where it has its Sourse 't is visible must be essentially inseparable from it therefore the actual want of Perception in so great part of the particular parcels of Matter is a Demonstration that the first Being from whom Perception and Knowledge is inseparable is not Matter How far this makes the want of Perception an essential property of Matter I will not dispute it suffices that it shews That Perception is not an essential Property of Matter and therefore Matter cannot be that eternal original Being to which Perception and Knowledge is Essential Matter I say naturally is without Perception Ergo says your Lordship want of Perception is an essential Property of Matter and God doth not change the essential Properties of things their Nature remaining From whence you infer That God cannot bestow on any parcel of Matter the nature of Matter remaining a Faculty of Thinking If the Rules of Logick since my days be not changed I may safely deny this Consequence For an Argument that runs thus God does not Ergo he cannot I was taught when I came first to the University would not hold For I never said God did But That I see no Contradiction in it that he should if he pleased give to some systems of sensless Matter a Faculty of Thinking and I know no Body before Des Cartes that ever pretended to shew that there was any Contradiction in it So that at worst my not being able to see in Matter any such Incapacity as makes it impossible for Omnipotency to bestow on it a Faculty of Thinking makes me opposite only to the Cartesians For as far as I have seen or heard the Fathers of the Christian Church never pretended to domonstrate that Matter was incapable to receive a Power of Sensation Perception and Thinking from the Hand of the omnipotent Creator Let us therefore if you please suppose the form of your Argumentation right and that your Lordship means God cannot And then if your Argument be good it proves That God could not give to Baalam's Ass a Power to speak to his Master as he did for the want of rational Discourse being natural to that Species 't is but for your Lordship to call it an Essential Property and then God cannot change the Essential Properties of things their Nature remaining Whereby it is proved That God cannot with all his Omnipotency give to an Ass a Power to speak as Balaam's did You say my Lord you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency For he may if he please change a Body into an Immaterial Substance i. e. take away from a Substance the Solidity which it had before and which made it Matter and then give it a Faculty of thinking which it had not before and which makes it a Spirit the same Substance remaining For if the same Substance remains not Body is not changed into an Immaterial Substance But the solid Substance and all belonging to it is Annihilated and an Immaterial Substance Created which is not change of one thing into another but the destroying of one and making another de novo In this change therefore of a Body or Material Substance into an immaterial let us observe those distinct Considerations First you say God may if He Pleases take away from a Solid Substance Solidity which is that which makes it a Material Substance or Body and may make it an Immaterial Substance i. e. a Substance without Solidity But this privation of one Quality gives it not another the bare taking away a lower or less Noble Quality does not give it an Higher or Nobler that must be the gift of God For the bare Privation of one and a meaner Quality cannot be the Position of an Higher and better unless any one will say that Cogitation or the Power of thinking results from the Nature of Substance it self which if it do then where ever there is Substance there must be Cogitation or a Power of thinking Here then upon your Lordship 's own Principles is an Immaterial Subâ—ance without the Faculty of thinking In the next place you will not deny but God may give to this Substance thus deprived of Solidity a Faculty of thinking for you suppose it made capable of that by being made Immaterial whereby you allow that the same numerical Substance may be sometimes wholly Incogitative or without a Power of thinking and at other times perfectly Cogitative or indued with a Power of thinking Further you will not deny but God can give it Solidity and make it Material again For I conclude it will not be denied that God can make it again what it was before Now I crave leave to ask your Lordship why God having given to this Substance the Faculty of thinking after Solidity was taken from it cannot restore to it Solidity again without taking away the Faculty of thinking When you have Resolved this my Lord you will have proved it impossible for God's Omnipotence to give to a Solid Substance a Faculty of thinking but till then not having proved it impossible and yet denying that God can do it is to deny that he can do what is in it self Possible which as I humbly conceive is visibly to set Bound's to God's Omnipotency tho' you say here you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency If I should imitate your Lordship's way of Writing I should not omit to bring in Epicurus here and take notice that this was his way Deum verbis ponere re tollere And then add that I am certain you do not think he promoted the great ends of Religion and Morality For 't is with such Candid and Kind insinuations as these that you bring in both Hobbes and Spinosa into your Discourse here about God's being able if he please to give to some parcels of Matter ordered as he thinks fit a Faculty of thinking Neither of those Authors having as appears by any Passages you bring out of them said any thing to this Question nor having as it seems any other business here but by their Names skilfully to give that Character to my Book with which you would recommend it to the World I pretend not to enquire what measure of Zeal nor for what guides your Lordships Pen in such a way of Writing as yours has all along been with me Only I cannot but consider what Reputation it would give to the Writings of the Fathers of the Church if they should think Truth required or Religion allowed them to imitate such Patterns But God be thanked there be those amongst them who do not admire such ways of managing the Cause of Truth or Religion They being sensible that if every one who believes or can pretend he has Truth on his side is thereby Authorized without proof to insinuate what ever may serve to prejudice Mens minds against the other side there will be great ravage made on Charity and Practice without any gain to Truth or Knowledge And that the Liberties frequently taken by Disputants
is obscure and confused therefore upon my Grounds we cannot know that such a thing as Substance exists because I placed Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas Now to this I answer'd that I did not place all Certainty only on clear and distinct Ideas in such a Sense as that and therefore to avoid being mistaken I said That my Notion of Certainty by Ideas is that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas such as we have whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no viz. if they are clear and distinct enough to be capable of having their agreement or disagreement with any other Idea perceived so far they are capable of affording us Knowledge though at the same time they are so obscure and confused as that there are other Ideas with which we can by no means so compare them as to perceive their agreement or disagreement with them This was the clearness and distinctness which I denyed to be necessary to Certainty If your Lordship would have done me the honour to have consider'd what I understood by obscure and confused Ideas and what every one must understand by them who thinks clearly and distinctly concerning them I am apt to imagine you would have spared your self the trouble of raising this Question and omitted these Quotations out of my Book as not serving to your Lordship's purpose The fourth Passage which you seem to lay most stress on proves as little to your purpose as either of the former Three The Words are these But obscure and confused Ideas can never produce any clear and certain Knowledge Because as far as any Ideas are confused or obscure the Mind can never perceive clearly whether they agree or no. The latter part of these Words are a plain interpretation of the former and shew their meaning to be this viz. Our obscure and confused Ideas as they stand in contra-distinction to clear and distinct have all of them something in them whereby they are kept from being wholly imperceptible and perfectly confounded with all other Ideas and so their agreement or disagreement with at least some other Ideas may be perceived and thereby produce Certainty though they are obscure and confused Ideas But so far as they are obscure and confused so that their agreement or disagreement cannot be perceived so far they cannot produce Certainty v. g. the Idea of Substance is clear and distinct enough to have its agreement with that of actual Existence perceived But yet it is so far obscure and confused that there be a great many other Ideas with which by reason of its obscurity and confusedness we cannot compare it so as to produce such a Perception And in all those Cases we necessarily come short of Certainty And that this was so and that I meant so I humbly conceive you could not but have seen if you had given your self the trouble to reflect on that Passage which you quoted viz. That Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas such as we have whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no. To which what your Lordship has here brought out of the second Book of my Essay is no manner of Contradiction unless it be a Contradiction to say that an Idea which cannot be well compared with some Ideas from which it is not clearly and sufficiently distinguishable is yet capable of having its agreement or disagreement perceived with some other Idea with which it is not so confounded but that it may be compared And therefore I had and have still reason to complain of your Lordship for charging that upon me which I never said nor meant To make this yet more visible give me leave to make use of an Instance in the object of the Eyes in Seeing from whence the Metaphor of obscure and confused is transfer'd to Ideas the objects of the Mind in Thinking There is no object which the Eye sees that can be said to be perfectly obscure for then it would not be seen at all nor perfectly confused for then it could not be distinguished from any other no not from a clearer For Example one sees in the Dusk something of that shape and size that a Man in that degree of Light and distance would appear This is not so obscure that he sees nothing nor so confused that he cannot distinguish it from a Steeple or a Star But is so obscure that he cannot thought it be a Statue distinguish it from a Man and therefore in regard of a Man it can produce no clear and distinct Knowledge But yet as obscure and confused an Idea as it is this hinders not but there may many propositions be made concerning it as particularly that it exists of the Truth of which we may be certain And that without any Contradiction to what I say in my Essay viz. That obscure and confused Ideas can never produce any clear and certain Knowledge Because as far as they are confused or obscure the Mind cannot perceive clearly whether they agree or no. This reason that I there give plainly limiting it only to Knowledge where the obscurity and confusion is such that it hinders the perception of agreement or disagreement which is not so great in any obscure and confused Idea but that there is some other Ideas with which it may be perceived to agree or disagree and there 't is capable to produce Certainty in us And thus I am come to the end of your Defence of your first Answer as you call it and desire the Reader to consider how much in the eight Pages imploy'd in it is said to defend this Proposition that Those who offer at clear and distinct Ideas bid much fairer for Certainty than I do But your Lordship having under this Head taken occasion to examine my making clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty I crave leave to consider here what you say of it in another place I find one Argument more to prove That I place Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas Your Lordship tells me and bids me observe my own Words that I positively say That the Mind not being certain of the Truth of that it doth not evidently know So that says your Lordship it is plain here that I place Certainty in evident Knowledge or in clear and distinct Ideas and yet my great complaint of your Lordship was that you charged this upon me and now you find it in my own Words Answer I do observe my own Words but do not find in them or in clear and distinct Ideas though your Lordship has set these down as my Words I there indeed say The Mind is not certain of what it does not evidently know Whereby I place Certainty as your Lordship says only in evident Knowledge but evident Knowledge may be had in the clear and evident perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas though some
of them should not be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct as is evident in this Proposition that Substance does Exist But you give not off this Matter so For these Words of mine above quoted by your Lordship viz. It being evident that our Knowledge cannot exceed our Ideas where they are imperfect confused or obscure we cannot expect to have certain perfect or clear Knowledge your Lordship has here up again And thereupon charge it on me as a contradiction that confessing our Ideas to be imperfect confused and obscure I say I do not yet place Certainty in clear and distinct Ideas Answer The Reason is plain for I do not say that all our Ideas are imperfect confused and obscure nor that obscure and confused Ideas are in all their parts so obscure and confused that no agreement or disagreement between them and any other Idea can be perceived and therefore my confession of imperfect obscure and confused Ideas takes not away all Knowledge even concerning those very Ideas But says your Lordship Can Certainty be had with imperfect and obscure Ideas and yet no Certainty be had by them Add if you please my Lord by those parts of them which are obscure and confused And then the Question will be right put and have this easie Answer Yes my Lords and that without any contradiction because an Idea that is not in all its parts perfectly clear and distinct and is therefore an obscure and confused Idea may yet with those Ideas with which by any obscurity it has it is not confounded be capable to produce Knowledge by the perception of its agreement or disagreement with them And yet it will hold true that in that part wherein it is imperfect obscure and confused we cannot expect to have certain perfect or clear Knowledge For Example he that has the Idea of a Leopard as only of a spotted Animal must be confessed to have but a very imperfect obscure and confused Idea of that Species of Animals and yet this obscure and confused Idea is capable by a perception of the agreement or disagreement of the clear part of it viz. that of Animal with several other Ideas to produce Certainty Though as far as the obscure part of it confounds it with the Idea of a Lynx or other spotted Animal it can joyn'd with them in many Propositions produce no Knowledge This might easily be understood to be my meaning by these Words which your Lordship quotes out of my Essay viz. That 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 Upon which your Lordship asks How is it possible for the Mind to have a clear perception of the agreement of Ideas if the Ideas themselves be not clear and distinct Answer Just as the Eyes can have a clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of the clear and distinct parts of a Writing with the clear parts of another though one or both of them be so obscure and blur'd in other parts that the Eye cannot perceive any agreement or disagreement they have one with another And I am sorry that these Words of mine My Notion of Certainty by Ideas is that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas such as we have whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no were not plain enough to make your Lordship understand my meaning and save you all this new and as it seems to me needless trouble In your 15th Page your Lordship comes to your second of the three Answers which you say you had given and would lay together and defend You say 2 you answer'd That it is very possible the Author of Christianity not Mysterious might mistake or misapply my Notions but there is too much reason to believe he thought them the same and we have no reason to be sorry that he hath given me this occasion for the explaining my meaning and for the Vindication of my self in the matters I apprehend he had charged me with These words your Lordship quotes out of the 36th Page of your first Letter But as I have already observed they are not there given as an answer to this that you make me here say and therefore to what purpose you repeat them here is not easie to discern unless it can be thought that an unsatisfactory answer in one place can become satisfactory by being repeated in another where it is as I humbly conceive less to the purpose and no answer at all It was there indeed given as an answer to my saying That I did not place Certainty in clear and distinct Ideas which I said to shew that you had no reason to bring me into the Controversie because the Author of Christianity not Mysterious placed Certainty in clear and distinct Ideas To satisfie me for your doing so your Lordship answers That it was very possible that Author might mistake or misapply my Notions A reason indeed that will equally justifie your bringing my Book into any Controversie For there is no Author so infallible write he in what Controversie he pleases but 't is possible he may mistake or misapply my Notions That was the force of this your Lordship's Answer in that place of your first Letter but what it serves for in this place of your second Letter I have not Wit enough to see The remainder of it I have answer'd in the 37th and 38th Pages of my second Letter and therefore cannot but wonder to see it repeated here again without any notice taken of what I said in answer to it though you set it down here again as you say p. 7. on purpose to defend But all the defence made is only to that part of my Reply which you set down as a fresh Complaint that I make in these Words This can be no reason why I should be joined with a Man that had misapplied my Notions and that no Man hath so much mistaken and misapplied my Notions as your Lordship and therefore I ought rather to be joined with your Lordship And then you with some warmth subjoin But is this fair and ingenuous dealing to represent this Matter so as if your Lordship had joined us together because he had misunderstood and misapplied my Notions Can I think your Lordship a Man of so little Sense to make that the reason of it No Sir says your Lordship it was because he assigned no other Grounds but mine and that in my own Words however now I would divert the meaning of them another way My Lord I did set down your Words at large in my second Letter and therefore do not see how I could be liable to any Charge of unfair or disingenuous dealing in representing the Matter which I am sure you will allow as
this Proposition Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this fundament Article that there is a God And so of the immortality of the Soul because I say I know not but Matter may think Your Lordship would infer Ergo my definition of Certainty weakens the credibility of the Revelation of the Souls immortality Your Lordship is pleased here to call this Proposition That Knowledge or Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas My general grounds of Certainty as if I had some more particular grounds of Certainty Whereas I have no other Ground or Notion of Certainty but this one alone all my Notion of Certainty is contained in that one particular Proposition but perhaps your Lordship did it that you might make the Proposition above quoted viz. No Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self under the Title you give it of the way of Ideas pass for one of my particular Grounds of Certainty whereas it is no more any Ground of Certainty of mine or definition of Knowledge than any other Proposition in my Book Another thing very remarkable in what your Lordship here says is That you make the failing to attain Knowledge by any way of Certainty in some particular Instances to be the finding the uncertainty of the way it self which is all one as to say That if a Man misses by Algebra the certain Knowledge of some Propositions in Mathematicks therefore he finds the way or principles of Algebra to be uncertain or false This is your Lordship's way of reasoning here Your Lordship quotes out of me That I say no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self And that I say That one cannot be certain that Matter cannot think from whence your Lordship argues That he who says so cannot attain to Certainty that there is a God or that the Soul is immortal and thereupon your Lordship concludes he finds the uncertainty of the Principles he went upon in Point of Reason i. e. that he finds this Principle or Ground of Certainty he went upon in reasoning viz. That Certainty or Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas to be uncertain For if your Lordship means here by Principles he went upon in Point of Reason any thing else but that definition of Knowledge which your Lordship calls my Way Method Grounds c. of Certainty which I and others to the endangering some Articles of Faith go upon I crave leave to say it concerns nothing at all the Argument your Lordship is upon which is to prove That the placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas may be of dangerous consequence to any Article of Faith Your Lordship in the next place says Before we can believe any thing upon the account of Revelation we must suppose there is a God What use does your Lordship make of this Your Lordship thus argues But by my way of Certainty a Man is made uncertain whether there be a God or no. For that to me is the meaning of those Words How can his Faith stand firm as to Divine Revelation when he is made uncertain by his own way whether there be a God or no Or they can to me mean nothing to the Question in hand What is the conclusion from hence This it must be or nothing to the purpose Ergo my defini-nition of Knowledge or which is the same thing my placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas leaves not the Articles of Faith the same credibility they had before To excuse my dulness in not being able to comprehend this consequence pray my Lord consider that your Lordship says Before we can believe any thing upon the account of Revelation it must be supposed that there is a God But cannot he who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement and disagreement of Ideas supposes there is a God But your Lordship means by suppose that one must be certain that there is a God Let it be so and let it be your Lordship's priviledge in Controversie to use one word for another though of a different signification as I think to suppose and be certain are Cannot one that places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas be certain there is a God I can assure you my Lord I am certain there is a God and yet I own That I place Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas Nay I dare venture to say to your Lordship That I have proved there is a God and see no inconsistency at all between these two Propositions That Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement of disagreement of Ideas and that it is certain there is a God So that this my Notion of Certainty this definition of Knowledge for any thing your Lordship has said to the contrary leaves to this Fundamental Article the same Credibility and the same Certainty it had before Your Lordship says farther To suppose Divine Revelation we must be certain that there is a principle above Matter and Motion in the World Here again my Lord your way of writing makes work for my Ignorance and before I can either admit or deny this Proposition or judge what force it has to prove the Proposition in question I must distinguish it into these different Senses which I think your Lordship's way of speaking may comprehend For your Lordship may mean it thus To suppose Divine Revelation we must be certain i. e. we must believe that there is a principle above Matter and Motion in the World Or your Lordship may mean thus We must be certain i. e. we must know that there is something above Matter or Motion in the World In the next place your Lordship may mean by something above Matter and Motion either simply an intelligent Being for Knowledge without determining what Being it is in is a principle above Matter and Motion Or your Lordship may mean an immaterial intelligent Being so that this undetermined way of expressing includes at least four distinct Propositions whereof some are true and others not so For 1. My Lord if your Lordship means That to suppose a Divine Revelation a Man must be certain i. e. must certainly know that there is an intelligent Being in the World and that that intelligent Being is immaterial from whence that Revelation comes I deny it For a Man may suppose Revelation upon the belief of an intelligent Being from whence it comes without being able to make out to himself by a Scientifical Reasoning that there is such a Being A proof whereof I humbly conceive are the Anthropomorphites among the Christians heretofore who nevertheless rejected not the Revelation of the New Testament and he that will talk with illiterate People in this Age will I doubt not find many who believe
is the Proposition here to be proved would remain still unproved For I might say things inconsistent with this Proposition That Knowledge consists in the Perception of the Connection and Agreement or Disagreement and Repugnancy of our Ideas and yet that Proposition be true and very far from tending to Scepticism unless your Lordship will argue that every Proposition that is inconsistent with what a Man any where says tends to Scepticism and then I should be tempted to infer that many Propositions in the Letters your Lordship has honoured me with will tend to Scepticism Your Lordship's second Argument is from my saying We have no Ideas of the mechanical Affections of the minute Particles of Bodies which hinders our certain Knowledge of universal Truths concerning natural Bodies from whence your Lordship concludes That since we can attain to no Science as to Bodies or Spirits our Knowledge must be confin'd to a very narrow compass I grant it but I crave leave to mind your Lordship again That this is not the Proposition to be proved A little Knowledge is still Knowledge and not Scepticism But let me have affirm'd our Knowledge to be comparatively very little How I beseech your Lordship does that any way prove that this Proposition Knowledge consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas any way tends to Scepticism which was the Proposition to be proved But the Inference your Lordship shuts up this Head with in these Words So that all Certainty is given up in the way of Knowledge as to the visible and invisible World or at least the greatest part of them shewing in the first part of it what your Lordship should have inferred and was willing to infer does at last by these Words in the Close Or at least the greatest part of them I guess come just to nothing I say I guess for what them by Grammatical Construction is to be referred to seems not clear to me Your third Argument being just of the same kind with the former only to shew That I reduce our Knowledge to a very narrow compass in respect of the whole extent of Beings is already answered In the fourth place your Lordship sets down some Words of mine concerning Reasoning and Demonstration and then concludes But if there be no way of coming to Demonstration but this I doubt we must be content without it Which being nothing but a Declaration of your doubt is I grant a very short way of proving any Proposition and I shall leave to your Lordship the Satisfaction you have in such a Proof since I think it will scarce convince others In the last place your Lordship argues that because I say That the Idea in the Mind proves not the Existence of that thing whereof it is an Idea therefore we cannot know the actual Existence of any thing by our Senses because we know nothing but by the perceived Agreement of Ideas But if you had been pleased to have consider'd my Answer there to the Scepticks whose Cause you here seem with no small vigour to manage you would I humbly conceive have found that you mistake one thing for another viz. The Idea that has by a former Sensation been lodged in the Mind for actually receiving any Idea i. e. actual Sensation which I think I need not go about to prove are two distinct things after what you have here quoted out of my Book Now the two Ideas that in this Case are perceived to agree and do thereby produce Knowledge are the Idea of actual Sensation which is an Action whereof I have a clear and distinct Idea and the Idea of actual Existence of something without me that causes that Sensation And what other Certainty your Lordship has by your Senses of the existing of any thing without you but the perceived Connection of those two Ideas I would gladly know When you have destroyed this Certainty which I conceive is the utmost as to this Matter which our infinitely Wise and Bountiful Maker has made us capable of in this State your Lordship will have well assisted the Scepticks in carrying their Arguments against Certainty by Sense beyond what they could have expected I cannot but fear my Lord that what you have said here in favour of Scepticism against Certainty by Sense for it is not at all against me till you shew we can have no Idea of actual Sensation without the Proper Antidote annexed in shewing wherein that Certainty consists if the account I give be not true after you have so strenuously endeavoured to destroy what I have said for it will by your Authority have laid no small Foundation of Scepticism which they will not fail to lay hold of with advantage to their Cause who have any Disposition that way For I desire any one to read this your fifth Argument and then judge which of us two is a promoter of Scepticism I who have endeavoured and as I think proved Certainty by our Senses or your Lordship who has in your Thoughts at least destroyed these Proofs without giving us any other to supply their place All your other Arguments amount to no more but this That I have given Instances to shew that the extent of our Knowledge in comparison of the whole extent of Being is very little and narrow which when your Lordship writ your Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity were very fair and ingenuous Confessions of the shortness of Humane Vnderstanding with respect to the Nature and Manner of such things which we are most certain of the Being of by constant and undoubted Experience Though since you have shewed your dislike of them in more places than one particularly p. 33. and again more at large p. 43. and at last you have thought fit to represent them as Arguments for Scepticism And thus I have acquitted my self I hope to your Lordship's Satisfaction of my promise to answer your Accusation of a tendency to Scepticism But to return to your second Letter where I left off In the following Pages you have another Argument to prove my way of Certainty to be none but to lead to Scepticism which after a serious perusal of it seems to me to amount to no more but this That Des Cartes and I go both in the way of Ideas and we differ Ergo the placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas is no way of Certainty but leads to Scepticism which is a Consequence I cannot admit And I think is no better than this Your Lordship and I differ and yet we go both in the way of Ideas Ergo the placing of Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas is no way of Certainty at all but leads to Scepticism Your Lordship will perhaps think I say more than I can justifie when I say Your Lordship goes in the way of Ideas for you will tell me you do not place
Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas Answer No more does Des Cartes and therefore in that Respect he and I went no more in the same way of Ideas than your Lordship and I do From whence it follows That how much soever he and I may differ in other Points our Difference is no more an Argument against this Proposition That Knowledge or Certainty consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas than your Lordship's and my Difference in any other Point is an Argument against the Truth of that my definition of Knowledge or that it tends to Scepticism But you will say That Des Cartes built his System of Philosophy upon Ideas and so I say does your Lordship too and every one else as much as he that has any System of that or any other part of Knowledge For Ideas are nothing but the immediate Objects of our Minds in Thinking and your Lordship I conclude in building your System of any part of Knowledge thinks on something and therefore you can no more build or have any System of Knowledge without Ideas than you can think without some immediate Objects of Thinking Indeed you do not so often use the word Ideas as Des Cartes or I have done but using the things signified by that Term as much as either of us unless you can think without an immediate Object of Thinking yours also is the way of Ideas as much as his or mine Your condemning the way of Ideas in those general Terms which one meets with so often in your Writings on this Occasion amounts at last to no more but an Exception against a poor Sound of three Syllables though your Lordship thinks fit not to own that you have any Exception to it If besides this these ten or twelve Pages have any other Argument in them which I have not seen I humbly desire you would be pleased to put it into a Syllogism to convince my Reader That I have silently passed by an Argument of importance and then I promise an Answer to it And the same Request and Promise I make to your Lordship in reference to all other Passages in your Letter wherein you think there is any thing of moment unanswered Your Lordship comes to answer what was in my former Letter to shew that what you had said concerning Nature and Person was to me and several others whom I had talked with about it hard to be understood To this purpose the 16 next Pages are chiefly imploy'd to shew what Aristotle and others have said about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Natura a Greek and a Latin Word neither of which is the English Word Nature nor can concern it at all till it be proved that Nature in English has in the propriety of our Tongue precisely the same signification that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had among the Greeks and Natura among the Romans For would it not be pretty harsh to an English Ear to say with Aristotle That Nature is a corporeal Substance or a corporeal Substance is Nature To instance but in this one among those many various Senses which your Lordship proves he used the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Or with Anaximander That Nature is Matter or Matter Nature Or with Sextus Empericus That Nature is a principle of Life or a principle of Life is Nature So that though the Philosophers of old of all kinds did understand the Sense of the terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Natura in the Languages of their Countries yet it does not follow what you would here conclude from thence that they understood the proper signification of the Term Nature in English Nor has an English Man any more need to consult those Grecians in their use of the sound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to know what Nature signifies in English than those Grecians had need to consult our Writings or bring instances of the use of the word Nature in English Authors to justifie their using of the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any Sense they had used it in in Greek The like may be said of what is brought out of the Greek Christian Writers for I think an English Man could be scarce justified in saying in English That the Angels were Natures because Theodoret and St. Basil calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Indeed your Lordship brings a Proof from an Authority that is proper in the Case and would go a great way in it for it is of an English Man who writing of Nature gives an account of the signification of the word Nature in English But the mischief is that among Eight significations of the word Nature which he gives that is not to be found which you quote him for and had need of For he says not that Nature in English is used for Substance which is the Sense your Lordship has used it in and would justifie by the Authority of that ingenious and honourable Person and to make it out you tell us Mr. Boyle says the word Essence is of great affinity to Nature if not of an adequate import to which your Lordship adds But the real Essence of a thing is a Substance So that in fine the Authority of this excellent Person and Philosopher amounts to thus much that he says that Nature and Essence are two Terms that have a great affinity and you say that Nature and Substance are two Terms that have a great affinity For the learned Mr. Boyle says no such thing nor can it appear that he ever thought so till it can be shewn that he has said that Essence and Substance have the same signification I humbly conceive it would have been a strange way in any Body but your Lordship to have quoted an Author for saying that Nature and Substance had the same signification when one of those Terms viz. Substance he does not upon that occasion so much as Name But your Lordship has this Priviledge it seems to speak of your Inferences as if they were other Mens Words whereof I think I have given several Instances I am sure I have given one where you seem to speak of clear and distinct Ideas as my Words when they are only your Words there infer'd from my words evident Knowledge and other the like Instances might be produced were there any need Had your Lordship produced Mr. Boyle's Testimony that Nature in our Tongue had the same signification with Substance I should presently have submitted to so great an Authority and taken it for proper English and a clear way of expressing ones self to use Nature and Substance promiscuously one for another But since I think there is no Instance of any one who ever did so and therefore it must be a new and consequently no very clear way of Speaking give me leave my Lord to wonder why in all this Dispute about the term Nature upon the clear and right understanding whereof you
reason to complain of it and of the manner of its being brought in And if you had pleas'd not to have moved other Questions nor brought other Charges against my Book till this which was the Occasion and Subject of my First Letter had been cleared by making out that the Passages you had in your Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity quoted out of my Book had something in them against the Doctrin of the Trinity and so were with just reason brought by you as they were into that Dispute there had been no other but that Personal Matter as you call it between us In the Examination of those Pages meant as you said for my Satisfaction and of other parts of your Letter I found contrary to what I expected Matter of renewing and enlarging my complaint and this I took notice of and set down in my Reply which it seems I should not have done The knowledge of the World should have taught me better And I should have taken that for Satisfaction which you were pleased to give in which I could not find any nor as I believe any intelligent or impartial Reader So that your Lordship's care of the World that it should not grow weary of this Controversie and the Fault you find of my mis-imploying Fifty Pages of my Letter reduces it self at last in effect to no more but this That your Lordship should have a liberty to say what you please pay me in what Coin you think fit my part should be to be satisfied with it rest content and say nothing This indeed might be a way not to weary the World and to save 50 Pages of clean Paper and put such an end to the Controversie as your Lordship would not dislike I learn from your Lordship that it is the first part of Wisdom in some Mens Opinions not to begin in such Disputes What the knowledge of the World which is a sort of Wisdom should in your Lordship's Opinion make a Man do when one of your Lordship's Character begins with him is very plain He is not to reply so far as he judges his Defence and the Matter requires but as your Lordship is pleased to allow which some may think no better than if one might not reply at all After having thus rebuked me for having been too copious in my Reply in the next Words your Lordship instructs me what I should have answer'd That I should have clear'd my self by declaring to the World that I owned the Doctrin of the Trinity as it has been received in the Christian Church This as I take it is a meer Personal Matter of the same Woof with a Spanish Sant Benito and as it seems to me designed to sit close to me What must I do now my Lord Must I silently put on and wear this Badge of your Lordship's Favour and as one well understanding the World say not a Word of it because the World soon grows weary of Personal Matters If in Gratitude for this Personal Favour I ought to be silent yet I am forced to tell you That in what you require of me here you possibly have cut out too much Work for a poor ordinary Layman for whom it is too hard to know how a Doctrin so disputed has been received in the Christian Church and who might have thought it enough to own it as delivered in the Scriptures Your Lordship herein lays upon me what I cannot do without owning to know what I am sure I do not know For how the Doctrin of the Trinity has been always received in the Christian Church I confess my self ignorant I have not had time to examine the History of it and to read those Controversies that have been writ about it And to own a Doctrin as received by others when I do not know how those others received it is perhaps a short way to Orthodoxy that may satisfie some Men But he that takes this way to give Satisfaction in my Opinion makes a little bold with Truth and it may be questioned whether such a Profession be pleasing to that God who requires Truth in the inward Parts however acceptable it may in any Man be to his Diocesan I presume your Lordship in your Discourse in Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity intends to give it us as it has been received in the Christian Church And I think your Words viz. It is the Sense of the Christian Church which you are bound to defend and no particular Opinions of your own authorize one to think so But if I am to own it as your Lordship has there delivered it I must own what I do not understand For I confess your Exposition of the Sense of the Church wholly transcends my Capacity If you require me to own it with an implicit Faith I shall pay that Deference as soon to your Lordship's Exposition of the Doctrin of the Church as any ones But if I must understand and know what I own it is my Misfortune and I cannot deny it that I am as far from owning what you in that Discourse deliver as I can be from professing the most unintelligible thing that ever I read to be the Doctrin that I own Whether I make more use of my poor Understanding in the Case than you are willing to allow every one of your Readers I cannot tell but such an Understanding as God has given me is the best I have and that which I must use in the apprehending what others say before I can own the Truth of it and for this there is no help that I know That which keeps me a little in countenance is That if I mistake not Men of no mean Parts even Divines of the Church of England and those of neither the lowest Reputation nor Rank find their Understandings fail them on this occasion and stick not to own That they understand not your Lordship in that Discourse and particularly that your 6th Chapter is unintelligible to them as well as me whether the fault be in their and my Understandings the World must be judge But this is only by the by for this is not the Answer I here intend your Lordship Your Lordship tells me That to clear my self I should have owned to the World the Doctrin of the Trinity as it has been received c. Answer I know not whether in a Dispute managed after a new way wherein one Man is argued against and another Man's words all along quoted it may not also be a good as well as a new Rule for the Answerer to reply to what was never objected and clear himself from what was never laid to his Charge If this be not so and that this new way of Attacking requires not this new way of Defence your Lordship's Prescription to me here what I should have done will amongst the most intelligent and impartial Readers pass for a strange Rule in Controversie and such as the learnedst of them will not be able to find
have cleared my self by owning the Doctrin of the Trinity As if I had been ever accused of disowning it But that which shews no small skill in this management is That I am called upon to clear my self by the very same Person who raising the whole Dispute has himself over and over again cleared me and upon that grounds the Satisfaction he pretends to give to me and others in answer to my Complaint of his having without any Reason at all brought my Book into the Controversie concerning the Trinity But to go on If the preceding part of this Paragraph had nothing in it of Defence of this Proposition That those who offer at clear and distinct Ideas bid much fairer for Certainty than I do c. It is certain That what follows is altogether as remote from any such Defence Your Lordship says That Certainty by Sense Certainty by Reason and Certainty by Remembrance are to be distinguished from the Certainty under debate and to be shut out from it And upon this you spend the 11th 12th and 13th Pages Supposing it so how does this at all tend to the defence of this Proposition That those who offer at clear and distinct Ideas bid much fairer for Certainty than I do For whether Certainty by Sense by Reason and by Remembrance be or be not comprehended in the Certainty under debate this Proposition That those who offer at clear and distinct Ideas bid much fairer for Certainty than I do will not at all be confirmed or invalidated thereby The proving therefore That Certainty by Sense by Reason and by Remembrance is to be excluded from the Certainty under debate serving nothing to the defence of the Proposition to be defended and so having nothing to do here let us now consider it as a Proposition that your Lordship has a Mind to prove as serving to some other great purpose of your own or perhaps in some other View against my Book for you seem to lay no small stress upon it by your way of introducing it For you very solemnly set your self to prove That the Certainty under debate is the Certainty of Knowledge and that a Proposition whose Ideas are to be compared as to their agreement or disagreement is the proper object of this Certainty From whence your Lordship infers That therefore this Certainty is to be distinguished from a Certainty by Sense by Reason and by Remembrance But by what Logick this is infer'd is not easy to me to discover For if a Proposition whose Ideas are to be compared as to their agreement or disagreement be the proper object of the Certainty under debate If Propositions whose Certainty we arrive at by Sense Reason or Remembrance be of Ideas which may be compared as to their agreement or disagreement then they cannot be excluded from that Certainty which is to be had by so comparing those Ideas Unless they must be shut out for the very same Reason that others are taken in 1. Then as to Certainty by Sense or Propositions of that kind The Object of the Certainty under debate your Lordship owns is a Proposition whose Ideas are to be compared as to their agreement or disagreement The agreement or disagreement of the Ideas of a Proposition to be compared may be examined and perceived by Sense and is Certainty by Sense And therefore how this Certainty is to be distinguished and shut out from that which consists in the perceiving the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas of any Proposition will not be easy to shew unless one Certainty is distinguished from another by having that which makes the other to be Certainty viz. The perception of the agreement or disagreement of two Ideas as expressed in that Proposition v. g. May I not be certain that a Ball of Ivory that lies before my Eyes is not square And is it not my Sense of Seeing that makes me perceive the disagreement of that square Figure to that round Matter which are the Ideas expressed in that Proposition How then is Certainty by Sense excluded or distinguished from that knowledge which consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas 2. Your Lordship distinguishes the Certainty which consists in the perceiving the agreement or disagreement of Ideas as expressed in any Proposition from Certainty by Reason To have made good this distinction I humbly conceive you would have done well to have shewed that the agreement or disagreement of two Ideas could not be perceived by the intervention of a third which I and as I guess other People call Reasoning or knowing by Reason As for example cannot the sides of a given Triangle be known to be equal by the Intervention of two Circles whereof one of these sides is a common Radius To which 't is like your Lordship will answer what I find you do here about the knowledge of the existence of Substance by the intervention of the existence of Modes That you grant one may come to Certainty of Knowledge in the case but not a Certainty by Ideas but by a Consequence of Reason deduced from the Ideas we have by our Senses This my Lord you have said and thus you have more than once opposed Reason and Ideas as inconsistent which I should be very glad to see proved once after these several occasions I have given your Lordship by excepting against that Supposition But since the word Idea has the ill luck to be so constantly opposed by your Lordship to Reason Permit me if you please instead of it to put what I mean by it viz. the immediate objects of the Mind in thinking for that is it which I would signifie by the word Ideas and then let us see how your answer will run You grant that from the sensible Modes of Bodies we may come to a certain Knowledge that there are Bodily Substances but this you say is not a Certainty by the immediate objects of the Mind in thinking but by a consequence of Reason deduced from the immediate objects of the Mind in thinking which we have by our Senses When you can prove that we can have a Certainty by a consequence of Reason which Certainty shall not also be by the immediate objects of the Mind in using its Reason you may say such Certainty is not by Ideas but by Consequence of Reason But that I believe will not be till you can shew That the Mind can think or reason or know without immediate objects of thinking reasoning or knowing all which Objects as your Lordship knows I call Ideas You subjoin And this can never prove that we have Certainty by Ideas where the Ideas themselves are not clear and distinct The Question is not whether we can have Certainty by Ideas that are not clear and distinct Or whether my Words if by the Particle This you mean my Words set down in the foregoing Page prove any such thing which I humbly conceive they do not But whether Certainty
concerned in But if instead of this your Lordship shall find no other way to subvert this Foundation of Certainty but by saying The Enemies of the Christian Faith build on it because you suppose one Author builds on it this I fear my Lords will very little advantage the Cause you defend whilst it so visibly strengthens and gives credit to your Adversaries rather than weakens any Foundation they go upon For the Vnitarians I imagine will be apt to smile at such a way of arguing viz. That they go on this Ground because the Author of Christianity not Mysterious goes upon it or is supposed by your Lordship to go upon it and By-standers will do little less than Smile to find my Book brought into the Socinian Controversie and the ground of Certainty laid down in my Essay condemned only because that Author is supposed by your Lordship to build upon it For this in short is the Case and this the way your Lordship has used in answering Objections against the Trinity in point of Reason I know your Lordship cannot be suspected of writing booty But I fear such a way of arguing in so great a Man as your Lordship will in an Age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are too much exposed give too just an occasion to the Enemies and also to the Friends of the Christian Faith to suspect that there is a great failure some where But to pass by that This I am sure is personal Matter which the World perhaps will think it need not have been troubled with Your Defence of your third Answer goes on and to prove that the Author of Christianity not Mysterious built upon my Foundation you tell me That my ground of Certainty is the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas as expressed in any Proposition Which are my own Words From hence you urged That let the Proposition come to us any way either by humane or divine Authority if our Certainty depend upon this we can be no more certain than we have clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas contained in it And from hence the Author of Christianity not Mysterious thought he had Reason to reject all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions upon my grounds of Certainty Since this personal Matter appears of such weight to your Lordship that it needs to be farther Prosecuted and you think this your Argument to prove That that Author built upon my Foundation worth the repeating here again I am oblieged to enter again so far into this personal Matter as to examine this Passage which I formerly passed by as of no Moment For it is easy to shew that what you say visibly proves not that he built upon my Foundation and next 't is evident that if it were proved that he did so yet this is no Proof that my Method of Certainty is of dangerous Consequence which is what was to be defended As to the first of these your Lordship would prove that the Author of Christianity not Mysterious built upon my Ground and how do you prove it viz. because he thought he had Reason to reject all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions upon my Ground How does it appear that he rejected them upon my Grounds Does he any where say so No! That is not offered there is no need of such an Evidence of matter of Fact in a case which is only of matter of Fact But he thought he had Reason to reject them upon my Grounds of Certainty How does it appear that he thought so Very plainly Because let the Proposition come to us by humane or Divine Authority if our Certainty depend upon the perception of the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas contained in it we can be no more certain than we have clear perception of that agreement The consequence I grant is good that if Certainty i. e. Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas then we can certainly know the Truth of no Proposition further than we perceive that agreement or disagreement But how does it follow from thence that he Thought he had Reason upon my Grounds to reject any Proposition that contained a Mystery of Faith Or as your Lordship expresses it all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions Whether your Lordship by the word Rejecting accuses him of not knowing or of not believing some Proposition that contains an Article of Faith or what he has done or not done I concern not my self that which I deny is the consequence above mentioned which I submit to your Lordship to be proved And when you have proved it and shewn your self to be so familiar with the Thoughts of that Author as to be able to be positive what he Thought without his telling you it will remain farther to be proved that because he thought so therefore he built right upon my Foundation for otherwise no prejudice will come to my Foundation by any ill use he made of it nor will it be made good that my method or way of Certainty is of dangerous Consequence which is what your Lordship is here to defend Methinks your Lordship's Argument here is all one with this Aristotle's ground of Certainty except of first Principles lies in this That those things which agree in a Third agree themselves We can be certain of no Proposition excepting first Principles coming to us either by divine or humane Authority if our Certainty depend upon this farther than there is such an agreement Therefore the Author of Christianity not Mysterious thought he had reason to reject all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions upon Aristotle's Grounds This consequence as strange as it is is just the same with what is in your Lordship 's repeated Argument against me For let Aristotle's ground of Certainty be this that I have named or what it will How does it follow that because my ground of Certainty is placed in the agreement or disagreement of Ideas therefore the Author of Christianity not Mysterious rejected any Proposition more upon my Grounds than Aristotle's And will not Aristotle by your Lordship's way of Arguing here from the use any one may make or think he makes of it be guilty also of starting a method of Certainty of dangerous consequence whether his method be True or False if that or any other Author whose writings you dislike thought he built upon it or be supposed by your Lordship to think so But as I humbly conceive Propositions speculative Propositions such as mine is about which all this stir is made are to be judg'd of by their Truth or Falshood and not by the use any one shall make of them much less by the Persons who are supposed to build on them And therefore it may be justly wonder'd since you say it is dangerous why you never proved or attempted to prove it to be false But you complain here again that I answer'd not a Word to this in
the Printer for misplacing your Lordship's Numbers since so ranked as they are they do to me who am confounded by them lose all Order and Connection quite The next thing in the Defence which you go on with is an exception to my use of the word Certainty In the close of the Answer I had made in the Pages you pass over I add that Though the Laws of Disputation allow bare denial as a sufficient Answer to Sayings without any offer of a Proof yet my Lord to shew how willing I am to give your Lordship all Satisfaction in what you apprehend may be of dangerous Consequence in my Book as to that Article I shall not stand still sullenly and put your Lordship upon the difficulty of shewing wherein that Danger lies but shall on the other side endeavour to shew your Lordship That that Definition of mine whether True or False Right or Wrong can be of no dangerous Consequence to that Article of Faith The Reason which I shall offer for it is this because it can be of no Consequence to it at all And the Reason of it was clear from what I had said before That Knowing and Believing were Two different Acts of the Mind And that my placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas i. e. that my Definition of Knowledge one of those Acts of the Mind would not at all alter or shake the Definition of Faith which was another Act of the Mind distinct from it And therefore I added That the Certainty of Faith if your Lordship thinks fit to call it so has nothing to do with the Certainty of Knowledge And to talk of the Certainty of Faith seems all one to me as to talk of the Knowledge of Believing a way of Speaking not easy to me to understand These and other Words to this purpose in the following Paragraphs your Lordship lays hold on and sets down as liable to no small exception Though as you tell me the main strength of my Defence lies in it Let what Strength you please lie in it my Defence was strong enough without it For to your bare Saying my method of Certainty might be of dangerous Consequence to any Article of the Christian Faith without proving it it was a defence strong enough barely to deny and put you upon shewing wherein that danger lies which therefore this main strength of my Defence as you call it apart I insist on But as to your exception to what I said on this occasion it consists in this that there is a Certainty of Faith and therefore you set down my saying That to talk of the Certainty of Faith seems all one as to talk of the Knowledge of believing As that which shews the inconsistency of my Notion of Ideas with the Articles of the Christian Faith These are your Words here and yet you tell me That it is not my way of Ideas but my way of Certainty by Ideas that your Lordship is unsatisfied about What must I do now in the Case when your Words are expresly that my Notion of Ideas have an inconsistency with the Articles of the Christian Faith Must I presume that your Lordship means my Notion of Certainty All that I can do is to search out your meaning the best I can and then shew where I apprehend it not conclusive But this uncertainty in most places what you mean makes me so much work that a great deal is omitted and yet my Answer is too long Your Lordship asks in the next Paragraph How comes the Certainty of Faith so hard a Point with me Answ. I suppose you ask this Question more to give others hard thoughts of my Opinion of Faith than to be informed your self For you cannot be ignorant that all along in my Essay I use Certainty for Knowledge so that for you to ask me How comes the Certainty of Faith to become so hard a Point with me is the same thing as for you to ask How comes the knowledge of Faith or if you please the knowledge of Believing to be so hard a Point with me A Question which I suppose you will think needs no Answer let your meaning in that doubtful Phrase be what it will I used in my Book the term Certainty for Knowledge so generally that no body that has read my Book though much less attentively than your Lordship can doubt of it That I used it in that sense there I shall refer my Reader but to two places amongst many to convince him This I am sure your Lordship could not be ignorant that by Certainty I mean Knowledge since I have so used it in my Letters to you Instances whereof are not a few some of them may be found in the places marked in the Margent And in my second Letter what I say in the leaf immediately preceding that which you quote upon this occasion would have put it past a possibility for any one to make shew of a doubt of it had not that been amongst those Pages of my Answer which for its being out of its proper place it seems you were resolved not to take notice of and therefore I hope it will not be besides my purpose here to mind you of it again After having said something to shew why I used Certainty and Knowledge for the same thing I added that Your Lordship could not but take notice of this in the 18th § of Ch. 4. of my 4th Book it being a Passage you had quoted and runs thus Where-ever we perceive the agreement or disagreement of any of our Idaas there is certain Knowledge And where-ever we are sure those Ideas agree with the reality of things there is certain real Knowledge of which having given the marks I think I have shewn wherein Certainty real Certainty consists And I farther add in the immediately following Words That my definition of Knowledge in the beginning of the 4th Book of my Essay stands thus Knowledge seems to be nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas Which is the very definition of Certainty that your Lordship is here contesting Since then you could not but know that in this discourse Certainty with me stood for or was the same thing with Knowledge may not one justly wonder how you come to ask me such a Question as this How comes the Knowledge of Believing to become so hard a Point with me For that was in effect the Question that you asked when you put in the term Certainty since you knew as undoubtedly that I meant Knowledge by Certainty as that I meant Believing by Faith i. e. you could doubt of neither And that you did not doubt of it is plain from what you say in the next Page where you endeavour to prove this an improper way of speaking Whether it be a proper way of speaking I allow to be a fair Question
of any Article of Faith 'T is true indeed People commonly say they are certain of what they barely Believe without doubting But 't is as true that they as commonly say that they Know it too But no Body from thence concludes that Believing is Knowing As little can they conclude from the like vulgar way of Speaking that Believing is Certainty All that is meant thereby is no more but this that the full assurance of their Faith as steadily determins their assent to the imbracing of that Truth as if they actually knew it But however such Phrases as these are used to shew the steadiness and assurance of their Faith who thus Speak yet they alter not the propriety of our Language which I think appropriates Certainty only to Knowledge when in strict and philosophical Discourse it is upon that account contradistinguished to Faith as in this case here your Lordship knows it is whereof there is an express Evidence in my first Letter where I say That I speak of Belief and your Lordship of Certainty and that I meant Belief and not Certainty Your Lordship says Certainty is common to both Knowledge and Faith unless I think it impossible to be certain upon any Testimony whatsoever I think it is possible to be certain upon the Testimony of God for that I suppose you mean where I know that it is the Testimony of God because in such a Case that Testimony is capable not only to make me believe but if I consider it right to make me know the thing to be so and so I may be certain For the veracity of God is as capable of making me know a Proposition to be true as any other way of Proof can be and therefore I do not in such a case barely Believe but know such a Proposition to be true and attain Certainty The sum of your Accusation is drawn up thus That I have appropriated Certainty to the perception of the agreement of disagreement of Ideas in any Proposition and now I find this will not hold as to Articles of Faith and therefore I will allow no Certainty of Faith which you think is not for the advantage of my Cause The truth of matter of Fact is in short this That I have placed Knowledge in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas This definition of Knowledge your Lordship said might be of dangerous Consequence to that Article of Faith which you have endeavoured to defend This I denied and gave this Reason for it viz. That a Definition of Knowledge whether a good or bad true or false Definition could not be of ill or any Consequence to an Article of Faith Because a definition of Knowledge which was one Act of the Mind did not at all concern Faith which was another Act of the Mind quite distinct from it To this then which was the Proposition in Question between us your Lordship I humbly conceive should have answered But instead of that your Lordship by the use of the word Certainty in a Sense that I used it not for you knew I used it only for Knowledge would represent me as having strange Notions of Faith Whether this be for the Advantage of your Cause your Lordship will do well to consider Upon such a use of the word Certainty in a different Sense from what I use it in the force of all your Lordship says under your first Head contained in the two or three next Paragraphs depends as I think for I must own Pardon my Dulness that I do not clearly comprehend the force of what your Lordship there says And it will take up too many Pages to examin it Period by Period In short therefore I take your Lordship's meaning to be this That there are some Articles of Faith viz. the fundamental Principles of natural Religion which Mankind may attain to a Certainty in by Reason without Revelation which because a Man that proceeds upon my Grounds cannot attain to Certainty in by Reason their credibility to him when they are considered as purely matters of Faith will be weakened Those which your Lordship instances in are the Being of a God Providence and the Rewards and Punishments of a future State This is the way as I humbly conceive your Lordship takes here to prove my Grounds of Certainty for so you call my definition of Knowledge to be of dangerous Consequence to the Articles of Faith To avoid Ambiguity and Confusion in the examining this Argument of your Lordship's the best way I humbly conceive will be to lay by the term Certainty which your Lordship and I using in different Senses is the less fit to make what we say to one another clearly understood and instead thereof to use the term Knowledge which with me your Lordship knows is equivalent Your Lordship's Proposition then as far as it has any opposition to me is this That if Knowledge be supposed to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas a Man cannot attain to the Knowledge that these Propositions viz. That there is a God a Providence and Rewards and Punishments in a future State are true and therefore the credibility of these Articles consider'd purely as matters of Faith will be weakened to him Wherein there are these Things to be proved by your Lordship 1. That upon my grounds of Knowledge i. e. upon a supposition that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas we cannot attain to the Knowledge of the Truth of either of those Propositions viz. That there is a God Providence and Rewards and Punishments in a future State 2. Your Lordship is to prove That the not knowing the Truth of any Proposition lessens the credibility of it which in short amounts to this that want of Knowledge lessens Faith in any Proposition proposed This is the Proposition to be proved if your Lordship uses Certainty in the Sense I use it i. e. for Knowledge in which only use of it will it here bear upon me But since I find your Lordship in these two or three Paragraphs to use the word Certainty in so uncertain a Sense as sometimes to signifie Knowledge by it and sometimes Believing in general i. e. any degree of believing give me leave to add that if your Lordship means by these Words Let us suppose a Person by natural Reason to attain to a Certainty as to the being of a God c. i. e. attain to a belief that there is a God c. or the Souls Immortality I say if you take Certainty in such a Sense then it will be incumbent upon your Lordship to prove That if a Man finds the natural Reason whereupon he entertained the belief of a God or of the immortality of the Soul uncertain that will weaken the credibility of those fundamental Articles as matters of Faith or which is in effect the same That the weakness of the credibility of any article of
Faith from Reason weakens the credibility of it from Revelation For 't is this which these following Words of yours import For before there was a natural credibility in them on the account of Reason but by going on wrong grounds of Certainty all that is lost To prove the first of these Propositions viz. That upon the supposition that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement of Ideas we cannot attain to the knowledge of the truth of this Proposition that there is a God Your Lordship urges that I have said That no Idea proves the existence of the Thing without it self which Argument reduced to form will stand thus If it be true as I say that no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self then upon the supposition that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas we cannot attain to the knowledge of the truth of this Proposition that there is a God Which Argument so manifestly proves not that there needs no more to be said to it than to desire that consequence to be proved Again as to the immortality of the Soul your Lordship urges that I have said that I cannot know but that matter may think therefore upon my ground of Knowledge i. e. upon a supposition that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas there is an end of the Souls Immortality This consequence I must also desire your Lordship to prove Only I crave leave by the by to point out some things in these Paragraphs too remarkable to be passed over without any Notice One is That you suppose a Man is made certain upon my general grounds of Certainty i. e. knows by the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas that there is a God and yet upon a farther examination of my method he finds that the way of Ideas will not do Here my Lord if by my grounds of Certainty my Method and my way of Ideas you mean one and the same thing then your Words will have a consistency and tend to the same point But then I must beg your Lordship to consider that your Supposition carries a Contradiction in it viz. That your Lordship supposes that by my Grounds my Method and my way of Certainty a Man is made Certain and not made Certain that there is a God If your Lordship means here by my grounds of Certainty my Method and my way of Ideas different things as it seems to me you do then whatever your Lordship may suppose here it makes nothing to the Point in Hand which is to shew that by this my ground of Certainty viz. That Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas a Man first attains to a Knowledge that there is a God and afterwards by the same grounds of Certainty he comes to lose the Knowledge that there is a God which to me seems little less than a Contradiction 'T is likely your Lordship will say you mean no such thing for you alledge this Proposition that no Idea proves the existence of any thing without it self and give that as an Instance that my way of Ideas will not do i. e. will not prove the being of a God 'T is true your Lordship does so But withal my Lord 't is as true that this Proposition supposing it to be mine for it is not here set down in my Words contains not my method or way or notion of Certainty though 't is in that Sense alone that it can here be useful to your Lordship to call it my method or the way by Ideas Your Lordship undertakes to shew That my defining Knowledge to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this fundamental Article of Faith that there is a God what is your Lordship's Proof of it Just this The saying that no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self will not do Ergo the saying that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this fundamental Article This my Lord seems to me no Proof and all that I can find that is offered to make it a Proof is only your calling these Propositions my general grounds of Certainty my method of Proceeding the way of Ideas and my own Principles in point of Reason as if that made these two Propositions the same thing and whatsoever were a consequence of one may be charged as a consequence of the other though it be visible that though the latter of these be never so false or never so far from being a Proof of a God yet it will by no means thence follow that the former of them viz. That Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of that fundamental Article But 't is but for your Lordship to call them both the way of Ideas and that is enough That I may not be accused by your Lordship for unfair or disingenuous dealing for representing this Matter so I shall here set down your Lordship's Words at large Let us now suppose a Person by natural Reason to attain to a Certainty as to the Being of God and Immortality of the Soul and he proceeds upon J. L's general grounds of Certainty from the agreement or disagreement of Ideas and so from the Ideas of God and the Soul he is made certain of these two Points before mention'd But let us again suppose that such a Person upon a farther Examination of J. L's method of proceeding finds that the way of Ideas in these Cases will not do for no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self no more than the Picture of a Man proves his Being or the Visions of a Dream make a true History which are J. L's own Expressions And for the Soul he cannot be certain but that Matter may think as J. L. affirms and then what becomes of the Soul's Immateriality and consequently Immortality from its Operations But for all this says J. L. his assurance of Faith remains firm on its own Basis. Now you appeal to any Man of Sense whether the finding of Vncertainty of his own Principles which he went upon in point of Reason doth not weaken the Credibility of these fundamental Articles when they are consider'd purely as matters of Faith For before there was a natural Credibility in them on the account of Reason but by going on wrong grounds of Certainty all that is lost and instead of being certain he is more doubtful than ever These are your Lordship 's own Words and now I appeal to any Man of Sense whether they contain any other Argument against my placing of Certainty as I do but this viz. A Man mistakes and thinks that this Proposition no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self shews That in the way of Ideas one cannot prove a God Ergo
Matter so disposed a thinking immaterial Substance It being in respect of our Notions not much more remote from our Comprehensions to conceive that God can if he pleases superadd to our Idea of Matter a Faculty of Thinking than that he should superadd to it another Substance with a faculty of Thinking From my saying thus That God whom I have proved to be an immaterial Being by his Omnipotency may for ought we know superadd to some parts of Matter a faculty of Thinking it requires some skill for any one to represent me as your Lordship does here as one ignorant or doubtful whether Matter may not think to that degree that I am not certain or I do not believe that there is a Principle above Matter and Motion in the World and consequently all Revelation may be nothing but the effects of an exalted Fancy or the heats of a disordered Imagination as Spinosa affirm'd For thus I or some Body else whom I desire your Lordship to produce stands painted in this your Lordship's Argument from the supposition of a Divine Revelation which your Lordship brings here to prove That the defining of Knowledge as I do to consist in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the Credibility of the Articles of the Christian Faith But if your Lordship thinks it so dangerous a Position to say It is not much harder for us to conceive that God can if he pleases superadd to Matter a faculty of Thinking than that he should superadd to it another Substance with a faculty of Thinking which is the utmost I have said concerning the faculty of Thinking in Matter I humbly conceive it would be more to your purpose to prove That the infinite omnipotent Creator of all Things out of nothing cannot if he pleases superadd to some parcels of Matter disposed as he sees fit a faculty of Thinking which the rest of Matter has not rather than to represent me with that Candour your Lordship does as one who so far makes Matter a Thinking thing as thereby to question the being of a Principle above Matter and Motion in the World and consequently to take away all Revelation which how natural and genuine a Representation it is of my Sense expressed in the Passages of my Essay which I have above set down I humbly submit to the Reader 's Judgment and your Lordship's Zeal for Truth to determine and shall not stay to examin whether Man may not have an exalted Phancy and the heats of a disorder'd Imagination equally overthrowing Divine Revelation tho' the power of Thinking be placed only in an immaterial Substance I come now to the sequel of your Major which is this If one who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas does not know but Matter may Think then whoever places Certainty so cannot believe there is an immaterial intelligent Being in the World The consequence here is from does not to cannot which I cannot but wonder to find in an Argument of your Lordships For he that does not to Day believe or know that Matter cannot be so ordered by God's Omnipotency as to think if that subverts the belief of an immaterial intelligent Being in the World may know or believe it to Morrow or if he should never know or believe it yet others who define Knowledge as he does may know or believe it Unless your Lordship can prove that it is impossible for any one who defines Knowledge to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas to know or believe that Matter cannot Think But this as I remember your Lordship has not any where attempted to prove And yet without this your Lordship's way of Reasoning is no more than to argue that one cannot do a thing because another does not do it And yet upon this strange consequence is built all that your Lordship brings here to prove that my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of Articles of Faith v. g. It weakens the credibility of this fundamental Article of Faith that there is a God! How so Because I who have so defined Knowledge say in my Essay That the Knowledge of the Existence of any other thing but of God we can have only by Sensation For there being no necessary connexion of real Existence with any Idea a Man hath in his Memory nor of any other Existence but that of God with the Existence of any particular Man no particular Man can know the Existence of any other Being but only when by actual operating upon him it makes it self perceived by him For the having the Idea of any thing in our Mind no more proves the Existence of that thing than the Picture of a Man evidences his Being in the World or the Visions of a Dream make thereby a true History For so are the Words of my Book and not as your Lordship has been pleased to set them down here and they were well chosen by your Lordship to shew that the way of Ideas would not do i. e. In my way by Ideas I cannot prove there is a God But supposing I had said in that place or any other that which would hinder the proof of a God as I have not might I not see my Error and alter or renounce that Opinion without changing my definition of Knowledge Or could not another Man who defined Knowledge as I do avoid Thinking as your Lordship says I say That no Idea proves the Existence of the thing without it self and so able notwithstanding my saying so to prove that there is a God Again your Lordship argues that my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of the Articles of Faith Because it takes away Revelation and your Proof of that is because I do not know whether Matter may not Think The same sort of Argumentation your Lordship goes on with in the next Page where you say Again before there can be any such thing as assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation there must be a Certainty as to Sense and Tradition for there can be no Revelation pretended now without immediate Inspiration and the Basis of our Faith is a Revelation contained in an antient Book whereof the parts were delivered at distant times but conveyed down to us by an universal Tradition But now what if my grounds of Certainty can give us no assurance as to these Things Your Lordship says you do not mean That they cannot demonstrate matters of Fact which it were most unreasonable to expect but that these Grounds of Certainty make all things uncertain for your Lordship thinks you have proved That this way of Ideas cannot give a satisfactory Account as to the Existence of the plainest Objects of the Sense because Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas How then can we arrive to any Certainty in perceiving those Objects by their Ideas All the force of which Argument lies in this that I have said
or am supposed to have said or to hold for that I ever said so I do not remember That Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas Ergo whoever holds that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas cannot have any assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation My Lord let that Proposition viz. That Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas be mine as much as your Lordship pleases and let it be as inconsistent as you please with the assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation How will it follow from thence that the placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas is the Cause that there cannot be any such thing as the assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation to any Body Though I who hold Knowledge to consist in the perception of the agreement and disagreement of Ideas have the Misfortune to run into this Error viz. That Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas which is inconsistent with the assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation yet it is not necessary that all others who with me hold that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas should also hold That Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas or that I my self should always hold it Unless your Lordship will say that whoever places Certainty as I do in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas must necessarily hold all the Errors that I do which are inconsistent with or weaken the belief of any Article of Faith and hold them incorrigibly Which has as much consequence as if I should argue that because your Lordship who lives at Worcester does sometime mistake in quoting me therefore no Body who lives at Worcester can quote my Words right or your Lordship can never mend your wrong Quotations For my Lord the holding Certainty to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas is no more a necessary cause of holding those erroneous Propositions which your Lordship imputes to me as weakening the credibility of the mentioned Articles of Faith than the place of your Lordship's dwelling is a necessary cause of wrong Quoting I shall not here go about to trouble your Lordship with Divining again what may be your Lordship's precise Meaning in several of the Propositions contained in the Passage above set down especially that remarkably ambiguous and to me obscure one viz. There must be a Certainty as to Sense and Tradition I fear I have wasted too much of your Lordship's and my Reader 's time in that imployment already and there would be no end if I should endeavour to explain whatever I am at a loss about the determined Sense of in any of your Lordship's Expressions Only I will crave leave to beg my Reader to observe That in this first Head which we are upon your Lordship has used the Terms Certain and Certainty near Twenty times but without determining in any of them whether you mean Knowledge or the full assurance of Faith or any degree of Believing though it be evident that in these Pages your Lordship uses Certainty for all these Three Which ambiguous use of the main Word in that Discourse cannot but render your Lordship's Sense clear and perspicuous and your Argument very cogent and no doubt will do so to any one who will be but at the pains to reduce that one Word to a clear determined Sense all through these few Paragraphs Your Lordship says Have not all Mankind who have talked of matters of Faith allowed a Certainty of Faith as well as a Certainty of Knowledge Answ. But did ever any one of all that Mankind allow it as a tolerable way of speaking that believing in general for which your Lordship has used it which contains in it the lowest degree of Faith should be called Certainty Could he who said I Believe Lord help my Vnbelief or any one who is weak in Faith or of little Faith be properly be said to be certain or de dubio certus of what he believes but with a weak degree of Assent I shall not question what your Lordship 's great Learning may Authorize But I imagine every one hath not skill or will not assume the liberty to speak so If a Witness before a Judge asked upon his Oath whether he were certain of such a thing should answer yes he was certain and upon farther demand should give this account of his Certainty That he believed it would he not make the Court and Auditors believe strangely of him For to say that a Man is certain when he barely believes and that perhaps with no great Assurance of Faith is to say that he is certain where he owns an Vncertainty For he that says he barely believes acknowledges that he Assents to a Proposition as true upon bare probability And where any one Assents thus to any Proposition his Assent excludes not a possibility that it may be otherwise and wherein any one's Judgment there is a possibility to be otherwise there one cannot deny but there is some Uncertainty and the less cogent the Probabilities appear upon which he Assents the greater the Uncertainty So that all barely probable Proofs which procure Assent always containing some visible possibility that it may be otherwise or else it would be demonstration and consequently the weaker the Probability appears the weaker the Assent and the more the Uncertainty It thence follows that where there is such a mixture of Uncertainty there a Man is so far uncertain and therefore to say That a Man is certain where he barely believes or assents but weakly though he does believe seems to me to say That he is certain and uncertain together But though bare Belief always include some degrees of Uncertainty yet it does not therefore necessarily include any degree of wavering the evidently strong probability may as steadily determine the Man to Assent to the Truth or make him take the Proposition for true and act accordingly as Knowledge makes him see or be certain that it is true And he that doth so as to Truths reveal'd in the Scripture will shew his Faith by his Works and has for ought I can see all the Faith necessary to a Christian and requir'd to Salvation My Lord when I consider the length of my Answer here to these few Pages of your Lordship's I cannot but bemoan my own dulness and own my unfitness to deal with so learned an Adversary as your Lordship in Controversie For I know not how to answer but to a Proposition of a determin'd Sense Whilst it is vague and uncertain in a general or equivocal use of any of the Terms I cannot tell what to say to it I know not but such comprehensive ways of expressing ones self may do well enough in declamation but in reasoning there can be no judgment made
till one can get to some positive determined Sense of the Speaker If your Lordship had pleased to have condescended so far to my low Capacity as to have delivered your meaning here determined to any one of the Senses above set down or any other that you may have in these Words I gather'd them from it would have saved me a great deal of writing and your Lordship loss of time in reading I should not say this here to your Lordship were it only in this one place that I find this inconvenience It is every where in all your Lordship's Reasonings that my want of Understanding causes me this difficulty and against my Will multiplies the words of my Answer For notwithstanding all that great deal that I have already said to these few Pages of your Lordship's yet my defence is not clear and set in its due light unless I shew in particular of every one of those Propositions some whereof I admit as true others I deny as not so that it will not prove what is to be proved viz. That my placing of Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas lessens the credibility of any Article of Faith which it had before Your Lordship having done with the Fundamental Articles of Natural Religion you come in the next place to those of Revelation to enquire as your Lordship says Whether those who embrace the Articles of Faith in the way of Ideas can retain their Certainty of those Articles when these Ideas are quitted What this Enquiry is I know not very well because I neither understand what it is to imbrace Articles of Faith in the way of Ideas nor know what your Lordship means by retaining their Certainty of those Articles when these Ideas are quitted But 't is no strange thing for my short Sight not always distinctly to discern your Lordship's meaning Yet here I presume to know that this is the thing to be proved viz. That my definition of Knowledge does not leave to the Articles of the Christian Faith the same credibility they had before The Articles your Lordship instances in are 1. The Resurrection of the dead And here your Lordship proceeds just in the same method of arguing as you did in the former your Lordship brings several Passages concerning Identity out of my Essay which you suppose inconsistent with the belief of the Resurrection of the same Body and this is your Argument to prove that my defining of Knowledge to consist in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas alters the Foundations of this Article of Faith and leaves it not the same credibility it had before Now my Lord granting all that your Lordship has here quoted out of my Chapter of Identity and diversity to be as false as your Lordship pleases and as inconsistent as your Lordship would have it with the Article of the Resurrection from the dead nay granting all the rest of my whole Essay to be false how will it follow from thence that the placing Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this Article of Faith That the dead shall rise Let it be that I who place Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas am guilty of Errors that weaken the credibility of this Article of Faith others who place Certainty in the same Perception may not run into those Errors and so not have their belief of this Article at all shaken Your Lordship therefore by all the long discourse you have made here against my Notion of Personal Identity to prove that it weakens the credibility of the Resurrection of the dead should you have proved it never so clearly has not I humbly conceive said therein any one word towards the proving That my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of this Article of Faith For this my Lord is the Proposition to be proved as your Lordship cannot but remember if you please to recollect what is said in your 21st and following Pages and what in the 95th Page of my second Letter quoted by your Lordship it was designed as an answer to And so I proceed to the next Articles of Faith your Lordship instances in Your Lordship says 2. The next Articles of Faith which my Notion of Ideas is inconsistent with are no less than those of the Trinity and the Incarnation of our Saviour Where I must humbly crave leave to observe to your Lordship that in this second Head here your Lordship has changed the Question from my Notion of Certainty to my Notion of Ideas For the Question as I have often had occasion to observe to your Lordship is Whether my Notion of Certainty i. e. my placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas alters the Foundation and lessens the credibility of any Article of Faith This being the Question between your Lordship and me ought I humbly conceive most especially to have been kept close to in this Article of the Trinity because 't was upon the account of my Notion of Certainty as prejudicial to the Doctrine of the Trinity that my Book was first brought into this Dispute But your Lordship offers nothing that I can find to prove That my definition of Knowledge or Certainty does any way lessen the credibility of either of the Articles here mentioned unless your insisting upon some supposed Errors of mine about Nature and Person must be taken for proofs of this Proposition That my definition of Certainty lessens the credibility of the Articles of the Trinity and our Saviour's Incarnation And then the Answer I have already given to the same way of Argumentation used by your Lordship concerning the Articles of a God Revelation and the Resurrection I think may suffice Having as I beg leave to think shewn that your Lordship has not in the least proved this Proposition That the placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of any one Article of Faith which was your former Accusation against this as your Lordship is pleased to call it new Method of Certainty of so dangerous consequence to that Article of Faith which your Lordship has endeavoured to defend and all that your terrible Representation of it being as I humbly conceive come to just nothing I come now to vindicate my Book from your new Accusation in your last Letter and to shew that you no more prove the Passages you alledge out of my Essay to have any inconsistency with the Articles of Christian Faith you oppose them to than you have proved by them That my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of any of those Articles 1. The Article of Christian Faith your Lordship begins with is that of the Resurrection of the dead and concerning that you say The Reason of believing the Resurrection of the same Body upon my Grounds is from the Idea of
it and then if my not saying in my Book That we are to believe all there expressed be to deny That we are to believe all that we find there expressed I fear many of your Lordship's Books will be found to shake the belief of several or all the Articles of our Faith But supposing this Consequence to be good viz. I do not say therefore I deny and thereby I shake the belief of some Articles of Faith how does this prove That my placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas shakes any Article of Faith unless my saying that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas in the 301 page of my Essay be a Proof that I do not say in any other part of that Book That we are to believe all that we find expressed in Scripture But perhaps the remaining Words of the period will help us out in your Lordship's Argument which all together stands thus Because I do not say we are to believe all that we find there expressed but I do say in case we have any clear and distinct Ideas which limit the Sense another way than the Words seem to carry it we are to judge that to be the true Sense My Lord I do not remember where I say what in the latter part of this Period your Lordship makes me say And your Lordship would have done me a Favour to have quoted the place Indeed I do say in the Chapter your Lordship seems to be upon That 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 This is what I there say and all that I there say Which in effect is this That no Proposition can be received for divine Revelation which is contradictory to a self-evident Proposition and if that be it which your Lordship makes me say here in the foregoing Words I agree to it and would be glad to know whether your Lordship differs in Opinion from me in it But this not answering your purpose your Lordship would in the following Words of this Paragraph change self-evident Proposition into a Proposition we have attained Certainty of though by imperfect Ideas In which Sense the Proposition your Lordship argues from as mine will stand thus That no Proposition can be received for Divine Revelation or obtain the assent due to all such if it be contradictory to any Proposition of whose Truth we are by any way certain And then I desire your Lordship to name the Two contradictory Propositions the one of Divine Revelation I do not assent to the other That I have attained to a Certainty of by my imperfect Ideas which makes me reject or not assent to that of Divine Revelation The very setting down of these Two contradictory Propositions will be demonstration against me and if your Lordship cannot as I humbly conceive you cannot name any Two such Propositions 't is an evidence that all this Dust that is raised is only a great deal of Talk about what your Lordship cannot prove For that your Lordship has not yet proved any such thing I am humbly of Opinion I have already shewn Your Lordship's Discourse of Des Cartes in the following Pages is I think as far as I am concerned in it to shew that Certainty cannot be had by Ideas Because Des Cartes using the term Idea missed of it Answ. The Question between your Lordship and me not being about Des Cartes's but my Notion of Certainty your Lordship will put an end to my Notion of Certainty by Ideas whenever your Lordship shall prove That Certainty cannot be attained any way by the immediate Objects of the Mind in Thinking i. e. by Ideas or that Certainty does not consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas or lastly when your Lordship shall shew us what else Certainty does consist in When your Lordship shall do either of these Three I promise your Lordship to renounce my notion or way or method or grounds or whatever else your Lordship has been pleased to call it of Certainty by Ideas The next Paragraph is to shew the Inclination your Lordship has to favour me in the Words it may be I shall be always sorry to have mistaken any ones especially your Lordship's Inclination to favour me But since the Press has published this to the World the World must now be Judge of your Lordship's Inclination to favour me The three or four following Pages are to shew That your Lordship's exception against Ideas was not against the term Ideas and that I mistook you in it Answ. My Lord I must own that there are very few Pages of your Letters when I come to examine what is the precise meaning of your Words either as making distinct Propositions or a continued Discourse wherein I do not think my self in danger to be mistaken but whether in the present Case one much more learned than I would not have understood your Lordship as I did must be left to those who will be at the pains to consider your Words and my Reply to them Your Lordship saying As I have stated my Notion of Ideas it may be of dangerous consequence seemed to me to say no more but that my Book in general might be of dangerous consequence This seeming too general an Accusation I endeavoured to find what it was more particularly in it which your Lordship thought might be of dangerous consequence And the first thing I thought you excepted against was the use of the term Idea But your Lordship tells me here I was mistaken it was not the term Idea you excepted against but the way of Certainty by Ideas To excuse my mistake I have this to say for my self That reading in your first Letter these express Words When new Terms are made use of by ill Men to promote Scepticism and Insidelity and to overthrow the Mysteries of our Faith we have then Reason to enquire into them and to examine the Foundation and Tendency of them it could not be very strange if I understood them to refer to Terms but it seems I was mistaken and should have understood by them my way of Certainty by Ideas and should have read your Lordship's Words thus When new Terms are made use of by ill Men to promote Scepticism and Infidelity and to overthrow the Mysteries of Faith we have then Reason to enquire into them i. e. Mr. L.'s definition of Knowledge for that is my way of Certainty by Ideas and then to examine the Foundation and Tendency of them i. e. this Proposition viz. That Knowledge or Certainty consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas Them in your Lordship's Words as I thought for I am scarce ever sure what your Lordship means by them necessarily refering to what ill Men made use for the promoting of Scepticism and
less skilful in this Art of Fencing Who can believe that upon so slight an account your Lordship should neglect your Design of writing against me The great Motives of your Concern for an Article of the Christian Faith and of that Duty which you profess has made you do what you have done will be believed to work more uniformly in your Lordship than to let a Father of the Church and a Teacher in Israel not tell one who asks him which is the right and safe Way if he knows it No no my Lord a Character so much to the Prejudice of your Charity no-body will receive of your Lordship no not from your self Whatever your Lordship may say the World will believe That you would have given a better Method of Certainty if you had had one when thereby you would have secured Men from the danger of running into Errors in Articles of Faith and effectually have recalled them from my way of Certainty which leads as your Lordship says to Scepticism and Infidelity For to turn Men from a way they are in the bare telling them it is dangerous puts but a short stop to their going on in it There is nothing effectual to set them a going right but to shew them which is the safe and sure way a piece of Humanity which when asked no body as far as he knows refuses another and this I have earnestly asked of your Lordship Your Lordship represents to me the Vnsatisfactoriness and Inconsistency of my way of Certainty by telling me That it seems still a strange thing to you that I should talk so much of a new Method of Certainty by Ideas and yet allow as I do such a want of Ideas so much Imperfection in them and such a want of Connection between our Ideas and the things themselves Answer This Objection being so visibly against the Extent of our Knowledge and not the Certainty of it by Ideas would need no other Answer but this that it proved nothing to the point which was to shew that my way by Ideas was no way to Certainty at all not to True Certainty which is a Term your Lordship uses here which I shall be able to conceive what you mean by when you shall be pleased to tell me what false Certainty is But because what you say here is in short what you ground your Charge of Scepticism on in your former Letter I Shall here according to my Promise consider what your Lordship says there and hope you will allow this to be no unfit place Your Charge of Scepticism in your former Letter is as followeth Your Lordship's first Argument consists in these Propositions viz. 1. That I say P. 125 That Knowledge is the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas 2. That I go about to prove That there are very many more Beings of which we have no Ideas than those of which we have from whence your Lordship draws this Conclusion That we are excluded from attaining any Knowledge as to the far greatest part of the Vniverse Which I agree to But with Submission this is not the Proposition to be proved but this viz. That my way by Ideas or my way of Certainty by Ideas for to that your Lordship reduces it i. e. my placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas leads to Scepticism Farther from my saying that the Intellectual World is greater and more beautiful certainly than the material your Lordship argues That if Certainty may be had by general Reasons without particular Ideas in one it may also in other Cases Answer It may no doubt But this is nothing against any thing I have said for I have neither said nor suppose That Certainty by general Reasons or any Reasons can be had without Ideas no more than I say or suppose that we can reason without thinking or think without immediate Objects of our Minds in thinking i. e. think without Ideas But your Lordship asks Whence comes this Certainty for I say certainly where there be no particular Ideas if Knowledge consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas I answer we have Ideas as far as we are certain and beyond that we have neither Certainty no nor Probability every thing which we either know or believe is some Proposition Now no Proposition can be framed as the Object of our Knowledge or Assent wherein two Ideas are not joined to or separated from one another As for Example when I affirm that something exists in the World whereof I have no Idea Existence is affirmed of something some Being And I have as clear an Idea of Existence and something the two things joined in that Proposition as I have of them in this Proposition something exists in the World whereof I have an Idea When therefore I affirm that the intellectual World is greater and more beautiful than the material Whether I should know the truth of this Proposition either by Divine Revelation or should assert it as highly probable which is all I do in that Chapter out of which this Instance is brought it means no more but this viz. That there are more and more beautiful Beings whereof we have no Ideas than there are of which we have Ideas of which Beings whereof we have no Ideas we can for want of Ideas have no farther Knowledge but that such Beings do exist If your Lordship shall now ask me how I know there are such Beings I answer that in that Chapter of the Extent of our Knowledge I do not say I know but I endeavour to shew that it is most highly probable But yet a Man is capable of knowing it to be true because he is capable of having it revealed to him by God that this Proposition is true viz. That in the Works of God there are more and more beautiful Beings whereof we have no Ideas than there are whereof we have Ideas If God instead of shewing the very things to St. Paul had only revealed to him that this Proposition was true viz. That there were things in Heaven which neither Eye had seen nor Ear had heard nor had entred into the Heart of Man to conceive would he not have known the Truth of that Proposition of whose Terms he had Ideas viz. of Beings whereof he had no other Ideas but barely as something and of Existence though in the want of other Ideas of them he could attain no other Knowledge of them but barely that they existed So that in what I have there said there is no Contradiction nor Shadow of a Contradiction to my placing Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas But if I should any where mistake and say any thing inconsistent with that way of Certainty of mine how I beseech your Lordship could you conclude from thence that the placing Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement of Disagreement of Ideas tends to Scepticism That which
the end of it is a pretty sort of Maxim That therefore which I desire to be informed here is how your Lordship knows these or any other Propositions to be Maxims and how Propositions that are Maxims are to be distinguished from Propositions that are not Maxims And the Reason why I insist upon it is this Because this and this only would shew whether what I have said in my Chapter about Maxims overthrows all that has been accounted Science and Demonstration and lays the Foundation of Scepticism But I fear my Request That you would be pleased to tell me what you mean by Maxims that I may know what Propositions according to your Lordship are and what are not Maxims will not easily be granted me Because it would presently put an end to all that you impute to me as said in that Chapter against Maxims in a Sense that I use not the Word there Your Lordship makes me out of my Book answer to the use you make of the Four above-mentioned Propositions which you call Maxims as if I were declared of an Opinion That Maxims could not be of any use in Arguing with others Which methinks you should not have done if you had considered my Chapter of Maxims which you so often quote For I there say Maxims are useful to stop the Mouths of Wranglers to shew That wrong Opinions lead to Absurdities c. Your Lordship nevertheless goes on to prove That without the help of these Principles or Maxims I cannot prove to any that doubt it that they are Men in my way of Ideas Answ. I beseech you my Lord to give me leave to mind you again that the Question is not what I can prove but whether in my way by Ideas I cannot without the help of these Principles know that I am a Man and be certain of the Truth of that and several other Propositions I say of several other Propositions For I do not think you in your way of Certainty by Reason pretend to be certain of all Truths or to be able to prove to those who doubt all Propositions or so much as be able to convince every one of the Truth of every Proposition that you your self are certain of There be many Propositions in Mr. Newton's excellent Book which there are Thousands of people and those a little more Rational than such as should deny themselves to be Men whom Mr. Newton himself would not be able with or without the use of Maxims used in Mathematicks to convince of the Truth of And yet this would be no Argument against his Method of Certainty whereby he came to the Knowledge that they are True What therefore you can conclude as to my way of Certainty from a Supposition of my not being able in my way by Ideas to convince those who doubt of it that they are Men I do not see But your Lordship is resolved to prove that I cannot and so you go on 1. Your Lordship says That I suppose that we must have a clear and distinct Idea of that we are certain of and this you prove out of my Chapter of Maxims where I say That every one knows the Ideas that he has and that distinctly and unconfusedly one from another Answ. I suspected all along that you mistook what I meant by confused Ideas If your Lordship pleases to turn to my Chapter of distinct and confused Ideas you will there find that an Idea which is distinguished in the Mind from all others may yet be confused The Confusion being made by a careless Application of distinct Names to Ideas that are not sufficiently distinct Which having explained at large in that Chapter I shall not need here again to repeat Only permit me to set down an Instance He that has the Idea of the Liquor that Circulating through the Heart of a Sheep keeps that Animal alive and he that has the Idea of the Liquor that Circulates through the Heart of a Lobster has two different Ideas as distinct as an Idea of an aqueous pellucid cold Liquor is from the Idea of a red opaque hot Liquor but yet these Two may be confounded by giving the Name Blood to this vital circulating Liquor of a Lobster This being considered will shew how what I have said there may consist with my saying That to Certainty Ideas are not required that are in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct Because Certainty being spoken there of the Knowledge of the Truth of any Proposition and Propositions being made in Words it may be true That notwithstanding all the Ideas we have in our Minds are as far as we have them there clear and distinct yet those which we would suppose the Terms in the Proposition to stand for may not be clear and distinct either 1. By making the Term stand for an uncertain Idea which we have not yet precisely determined in our Minds whereby it comes to stand sometimes for one Idea sometimes for another Which though when we reflect on them they are distinct in our Minds yet by this use of a Name undetermined in its Signification come to be confounded Or 2. By supposing the Name to stand for something more than really is in the Idea in our Minds which we make it a sign of v. g. let us suppose That a Man many Years since when he was Young Eat a Fruit whose shape size consistency and colour he has a perfect Remembrance of but the particular Tast he has forgot and only remembers that it very much delighted him This complex Idea as far as it is in his Mind 't is evident is there and as far as he perceives it when he reflects on it is in all its parts clear and distinct but when he calls it a Pine-Apple and will suppose that Name stands for the same precise complex Idea for which another Man who newly Eat of that Fruit and has the Idea of the Tast of it also fresh in his Mind uses it or for which he himself used it when he had the Tast fresh in his Memory 't is plain his complex Idea in that part which consists in the Tast is very obscure To apply this to what your Lordship here makes me suppose I Answer 1. I do not suppose That to Certainty it is requisite that an Idea should be in all its parts clear and distinct I can be certain that a Pine-Apple is not an Artichoak though my Idea which I suppose that Name to stand for be in me obscure and confused in regard of its Tast. 2. I do not deny but on the contrary I affirm That I can have a clear and distinct Idea of a Man i. e. the Idea I give the name Man to may be clear and distinct though it should be true That Men are not yet agreed on the determined Idea that the name Man shall stand for Whatever Confusion there may be in the Idea to which that Name is indeterminately apply'd I do allow
and affirm That every one if he pleases may have a clear and distinct Idea of a Man to himself i. e. which he makes the word Man stand for Which if he makes known to others in his Discourse with them about Man all verbal Dispute will cease and he cannot be mistaken when he uses the term Man And if this were but done with most of the glittering Terms brandised in Disputes it would often be seen how little some Men have to say who with equivocal Words and Expressions make no small noise in Controversie Your Lordship concludes this part by saying Thus you have shew'd how inconsistent my way of Ideas is with true Certainty and of what use and necessity these general Principles of Reason are Answ. By the Laws of Disputation which in another place you express such a regard to one is bound not to change the Terms of the Question This I crave leave humbly to offer to your Lordship because as far as I have looked into Controversie I do not remember to have met with any one so apt shall I say to forget or change the question as your Lordship This my Lord I should not venture to say but upon very good Grounds which I shall be ready to give you an account of whenever you shall demand it of me One Example of it we have here you say you have shew'd how inconsistent my way of Ideas is with true Certainty and of what use and necessity these general Principles of Reason are My Lord if you please to look back to the 105th Page you will see what you there promised was to shew the difference of my method of Certainty by Ideas and the method of Certainty by Reason And particularly in the Pages between that and this the Certainty of Principles which you say is one of those two Things wherein the way of Certainty by Reason lies Instead of that your Lordship concludes here that you have shew'd two Things 1. How inconsistent my way of Ideas is with true Certainty Whereas it should be to shew the inconsistency or difference of my method of Certainty by Ideas and the method of Certainty by Reason Which are Two very different Propositions And before you undertake to shew That my method of Certainty is inconsistent with true Certainty it will be necessary for you to define and tell us wherein true Certainty consists which your Lordship hitherto has shewn no great forwardness to do 2. Another thing which you say you have done is That you have shewn of what use and necessity these general Principles of Reason are Answ. Whether by these General Principles you mean those Propositions which you set down p. 108. and call there Maxims or any other Propositions which you have not any where set down I cannot tell But whatsoever they are that you mean here by these I know not how the usefulness of these your General Principles be they what they will came to be a Question between your Lordship and me here If you have a Mind to shew any mistakes of mine in my Chapter of Maxims which you say you think extraordinary for the Design of it I shall not be unwilling to be rectified but that the usefulness of Principles is not what is here under debate between us I with Submission affirm That which your Lordship is here to prove is That the Certainty of Principles which is the way of Certainty by Reason is different from my way of Certainty by Ideas Upon the whole I crave leave to say in your Words That thus I have I humbly conceive made it appear that you have not shewed any difference much less any inconsistency of my method of Certainty by Ideas and the method of Certainty by Reason in that first Part which you assign of Certainty by Reason viz. Certainty of Principles I come now to the second Part which you assign of Certainty by Reason viz. Certainty of Deductions I only crave leave first to set down these Words in the latter end of your Discourse which we have been considering where your Lordship says you begin to think J. S. was in the right when he made me say That I had discoursed with very rational Men who denyed themselves to be Men Answ. I do not know what may be done by those who have such a Command over the Pronouns They and Them as to put they themselves for they I shall therefore desire my Reader to turn to that Passage of my Book and see whether he too can be so lucky as your Lordship and can with you begin to Think that by these Words Who have actually denyed that they i. e. Infants and Changelings are Men. I meant who actually denyed that they themselves were Men. Your Lordship to prove my method of Certainty by Ideas to be different from and inconsistent with your second Part of the Certainty by Reason which you say lies in the Certainty of Deductions begins thus That you come now to the Certainty of Reason in making Deductions and here you shall briefly lay down the Grounds of Certainty which the ancient Philosophers went upon and then compare my way of Ideas with them To which give me leave my Lord to Reply 1. That I humbly conceive it should have been Grounds of Certainty in making Deductions which the ancient Philosophers went upon or else they will be nothing to the Proposition which your Lordship has undertaken here to prove Now of the Certainty in making Deductions I see none of the Ancients produced by your Lordship who say any thing to shew wherein it consists but Aristotle Who as you say in his Method of infering one thing from another went upon this common Principle of Reason that what things agree in a Third agree among themselves And it so falls out That so far as he goes towards the shewing wherein the Certainty of Deductions consists he and I agree as is evident by what I say in my Essay And if Aristotle had gon any farther to shew how we are certain that those two Things agree with a Third he would have placed that Certainty in the Perception of that Agreement as I have done and then he and I should have perfectly agreed I presume to say if Aristotle had gon farther in this matter he would have placed our Knowledge or Certainty of the Agreement of any two Things in the Perception of their Agreement And let not any one from hence think I attribute too much to my self in saying That that accute and judicious Philosopher if he had gone farther in that matter would have done as I have done For if he omitted it I imagin it was not that he did not see it but that it was so Obvious and Evident that it appear'd superfluous to name it For who can doubt that the Knowledge or being Certain that any two Things agree consists in the Perception of their Agreement What else can it possibly consist in It is
so obvious that it would be a little extraordinary to think that he that went so far could miss it And I should wonder if any one should allow the Certainty of Deduction to consist in the Agreement of two Things in a Third and yet should deny that the Knowledge or Certainty of that Agreement consisted in the Perception of it 2. In the next place my Lord supposing my Method of Certainty in making Deductions were different from those of the Ancients this at best would be only that which I call Argumentum ad Verecundiam which proves not on which side Reason is though I in Modesty should answer nothing to their Authorities 3. The Ancients as it seems by your Lordship not agreeing one among another about the Grounds of Certainty what can their Authorities signifie in the Case Or how will it appear that I differ from Reason in differing from any of them more than that they differ from Reason in differing one from another And therefore after all the different Authorities produced by you out of your great Treasure of Reading the matter will at last reduce it self to this Point That your Lordship should tell us wherein the Certainty of Reason in making Deductions consists and then shew wherein my Method of making Deductions differs from it Which whether you have done or no we shall see in what follows Your Lordship closes your very Learned and to other Purposes very Useful Account of the Opinions of the Ancients concerning Certainty with these Words That thus you have in as few Words as you could laid together those old Methods of Certainty which have obtained greatest Reputation in the World Whereupon I must crave leave to mind you again That the Proposition you are here upon and have undertaken to prove in this place is concerning the Certainty of Deductions and not concerning Certainty in general I say not this that I am willing to decline the Examination of my Method of Certainty in general any way or in any place But I say it to observe that in Discourses of this Nature the Laws of Disputation have wisely ordered the Proposition under Debate to be kept to and that in the same Terms to avoid Wandring Obscurity and Confusion I therefore proceed now to consider what use your Lordship makes of the Ancients against my way of Certainty in General Since you think fit to make no use of them as to the Certainty of Reason in making Deductions though it is under this your second Branch of Certainty by Reason that you bring them in Your first Objection here is that old one again That my way of Certainty by Ideas is new Answer Your calling of it New does not prove it to be different from that of Reason But your Lordship proves it to be New 1. Because here i. e. in my way we have no General Principles Answer I do as your Lordship knows own the Truth and Certainty of the received general Maximâ— and I contend for the Usefulness and Necessity of self-evident Propositions in all Certainty whether of Intuition or Demonstration What therefore those General Principles are which you have not in my way of Certainty by Ideas which your Lordship has in your way of Certainty by Reason I beseech you to tell and thereby to make good this Assertion against me 2. Your Lordship says That here i. e. in my way we have no Antecedents and Consequents no syllogistical Methods of Demonstration Answer If your Lordship here means That there be no Antecedents and Consequents in my Book or that I speak not or allow not of Syllogism as a Form of Argumentation that has its use I humbly conceive the contrary is plain But if by here we have no Antecedents and Consequents no syllogistical Methods of Demonstration you mean That I do not place Certainty in having Antecedents and Consequents or in making of Syllogisms I grant I do not I have said Syllogisms instead of your Words Syllogistical Methods of Demonstration which examined amount here to no more than Syllogisms For Syllogistical Methods are nothing but mode figure i. e. Syllogisms and the Rules of Syllogisms are the same whether the Syllogisms be used in Demonstration or in Probability But 't was convenient for you to say Syllogistical Methods of Demonstration if you would have it thought that Certainty is placed in it For to have named bare Syllogism without annexing Demonstration to it would have spoiled all since every one who knows what Syllogism is knows it may as well be used in Topical or Fallacious Arguments as in Demonstration Your Lordship charges me then That in my way by Ideas I do not place Certainty in having Antecedents and Consequents And pray my Lord do you in your way by Reason do so If you do this is certain That every body has or may have Certainty in every thing he disourses about For every one in any Discourse he makes has or may if he pleases have Antecedents and Consequents Again your Lordship charges me That I do not place Certainty in Syllogism I crave leave to ask again And does your Lordship And is this the difference between your way of Certainty by Reason and my way of Certainty by Ideas Why else is it objected to me That I do not if your Lordship does not place Certainty in Syllogism And if you do I know nothing so requisite as that you should advise all People Women and all to betake themselves immediately to the Universities and to the learning of Logick to put themselves out of the dangerous State of Scepticism For there young Lads by being taught Syllogism arrive at Certainty whereas without Mode and Figure the World is in perfect Ignorance and Uncertainty and is sure of nothing The Merchant cannot be certain that his Account is right cast up nor the Lady that her Coach is not a Wheel-barrow nor her Dairy-maid that one and one Pound of Butter are two Pounds of Butter and two and two four and all for want of Mode and Figure Nay according to this Rule whoever lived before Aristotle or him whoever it was that first introduced Syllogism could not be certain of any thing no not that there was a God which will be the present State of the far greatest part of Mankind to pass by whole Nations of the East as China and Indostan c. even in the Christian World who to this day have not the Syllogistical Methods of Demonstration and so cannot be certain of any thing 3. Your Lordship farther says That in my way of Certainty by Ideas we have no Criterion Answer To perceive the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas and not to perceive the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas is I think a Criterion to distinguish what a Man is certain of from what he is not certain of Has your Lordship any other or better Criterion to distinguish Certainty from Uncertainty If you have I repeat again my earnest
a Modern Writer till your Lordship has proved that those old Philosophers let the happy Age of old Philosophers determine where your Lordship pleases did discover all Truth or that they had the sole Priviledge to search after it and besides them no body was to study Nature no body was to Think or Reason for himself but every one was to be barely a reading Philosopher with an implicit Faith Your Objection in the next Words That then every Demonstration carries its own Light with it shews that your way by Reason is what I do not understand For this I thought heretofore was the property of Demonstration and not a Proof that it was not a Demonstration that it carried its own Light with it But yet though in every Demonstration there is a self-evident Connection of the Ideas by which it is made yet that it does not follow from thence as your Lordship here objects that then every Demonstration would be as clear and unquestionable as that two and two make four your Lordship may see in the same Chapter and the reason of it You seem in the following Words to allow that there is such a Connection of the intermediate Ideas in Mathematical Demonstrations But say You should be glad to see any Demonstration not about Figures and Numbers of this kind And if that be a good Argument against it I crave leave to use it too on my side and to say That I would be glad to see any Demonstration not about Figures and Numbers not of this kind i. e. wherein there is not a self-evident Connection of all the intermediate Ideas If you have any such I earnestly beg your Lordship to favour me with it for I crave liberty to say That the Reason and Form and Way of Evidence in Demonstration where-ever there is Demonstration is always the same But you say This is a quite different Case from mine I suppose your Lordship means by this Mathematical Demonstration the thing mention'd in the preceding Period And then your Sense will run thus Mathematical Demonstrations wherein Certainty is to be had by the intuition of the self-evident Connection of all the intermediate Ideas are different from that Demonstration which I am there treating of If you mean not so I must own I know not what you mean by saying This is a quite different Case from mine And if your Lordship does mean so I do not see how it can be so as you say your Words taken all together run thus My principal Ground is from Mathematical Demonstrations and my Examples are brought from them But this is quite a different Case from mine i. e. I am speaking in that Chapter of my Essay concerning Demonstration in general and the Certainty we have by it The Examples I use are brought from Mathematicks and yet you say Mathematical Demonstrations are quite a different Case from mine If I here misunderstand your Lordship 's This I must beg your pardon for it it is one of your priviledg'd Particles and I am not Master of it Misrepresent your Sense I cannot for your very Words are set down and let the Reader judge But your Lordship gives a Reason for what you had said in these Words subjoined where you say I grant that those Ideas on which Mathematical Demonstrations proceed are wholly in the Mind and do not relate to the Existence of things but our Debate goes upon a Certainty of Knowledge of things as really Existing In which Words there are these things remarkable 1. That your Lordship's Exception here is against what I have said concerning Demonstration in my Essay and not against any thing I have said in either of my Letters to your Lordship If therefore your Lordship and I have since in our Letters had any Debate about the Certainty of the Knowledge of things as really Existing that which was writ before that Debate could have no relation to it nor be limitted by it If therefore your Lordship makes any Exception as you do to my way of Demonstration as proposed in my Essay you must as I humbly conceive take it as deliver'd there comprehending Mathematical Demonstrations which cannot be excluded because your Lordship says our Debate now goes upon a Certainty of the Knowledge of things as really Existing supposing Mathematical Demonstrations did not afford a Certainty of Knowledge of things as really Existing 2. But in the next place Mathematical Demonstrations do afford a Certainty of the Knowledge of things as really Existing as much as any other Demonstrations whatsoever and therefore they afford your Lordship no Ground upon that account to separate them as you do here from Demonstrations in other Subjects Your Lordship indeed thinks I have given you sufficient Grounds to charge me with the contrary For you say I grant that those Ideas on which Mathematical Demonstrations proceed are wholly in the Mind this indeed I grant and do not relate to the Existence of things but these later Words I do not remember that I any where say And I wish you had quoted the place where I grant any such thing I am sure it is not in that place where it is likeliest to be found I mean where I examine whether the Knowledge we have of Mathematical Truths be the Knowledge of Things as really Existing There I say and I think I have proved that it is though it consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas that are only in the Mind Because it takes in all those things really existing which answer those Ideas Upon which Ground it was That I there affirmed moral Knowledge also capable of Certainty And pray my Lord What other way can your Lordship proceed in any Demonstration you would make about any other thing but Figures and Numbers but the same that you do in Demonstrations about Figures and Numbers If you would demonstrate any thing concerning Man or Murder must you not first settle in your Mind the Idea or Notion you have of that Animal or that Action and then shew what you would demonstrate necessarily to belong to that Idea in your Mind and to things existing only as they correspond with and answer that Idea in your Mind How else you can make any general Proposition that shall contain the knowledge of things as really existing I that am Ignorant should be glad to learn when your Lordship shall do me the Favour to shew me any such In the mean time there is no reason why you should except Demonstrations about Figures and Numbers from Demonstrations about other Subjects upon the account that I grant that those Ideas on which Mathematical Demonstrations proceed are wholly in the Mind when I say the same of all other Demonstrations For the Ideas that other Demonstrations proceed on are wholly in the Mind And no Demonstration whatsoever concerns Things as really existing any farther than as they correspond with and answer those Ideas in the Mind which
the Demonstration proceeds on This distinction therefore here of your Lordship's between Mathematical and other Demonstrations having no Foundation your Inference founded on it falls with it viz. So that although we should grant all that I say about the Intuition of Ideas in Mathematical Demonstrations yet it comes not at all to my Business unless I can prove that we have as clear and distinct Ideas of Beings as we have of Numbers and Figures Though how Beings here and Numbers and Figures come to be opposed against one another I shall not be able to conceive till I am better instructed than hitherto I am that Numbers and Figures are no Beings And that the Mathematicians and Philosophers old ones and all have in all the Pains taken about them imploy'd their Thoughts about nothing And I would be glad to know what those Things are which your Lordship says our Debate goes upon here as really existing that are Beings more then Numbers and Figures Your Lordship's next exception against my way of Demonstration is That in it I am inconsistent with my self For Proof of it you say I design to prove Demonstrations without general Principles and yet every one knows that general Principles are supposed in Mathematicks Answ. Every one may know that general Principles are supposed in Mathematicks without knowing or ever being able to know that I who say also that Mathematicians do often make use of them am inconsistent with my self though I also say That a demonstration about Numbers and Figures may be made without them To prove me Inconsistent with my self you add And that Person would be thought Ridiculous who should go about to prove That general Principles are of little or of dangerous use in Mathematical Demonstrations Answ. A Man may make other Ridiculous Faults in Writing besides Inconsistency and there are Instances enough of it But by good luck I am in this place clear of what would be thought Ridiculous which yet is no proof of Inconsistency For I never went about to prove That general Principles are of little or dangerous use in Mathematical Demonstrations To prove me Inconsistent with my self your Lordship uses one Argument more and that is That I confess that the way of Demonstration in Morality is from Principles as those of Mathematicks by necessary Consequences Answ. With Submission my Lord I do not say in the place quoted by your Lordship That the way of Demonstration in Morality is from Principles as those of the Mathematicks by necessary Consequences But this is that which I say That I doubt not but in Morality from Principles as incontestable as those of the Mathematicks by necessary Consequences the measures of right and wrong might be made out Which Words I humbly conceive have no Inconsistency with my saying there may be Demonstrations without the help of Maxims Whatever Inconsistency the Words which you here set down for mine may have with it My Lord the Words you bring out of my Book are so often different from those I read in the places which you refer to that I am sometimes ready to think you have got some strange Copy of it whereof I know nothing since it so seldom agrees with mine Pardon me my Lord if with some care I examin the Objection of Inconsistency with my self that if I find any I may retract one part or the other of it Humane Frailty I grant and variety of Thoughts in long Discourses may make a Man unwittingly advance Inconsistencies This may consist with Ingenuity and deserve to be excused But for any one to persist in it when it is shewed him is to give himself the Lye which cannot but stick closer to him in the Sense of all rational Men than if he received it from another I own I have said in my Essay That there be Demonstrations which may be made without those general Maxims that I there treated of But I cannot recollect that I ever said that those general Maxims could not be made use of in Demonstration For they are no more shut out of my way of Demonstration than any other self-evident Propositions And therefore there is no Inconsistency in those two Propositions which are mine viz. Some Demonstrations may be made without the help of those general Maxims And Morality I doubt not may be demonstrated from Principles whatever Inconsistency may be in these two following Propositions which are your Lordship's and not mine viz. The way of Demonstration in Morality is from Principles and general Maxims are not the way to proceed on in Demonstration as to other parts of Knowledge For to admit self-evident Propositions which is what I mean by Principles in the place of my Essay which your Lordship quotes for the first of my inconsistent Propositions and to say as I do in the other place quoted by your Lordship That those magnified Maxims are not the Principles and Foundations of all our other Knowledge has no manner of Inconsistency For though I think them not necessary to every Demonstration so neither do I exclude them any more than other self-evident Propositions out of any Demonstration wherein any one should make use of them The next Objection against my way of Demonstration from my placing Demonstration on the self evidence of Ideas having been already answer'd I shall need to say nothing in defence of it or in answer to any thing raised against it in your Twelve or Thirteen following Pages upon that Topick But that your Lordship may not think I do not pay a due respect to all that you say I shall not wholly pass those Pages over in Silence 1. Your Lordship says That I confess that some of the most obvious Ideas are far from being self-evident Answ. Supposing I did say so how I beseech your Lordship does it prove That it is impossible to come to a Demonstration about real Beings in this way of Intuition by Ideas Which is the Proposition you Promise to make appear and you bring this as the first Reason to make it appear For should I confess a Thousand times over That some of the most obvious Ideas are far from being self-evident And should I which I do not make Self-evident Ideas necessary to Demonstration how will it thence follow That it is impossible to come to a Demonstration c Since though I should confess some of the most obvious Ideas not to be Self-evident yet my Confession being but of some it will not follow from my Confession but that there may be also some Self-evident and so still it might be possible to come to Demonstration by Intuition because some in my use of the Word never signifies all In the next place give me leave to ask where it is that I confess That some Ideas are not self-evident Nay where it is that I once mention any such thing as a self-evident Idea For self-evident is an Epithite that I do not remember I ever gave
only about Names and not about Ideas themselves is evident from hence that no Body can doubt whether the single Idea of pure Distance and the two Ideas of Distance and Solidity are one and the same Idea or different Ideas any more than he can doubt whether one and two are different The Question then in the Case is not whether Extension considered separately by it self or Extension and Solidity together be the same Idea or no but whether the simple Idea of Extension alone shall be called Body or the complex Idea of Solidity and Extension together shall be called Body For that these Ideas themselves are different I think I need not go about to prove to any one who ever thought of Emptiness or Fulness for whether in the Fact the Bottle in a Man's hand be empty or no or can by him be emptied or no This I think is plain That his Idea of Fulness and his Idea of Emptiness are not the same This the very Dispute concerning a Vacuum supposes for if Mens Idea of pure Space were not different from their Idea of Solidity and Space together they could never so far separate them in their Thoughts as to make a Question whether they did always Exist together any more than they could Question whether the same thing existed with it self Motion cannot be separated in Existence from Space And yet no body ever took the Idea of Space and the Idea of Motion to be the same Solidity likewise cannot Exist without Space but will any one from thence say the Idea of Solidity and the Idea of Space are one and the same Your Lordship's third Reason to prove That it is impossible to come to a Demonstration about real Beings in this way of intuition of Ideas is That granting the Ideas to be true there is no self-evidence of the Connection of them which is necessary to make a Demonstration This I must own is to me as incomprehensible a Consequence as the former As also is that which your Lordship says to make it out which I shall set down in your own Words that its force may be left entire to the Reader But granting the Ideas to be true yet when their Connection is not self-evident then an intermediate Idea must compleat the Demonstration But how doth it appear that this middle Idea is self-evidently connected with them For 't is said if that intermediate Idea be non known by intuition that must need a proof and so there can be no Demonstration which your Lordship is very apt to believe in this way of Ideas unless Ideas get more Light by being put between two others Whatever there be in these Words to prove the Proposition in Question I leave the Reader to find out but that he may not be led into a Mistake that there is any thing in my Words that may be serviceable to it I must crave leave to acquaint him That these Words set down by your Lordship as out of my Essay are not to be found in that place nor any where in my Book or any thing to this purpose That the intermediate Idea is to be known by intuition but this That there must be an intuitive Knowledge or Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of the intermediate Idea with those whose Agreement or Disagreement by its intervention it demonstrates Leaving therefore all that your Lordship brings out of Gassendus the Cartesians Morinus and Bernier in their Argument from Motion for or against a Vacuum as not being at all concerned in it I shall only crave leave to observe that you seem to make use here of the same way of Argumentation which I think I may call your main if not only one it occurs so often viz. That when I have said any thing to shew wherein Certainty or Demonstration c. consists you think it sufficiently overthrown if you can produce any Instance out of my Book of any thing advanced by me which comes short of Certainty or Demonstration Whereas my Lord I humbly conceive it is no Proof against my Notion of Certainty or my way of Demonstration that I cannot attain to them in all Cases I only tell wherein they consist where-ever they are but if I miss of either of them either by reason of the Nature of the Subject or by inadvertency in my way of Proof that is no Objection to the Truth of my Notions of them For I never undertook that my way of Certainty or Demonstration if it ought to be called my way should make me or any one Omniscient or Infallible That which makes it necessary for me here again to take notice of this your way of Reasoning is the Question wherewith you wind up the Account you have given of the Dispute of the Parties above named about a Vacuum And is it possible to imagin that there should be a self-evident Connection in the Case Answer It concerns not me to examine whether or on which side in that Dispute such a self evident Connection is or is not possible But this I take the liberty to say That where-ever it is not there is no Demonstration whether it be the Cartesians or the Gassendists that failed in this Point And I humbly conceive that to conclude from any one's failing in this or any other Case of a self-evident Connection in each step of his Proof that therefore it is not necessary in Demonstration is a Conclusion without Grounds and a way of Arguing that proves nothing In the next Paragraph you come to wind up the Argument which you have been so long upon viz. to make good what you undertook i e. To shew the difference of my Method of Certainty by Ideas and the Method of Certainty by Reason In answer to my saying I can find no Opposition between them which Opposition according to the account you give of it after forty Pages spent in it amounts at last to this 1. That I affirm That general Principles and Maxims of Reason are of little or no use and your Lordship says they are of very great use and the only proper Foundations of Certainty To which I crave leave to say That if by Principles and Maxims your Lordship means all self-evident Propositions our ways are even in this part the same for as you know may Lord I make self-evident Propositions necessary to Certainty and found all Certainty only in them If by Principles and Maxims you mean a select number of self-evident Propositions distinguished from the rest by the name Maxims which is the Sense in which I use the term Maxims in my Essay then to bring it to a Decision which of us Two in this Point is in the right it will be necessary for your Lordship to give a List of those Maxims and then to shew That a Man can be certain of no Truth without the help of those Maxims For to affirm Maxims to be the only Foundations of Certainty and yet not
Particle of it having some bulk has its Parts connected by ways inconceiveable to us So that all the Difficulties that are raised against the Thinking of Matter from our Ignorance or narrow Conceptions stand not at all in the way of the Power of God if he pleases to ordain it so nor proves any thing against his having actually endued some parcels of Matter so disposed as he thinks fit with a Faculty of Thinking till it can be shewn that it contains a Contradiction to suppose it Though to me Sensation be comprehended under Thinking in general yet in the foregoing Discourse I have spoke of Sense in Brutes as distinct from Thinking Because your Lordship as I remember speaks of Sense in Brutes But here I take liberty to observe That if your Lordship allows Brutes to have Sensation it will follow either that God can and doth give to some parcels of Matter a Power of Perception and Thinking or that all Animals have immaterial and consequently according to your Lordship immortal Souls as well as Men and to say that Fleas and Mites c. have immortal Souls as well as Men will possibly be looked on as going a great way to serve an Hypothesis and as it would not very well agree with what your Lordship says 2 Answ. p. 64. to the Words of Solomon quoted out of Eccles. C. 3. I have been pretty large in making this Matter plain that they who are so forward to bestow hard Censures or Names on the Opinions of those who differ from them may consider whether sometimes they are not more due to their own And that they may be perswaded a little to temper that Heat which supposing the Truth in their current Opinions gives them as they think a Right to lay what Imputations they please on those who would fairly examin the Grounds they stand upon For talking with a Supposition and Insinuations that Truth and Knowledge nay and Religion too stands and falls with their Systems is at best but an imperious way of begging the Question and assuming to themselves under the pretence of Zeal for the Cause of God a Title to Infallibility It is very becoming that Mens Zeal for Truth should go as far as their Proofs but not go for Proofs themselves He that attacks received Opinions with any thing but fair Arguments may I own be justly suspected not to mean well nor to be led by the Love of Truth but the same may be said of him too who so defends them An Error is not the better for being common nor Truth the worse for having lain neglected And if it were put to the Vote any where in the World I doubt as things are managed whether Truth would have the Majority at least whilst the Authority of Men and not the examination of Things must be its Measure The imputation of Scepticism and those broad Insinuations to render what I have writ suspected so frequent as if that were the great Business of all this Pains you have been at about me has made me say thus much my Lord rather as my Sense of the way to establish Truth in its full Force and Beauty than that I think the World will need to have any thing said to it to make it distinguish between your Lordship's and my Design in Writing which therefore I securely leave to the Judgment of the Reader and return to the Argument in Hand What I have above said I take to be a full Answer to all that your Lordship would infer from my Idea of Matter of Liberty and of Identity and from the power of Abstracting You ask How can my Idea of Liberty agree with the Idea that Bodies can operate only by Motion and Impulse Answ. By the omnipotency of God who can make all things agree that involve not a Contradiction 'T is true I say That Bodies operate by impulse and nothing else And so I thought when I writ it and yet can conceive no other way of their operation But I am since convinced by the Judicious Mr. Newton's incomparable Book that 't is too bold a Presumption to limit God's Power in this Point by my narrow Conceptions The gravitation of Matter towards Matter by ways unconceivable to me is not only a Demonstration that God can if he pleases put into Bodies Powers and ways of Operation above what can be derived from our Idea of Body or can be explained by what we know of Matter but also an unquestionable and every where visible Instance that he has done so And therefore in the next Edition of my Book I shall take care to have that Passage rectified As to Self-consciousness your Lordship asks What is there like Self-consciousness in Matter Nothing at all in Matter as Matter But that God cannot bestow on some parcels of Matter a Power of Thinking and with it Self-consciousness will never be proved by asking How is it possible to apprehend that meer Body should perceive that it doth perceive The weakness of our Apprehension I grant in the Case I confess as much as you please that we cannot conceive how a solid no nor how an unsolid created Substance thinks but this weakness of our Apprehensions reaches not the Power of God whose weakness is stronger than any thing in Men. Your Argument from Abstraction we have in this Question If it may be in the power of Matter to think how comes it to be so impossible for such organized Bodies as the Brutes have to enlarge their Ideas by Abstraction Answ. This seems to suppose that I place Thinking within the natural Power of Matter If that be your Meaning my Lord I neither say nor suppose that all Matter has naturally in it a Faculty of Thinking but the direct contrary But if you mean that certain parcels of Matter ordered by the Divine Power as seems fit to him may be made capable of receiving from his Omnipotency the Faculty of Thinking that indeed I say and that being granted the Answer to your Question is easie since if Omnipotency can give Thought to any solid Substance it is not hard to conceive that God may give that Faculty in an higher or lower Degree as it pleases him who knows what Disposition of the Subject is suited to such a particular way or degree of Thinking Another Argument to prove That God cannot endue any parcel of Matter with the Faculty of Thinking is taken from those Words of mine where I shew by what connection of Ideas we may come to know That God is an Immaterial Substance They are these The Idea of an eternal actual knowing Being with the Idea of Immateriality by the intervention of the Idea of Matter and of its actual Division divisibility and want of Perception c. From whence your Lordship thus argues Here the want of Perception is owned to be so essential to Matter that God is therefore concluded to be Immaterial Ans. Perception and Knowledge in that one Eternal Being
For if in this present Case the credibility of this Proposition The Souls of Men shall five for ever revealed in the Scripture be lessened by confessing it cannot be demonstratively proved from Reason though it be asserted to be most highly probable Must not by the same Rule its credibility dwindle away to nothing if natural Reason should not be able to make it out to be so much as probable or should place the probability from natural Principles on the other side For if meer want of Demonstration lessens the credibility of any Proposition divinely revealed must not want of probability or contrary probability from natural Reason quite take away its credibility Here at last it must end if in any one Case the Veracity of God and the credibility of the Truths we receive from him by Revelation be subjected to the verdicts of humane Reason and be allowed to receive any accession or diminution from other Proofs or want of other Proofs of its Certainty or Probability If this be your Lordship's way to promote Religion or defend its Articles I know not what Argument the greatest Enemies of it could use more effectual for the Subversion of those you have undertaken to defend this being to resolve all Revelation perfectly and purely into Natural Reason to bound its Credibility by that and leave no room for Faith in other things than what can be accounted for by Natural Reason without Revelation Your Lordship insists much upon it as if I had contradicted what I had said in my Essay by saying That upon my Principles it cannot be demonstratively proved that it is an immaterial Substance in us that Thinks however probable it be He that will be at the pains to read that Chapter of mine and consider it will find that my Business there was to shew that it was no harder to conceive an immaterial than a material Substance and that from the Ideas of Thought and a Power of moving of Matter which we experienced in out selves Ideas originally not belonging to Matter as Matter there was no more difficulty to conclude there was an immaterial Substance in us than that we had material Parts These Ideas of Thinking and Power of moving of Matter I in another place shew'd did demonstratively lead us to the certain knowledge of the Existence of an immaterial Thinking Being in whom we have the Idea of Spirit in the strictest Sense in which Sense I also applyed it to the Soul in that 23d Chapter of my Essay the easily conceivable possibility nay great probability that that thinking Substance in us is immaterial giving me sufficient Ground for it In which Sense I shall think I may safely attribute it to the thinking Substance in us till your Lordship shall have better proved from my Words That it is impossible it should be immaterial For I only say That it is possible i. e. involves no Contradiction that God the omnipotent immaterial Spirit should if he pleases give to some parcels of Matter disposed as he thinks fit a Power of Thinking and Moving Which parcels of Matter so endued with a Power of Thinking and Motion might properly be called Spirits in contradistinction to unthinking Matter In all which I presume there is no manner of Contradiction I justified my use of the word Spirit in that Sense from the Authorities of Cicero and Virgil applying the Latin word Spiritus from whence Spirit is derived to the Soul as a thinking Thing without excluding Materiality out of it To which your Lordship replies That Cicero in his Tusculan Questions supposes the Soul not to be a finer sort of Body but of a different Nature from the Body That he calls the Body the Prison of the Soul And says That a wise Man's Business is to draw off his Soul from his Body And then your Lordship concludes as is usual with a Question Is it possible now to think so great a Man look'd on the Soul but as a modification of the Body which must be at an end with Life Answ. No it is impossible that a Man of so good Sense as Tully when he uses the word Corpus or Body for the gross and visible parts of a Man which he acknowledges to be mortal should look on the Soul to be a modification of that Body in a Discourse wherein he was endeavouring to persuade another that it was immortal It is to be acknowledge'd that truly great Men such as he was are not wont so manifestly to contradict themselves He had therefore no Thought concerning the modification of the Body of Man in the Case He was not such a Trifler as to examin whether the modification of the Body of a Man was immortal when that Body it self was mortal And therefore that which he reports as Dicoearchus's Opinion he dismisses in the beginning without any more ado c. 11. But Cicero's was a direct plain and sensible Enquiry viz. What the Soul was to see whether from thence he could discover its Immortality But in all that Discourse in his first Book of Tusculan Questions where he lays out so much of his Reading and Reason there is not one Syllable shewing the least Thought that the Soul was an immaterial Substance but many Things directly to the contrary Indeed 1. he shuts out the Body taken in the Sense he uses Corpus all-a-long for the sensible organical parts of a Man and is positive that is not the Soul And Body in this Sense taken for the Humane Body he calls the Prison of the Soul and says a wise Man instancing in Socrates and Cato is glad of a fair opportunity to get out of it But he no where says any such thing of Matter He calls not Matter in general the Prison of the Soul nor talks a Word of being separate from it 2. He concludes That the Soul is not like other Things here below made up of a Composition of the Elements c. 27. 3. He excludes the two gross Elements Earth and Water from being the Soul c. 26. So far he is clear and positive But beyond this he is uncertain beyond this he could not get For in some Places he speaks doubtfully whether the Soul be not Air or Fire Anima sit animus ignisve nescio c. 25. And therefore he agrees with Panoetius that if it be at all Elementary it is as he calls it Inflammata Anima inflamed Air and for this he gives several Reasons c. 18 19. And though he thinks it to be of a peculiar Nature of its own yet he is so far from thinking it immaterial that he says c. 19. That the admitting it to be of an aereal or igneous Nature would not be inconsistent with any thing he had said That which he seems most to incline to is That the Soul was not at all Elementary but was of the same Substance with the Heavens which Aristotle to distinguish from the four Elements and the changeable Bodies here below which he supposed made up of
are taken to Represent distinct particular Things Subsisting by themselves in which the supposed or confused Idea of Substance is always the first and chief This would have been a full Answer to all that I think you have under that variety of Heads Objected against my Idea of Substance But your Lordship in your Representation of my Idea of Substance thought fit to leave this Passage out though you are pleased to set down several others produced both before and after it in my first Letter which I think gives me a Right humbly to return your Lordship your own Words And now I freely leave the Reader to judge whether this which your Lordship has given be a tolerable Account of my Idea of Substance The next Point to be considered is concerning the Immateriality of the Soul whereof there is a great deal said The Original of this Controversie I shall set down in your Lordship 's own Words You say The only Reason you had to engage in this Matter was this bold Assertion That the Ideas we have by Sensation or Reflection are the sole Matter and Foundation of all our Reasoning and that our Certainty lies in perceiving the Agreement and Disagreement of Ideas as expressed in any Proposition which last you say are my own words To overthrow this bold Assertion you urge my acknowledgment That upon my Principles it cannot be demonstratively proved that the Soul is Immaterial tho' it be in the highest degree probable And then ask Is not this the giving up the cause of Certainty Answer Just as much the giving up the cause of Certainty on my side as it is on your Lordship's Who tho' you will not please to tell wherein you place Certainty yet it is to be supposed you do place Certainty in something or other Now let it be what you will that you place Certainty in I take the liberty to say that you cannot certainly prove i. e. demonstrate that the Soul of Man is Immaterial I am sure you have not so much as offered at any such proof and therefore you give up the cause of Certainty upon your Principles Because if the not being able to demonstrate that the Soul is Immaterial upon his Principles who declares wherein he thinks Certainty consists be the giving up the cause of Certainty the not being able to demonstrate the Immateriality of the Soul upon his Principles who does not tell wherein Certainty consists is no less a giving up of the cause of Certainty The only odds between these two is more Art and Reserve in the one than the other And therefore my Lord you must either upon your Principles of Certainty demonstrate that the Soul is Immaterial or you must allow me to say that you too give up the cause of Certainty and your Principles tend to Scepticism as much as mine Which of these two your Lordship shall please to do will to me be advantagious for by the one I shall get a Demonstration of the Souls Immateriality of which I shall be very glad and that upon Principles which reaching farther than mine I shall imbrace as better than mine and become your Lordship's professed Convert Till then I shall rest satisfied that my Principles be they as weak and fallible as your Lordship please are no more guilty of any such tendency than theirs who talking more of certainty cannot attain to it in cases where they condemn the way of Ideas for coming short of it You a little lower in the same Page set down these as my Words That I never offered it as a way of Certainty where we cannot reach Certainty I have already told you that I have been sometimes in doubt what Copy you had got of my Essay Because I often found your Quotations out of it did not agree with what I read in mine But by this Instance here and some others I know not what to think since in my Letter which I did my self the Honour to send your Lordship I am sure the Words are not as they are here set down For I say not that I offered the way of Certainty there spoken of which looks as if it were a new way of Certainty that I pretended to teach the World Perhaps the difference in these from my Words is not so great that upon an other occasion I should take notice of it But it being to lead People into an Opinion that I spoke of the way of Certainty by Ideas as something new which I pretended to teach the World I think it worth while to set down my Words themselves which I think are so Penn'd as to shew a great Cantion in me to avoid such an opinion My Words are I think it is a way to bring us to a Certainty in those things which I have offered as Certain but I never thought it a way to Certainty where we cannot reach Certainty What use your Lordship makes of the term offered applied to what I applied it not is to be seen in your next Words which you subjoin to those which you set down for mine But did you not offer to put us into a way of Certainty And what is that but to attain Certainty in such things where we could not otherwise do it Answ. If this your way of reasoning here carries Certainty in it I humbly conceive in your way of Certainty by Reason Certainty may be attained where it could not otherwise be had I only beg you my Lord to shew me the place where I so offer to put you in a way of Certainty different from what had formerly been the way of Certainty that Men by it might attain to Certainty in things which they could not before my Book was writ No Body who reads my Essay with that indifferency which is proper to a Lover of Truth can avoid seeing that what I say of Certainty was not to teach the Wrold a new way of Certainty though that be one great Objection of yours against my Book but to endeavour to shew wherein the old and only way of Certainty consists what was the occasion and design of my Book may be seen plainly enough in the Epistle to the Reader without any need that any thing more should be said of it And I am too sensible of my own Weakness not to profess as I do That I pretend not to teach but to enquire I cannot but wonder what service you my Lord who are a Teacher of Authority mean to Truth or Certainty by condemning the way of Certainty by Ideas Because I own by it I cannot demonstrate that the Soul is Immaterial May it not be worth your considering what advantage this will be to Scepticism when upon the same grounds you Words here shall be turned upon you and it shall be asked What a strange way of Certainty is this your Lordship's way by Reason if it fails us in some of the first Foundations of the real Knowledge of our selves To avoid
this you undertake to prove from my own Principles that we may be certain That the first eternal Thinking Being or Omnipotent Spirit cannot if he would give to certain Systems of created sensible Matter put together as he sees fit some degrees of Sense Perception and Thought For this my Lord is my Proposition and this the utmost that I have said concerning the Power of Thinking in Matter Your first Argument I take to be this That according to me the Knowledge we have being by our Ideas and our Idea of Matter in general being a solid Substance and our Idea of Body a solid extended figured Substance if I admit Matter to be capable of Thinking I confound the Idea of Matter with the Idea of a Spirit To which I answer No no more than I confound the Idea of Matter with the Idea of an Horse when I say that Matter in general is a solid extended Substance and that an Horse is a material Animal or an extended solid Substance with Sense and Spontaneous Motion The Idea of Matter is an extended solid Substance where-ever there is such a Substance there is Matter and the Essence of Matter whatever other Qualities not contained in that Essence it shall please God to superadd to it For example God creates an extended solid Substance without the superadding any thing else to it and so we may consider it at rest To some parts of it he superadds Motion but it has still the Essence of Matter Other parts of it he frames into Plants with all the Excellencies of Vegetation Life and Beauty which is to he found in a Rose or a Peach-tree c. above the Essence of Matter in general but it is still but Matter To other parts he adds Sense and Spontaneous Motion and those other Properties that are to be found in an Elephant Hitherto 't is not doubted but the Power of God may go and that the Properties of a Rose a Peach or an Elephant superadded to Matter change not the Properties of Matter but Matter is in these things Matter still But if one venture to go one step further and say God may give to Matter Thought Reason and Volition as well as Sense and Spontaneous Motion there are Men ready presently to limit the Power of the Omnipotent Creator and tell us he cannot do it because it destroys the Essence or changes the essential Properties of Matter To make good which Assertion they have no more to say but that Thought and Reason are not included in the Essence of Matter I grant it but whatever Excellency not contained in its Essence be superadded to Matter it does not destroy the Essence of Matter if it leaves it an extended solid Substance where-ever that is there is the Essence of Matter and if every thing of greater Perfection superadded to such a Substance destroys the Essence of Matter what will become of the Essence of Matter in a Plant or an Animal whose Properties far exceed those of a meer extended solid Substance But 't is farther urged That we cannot conceive how Matter can Think I grant it but to argue from thence that God therefore cannot give to Matter a Faculty of Thinking is to say God's Omnipotency is limited to a narrow Compass because Man's Understanding is so and brings down God's infinite Power to the size of our Capacities If God can give no Power to any parts of Matter but what Men can account for from the Essence of Matter in general If all such Qualities and Properties must destroy the Essence or change the essential Properties of Matter which are to our Conceptions above it and we cannot conceive to be the natural Consequence of that Essence it is plain that the Essence of Matter is destroyed and its essential Properties changed in most of the sensible parts of this our System For 't is visible that all the Planets have Revolutions about certain remote Centers which I would have any one explain or make conceiveable by the bare Essence or natural Powers depending on the Essence of Matter in general without something added to that Essence which we cannot conceive for the moving of Matter in a crooked Line or the attraction of Matter by Matter is all that can be said in the Case either of which it is above our Reach to derive from the Essence of Matter or Body in general though one of these two must unavoidably be allowed to be superadded in this instance to the Essence of Matter in general The Omnipotent Creator advised not with us in the making of the World and his ways are not the less Excellent because they are past our finding out In the next place the vegetable part of the Creation is not doubted to be wholly Material and yet he that will look into it will observe Excellencies and Operations in this part of Matter which he will not find contained in the Essence of Matter in general nor be able to conceive how they can be produced by it And will he therefore say That the Essence of Matter is destroyed in them because they have Properties and Operations not contained in the essential Properties of Matter as Matter nor explicable by the Essence of Matter in general Let us advance one step farther and we shall in the Animal World meet with yet greater Perfections and Properties no ways explicable by the Essence of Matter in general If the Omnipotent Creator had not superadded to the Earth which produced the irrational Animals Qualities far surpassing those of the dull dead Earth out of which they were made Life Sense and Spontaneous Motion nobler Qualities than were before in it it had still remained rude senseless Matter and if to the Individuals of each Species he had not superadded a Power of Propagation the Species had perished with those Individuals But by these Essences or Properties of each Species superadded to the Matter which they were made of the Essence or Properties of Matter in general were not destroyed or changed any more than any thing that was in the Individuals before was destroyed or changed by the Power of Generation superadded to them by the first Benediction of the Almighty In all such Cases the superinducement of greater Perfections and nobler Qualities destroys nothing of the Essence or Perfections that were there before unless there can be shewed a manifest Repugnancy between them but all the Proof offered for that is only That we cannot conceive how Matter without such superadded Perfections can produce such Effects which is in Truth no more than to say Matter in general or every part of Matter as Matter has them not but is no Reason to prove that God if he pleases cannot superadd them to some parts of Matter unless it can be proved to be a Contradiction that God should give to some parts of Matter Qualities and Perfections which Matter in general has not though we cannot conceive how Matter is invested with them or how it