwise known to him but by the Idea he has of it v. g. When I frame an Idea of the Legs Arms and Body of a Man and join to this a Horse's Head and Neck I do not make a false Idea of any thing because it represents nothing without me But when I call it a Man or Tartar and imagine it either to represent some real Being without me or to be the same Idea that others call by the same name in either of these cases I may err And upon this account it is that it comes to be termed a false Idea though indeed the falshood lie not in the Idea but in that tacit mental Proposition wherein a conformity and resemblance is attributed to it which it has not But yet if having framed such an Idea in my Mind without thinking either that Existence or the name Man or Tartar belongs to it I will call it Man or Tartar I may be justly thought phantastical in the Naming but not erroneous in my Judgment nor the Idea any way false § 26. Upon the whole matter I think That our Ideas as they are considered by the Mind either in reference to the proper signification of their Names or in reference to the reality of Things may very fitly be called right or wrong Ideas according as they agree or disagree to those Patterns to which they are referred But if any one had rather call them true or false 't is fit he use a liberty which every one has to call Things by those Names he thinks best though in propriety of Speech Truth or Falshood will I think scarce agree to them but as they some way or other virtually contain in them some mental Proposition The Ideas that are in a Man's Mind simply considered cannot be wrong unless complex ones wherein inconsistent parts are jumbled together All other Ideas are in themselves right and the knowledge about them right and true Knowledge but when we come to refer them to any thing as to their Patterns and Archetypes then they are capable of being
wrong as far as they disagree with such Archetypes § 27. Having thus given an account of the original sorts and extent of our Ideas with several other Considerations about these I know not whether I may say Instruments or Materials of our knowledge the method I at first proposed to my self would now require that I should immediately proceed to shew what use the Understanding makes of them and what Knowledge we have by them This was that which in the first general view I had of this Subject was all that I thought I should have to do but upon a nearer approach I find that there is so close a connexion between Ideas and Words and our abstract Ideas and general Words have so constant a relation one to another that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge which all consists in Propositions without considering first the Nature Use and Signification of Language which therefore must be the business of the next Book BOOK III. CHAP. I. Of Words or Language in general § 1. GOD having designed Man for a sociable Creature made him not only with an inclination and under a necessity to have fellowship with those of his own kind but furnished him also with Language which was to be the great Instrument and common Tye of Society Man therefore had by Nature his Organs so fashioned as to be fit to frame articulate Sounds which we call Words But this was not enough to produce Language for Parrots and several other Birds will be taught to make articulate Sounds distinct enough which yet by no means are capable of Language § 2. Besides articulate Sounds therefore it was farther necessary that he should be able to use these Sounds as signs of internal Conceptions and to make them stand as marks for the Ideas within his own Mind whereby they might be made known to others and the Thoughts of Mens Minds be conveyed from one to another § 3. But neither was this sufficient to make Words so useful as they ought to be It is not enough for the perfection of Language that Sounds can be made signs of Ideas unless those signs can be so made use of as to comprehend several particular Things For the multiplication of Words would have perplexed their Use had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified by § 4. Words then are made to be signs of our Ideas and are general or particular as the Ideas they stand for are general or particular But besides these Names which stand for Ideas there be others which Men have found and make use of not to signifie any Idea but the want or absence of some Ideas simple or complex or all Ideas together such as are the Latin words Nihil and in English Ignorance and Burrenness All which negative or privative Words cannot be said properly to belong to or signifie no Ideas for then they would be perfectly insignificant Sounds but they relate to positive Ideas and signifie their absence § 5. It may also lead us a little towards the Original of all our Notions and Knowledge if we remark how great a dependence our Words have on common sensible Ideas and how those which are made use of to stand for Actions and Notions quite removed from sense have their Original and are transferred from obvious sensible Ideas v. g. to Imagine Apprehend Comprehend Adhere Conceive Instill Disgust Disturbance Tranquillity c. are all Words taken from the Operations of sensible Things and applied to certain Modes of Thinking Spirit in its primary signification is Breath Angel a Messenger And I doubt not but if we could trace them to their Originals we should find in all Languages the names which stand for Things that fall not under our Senses to have had their first rise from sensible Ideas By which we may give some kind of guess what kind of Notions they were and whence derived which filled their Minds who were the first Beginners of Languages and how Nature even in the naming of Things unawares suggested to Men the Originals and Principles of all their Knowledge whilst to give Names that might make known to others any Operations they felt in themselves or any other Ideas that came not under their Senses they were fain to borrow Words from ordinary known Ideas of Sensation by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those Operations they experimented in themselves which made no outward sensible appearances and then when they had got known and agreed Names to signifie those internal Operations of their own Minds they were sufficiently furnished to make known by Words all their other Ideas since they could consist of nothing but either of outward sensible Perceptions or of the inward Operations of their Minds about them we having as has been proved no Ideas at all but what originally come either from sensible Objects without or what we feel within our selves from the inward Workings of our own Spirits which we are conscious to our selves of within § 6. But to understand better the use and force of Language as subservient to Instruction and Knowledge it will be convenient to consider First To what it is that Names in the use of Language are immediately applied Secondly Since all except proper Names are general and so stand not particularly for this or that single Thing but for sorts and ranks of Things it will be necessary to consider in the next place what the Sorts and Kinds or if you rather like the Latin Names what the Species and Genera of Things are wherein they consist and how they come to be made These being as they ought well looked into we shall the better come to find the right use of Words the natural Advantages and Defects of Language and the remedies that ought to be used to avoid the inconveniencies of obscurity or uncertainty in the signification of Words without which it is impossible to discourse with any clearness or order concerning Knowledge Which being conversant about Propositions and those most commonly universal ones has greater connexion with Words than perhaps is suspected These Considerations therefore shall be the matter of the following Chapters CHAP. II. Of the Signification of Words § 1. MAN though he have great variety of Thoughts and such from which others as well as himself might receive Profit and Delight yet they are all within his own Breast invisible and hidden from others nor can of themselves be made appear The Comfort therefore and Advantage of Society not being to be had without Communication of Thoughts it was necessary that Man should find out some external sensible Signs whereby those invisible Ideas which possess his Mind in so great variety might be made known to others For which purpose nothing was so fit either for Plenty or Quickness as those articulate Sounds which with so much Ease and Variety he found himself able to make Thus we may conceive how Words which were by Nature so well
saw nor heard of any such thing before there the whole Probability relies on Testimony And as the Relators are more in number and of more Credit and have no Interest to speak contrary to the Truth so that matter of fact is like to find more or less belief Though to a Man whose Experience has been always quite contrary and has never heard of any thing like it the most untainted Credit of a Witness will scarce be able to find belief As it happened to a Dutch Ambassadour who entertaining the King of Siam with the particularities of Holland which he was inquisitive after amongst other things told him that the Water in his Country would sometimes in cold weather be so hard that Men walked upon it and that it would bear an Elephant if he were there To which the King replied Hitherto I have believed the strange Things you have told me because I look upon you as a sober fair Man but now I am sure you lye § 6. Upon these grounds depends the Probability of any Proposition And as the conformity of our Knowledge as the certainty of Observations as the frequency and constancy of Experience and the number and credibility of Testimonies do more or less agree or disagree with it so is any Proposition in it self more or less probable There is another I confess which though by it self it be no true ground of Probability yet is often made use of for one by which Men most commonly regulate their Assent and upon which they pin their Faith more than any thing else any that is the Opinion of others though there cannot be a more dangerous thing to rely on nor more likely to mislead one since there is much more Falshood and Errour amongst Men than Truth and Knowledge And if the Opinions and Persuasions of others whom we know and think well of be a ground of Assent Men have Reason to be Heathens in Iapan Mahumetans in Turkey Papists in Spain Protestants in England and Lutherans in Sueden But of this wrong ground of Assent I shall have occasion to speak more at large in another place CHAP. XVI Of the Degrees of Assent § 1. THe grounds of Probability we have laid down in the foregoing Chapter as they are the foundations on which our Assent is built so are they also the measure whereby its several degrees are or ought to be regulated only we are to take notice that whatever grounds of Probability there may be they yet operate no farther on the Mind which searches after Truth and endeavours to judge right than they appear at least in the first Judgment or Search that the Mind makes I confess in the Opinions Men have and firmly stick to in the World their Assent is not always from an actual view of the Reasons that at first prevailed with them It being in many cases almost impossible and in most very hard even for those who have very admirable Memories to retain all the Proofs which upon a due examination made them embrace that side of the Question It suffices that they have once with care and fairness examined the matter as far as they could and that they have searched into all the Particulars that they could imagine to give any light to the Question and with the best of their Skill cast up the account upon the whole Evidence and thus having once found on which side the Probability appeared to them after as full and exact an enquiry as they can make they lay up the conclusion in their Memories as a Truth they have discovered and for the future they remain satisfied with the Testimony of their Memories that this is the Opinion that by the Proofs they have once seen of it deserves such a degree of their Assent as they afford it § 2. This is all that the greatest part of Men are capable of doing in regulating their Opinions and Judgments unless a Man will exact of them either to retain distinctly in their Memories all the Proofs concerning any probable Truth and that too in the same order and regular deduction of Consequences in which they have formerly placed or seen them which sometimes is enough to fill a large Volume upon one single Question Or else they must require a Man for every Opinion that he embraces every day to examine the Proofs both which are impossible It is unavoidable therefore that the Memory be relied on in the case and that Men be persuaded of several Opinions whereof the Proofs are not actually in their Thoughts nay which perhaps they are not able actually to re-call Without this the greatest part of Men must be either very Scepticks or change every moment and yield themselves up to whoever having lately studied the Question offers them Arguments which for want of Memory they are not able presently to answer § 3. I cannot but own that Men's sticking to their past Iudgment and adhering firmly to Conclusions formerly made is often the cause of great obstinacy in Errour and Mistake But the fault is not that they rely on their Memories for what they have before well judged but because they judged before they had well examined May we not find a great number not to say the greatest part of Men that think they have formed right Judgments of several matters and that for no other reason but because they never thought otherwise That imagine themselves to have judged right only because they never questioned never examined their own Opinions Which is indeed to think they judged right because they never judged at all And yet these of all Men hold their Opinions with the greatest stiffness those being generally the most fierce and firm in their Tenets who have least examined them What we once know we are certain is so and we may be secure that there are no latent Proofs undiscovered which may overturn our Knowledge or bring it in doubt But in matters of Probability 't is not in every case that we can be sure that we have all the Particulars before us that any way concern the Question and that there is no evidence behind and yet unseen which may cast the Probability on the other side and out-weigh all that at present seems to preponderate with us Who almost is there that hath the leisure patience and means to collect together all the Proofs concerning most of the Opinions he has so as safely to conclude that he hath a clear and full view and that there is no more to be alledged for his better information And yet we are forced to determine our selves on the one side or other The conduct of our Lives and the management of our great Concerns will not bear delay for those depend for the most part on the determination of our Judgment in points wherein we are not capable of certain and demonstrative Knowledge and wherein it is necessary for us to embrace the one side or the other § 4. Since therefore it is unavoidable to the greatest