may account for the cohesion of several parts of Matter that are grosser than the Particles of Air and have Pores less than the Corpuscles of Air yet the weight or pressure of the Air will not explain nor can be a cause of the coherence of the Particles of Air themselves And if the pressure of the AEther or any subtiler Matter than the Air may unite and hold fast together the parts of a Particle of Air as well as other Bodies yet it cannot make Bonds for it self and hold together the parts that make up every the least corpuscle of that materia subtilis So that that Hypothesis how ingeniously soever explained by shewing that the parts of sensible Bodies are held together by the pressure of other external insensible Bodies reaches not the parts of the AEther it self and by how much the more evident it proves that the parts of other Bodies are held together by the external pressure of the AEther and can have no other conceivable cause of their cohesion and union by so much the more it leaves us in the dark concerning the cohesion of the parts of the Corpuscles of the AEther it self which we can neither conceive without parts they being Bodies and divisible nor yet how their parts cohere they wanting that cause of cohesion which is given of the cohesion of the parts of all other Bodies § 24. But in truth the pressure of any ambient Fluid how great soever can be no intelligible cause of the cohesion of the solid parts of Matter For though such a pressure may hinder the avulsion of two polished Superficies one from another in a Line perpendicular to them as in the Experiment of two polished Marbles Yet it can never in the least hinder the separation by a Motion in a Line parallel to these Superficies Because the ambient fluid having a full liberty to succeed in each point of Space diserted by a lateral motion resists such a motion of Bodies so joined no more than it would resist the motion of that Body were it on all sides environed by that Fluid and touched no other Body And therefore if there were no other cause of cohesion all parts of Bodies must be easily separable by such a lateral sliding motion For if the pressure of the AEther be the adequate cause of cohesion where-ever that cause operates not there can be no cohesion And since it cannot operate against such a lateral separation as has been shewed therefore in every imaginary plain intersecting any mass of Matter there could be no more cohesion than of two polished Superficies which will always notwithstanding any imaginable pressure of a Fluid easily slide one from another so that perhaps how clear an Idea soever we think we have of the Extension of Body which is nothing but the cohesion of solid parts he that shall well consider it in his Mind may have reason to conclude That 't is as easie for him to have a clear Idea how the Soul thinks as how Body is extended For since Body is no farther nor otherwise extended than by the union and cohesion of its solid parts we shall very ill comprehend the extension of Body without understanding wherein consists the union and cohesion of its parts which seems to me as incomprehensible as the manner of Thinking and how it is performed § 25. I allow it is usual for most People to wonder how any one should find a difficulty in what they think they every day observe Do we not see will they be ready to say the parts of Bodies stick firmly together Is there any thing more common And what doubt can there be made of it And the like I say concerning Thinking and voluntary Motion Do we not every moment experiment it in our selves and therefore can it be doubted The matter of fact is clear I confess but when we would a little nearer look into it and consider how it is done there I think we are at a loss both in the one and the other and can as little understand how the parts of Body cohere as how we our selves perceive or move I would have any one intelligibly explain to me how the parts of Gold or Brass that but now in fusion were as loose from one another as the Particles of Water or the Sands of an Hour-glass come in a few moments to be so united and adhere so strongly one to another that the utmost force of Mens arms cannot separate them A considering Man will I suppose be here at a loss to satisfie his own or another Man's Understanding § 26. The little Bodies that compose that Fluid we call Water are so extreamly small that I have never heard of any one who by a Microscope and yet I have heard of some that have magnified to 10000 nay to much above 100,000 times pretended to perceive their distinct Bulk Figure or Motion And the Particles of Water are also so perfectly loose one from another that the least force sensibly separates them Nay if we consider their perpetual motion we must allow them to have no cohesion one with another and yâ—t let but a sharp cold come and they unite they consolidate these little Atoms cohere and are not without great force separable He that could find the Bonds that tie these heaps of loose little Bodies together so firmly he that could make known the Cement that makes them stick so fast one to another would discover a great and yet unknown Secret And yet when that was done would he be far enough from making the extension of Body which is the cohesion of its solid parts intelligible till he could shew wherein consisted the union or consolidation of the parts of those Bonds or of that Cement or of the least Particle of Matter that exists Whereby it appears that this primary and supposed obvious Quality of Body will be found when examined to be as incomprehensible as any thing belonging to our Minds and a solid extended Substance as hard to be conceived as a thining one whatever difficulties some would raise against it § 27. For to extend our Thoughts a little farther that pressure which is brought to explain the cohesion of Bodies is as unintelligible as the cohesion it self For if Matter be considered as no doubt it is finite let any one send his Contemplation to the Extremities of Universe and there see what conceivable Hoops what Bond he can imagine to hold this mass of Matter in so close a pressure together from whence Steel has its firmness and the parts of a Diamond their hardness and indissolubility If Matter be finite it must have its Extreams and there must be something to hinder it from scattering asunder If to avoid this difficulty any one will throw himself into the Supposition and Abyss of infinite Matter let him consider what light he thereby brings to the cohesion of Body and whether he be ever the nearer making it intelligible by resolving it into a
which was about the Five or Six and Twentieth Year of his Age. I suppose the World affords more such Instances At least every ones Acquaintance will furnish him with Examples enough of such as pass most of their Nights without dreaming § 15. To think often and never to retain it so much as one moment is a very useless sort of thinking and the Soul in such a state of thinking does very little if at all excel that of a Looking-glass which constantly receives variety of Images or Ideas but retains none they disappear and vanish and there remain no footsteps of them the Looking-glass is never the better for such Ideas nor the Soul for such Thoughts Perhaps it will be said that in a waking Man the materials of the Body are employ'd and made use of in thinking and that the memory of Thoughts is retained by the impressions that are made on the Brain and the traces there left after such thinking but that in the thinking of the Soul which is not perceived in a sleeping Man there the Soul thinks apart and making no use of the Organs of the Body leaves no impressions on it and consequently no memory of such Thoughts Not to mention again the absurdity of two distinct Persons which follows from this Supposition I answer farther That whatever Ideas the Mind can receive and contemplate without the help of the Body it is reasonable to conclude it can retain without the help of the Body too or else the Soul or any separate Spirit will have but little advantage by thinking If it has no memory of its own Thoughts if it cannot record them for its use and be able to recall them upon any occasion if it cannot reflect upon what is past and make use of its former Experiences Reasonings and Contemplations to what purpose does it think They who make the Soul a thinking Thing at this rate will not make it a much more noble Being than those do whom they condemn for allowing it to be nothing but the subtilest parts of Matter Characters drawn on Dust that the first breath of wind effaces or Impressions made on a heap of Atoms or animal Spirits are altogether as useful and render the Subject as noble as the Thoughts of a Soul that perish in thinking that once out of sight are gone for ever and leave no memory of themselves behind them Nature never makes excellent things for mean or no uses and it is hardly to be conceived that our infinitely wise Creator should make so admirable a Faculty as the power of Thinking that Faculty which comes nearest the Excellency of his own incomprehensible Being to be so idlely and uselesly employ'd at least ¼ part of its time here as to think constantly without remembring any of those Thoughts without doing any good to its self or others or being any way useful to any other part of the Creation If we will examine it we shall not find I suppose the motion of dull and sensless matter any where in the Universe made so little use of and so wholly thrown away § 16. 'T is true we have sometimes instances of Perception whilst we are asleep and retain the memory of those Thoughts but how extravagant and incoherent for the most part they are how little conformable to the Perfection and Order of a rational Being those who are acquainted with Dreams need not be told This I would willingly be satisfied in Whether the Soul when it thinks thus apart and as it were separate from the Body acts less rationally then when conjointly with it or no If its separate Thoughts be less rational then these Men must say That the Soul owes the perfection of rational thinking to the Body If it does not 't is a wonder that our Dreams should be for the most part so frivolous and irrational and that the Soul should retain none of its more rational Soliloquies and Meditations § 17. Those who so confidently tell us That the Soul always actually thinks I would they would also tell us what those Ideas are that are in the Soul of a Child before or just at the union with the Body before it hath received any by Sensation The Dreams of sleeping Men are as I take it all made up of the waking Man's Ideas though for the most part oddly put together 'T is strange if the Soul has Ideas of its own that it derived not from Sensation or Reflection as it must have if it thought before it received any impressions from the Body that it should never in its private thinking so private that the Man himself perceives it not retain any of them the very moment it wakes out of them and then make the Man glad with new discoveries Who can find it reason that the Soul should in its retirement during sleep have so many hours thoughts and yet never light on any of those Ideas it borrowed not from Sensation or Reflection or at least preserve the memory of none but such which being occasioned from the Body must needs be less natural to a Spirit 'T is strange the Soul should never once in a Man's whole life recal over any of its pure native Thoughts and those Ideas it had before it borrowed any thing from the Body never bring into the waking Man's view any other Ideas but what have a tangue of the Cask manifestly derive their Original from that union If it always thinks and so had Ideas before it was united or before it received any from the Body 't is not to be supposed but that during sleep it recollects its native Ideas and during that retirement from communicating with the Body whilst it thinks by it self the Ideas it is busied about should be sometimes at least those more natural and congenial ones had in it self underived from the Body or its own operations about them which since the waking Man never remembers we must from this Hypothesis conclude that Memory belongs only to Ideas derived from the Body and the Operations of the Mind about them or else that the Soul remembers something that the Man does not § 18. I would be glad also to learn from these men who so confidently pronounce that the humane Soul or which is all one that a man always thinks how they come to know it nay how they come to know that they themselves think when they themselves do not perceive it This I am afraid is to be sure without proofs and to know without perceiving 'T is I suspect a confused Notion taken up to serve an Hypothesis and none of those clear Truths that either their own Evidence force us to admit or common Experience makes it impudence to deny For the most that can be said of it is That 't is possible the Soul may always think but not always retain it in memory And I say it is as possible that the Soul may not always think and much more probable that it should sometimes not think than that it
found to reach very far But so far as it does it will still be real Knowledge Whatever Ideas we have the Agreement we find they have with others will still be Knowledge If those Ideas be abstract it will be general Knowledge But to make it real concerning Substances the Ideas must be taken from the real existence of Things whatever simple Ideas have been found to co-exist in any Substance these we may with confidence join together again and so make abstract Ideas of Substances For whatever have once had an union in Nature may be united again § 13. This if we rightly consider and confine not our Thoughts and abstract Ideas to Names as if there were or could be no other Sorts of Things than what known Names had already determined and as it were set out we should think of Things with greater freedom and less confusion than perhaps we do 'T would possibly be thought a bold Paradox if not a very dangerous Falshood if I should say that some Changelings who have lived forty years together without any appearance of Reason are something between a Man and a Beast Which prejudice is founded upon nothing else but a false Supposition that these two Names Man and Beast stand for distinct Species so set out by real Essences that there can come no other Species between them Whereas if we will abstract from those Names and the Supposition of such specifick Essences made by Nature wherein all Things of the same Denominations did exactly and equally partake if we would not fansie that there were a certain number of these Essences wherein all Things as in Molds were cast and formed we should find that the Idea of the Shape Motion and Life of a Man without Reason is as much as distinct Idea and makes as much a distinct sort of Things from Man and Beast as the Idea of the Shape of an Ass with Reason would be different from either that of Man or Beast and be a Species of an Animal between or distinct from both § 14. Here every body will be ready to ask if Changelings may be supposed something between Man and Beast 'Pray what are they I answer Changelings which is as good a Word to signifie something different from the signification of MAN or BEAST as the Names Man and Beast are to have significations different one from the other This well considered would resolve this matter and shew my meaning without any more ado But I am not so unacquainted with the Zeal of some Men which enables them to spin Consequences and to see Religion threatned whenever any one ventures to quit their forms of Speaking as not to foresee what Names such a Proposition as this is like to be charged with And without doubt it will be asked If Changelings are something between Man and Beast what will become of them in the other World To which I answer 1. It concerns me not to know or enquire To their own Master they stand or fall It will make their state neither better nor worse whether we determine any thing of it or no They are in the hands of a faithful Creator and a bountiful Father who disposes not of his Creatures according to our narrow Thoughts or Opinions nor distinguishes them according to Names and Species of our Contrivance And we that know so little of this present World we are in may I think content our selves without being peremptory in defining the different state Creatures shall come into when they go off this Stage It may suffice us that he hath made known to all those who are capable of Instruction Discourse and Reasoning that they shall come to an account and receive according to what they have done in this Body § 15. But Secondly I answer The force of these Men's Question viz. will you deprive Changelings of a future state is founded on one of two Suppositions which are both false The first is That all Things that have the outward Shape and appearance of a Man must necessarily be designed to an immortal future Being after this Life Or secondly that whatever is of humane Birth must be so Take away these Imaginations and such Questions will be groundless and ridiculous I desire then those who think there is no more but an accidental difference between themselves and Changelings the Essence in both being exactly the same to consider whether they can imagine Immortality annexed to any outward shape of the Body the very proposing it is I suppose enough to make them disown it No one yet that ever I heard of how much soever immersed in Matter allow'd that Excellency to any Figure of the gross sensible outward parts as to affirm eternal Life due to it or necessary consequence of it or that any mass of Matter should after its dissolution here be again restored hereafter to an everlasting state of Sense Perception and Knowledge only because it was molded into this or that Figure and had such a particular frame of its visible parts Such an Opinion as this placing Immortality in a certain superficial Figure turns out of doors all consideration of Soul or Spirit and upon whose account alone some corporeal Beings have hitherto been concluded immortal and others not This is to attribute more to the outside than inside of Things to place the Excellency of a Man more in the external Shape of his Body than internal Perfections of his Soul which is but little better than to annex the great and inestimable advantage of Immortality and Life everlasting which he has above other material Beings To annex it I say to the Cut of his Beard or the Fashion of his Coat for this or that outward Make of our Bodies no more carries with it the hopes of an eternal Duration than the Fashion of a Man's Suit gives him reasonable grounds to imagine it will never wear out or that it will make him immortal 'T will perhaps be said that no Body thinks that the Shape makes any thing immortal but 't is the Shape is the sign of a rational Soul within which is immortal I wonder who made it the sign of any such Thing for barely saying it will not make it so It would require some Proofs to persuade one of it No Figure that I know speaks any such Language For it may as rationally be concluded that the dead Body of a Man wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of Life than there is in a Statue has yet nevertheless a living Soul in it because of its shape as that there is a rational Soul in a Changeling because he has the outside of a rational Creature when his Actions carry far less marks of Reason with them in the whole course of his Life than what are to be found in many a Beast § 16. But 't is the issue of rational Parents and must therefore be concluded to have a rational Soul I know not by what Logick you must conclude so I am
apply his Thoughts rightly that Way § 9. But how can those Men think the use of Reason necessary to discover Principles that are supposed innate when Reason if we may believe them is nothing else but the Faculty of deducing unknown Truths from Principles or Propositions that are already known That certainly can never be thought innate which we have need of Reason to discover unless as I have said we will have all the certain Truths that Reason ever teaches us to be innate We may as well think the use of Reason necessary to make our Eyes discover visible-Objects as that there should be need of Reason or the Exercise thereof to make the Understanding see what is Originally engraven in it and cannot be in the Understanding before it be perceived by it So that to make Reason discover those Truths thus imprinted is to say that the use of Reason discovers to a Man what he knew before and if Men have these innate impressed Truths Originally and before the use of Reason and yet are always ignorant of them till they come to the use of Reason 't is in effect to say that Men know and know them not at the same time § 10. 'T will here perhaps be said that Mathematical Demonstrations and other Truths that are not innate are not assented to as soon as propos'd wherein they are distinguish'd from these Maxims and other innate Truths I shall have occasion to speak of Assent upon the first proposing more particularly by and by I shall here only and that very readily allow That these Maxims and Mathematical Demonstrations are in this different That the one has need of Reason using of Proofs to make them out and to gain our Assent but the other as soon as understood are without any the least reasoning embraced and assented to But I withal beg leave to observe That it lays open the Weakness of this Subterfuge which requires the Vse of Reason for the Discovery of these general Truths Since it must be confessed that in their Discovery there is no Use made of reasoning at all And I think those who give this Answer will not be forward to affirm that the Knowledge of this Maxim That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be is a deduction of our Reason For this would be to destroy that Bounty of Nature they seem so fond of whilst they make the Knowledge of those Principles to depend on the labour of our Thoughts For all Reasoning is search and casting about and requires Pains and Application And how can it with any tolerable Sence be suppos'd that what was imprinted by Nature as the Foundation and Guide of our Reason should need the Use of Reason to discover it § 11. Those who will take the Pains to reflect with a little attention on the Operations of the Understanding will find that this ready Assent of the Mind to some Truths depends not either on native Inscription nor the Vse of Reason but on a Faculty of the Mind quite distinct from both of them as we shall see hereafter Reason therefore having nothing to do in procuring our Assent to these Maxims if by saying that Men know and assent to them when they come to the Vse of Reason be meant That the use of Reason assists us in the Knowledge of these Maxims it is utterly false and were it true would prove them not to be innate § 12. If by knowing and assenting to them when we come to the use of Reason be meant that this is the time when they come to be taken notice of by the Mind and that as soon as Children come to the use of Reason they come also to know and assent to these Maxims this also is false and frivolous First It is false because it is evident these Maxims are not in the Mind so early as the use of Reason and therefore the coming to the use of Reason is falsly assigned as the time of their Discovery How many instances of the use of Reason may we observe in Children a long time before they have any Knowledge of this Maxim That it is impossible for the same Thing to be and not to be and a great part of illiterate People and Savages pass many Years even of their rational Ages without ever thinking on this and the like general Propositions I grant Men come not to the Knowledge of these general and more abstract Truths which are thought innate till they come to the use of Reason and I add nor then neither Which is so because till after they come to the use of Reason those general abstract Idea's are not framed in the Mind about which those general Maxims are which are mistaken for innate Principles but are indeed Discoveries made and Verities introduced and brought into the Mind by the same Way and discovered by the same Steps as several other Propositions which no Body was ever so extravagant as to suppose innate This I hope to make plain in the sequel of this Discourse I allow therefore a Necessity that Men should come to the use of Reason before they get the Knowledge of those general Truths but deny that Men's coming to the use of Reason is the time of their Discovery § 13. In the mean time it is observable that this saying that Men know and assent to these Maxims when they come to the use of Reason amounts in reality of Fact to no more but this That they are never known nor taken notice of before the use of Reason but may possibly be assented to sometime after during a Man's Life but when is uncertain And so may all other knowable Truths as well as these which therefore have no Advantage nor distinction from others by this Note of being known when we come to the use of Reason nor are thereby proved to be innate but quite the contrary § 14. But Secondly were it true that the precise time of their being known and assented to were when Men come to the Vse of Reason neither would that prove them innate This way of arguing is as frivolous as the Supposition of it self is false For by what kind of Logick will it appear that any Notion is Originally by Nature imprinted in the Mind in its first Constitution because it comes first to be observed and assented to when a Faculty of the Mind which has quite a distinct Province begins to exert it self And therefore the coming to the use of Speech if it were supposed the time that these Maxims are first assented to which it may be with as much Truth as the time when Men come to the use of Reason would be as good a Proof that they were innate as to say they are innate because Men assent to them when they come to the use of Reason I agree then with these Men of innate Principles that there is no Knowledge of these general and self-evident Maxims in the Mind till it comes to the Exercise of
should often think and that a long while together and not be conscious to it self the next moment after that it had thought § 19. To suppose the Soul to think and the Man not perceive it is as has been said to make two persons in one man And if one consider well these mens way of speaking one shall be lead into a suspicion that they do so For they who tell us that the Soul always thinks do never that I remember say That a man always thinks Can the Soul think and not the Man Or a Man think and not be conscious of it This perhaps would be suspected of Iargon in others If they say The man thinks always but is not always conscious of it they may as well say His Body is extended without having parts For 't is altogether as intelligible to say that any thing is extended without parts as that any thing thinks without being conscious of it without perceiving that it does so They who talk thus may with as much reason if it be necessary to their Hypothesis say That a man is always hungry but that he does not always feel it Whereas hunger consists in that very sensation as thinking consists in being conscious that one thinks If they say That a man is always conscious to himself of thinking I ask How they know it Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man 's own mind Can another man perceive that I am conscious of any thing when I perceive it not my self No man's Knowledge here can go beyond his Experience Wake a man out of a sound sleep and ask him What he was that moment thinking on If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on he must be a notable Diviner of Thoughts that can assure him that he was thinking May he not with more reason assure him he was not asleep This is something beyond Philosophy and it cannot be less than Revelation that discovers to another Thoughts in my mind when I can find none there my self And they must needs have a penetrating sight who can certainly see that I think when I cannot perceive it my self and declare That I do not and yet can see that a Dog or an Elephant do not think though they give all the demonstration of it imaginable except only telling us that they do so This some may suspect to be a step beyond the Rosecrucians it seeming easier to make ones self invisible to others than to make another's thoughts visible to me which are not visible to himself But 't is but defining the Soul to be a substance that always thinks and the business is done If such a definition be of any Authority I know not what it can serve for but to make many men suspect That they have no Souls at all since they find a good part of their Lives pass away without thinking For no Definitions that I know no Suppositions of any Sect are of force enough to destroy constant Experience and perhaps 't is the affectation of knowing beyond what we perceive that makes so much useless dispute and noise in the World § 20. I see no Reason therefore to believe that the Soul thinks before the Senses have furnished it with Ideas to think on and as those are increased and retained so it comes by Exercise to improve its Faculty of thinking in the several parts of it as well as afterwards by compounding those Ideas and reflecting on its own Operations it increases its Stock as well as Facility in remembring imagining reasoning and other modes of thinking § 21. He that will suffer himself to be informed by Observation and Experience and not make his own Hypothesis the Rule of Nature will find few Signs of a Soul accustomed to much thinking in a new born Child and much fewer of any Reasoning at all And yet it is hard to imagine that the rational Soul should think so much and not reason at all And he that will consider that Infants newly come into the World spend the greatest part of their time in Sleep and are seldom awake but when either Hunger calls for the Teat or some Pain the most importunate of all Sensations or some other violent Idea forces the mind to perceive and attend to it He I say who considers this will perhaps find Reason to imagine That a Foetus in the Mother's Womb differs not much from the State of a Vegetable but passes the greatest part of its time without Perception or Thought doing very little but sleep in a Place where it needs not seek for Food and is surrounded with Liquor always equally soft and near of the same Temper where the Eyes have no Light and the Ears so shut up are not very susceptible of Sounds and where there is little or no variety or change of Objects to move the Senses § 22. Follow a Child from its Birth and observe the alterations that time makes and you shall find as the mind by the Senses comes more and more to be furnished with Ideas it comes to be more and more awake thinks more the more it has matter to think on After some time it begins to know the Objects which being most familiar with it have made lasting Impressions Thus it comes by degrees to know the Persons it daily converses with and distinguish them from Strangers which are Instances and Effects of its coming to retain and distinguish the Ideas the Senses convey to it And so we may observe how the Mind by degrees improves in these and advances to the Exercise of those other Faculties of Enlarging Compounding and Abstracting its Ideas and of reasoning about them and reflecting upon all these of which I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter § 23. If it shall be demanded then When a Man begins to have any Ideas I think the true Answer is When he first has any Sensation For since there appear not to be any Ideas in the Mind before the Senses have conveyed any in I conceive that Ideas in the Understanding are coeval with Sensation which is such an Impression or Motion made in some part of the Body as makes it be taken notice of in the Understanding § 24. The Impressions then that are made on our Senses by outward Objects that are extrinsical to the Mind and its own Operations about these Impressions reflected on by its self as proper Objects to be contemplated by it are I conceive the Original of all Knowledge and the first Capacity of Humane Intellect is That the Mind is fitted to receive the Impressions made on it either through the Senses by outward Objects or by its own Operations when it reflects on them This is the first step a Man makes towards the Discovery of any thing and the Ground-work whereon to build all those Notions which ever he shall have naturally in this World All those sublime Thoughts which towre above the Clouds and reach as high as Heaven its self take their
Delight or Uneasiness which are the names I shall most commonly use for those two sorts of Ideas § 3. The infinitely Wise Author of our being having given us the power over several parts of our Bodies to move or keep them at rest as we think fit and also by the motion of them to move our selves and other contiguous Bodies in which consists all the Actions of our Body He having also given a power to our Minds in several instances to chuse amongst its Ideas which it will think on and to pursue the enquiry of this or that Subject with consideration and attention to excite us to these Actions of thinking and motion that we are capaple of he has been pleased to join to several Thoughts and several Sensations a perception of Delight This if it were wholly separated from all our outward Sensations and inward Thoughts we should have no reason to preferr one Thought or Action to another Negligence to Attention or Motion to Rest. And so we should neither stir our Bodies nor employ our Minds but let our Thoughts if I may so call it run a drift without any direction or design and suffer the Ideas of our Minds like unregarded shadows to make their appearances there as it happen'd without attending to them In which state Man however furnished with the Faculties of Understanding and Will would be a very idle unactive Creature and pass his time only in a lazy lethargick Dream It has therefore pleased our Wise Creator to annex to several Objects and the Ideas we receive from them as also to several of our Thoughts a concomitant pleasure and that in several Objects to several degrees that those Faculties he had endowed us with might not remain wholly idle and unemploy'd by us § 4. Pain has the same efficacy and use to set us on work that Pleasure has we being as ready to employ our Faculties to avoid that as to pursue the other Only this is worth our consideration That it is often produced by the same Objects and Ideas that produce Pleasure in us This their near Conjunction which makes us often feel pain in the sensations where we expected pleasure gives us new occasion of admiring the Wisdom and Goodness of our Maker who designing the preservation of our Being has annexed Pain to the application of many things to our Bodies to warn us of the harm they will do and as advices to withdraw from them But he not designing our preservation barely but the preservation of every part and organ in its perfection hath in many cases annexed pain to those very Ideas which delight us Thus Heat that is very agreeable to us in one degree by a little greater increase of it proves no ordinary torment and the most pleasant of all sensible Objects Light it self if there be too much of it if increased beyond a due proportion to our Eyes causes a very painful sensation Which is wisely and favourably so ordered by Nature that when any Object does by the vehemence of its operation disorder the instruments of sensation whose Structures cannot but be very nice and delicate we might by the pain be warned to withdraw before the Organ be quite put out of order and so be unfitted for its proper sunctions for the future The consideration of those Objects that produce it may well perswade us That this is the end or use of pain For though great light be insufferable to our Eyes yet the highest degree of darkness does not at all disease them because that causing no disorderly motion in it leaves that curious Organ unharm'd in its natural state But yet excess of Cold as well as Heat pains us because it is equally destructive to that temper which is necessary to the preservation of life and the exercise of the several functions of the Body which consists in a moderate degree of warmth or if you please a motion of the insensible parts of our Bodies confined within certain bounds § 5. Beyond all this we may find another reason why God hath scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain in all the things that environ and affect us and blended them together in almost all that our Thoughts and Senses have to do with that we finding imperfection dissatisfaction and want of compleat happiness in all the Enjoyments of the Creatures can afford us might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of him with whom there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore § 6. Though what I have here said may not perhaps make the Ideas of Pleasure and Pain clearer to us than our own Experience does which is the only way that we are capable of having them yet the consideration of the Reason why they are annexed to so many other Ideas serving to give us due sentiments of the Wisdom and Goodness of the Soveraign Disposer of all Things may not be unsuitable to the main end of these enquiries The knowledge and veneration of Him being the chief end of all our Thoughts and the proper business of all Understandings § 7. Existence and Vnity are two other Ideas that are suggested to the Understanding by every Object without and every Idea within When Ideas are in our Minds we consider them as being actually there as well as we consider things to be actually without us which is that they exist or have Existence And whatever we can consider as one thing whether a real Being or Idea suggests to the Understanding the Idea of Vnity § 8. Power also is another of those simple Ideas which we receive from Sensation and Reflection For observing in our selves that we do and can think◠and that we can at pleasure move several parts of our Bodies which were at rest the effects also that natural Bodies are able to produce in one another occuring every moment to our Senses we both these ways get the Idea of Power § 9. Besides these there is another Idea which though suggested by our Senses yet is more constantly offered us by what passes in our own Minds and that is the Idea of Succession For if we will look immediately into ourselves and reflect on what is observable there we shall find our Ideas always whilst we are awake or have any thought passing in train one going and another coming without intermission § 10. These if they are not all are at least as I think the most considerable of those simple Ideas which the Mind has and out of which are made all its other knowledge all which it receives only by the two forementioned ways of Sensation and Reflection Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious Mind of Man to expatiate in which takes its flight farther than the Stars and cannot be confined by the limits of the World that extends its thoughts often even beyond the utmost expansion of Matter and makes excursions into that incomprehensible Inane I grant all this but
thereby produce in the Mind particular distinct Ideas which in it self it has not as well as we allow it can operate on the Guts and Stomach and thereby produce distinct Ideas which in it self it has not These Ideas being all effects of the operations of Manna on several parts of our Bodies by the size figure number and motion of its parts why those produced by the Eyes and Palate should rather be thought to be really in the Manna than those produced by the Stomach and Guts or why the pain and sickness Ideas that are the effects of Manna should be thought to be no-where when they are not felt and yet the sweetness and whiteness effects of the same Manna on other parts of the Body by ways equal as unknown should be thought to exist in the Manna when they are not seen nor tasted would need some Reason to explain § 19. Let us consider the red and white colours in Porphyre Hinder light but from striking on it and its Colours vanish it no longer produces any such Ideas in us Upon the return of Light it produces these appearances on us again Can any one think any real alterations are made in the Porphyre by the presence or absence of Light and that those Ideas of whiteness and redness are really in Porphyre in the light when 't is plain it has no colour in the dark It has indeed such a Configuration of Particles both night and day as are apt by the Rays of Light rebounding from some parts of that hard Stone to produce in us the Idea of redness and from others the Idea of whiteness But whiteness or redness are not in it at any time but such a texture that hath the power to produce such a sensation in us § 20. Pound an Almond and the clear white Colour will be altered in to a dirty one and the sweet Tast into an oily one What real Alteration can the beating of the Pestle make in any Body but an Alteration of the Texture of it § 21. Ideas being thus distinguished and understood we may be able to give an Account how the same Water at the same time may produce the Idea of Cold by one Hand and of Heat by the other Whereas it is impossible that the same Water if those Ideas were really in it should at the same time be both Hot and Cold. For if we imagine Warmth as it is in our Hands to be nothing but a certain sort and degree of Motion in the minute Particles of our Nerves or animal Spirits we may understand how it is possible that the same Water may at the same time produce the Sensation of Heat in one Hand and Cold in the other which yet Figure never does that never producing the Idea of a square by one Hand which has produced the Idea of a Globe by another But if the Sensation of Heat and Cold be nothing but the increase or diminution of the motion of the minute Parts of our Bodies caused by the Corpuscles of any other Body it is easie to be understood That if that motion be greater in one Hand than in the other if a Body be applied to the two Hands which has in its minute Particles a greater motion than in those of one of the Hands and a less than in those of the other it will increase the motion of the one Hand and lessen it in the other and so cause the different Sensations of Heat and Cold that depend thereon § 22. I have in what just goes before been engaged in Physical Enquiries a little farther than perhaps I intended But it being necessary to make the Nature of Sensation a little understood and to make the difference between the Qualities in Bodies and the Ideas produced by them in the Mind to be distinctly conceived without which it were impossible to discourse intelligibly of them I hope I shall be pardoned this little Excursion into Natural Philosophy it being necessary in our present Enquiry to distinguish the primary and real Qualities of Bodies which are always in them viz. Solidity Extension Figure Number and Motion or Rest and are sometimes perceived by us viz. when the Bodies they are in are big enough singly to be discerned from those secundary and imputed Qualities which are but the Powers of several Combinations of those primary ones when they operate without being distinctly discerned whereby we also may come to know what Ideas are and what are not Resemblances of something really existing in the Bodies we denominate from them § 23. The Qualities then that are in in Bodies rightly considered are of Three sorts First The Bulk Figure Number Situation and Motion or Rest of their solid Parts these are in them whether we perceive them or no and when they are of that size that we can discover them we have by these an Idea of the thing as it is in it self as is plain in artificial things These I call primary Qualities Secondly The Power that is in any Body by Reason of its insensible primary Qualities to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our Senses and thereby produce in us the different Ideas of several Colours Sounds Smells Tasts c. These are usually called sensible Qualities Thirdly The Power that is in any Body by Reason of the particular Constitution of its primary Qualities to make such a change in the Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of another Body as to make it operate on our Senses differently from what it did before Thus the Sun has a Power to make Wax white and Fire to make Lead fluid The First of these as has been said I think may be properly called real Original or primary Qualities because they are in the things themselves whether they are perceived or no and upon their different Modifications it is that the secundary Qualities depend The other two are only Powers to act differently upon other things which Powers result from the different Modifications of those primary Qualities § 24. But though these two later sorts of Qualities are Powers barely and nothing but Powers relating to several other Bodies and resulting from the different Modifications of the Original Qualities yet they are generally otherwise thought of For the Second sort viz. The Powers to produce several Ideas in us by our Senses are looked upon as real Qualities in the things thus affecting us But the Third sort are call'd and esteemed barely Powers v. g. the Idea of Heat or Light which we receive by our Eyes or touch from the Sun are commonly thought real Qualities existing in the Sun and something more than barely Powers in it But when we consider the Sun in reference to Wax which it melts or blanches we look upon the Whiteness and Softness produced in the Wax not as Qualities in the Sun but Effects produced by Powers in it whilst yet we look on Light and Warmth to be real Qualities something more than bare Powers in the Sun Whereas if rightly
the Parts of the Chess-board which keep the same distance one with another The Chess-board we also say is in the same Place it was if it remain in the same part of the Cabin though perhaps the Ship it is in sails all the while and the Ship is said to be in the same Place supposing it kept the same distance with the Parts of the neighbouring Land though perhaps the Earth hath turned round and so both Chess-men and Board and Ship have every one changed Place in respect of remoter Bodies which have kept the same distance one with another But yet the distance from certain Parts of the Board being that which determines the place of the Chess-men and the distance from the fixed parts of the Cabin with which we made the Comparison being that which determined the Place of the Chess-board and the fixed parts of the Earth that by which we determined the Place of the Ship these things may be said properly to be in the same Place in those respects Though their distance from some other things which in this matter we did not consider being varied they have undoubtedly changed Place in that respect and we our selves shall think so when we have occasion to compare them with those other § 9. But this Modification of Distance we call Place being made by Men for their common use that by it they might be able to design the particular Position of Things where they had occasion for such Designation Men consider and determine of this Place by reference to those adjacent things which best served to their present Purpose without considering other things which to another Purpose would better determine the Place of the same thing Thus in the Chess-board the use of the Designation of the Place of each Chess-men being determined only within that chequer'd piece of Wood 't would cross that Purpose to measure it by any thing else But when these very Chess-men are put up in a Bag if any one should ask where the black King is it would be proper to determine the Place by the parts of the Room it was in and not by the Chess-board there being another use of designing the Place it is now in than when in Play it was on the Chess-board and so must be determined by other Bodies So if any one should ask in what Place are the Verses which report the Story of Nisus and Eurialus 't would be very improper to determine this Place by saying they were in such a part of the Earth or in Bodley's Library But the right Designation of the place would be by the parts of Virgil's Works and the proper Answer would be That these Verses were about the middle of the Ninth Book of his AEneides And that they have been always constantly in the same Place ever since Virgil was printed Which is true though the Book it self hath moved a Thousand times the use of the Idea of Place here being to know only in what part of the Book that Story is that so upon occasion we may know where to find it and have recourse to it for our use § 10. That our Idea of Place is nothing else but such a relative Position of any thing as I have before mentioned I think is plain and will be easily admitted when we consider that we can have no Idea of the place of the Universe though we can of all the parts of it because beyond that we have not the Idea of any fixed distinct particular Beings in reference to which we can imagine it to have any relation of distance but all beyond it is one uniform Space or Expansion wherein the Mind finds no variety no marks For to say that the World is somewhere means no more but that it does exist this though a Phrase borrowed from Place signifying only its Existence not Location and when one can find out and frame in his Mind clearly and distinctly the Place of the Universe he will be able to tell us whether it moves or stands still in the undistinguishable Inane of infinite Space tho' it be true that the Word Place has sometimes a more confused Sense and stands for that Space which any Body takes up and so the Universe is in a Place § 11. The Idea therefore of Place we have by the same means that we get the Idea of Space whereof this is but a particular limited Consideration viz. by our Sight and Touch by either of which we receive into our Minds the Ideas of Extension or Distance § 12. There are some that would persuade us that Body and Extension are the same thing who either change the Signification of Words which I would not suspect them of they having so severely condemned the Philosophy of others because it hath been too much placed in the uncertain meaning or deceitful obscurity of doubtful or insignificant Terms It therefore they mean by Body and Extension the same that other People do viz. by Body something that is solid and extended whose parts are separable and movable different ways and by Extension only the Space that lies between the Extremities of those solid coherent Parts and which is possessed by them they confound very different Ideas one with another For I appeal to every Man 's own Thoughts whether the Idea of Space be not as distinct from that of Solidity as it is from th◠Idea of Scarlet-Colour 'T is true Solidity cannot exist without Extension neither can Scarlet Colour exist without Extension but this hinders not but that they are distinct Ideas Many Ideas require others as necessary to their Existence or Conception which yet are very distinct Ideas Motion can neither be nor be conceived without Space and yet Motion is not Space nor Space Motion Space can exist without it and they are very distinct Ideas and so I think are those of Space and Solidity Solidity is so inseparable an Idea from Body that upon that depends its filling of Space its Contact Impulse and Communication of Motion upon Impulse And if it be a Reason to prove that Spirit is different from Body because Thinking includes not the Idea of Extension in it the same Reason will be as valid I suppose to prove that Space is not Body because it includes not the Idea of Solidity in it Space and Solidity being as distinct Ideas as Thinking and Extension and as wholly separable in the Mind one from another Body then and Extension 't is evident are two distinct Ideas for First Extension includes no Solidity nor resistence to the Motion of Body as Body does Secondly The Parts of pure Space are inseparable one from the other so that the Continuity cannot be separated neither really nor mentally For I demand of any one to remove any part of it from another with which it is continued even so much as in Thought To divide and separate actually is as I think by removing the parts one from another to make two Superficies where before there was
measures of it cannot any of them be demonstrated to be exact Since then no two Portions of Succession can be brought together it is impossible ever certainly to know their Equality All that we can do for a measure of Time is to take such as have continual successive Appearances at seemingly equidistant Periods of which seeming Equality we have no other measure but such as the train of our own Ideas have lodged in our Memories with the concurrence of other probable Reasons to perswade us of their Equality § 22. One thing seems strange to me that whilst all Men manifestly measured Time by the motion of the great and visible Bodies of the World Time yet should be defined to be the measure of Motion whereas 't is obvious to every one that reflects ever so little on it that to measure Motion Space is as necessary to be considered as Time and those who look a little farther will find also the bulk of the thing moved necessary to be taken into the Computation by any one who will estimate or measure Motion so as to judge right of it Nor indeed does Motion any otherwise conduce to the measuring of Duration than as it constantly brings about the return of certain sensible Ideas in seeming equidistant Periods For if the Motion of the Sun were as unequal as of a Ship driven by unsteady Winds sometimes very slow and at others irregularly very swift or if being constantly equally swift it yet was not circular and produced not the same Appearances it would not at all help us to measure time any more than the seeming unequal motion of a Comet does § 23. Minutes Hours Days and Years are then no more necessary to Time or Duration than Inches Feet Yards and Miles marked out in any Matter are to Extension For though we in this part of the Universe by the constant use of them as Periods set out by the Revolutions of the Sun or known parts of them have fixed the Ideas of such Lengths of Duration in our Minds which we apply to all parts of Time whose Lengths we would consider yet there may be other parts of the Universe where they no more use those measures of ours than in Iapan they do our Inches Feet or Miles but yet something Analagous to them there must be For without some regular periodical returns we could not measure our selves or signifie to others the length of any Duration though at the same time the World were as full of Motion as it is now but no part of it disposed into regular and apparent equidistant Revolutions But the different measures that may be made use of for the account of Time do not at all alter the notion of Duration which is the thing to be measured no more than the different standards of a Foot and a Cubit alter the notion of Extension to those who make use of those different Measures § 25. The Mind having once got such a measure of Time as the annual Revolution of the Sun can apply that measure to Duration wherein that measure it self did not exist and with which in the reality of its being it had nothing to do For should one say That Abraham was born in the 2712 year of the Iulian period it is altogether as intelligible as reckoning from the beginning of the World though there were so far back no motion of the Sun nor any other motion at all For though the Iulian Period be supposed to begin several hundred years before there were really either Days Nights or Years marked out by any Revolutions of the Sun yet we reckon as right and thereby measure Durations as well as if really at that time the Sun had existed and kept the same ordinary motion it doth now The Idea of Duration equal to an annual Revolution of the Sun is as easily applicable in our Thoughts to Duration where no Sun nor Motion was as the Idea of a Foot or Yard taken from Bodies here can be applied in our Thoughts to Distances beyond the Confines of the World where are no Bodies at all § 26. For supposing it were 5639 miles or millions of Miles from this place to the remotest Body of the Universe for being finite it must be at a certain distance as we suppose it to be 5639 years from this time to the first existence of any Body in the beginning of the World we can in our Thoughts apply this measure of a Year to Duration before the Creation or beyond the Duration of Bodies or Motion as we can this measure of a Mile to Space beyond the utmost Bodies and by the one measure Duration where there was no Motion as well as by the other measure Space in our Thoughts where there is no Body § 27. If it be objected to me here That in this way of explaining of Time I have beg'd what I should not viz. That the World is neither eternal nor infinite I answer That to my present purpose it is not needful in this place to make use of Arguments to evince the World to be finite both in Duration and Extension But it being at least as conceivable as the contrary I have certainly the liberty to suppose it as well as any one hath to suppose the contrary and I doubt not but that every one that will go about it◠may easily conceive in his Mind the beginning of Motion though not of all Duration and so may come to a stop and non ultra in his Consideration of Motion so also in his Thoughts he may set limits to Body and the Extension belonging to it but not to Space where no Body is the utmost bounds of Space and Duration being beyond the reach of Thoughts as well as the utmost bounds of Number are beyond the largest comprehension of the Mind and all for the same reason as we shall see in another place § 28. By the same means therefore and from the same Original that we come to have the Idea of Time we have also that Idea which we call Eternity viz. having got the Idea of Succession and Duration by reflecting on the Train of our own Ideas caused in us either by the natural appearances of those Ideas coming constantly of themselves into our waking Thoughts or else caused by external Objects successively affecting our Senses and having from the Revolutions of the Sun got the Ideas of certain lengths of Duration we can in our Thoughts add such lengths of Duration to one another as often as we please and apply them so added to Durations past or to come And this we can continue to do on without bounds or limits and proceed in infinitum and apply thus the length of the annual motion of the Sun to Duration supposed before the Sun 's or any other Motion had its being which is no more difficult or absurd than to apply the Notion I have of the moving of a Shadow one Hour to day upon the Sun-dial to the duration of something
solid parts of Matter and so includes or at least intimates the Idea of Body Whereas the Idea of pure Distance includes no such thing I preferr also the Word Expansion to Space because Space is often applied to Distance of fleeting successive parts which never exist together as well as to those which are permanent In both these viz. Expansion and Duration the Mind has this common Idea of continued Lengths capable of greater or less quantities For a Man has as clear an Idea of the difference of the length of an Hour and a Day as of an Inch and a Foot § 2. The Mind having got the Idea of the length of any part of Expansion let it be a Span or a Pace or what length you will can as has been said repeat that Idea and so adding it to the former enlarge its Idea of Length and make it equal to two Spans or two Paces and so as often as it will till it equals the distance of any parts of the Earth one from another and increase thus till it amounts to the distance of the Sun or remotest Star By such a progression as this setting out from the place where it is or any other place it can proceed and pass beyond all those lengths and find nothing to stop its going on either in or without Body 'T is true we can easily in our Thoughts come to the end of solid Extension the extremity and bounds of all Body we have no difficulty to arrive at But when the Mind is there it finds nothing to hinder its progress into this endless Expansion of that it can neither find nor conceive any end Nor let any one say That beyond the bounds of Body there is nothing at all unless he will confine GOD within the limits of Matter Solomon whose Understanding was filled and enlarged with Wisdom seems to have other Thoughts when he says Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Thee And he I think very much magnifies to himself the Capacity of his own Understanding who persuades himself that he can extend his Thoughts farther than GOD exists or imagine any Expansion where he is not § 3. Just so is it in Duration The Mind having got the Idea of any length of Duration can double multiply and enlarge it not only beyond its own but beyond the existence of all corporeal Beings and all the measures of Time taken from the great Bodies of the World and their Motions But yet every one easily admits That though we make Duration boundless as certainly it is we cannot yet extend it beyond all being GOD every one easily allows fills Eternity and 't is hard to find a Reason why any one should doubt that he likewise fills Immensity His infinite Being is certainly as boundless one way as another and methinks it ascribes a little too much to Matter to say Where there is no Body there is nothing § 4. Hence I think we may learn the Reason why every one familiarly and without the least hesitation speaks of and supposes Eternity and sticks not to ascribe Infinity to Duration but 't is with more doubting and reserve that many admit or suppose the Infinity of Space The reason whereof seems to me to be this That Duration and Extension being used as names of affections belonging to other Beings we easily conceive in GOD infinite Duration and we cannot avoid doing so but not attributing to him Extension but only to Matter which is finite we are apter to doubt of the existence of Expansion without Matter of which alone we commonly suppose it an Attribute And therefore when Men pursue their Thoughts of Space they are apt to stop at the confines of Body as if Space were there at an end too and reached no farther Or if their Ideas upon consideration carry them farther yet they term what is beyond the limits of the Universe imaginary Space as if it were nothing because there is no Body existing in it Whereas Duration antecedent to all Body and the motions it is measured by they never term imaginary because it is never supposed void of some other real existence And if the names of things may at all direct our Thoughts towards the Originals of Mens Ideas as I am apt to think they may very much one may have occasion to think by the name Duration that the continuation of Existence with a kind of Resistence to any destructive force and the continuation of Solidity which is apt to be confounded with and if we will look into the minute atomical parts of Matter is little different from Hardness were thought to have some Analogy and gave occasion to Words so near of kin as Durare and Durum esse But be that as it will this is certain That whoever pursues his own Thoughts will find them sometimes lanch out beyond the extent of Body into the Infinity of Space or Expansion the Idea whereof is distinct and separate from Body and all other things which may to those who please be a subject of farther meditation § 5. Time in general is to Duration as Place to Expansion They are so much of those boundless Oceans of Eternity and Immensity as is set out and distinguished from the rest as it were by Land-marks and so are made use of to denote the Position of â—inite real Beings in respect one to another in those uniform infinite Oceans of Duration and Space These rightly considered are nothing but Ideas of determinate Distances from certain known points fixed in distinguishable sensible things and supposed to keep the same distance one from another From such points fixed in sensible Beings we reckon and from them we measure out Portions of those infinite Quantities which so considered are that which we call Time and Place For Duration and Space being in themselves uniform and boundless the Order and Position of things without such known setled Points would be lost in them and all things would lie jumbled in an incurable Confâ—â—sion § 6. Time and Place taken thus for determinate distinguishable Portions of those infinite Abysses of Space and Duration set out or supposed to be distinguished from the rest by marks and known Boundaries have each of them a two-fold Acceptation First Time in general is commonly taken for so much of infinite Duration as it measured out by and co-exhistent with the Existence and Motions of the great Bodies of the Universe as far as we know any thing of them and in this Sense Time begins and ends with the frame of this sensible World as in these Phrases before mentioned before all time or when time shall be no more Place likewise is taken sometimes for that Portion of infinite Space which is possessed by and comprehended within the Material World and is thereby distinguished from the rest of Expansion though this may more properly be called Extension than Place Within these two are confined and by the observable Parts of them are measured and determined the
a Man can will what he wills or be pleased with what he is pleased with A Question which I think needs no answer and they who can make a Question of it must suppose one Will to determine the Acts of another and another to determinate that and so on in infinitum an absurdity before taken notice of § 26. To avoid these and the like absurdities nothing can be of greater use than to establish in our Minds clear and steady Notions of the things under Consideration if the Ideas of Liberty and Volition were well fixed in our Understandings and carried along with us in our Minds as they ought through all the Questions are raised about them I suppose a great part of the Difficulties that perplex Mens Thoughts and entangle their Understandings would be much easier resolved and we should perceive where the confused signification of terms or where the nature of the thing caused the obscurity § 27. First then it is carefully to be remembred That Freedom consists in the dependence of the Existence or not Existence of any Action upon our Volition of it and not in the dependence of any Action or its contrary on our preference A Man standing on a cliff is at liberty to leap twenty Yards downwards into the Sea not because he has a power to do the contrary Action which is to leap twenty Yards upwards for that he cannot do but he is therefore free because he has a power to leap or not to leap But if a greater force than his either hold him fast or tumble him down he is no longer free in that case because the doing or forbearance of that particular Action is no longer in his power He that is a close Prisoner in a Room twenty foot square being at the North-side of his Chamber is at liberty to walk twenty foot Southward because he can walk or not walk it but is not at the same time at liberty to do the contrary i. e. to walk twenty foot Northward In this then consists Freedom viz. in our being able to act or not to act according as we shall choose or will § 28. Secondly In the next place we must remember that Volition or Willing regarding only what is in our power is nothing but the preferring the doing of any thing to the not doing of it Action to Rest contra Well but what is this Preferring It is nothing but the being pleased more with the one than the other Is then a Man indifferent to be pleased or not pleased more with one thing than another Is it in his choice whether he will or will not be better pleased with one thing than another And to this I think every one's Experience is ready to make answer No. From whence it follows § 29. Thirdly That the Will or Preference is determined by something without it self Let us see then what it is determined by If willing be but the being better pleased as has been shewn it is easie to know what 't is determines the Will what 't is pleases best every one knows 't is Happiness or that which makes any part of Happiness or contributes to it and that is it we call Good Happiness and Misery are the names of two extremes the utmost bounds whereof we know not 't is what Eye hath not seen Ear hath not heard nor hath entred into the Heart of Man to conceive But of some degrees of both we have very lively impressions made by several instances of Delight and Joy on the one side and Torment and Sorrow on the other which for shortness sake I shall comprehend under the names of Pleasure and Pain there being pleasure and pain of the Mind as well as the Body With Him is fulness of Ioy and Pleasures for evermore Or to speak truly they are all of the Mind though some have their rise in the Mind from Thought others in the Body from Motion Happiness then is the utmost Pleasure we are capable of and Misery the utmost Pain Now because Pleasure and Pain are produced in us by the operation of certain Objects either on our Minds or our Bodies and in different degrees therefore what has an aptness to produce pleasure in us is that we labour for and is that we call Good and what is apt to produce pain in us we avoid and call Evil for no other reason but for its aptness to produce Pleasure and Pain in us wherein consists our happiness or misery Farther because the degrees of Pleasure and Pain have also justly a preference though what is apt to produce any degree of Pleasure be in it self good and what is apt to produce any degree of Pain be evil yet it often happens that we do not call it so when it comes in competition with a greater of its sort So that if we will rightly estimate what we call Good and Evil we shall find it lies much in comparison For the cause of every less degree of Pain as well as every greater degree of Pleasure has the nature of Good and vice versâ and is that which determines our Choice and challenges our Preference Good then the greater Good is that alone which determines the Will § 30. This is not an imperfection in Man it is the highest perfection of intellectual Natures it is so far from being a restraint or diminution of Freedom that it is the very improvement and benefit of it 't is not an Abrigdment 't is the end and use of our Liberty and the farther we are removed from such a determination to Good the nearer we are to Misery and Slavery A perfect Indifferency in the Will or Power of Preferring not determinable by the Good or Evil that is thought to attend its Choice would be so far from being an advantage and excellency of any intellectual Nature that it would be as great an imperfection as the want of Indifferency to act or not to act till determined by the Will would be an imperfection on the other side A Man is at liberty to lift up his Hand to his Head or let it rest quiet He is perfectly indifferent to either and it would be an imperfection in him if he wanted that Power if he were deprived of that Indifferency But it would be as great an imperfection if he had the same Indifferency whether he would prefer the liâ—ting up his Hand or its remaining in rest when it would â—ave his Head or Eyes from a blow he sees coming 't is as much a perfection that the power of Preferring should be determined by Good as that the power of Acting should be determined by the Will and the certainer such determination is the greater is the perfection § 31. If we look upon those superiour Beings above us who enjoy perfect Happiness we shall have reason to judge they are more steadily determined in their choice of Good than we and yet we have no reason to think they are less happy or less free than we
are commonly called simple Apprehensions and the Names of them simple Terms yet in effect are complex and compounded Thus the Idea which an English-man signified by the Name Swan is white Colour long Neck red beak black Legs and whole Feet and all these of a certain size with a power of swimming in the Water and making a certain kind of Noise and perhaps to a Man who has long observed those kind of Birds some other Properties which all terminate in sensible simple Ideas § 15. Besides the complex Ideas we have of material sensible Substances of which I have last spoken by the simple Ideas we have taken from those Operations of our own Minds we experiment daily in our selves as Thinking Understanding Willing Knowing and power of beginning Motion c. coexisting in some Substance we are able to frame the complex Idea of a Spirit And thus by putting together the Ideas of Thinking Perceiving Liberty and power of moving themselves and other things we have as clear a perception and notion of immaterial Substances as we have of material For putting together the Ideas of Thinking and Willing or the power of moving or quieting corporeal Motion joined to Substance of which we have no distinct Idea we have the Idea of Spirit and by putting together the Ideas of coherent solid parts and a power of being moved joined with Substance of which likewise we have no positive Idea we have the Idea of Matter The one is as clear and distinct an Idea as the other The Idea of Thinking and moving a Body being as clear and distinct Ideas as the Ideas of Extension Solidity and being moved For our Idea of Substance is equally obscure or none at all in both it is but a supposed I know not what to support those Ideas we call Accidents § 16. By the complex Idea of extended figured coloured and all other sensible Qualities which is all that we know of it we are as far from the Idea of the Substance of Body as if we knew nothing at all Nor after all the acquaintance and familiarity which we imagine we have with Matter and the many Qualities Men assure themselves they perceive and know in Bodies will it perhaps upon examination be found that they have any more or clearer primary Ideas belonging to Body than they have belonging to Spirit § 17. The primary Ideas we have peculiar to Body as contradistinguished to Spirit are the cohesion of solid and consequently separable parts and a power of communicating Motion by impulse These I think are the original Ideas proper and peculiar to Body for Figure is but the consequence of finite Extension § 18. The Ideas we have belonging and peculiar to Spirit are Thinking and Will or a power of putting Body into motion by Thought and which is consequent to it Liberty For as Body cannot but communicate its Motion by impulse to another Body which it meets with at rest so the Mind can put Bodies into Motion or forbear to do so as it pleases The Ideas of Existence Duration and Mobility are common to them both § 19. There is no reason why it should be thought strange that I make Mobility belong to Spirit For having no other Idea of Motion but change of distance with other Beings that are considered as at rest and finding that Spirits as well as Bodies cannot operate but where they are and that Spirits do operate at several times at several places I cannot but attribute change of place to all finite Spirits for of the infinite Spirit I speak not here For my Soul being a real Being as well as my Body is certainly as capable of changing of distance with any other Body or Being as Body it self and so is capable of Motion And if a Mathematician can consider a certain distance or a change of that distance between two Points one may certainly conceive a distance and a change of distance between two Spirits and so conceive their Motion their approach or removal one from another § 20. Every one finds in himself that his Soul can think will and operate on his Body in the place where that is but cannot operate on a Body or in place an hundred Miles distant from it No body can imagine that his Soul can think or move a Body at Oxford whilst he is at London and cannot but know that being united to his Body it constantly changes place all the whole Journey between Oxford and London as the Coach or Horse does that carries him and I think may be said to be truly all that while in motion Or if that will not be allowed to afford us a clear Idea enough of its motion its being separated from the Body in death I think will For to consider it to go out of the Body or leave it and yet to have no Idea of its motion seems to me impossible § 21. If it be said by any one that it cannot change place because it hath none for Spirits are not in Loco but Vbi I suppose that way of talking will not now be of much weight to many in an Age that is not much disposed to admire or suffer themselves to be deceived by such unintelligible ways of speaking But if any one thinks there is any sense in that distinction and applicable to our present purpose I desire him to put it into intelligible English and then from thence draw a reason to shew that Spirits are not capable of Motion Indeed Motion cannot be attributed to GOD not because he is a Spirit but because he is an Infinite Spirit § 22. Let us compare then our complex Idea of Spirit with our complex Idea of Body and see whether there be any more obscurity in one than in the other and in which most Our Idea of Body as I think is an extended solid Substance capable of communicating Motion by impulse And our Idea of our Souls is of a Substance that thinks and has a power of exciting Motion in Body by Will or Thought These I think are our complex Ideas of Soul and Body as contradistinguished and now let us examine which has most obscurity in it and difficulty to be apprehended I know that People whose Thoughts are immersed in Matter and have so subjected their Minds to their Senses that they seldom reflect on any thing beyond them are apt to say they cannot comprehend a thinking thing which perhaps is true But I affirm when they consider it well they can no more comprehend an extended thing § 23. If any one says he knows not what 't is thinks in him he means he knows not what the substance is of that thinking thing No more say I knows he what the substance is of that solid thing Farther if he says he knows not how he thinks I answer Neither knows he how he is extended how the solid parts of Body are united or cohere together to make Extension For though the pressure of the Particles of Air
Supposition the most absurd and most incomprehensible of all other So far is our Extension of Body which is nothing but the cohesion of solid parts from being clearer or more distinct when we would enquire into the Nature Cause or Manner of it than the Idea of Thinking § 28. Another Idea we have of Body is the power of communication of Motion by impulse and of our Souls the power of exciting of Motion by Thought These Ideas the one of Body the other of our Minds every days experience clearly furnishes us with But if here again we enquire how this is done we are equally in the dark For in the communication of Motion by impulse wherein as much Motion is lost to one Body as is got to the other which is the ordinariest case we can have no other conception but of the passing of Motion out of one Body into another which I think is as obscure and unconceivable as how our Minds move or stop our Bodies by Thought which we every moment find they do The increase of Motion by impulse which is observed or believed sometimes to happen is yet harder to be understood We have by daily experience clear evience of Motion produced both by impulse and by thought but the manner how hardly comes within our comprehension we are qually at a loss in both So that however we consider Motion and its communication either in Body or Spirit the Idea which belongs to Spirit is at least as clear as that that belongs to Body And if we consider the active power of Moving or as I may call it Motivity it is much clearer in Spirit than Body since two Bodies placed by one another at rest will never afford us the Idea of a power in the one to move the other but by a borrowed motion whereas the Mind every day affords us Ideas of an active power of moving of Bodies and therefore it is worth our consideration whether active power be not the proper attribute of Spirits and passive power of Matter But be that as it will I think we have as many and as clear Ideas belonging to Spirit as we have belonging to Body the Substance of each being equally unknown to us and the Idea of Thinking in Spirit as clear as of Extension in Body and the communication of Motion by Thought which we attribute to Spirit is as evident as that by impulse which we ascribe to Body Constant Experience makes us sensible of both of these though our narrow Understandings can comprehend neither For when the Mind would look beyond these original Ideas we have from Sensation or Reflection and penetrate into their Causes and manner of production we find still it discovers nothing but its own short-sightedness § 29. To conclude Sensation convinces us that there are solid extended Substances and Reflection that there are thinking ones Experience assures us of the Existence of such Beings and that the one hath a power to move Body by impulse the other by thought this we cannot doubt of Experience I say every moment furnishes us with the clear Ideas both of the one and the other But beyond these Ideas as received from their proper Sources our Faculties will not reach If we would enquire farther into their Nature Causes and Manner we perceive not the Nature of Extension clearer than we do of Thinking If we would explain them any farther one is as easie as the other and there is no more difficulty to conceive how a Substance we know not should by thought set Body into motion than how a Substance we know not should by impulse set Body into motion So that we are no more able to discover wherein the Ideas belonging to Body consist than those belonging to Spirit From whence it seems probable to me that the simple Ideas we receive from Sensation and Reflection are the Boundaries of our Thoughts beyond which the Mind whatever efforts it would make is not able to advance one jot nor can it make any discoveries when it would prie into the Nature and hidden Causes of those Ideas § 30. So that in short the Idea we have of Spirit compared with the Idea we have of Body stands thus The substance of Spirit is unknown to us and so is the substance of Body equally unknown to us Two primary Qualities or Properties of Body viz. solid coherent parts and impulse we have distinct clear Ideas of So likewise we know and have distinct clear Ideas of two primary Qualities or Properties of Spirit viz. Thinking and a power◠Action i. e. a power of beginning or stopping several Thoughts or Motions We have also the Ideas of several Qualities inherent in Bodies and have the clear distinct Ideas of them which Qualities are but the various modifications of the Extension of cohering solid Parts and their motion We have likewise the Ideas of the several modes of Thinking viz. Believing Doubting Intending Fearing Hoping all which are but the several modes of Thinking We have also the Ideas of Willing and Moving the Body consequent to it and with the Body it self too for as has been shewed Spirit is capable of Motion § 31. Lastly if this Notion of Spirit may have perhaps some difficulties in it not easie to be explained we have thereby no more reason to deny or doubt the existence of Spirits than we have to deny or doubt the existence of Body because the notion of Body is cumbred with some difficulties very hard and perhaps impossible to be explained or understood by us For I would fain have instanced any thing in our notion of Spirit more perplexed or nearer a Contradiction than the very notion of Body includes in it the divisibility in infinitum of any finite Extension involving us whether we grant or deny it in consequences impossible to be explicated or made consistent Consequences that carry greater difficulty and more apparent absurdity than any thing can follow from the Notion of an immaterial knowing substance § 32. Which we are not at all to wonder at since we having but some few superficial Ideas of things discovered to us only by the Senses from without or by the Mind reflecting on what it experiments in it self within have no Knowledge beyond that much less of the internal Constitution and true Nature of things being destitute of Faculties to attain it And therefore experimenting and discovering in our selves Knowledge and the power of voluntary Motion as certainly as we experiment or discover in things without us the cohesion and separation of solid Parts which is the Extension and Motion of Bodies we have as much Reason to be satisfied with our Notion of Spirit as with our Notion of Body and the Existence of the one as well as the other For it being no more a contradiction that Thinking should exist separate and independent from Solidity than it is a contradiction that Solidity should exist separate and independent from Thinking they being both but simple Ideas independent one
it signifies by the word Triangle supposing it to exist than it self has in that complex Idea of three Sides and three Angles in which is contained all that iâ— or can be essential to it or necessary to compleat it where-ever or howe-ever it exists But in our Ideas of Substances it is otherwise For there desiring to copy Things as they really do exist and to represent to our selves that Constitution on which all their Properties depend we perceive our Ideas attain not that Perfection we intend We find they still want something we should be glad were in them and so are all inadequate But mixed Modes and Relations being Archetypes without Patterns and so having nothing to represent but themselves cannot but be adequate every thing being so to it self He that as first put together the Idea of Danger perceived absence of disorder from Fear sedate consideration of what was justly to be done and executing of that without disturbance or being deterred by the danger of it had certainly in his Mind that complex Idea made up of that Combination and intending it to be nothing else but what it is nor to have in it any other simple Ideas but what it hath it could not also but be an adequate Idea and laying this up in his Memory with the name Courage annexed to it to signifie it to others and denominate from thence any Action he should observe to agree with it had thereby a Standard to measure and denominate Actions by as they agreed to it This Idea thus made and laid up for a Pattern must necessarily be adequate being referred to nothing else but it self nor made by any other Original but the Good-liking and Will of him that first made this Combination § 4. Indeed another coming after and in Conversation learning from him the word Courage may make an Idea to which he gives that name Courage different from what the first Author applied it to and has in his Mind when he uses it And in this case if he designs that hâ—s Idea in Thinking should be conformable to the other's Idea as the Name he uses in speaking is conformable in sound to his from whom he learned it his Idea may be very wrong and inadequate Because in this case making the other Man's Idea the pattern of his Idea in thinking as the other Man's Word or Sound is the pattern of his in speaking his Idea is so far defective and inadequate as it is distant from the Archetype and Pattern he refers it to and intends to express and signifie by the name he uses for it which name he would have to be a sign of the other Man's Idea to which in its proper use it is primarily annexed and of his own as agreeing to it to which if his own does not exactly correspond it is faulty and inadequate § 5. Therefore these complex Ideas of Modes when they are referred by the Mind and intended to correspond to the Ideas in the Mind of some other intelligent Being expressed by the Names we apply to them they may be very deficient wrong and inadequate Because they agree not to that which the Mind designs to be their Archetype and Pattern In which respect only any Idea of Modes can be wrong imperfect or inadequate And on this account our Ideas of mixed Modes are the most liable to be faulty of any other but this refers more to proper Speaking than Knowing right § 6. Thirdly What Ideas we have of Substances I have above shewed Now those Ideas have in the Mind a double reference 1. Sometimes they are referred to a supposed real Essence of each Species of Things 2. Sometimes they are only design'd to be Pictures and Representations in the Mind of Things that do exist by Ideas that are discoverable in them In both which ways these Copies of their Originals and Archetypes are imperfect and inadequate First It is usual for Men to make the Names of Substances stand for Things as supposed to have certain real Essences whereby they are of this or that Species And Names standing for nothing but the Ideas that are in Men's Minds they must consequently refer their Ideas to such real Essences as to their Archetypes That Men especially such as have been bred up in the Learning taught in this part of the World do suppose certain specifick Essences of Substances which each Individual in its several kind is made conformable to and partakes of is so far from needing proof that it will be thought strange if any one should do otherwise And thus they ordinarily apply the specifick Names they rank particular Substances under to Things as distinguished by such specifick real Essences Who is there almost who would not take it amiss if it should be doubted whether he call'd himself Man with any other meaning than as having the real Essence of a Man And yet if you demand what those real Essences are 't is plain Men are ignorant and know them not From whence it follows that the Ideas they have in their Minds being referred to real Essences as Archetypes which are unknown must be so far from being adequate that they cannot be supposed to be any representation of them at all The complex Ideas we have of Substances are as has been shewed certain Collections of simple Ideas that have been observed or supposed constantly to exist together But such a complex Idea cannot be the real Essence of any Substance for then the Properties we discover in that Body would depend on that complex Idea and be deducible from it and their necessary connexion with it be known as all Properties of a Triangle depend on and as far as they are discoverable are deducible from the complex Idea of three Lines including a Space But it is plain that in our complex Ideas of Substances are not contained such Ideas on which all the other Qualities that are to be found in them do depend The common Idea Men have of Iron is a Body of a certain Colour Weight and Hardness and a Property that they look on as belonging to it is malleableness But yet this Property has no necessary connexion with that complex Idea nor any part of it and there is no more reason to think that malleableness depends on that Colour Weight and Hardness than that that Colour or that Weight depends on its malleableness And yet though we know nothing of these real Essences there is nothing more ordinary than that Men should attribute the sorts of Things to such Essences The particular parcel of Matter which makes the Ring I have on my Finger is forwardly by most Men supposed to have a real Essence whereby it is Gold and from whence those Qualities flow which I find in it viz. it s peculiar Colour Weight Hardness Fusibility Fixedness and change of Colour upon a slight touch of Mercury c. This Essence from which all these Properties flow when I enquire into it and search after it
Nature and are as plainly suggested by outward Things pass neglected without particular Names or Specifications Nor does the Mind in these of mixed Modes as in the complex Ideas of Substances examine them by the real Existence of Things or verifie them by Patterns containing such peculiar Compositions in Nature To know whether his Idea of Adultery or Incest be right will a Man seek it any where amongst Things existing Or is it true because any one has been Witness to such an Action No but it suffices here that Men have put together such a Collection into one complex Idea that makes the Archetype and specifick Idea whether ever any such Action were committed in rerum natura or no. § 4. To understand this aright we must consider wherein this making of these complex Ideas consists and that it is not in the making any new Idea but putting together those which the Mind had before Wherein the Mind does these three things First It chuses a certain number Secondly It gives them connexion and makes them into one Idea Thirdly It ties them together by a Name If we examine how the Mind proceeds in these and what liberty it takes in them we shall easily observe how these Essences of the Species of mixed Modes are the Workmanship of the Mind and consequently that the Species themselves are of Men's making § 5. No body can doubt but that these Ideas of mixed Modes are made by a voluntary Collection of Ideas put together in the Mind independent from any original Patterns in Nature who will but reflect that this sort of complex Ideas may be made abstracted and have names given them and so a Species be constituted before any one individual of that Species ever existed Who can doubt but the Ideas of Sacrilege or Adultery might be framed in the Mind of Men and have names given them and so these Species of mixed Modes be constituted before either of them was ever committed and might be as well discoursed of and reasoned about and as certain Truths discovered of them whilst yet they had no being but in the Understanding as well as now that they have but too frequently a real Existence Whereby it is plain how much the sorts of mixed Modes are the Creatures of the Vnderstanding where they have a Being as subservient to all the ends of real Truths and Knowledge as when they really exist And we cannot doubt but Law-makers have often made Laws about Species of Actions which were only the Creatures of their own Understanding Beings that had no other existence but in their own Minds And I think no body can deny but that the Resurrection was a Species of mixed Modes in the Mind before it really existed § 6. To see how arbitrarily these Essences of mixed Modes are made by the Mind we need but take a view of almost any of them A little looking into them will satisfie us that 't is the Mind that combines several scattered independent Ideas into one complex one and by the common name it gives them makes them the Essence of a certain Species without regulating it self by any connexion they have in Nature For what greater connexion in Nature has the Idea of a Man than the Idea of a Sheep with Killing that this is made a particular Species of Action signified by the word Murder and the other not Or what Union is there in Nature between the Idea of the Relation of a Father with Killing than that of a Son or Neighbour that these are combined into one complex Idea and thereby made the Essence of the distinct Species Parricide whilst the others make no distinct Species at all But though they have made killing a Man's Father or Mother a distinct Species from killing his Son or Daughter yet in some other cases Son and Daughter are taken in too as well as Father and Mother and they are all equally comprehended in the same Species as in that of Incest Thus the Mind in mixed Modes arbitrarily unites into complex Ideas such as it finds convenient whilst others that have altogether as much union in Nature are left loose and never combined into one Idea because they have no need of one name 'T is evident then that the Mind by its free choice gives a connexion to a certain number of Ideas which in Nature have no more union with one another than others that it leaves out Why else is the part of the Weapon the beginning of the Wound is made with taken notice of to make the distinct Species call'd Stabbing and the Figure and Matter of the Weapon left out I do not say this is done without reason as we shall see more by and by but this I say that it is done by the free choice of the Mind pursuing its own ends and that therefore these Species of mixed Modes are the Workmanship of the Understanding And there is nothing more evident than that for the most part in the framing these Ideas the Mind searches not its Patterns in Nature nor refers the Ideas it makes to the real existence of Things but puts such together as may best serve its own purposes without tying it self to a precise intimation of any thing that really exists § 7. But though these complex Ideas or Essences of mixed Modes depend on the Mind and are made by it with great liberty yet they are not made at random and jumbled together without any reason at all Though these complex Ideas be not always copied from Nature yet they are always suited to the end for which abstract Ideas are made And though they be Combinations made of Ideas that are loose enough and have as little union in themselves as several other to which the Mind gives a connexion that combines them into one Idea yet they are always made for the convenience of Communication which is the chief end of Language The Use of Language is by short Sounds to signifie with ease and dispatch general Conceptions wherein not only abundance of particulars may be contained but also a great variety of independent Ideas collected into one complex one In the making therefore of the Species of mixed Modes Men have had regard only to such Combinations as they had occasion to mention one to another Those they have combined into distinct complex Ideas and given names to whilst others that in Nature have as near an union are left loose and unregarded For to go no farther than humane Actions themselves if they would make distinct abstract Ideas of all the Varieties might be observed in them the Number must be infinite and the Memory confounded with the Plenty as well as overcharged to little purpose It suffices that Men make and name so many complex Ideas of these mixed Modes as they find they have occasion to have names for in the ordinary occurrence of their Affairs If they join to the Idea of Killing the Idea of Father or Mother and so make a
have done some Service to Truth Peace and Learning if by any enlargement on this Subject I can make Men reflect on their own Use of Language and give them reason to suspect that since it is frequent for others it may also be possible for them to have sometimes very good and approved Words in their Mouths and Writings with very uncertain little or no signification And therefore it is not unreasonable for them to be wary herein themselves and not to be unwilling to have them examined by others With this design therefore I shall go on with what I have farther to say concerning this matter CHAP. VI. Of the Names of Substances § 1. THe common Names of Substances as well as other general Terms stand for Sorts which is nothing else but the being made signs of such complex Ideas wherein several particular Substances do or might agree by virtue of which they are capable to be comprehended in one common Conception and be signified by one Name I say do or might agree for though there be but one Sun existing in the World yet the Idea of it being abstracted so as that more Substances if there were several might each agree in it it is as much a Sort as if there were as many Suns as there are Stars They want not their Reasons who think there are and that each fixed Star would answer the Idea the name Sun stands for to one who were placed in a due distance which by the way may shew us how much the Sorts or if you please Genera and Species of Things for those Latin terms signifie to me no more than the English word Sort depend on such Collections of Ideas as Men have made and not on the real Nature of Things since 't is not impossible but that in propriety of Speech that might be a Sun to one which is a Star to another § 2. The measure and boundary of each Sort or Species whereby it is constituted that particular Sort and distinguished from others is that we call its Essence which is nothing but that abstract Idea to which the Name is annexed So that every thing contained in that Idea is essential to that Sort. This though it be all the Essence of natural Substances that we know or by which we distinguish them into Sorts yet I call it by a peculiar name the nominal Essence to distinguish it from that real Constitution of Substances upon which depends this nominal Essence and all the Properties of that Sort which therefore as has been said may be called the real Essence v. g. the nominal Essence of Gold is that complex Idea the word Gold stands for let it be for instance a Body yellow of a certain weight malleable fusible and fixed But the real Essence is the constitution of the insensible parts of that Body on which those Qualities and all the other Properties of Gold depend How far these two are different though they are both called Essence is obvious at â—irst sight to discover § 3. For though perhaps voluntary Motion with Sense and Reason join'd to a Body of a certain shape be the complex Idea to which I and others annex the name Man and so be the nominal Essence of the Species so called Yet no body will say that that complex Idea is the real Essence and Source of all those Operations are to be found in any Individual of that Sort. The foundation of all those Qualities which are the Ingredients of our complex Idea is something quite different And had we such a Knowledge of that Constitution of Man from which his Faculties of Moving Sensation and Reasoning and other Powers flow and on which his so regular shape depends as 't is possible Angels have and 't is certain his Maker has we should have a quite other Idea of his Essence than what now is contained in our Definition of that Species be it what it will And our Idea of any individual Man would be as far different from what it now is as is his who knows all the Springs and Wheels and other contrivances within of the famous Clock at Strasburg is from that which a gazing Country-man has of it who barely sees the motion of the Hand and hears the Clock strike and observes only some of the outward appearances § 4. How much Essence in the ordinary use of the word relates to Sorts and that it is considered in particular Beings no farther than as they are ranked into Sorts appears from hence That take but away the abstract Ideas by which we sort Individuals and rank them under common Names and then the thought of any thing essential to any of them instantly vanishes we have no notion of the one without the other which plainly shews their relation 'T is necessary for me to be as I am GOD and Nature has made me so But there is nothing I have is essential to me An Accident or Disease may very much alter my Colour or Shape a Fever or Fall may take away my Reason or Memory or both and an Apoplex leave neither Sense nor Understanding no nor Life Other Creatures of my shape may be made with more and better or fewer and worse Faculties than I have And others may have Reason and Sense in a shape and body very different from mine None of these are essential to the one or the other or to any Individual whatsoever till the Mind refers it to some Sort or Species of Things and then presently according to the abstract Idea of that Sort something is found essential Let any one examine his own Thoughts and he will find that as soon as he supposes or speaks of Essential the consideration of some Species or the complex Idea signified by some general name comes into his Mind And 't is in reference to that that this or that Quality is said to be essential so that if it be asked whether it be essential to me or any other particular corporeal Being to have Reason I say no nor more than it is essential to this white thing I write on to have words in it But if that particular Being be to be counted of the Sort Man and to have that name Man given it then Reason is essential to it supposing Reason to be a part of the complex Idea the name Man stands for as it is essential to this thing I write on to contain words if I will give it the name Treatise and rank it under that Species So that essential and not essential relate only to our abstract Ideas and the names annexed to them which amounts to no more but this That whatever particular Thing has not in it those Qualities which are contained in the abstract Idea which any general term stands for cannot be ranked under that Species nor be called by that name since that abstract Idea is the very essence of the Species § 5. Thus if the Idea of Body with some People be bare Extension or
part by Colour join'd with some other sensible Qualities do well enough to design the Things they would be understood to speak of And so Men usually conceive well enough the Substances meant by the Word Gold or Apple to distinguish the one from the other But in Philosophical Enquiries and Debates where general Truths are to be established and Consequences drawn from Positions laid down there the precise signification of the names of Substances will be found not only not to be well established but also very hard to be so For Example he that shall make Malleability or a certain degree of Fixedness a part of his complex Idea of Gold may make Propositions concerning Gold and draw Consequences from them that will truly and clearly follow from Gold taken in such a signification But yet such as another Man can never be forced to admit nor be convinced of their Truth who makes not Malleableness or the same degree of Fixedness part of that complex Idea that the name Gold in his use of it stands for § 16. This is a natural and almost unavoidable Imperfection in almost all the names of Substances in all Languages whatsoever which Men will easily find when once passing from confused or loose Notions they come to more strict and close Enquiries For then they will be convinced how doubtful and obscure those Words are in their Signification which in ordinary use appeared very clear and determined I was once in a Meeting of very learned and ingenious Physicians where by chance there arose a Question whether any Liquor passed through the Filaments of the Nerves the Debate having been managed a good while by variety of Arguments on both sides I who had been used to suspect that the greatest part of Disputes were more about the signification of Words than a real difference in the Conception of Things desired That before they went any farther on in this Dispute they would first examine and establish amongst them what the Word Liquor signified They at first were a little surprized at the Proposal and had they been Persons less ingenious they might perhaps have taken it for a very frivolous or extravagant one Since there was no one there that thought not himself to understand very perfectly what the Word Liquor stood for which I think too none of the most perplexed names of Substances However they were pleased to comply with my Motion and upon Examination found that the signification of that Word was not so settled and certain as they had all imagined but that each of them made it a sign of a different complex Idea This made them perceive that the Main of their Dispute was about the signification of that Term and that they differed very little in their Opinions concerning some fluid and subtile Matter passing through the Conduits of the Nerves though it was not so easie to agree whether it was to be called Liquor or no a thing which when each considered he thought it not worth the contending about § 17. How much this is the Case of the greatest part of Disputes that Men are engaged so hotly in I shall perhaps have an occasion in another place to take notice Let us only here consider a little more exactly the fore-mentioned instance of the Word Gold and we shall see how hard it is precisely to determine its Signification Almost all agree that it should signifie a Body of a certain yellow shining Colour which being the Idea to which Children have annexed that name the shining yellow part of a Peacock's Tail is properly to them Gold Others finding Fusibility join'd with that yellow Colour in Gold think the other which contain'd nothing but the Idea of Body with that Colour not truly to represent Gold but to be an imperfect Idea of that sort of Substance And therefore the Word Gold as referr'd to that sort of Substances does of right signifie a Body of that yellow Colour which by the Fire will be reduced to Fusion and not to Ashes Another by the same Reason adds the Weight which being a Quality as straitly join'd with that Colour as its Fusibility he thinks has the same Reason to be join'd in its Idea and to be signified by its name And therefore the other made up of Body of such a Colour and Fusibility to be imperfect and so on of all the rest Wherein no one can shew a Reason why some of the inseparable Qualities that are always united in Nature should be put into the nominal Essence and others left out Or why the Word Gold signifying that sort of Body the Ring on his Finger is made of should determine that sort rather by its Colour Weight and Fusibility than by its Colour Weight and Solubility in aq regia Since the dissolving it by that Liquor is as inseparable from it as the Fusion by Fire and they are both of them nothing but the relation that Substance has to two other Bodies which have a Power to operate differently upon it For by what Right is it that Fusibility comes to be a part of the Essence signified by the Word Gold and Solubility but a property of it Or why is its Colour part of the Essence and its Malleableness but a property That which I mean is this That these being all but Properties depending on its real Constitution and nothing but Powers either active or passive in reference to other Bodies no one has Authority to determine the signification of the Word Gold as referr'd to such a Body existing in Nature more to one Collection of Ideas to be found in that Body than to another◠Whereby the signification of that name must unavoidably be very uncertain Since as has been said several People observe Properties in the same Substance and I think I may say no Body all And therefore we have but very imperfect descriptions of Things and Words have very uncertain Significations § 18. By what has been before said it is easie to observe that the Names of simple Ideas are of all others the least liable to Mistakes First Because the Ideas they stand for are much easier got and more clearly retain'd than those of more complex ones and therefore they are not liable to the uncertainty or inconvenience of those very compounded mixed Modes and Secondly because they are never referr'd to any other Essence but barely that Perception they immediately signifie Which reference is that which renders the signification of the names of Substances naturally so perplexed and gives occasion to so many Disputes Men that do not perversly use their Words or on purpose set themselves to cavil seldom mistake in any Language they are acquainted with the Use and Signification of the names of simple Ideas White and Sweet Yellow and Bitter carry a very obvious meaning with them which every one precisely comprehends or easily perceives he is ignorant of and seeks to be informed But what precise Collection of simple Ideas Modesty or Frugality stand for
examining the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas by the intervention of some others Or 3. By Sensation perceiving the Existence of particular Things Hence it also follows § 3. Thirdly That we cannot have an intuitive Knowledge that shall extend it self to all our Ideas and all that we would know about them because we cannot examine and perceive all the Relations they have one to another by juxta-position or an immediate comparison one with another Thus having the Ideas of an Obtuse and an acute angled Triangle both drawn from equal Bases and between Parallels I can by intuitive Knowledge perceive the one not to be the other but cannot that way know whether they be equal or no because their Agreement or Disagreement in equality can never be perceived by an immediate comparing them The difference of Figure makes their parts uncapable of an exact immediate application and therefore there is need of some intervening Quantities to measure them by which is Demonstration or rational Knowledge § 4 Fourthly It follows also from what is above observed that our rational Knowledge cannot reach to the whole extent of our Ideas Because between two different Ideas we would examine we cannot always find such Mediums as we can connect one to another with an intuitive Knowledge in all the parts of the Deduction and where-ever that fails we come short of Knowledge and Demonstration § 5. Fifthly Sensitive Knowledge reaching no farther than the Existence of Things actually present to our Senses is yet much narrower than either of the former § 6. From all which it is evident that the extent of our Knowledge comes not only short of the reality of Things but even of the extent of our own Ideas Though our Knowledge be limited to our Ideas and cannot exceed them either in extent or perfection and though these be very narrow bounds in respect of the extent of All-being and far short of what we may justly imagine to be in some even created Understandings not tied down to the dull and narrow Information is to be received from some few and not very acute ways of Perception such as are our Senses yet it would be well with us if our Knowledge were but as large as our Ideas and there were not many Doubts and Enquiries concerning the Ideas we have whereof we are not nor I believe ever shall be in this World resolved Nevertheless I do not yet Question but that Humane Knowledge under the present Circumstances of our Beings and Constitutions may be carried much farther than it hitherto has been if Men would sincerely and with freedom of Mind employ all that Industry and labour of Thought in improving the means of discovering Truth which they do for the colouring or support of Falshood to maintain a System Interest or Party they are once engaged in But yet after all I think I may without injury to humane Perfection be confident that our Knowledge would never reach to all we might desire to know concerning those Ideas we have nor be able to surmount all the Difficulties and resolve all the Questions might arise concerning any of them We have the Ideas of a Square a Circle and Equality and yet perhaps shall never be able to find a Circle equal to a Square and certainly know that it is so We have the Ideas of Matter and Thinking but possibly shall never be able to know whether Matter thinks or no it being impossible for us by the contemplation of our own Ideas without revelation to discover whether Omnipotency has given to Matter fitly disposed a power to perceive and think or else joined and fixed to Matter so disposed a thinking immaterial Substance It being equally easie in respect of our Notions to conceive that GOD can if he pleases superadd to our Idea of Matter a Faculty of Thinking as that he should superadd to it another Substance with a Faculty of Thinking since we know not wherein Thinking consists nor to what sort of Substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power which cannot be in any created Being but meerly by the good Pleasure and Bounty of the Creator For what assurance of Knowledge can any one have that certain Thoughts such as v. g. Pleasure and Pain should not be in Body it self after a certain manner modified and moved as well as that it should be in an immaterial Substance upon the Motion of the parts of Body Motion according to the utmost reach of our Ideas being able to produce nothing but Motion so that when we allow it to produce Pleasure or Pain or the Idea of a Colour or Sound we are fain to quit our Reason go beyond our own Ideas and attribute it wholly to the good Pleasure of our Maker For since we must allow he has annexed Effects to Motion which we can no way conceive Motion able to produce what Reason have we to conclude that he could not order them as well to be produced in a Subject we cannot conceive capable of them as well as in a Subject we cannot conceive the motion of Matter can any way operate upon I say not this that I would any way lessen the belief of the Soul's Immateriality I am not here speaking of Probability but Knowledge and I think not only that it becomes the Modesty of Philosophy not to pronounce Magisterially where we want that Evidence that can produce Knowledge but also that it is of use to us to discern how far our Knowledge does reach for the state we are at present in not being that of Vision we must in many Things content our selves with Faith and Probability And in the present Question about the Immateriality of the Soul if our Faculties cannot arrive at demonstrative Certainty we need not think it strange All the great Ends of Morality and Religion are well enough secured without philosophical Proofs of the Soul's Immateriality since it is evident that he who made us at first begin to subsist here sensible intelligent Beings and for several years continued us in such a state can and will restore us to the like state of Sensibility in another World and make us capable there to receive the Retribution he has designed to Men according to their doings in this Life But to return to the Argument in hand our Knowledge I say is not only limited to the Paucity and Imperfections of the Ideas we have and which we employ it about but even comes short of that too But how far it reaches let us now enquire § 7. The affirmations or negations we make concerning the Ideas we have may as I have before intimated in general be reduced to these four sorts viz. Identity Co-existence Relation and real Existence I shall examine how far our Knowledge extends in each of these § 8. First As to Identity and Diversity in this way of the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas our intuitive Knowledge is as far extended as our Ideas themselves and there can be no Idea
in the Mind which it does not presently by an intuitive Knowledge perceive to be what it is and to be different from any other § 9. Secondly As to the second sort which is the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas in Co-existence in this our Knowledge is very short though in this consists the greatest and most material part of our Knowledge concerning Substances For our Ideas of the Species of Substances being as I have shewed nothing but certain Collections of simple Ideas united in one Subject and so co-existing together v. g. Our Idea of Flame is a Body hot luminous and moving upward of Gold a Body heavy to a certain degree yellow malleable and susible for these or some such complex Ideas as these in Mens Minds do these two names of different Substances Flame and Gold stand for When we would know any thing farther concerning these or any other sort of Substances what do we enquire but what other Qualities or Powers these Substances have or have not which is nothing else but to know whether simple Ideas do or do not co-exist with those that make up that complex Idea § 10. This how weighty and considerable a part soever of Humane Science is yet very narrow and scarce any at all The reason whereof is that the simple Ideas whereof our complex Ideas of Substances are made up are for the most part such as carry with them in their own Nature no visible necessary connexion or inconsistency with any other simple Ideas whose co-existence with them we would inform our selves about § 11. The Ideas that our complex ones of Substances are made up of and about which our Knowledge concerning Substances is most employ'd are those of their secondary Qualities which depending all as has been shewed upon the primary Qualities of their minute and insensible parts or if not upon them upon something yet more remote from our Comprehension 't is impossible we should know which have a necessary union or inconsistency one with another For not knowing the Root they spring from not knowing what size figure and texture of Parts they are on which depend and from which result those Qualities which make our complex Idea of Gold 't is impossible we should know what other Qualities result from the same Constitution of the insensible parts of Gold and so consequently must always co-exist with that complex Idea we have of it or else are inconsistent with it § 12. Besides this Ignorance of the primary Qualities of the insensible Parts of Bodies on which depend all their secundary Qualities there is yet another and more incurable part of Ignorance which sets us more remote from a certain Knowledge of the Co-existence or Inco-existence if I may so say of different Ideas in the same Subject and that is that there is no discoverable connexion between any secundary Quality and those primary Qualities that it depends on § 13. That the size figure and motion of one Body should cause a change in the size figure and motion of another Body is not beyond our Conception the separation of the parts of one Body upon the intrusion of another and the change from Rest to Motion upon impulse these and the like seem to us to have some connexion one with another And if we knew these primary Qualities of Bodies we might have reason to hope we might be able to know a great deal more of these Operations of them one upon another But our Minds not being able to discover any connexion betwixt these primary qualities of Bodies and the sensations that are produced in us by them we can never be able to establish certain and undoubted Rules of the Consequence or Co-existence of any secundary Qulities though we could discover the size figure or motion of those insible Parts which immediately produce them We are so far from knowing what figure size or motion of parts produce a yellow Colour a sweet Taste or a sharp Sound that we can by no means conceive how any size figure or motion of any Particles can possibly produce in us the Idea of any Colour Taste or Sound whatsoever there is no conceivable connexion betwixt the one and the other § 14. In vain therefore shall we endeavour to discover by our Ideas the only true way of certain and universal Knowledge what other Ideas are to be found constantly joined with that of our complex Idea of any Substance since we neither know the real Constitution of the minute Parts on which their Qualities do depend nor did we know them could we discover any necessary connexion between them and any of the secundary Qualities which is necessary to be done before we can certainly know their necessary co-existence So that let our complex Idea of any Species of Substances be what it will we can hardly from the simple Ideas contained in it certainly determine the necessary co-existence of any other Quality whatsoever Our Knowledge in all these Enquiries reaches very little farther than our Experience Indeed some few of the primary Qualities have a necessary dependence and visible connexion one with another as Figure necessarily supposes Extension receiving or communicating Motion by impulse supposes Solidity But though these and perhaps some others of our Ideas have yet there are some few of them that have a visible Connexion one with another that we can by Intuition or Demonstration discover the co-existence of very few of the Qualities are to be found united in Substances and we are left only to the assistence of our Senses to make known to us what Qualities they contain For all the Qualities that are co-existent in any Subject without this dependence and evident connexion of their Ideas one with another we cannot know certainly to co-exist any farther than Experience by our Senses informs us Thus though we see the yellow Colour and upon trial find the Weight Malleableness Fusibility and Fixedness that are united in a piece of Gold yet because no one of these Ideas has any evident dependence or necessary connexion with the other we cannot certainly know that where any four of these are the fifth will be there also how highly probable soever it may be Because the highest Probability amounts not to Certainty without which there can be no true Knowledge For this co-existence can be no farther known than it is perceived and it cannot be perceived but either in particular Subjects by the observation of our Senses or in general by the necessary connexion of the Ideas themselves § 15. As to incompatibility or repugnancy to co-existence we may know that any Subject can have of each sort of primary Qualities but one particular at once v. g. each particular Extension Figure number of Parts Motion excludes all other of each kind The like also is certain of all sensible Ideas peculiar to each Sense for whatever of each kind is present in any Subject excludes all other of that sort v. g. no one Subject can
the Figure of any of the Wheels the dissolving of Silver in aqua fortis and Gold in aq regia and not vice versa would be then perhaps no more difficult to know than it is to a Smith to understand why the turning of one Key will open a Lock and not the turning of another But whilst we are destitute of Senses acute enough to discover the minute Particles of Bodies and to give us Ideas of their mechanical Affections we must be content to be ignorant of their properties and ways of Operation nor can we be assured about them any farther than some few Trials we make are able to reach But whether they will succeed again another time we cannot be certain This hinders our certain Knowledge of universal Truths concerning natural Bodies And our Reason carries us herein very little beyond particular matter of Fact § 26. And therefore I am apt to doubt that how far soever humane Industry may advance useful and experimental Philosophy in physical Things scientifical will still be out of our reach because we want perfect and adequate Ideas of those very Bodies which are nearest to us and most under our Command Those which we have ranked into Classes under names and we think our selves best acquainted with we have but very imperfect and incompleat Ideas of Distinct Ideas of the several sorts of Bodies that fall under the Examination of our Senses perhaps we may have but adequate Ideas I suspect we have not of any one amongst them And though the former of these will serve us for common Use and Discourse yet whilst we want the latter we are not capable of scientifical Knowledge nor shall ever be able to discover general instructive Truths concerning them Certainty and Demonstration are Things we must not in these Matters pretend to By the Colour Figure Taste and Smell and other sensible Qualities we have as clear and distinct Ideas of Sage and Hemlock as we have of a Circle and a Triangle But having no Ideas of the particular primary Qualities of the minute parts of either of these Plants nor of other Bodies we would apply them to we cannot tell what effects they will produce Nor when we see those Effects can we so much as guess much less know their manner of production Thus having no Ideas of the particular mechanical Affections of the minute parts of Bodies that are within our view and reach we are ignorant of their Constitutions Powers and Operations and of Bodies more remote we are ignorant of their very outward Shapes and Beings § 27. This at first sight will shew us how disproportionate our Knowledge is to the whole extent even of material Beings to which if we add the Consideration of that infinite number of Spirits that may be and probably are which are yet more remote from our Knowledge whereof we have no cognizance nor can frame to our selves any distinct Ideas of their several ranks and sorts we shall find this cause of Ignorance conceal from us in an impenetrable obscurity almost the whole intellectual World a greater certainly and more beautiful World than the material For bating some very few and those if I may so call them superficial Ideas which Spirit we by reflection get of our own and of the Father of all Spirits the eternal independent Author of them and us and all Things we have no certain information so much as of their Existence but by revelation Angels of all sorts are naturally beyond our discovery And all those Intelligences whereof 't is likely there are more Orders than of corporeal Substances are Things whereof our natural Faculties give us no certain account at all That there are Minds and thinking Beings in other Men as well as himself every Man has a reason from their Words and Actions to be satisfied But between us and the Great GOD we can have no certain knowledge of the Existence of any Spirits but by revelation much less have we distinct Ideas of their different Natures Conditions States Powers and several Constitutions wherein they agree or differ from one another and from us And therefore in what concerns their different Species and Properties we are under an absolute ignorance § 28. Secondly What a small part of the substantial Beings that are in the Universe the want of Ideas leave open to our Knowledge we have seen In the next place another cause of Ignorance of no less moment is the want of a discoverable Connexion between those Ideas we have For where-ever we want that we are utterly uncapable of universal and certain Knowledge and are as in the former case left only to Observation and Experiment which how narrow and confined it is how far from general Knowledge we need not be told I shall give some few instances of this cause of our Ignorance and so leave it 'T is evident that the bulk figure and motion of several Bodies about us produce in us several Sensations as of Colours Sounds Tastes or Smells Pleasure and Pain c. those mechanical Affections of Bodies having no affinity at all with these Ideas they produce in us there being no conceivable connexion between any impulse of any sort of Body and any perception of a Colour or Smell we find in our Minds we can have no distinct knowledge of such Operations beyond our Experience and can reason no otherwise about them than as the effects or appointment of an infinitely Wise Agent which perfectly surpass our Comprehensions As the Ideas of sensible secundary Qualities we have in our Minds can by us be no way deduced from bodily Causes nor any correspondence or connexion be found between them and those primary Qualities which Experience shews us produce them in us so on the other side the Opetions of our Minds upon our Bodies is as unconceivable How any thought should produce a motion in Body is as remote from the nature of our Ideas as how any Body should produce any Thought in the Mind That it is so if Experience did not convince us the Considerations of the Things themselves would never be able in the least to discover to us These and the like though they have a constant and regular connexion in the ordinary course of Things yet that connexion being not discoverable in the Ideas themselves which appearing to have no necessary dependence one on another we can attribute their connexion to nothing else but the arbitrary Determination of that All-wise Agent who has made them to be and to operate as they do in a way utterly above our weak Understanding to conceive § 29. In some of our Ideas there are certain Relations Habitudes and Connexions so visibly included in the Nature of the Ideas themselves that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any Power whatsoever And in these only we are capable of certain and universal Knowledge Thus the Idea of a right-lined Triangle necessarily carries with it an equality of its Angles to two right ones
Things Since most of those Discourses which take up the Thoughts and engage the Disputes of those who pretend to make it their Business to enquire after Truth and Certainty will I presume upon Examination be found to be general Propositions and Notions in which Existence is not at all concerned All the Discourses of the Mathematicians about the squaring of a Circle conick Sections or any other part of Mathematicks concern not the Existence of any of those Figures but their Demonstrations which depend on their Ideas are the same whether there be any square or Circle existing in the World or no. In the same manner the Truth and Certainty of moral Discourses abstracts from the Lives of Men and the Existence of those Vertues in the World whereof they treat Nor is Tully's Offices less true because there is no Body in the World that exactly practices his Rules and lives up to that pattern of a vertuous Man which he has given us and which existed no where when he writ but in Idea If it be true in Speculation i. e. in Idea that Murther deserves Death it will also be true in Reality of any Action that exists comformable to that Idea of Murther As for other Actions the Truth of that Proposition concerns them not And thus it is of all other Species of Things which have no other Essences but those Ideas which are in the Minds of Men. § 9. But it will here be said that if moral Knowledge be placed in the Contemplation of our own moral Ideas and those as other Modes be of our own making What strange Notions will there be of Iustice and Temperance What confusion of Vertues and Vices if every one may make what Ideas of them he pleases No confusion nor disorder in the Things themselves nor the Reasonings about them no more than in Mathematicks there would be a disturbance in the Demonstration or a change in the Properties of Figures and their Relations one to another if a Man should make a Triangle with four Corners or a Trapezium with four right Angles that is in plain English change the Names of the Figures and call that by one Name which Mathematicians call'd ordinarily by another For let a Man make to himself the Idea of a Figure with three Angles whereof one is a right one and call it if he please Equilaterum or Trapezium or any thing else the Properties of and Demonstrations about that Idea will be the same as if he call'd it a Rectangular-Triangle I confess the change of the Name by the impropriety of Speech will at first disturb him who knows not what Idea it stands for but as soon as the Figure is drawn the Consequences and Demonstration are plain and clear And just the same is it in moral Knowledge let a Man have the Idea of taking from others without their Consent what their honest Industry has possessed them of and call this Iustice if he please He that takes the Name here without the Idea put to it will be mistaken by joining another Idea of his own to that Name But strip the Idea of that Name or take it such as it is in the Speaker's Mind and the same Things will agree to it as if you call'd it Injustice Indeed wrong Names in moral Discourses breed usually more disorder because they are not so easily rectified as in Mathematicks where the Figure once drawn and seen makes the Name useless and of no force For what need of a Sign when the Thing signified is present and in view But in moral Names that cannot be so easily and shorty done because of the many decompositions that go to the making up the complex Ideas of those Modes But yet for all this the miscalling of any of those Ideas contrary to the usual signification of the Words of that Language hinders not â— but we may have certain and demonstrative Knowledge of their several Agreements and Disagreements if we will carefully as in Mathematicks keep to the same precise Ideas and trace them in their several Relations one to another without being led away by their Names If we but separate the Idea under consideration from the Sign that stands for it our Knowledge goes equally on in the discovery of real Truth and Certainty whatever Sounds we make use of § 10. One thing more we are to take notice of That where GOD or any other Law-maker hath defined any Moral Names there they have made the Essence of that Species to which that Name belongs and there it is not safe to apply or use them otherwise But in other cases 't is bare impropriety of Speech to apply them contrary to the common usage of the Country But yet even this too disturbs not the certainty of that Knowledge which is still to be had by a due contemplation and comparing of those even nick-nam'd Ideas § 11. Thirdly There is another sort of complex Ideas which being referred to Archetypes without us may differ from them and so our Knowledge about them may come short of being real and these are our Ideas of Substances which consisting of a Collection of simple Ideas supposed taken from the Works of Nature may yet vary from them by having more or different Ideas united in them than are to be found united in the Things themselves From whence it comes to pass â—hat they may and often do fail of being exactly conformable to Things themselves § 12. I say then that to have Ideas of Substances which by being conformable to Things may afford us real Knowledge it is not enough as in Modes to put together such Ideas as have no inconsistency though they did never before so exist v. g. the Ideas of Sacrilege or Perjury c. were as real and true Ideas before as after the existence of any such fact But our Ideas of Substances being supposed Copies and referred to Archetypes without us must still be taken from something that does or has existed they must not consist of Ideas put together at the pleasure of our Thoughts without any real pattern they were taken from though we can perceive no inconsistence in such a Combination The reason whereof is because we knowing not what real Constitution it is of Substances whereon our simple Ideas depend and which really is the cause of the strict union of some of them one with another and the exclusion of others there are very few of them that we can be sure are or are not inconsistent in Nature any farther than Experience and sensible Observation reaches Herein therefore is founded the reality of our Knowledge concerning Substances that all our complex Ideas of them must be such and such only as are made up of such simple ones as have been discovered to co-exist in Nature And our Ideas being thus true though not perhaps very exact Copies are yet the Subjects of real as far as we have any Knowledge of them which as has been already shewed will not be
sure this is a Conclusion That Men no-where allow of For if they did they would not make bold as every-where they do to destroy ill-formed and mis-shaped Productions Ay but these are Monsters Let them be so What will your drivling unintelligent intractable Changeling be Shall a defect in the Body make a Monster a defect in the Mind the far more Noble and in the common phrase the far more Essential part not Shall the want of a Nose or a Neck make a Monster and put such Issue out of the rank of Men the want of Reason and Understanding not This is to bring all back again to what was exploded just now This is to place all in the Shape and to take the measure of a Man only by his out-side To shew that according to the ordinary way of Reasoning in this Matter People do lay the whole stress on the Figure and resolve the whole Essence of the Species of Man as they make it into the outward Shape how unreasonable soever it be and how much soever they disown it we need but trace their Thoughts and Practice a little farther and then it will plainly appear The well-shaped Changeling is a Man has a rational Soul though it appear not this is past doubt say you Make the Ears a little longer and more pointed and the Nose a little flatter than ordinary and then you begin to boggle Make the Face yet narrower flatter and longer and then you begin to doubt Add still more and more of the likeness of a Brute to it and let the Head be perfectly that of some other Animal then presently 't is a Monster and 't is demonstration with you that it hath no rational Soul and must be destroy'd Where now I ask shall be the just measure which the utmost bounds of that Shape which carries with it a rational Soul For since there has been humane Foetus's produced half Beast and half Man and others three part one and one part t'other And so it is possible they may be in all the variety of approaches to one shape or the other and may have several degrees of mixture of the likeness of a Man or a Brute I would gladly know what are those precise Lineaments which according to this Hypothesis are or are not capable of a rational Soul to be joined to them What sort of outside is the certain sign that there is or is not such an Inhabitant within For till that be done we talk at random of Man and shall always I fear do so as long as we give our selves up to certain Sounds and the Imaginations of setled and fixed Species in Nature we know not what But after all I desire it may be considered that those who think they have answered the difficulty by telling us that a mis-shaped Foetus is a Monster run into the same fault they are arguing against by constituting a Species between Man and Beast for what else I pray is their Monster in the case if the word Monster signifie any thing at all but something neither Man nor Beast but partaking somewhat of either and just so is the Changeling before mentioned So necessary is it to quit the common notion of Species and Essences if we will truly look into the Nature of Things and examine them by what our Faculties can discover in them as they exist and not by groundless Fancies have been taken up about them § 17. I have mentioned this here because I think we cannot be too cautious that Words and Species in the ordinary Notions we have been used to of them impose not on us For I am apt to think therein lies one great obstacle to our clear and distinct Knowledge especially in reference to Substances and from thence has rose a great part of the Difficulties about Truth and Certainty Would we accustom our selves to separate our Contemplations and Reasonings from Words we might in a great measure remedy this Inconvenience within our own Thoughts but yet it would still disturb us in our Discourse with others as long as we retained the Opinion that Species and their Essences were any thing else but our abstract Ideas such as they are with Names annexed to them to be the signs of them § 18. Where ever we perceive the Agreement or Disagreement of any of our Ideas 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 Agreement of our Ideas with the reality of Things having here given the marks I think I have shewn wherein it is that Certainty real Certainty consists which whatever it was to others was I confess to me heretofore one of those Desiderata which I found great want of CHAP. V. Of Truth in general § 1. VVHat is Truth was an Enquiry many Ages since and it being that which all Mankind either do or pretend to search after it cannot but be worth our while carefully to examine wherein it consists and so acquaint our selves with the Nature of it as to observe how the Mind distinguishes it from Falshood § 2. Truth then seems to me in the proper import of the Word to signifie nothing but the joining or separating of Signs as the Things signified by them do agree or disagree one with another which way of joining or separating of Signs we call Proposition So that Truth properly belongs only to Propositions whereof there are two sorts viz. Mental and Verbal as there are two sorts of Signs commonly made use of viz. Ideas and Words § 3. To form a clear Notion of Truth it is very necessary to consider Truth of Thought and Truth of Words distinctly one from another but yet it is very difficult to treat of them asunder Because it is unavoidable in treating of mental Propositions to make use of Words and then the instances given of Mental Propositions cease immediately to be barely Mental and become Verbal For a mental Proposition being nothing but a bare consideration of the Ideas as they are in our Minds stripp'd of Names they lose the Nature of purely mental Propositions as soon as they are put into Words § 4. And that which makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal Propositions separately is That most Men if not all in their Thinking and Reasonings within themselves make use of Words instead of Ideas at least when the subject of their Meditation contains in it complex Ideas Which is a great evidence of the imperfection and uncertainty of our Ideas of that kind and may if attentively made use of serve for a mark to shew us what are those Things we have clear and perfect established Ideas of and what not For if we will curiously observe the way our Mind takes in Thinking and Reasoning we shall find I suppose that when we make any Propositions within our own Thoughts about White or Black Sweet or Bitter a Triangle or a Circle we can and often do frame
agree to several abstract Ideas of which we make those Names the Signs is to confound Truth and introduce Uncertainty into all general Propositions that can be made about them Though therefore these Things might to People not possessed with scholastick Learning be perhaps treated of in a better and clearer way yet those wrong Notions of Essences and Species having got root in most Peoples Minds who have received any tincture from the Learning which has prevailed in this part of the World are to be discovered and removed to make way for that use of Words which should convey certainty with it § 5. The Names of Substances then wheâ—ever made to stand for Species which are supposed to be constituted by real Essences which we know not are not capable to convey Certainty to the Vnderstanding Of the Truth of general Propositions made up of such Terms we cannot be sure § 6. On the other side the Names of Substances when made use of as they should be for the Ideas Men have in their Minds though they carry a clear and determinate signification with them will not yet serve us to make many universal Proposition of whose Truth we can be certain Not because in this use of them we are uncertain what Things are signified by them but because the complex Ideas they stand for are such Combinations of simple ones as carry not with them any discoverable connexion or repugnancy but with a very few other Ideas § 7. The complex Ideas that our Names of Substances properly stand for are Collections of such Qualities as have been observed to co-exist but what other Qualities necessarily co-exist with such Combinations we cannot certainly know unless we can discover their natural dependence which in their primary Qualities we can go but a very little way in and in all their secundary Qualities we can discover no connexion at all for the Reasons mentioned Chap. 3. viz. 1. Because we know not the real Constitutions of Substances on which each secundary Quality particularly depends 2. Did we know that it would serve us only for experimental not universal Knowledge and reach with certainty no farther than that bare instance because our Understandings can discover no conceivable connexion between any secundary Quality and any modification whatsoever of any of the primary ones And therefore there are very few general Propositions to be made concerning Substances which can carry with them undoubted Certainty § 8. All Gold is fixed is a Proposition whose Truth we cannot be certain of how universally soever it be believed For if according to the useless Imagination of the Schools any one supposes the term Gold to stand for a Species of Things set out by Nature by a real Essence belonging to it 't is evident he knows not what particular Substances are of that Species and so cannot with certainty affirm any thing universally of Gold But if he make Gold stand for a Species determined by its nominal Essence let the nominal Essence for example be the complex Idea of a Body of a certain yellow colour malleable susible and heavier than any other known in this proper use of the word Gold there is no difficulty to know what is or is not Gold but yet no other Quality can with certainty be universally affirmed or denied of Gold but what hath a discoverable connexion or inconsistency with that nominal Essence Fixedness for example having no necessary connexion that we can discover with the Colour Weight or any other simple Idea of our complex one or with the whole Combination together it is impossible that we should certainly know the Truth of this Proposition That all Gold is fixed § 9. As there is no discoverable connexion between Fixedness and the Colour Weight and other simple Ideas of that nominal Essence of Gold â— so if we make our complex Idea of Gold a Body yellow fusible ductile weighty and fixed we shall be at the same uncertainty concerning Solubility in Aq. regia and for the same reason since we can never from consideration of the Ideas themselves with certainty affirm or deny of a Body whose complex Idea is made up of yellow very weighty ductile fusible and fixed that it is soluble in Aq. regia and so on of the rest of its Qualities I would gladly meet with one general Affirmation concerning any Quality of Gold that any one can certainly know is true It will no doubt be presently objected Is not this an universal certain Proposition All Gold is malleableâ— To which I answer It is a very certain Proposition if Malleableness be a part of the complex Idea the word Gold stands for But then here is nothing affirmed of Gold but that that Sound stands for an Idea in which Malleableness is contained and such a sort of Truth and Certainty as this it is to say a Centaur is four-footed But if Malleableness make not a part of the specifick Essence the name Gold stands for 't is plain All Gold is malleable is not a certain Proposition because let the complex Idea of Gold be made up of whichsoever of its other Qualities you please Malleableness will not appear to depend on that complex Idea nor follow from any simple one contained in it The connexion that Malleableness has if it has any with those other Qualities being only by the intervention of the real Constitution of its insensible parts which since we know not 't is impossible we should perceive that connexion unless we could discover that which ties them together § 10. The more indeed of these co-existing Qualities we unite into one complex Idea under one name the more precise and determinate we make the signification of that Word but yet never make it more capable of universal Certainty in respect of other Qualities not contained in our complex Idea since we perceive not their connexion or dependence one on another being ignorant both of that real Constitution in which they are all founded and also how they flow from it For the chief part of our Knowledge concerning Substances is not as in other Things barely of the relation of two Ideas that may exist separately but of the necessary connexion and co-existence of several distinct Ideas in the same Subject or of their repugnancy so to co-exist Could we begin at the other end and discover what it was wherein that Colour consisted what made a Body lighter or heavier what texture of Parts made it malleable fusible and fixed and fit to be dissolved in this sort of Liquor and not in another if I say we had such an Idea as this of Bodies and could perceive wherein all sensible Qualities originally consist and how they are produced we might frame such abstract Ideas of them as would furnish us with matter of more general Knowledge and enable us to make universal Propositions that should carry general Truth and Certainty with them But whilst our complex Ideas of the sorts of Substances are
and Operations one upon another that perhaps Things in this our Mansion would put on quite another face and cease to be what they are if some one of the Stars or great Bodies incomprehensibly remote from us should cease to be or move as it does This is certain Things however absolute and entire they seem in themselves are but Retainers to other parts of Nature for that which they are most taken notice of by us Their observable Qualities Actions and Powers are owing to something without them and there is not so complete and perfect a part that we know of Nature which does not owe the Being it has and the Excellencies of it to its Neighbours and we must look a great deal farther than the Surface of any Body to comprehend perfectly those Qualities that are in it § 12. If this be so it is not to be wondred that we have very imperfect Ideas of Substances and that the real Essences on which depend their Properties and Operations are unknown to us We cannot discover so much as the size figure and texture of their minute and active Parts which is really in them much less the different Motions and Impulses made in and upon them by Bodies from without and the Effects of them upon which depend and by which is formed the greatest and most remarkable part of those Qualities we observe in them and of which our complex Ideas of them are made up This consideration alone may set us at rest as to all hopes of our having the Ideas of their real Essences which whilst we want the nominal Essences we make use of instead of them will be able to furnish us but very sparingly with any general Knowledge or universal Propositions capable of real Certainty § 13. We are not therefore to wonder if Certainty be to be found in very few general Propositions made concerning Substances Our Knowledge of their Qualities and Properties go very seldom farther than our Senses reach and inform us Possibly inquisitive and observing Men may by strength of Iudgment penetrate farther and on Probabilities taken from wary Observation and Hints well laid together often guess right at what Experience has not yet discovered to them But this is but guessing still it amounts only to Opinion and has not that certainty which is requisite to Knowledge For all general Knowledge lies only in our own Thoughts and consists barely in the contemplation of our own abstract Ideas Wherever we perceive any agreement or disagreement amongst them there we have general Knowledge and by putting the Names of those Ideas together accordingly in Propositions can with certainty pronounce general Truths But because the abstract Ideas of Substances for which their specifick Names stand whenever they have any distinct and determinate signification have a discoverable connexion or inconsistency with a very few other Ideas the certainty of universal Propositions concerning Substances is very narrow and scanty in that part which is our principal enquiry concerning them and there is scarce any of the Names of Substances let the Idea it is applied to be what it will of which we can generally and with certainty pronounce that it has or has not this or that other Quality belonging to it and constantly co-existing or inconsistent with that Idea where-ever it is to be found § 14. Before we can have any tolerable knowledge of this kind we must first know what Changes the primary Qualities of one Body do regularly produce in the primary Qualities of another and how Secondly we must know what primary Qualities of any Body produce certain Sensations or Ideas in us which in truth to know all the Effects of Matter under its divers modifications of Bulk Figure Cohesion of Parts Motion and Rest which is I think every body will allow is utterly impossible to be known by us without revelation Nor if it were revealed to us what sort of Figure Bulk and Motion of Corpuscles would produce in us the Sensation of a yellow Colour and what sort of Figure Bulk and Texture of Parts in the superficies of any Body were fit to give such Corpuscles their due motion to produce that Colour Would that be enough to make universal Propositions with certainty concerning the several sorts of them unless we had Faculties acute enough to perceive the Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of Bodies in those minute Parts by which they operate on our Senses and so could by those frame our abstract Ideas of them I have mentioned here only corporeal Substances whose Operations seem to lie more level to our Understandings For as to the Operations of Spirits both their thinking and moving of Bodies we at first sight find our selves at a loss though perhaps when we have applied our Thoughts a little nearer to the consideration of Bodies and their Operations and examined how far our Notions even in these reach with any clearness beyond sensible matter of fact we shall be bound to confess that even in these too our Discoveries amount to very little beyond perfect Ignorance and Incapacity § 15. This is evident the abstract complex Ideas of Substances for which their general Names stand not comprehending their real Constitutions can afford us but very little universal Certainty they not being that on which those Qualities we observe in them and would inform our selves about do depend or with which they have any certain connexion v. g. Let the Idea to which we give the name Man be as it commonly is a Body of the ordinary shape with Sense voluntary Motion and Reason join'd to it This being the abstract Idea and consequently the Essence of our Species Man we can make but very few general certain Propositions concerning Man standing for such an Idea Because not knowing the real Constitution on which Sensation power of Motion and Reasoning with that peculiar Shape depend and whereby they are united together in the same Subject there are very few other Qualities with which we can perceive them to have a necessary connexion and therefore we cannot with Certainty affirm That all Men sleep by intervals That no Man can be nourished by Wood or Stones That all Men will be poisoned by Hemlock because these Ideas have no connexion nor repugnancy with this our nominal Essence of Man with this abstract Idea that Name stands for We must in these and the like appeal to trial in particular Subjects which can reach but a little way We must content our selves with Probability in the rest but can have no general Certainty whilst our specifick Idea of Man contains not that real Constitution which is the root wherein all his inseparable Qualities are united and from whence they flow whilst our Idea the word Man stands for is only an imperfect Collection of some sensible Qualities and Powers in him there is no discernible connexion or repugnance between our specifick Idea and the Operation of either the Parts of Hemlock or Stones upon his Constitution There are Animals
that safely eat Hemlock and others that are nourished by Wood and Stones But as long as we want Ideas of those real Constitutions of Animals whereon these and the like Qualities and Powers depend we must not hope to reach Certainty in universal Propositions concerning them Those few Ideas only which have a discernible connexion with our nominal Essence or any part of it can afford us such Propositions But these are so few and of so little moment that we may justly look on our certain general Knowledge of Substances as almost none at all § 16. To conclude General Propositions of what kind soever are then only capable of Certainty when the Terms used in them stand for such Ideas whose agreement or disagreement as there expressed is capable to be discovered by us And we are then certain of their Truth or Falshood when we perceive the Ideas they stand for to agree or not agree according as they are affirmed or denied one of another Whence we may take notice that general Certainty is never to be found but in our Ideas Whenever we go to seek it elsewhere in Experiments or Observations without us our Knowledge goes not beyond particulars 'T is the contemplation of our own abstract Ideas that alone is able to afford us general Knowledge CHAP. VII Of Maxims § 1. THere are a sort of Propositions which under the name of Maxims and Axioms have passed for Principles of Science and because they are self-evident have been supposed innate without that any Body that I know ever went about to shew the reason and foundation of their clearness or cogency It may however be worth while to enquire into the reason of their evidence and see whether it be peculiar to them alone and also examine how far they influence and govern our other Knowledge § 2. Knowledge as has been shewn consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas Now where that agreement or disagreement is perceived immediately by it self without the intervention or help of any other there our Knowledge is self-evident This will appear to be so to any one who will but consider any of these Propositions which without any proof he assents to at first sight for in all these he will find that the reason of his Assent is from that agreement or disagreement the Mind by an immediate comparing them finds in those Ideas answering the Affirmation or Negation in the Proposition § 3. This being so in the next place let us consider whether this Self-evident be peculiar only to these Propositions which are received for Maxims and have the dignity of Axioms allowed them and here 't is plain that several other Truths not allow'd to be Axioms partake equally with them in this Self-evidence This we shall see if we go over these several sorts of agreement or disagreement of Ideas which I have above mentioned viz. Identity Relation Co-existence and real Existence which will discover to us that not only those few Propositions which have had the credit of Maxims are self-evident but a great many even almost an infinite number of other Propositions are such § 4. For First the immediate perception of the agreement or disagreement of Identity being founded in the Mind 's having distinct Ideas this affords us as many self-evident Propositions as we have distinct Ideas Every one that has any Knowledge at all has as the foundation of it various and distinct Ideas And it is the first act of the Mind without which it can never be capable of any Knowledge to know every one of its Ideas by it self and distinguish it from others This is that which every one finds in himself that the Ideas he has knows he knows also when any one is in his Understanding and what it is And when more than one are there he knows them distinctly and unconfusedly one from another Which always being so it being impossible but that he should perceive what he perceives he can never be in doubt when any Idea is in his Mind that it is there and is that Idea it is and that two distinct Ideas when they are in his Mind are there and are not one and the same Idea So that all such Affirmations and Negations are made without any possibility of doubt uncertainty or hesitation and must necessarily be assented to as soon as understood that is as soon as we have in our Minds the Ideas clear and distinct which the Terms in the Proposition stand for It is not therefore alone to these two general Propositions Whatsoever is is and It is impossible for the same Thing to be and not to be that this Self-evidence belongs by any peculiar right The perception of being or not being belongs no more no these vague Ideas signified by the terms Whatsoever and Thing than it does to any other Ideas The Mind without the help of any proof perceives as clearly and knows as certainly that the Idea of White is the Idea of White and not the Idea of Blue and that the Idea of White when it is in the Mind is there and is not absent and so a Triangle Motion a Man or any other Ideas whatsoever So that in respect of Identity our intuitive Knowledge reaches as far as our Ideas And so we are capable of making as many self-evident Propositions as we have names for distinct Ideas And I appeal to ever one 's own Mind whether this Proposition A Circle is a Circle be not as self-evident a Proposition as that consisting of more general terms Whatsoever is is And again whether this Proposition Blue is not Red be not a Proposition that the Mind can no more doubt of as soon as it understands the Words than it does of that Axiom It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be and so of all the like § 5. Secondly As to Co-existence or such a necessary connexion between two Ideas that in the Subject where one of them is supposed there the other must necessarily be also Of such agreement or disagreement as this the Mind has an immediate perception but in very few of them And therefore in this sort we have but very little intuitive Knowledge nor are there to be found very many Propositions that are self-evident though some there are v. g. the Idea of filling of a place equal to the Contents of its superficies being annexed to our Idea of Body I think it is a self-evident Proposition That two Bodies cannot be in the same place § 6. Thirdly As to the Relations of Modes Mathematicians have framed many Axioms concerning that one Relation of Equality As Equals taken from Equals the remainder will be Equals which with the rest of that kind however they are received for Maxims by the Mathematicians and are unquestionable Truths yet I think that any one who considers them will not find that they have a clearer self-evidence than these that one and one are equal to two that if you
But if another shall come and make to himself another Idea different from Cartes of the thing which yet with Cartes he calls by the same name Body and make his Idea which he expresses by the word Body to consist of Extension and Solidity together he will as easily demonstrate that there may be a Vacuum or Space without a Body as Cartes demonstrated the contrary because the Idea to which he gives the name Space being bare Extension and the Idea to which he gives the name Body being the complex Idea of Extension and Resistibility or Solidity together these two Ideas are not exactly one and the same but in the Understanding as distinct as the Ideas of One and Two White and Black or as of Corporeity and Humanity if I may use those barbarous terms And therefore the predication of them in our Minds or in Words standing for them is not identical but the negation of them one of another as certain and evident as that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be § 14. But yet though both these Propositions as you see may be equally demonstrated viz. That there may be a Vacuum and that there cannot be a Vacuum by these two certain Principles viz. What is is and the same thing cannot be and not be yet neither of these Principles will serve to prove to us that any or what Bodies do exist for that we are leâ—t to our Senses to discover to us as far as they can Those universal and self-evident Principles being only our constant clear and distinct Knowledge of our own Ideas more general or comprehensive can assure us of nothing that passes without the Mind their certainty is founded only upon the Knowledge we have of each Idea by its self and of its distinction from others about which we cannot be mistaken whilst they are in our Minds though we may and often are mistaken when we retain the Names without the Ideas or use them confusedly sometimes for one and sometimes for another Idea In which cases the sorce of these Axioms reaching only to the Sound and not the Signfication of the Words serves only to lead us into Confusion Mistake and Errour § 15. But let them be of what use they will in verbal Propositions they cannot discover or prove to us the least Knowledge of the Nature of Substances as they are found and exist without us any farther than grounded on Experience And though the consequence of these two Propositions called Principles be very clear and their use not very dangerous or hurtful in the probation of such Things wherein there is no need at all of them for proof but such as are clear by themselves without them viz. where our Ideas are clear and distinct and known by the Names that stand for them yet when these Principles viz. What is is and It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be are made use of in the probation of Propositions wherein are Words standing for complex Ideas v. g Man Horse Gold Vertue there they are of infinite danger and most commonly make Men receive and retain Falshood for manifest Truth and Uncertainty for Demonstration upon which follows Errour Obstinacy and all the mischiefs that can happen from wrong reasoning The reason whereof is not that these Principles are less true in such Propositions consisting of Words standing for complex Ideas than in those of simple Ideas But because Men mistake generally thinking such Propositions to be about the reality of Things and not the bare signification of Words when indeed they are for the most part nothing else as is clear in the demonstration of Vacuum where the word Body sometimes stands for one Idea and sometimes for another But shall be yet made more manifest § 16. As for instance Let Man be that concerning which you would by these first Principles demonstrate any thing and we shall see that so far as demonstration is by these Principles it is only verbal and gives us no certain universal true Proposition or knowledge of any Being existing without us First a Child having framed the Idea of a Man it is probable that his Idea is just like that picture which the Painter makes of the visible appearances joined together and such a complexion of Ideas together in his Understanding makes up the single complex Idea which he calls Man whereof White or Flesh-colour in England being one the Child can demonstrate to you that a Negro is not a Man because White-colour was one of the constant simple Ideas of the complex Idea he calls Man and therefore he can demonstrate by the Principle It is impossible for the same Thing to be and not to be that a Negro is not a Man the foundation of his Certainty being not that universal Proposition which perhaps he never heard nor thought of but the clear distinct perception he hath of his own simple Ideas of Black and White which he cannot be persuaded to take nor can ever mistake one for another whether he knows that Maxim or no And to this Child or any one who hath such an Idea which he calls Man Can you never demonstrate that a Man hath a Soul because his Idea of Man includes no such Notion or Idea in it And therefore to him the Principle of What is is proves not this matter but it depends upon Collection and Observation by which he is to make his complex Idea called Man § 17. Secondly Another that hath gone farther in framing and collecting the Idea he calls Man and to the outward Shape adds Laughter and rational Discourse may demonstrate that Infants and Changelings are no Men by this Maxim It is impossible for the same Thing to be and not to be And I have discoursed with very rational Men who have actually denied that they are Men. § 18. Thirdly Perhaps another makes us the complex Idea which he calls Man only out of the Ideas of Body in general and the Powers of Language and Reason and leaves out the Shape wholly This Man is able to demonstrate that a Man may have no Hands but be Quadrupes neither of those being included in his Idea of Man and in whatever Body or Shape he found Speech and Reason join'd that was a Man because having a clear knowledge of such a complex Idea it is certain that What is is § 19. So that if rightly considered I think we may say that where our Ideas are clear and distinct and the Names agreed on that shall stand for each clear and distinct Idea there is little need or no use at all of these Maxims to prove the agreement or disagreement of any of them He that cannot discern the Truth or Falshood of such Propositions without the help of these and the like Maxims will not be helped by these Maxims to do it since he cannot be supposed to know the Truth of these Maxims themselves without proof if he cannot know
same Figures and Motions of any other and I challenge any one in his Thoughts to add any Thing else to one above another § 16. Thirdly If then neither one peculiar Atom alone can be this eternal thinking Being nor all Matter as Matter i. e. every particle of Matter can be it it only remains that it is some certain System of Matter duly put together that is this thinking eternal Being This is that which I imagine is that Notion which Men are aptest to have of GOD who would have him a material Being as most readily suggested to them by the ordinary conceit they have of themselves and other Men which they take to be material thinking Beings But this Imagination however more natural is no less absurd than the other For to suppose the eternal thinking Being to be nothing else but a composition of Particles of Matter each whereof is incogitative is to ascribe all the Wisdom and Knowledge of that eternal Being only to the juxta-position of parts than which nothing can be more absurd For unthinking Particles of Matter however put together can have nothing thereby added to them but a new relation of Position which 't is impossible should give thought and knowledge to them § 17. But farther this corporeal System either has all its parts at rest or it is a certain motion of the parts wherein its Thinking consists If it be perfectly at rest it is but one lump and so can have no privileges above one Atom If it be the motion of its parts on which its Thinking depends all the Thoughts there must be unavoidably accidental and limitted since all the Particles that by Motion cause Thought being each of them in it self without any Thought cannot regulate its own Motions much less be regulated by the Thought of the whole since that Thought is not the cause of Motion for then it must be antecedent to it and so without it but the consequence of it whereby Freedom Power Choice and all rational and wise thinking or acting will be quite taken away So that such a thinking Being will be no better nor wiser than pure blind Matter since to resolve all into the accidental unguided motions of blind Matter or into Thought depending on unguided motions of blind Matter is the same thing not to mention the narrowness of such Thoughts and Knowledge that must depend on the motion of such parts But there needs no enumeration of any more Absurdities and Impossibilities in this Hypothesis however full of them it be than that before-mentioned since let this thinking System be all or a part of the Matter of the Universe it is impossible that any one Particle should either know its own or the motion of any other Particle or the Whole know the motion of every Particular and so regulate its own Thoughts or Motions or indeed have any Thought resulting from such Motion § 18. Others would have Matter to be eternal notwithstanding that they allow an eternal cogitative immaterial Being This tho' it take not away the Being of a God yet since it denies one and the first great piece of his Workmanship the Creation let us consider it a little Matter must be allow'd eternal Why Because you cannot conceive how it can be made out of nothing why do you not also think your self eternal You will answer perhaps Because about twenty or forty years since you began to be But if I ask you what that You is which began to be you can scarce tell me The Matter whereof you are made began not then to be for if it did then it is not eternal But it began to be put together in such a fashion and frame as makes up your Body but yet that frame of Particles is not You it makes not that thinking Thing You are for I have now to do with one who allows an eternal immaterial thinking Being but would have unthinking Matter eternal too therefore when did that thinking Thing begin to be If it did never begin to be then have you always been a thinking Thing from Eternity the absurdity whereof I need not confute till I meet with one who is so void of Understanding as to own it If therefore you can allow a thinking Thing to be made out of nothing as all Things that are not eternal must be why also can you not allow it possible for a material Being to be made out of nothing by an equal Power but that you have the experience of the one in view and not of the other Though when well considered Creation of one as well as t'other requires an equal Power And we have no more reason to boggle at the effect of that Power in one than in the other because the manner of it in both is equally beyond our comprehension For the Creation or beginning of any one thing out of nothing being once admitted the Creation of every thing else but the CREATOR Himself may with the same ease be supposed § 19. But you will say Is it not impossible to admit of the making any thing out of nothing since we cannot possibly conceive it I answer No 1. Because it is not reasonable to deny the power of an infinite Being because we cannot comprehend its Operations We do not deny other effects upon this ground because we cannot possibly conceive their Production we cannot conceive how Thought or any thing but motion in Body can move Body and yet that is not a Reason sufficient to make us deny it possible against the constant Experience we have of it in our selves in all our voluntary Motions which are produced in us only by the free Thoughts of our own Minds and are not nor cannot be the effects of the impulse or determination of the motion of blind Matter in or upon our Bodies for then it could not be in our power or choice to alter it For example My right Hand writes whilst my left Hand is still What causes rest in one and motion in the other Nothing but my Will a Thought of my Mind my Thought only changing the right Hand rests and the left Hand moves This is matter of fact which cannot be denied Explain this and make it intelligible and then the next step will be to understand Creation In the mean time 't is an overvaluing our selves to reduce all to the narrow measure of our Capacities and to conclude all things impossible to be done whose manner of doing exceeds our Comprehension This is to make our Comprehension infinite or GOD finite when what he can do is limitted to what we can conceive of it If you do not understand the Operations of your own finite Mind that thinking Thing within you do not deem it strange that you cannot comprehend the Operations of that eternal infinite Mind who made and governs all Things and whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain CHAP. XI Of our Knowledge of the Existence of other Things § 1. THe Knowledge of our own Being
than possibly we are apt to imagine § 8. This gave me the confidence to advance that Conjecture which I suggest Chap. 3. viz. That Morality is capable of Demonstration as well as Mathematicks For the Ideas that Ethicks are conversant about being all real Essences and such as I imagine have a discoverable connexion and agreement one with another so far as we can find their Habitudes and Relations so far we shall be possessed of certain real and general Truths and I doubt not but if a right method were taken a great part of Morality might be made out with that clearness that could leave to a considering Man no more reason to doubt than he could have to doubt of the Truth of Propositions in Mathematicks which have been demonstrated to him § 9. In our search after the Knowledge of Substances our want of Ideas that are suitable to such a way of proceeding obliges us to a quite different method We advance not here as in the other where our abstract Ideas are real as well as nominal Essences by contemplating our Ideas and considering their Relations and Correspondencies that helps us very little for the Reasons that in another place we have at large shewed By which I think it is evident that Substances afford Matter of very little general Knowledge and the bare Contemplation of their abstract Ideas will carry us but a very little way in the search of Truth and Certainty What then are we to do for the improvement of our Knowledge in substantial Beings Here we are to take a quite contrary Course the want of Ideas of their real Essences sends us from our own Thoughts from contemplating and drawing Consequences from our own Ideas to the Things themselves as they exist Experience must teach me what Reason cannot and by trying 't is alone that I can certainly know what other Qualities co-exist with those of my complex Idea v. g. whether that yellow heavy fusible Body I call Gold be malleable or no which Experience which way ever it prove in that particular Body I examine makes me not certain that it is so in all or any other yellow heavy fusible Body but that which I have tried Because it is no Consequence one way or t' other from my complex Idea the Necessity or Inconsistence of Malleability hath no visible connection with the Combination of that Colour Weight and Fusibility in any body What I have said here of the nominal Essence of Gold supposed to consist of a Body of such a determinate Colour Weight and Fusibility will hold true if Malleableness Fixedness and Solubility in Aqua Regia be added to it our Reasonings from these Ideas will carry us but a little way in the certain discovery of the other Properties in those Masses of Matter wherein all these are to be found Because the other Properties of such Bodies depending not on these but on that unknown real Essence on which these also depend we cannot by them discover the rest we can go no farther than the simple Ideas of our nominal Essence will carry us which is very little beyond themselves and so afford us but very sparingly any certain universal and useful Truths For upon Trial having found that particular piece and all others of that Colour Weight and Fusibility that I ever tried malleable that also makes now perhaps a part of my complex Idea part of my nominal Essence of Gold whereby though I make my complex Idea to which I affix the Name Gold to consist to more simple Ideas than before yet still it not containing the real Essence of any Species of Bodies it helps me not certainly to know I say to know perhaps it may to conjecture the other remaining Properties of that Body farther than they have a visible connection with some or all of the simple Ideas that make up my nominal Essence For Example I cannot be certain from this complex Idea whether Gold be fixed or no Because as before there is no necessary connection or inconsistence to be discovered betwixt a complex Idea of a Body yellow heavy fusible malleable betwixt these I say and Fixedness so that I may certainly know that in whatsoever Body those are found there Fixedness is sure to be Here again for assurance I must apply my self to Experience as far as that reaches I may have certain Knowledge but no farther § 10. I deny not but a Man accustomed to rational and regular Experiments shall be able to see farther into the Nature of Bodies and guess righter at their yet unknown Properties than one that is a Stranger to them But yet as I have said this is but Judgment and Opinion not Knowledge and Certainty This way of attaining and improving our Knowledge in Substances only by Experience and History to which the weakness of our Faculties in this State of Mediocrity we are in in this World makes me suspect that natural Philosophy is not capable of being made a Science We are able I imagine to reach very little general Knowledge concerning the Species of Bodies and their several Properties Experiments and Historical Observations we may have from which we may draw Advantages of Ease and Health and thereby increase our stock of Conveniences for this Life but beyond this our Talents reach not our Faculties cannot attain § 11. From whence it is obvious to conclude that since our Faculties are not fitted to penetrate into the internal Fabrick and real Essences of Bodies but yet plainly discover to us the Being of a God and the Knowledge of our selves enough to lead us into a full and clear discovery of our Duty and great Concernment it will become us as rational Creatures to employ our Faculties about what they are most adopted to and follow the direction of Nature where it seems to point us out the way For 't is rational to conclude that our proper Imployment lies in those Enquiries and in that sort of Knowledge which is most suited to our natural Capacities and carries in it our greatest interest i. e. the Condition of our eternal Estate and therefore it is I think that Morality is the proper Science and Business of Mankind in general who are both concerned and fitted to search out their Summum Bonum as several Arts conversant about several parts of Nature are the Lot and private Talent of particular Men for the common Convenience of humane Life and their own particular Subsistence in this World Of what Consequence the discovery of one natural Body and its Properties may be to humane Life the whole great Continent of America is a convincing instance whose Ignorance in useful Arts and want of the greatest part of the Conveniencies of Life in a Country that abounded with all sorts of natural Plenty I think may be attributed to their Ignorance of what was to be found in a very ordinary despicable Stone I mean the Mineral of Iron And whatever we think of our Parts or Improvements in
part of Men if not all to have several Opinions without certain and indubitable Proofs of their Truths and it carries too great an imputation of ignorance lightness or folly for Men to quit and renounce their former Tenets presently upon the offer of an Argument which they cannot immediately answer and shew the insufficiency of It would methinks become all Men to maintain Peace and the common Offices of Humanity and Friendship in the diversity of Opinions since we cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsequiously quit his own Opinion and embrace ours with a blind resignation to an Authority which the Understanding of Man acknowledges not For however it may often mistake it can own no other Guide but Reason nor blindly submit to the Will and Dictates of another If he you would bring over to your Sentiments be one that examines before he assents you must give him leave at his leisure to go over the account again and re-calling what is out of his Mind examine all the Particulars to see on which side the advantage lies And if he will not think our Arguments of weight enough to engage him anew in so much pains 't is but what we do often our selves in the like case and we should take it amiss if others should prescribe to us what points we should study And if he be one who takes his Opinions upon trust How can we imagine that he should renounce those Tenets which Time and Custom have so setled in his Mind that he thinks them self-evident and of an unquestionable Certainty or which he takes to be impressions he has received from GOD Himself or from Men sent by Him How can we expect I say that Opinions thus setled should be given up to the Arguments or Authority of a Stranger or Adversary especially if there be any suspicion of Interest or Design as there never fails to be where Men find themselves ill treated We should do well to commiserate our mutual Ignorance and endeavour to remove it in all the gentle and fair ways of Information and not instantly treat others ill as obstinate and perverse because they will not renounce their own and receive our Opinions or at least those we would force upon them when 't is more than probable that we are no less obstinate in not embracing theirs For where is the Man that has uncontestible Evidence of the Truth of all that he holds or of the Falshood of all he condemns or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own or other Men's Opinions The necessity of believing without knowledge nay often upon very slight grounds in this fleeting slate of Action and Blindness we are in should make us more busie and careful to inform our selves than constrain others At least those who have not throughly examined to the bottom all their own Tenets must confess they are unfit to prescribe to others and are unreasonable in imposing that as a Truth on other Men's Belief which they themselves have not searched into nor weighed the Arguments of Probability on which they should receive or reject it Those who have fairly and truly examined and are thereby got past doubt in all the Doctrines they profess and govern themselves by would have a juster pretence to require others to follow them But these are so few in number and find so little reason to be magisterial in their Opinions that nothing insolent and imperious is to be expected from them And there is reason to think that if Men were better instructed themselves they would be less imposing on others § 5. But to return to the grounds of Assent and the several degrees of it we are to take notice that the Propositions we receive upon Inducements of Probability are of two sorts either concerning some particular Existence or as it is usually termed matter of fact which falling under our Observation is capable of humane Testimony or else concerning Things which being beyond the discovery of our Senses are not capable of any such Testimony § 6. Concerning the first of these viz. particular matter of fact First Where any particular thing consonant to the constant Observation of our selves and others in the like case comes attested with the concurrent Reports of all that mention it we receive it as easily and build as firmly upon it as if it were certain knowledge and we reason and act thereupon with as little doubt as if it were perfect demonstration Thus if all English-men who have occasion to mention it should affirm that it froze in England the last Winter or that there were Swallows seen there in the Summer I think a Man could almost as little doubt of it as that Seven and Four are Eleven The first therefore and highest degree of Probability is when the general consent of all Men in all Ages as far as it can be known concurrs with a Man's constant and never-failing Experience in like cases to confirm the Truth of any particular matter of fact attested by fair Witnesses such are all the stated Constitutions and Properties of Bodies and the regular proceedings of Causes and Effects in the ordinary course of Nature This we call an Argument from the nature of Things themselves For what our own and other Men's constant Observation has found always to be after the same manner that we with reason conclude to be the Effects of steddy and regular Causes though they come not within the reach of our Knowledge Thus That Fire warmed a Man made Lead fluid and changed the colour or consistency in Wood or Charcoal that Iron sunk in Water and swam in Quicksilver These and the like Propositions about particular facts being agreeable to our constant Experience as often as we have to do with these matters and being generally spoke of when mentioned by others as things found constantly to be so and therefore not so much as controverted by any body we are put past doubt that a relation affirming any such thing to have been or any predication that it will happen again in the same manner is very true These Probabilities rise so near to Certainty that they govern our Thoughts as absolutely and influence all our Actions as fully as the most evident demonstration and in what concerns us we make little or no difference between them and certain Knowledge And our Belief thus grounded rises to Assurance § 7. Secondly The next degree of Probability is when I find by my own Experience and the Agreement of all others that mention it a thing to be for the most part so and that the particular instance of it is attested by many and undoubted Witnesses v. g. History giving us such an account of Men in all Ages and my own Experience as far as I had an opportunity to observe confirming it that most Men prefer their private Advantage to the publick If all Historians that write of Tiberius say that Tiberius did so it is extreamly probable And in
Load-stone draws Iron and the parts of a Candle successively melting turn into flame and give us both light and heat These and the like Effects we see and know but the causes that operate and the manner they are produced in we can only guess and probably conjecture For these and the like coming not within the scrutiny of humane Senses cannot be examined by them or be attested by any body and therefore can appear more or less probable only as they more or less agree to Truths that are established in our Minds and as they hold proportion to other parts of our Knowledge and Observation Analogy in these matters is the only help we have and 't is from that alone we draw all our grounds of Probability Thus observing that the bare rubbing of two Bodies violently one upon another produces heat and very often fire it self we have reason to think that what we call Heat and Fire consists in a certain violent agitation of the imperceptible minute parts of the burning matter◠observing likewise that the different refractions of pellucid Bodies produce in our Eyes the different appearances of several Colours and also that the different ranging and laying the superficial parts of several Bodies as of Velvet watered Silk c. does the like we think it probable that the Colour and shining of Bodies is in them nothing but the different Arangement and Refraction of their minute and insensible parts Thus finding in all the parts of the Creation that fall under humane Observation that there is a gradual connexion of one with another without any great or discernable gaps between in all that great variety of Things we see in the World which are so closely linked together that in the several ranks of Beings it is not easie to discover the bounds betwixt them we have Reason to be persuaded that in such gentle steps Things in Perfection ascend upwards 'T is an hard Matter to say where Sensible and Rational begin and where Insensible and Irrational end and who is there quick-sighted enough to determine precisely which is the lowest Species of living Things and which the first of those which have no Life Things as far as we can observe lessen and augment as the quantity does in a regular Cone where though there be a manifest odds betwixt the bigness of the Diametre at remote distances yet the difference between the upper and under where they touch one another is hardly discernable The difference is exceeding great between some Men and some Animals But if we will compare the Understanding and Abilities of some Men and some Brutes we shall find so little difference that 't will be hard to say that that of the Man is either clearer or larger Observing I say such gradual and gentle descents downwards in those parts of the Creation that are beneath Man the Rule of Analogy may make it probable that it is so also in Things above us and our Observation and that there are several ranks of intelligent Beings excelling us in several degrees of Perfection ascending upwards towards the infinite Perfection of the Creator by gentle steps and differences that are every one at no great distance from the next to it This sort of Probability which is the best conduct of rational Experiments and the rise of Hypothesis has also its Use and Influence and a wary Reasoning from Analogy leads us often into the discovery of Truths and useful Productions which would otherwise lie concealed § 13. Though the common Experience and the ordinary Course of Things have justly a mighty Influence on the Minds of Men to make them give or refuse Credit to any thing proposed to their Belief yet there is one Case wherein the strangeness of the Fact lessens not the Assent to a fair Testimony given of it For where such supernatural Events are suitable to ends aim'd at by him who has the Power to change the course of Nature there under such Circumstances they may be the fitter to procure Belief by how much the more they are beyond or contrary to ordinary Observation This is the proper Case of Miracles which well attested do not only find Credit themselves but give it also to other Truths which need such Confirmation § 14. Besides those we have hitherto mentioned there is one sort of Propositions that challenge the highest degree of our Assent upon bare Testimony whether the thing proposed agree or disagree with common Experience and the ordinary course of Things or no. The Reason whereof is because the Testimony is of such an one as cannot deceive nor be deceived and that is of God himself This carries with it Certainty beyond Doubt Evidence beyond Exception This is called by a peculiar Name Revelation and our Assent to it Faith which has as much Certainty as our Knowledge it self and we may as well doubt of our own Being as we can whether any Revelation from GOD be true So that Faith is a setled and sure Principle of Assent and Assurance and leaves no manner of room for Doubt or Hesitation Only we must be sure that it be a divine Revelation and that we understand it right else we shall expose our selves to all the Extravagancy of Enthusiasm and all the Error of wrong Principles if we have Faith and Assurance in what is not divine Revelation And therefore in those Cases our Assent can be rationally no higher than the Evidence of its being a Revelation and that this is the meaning of the Expressions it is delivered in If the Evidence of its being a Revelation or that this its true Sense be only on probable Proofs our Assent can reach no higher than an Assurance or Diffidence arising from the more or less apparent Probability of the Proofs But of Faith and the Precedency it ought to have before other Arguments of Persuasion I shall speak more hereafter where I treat of it as it is ordinarily placed in contradistinction to Reason though in Truth it be nothing else but an Assent founded on the highest Reason CHAP. XVII Of Reason § 1. THE Word Reason in the English Language has different Significations sometimes it is taken for true and clear Principles Sometimes for clear and fair deductions from those Principles and sometimes for the Cause and particularly the final Cause but the Consideration I shall have of it here is in a Signification different from all these and that is as it stands for a Faculty in Man That Faculty whereby Man is supposed to be distinguished from Beasts and wherein it is evident he much surpasses them § 2. If general Knowledge as has been shewn consists in a Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our own Ideas and the Knowledge of the Existence of all Things without us except only of GOD be had only by our Senses What room then is there for the Exercise of any other Faculty but outward Sense and inward Perception What need is there of Reason Very much
Reason in that part which if not its highest Perfection is yet certainly its hardest Task and that which we most need its help in and that is the finding out of Proofs and making new Discoveries The Rules of Syllogism serve not to furnish the Mind with those intermediate Ideas that may shew the connexion of remote ones This way of reasoning discovers no new Proofs but is the Art of marshalling and ranging the old ones we have already The 47th Proposition of the First Book of Euclid is very true but the discovery of it I think not owing to any Rules of common Logick A Man knows first and then he is able to prove syllogistically So that Syllogism comes after Knowledge and then a Man has little or no need of it But 't is chiefly by the finding out those Ideas that shew the connexion of distant ones that our stock of Knowledge is increased and that useful Arts and Sciences are advanced Syllogism at best is but the Art of fencing with the little Knowledge we have without making any Addition to it And if a Man should employ his Reason all this way he will not doe much otherwise than he who having got some Iron out of the Bowels of the Earth should have it beaten up all into Swords and put it into his Servants Hands to fence with and bang one another Had the King of Spain imploy'd the Hands of his People and his Spanish Iron so he had brought to Light but little of that Treasure that lay so long hid in the dark Entrails of America And I am apt to think that he who shall employ all the force of his Reason only in brandishing of Syllogisms will discover very little of that Mass of Knowledge which lies yet concealed in the secret recesses of Nature and which I am apt to think native rustick Reason as it formerly has done is likelier to open a way to and add to the common stock of Mankind rather than any scholastick Proceeding by the strict Rules of Mode and Figure § 7. I doubt not nevertheless but there are ways to be found to assist our Reason in this most useful part and this the judicious Hooker encourages me to say who in his Eccl. Pol. l. 1. § 6. speaks thus If there might be added the right helps of true Art and Learning which helps I must plainly confess this Age of the World carrying the Name of a learned Age doth neither much know nor generally regard there would undoubtedly be almost as much difference in Maturity of Iudgment between Men therewith inured and that which now Men are as between Men that are now and Innocents I do not pretend to have found or discovered here any of those right helps of Art this great Man of deep Thoughts mentions but this is plain that Syllogism and the Logick now in Use which were as well known in his days can be none of those he means It is sufficient for me if by a Discourse perhaps something out of the way I am sure as to me wholly new and unborrowed I shall have given Occasion to others to cast about for new Discoveries and to seek in their own Thoughts for those right Helps of Art which will scarce be found I fear by those who servilely confine themselves to the Rules and Dictates of others for beaten Tracts lead these sort of Cattel as an observing Roman calls them whose Thoughts reach only to Imitation Non quo eundum est sed quo itur But I can be bold to say that this Age is adorned with some Men of that Strength of Judgment and Largeness of Comprehension that if they would employ their Thoughts on this Subject could open new and undiscovered Ways to the Advancement of Knowledge § 8. Having here had Occasion to speak of Syllogism in general and the Use of it in Reasoning and the Improvement of our Knowledge 't is fit before I leave this Subject to take notice of one manifest Mistake in the Rules of Syllogism viz. That no Syllogistical Reasoning can be right and conclusive but what has at least one general Proposition in it As if we could not reason and have Knowledge about Particulars whereas in truth the Matter rightly considered the immediate Object of all our Reasoning and Knowledge is nothing but Particulars Every Man 's Reasoning and Knowledge is only about the Ideas existing in his own Mind which are truly every one of them particular Existences and our Knowledge and Reasoning about other Things is only as they correspond with those our particular Ideas So that the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our particular Ideas is the whole and utmost of all our Knowledge Universality is but accidental to it and consists only in this That the particular Ideas about which it is are such as more than one particular Thing can correspond with and be represented by But the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of any two Ideas and consequently our Knowledge is equally clear and certain whether either or both or neither of those Ideas be capable of representing more real Beings than one or no. § 9. Reason Though it penetrates into the Depths of the Sea and Earth elevates our Thoughts as high as the Stars and leads us through the vast Spaces and large Rooms of this mighty Fabrick yet it comes far short of the real Extent of even corporeal Being and there are many Instances wherein it fails us As First It perfectly fails us where our Ideas fail It neither does nor can extend it self farther than they do and therefore where-ever we have no Ideas our Reasoning stops and we are at an End of our Reckoning And if at any time we reason about Words which do not stand for any Ideas 't is only about those Sounds and nothing else § 10. Secondly Our Reason is often puzled and at a loss because of the scurity Confusion or Imperfection of the Ideas it is employed about and there we are involved in Difficulties and Contradictions Thus not having any perfect Idea of the least Extension of Matter nor of Infinity we are at a loss about the Divisibility of Matter but having perfect clear and distinct Ideas of Number our Reason meets with none of those inextricable Difficulties in Numbers nor finds it self involved in any Contradictions about them Thus we having but imperfect Ideas of the Operations of our Minds upon our Bodies or Thoughts and of the Beginning of either Motion or Thought in us and much imperfecter yet of the Operation of GOD run into great Difficulties about free created Agents which Reason cannot well extricate it self out of § 11. Thirdly Our Reason is often at a stand because it perceives not those Ideas which could serve to shew the certain or probable Agreement or Disagreement of any two other Ideas and in this some Men's Faculties far out-go others Till Algebra that great Instrument and Instance of Humane Sagacity was discovered Men with Amazement
looked on several of the Demonstrations of ancient Mathematicians and could scarce forbear to think the finding some of those Proofs more than humane § 12. Fourthly Reason is often engaged in Absurdities and Difficulties brought into Straits and Contradictions without knowing how to free it self by proceeding upon false Principles which being followed lead Men into Contradictions to themselves and Inconsistency in their own Thoughts which their Reason is so far from clearing that if they will pursue it it entangles them the more and engages them deeper in Perplexities § 13. Fifthly As obscure and imperfect Ideas often involve our Reason so upon the same Ground do dubious Words and uncertain Signs often in Discourses and Arguings when not warily attended to puzzle Men's Reason and bring them to a Nonplus But these two latter are our Fault and not the Fault of Reason But yet the Consequences of them are nevertheless obvious and the Perplexities or Errors they fill Men's Minds with is every where observable § 14. Some of the Ideas that are in the Mind are so there that they can be by themselves immediately compared one with another And in these the Mind is able to perceive that they agree or disagree as clearly as that it has them Thus the Mind perceives that an Arch of a Circle is less than the whole Circle as clearly as it does the Idea of a Circle And this therefore as has been said I call Intuitive Knowledge which is certain beyond all Doubt and needs no Probation nor can have any this being the highest of all Humane Certainty In this consists the Evidence of all those AEternae Veritates which no Body has any Doubt about but every Man does not as is said only assent to but knows to be true as soon as ever they are proposed to his Understanding In the Discovery of and Assent to these Truths there is no Use of the discursive Faculty no need of Reason but they are known by a superior and higher Degree of Evidence And such if I may guess at Things unknown I am apt to think that Angels have now and the Spirits of just Men made perfect shall have in a future State of Thousands of Things which now either wholly escape our Apprehensions or which our short-sighted Reason having got some faint Glimpse of we in the Dark grope after § 15. But though we have here and there a little of this clear Light some Sparks of bright Knowledge yet the greatest part of our Ideas are such that we cannot discern their Agreement or Disagreement by an immediate Comparing them And in all these we have Need of our Reason and must by Discourse and Inference make our Discoveries Now of these there are two sorts which I shall take the liberty to mention here again First Those whose Agreement or Disagreement though it cannot be seen by an immediate Putting them together yet may be examined by the Intervention of other Ideas which can be compared with them wherein if the Agreement or Disagreement be plainly discerned of the intermediate Ideas on both sides with those we would compare there it is Demonstration and it produces certain Knowledge though not altogether so evident as the former Because there is in the former bare Intuition but in these there is Intuition indeed but not altogether at once for there must be a Remembrance of the Intuition of the Agreement of the Medium with that we compared it with before when we compare it with the other and where there be many Mediums there the danger of the Mistake is the greater and consequently it may be liable to the greater uncertainty But yet where the Mind clearly retains the Intuition it had of the Agreement of any Idea with another and that with a third and that with a fourth c. there the Agreement of the first and the fourth is a Demonstration and produces certain Knowledge which may be called Rational Knowledge as the other is Intuitive § 16. Secondly There are other Ideas whose Agreement or Disagreement can no otherwise be judged of but by the intervention of others which have not a certain Agreement with the Extremes but an usual or likely one and in these it is that the Iudgment is properly exercised which is the acquiescing of the Mind that any Ideas do agree by comparing them with such probable Mediums And this though it never amounts to Knowledge no not to that which is the lowest degree of it yet sometimes the intermediate Ideas tie the Extremes so firmly together and the Probability is so clear and strong that Assent as necessarily follows it as Knowledge does Demonstration The great Excellency and Use of the Judgment is to observe Right and take a true estimate of the force and weight of each Probability and then casting them up all right together chuse that side which has the over-balance § 17. Intuitive Knowledge is the perception of the certain Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas immediately compared together Rational Knowledge is the perception of the certain Agreement or Disagreement of any two Ideas by the intervention of one or more other Ideas Iudgment is the thinking or taking two Ideas to agree or disagree by the intervention of one or more Ideas whose certain agreement or disagreement with them it does not perceive but hath observed to be frequent and usual § 18. Though the deducing one Proposition from another or making Inferences in Words be a great part of Reason and that which it is usually employ'd about yet the principal Act of Ratiocination is the finding the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas one with another by the intervention of a third As a Man by a Yard finds two Houses to be of the same length which could not be brought together to measure their Equality by juxta-position Words have their Consequences as the signs of such Ideas and Things agree or disagree as really they are but we observe it only by our Ideas § 19. Before we quit this Subject it may be worth our while a little to reflect on four sorts of Arguments that Men in their Reasonings with others do ordinarily make use of to prevail on their Assent or at least so to awe them as to silence their Opposition First The first is to alledge the Opinions of Men whose Parts Learning Eminency Power or some other cause has gained a Reputation to and setled in the common esteem with some kind of Authority When Men are established in any kind of Dignity 't is thought a breach of Modesty for others to derogate any way from it and question the Authority of Men who are in possession of it This is apt to be censured as carrying with it too much of Pride when a Man does not readily vail to the Opinions of approved Authors which have been received with respect and submission by others and 't is looked upon as insolence for a Man to set up and adhere to his own Opinion against the
current stream of Antiquity or to put it in the balance against that of some learned Doctor or otherwise approved Writer Whoever backs his Tenets with such Authorities thinks he ought thereby to carry the Cause and is ready to style it Impudence in any one who shall stand out against them This I think may be called Argumentum ad Verecundiam Secondly § 20. Another way that Men ordinarily use to drive others and force them to submit their Judgments and receive the Opinion in debate is to require the Adversary to admit what they alledge as a Proof or to assign a better And this I call Argumentum ad Ignorantiam § 21. Thirdly A third way is to press a Man with Consequences drawn from his own Principles or Concessions This is already known under the Name of Argumentum ad Hominem § 22. Fourthly The fourth is the using of Proofs drawn from any of the Foundations of Knowledge or Probability This I call Argumentum ad Iudicium This alone of all the four brings true Instruction with it and advances us in our way to Knowledge For 1. It argues not another Man's Opinion to be right because I out of respect or any other consideration but that of conviction will not contradict him 2. It proves not another Man to be in the right way nor that I ought to take the same with him because I know not a better 3. Nor does it follow that another Man is in the right way because he has shewn me that I am in the wrong I may be modest and therefore not oppose another Man's Persuasion I may be ignorant and not be able to produce a better I may be in an Errour and another may shew me that I am so This may dispose me perhaps for the reception of Truth but helps me not to it That must come from Proofs and Arguments and light arising from the nature of Things themselves and not from my Shamefacedness Ignorance or Errour § 23. By what has been before said of Reason we may be able to make some guess at th◠distinction of Things into those that are according to above and contrary to Reason 1. According to Reason are such Propositions whose Truth we can discover by examining and tracing those Ideas we have from Sensation and Reflexion and by natural deduction find to be true or probable 2. Above Reason are such Propositions whose Truth or Probability we cannot by Reason derive from those Principles 3. Contrary to Reason are such Propositions as are inconsistent with or irreconcileable to our clear and distinct Ideas Thus the Existence of one GOD is according to Reason the Existence of more than one GOD contrary to Reason the Resurrection of the Body after death above Reason Above Reason also may be taken in a double sense viz. Above Probability or above Certainty and in that large sense also Contrary to Reason is I suppose sometimes taken § 24. There is another use of the word Reason wherein it is opposed to Faith which though it be in it self a very improper way of speaking yet common Use has so authorized it that it would be folly either to oppose or hope to remedy it Only I think it may not be amiss to take notice that however Faith be opposed to Reason Faith is nothing but a firm Assent of the Mind which if it be regulated as is our Duty cannot be afforded to any thing but upon good Reason and so cannot be opposite to it He that believes without having any Reason for believing may be in love with his own Fansies but neither seeks Truth as he ought nor pays the Obedience due to his Maker who would have him use those discerning Faculties he has given him to keep him out of Mistake and Errour He that does not this to the best of his power however he sometimes lights on Truth is in the right but by chance and I know not whether the luckiness of the Accident will excuse the irregularity of his proceeding This at least is certain that he must be accountable for whatever Mistakes he runs into whereas he that makes use of the Light and Faculties GOD has given him and seeks sincerely to discover Truth by those Helps and Abilities he has may have this satisfaction in doing his Duty as a rational Creature that though he should miss Truth he will not miss the Reward of it For he governs his Assent right and places it as he should who in any case or matter whatsoever believes or disbelieves according as Reason directs him He that does otherwise transgresses against his own Light and misuses the Faculties which were given him to no other end but to search and follow the clearer Evidence and greater Probability But since Reason and Faith are by some Men opposed we will so consider them in the following Chapter CHAP. XVIII Of Faith and Reason and their distinct Provinces § 1. IT has been above shewn 1. That we are of necessity ignorant and want Knowledge of all sorts where we want Ideas 2. That we are ignorant and want rational Knowledge where we want Proofs 3. That we want general Knowledge and Certainty as far as we want clear and determined specifick Ideas 4. That we want Probability to direct our Assent in matters where we have neither Knowledge of our own nor Testimony of other Men to bottom our Reason upon From these things thus premised I think we may come to lay down the measures and boundaries between Faith and Reason the want whereof may possibly have been the cause if not of great Disorders yet at least of great Disputes and perhaps Mistakes in the World For till it be resolved how far we are to be guided by Reason and how far by Faith we shall in vain dispute and endeavour to convince one another in Matters of Religion § 2. I find every Sect as far as Reason will help them make use of it gladly and where it fails them they cry out 'T is matter of Faith and above Reason And I do not see how they can ever be convinced by any who makes use of the same plea without setting down strict boundaries between Faith and Reason which ought to be the first point established in all Questions where Faith has any thing to do Reason therefore here as contradistinguished to Faith I take to be the discovery of the Certainty or Probability of such Propositions or Truths which the Mind arrives at by Deductions made from such Ideas which it has got by the use of its natural Faculties viz. by Sensation or Reflexion Faith on the other side is the Assent to any Proposition not thus made out by the Deductions of Reason but upon the Credit of the Proposer as coming immediately from GOD which we call Revelation § 3. First Then I say That no Man inspired by GOD can by any Revelation communicate to others any new simple Ideas which they had not before from Sensation or Reflexion For
our Knowledge that God revealed it which in this Case where the Proposition suppos'd reveal'd contradicts our Knowledge or Reason will always have this Objection hanging to it viz. that we cannot tell how to conceive that to come from GOD the bountiful Author of our Being which if received for true must overturn all our Principles and Foundations of Knowledge render all our Faculties useless wholly destroy the most excellent part of his Workmanship our Understandings and put a Man in a Condition wherein he will have less Light less Conduct than the Beast that perisheth For if the Mind of Man can never have a clearer and perhaps not so clear an Evidence of any thing to be a divine Revelation as it has of the Principles of its own Reason it can never have a ground to quit the clear Evidence of its Reason to give place to a Proposition whose Revelation has not a greater Evidence § 6. Thus far a Man has use of Reason and ought to hearken to it even in immediate and original Revelation where it is supposedly made to himself But to all those who pretend not to immediate Revelation but are required to pay Obedience and to receive the Truths revealed to others which by the Tradition of Writings or Word of Mouth are conveyed down to them Reason has a great deal more to do and is that only which can induce us to receive them For Matter of Faith being only Divine Revelation and nothing else Faith as we use the Word called commonly Divine Faith has to do with no Propositions but those which are supposed to be divinely revealed So that I do not see how those who make Revelation alone the sole Object of Faith can say that it is a Matter of Faith and not of Reason to believe that such or such a Proposition to be found in such or such a Book is of Divine Inspiration unless it be revealed that that Proposition or all in that Book was communicated by Divine Inspiration Without such a Revelation the believing or not believing that Proposition or Book to be of Divine Authority can never be Matter of Faith but Matter of Reason and such as I must come to an Assent to only by the use of my Reason which can never require or enable me to believe that which is contrary to it self it being impossible for Reason ever to procure any Assent to that which to it self appears unreasonable In all Things therefore where we have clear Evidence from our Ideas and those Principles of Knowledge I have above mentioned Reason is the proper Judge and Revelation though it may in consenting with it confirm its Dictates yet cannot in such Cases invalidate its Decrees Nor can we be obliged where we have the clear and evident Sentence of Reason to quit it for the contrary Opinion under a Pretence that it is Matter of Faith § 7. But Thirdly There being many Things wherein we have very imperfect Notions or none at all and other Things of whose past present or future Existence by the natural Use of our Faculties we can have no Knowledge at all these as being beyond the Discovery of our natural Faculties and above Reason are when revealed the proper Matter of Faith Thus that part of the Angels rebelled against GOD and thereby lost their first happy State And that the Bodies of Men shall rise and live again These and the like being beyond the Discovery of Reason are purely Matters of Faith with which Reason has directly nothing to do § 8. But since all Things that are under the Character of Divine Revelation are esteemed Matter of Faith and there are amongst them several Things that fall under the Examen of Reason and are such as we could judge of by our natural Faculties without a Supernatural Revelation In these Revelation must carry it against the probable Conjectures of Reason because the Mind not being certain of the Truth of that it does not evidently know but is only probably convinced of is bound to give up its Assent to such a Testimony which it is satisfied comes from one who cannot err and will not deceive But yet it still belongs to Reason to judge of the Truth of its being a Revelation and of the signification of the Words wherein it is delivered Indeed if any thing shall be thought Revelation which is contrary to the plain Principles of Reason and the evident Knowledge the Mind has of its own clear and distinct Ideas there Reason must be hearkned to as to a Matter within its Province since a Man can never have so certain a Knowledge that a Proposition which contradicts the clear Principles and Evidence of his own Knowledge was divinely revealed or that he understands the Words rightly wherein it is delivered as he has that the Contrary is true and so is bound to consider and judge of it as a Matter of Reason and not swallow it without Examination as a Matter of Faith § 9. The Summ of all is First Whatever Proposition is revealed of whose Truth our Mind by its natural Faculties and Notions cannot judge that is purely Matter of Faith and above Reason Secondly All Propositions whereof the Mind by the use of its natural Faculties can come to determine and judge from natural acquired Ideas are Matter of Reason with this difference still that in those concerning which it has but an uncertain Evidence and so is persuaded of their Truth only upon probable Grounds which still admit a Possibility of the Contrary to be true without doing Violence to the certain Evidence of its own Knowledge and overturning the Principles of all Reason In such probable Propositions I say an evident Revelation ought to determine our Assent even against Probability For where the Principles of Reason have not determined a Proposition to be certainly true or false there clear Revelation as another Principle of Truth and Ground of Assent may determine and so it may be Matter of Faith and be also above Reason Because Reason in that particular Matter being able to reach no higher than Probability Faith gave the Determination where Reason came short and Revelation discovered on which side the Truth lay § 10. Thus far the Dominion of Faith reaches and that without any violence or hindrance to Reason which is not injured or disturbed but assisted and improved by new Discoveries of Truth coming from the Eternal Fountain of all Knowledge Whatever GOD hath revealed is certainly true no Doubt can be made of it This is the proper Object of Faith But whether it be a divine Revelation or no Reason must judge which can never permit the Mind to reject a greater Evidence to embrace what is less evident nor prefer less Certainty to the greater There can be no Evidence that any traditional Revelation is of divine Original in the Words we receive it and in the Sense we understand it so clear and so certain as those of the Principles of Reason And therefore
naturally imprinted by Him answered 13 16. Ideas of GOD various in different Men. 17. If the Idea of GOD be not innate no other can be supposed innate 18. Idea of Substance not innate 19. No Propositions can be innate since Ideas are innate 20. Principles not innate because of little use or little certainty 21. Difference of Men's Discoveries depends upon the different application of their Faculties 22. Men must think and know for themselves 23. Whence the Opinion of innate Principles 24. Conclusion BOOK II. CHAP. I. Of Ideas in general SECT 1. Idea is the Object of Thinking 2. All Ideas come from Sensation or Reflexion 3. The Objects of Sensation one Sourse of Ideas 4. The Operations of our Minds about sensible Ideas the other Sourse of them 5. All our Ideas are of the one or the other of these 6. Observable in Children 7. Men are differently furnished with these according to the different Objects they converse with 8. Ideas of Reflexion had later because they need Attention 9. The Soul begins to have Ideas when it begins to perceive 10. The Soul thinks not always for First it wants Proofs 11. Secondly It is not always conscious of it 12. Thirdly If a sleeping Man thinks without knowing it the sleeping and waking Man are two persons 13. Fourthly Impossible to convince those that sleep without dreaming that they think 14. Fifthly That Men dream without remembring it in vain urged 15. Sixthly Vpon their Hypothesis the Thoughts of a sleeping Man ought to be most rational 16. Seventhly On this Hypothesis the Soul must have Ideas not derived from Sensation or Reflexion of of which there is no appearance 17. Eightly If I think when I know it not no body else can know it 18. Ninthly How knows any one that the Soul always thinks For if it be not a self-evident Proposition it needs proof 19. Tenthly That a Man shoulâ— be busie in thinking and yet not retain it the next moment very improbable 20 24. No Ideas but from Sensation or Reflexion evident if we observe Children 25. In the reception of simple Ideas the Vnderstanding is most of all passive CHAP. II. Of simple Ideas SECT 1. Vncompounded Appearances 2 3. The Mind can neither make nor destroy them CHAP. III. Of Ideas of one Sense SECT 1. As Colours of Seeing Sounds of Hearing 2. Few simple Ideas have Names CHAP. IV. Of Solidity SECT 1. We receive this Idea from touch 2. Solidity fills Space 3. Distinct from Space 4. From Hardness 5. On Solidity depends Impulse Resistence and Protrusion 6. What it is CHAP. V. Of simple Ideas by more than one Sense CHAP. VI. Of simple Ideas of Reflexion SECT 1. Are the Operations of the Mind about its other Ideas 2. The Idea of Perception and Idea of Willing we have from Reflexion CHAP. VII Of Simple Ideas both of Sensation and Reflexion SECT 1 6. Pleasure and Pain 7. Existence and Vnity 8. Power 9. Succession 10. Simple Ideas the Materials of all our Knowledge CHAP VIII Other Considerations concerning simple Ideas SECT 1 6. Positive Ideas from privative Causes 7 8. Ideas in the Mind Qualities in Bodies 9 10. Primary and Secondary Qualities 11 12. How primary Qualities produce their Ideas 13 14. How Secondary 15 23. Ideas of primary Qualities are resemblances of secondary not 24 25. Reason of our mistake in this 26. Secondary Qualities two-fold First Immediately perceivable Secondly Mediately perceivable CHAP. IX Of Perception SECT 1. It is the first simple Idea of Reflexion 2 4. Perception is only when the Mind receives the Impression 5 6. Children though they have Ideas in the Womb have none innate 7. Which Ideas first is not evident 8 10. Ideas of Sensation often changed by the Iudgment 11 14. Perception puts the difference between Animals and inferior Beings 15. Perception the inlet of Knowledge CHAP. X. Of Retention SECT 1. Contemplation 2. Memory 3. Attention Repetition Pleasure and Pain fix Ideas 4 5. Ideas fade in the Memory 6. Constantly repeated Ideas can scarce be lost 7. In remembring the Mind is often active 8. Two defects in the Memory Oblivion and Slowness 9. Brutes have Memory CHAP. XI Of Discerning c. SECT 1. No Knowledge without it 2. The difference of Wit and Iudgment 4. Clearness alone hinders Confusion 4. Comparing 5. Brutes compare but imperfectly 6. Compounding 7. Brutes compound but little 8. Naming 9. Abstraction 10 11. Brutes abstract not 12 13. Idiots and mad Men. 14. Method 15. These are the beginnings of humane Knowledge 16. Appeal to Experience 17. Dark room CHAP. XII Of Complex Ideas SECT 1. Made by the Mind out of simple ones 2. Made voluntarily 3. Are either Modes Substances or Relations 4. Modes 5. Simple and mixed Modes 6. Substances Single or Collective 7. Relation 8. The abstrusest Ideas from the two Sources CHAP. XIII Of Space and its simple Modes SECT 1. Simple Modes 2. Idea of Space 3. Space and Extension 4. Immensity 5 6. Figure 7 10. Placeâ— 11 14. Extension and Body not the same 15 17. Substance which we know not no proof against Space without Body 18 19. Substance and Accidents of little use in Philosophy 20. A Vacâ—um beyond the utmost bounds of Body 21. The power of annihilation proves a Vacuum 22. Motion proves a Vacuum 23. The Ideas of Space and Body distinct 24 25. Extension being inseparable from Body proves it not the same 26. Ideas of Space and Solidity distinct 27. Men differ little in clear simple Ideas CHAP. XIV Of Duration SECT 1. Duration is fleeting Extension 2 4. It s Idea from Reflexion on the train of our Ideas 5. The Idea of Duration applicable to Things whilst we sleep 6 8. The Idea of Succession not from Motion 9 11. The train of Ideas has a certain degree of quickness 12. This train the measure of other Successions 13 15. The Mind cannot fix long on one invariable Idea 16. Ideas however made include no sense of Motion 17. Time is Duration set out by Measures 18. A good measure of Time must divide its whole Duration into equal periods 19. The Revolutions of the Sun and Moon the properest Measures of Time 20. But not by their motion but periodical appearances 21. No two parts of Duration can be certainly known to be equal 22. Time not the measure of Motion 23. Minutes Hours and Tears not necessary measures of Duration 24. The measure of Time two ways applied 25 27. Our measure of Time applicable to Duration before Time 28 31. Eternity CHAP. XV. Of Duration and Expansion considered together SECT 1. Both capable of greater and less 2. Expansion not bounded by Matter 3. Nor Duration by Motion 4. Why Men more easily admit infinite Duration than infinite Expansion 5. Time to Duration is as Place to Expansion 6. Time and Place are taken for so much of either as are set out by the Existence and Motion of Body 7. Sometimes for so much of either as we design by measures