Substance and then we know the Solution and Texture of Bodies cannot reach the Soul being of a different Nature Let it be as hard a matter as it will to give an account what it is that should keep the Parts of a material Soul together after it is separated from the Body yet it will be always as easie to give an account of it as to give an account what it is which shall keep together a material and immaterial Substance And yet the difficulty that there is to give an account of that I hope does not with your Lordship weaken the Credibility of the inseparable Union of Soul and Body to Eternity And I perswade my self that the Men of Sense to whom your Lordship appeals in the Case do not find their belief of this Fundamental Point much weakened by that difficulty I thought heretofore and by your Lordship's Permission would think so still that the Union of Parts of Matter one with another is as much in the Hands of God as the Union of a material and immaterial Substance and that it does not take off very much or at all from the Evidence of Immortality which depends on that Union that it is no easie matter to give an account what it is that should keep them together Though its depending wholly upon the Gift and good Pleasure of God where the manner creates great difficulty in the understanding and our Reason cannot discover in the Nature of things how it is be that which your Lordship so positively says lessens the Credibility of the Fundamental Articles of the Resurrection and Immortality But my Lord to remove this Objection a little and to shew of how small force it is even with your self give me leave to presume That your Lordship as firmly believes the Immortality of the Body after the Resurrection as any other Article of Faith If so then it being no easie matter to give an account what it is that shall keep together the Parts of a material Soul to one that belives it is material can no more weaken the Credibility of its Immortality than the like difficulty weakens the Credibility of the Immortality of the Body For when your Lordship shall find it an easie matter to give an account what it is besides the good Pleasure of God which shall keep together the Parts of our material Bodies to Eternity or even Soul and Body I doubt not but any one who shall think the Soul material will also find it as easie to give an account what it is that shall keep those Parts of Matter also together to Eternity Were it not that the Warmth of Controversie is apt to make Men so far forget as to take up those Principles themselves when they will serve their turn which they have highly condemned in others I should wonder to find your Lordship to argue That because it is a difficulty to understand what should keep together the minute Parts of a material Soul when Life is gone and because it is not an easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an immaterial Substance Therefore it is not so credible as if it were easie to give an account by Natural Reason how it could be For to this it is that all this your Discourse tends as is evident by what is already set down out of Page 55 and will be more fully made out by what your Lordship says in other places though there needs no such Proofs since it would all be nothing against me in any other Sense I thought your Lordship had in other places asserted and insisted on this Truth That no part of Divine Revelation was the less to be believed because the thing it self oreated great difficulty in the understanding and the manner of it was hard to be explained and it was no easie matter to give an account how it was This as I take it your Lordship condemned in others as a very unreaonable Principle and such as would subvert all the Articles of the Christian Religion that were mere matters of Faith as I think it will And is it possible that you should make use of it here your self against the Article of Life and Immortality that Christ hath brought to light through the Gospel and neither was nor could be made out by Natural Reason without Revelation But you will say you speak only of the Soul and your Words are That it is no easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an immaterial Substance I grant it but crave leave to say That there is not any one of those Difficulties that are or can be raised about the manner how a material Soul can be immortal which do not as well reach the Immortality of the Body But if it were not so I am sure this Principle of your Lordship's would reach other Articles of Faith wherein our natural Reason finds it not so easy to give an Account how those Mysteries are And which therefore according to your Principles must be less credible than other Articles that create less difficulty to the Vnderstanding For your Lordship says That you appeal to any Man of Sense whether to a Man who thought by his Principles he could from natural Grounds demonstrate the Immortality of the Soul the finding the uncertainty of those Principles he went upon in point of Reason i. e. the finding he could not certainly prove it by natural Reason doth not weaken the credibility of that fundamental Article when it is considered purely as a Matter of Faith Which in effect I humbly conceive amounts to this That a Proposition divinely revealed that cannot be proved by natural Reason is less credible than one that can Which seems to me to come very little short of this with due reverence be it spoken That God is less to be believed when he affirms a Proposition that cannot be proved by natural Reason than when he proposes what can be proved by it The direct contrary to which is my Opinion though you endeavour to make good by these following Words If the evidence of Faith falls so much short of that of Reason it must needs have less effect upon Men's Minds when the subserviency of Reason is taken away as it must be when the Grounds of Certainty by Reason are vanished Is it at all probable that he who finds his Reason deceive him in such fundamental Points should have his Faith stand firm and unmoveable on the account of Revelation Than which I think there are hardly plainer Words to be found out to declare that the credibility of God's Testimony depends on the natural evidence or probability of the things we receive from Revelation and rises and falls with it And that the Truths of God or the Articles of meer Faith lose so much of their credibility as they want Proof from Reason Which if true Revelation may come to have no credibility at all
M r. Locke's Reply To the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter Wherein besides other incident Matters what his Lordship has said Concerning Certainty by Reason Certainty by Ideas and Certainty of Faith The Resurrection of the same Body The Immateriality of the Soul The Inconsistency of Mr. Locke's Notions with the Articles of the Christian Faith and their Tendency to Sceptism is examined LONDON Printed by H. C. for A. and I. Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-noster-Row and E. Castle next Scotland-yard by Whitehall MDCXCIX My Lord YOUR Lordship in the beginning of the last Letter you honoured me with seems so uneasie and displeased at my having said too much already in the Question between us that I think I may conclude you would be well enough pleas'd if I should say no more and you would dispense with me for not keeping my Promise I made you to answer the other parts of your first Letter If this proceeds from any tenderness in your Lordship for my Reputation that you would not have me expose my self by an overflow of Words in many places void of Clearness Coherence and Argument and that therefore might have been spared I must acknowledge it is a piece of great Charity and such wherein you will have a lasting Advantage over me since good Manners will not permit me to return you the like Or should I in the Ebullition of Thoughts which in me your Lordship finds as impetuous as the Springs of Modena mentioned by Ramazzini be in danger to forget my self and to think I had some right to return the general Complaint of length and intricacy without Force yet you have secured your self from the Suspition of any such Trash on your side by making Cobwebs the easie Product of those who write out of their own Thoughts which it might be a Crime in me to impute to your Lordship If this Complaint of yours be not a Charitable Warning to me I cannot well guess at the design of it for I would not think that in a Controversie which you my Lord have dragg'd me into you would assume it as a Priviledge due to your self to be as copious as you please and say what you think fit and expect I should reply only so and so much as would just suit your good liking and serve to set the Cause right on that side which your Lordship contends for My Lord I shall always acknowledge the great distance that is between your Lordship and my self and pay that Deference that is due to your Dignity and Person But Controversie though it excludes not good Manners will not be managed with all that Submission which one is ready to pay in other Cases Truth which is inflexible has here its Interest which must not be given up in a Complement Plato and Aristotle and other great Names must give way rather than make us renounce Truth or the Friendship we have for her This possibly your Lordship will allow for it is not spun out of my own Thoughts I have the Authority of others for it And I think it was in Print before I was born But you will say however I am too long in my Replies It is not impossible but it may be so But with all due Respect to your Lordship's Authority the greatness whereof I shall always readily acknowledge I must crave leave to say That in this Case you are by no means a proper Judge We are now as well your Lordship as my self before a Tribunal to which you have appealed and before which you have brought me 'T is the Publick must be judge whether your Lordship has enlarged too far in accusing me or I in defending my self Common Justice makes great allowance to a Man pleading in his own Defence and a little length if he should be guilty of it finds excuse in the Compassion of by-standers when they see a Man causelesly attacked after a new way by a potent Adversary and under various Pretences Occasions sought and Words wrested to his disadvantage This my Lord you must give me leave to think to be my Case whilst this strange way your Lordship has brought me into this Controversie your gradual Accusations of my Book and the different Causes your Lordship has assigned of them together with Quotations out of it which I cannot find there and other Things I have complained of to some of which your Lordship has not vouchsafed any Answer shall remain unaccounted for as I humbly conceive they do I confess my Answers are long and I wish they could have been shorter But the Difficulty I have to find out and set before others your Lordship's meaning that they may see what I am answering to and so be able to judge of the Pertinency of what I say has unavoidably enlarged them Whether this be wholly owing to my dulness or whether a little perplexedness both as to Grammar and Coherence caused by those numbers of Thoughts whether of your own or others that crowd from all parts to be set down when you write may not be allow'd to have some share in it I shall not presume to say I am at the Mercy of your Lordship and my other Readers in the Point and know not how to avoid a Fault that has no Remedy Your Lordship says The World soon grows weary of Controversies especially when they are about Personal Matters which made your Lordship wonder that one who understands the World so well should spend above 50. Pages in renewing and enlarging a Complaint wholly concerning himself To which give me leave to say That if your Lordship had so much considered the World and what it is not much pleased with when you published your Discourse in Vindication of the Trinity perhaps your Lordship had not so personally concerned me in that Controversie as it appears now you have and continue still to do Your Lordship wonders that I spend above 50 Pages in renewing and enlarging my Complaint concerning my self Your Wonder I humbly conceive will not be so great when you recollect That your Answer to my Complaint and the Satisfaction you proposed to give me and others in that Personal Matter began the first Letter you honoured me with and ended in the 47th Page of it where you said You suppose the Reason of your mentioning my Words so often was now no longer a Riddle to me and so you proceeded to other Particulars of my Vindication If therefore I have spent 50 Pages of my Answer in shewing that what you offered in 47 Pages for my Satisfaction was none but that the Riddle was a Riddle still the disproportion in the number of Pages is not so great as to be the Subject of much wonder especially to those who consider that in what you call Personal Matter I was shewing that my Essay having in it nothing contrary to the Doctrin of the Trinity was yet brought into that Dispute and that therefore I had
is obscure and confused therefore upon my Grounds we cannot know that such a thing as Substance exists because I placed Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas Now to this I answer'd that I did not place all Certainty only on clear and distinct Ideas in such a Sense as that and therefore to avoid being mistaken I said That my Notion of Certainty by Ideas is that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas such as we have whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no viz. if they are clear and distinct enough to be capable of having their agreement or disagreement with any other Idea perceived so far they are capable of affording us Knowledge though at the same time they are so obscure and confused as that there are other Ideas with which we can by no means so compare them as to perceive their agreement or disagreement with them This was the clearness and distinctness which I denyed to be necessary to Certainty If your Lordship would have done me the honour to have consider'd what I understood by obscure and confused Ideas and what every one must understand by them who thinks clearly and distinctly concerning them I am apt to imagine you would have spared your self the trouble of raising this Question and omitted these Quotations out of my Book as not serving to your Lordship's purpose The fourth Passage which you seem to lay most stress on proves as little to your purpose as either of the former Three The Words are these But obscure and confused Ideas can never produce any clear and certain Knowledge Because as far as any Ideas are confused or obscure the Mind can never perceive clearly whether they agree or no. The latter part of these Words are a plain interpretation of the former and shew their meaning to be this viz. Our obscure and confused Ideas as they stand in contra-distinction to clear and distinct have all of them something in them whereby they are kept from being wholly imperceptible and perfectly confounded with all other Ideas and so their agreement or disagreement with at least some other Ideas may be perceived and thereby produce Certainty though they are obscure and confused Ideas But so far as they are obscure and confused so that their agreement or disagreement cannot be perceived so far they cannot produce Certainty v. g. the Idea of Substance is clear and distinct enough to have its agreement with that of actual Existence perceived But yet it is so far obscure and confused that there be a great many other Ideas with which by reason of its obscurity and confusedness we cannot compare it so as to produce such a Perception And in all those Cases we necessarily come short of Certainty And that this was so and that I meant so I humbly conceive you could not but have seen if you had given your self the trouble to reflect on that Passage which you quoted viz. That Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas such as we have whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no. To which what your Lordship has here brought out of the second Book of my Essay is no manner of Contradiction unless it be a Contradiction to say that an Idea which cannot be well compared with some Ideas from which it is not clearly and sufficiently distinguishable is yet capable of having its agreement or disagreement perceived with some other Idea with which it is not so confounded but that it may be compared And therefore I had and have still reason to complain of your Lordship for charging that upon me which I never said nor meant To make this yet more visible give me leave to make use of an Instance in the object of the Eyes in Seeing from whence the Metaphor of obscure and confused is transfer'd to Ideas the objects of the Mind in Thinking There is no object which the Eye sees that can be said to be perfectly obscure for then it would not be seen at all nor perfectly confused for then it could not be distinguished from any other no not from a clearer For Example one sees in the Dusk something of that shape and size that a Man in that degree of Light and distance would appear This is not so obscure that he sees nothing nor so confused that he cannot distinguish it from a Steeple or a Star But is so obscure that he cannot thought it be a Statue distinguish it from a Man and therefore in regard of a Man it can produce no clear and distinct Knowledge But yet as obscure and confused an Idea as it is this hinders not but there may many propositions be made concerning it as particularly that it exists of the Truth of which we may be certain And that without any Contradiction to what I say in my Essay viz. That obscure and confused Ideas can never produce any clear and certain Knowledge Because as far as they are confused or obscure the Mind cannot perceive clearly whether they agree or no. This reason that I there give plainly limiting it only to Knowledge where the obscurity and confusion is such that it hinders the perception of agreement or disagreement which is not so great in any obscure and confused Idea but that there is some other Ideas with which it may be perceived to agree or disagree and there 't is capable to produce Certainty in us And thus I am come to the end of your Defence of your first Answer as you call it and desire the Reader to consider how much in the eight Pages imploy'd in it is said to defend this Proposition that Those who offer at clear and distinct Ideas bid much fairer for Certainty than I do But your Lordship having under this Head taken occasion to examine my making clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty I crave leave to consider here what you say of it in another place I find one Argument more to prove That I place Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas Your Lordship tells me and bids me observe my own Words that I positively say That the Mind not being certain of the Truth of that it doth not evidently know So that says your Lordship it is plain here that I place Certainty in evident Knowledge or in clear and distinct Ideas and yet my great complaint of your Lordship was that you charged this upon me and now you find it in my own Words Answer I do observe my own Words but do not find in them or in clear and distinct Ideas though your Lordship has set these down as my Words I there indeed say The Mind is not certain of what it does not evidently know Whereby I place Certainty as your Lordship says only in evident Knowledge but evident Knowledge may be had in the clear and evident perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas though some
for these Words must be supplied to make the Sentence to me intelligible I intend to complain of them too And then you find fault with me for using the indefinite word whoever and as a Reproof for the unreasonableness of it you say But the Words just before tell me who they are But my Words are not whoever they are But my Words are When any one in such a manner applies my Words contrary to what I intended them c. Your Lordship would here have me understand that there are those that have done it and Rebukes me that I speak as if I knew not any one that had done it and that I may not plead Ignorance you say your Words just before told me who they were viz. The Enemies of the Christian Faith What must I do now to keep my Word and satisfie your Lordship Must I complain of the Enemies of the Christian Faith in general that they have applied my Words as aforesaid and then consider as well as I can what Satisfaction they give me and others in it For that was all I promised to do But this would be strange to complain of the Enemies of the Christian Faith for doing what 't is very likely they never all did and what I do not know that any one of them has done Or must I to content your Lordship read over all the writings of the Enemies of the Christian Faith to see whether any one of them has applied my Words i. e. in such a manner as I complained your Lordship has done that if they have I may complain of them too This truly my Lord is more than I have time for and if it were worth while when it is done I perceive I should not content your Lordship in it For you ask me here Is this all I intend only to complain of them for making me a Party in the Controversie against the Trinity No my Lord this is not all I promised too To consider as well as I can what Satisfaction if they offer any they give me and others for so doing And why should not this content your Lordship in reference to others as well as it does in reference to your self I have but one measure for your Lordship and others When others treat me after the manner you have done why should it not be enough to answer them after the same manner I have done your Lordship But perhaps your Lordship has some dextrous meaning under this which I am not quick sighted enough to perceive and so do not reply right as you would have me I must beg my Readers Pardon as well as your Lordships for using so many Words about Passages that seem not in themselves of that importance I confess that in themselves they are not But yet 't is my misfortune that in this Controversie your way of writing and representing my Sense forces me to it Your Lordship's name in writing is established above controle and therefore 't would be ill breeding in one who barely reads what you write not to take every thing for perfect in its kind which your Lordship says Clearness and Force and Consistence are to be presumed always whatever your Lordship's Words be And there is no other Remedy for an Answerer who finds it difficult any where to come at your Meaning or Argument but to make his Excuse for it in laying the particulars before the Reader that he may be Judge where the Fault lies especially where any matter of Fact is contested deductions from the first rise are often necessary which cannot be made in few Words nor without several Repetitions An inconvenience possibly fitter to be endured than that your Lordship in the run of your Learned Notions should be Shackled with the ordinary and strict Rules of Language and in the delivery of your sublimer Speculations be tied down to the mean and contemptible rudiments of Grammar Though your being above these and freed from a servile observance in the use of trivial Particles whereon the connection of Discourse chiefly depends cannot but cause great difficulties to the Reader And however it may be an ease to any great Man to find himself above the ordinary rules of Writing he who is bound to follow the connection and find out his Meaning will have his Task much encreased by it I am very sensible how much this has swelled these Papers already and yet I do not see how any thing less than what I have said could clear those Passages which we have hitherto examined and set them in their due Light Your next Words are these But whether I have not made my self too much a Party in it i. e. the Controversie against the Trinity will appear before we have done This is an Item for me which your Lordship seems so very fond of and so careful to inculcate wherever you bring in any Words it can be tacked to that if one can avoid thinking it to be the main end of your writing one cannot yet but see that it could not be so much in the Thoughts and Words of a great Man who is above such personal Matters and which he knows the World soon grows weary of unless it had some very particular business there Whether it be the Author that has prejudiced you against his Book or the Book prejudiced you against the Author so it is I perceive that both I and my Essay are fallen under your displeasure I am not unacquainted what great stress is often laid upon invidious Names by skilful Disputants to supply the want of better Arguments But give me leave my Lord to say That 't is too late for me now to begin to value those marks of good Will or a good Cause and therefore I shall say nothing more to them as fitter to be left to the examination of the Thoughts within your own breast from what sourse such reasonings spring and whither they tend I am going my Lord to a Tribunal that has a right to judge of Thoughts and being secure that I there shall be found of no Party but that of Truth for which there is required nothing but the receiving Truth in the Love of it I matter not much of what Party any one shall as may best serve his turn denominate me here Your Lordship's is not the first Pen from which I have receiv'd such strokes as these without any great harm I never found freedom of Stile did me any hurt with those who knew me and if those who know me not will take up borrowed Prejudices it will be more to their own harm than mine So that in this I shall give your Lordship little other Trouble but my Thanks sometimes where I find you skilfully and industriously recommending me to the World under the Character you have chosen for me Only give me leave to say That if the Essay I shall leave behind me hath no other fault to sink it but Heresie and inconsistency with the Articles of the Christian Faith
Faith from Reason weakens the credibility of it from Revelation For 't is this which these following Words of yours import For before there was a natural credibility in them on the account of Reason but by going on wrong grounds of Certainty all that is lost To prove the first of these Propositions viz. That upon the supposition that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement of Ideas we cannot attain to the knowledge of the truth of this Proposition that there is a God Your Lordship urges that I have said That no Idea proves the existence of the Thing without it self which Argument reduced to form will stand thus If it be true as I say that no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self then upon the supposition that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas we cannot attain to the knowledge of the truth of this Proposition that there is a God Which Argument so manifestly proves not that there needs no more to be said to it than to desire that consequence to be proved Again as to the immortality of the Soul your Lordship urges that I have said that I cannot know but that matter may think therefore upon my ground of Knowledge i. e. upon a supposition that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas there is an end of the Souls Immortality This consequence I must also desire your Lordship to prove Only I crave leave by the by to point out some things in these Paragraphs too remarkable to be passed over without any Notice One is That you suppose a Man is made certain upon my general grounds of Certainty i. e. knows by the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas that there is a God and yet upon a farther examination of my method he finds that the way of Ideas will not do Here my Lord if by my grounds of Certainty my Method and my way of Ideas you mean one and the same thing then your Words will have a consistency and tend to the same point But then I must beg your Lordship to consider that your Supposition carries a Contradiction in it viz. That your Lordship supposes that by my Grounds my Method and my way of Certainty a Man is made Certain and not made Certain that there is a God If your Lordship means here by my grounds of Certainty my Method and my way of Ideas different things as it seems to me you do then whatever your Lordship may suppose here it makes nothing to the Point in Hand which is to shew that by this my ground of Certainty viz. That Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas a Man first attains to a Knowledge that there is a God and afterwards by the same grounds of Certainty he comes to lose the Knowledge that there is a God which to me seems little less than a Contradiction 'T is likely your Lordship will say you mean no such thing for you alledge this Proposition that no Idea proves the existence of any thing without it self and give that as an Instance that my way of Ideas will not do i. e. will not prove the being of a God 'T is true your Lordship does so But withal my Lord 't is as true that this Proposition supposing it to be mine for it is not here set down in my Words contains not my method or way or notion of Certainty though 't is in that Sense alone that it can here be useful to your Lordship to call it my method or the way by Ideas Your Lordship undertakes to shew That my defining Knowledge to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this fundamental Article of Faith that there is a God what is your Lordship's Proof of it Just this The saying that no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self will not do Ergo the saying that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this fundamental Article This my Lord seems to me no Proof and all that I can find that is offered to make it a Proof is only your calling these Propositions my general grounds of Certainty my method of Proceeding the way of Ideas and my own Principles in point of Reason as if that made these two Propositions the same thing and whatsoever were a consequence of one may be charged as a consequence of the other though it be visible that though the latter of these be never so false or never so far from being a Proof of a God yet it will by no means thence follow that the former of them viz. That Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of that fundamental Article But 't is but for your Lordship to call them both the way of Ideas and that is enough That I may not be accused by your Lordship for unfair or disingenuous dealing for representing this Matter so I shall here set down your Lordship's Words at large Let us now suppose a Person by natural Reason to attain to a Certainty as to the Being of God and Immortality of the Soul and he proceeds upon J. L's general grounds of Certainty from the agreement or disagreement of Ideas and so from the Ideas of God and the Soul he is made certain of these two Points before mention'd But let us again suppose that such a Person upon a farther Examination of J. L's method of proceeding finds that the way of Ideas in these Cases will not do for no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self no more than the Picture of a Man proves his Being or the Visions of a Dream make a true History which are J. L's own Expressions And for the Soul he cannot be certain but that Matter may think as J. L. affirms and then what becomes of the Soul's Immateriality and consequently Immortality from its Operations But for all this says J. L. his assurance of Faith remains firm on its own Basis. Now you appeal to any Man of Sense whether the finding of Vncertainty of his own Principles which he went upon in point of Reason doth not weaken the Credibility of these fundamental Articles when they are consider'd purely as matters of Faith For before there was a natural Credibility in them on the account of Reason but by going on wrong grounds of Certainty all that is lost and instead of being certain he is more doubtful than ever These are your Lordship 's own Words and now I appeal to any Man of Sense whether they contain any other Argument against my placing of Certainty as I do but this viz. A Man mistakes and thinks that this Proposition no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self shews That in the way of Ideas one cannot prove a God Ergo
taking them to be as true as if they were the very Words of Divine Revelation the Question then is how must we interpret the Sense of them For supposing them to be Divine Revelation to ask as your Lordship here does what Resolution I or any one can come to about their possibility seems to me to involve a Contradiction in it For whoever admits a Proposition to be of Divine Revelation supposes it not only to be possible but true Your Lordship's Question then can mean only this What Sense can I upon my Principles come to of either of these Propositions but in the way of Ideas And I crave leave to ask your Lordship what Sense of them can your Lordship upon your Principles come to but in the way of Notions Which in plain English amounts to no more than this That your Lordship must understand them according to the Sense you have of those Terms they are made up of and I according to the Sense I have of those Terms Nor can it be otherwise unless your Lorship can take a Term in any Proposition to have one Sense and yet understand it in another And thus we see that in effect Men have differently understood and interpreted the Sense of these Propositions Whether they used the way of Ideas or not i. e. whether they called what any Word stood for Notion or Sense or Meaning or Idea I think my self obliged to return your Lordship my Thanks for the News you write me here of one who has found a secret way how the same Body may be in distant Places at once It making no part that I can see of the Reasoning your Lordship was then upon I can take it only for a piece of News And the Favour was the greater that your Lordship was pleased to stop your self in the midst of so serious an Argument as the Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation to tell it me And methinks 't is pity that that Author had not used some of the Words of my Book which might have served to have tied him and me together For his Secret about a Body in two Places at once which he does keep up and my Secret about Certainty which your Lordship thinks had been better kept up too being all your Words bring me into his Company but very untowardly If your Lordship would be pleased to shew That my Secret about Certainty as you think fit to call it is false or erroneous the World would see a good Reason why you should think it better kept up till then perhaps they may be apt to suspect that the Fault is not so much in my published Secret about Certainty as somewhere else But since your Lordship thinks it had been better kept up I promise that as soon as you shall do me the Favour to make publick a better Notion of Certainty than mine I will by a publick Retractation call in mine Which I hope your Lordship will do for I dare say no Body will think it good or Friendly Advice to your Lordship if you have such a Secret that you should keep it up Your Lordship with some Emphasis bids me observe my own Words that I here positively say That the Mind not being certain of the Truth of that it doth not evidently know So that it is plain here that I place Certainty only in evident Knowledge or in clear and distinct Ideas and yet my great Complaint of your Lordship was That you charged this upon me and now your Lordship finds it in my own Words Answ. My own Words in that place are The Mind in not certain of what it doth not evidently know but in them or that Passage as set down by your Lordship there is not the least mention of clear and distinct Ideas and therefore I should wonder to hear your Lordship so solemnly call them my own Words when they are but what your Lordship would have to be a Consequence of my Words were it not as I humbly conceive a way not unfrequent with your Lordship to speak of that which you think a Consequence from any thing said as if it were the very thing said It rests therefore upon your Lordship to prove that evident Knowledge can be only where the Ideas concerning which it is are perfectly clear and distinct I am certain that I have evident Knowledge that the Substance of my Body and Soul exists though I am as certain that I have but a very obscure and confused Idea of any Substance at all So that my Complaint of your Lordship upon that Account remains very well Founded notwithstanding any thing you alledge here Your Lordship summing up the force of what you have said add That you have pleaded 1. That my method of Certainty shakes the belief of Revelation in General 2. That is shakes the belief of particular Propositions or Articles of Faith which depend upon the Sense of Words contained in Scripture That your Lordship has pleaded I grant but with Submission I deny that you have proved 1. That my definition of Knowledge which is that which your Lordship calls my method of Certainty shakes the belief of Revelation in general For all that your Lordship offers for Proof of it is only the alledging some other Passages out of my Book quite different from that my definition of Knowledge which you endeavour to shew do shake the belief of Revelation in General But Indeed have not nor I humbly conceive cannot shew that they do any ways shake the belief of Revelation in general But if they did it does not at all follow from thence that my definition of Knowledge i. e. my method of Certainty at all shakes the belief of Revelation in general which was what your Lordship undertook to prove 2. As to the shaking the belief of particular Propositions or Articles of Faith which depend as you here say upon the Sense of Words I think I have sufficiently cleared my self from that Charge as will yet be more evident from what your Lordship here farther urges Your Lordship says my placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas shakes the Foundations of the Articles of Faith above mentioned which depend upon the Sense of Words contained in the Scripture And the Reason your Lordship gives for it is this Because I do not say we are to believe all that we find there expressed My Lord upon reading these Words I consulted the Errata to see whether the Printer had injured you For I could not easily believe that your Lordship should Reason after a Fashon that would justifie such a conclusion as this viz. Your Lordship in your Letter to me does not say that we are to believe all that we find expressed in Scripture therefore your Notion of Certainty shakes the belief of this Article of Faith that Jesus Christ descended into Hell This I think will scarce hold for a good Consequence till the not saying any Truth be the denying of
Proposition consist If it be in any thing different from that perceivable Agreement of the Ideas affirm'd of one another in it I beseech your Lordship to tell it me if not I beg leave to conclude that your way of Certainty by Reason and my way of Certainty by Ideas in this Case are just the same But instead of saying any thing to shew wherein the Certainty of Principles is different in the way of Reason from the Certainty of Principles in the way of Ideas upon my Friends shewing That you had no ground to say as you did That I had no Idea of Reason as it stands for Principles of Reason your Lordship takes occasion as what will not in a skillful hand serve to introduce any thing one has a mind to to tell me What Ideas I have of them must appear from my Book and you do there find a Chapter of self-evident Propositions and Maxims which you cannot but think extraordinary for the Design of it which is thus summed in the Conclusion viz. That it was to shew That these Maxims as they are of little Use where we have clear and distinct Ideas so they are of dangerous Use where our Ideas are not clear and distinct And is not this a fair way to convince your Lordship that my way of Ideas is very consistent with the Certainty of Reason when the way of Reason bath been always supposed to proceed upon general Principles and I assert them to be useless and dangerous In which Words I crave leave to observe 1. That the Pronoun them here seems to have Reference to self-evident Propositions to Maxims and to Principles as Terms used by your Lordship and me though it be certain That you and I use them in a far different Sense For if I mistake not you use them all three promiscuously one for another whereas 't is plain That in that Chapter out of which you bring your Quotations here I distinguish self-evident Propositions from those which I there mention under the Name of Maxims which are principally these two Whatsoever is is and it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be Farther it is plain out of the same place That by Maxims I there mean general Propositions which are so universally received under the Name of Maxims or Axioms that they are looked upon as innate the two chief whereof principally there meant are those above-mentioned But what the Propositions are which you comprehend under Maxims or Principles of Reason cannot be determined since your Lordship neither defines nor enumerates them and so 't is impossible precisely to know what you mean by them here And that which makes me more at a loss is That in this Argument you set down for Principles or Maxims Propositions that are not so much as self-evident viz. This That the Essential Properties of a Man are to reason and discourse c. 2. I crave leave to observe That you tell me That in my Book you find a Chapter of self-evident Propositions and Maxims whereas I find no such Chapter in my Book I have in it indeed a Chapter of Maxims but never an one entitled Of self-evident Propositions and Maxims This 't is possible your Lordship will call a nice Criticism but yet it is such an one as is very necessary in the Cafe For in that Chapter I as is before observed expresly distinguish self-evident Propositions from the received Maxims or Axioms which I there speak of Whereas it seems to me to be your Design in joining them in a Title of a Chapter contrary to what I had done to have it thought That I treated of them as one and the same thing and so all that I said there of the Uselessness of some few general Propositions under the Title of received Maxims might be applied to all self-evident Propositions the quite contrary whereof was the Design of that Chapter For that which I endeavour to shew there is That all our Knowledge is not built on those few received general Propositions which are ordinarily called Maxims or Axioms but that there are a great many Truths may be known without them But that there is any Knowledge without self-evident Propositions I am so far from denying that I am accused by your Lordship for requiring in Demonstration more such than you think are necessary This seems I say to be your Design and I wish your Lordship by entitling my Chapter as I my self did and not as it would best serve your turn had not made it necessary for me to make this nice Criticism This is certain That without thus confounding Maxims and self-evident Propositions what you here say would not so much as in Appearance concern me For 3. I crave leave to observe That all the Argument your Lordship uses here against me to prove That my way of Certainty by Ideas is inconsistent with the way of Certainty by Reason which lies in the Certainty of Principles is this That the way of Reason hath been alway supposed to proceed upon general Principles and I assert them to be useless and dangerous Be pleased my Lord to define or enumerate your general Principles and then we shall see whether I assert them to be useless and dangerous and whether they who supposed the way of Reason was to proceed upon general Principles differ'd from me and if they did differ whether theirs was more the way of Reason than mine But to talk thus of General Principles which have always been supposed the way of Reason without telling so much as which or what they are is not so much as by Authority to shew That my way of Certainty by Ideas is inconsistent with the way of Certainty by Reason Much less is it in reality to prove it Because admitting I had said any thing contrary to what as you say has been always supposed its being supposed proves it not to be true because we know that several things have been for many Ages generally supposed which at last upon Examination have been found not to be true What hath been always supposed is fit only for your Lordship 's great Reading to declare But such Arguments I confess are wholly lost upon me who have not Time or Occasion to examine what has always been supposed especially in those Questions which concern Truths that are to be known from the Nature of things Because I think they cannot be established by Majority of Votes not easie to be collected nor if they were collected can convey Certainty till it can be supposed that the greater part of Mankind are always in the right In Matters of Fact I own we must govern our selves by the Testimonies of others but in Matters of Speculation to suppose on as others have supposed before us is supposed by many to be only a way to learned Ignorance which enables to talk much and know but little The Truths which the Penetration and Labours of others before us have discovered and
are taken to Represent distinct particular Things Subsisting by themselves in which the supposed or confused Idea of Substance is always the first and chief This would have been a full Answer to all that I think you have under that variety of Heads Objected against my Idea of Substance But your Lordship in your Representation of my Idea of Substance thought fit to leave this Passage out though you are pleased to set down several others produced both before and after it in my first Letter which I think gives me a Right humbly to return your Lordship your own Words And now I freely leave the Reader to judge whether this which your Lordship has given be a tolerable Account of my Idea of Substance The next Point to be considered is concerning the Immateriality of the Soul whereof there is a great deal said The Original of this Controversie I shall set down in your Lordship 's own Words You say The only Reason you had to engage in this Matter was this bold Assertion That the Ideas we have by Sensation or Reflection are the sole Matter and Foundation of all our Reasoning and that our Certainty lies in perceiving the Agreement and Disagreement of Ideas as expressed in any Proposition which last you say are my own words To overthrow this bold Assertion you urge my acknowledgment That upon my Principles it cannot be demonstratively proved that the Soul is Immaterial tho' it be in the highest degree probable And then ask Is not this the giving up the cause of Certainty Answer Just as much the giving up the cause of Certainty on my side as it is on your Lordship's Who tho' you will not please to tell wherein you place Certainty yet it is to be supposed you do place Certainty in something or other Now let it be what you will that you place Certainty in I take the liberty to say that you cannot certainly prove i. e. demonstrate that the Soul of Man is Immaterial I am sure you have not so much as offered at any such proof and therefore you give up the cause of Certainty upon your Principles Because if the not being able to demonstrate that the Soul is Immaterial upon his Principles who declares wherein he thinks Certainty consists be the giving up the cause of Certainty the not being able to demonstrate the Immateriality of the Soul upon his Principles who does not tell wherein Certainty consists is no less a giving up of the cause of Certainty The only odds between these two is more Art and Reserve in the one than the other And therefore my Lord you must either upon your Principles of Certainty demonstrate that the Soul is Immaterial or you must allow me to say that you too give up the cause of Certainty and your Principles tend to Scepticism as much as mine Which of these two your Lordship shall please to do will to me be advantagious for by the one I shall get a Demonstration of the Souls Immateriality of which I shall be very glad and that upon Principles which reaching farther than mine I shall imbrace as better than mine and become your Lordship's professed Convert Till then I shall rest satisfied that my Principles be they as weak and fallible as your Lordship please are no more guilty of any such tendency than theirs who talking more of certainty cannot attain to it in cases where they condemn the way of Ideas for coming short of it You a little lower in the same Page set down these as my Words That I never offered it as a way of Certainty where we cannot reach Certainty I have already told you that I have been sometimes in doubt what Copy you had got of my Essay Because I often found your Quotations out of it did not agree with what I read in mine But by this Instance here and some others I know not what to think since in my Letter which I did my self the Honour to send your Lordship I am sure the Words are not as they are here set down For I say not that I offered the way of Certainty there spoken of which looks as if it were a new way of Certainty that I pretended to teach the World Perhaps the difference in these from my Words is not so great that upon an other occasion I should take notice of it But it being to lead People into an Opinion that I spoke of the way of Certainty by Ideas as something new which I pretended to teach the World I think it worth while to set down my Words themselves which I think are so Penn'd as to shew a great Cantion in me to avoid such an opinion My Words are I think it is a way to bring us to a Certainty in those things which I have offered as Certain but I never thought it a way to Certainty where we cannot reach Certainty What use your Lordship makes of the term offered applied to what I applied it not is to be seen in your next Words which you subjoin to those which you set down for mine But did you not offer to put us into a way of Certainty And what is that but to attain Certainty in such things where we could not otherwise do it Answ. If this your way of reasoning here carries Certainty in it I humbly conceive in your way of Certainty by Reason Certainty may be attained where it could not otherwise be had I only beg you my Lord to shew me the place where I so offer to put you in a way of Certainty different from what had formerly been the way of Certainty that Men by it might attain to Certainty in things which they could not before my Book was writ No Body who reads my Essay with that indifferency which is proper to a Lover of Truth can avoid seeing that what I say of Certainty was not to teach the Wrold a new way of Certainty though that be one great Objection of yours against my Book but to endeavour to shew wherein the old and only way of Certainty consists what was the occasion and design of my Book may be seen plainly enough in the Epistle to the Reader without any need that any thing more should be said of it And I am too sensible of my own Weakness not to profess as I do That I pretend not to teach but to enquire I cannot but wonder what service you my Lord who are a Teacher of Authority mean to Truth or Certainty by condemning the way of Certainty by Ideas Because I own by it I cannot demonstrate that the Soul is Immaterial May it not be worth your considering what advantage this will be to Scepticism when upon the same grounds you Words here shall be turned upon you and it shall be asked What a strange way of Certainty is this your Lordship's way by Reason if it fails us in some of the first Foundations of the real Knowledge of our selves To avoid
Particle of it having some bulk has its Parts connected by ways inconceiveable to us So that all the Difficulties that are raised against the Thinking of Matter from our Ignorance or narrow Conceptions stand not at all in the way of the Power of God if he pleases to ordain it so nor proves any thing against his having actually endued some parcels of Matter so disposed as he thinks fit with a Faculty of Thinking till it can be shewn that it contains a Contradiction to suppose it Though to me Sensation be comprehended under Thinking in general yet in the foregoing Discourse I have spoke of Sense in Brutes as distinct from Thinking Because your Lordship as I remember speaks of Sense in Brutes But here I take liberty to observe That if your Lordship allows Brutes to have Sensation it will follow either that God can and doth give to some parcels of Matter a Power of Perception and Thinking or that all Animals have immaterial and consequently according to your Lordship immortal Souls as well as Men and to say that Fleas and Mites c. have immortal Souls as well as Men will possibly be looked on as going a great way to serve an Hypothesis and as it would not very well agree with what your Lordship says 2 Answ. p. 64. to the Words of Solomon quoted out of Eccles. C. 3. I have been pretty large in making this Matter plain that they who are so forward to bestow hard Censures or Names on the Opinions of those who differ from them may consider whether sometimes they are not more due to their own And that they may be perswaded a little to temper that Heat which supposing the Truth in their current Opinions gives them as they think a Right to lay what Imputations they please on those who would fairly examin the Grounds they stand upon For talking with a Supposition and Insinuations that Truth and Knowledge nay and Religion too stands and falls with their Systems is at best but an imperious way of begging the Question and assuming to themselves under the pretence of Zeal for the Cause of God a Title to Infallibility It is very becoming that Mens Zeal for Truth should go as far as their Proofs but not go for Proofs themselves He that attacks received Opinions with any thing but fair Arguments may I own be justly suspected not to mean well nor to be led by the Love of Truth but the same may be said of him too who so defends them An Error is not the better for being common nor Truth the worse for having lain neglected And if it were put to the Vote any where in the World I doubt as things are managed whether Truth would have the Majority at least whilst the Authority of Men and not the examination of Things must be its Measure The imputation of Scepticism and those broad Insinuations to render what I have writ suspected so frequent as if that were the great Business of all this Pains you have been at about me has made me say thus much my Lord rather as my Sense of the way to establish Truth in its full Force and Beauty than that I think the World will need to have any thing said to it to make it distinguish between your Lordship's and my Design in Writing which therefore I securely leave to the Judgment of the Reader and return to the Argument in Hand What I have above said I take to be a full Answer to all that your Lordship would infer from my Idea of Matter of Liberty and of Identity and from the power of Abstracting You ask How can my Idea of Liberty agree with the Idea that Bodies can operate only by Motion and Impulse Answ. By the omnipotency of God who can make all things agree that involve not a Contradiction 'T is true I say That Bodies operate by impulse and nothing else And so I thought when I writ it and yet can conceive no other way of their operation But I am since convinced by the Judicious Mr. Newton's incomparable Book that 't is too bold a Presumption to limit God's Power in this Point by my narrow Conceptions The gravitation of Matter towards Matter by ways unconceivable to me is not only a Demonstration that God can if he pleases put into Bodies Powers and ways of Operation above what can be derived from our Idea of Body or can be explained by what we know of Matter but also an unquestionable and every where visible Instance that he has done so And therefore in the next Edition of my Book I shall take care to have that Passage rectified As to Self-consciousness your Lordship asks What is there like Self-consciousness in Matter Nothing at all in Matter as Matter But that God cannot bestow on some parcels of Matter a Power of Thinking and with it Self-consciousness will never be proved by asking How is it possible to apprehend that meer Body should perceive that it doth perceive The weakness of our Apprehension I grant in the Case I confess as much as you please that we cannot conceive how a solid no nor how an unsolid created Substance thinks but this weakness of our Apprehensions reaches not the Power of God whose weakness is stronger than any thing in Men. Your Argument from Abstraction we have in this Question If it may be in the power of Matter to think how comes it to be so impossible for such organized Bodies as the Brutes have to enlarge their Ideas by Abstraction Answ. This seems to suppose that I place Thinking within the natural Power of Matter If that be your Meaning my Lord I neither say nor suppose that all Matter has naturally in it a Faculty of Thinking but the direct contrary But if you mean that certain parcels of Matter ordered by the Divine Power as seems fit to him may be made capable of receiving from his Omnipotency the Faculty of Thinking that indeed I say and that being granted the Answer to your Question is easie since if Omnipotency can give Thought to any solid Substance it is not hard to conceive that God may give that Faculty in an higher or lower Degree as it pleases him who knows what Disposition of the Subject is suited to such a particular way or degree of Thinking Another Argument to prove That God cannot endue any parcel of Matter with the Faculty of Thinking is taken from those Words of mine where I shew by what connection of Ideas we may come to know That God is an Immaterial Substance They are these The Idea of an eternal actual knowing Being with the Idea of Immateriality by the intervention of the Idea of Matter and of its actual Division divisibility and want of Perception c. From whence your Lordship thus argues Here the want of Perception is owned to be so essential to Matter that God is therefore concluded to be Immaterial Ans. Perception and Knowledge in that one Eternal Being
where it has its Sourse 't is visible must be essentially inseparable from it therefore the actual want of Perception in so great part of the particular parcels of Matter is a Demonstration that the first Being from whom Perception and Knowledge is inseparable is not Matter How far this makes the want of Perception an essential property of Matter I will not dispute it suffices that it shews That Perception is not an essential Property of Matter and therefore Matter cannot be that eternal original Being to which Perception and Knowledge is Essential Matter I say naturally is without Perception Ergo says your Lordship want of Perception is an essential Property of Matter and God doth not change the essential Properties of things their Nature remaining From whence you infer That God cannot bestow on any parcel of Matter the nature of Matter remaining a Faculty of Thinking If the Rules of Logick since my days be not changed I may safely deny this Consequence For an Argument that runs thus God does not Ergo he cannot I was taught when I came first to the University would not hold For I never said God did But That I see no Contradiction in it that he should if he pleased give to some systems of sensless Matter a Faculty of Thinking and I know no Body before Des Cartes that ever pretended to shew that there was any Contradiction in it So that at worst my not being able to see in Matter any such Incapacity as makes it impossible for Omnipotency to bestow on it a Faculty of Thinking makes me opposite only to the Cartesians For as far as I have seen or heard the Fathers of the Christian Church never pretended to domonstrate that Matter was incapable to receive a Power of Sensation Perception and Thinking from the Hand of the omnipotent Creator Let us therefore if you please suppose the form of your Argumentation right and that your Lordship means God cannot And then if your Argument be good it proves That God could not give to Baalam's Ass a Power to speak to his Master as he did for the want of rational Discourse being natural to that Species 't is but for your Lordship to call it an Essential Property and then God cannot change the Essential Properties of things their Nature remaining Whereby it is proved That God cannot with all his Omnipotency give to an Ass a Power to speak as Balaam's did You say my Lord you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency For he may if he please change a Body into an Immaterial Substance i. e. take away from a Substance the Solidity which it had before and which made it Matter and then give it a Faculty of thinking which it had not before and which makes it a Spirit the same Substance remaining For if the same Substance remains not Body is not changed into an Immaterial Substance But the solid Substance and all belonging to it is Annihilated and an Immaterial Substance Created which is not change of one thing into another but the destroying of one and making another de novo In this change therefore of a Body or Material Substance into an immaterial let us observe those distinct Considerations First you say God may if He Pleases take away from a Solid Substance Solidity which is that which makes it a Material Substance or Body and may make it an Immaterial Substance i. e. a Substance without Solidity But this privation of one Quality gives it not another the bare taking away a lower or less Noble Quality does not give it an Higher or Nobler that must be the gift of God For the bare Privation of one and a meaner Quality cannot be the Position of an Higher and better unless any one will say that Cogitation or the Power of thinking results from the Nature of Substance it self which if it do then where ever there is Substance there must be Cogitation or a Power of thinking Here then upon your Lordship 's own Principles is an Immaterial Subâ—ance without the Faculty of thinking In the next place you will not deny but God may give to this Substance thus deprived of Solidity a Faculty of thinking for you suppose it made capable of that by being made Immaterial whereby you allow that the same numerical Substance may be sometimes wholly Incogitative or without a Power of thinking and at other times perfectly Cogitative or indued with a Power of thinking Further you will not deny but God can give it Solidity and make it Material again For I conclude it will not be denied that God can make it again what it was before Now I crave leave to ask your Lordship why God having given to this Substance the Faculty of thinking after Solidity was taken from it cannot restore to it Solidity again without taking away the Faculty of thinking When you have Resolved this my Lord you will have proved it impossible for God's Omnipotence to give to a Solid Substance a Faculty of thinking but till then not having proved it impossible and yet denying that God can do it is to deny that he can do what is in it self Possible which as I humbly conceive is visibly to set Bound's to God's Omnipotency tho' you say here you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency If I should imitate your Lordship's way of Writing I should not omit to bring in Epicurus here and take notice that this was his way Deum verbis ponere re tollere And then add that I am certain you do not think he promoted the great ends of Religion and Morality For 't is with such Candid and Kind insinuations as these that you bring in both Hobbes and Spinosa into your Discourse here about God's being able if he please to give to some parcels of Matter ordered as he thinks fit a Faculty of thinking Neither of those Authors having as appears by any Passages you bring out of them said any thing to this Question nor having as it seems any other business here but by their Names skilfully to give that Character to my Book with which you would recommend it to the World I pretend not to enquire what measure of Zeal nor for what guides your Lordships Pen in such a way of Writing as yours has all along been with me Only I cannot but consider what Reputation it would give to the Writings of the Fathers of the Church if they should think Truth required or Religion allowed them to imitate such Patterns But God be thanked there be those amongst them who do not admire such ways of managing the Cause of Truth or Religion They being sensible that if every one who believes or can pretend he has Truth on his side is thereby Authorized without proof to insinuate what ever may serve to prejudice Mens minds against the other side there will be great ravage made on Charity and Practice without any gain to Truth or Knowledge And that the Liberties frequently taken by Disputants
made out I own we are infinitely indebted to them for and some of them are of that Consequence that we cannot acknowledge too much the advantages we receive from those great Masters in Knowledge But where they only supposed they left it to us to search and advance farther And in those things I think it becomes our Industry to employ it self for the Improvement of the Knowledge and adding to the Stock of Discoveries left us by our inquisitive and thinking Predecessors 4. One thing more I crave leave to observe viz. That to these Words These Maxims as they are of little use where we have clear and distinct Ideas so they are of dangerous Use where our Ideas are not clear and distinct quoted out of my Essay you subjoin And is not this a fair way to convince your Lordship that my way of Ideas is very consistent with the Certainty of Reason Answer My Lord my Essay and those Words in it were writ many Years before I dreamt that you or any body else would ever question the consistency of my way of Certainty by Ideas with the way of Certainty by Reason and so could not be intended to convince your Lordship in this Point And since you first said That these two ways are inconsistent I never brought those Words to convince you That my way is consistent with the Certainty of Reasons And therefore why you ask whether that be a fair way to convince you which was never made use of as any way to convince you of any such thing is hard to imagin But your Lordship goes on in the following Words with the like kind of Argument where you tell me that I say That my first design is to prove That the consideration of those general Maxims adds nothing to the Evidence or Certainty of Knowledge which says your Lordship Overthrows all that which hath been accounted Science and Demonstration and must lay the Foundation of Scepticism because our true Grounds of Certainty depend upon some general Principle of Reason To make this plain you say you will put a Case grounded upon my Words which are That I have discoursed with very rational Men who have actually deny'd that they are Men. These Words J. S. understands as spoken of themselves and charges them with very ill Consequences but you think they are capable of an other meaning However says your Lordship let us put the Case That Men did in earnest question whether they were Men or not and then you do not see if I set aside general Maxims how I can convince them that they are Men. For the way your Lordship looks on as most apt to prevail upon such extraordinary Sceptical Men is by general Maxims and Principles of Reason Answer I can neither in that Paragraph nor Chapter find that I say That my first design is to prove that these general Maxims i. e. those which your Lordship calls general Principles of Reason add nothing to the Evidence and Certainty of Knowledge in general For so these Words must be understood to make good the Consequence which your Lordship charges on them viz. That they overthrow all that has been accounted Science and Demonstration and lay the Foundations of Scepticism What my design in that place is is evident from these Words in the foregoing Paragraph Let us consider whether this Self-evidence be peculiar only to those Propositions which are received for Maxims and have the Dignity of Axioms allowed and here 't is plain that several other Truths not allowed to be Axioms partake equally with them in this Self-evidence which shews that my design there was to evince that there were Truths that are not called Maxims that are as Self-evident as those received Maxims Pursuant to this design I say That the consideration of these Axioms i. e. whatsoever is is and it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be can add nothing to the Evidence and Certainty of its i. e. the Minds Knowledge i. e. of the Truth of more particular Propositions concerning Identity These are my Words in that place and that the Sense of them is according to the Limitation annexed to them between those Crotchets I refer my Reader to that fourth Section where he will find that all that I say amounts to no more but what is expressed in these Words in the close of it I appeal to every 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 And now I ask your Lordship whether you do affirm of this That it overthrows all that which hath been counted Science and Demonstration and must lay the Foundation of Scepticism If you do I shall desire you to prove it if you do not I must desire you to consider how fairly my Sense has been represented But supposing you had represented my Sense right and that the little or dangerous use which I there limit to certain Maxims had been meant of all Principles of Reason in general in your Sense what had this been my Lord to the Question under debate Your Lordship undertakes to shew That your way of Certainty by Reason is different from my way of Certainty by Ideas To do this you say in the preceding Page That Certainty by Reason lies 1. In Certainty of Principles 2. In Certainty of Deductions The first of these you are upon here and if in order to what you had undertaken your Lordship had shewn That in your way by Reason those Principles were certain but in my way by Ideas we could not attain to any Certainty concerning them This indeed had been to shew a difference between my way of Certainty which you call the way by Ideas and yours which you call the way by Reason in this part of Certainty that lies in the Certainty of Principles I have said in the Words quoted by your Lordship That the consideration of those two Maxims What is is and it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be are not of use to add any thing to the Evidence or Certainty of our Knowledge of the Truth of Identical Predications but I never said those Maxims were in the least uncertain I may perhaps think otherwise of their use than your Lordship does but I think no otherwise of their Truth and Certainty than you do they are left in their full Force and Certainty for your use if you can make any better use of them than what I think can be made So that in respect of the allowed Certainty of those Principles my way differs not at all from your