it self not to all the Relations of all our Ideas 4. Fourthly Nor demonstrative Knowledge 5. Fifthly Sensitive Knowledge narrower than either 6. Sixthly Our Knowledge therefore narrower than our Ideas 7. How far our Knowledge reaches 8. First Our Knowledge of Identity and Diversity as far as our Ideas 9. Secondly Of Co-existence a very little way 10. Because the connexion between most simple Ideas is unknown 11. Especially of Secondary Qualities 12 14. And farther because all connexion between any secondary aâ—d primary Qualities is undiscoverable 15. Of Repugnancy to co-exist larger 16. Of the Co-existence of Powers a very little way 17. Of the Spirits yet narrower 18. Thirdly Of other Relations it is not easie to say how far Morality capable of Demonstration 19. Two Things have made moral Ideas thought uncapable of Demonstration Their Complexedness and want of sensible Representations 20. Remedies of those Difficulties 21. Fourthly of real Existence we have an intuitive Knowledge of our own demonstrative of God's sensible of some few other Things 22. Our Ignorance great 23. First One Cause of it want of Ideas either such as we have no Conception of or such as particularly we have not 24. Because of their Remoteness or 25. Because of their Minuteness 26. Hence no Science of Bodies 27. Much less of Spirits 28. Secondly Want of a discoverable connexion between Ideas we have 29. Instances 30. Thirdly Want of tracing our Ideas 31. Extent in respect of Vniversality CHAP. IV. Of the Reality of our Knowledge SECT 1. Objection Knowledge placed in Ideas may be all bare Vision 2 3. Answer Not so where Ideas agree with Things 4. As First All simple Ideas do 5. Secondly All complex Ideas except of Substances 6. Hence the Reality of mathematical Knowledge 7. And of moral 8. Existence not required to make it real 9. Nor will it be less true or certain because moral Ideas are of our own making and naming 10. Mis-naming disturbs not the Certainty of the Knowledge 11. Ideas of Substances have their Archetypes without us 12. So far as they agree with those so far our Knowledge concerning them is real 13. In our Enquiries about Substances we must consider Ideas and not consine our Thoughts to Names or Species supposed set out by Names 14 17. Objection against a Changeling being something between Man and Beast answered 18. Recapitulation CHAP. V. Of Truth in General SECT 1. What Truth is 2. A right joining or separating of Signs i. e. Ideas or Words 3. Which make mental or verbal Propositions 4. Mental Propositions are very hard to be treated of 5 Being nothing but the joining or separating Ideas without Words 6. When mental Propositions contain real Truth and when verbal 7. Objection against verbal Truth that it may be thus alchimerical 8. Answered real Truth is about Ideas agreeing to Things 9. Falshood is the joining of Names otherwise than their Ideas agree 10. General Propositions to be treated of more at large 11. Moral and metaphysical Truth CHAP. VI. Of Universal Propositions their Truth and Certainty SECT 1. Treating of Words necessary to Knowledge 2. General Truths hardly to be understood but in verbal Propositions 3. Certainty two-fold of Truth and of Knowledge 4. No Proposition can be known to be true where the Essence of each Species mentioned is not known 5. This more particularly concerns Substances 6. The Truth of few universal Propositions concerning Substances is to be known 7. Because Co-existence of Ideas in few Cases to be known 8 9. Instance in Gold 10. As far as any such Co-existence can be known so far universal Propositions may be certain But this will go but a little way because 11 12. The Qualities which make our complex Ideas of Substances depend mostly on external remote and unperceived Causes 13. Iudgment may reach farther but that is not Knowledge 14. What is requisite for our Knowledge of Substances 15. Whilst our Ideas of Substances contain not their real Constitutions we can make but few general certain Propositions concerning them 16. Wherein lies the general Certainty of Propositions CHAP. VII Of Maxims SECT 1. They are self-evident 2. Wherein that Self-evidence consists 3. Self-evidence not peculiar to received Axioms 4. First As to Identity and Diversity all Propositions are equally self-evident 5. Secondly In Co-existence we have few self-evident Propositions 6. Thirdly In other Relations we may have 7. Fourthly Concerning real Existence we have none 8. These Axioms do not much influence our other Knowledge 9 10. Because they are not the Truths the first known 11. What use these general Maxims have 12. Maxims if care be not taken in the use of Words may prove contradictioâ—s 13. Instance in Vacuum 14. They prove not the Existence of Things without us 15. Their Application dangerous about complex Ideas 16 18. Instance in Man 19. Little use of these Maxims in Proofs where we have clear and distinct Ideas 20. Their use dangerous where our Ideas are confused CHAP. VIII Of Trifling Propositions SECT 1. Some Propositions bring no increase to our Knowledge 2 3. As First Identical Propositions 4. Secondly When a part of any complex Idea is predicated of the whole 5. As part of the definition of the defined 6. Instance Man and Palfry 7. For this teaches but the signification of Words 8. But no real Knowledge 9. General Propositions concerning Substances are often trifling 10. And why 11. Thirdly Vsing Words variously is trifling with them 12. Marks of verbal Propositions First Predication in abstract 13. Secondly A part of the Definition predicated of any term CHAP. IX Of our Knowledge of Existence SECT 1. General certain Propositions concern not Existence 2. A threefold Knowledge of Existence 3. Our Knowledge of our own Existence is intuitive CHAP. X. Of the Existence of a GOD. SECT 1. We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a GOD. 2. Man knows that he himself is 3. He knows also that Nothing cannot produce a Being therefore something eternal 4. That eternal Being must be most powerful 5. And most knowing 6. And therefore GOD. 7. Our Idea of a most perfect Being not the sole proof of a GOD. 8. Something from Eternity 9. Two sorts of Beings Cogitative and Incogitative 10. Incogitative Being cannot produce a Cogitative 11 12. Therefore there has been an eternal Wisdom 13. Whether material or no. 14. Not material First Because every particle of Matter is not cogitative 15. Secondly One particle alone of Matter cannot be cogitative 16. Thirdly A System of incogitative Matter cannot be cogitative 17. Whether in motion or at rest 18 19. Matter not co-eternal with an eternal Mind CHAP. XI Of the Knowledge of the Existence of other Things SECT 1. Is to be had only by Sensation 2. Instance whiteness of this Paper 3. This though not so certain as demonstration yet may be called Knowledge and proves the existence of things without us 4. First Because we cannot have them but by the inlet of
precise Essences according to which Nature makes all particular Things and by which they are distinguished into Species That every thing has a real Constitution whereby it is what it is and on which its sensible Qualities depend is past doubt But I think it has been proved that this makes not the distinction of Species as we rank them nor the boundaries of their names Secondly This tacitly also insinuates as if we had Ideas of these proposed Essences For to what purpose else is it to enquire whether this or that thing have the real Essence of the Species Man if we did not suppose that there were such a specifick Essence known Which yet is utterly false And therefore such Application of names as would make them stand for Ideas we have not must needs cause great disorder in Discourses and Reasonings about them and be a great inconvenience in our Communication by Words § 22. Sixthly There remains yet another more general though perhaps less observed Abuse of Words and that is that Men having by a long and familiar use annexed to them certain Ideas they are apt to imagine so near and necessary a connexion between the names and the signification they use in them that they forwardly suppose one cannot but understand what their meaning is and therefore one ought to acquiesce in the Words delivered as if it were past doubt that in the use of those common received sounds the Speaker and Hearer had necessarily the same precise Ideas Whence presuming that when they have in Discourse used any Term they have thereby as it were set before others the very thing they talk of And so likewise taking the Words of others as naturally standing for just what they themselves have been accustomed to apply them to they never trouble themselves to explain their own or understand clearly others meaning From whence commonly proceeds Noise and Wrangling without Improvement or Information whilst Men take Words to be the constant regular marks of agreed Notions which in truth are no more but the voluntary and unsteady signs of their own Ideas And yet Men think it strange if in Discourse or where it is often absolutely necessary in Dispute one sometimes asks the meaning of their Terms Though the Arguings one may every day observe in Conversation make it evident that there are few names of complex Ideas which any two Men use for the same just precise Collection 'T is hard to name a Word which will not be a clear instance of this Life is a Term none more familiar Any one almost would take it for an Affront to be asked what he meant by it And yet if it comes in Question whether a Plant that lies ready formed in the Seed have Life whether the Embrio in an Egg before Incubation or a Man in a Swound without Sense or Motion be alive or no it is easie to perceive that a câ—ear distinct settled Idea does not always accompany the Use of so known a Word as that of Life is Some gross and confused Conceptions Men indeed ordinarily have to which they apply the common Words of their Language and that serves them well enough in their ordinary Discourses and Affairs but this is not sufficient for philosophical Enquiries Knowledge and Reasoning require precise determinate Ideas And though Men will not not be so importunately dull as not to understand what others say without demanding an explication of their Terms nor so troublesomely critical as to correct others in the use of the Words they receive from them yet where Truth and Knowledge are concerned in the Case I know not what Fault it can be to desire the explication of Words whose Sense seems dubious Or why a Man should be ashamed to own his Ignorance in what Sense another Man uses his Words since he has no other way of certainly knowing it but by being informed This Abuse of taking Words upon Trust has no where spread so far nor with so ill Effects as amongst Men of Letters The multiplication and obstinacy of Disputes which has so laid waste the intellectual World is owing to nothing more than to this ill use of Words For though it be generally believed that there is great diversity of Opinions in the Volumes and Variety of Controversies the World is distracted with yet the most I can find that the contending learned Men of different Parties do in their Arguings one with another is that they speak different Languages For I am apt to imagine that when any of them quitting Terms think upon Things and know what they think they think all the same Though perhaps what they would have be different § 23. To conclude this Consideration of the Imperfection and Abuse oâ— Language the ends of Language in our Discourse with others being chiefly these three First To make known one Man's Thoughts or Ideas to another Secondly To do it with as much ease and quickness as is possible and Thirdly Thereby to convey the Knowledge of Things Language is either abused or deficient when it fails in any of these Three First Words fail in the first of these Ends and lay not open one Man's Ideas to anothers view First When Men have names in their Mouths without any clear and distinct Ideas in their Minds whereof they are the signsâ— or Secondly When they apply the common received names of any Language to Ideas to which the common use of that Language does not apply them or Thirdly When they apply them very unsteadily making them stand now for one and by and by for another Idea § 24. Secondly Men fail of conveying their Thoughts with all the quickness and ease that may be when they have complex Ideas without having distinct names for them This is sometimes the Fault of the Language it self which has not in it a Sound yet apply'd to such a Signification And sometimes the Fault of the Man who has not yet learn'd the name for the Idea he would shew another § 25. Thirdly There is no Knowledge of Things conveyed by Men's Words when their Ideas agree not to the Reality of Things Though it be a Defect that has its Original in our Ideas which are not so conformable to the Nature of Things as Attention Study and Application might make them Yet it fails not to extend it self to our Words too when we use them as Signs of real Beings which yet never had any Reality or Existence § 26. First He that hath Words of any Language without distinct Ideas in his Mind to which he applies them does so far as he uses them in Discourse only make a noise without any Sense or Signification and how learned soever he may seem by the use of hard Words or learned Terms is not much more advanced thereby in Knowledge than he would be in Learning who had nothing in his Study but the bare Titles of Books without possessing the Contents of them For all such Words however put into Discourse according to the
right Construction of Grammatical Rules or the Harmony of well turned Periods do yet amount to nothing but bare Sounds and nothing else § 27. Secondly He that has complex Ideas without particular names for them would be in no better a Case than a Book-seller who had in his Ware-house Volumes that lay there unbound and without Titles which he could therefore make known to others only by shewing the loose sheets and communicate them only by Tale. This Man is hindred in his Discourse for want of Words to communicate his complex Ideas which he is therefore forced to make known by an enumeration of the simple ones that compose them and so is sain often to use twenty Words to express what another Man signifies in one § 28. Thirdly He that uses not constantly the same Sign for the same Idea but uses the same Words sometimes in one and sometimes in another Signification ought to pass in the Schools and Conversation for as fair a Man as he does in the Market and Exchange who sells several Things under the same name § 29. Fourthly He that applies the Words of any Language to Ideas different from those to which the common use of that Country applies them however his own Understanding may be filled with Truth and Light will not by such Words be able to convey one jot of it to others without defining For however the Sounds are such as are familiarly known and easily enter the Ears of those who are accustomed to them yet standing for other Ideas than they usually make them the signs of they cannot make known his Thoughts who uses them § 30. Fifthly He that hath Ideas of Substances which never existed nor have any correspondence with the real Nature of Things to which he gives setled and defined Names may fill his Discourse and perhaps another Man's Head with the fantastical Imaginations of his own Brain but will be very far from advancing thereby one jot in real and true Knowledge § 31. He that hath Names without Ideas wants meaning in his Words and speaks only empty Sounds He that hath complex Ideas without Names for them wants Liberty and Dispatch in his Expressions and is necessitated to use Periphrases He that uses his Words loosly and unsteadily will either be not minded or not understood He that applies his Names to Ideas different from their common use wants Propriety in his Language and speaks Gibberish And he that hath Ideas of Substances disagreeing with the real Existence of Things so far wants the Materials of true Knowledge in his Understanding and hath instead thereof Chimaeras § 32. In our Notions concerning Substances we are liable to all the former Inconveniencies v. g. 1. He that uses the word Tarantula without having any Imagination or Idea of what it stands for pronounces a good Word but so long means nothing at all by it 2. He that in a new-discovered Country shall see several sorts of Animals and Vegetables unknown to him before may have as true Ideas of them as of a Horse or a Stag but can speak of them only by a description till he shall either take the Name the Natives call them by or give them one himself 3. He that uses the word Body sometimes for pure Extension and sometimes for Extension and Solidity together will talk very â—allaciously 4. He that gives the name Horse to that Idea which common usage calls Mule talks improperly and will not be understood 5. He that thinks the name Centaur stands for some real Being imposes on himself and mistakes Words for Things § 33. In Modes and Relations generally we are liable only to the four first of these Inconveniencies viz. 1. I may have in my Memory the Names of Modes as Gratitude or Charity and yet not have any precise Ideas annexed in my Thoughts to those Names 2. I may have Ideas and not know the Names that belong to them v. g. I may have the Idea of a Man's drinking till his Colour and Humour be altered till his Tongue trips and his Eyes look red and his Feet fail him and yet not know that it is to be called Drunkenness 3. I may have the Ideas of Vertues or Vices and Names also but apply them amiss v. g. When I apply the name Frugality to that Idea which others call and signifie by this sound Covetousness 4. I may use any of those names with inconstancy 5. But in Modes and Relations I cannot have Ideas disagreeing to the Existence of Things for Modes being complex Ideas made by the Mind at pleasure and Relation being but my way of considering or comparing two Things together and so also an Idea oâ— my own making these Ideas can scarce be sound to disagree with any Thing existing since they are not in the Mind as the Copies of Things regularly made by Nature nor as Properties inseparably slowing from the internal Constitution or Essence of any Substance but as it were Patterns lodg'd in my Memory with Names annexed to them to denominate Actions and Relations by as they come to exist But the mistake is commonly in my giving a wrong name to my Conceptions and so using Words in a different sense from other People I am not understood but am thought to have wrong Ideas of them when I give wrong Names to them Only if I put in my Ideas of mixed Modes or Relations any inconsistent Ideas together I fill my Head also with Chimaeras since such Ideas if well examined cannot so much as exist in the Mind much less any real Being be ever denominated from them § 34. Since Wit and Fancy finds easier entertainment in the World than dry Truth and real Knowledge figurative Speeches and allusion in Language will hardly be admitted as an imperfection or abuse of it I confess in Discourses where we seek rather Pleasure and Delight than Information and Improvement such Ornaments as are borrowed from them can scarce pass for Faults But yet if we would speak of Things as they are we must allow that all the Art of Rhetorick besides Order and Clearness all the artificial and figurative application of Words Eloquence hath invented are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong Ideas move the Passions and thereby mislead the Judgment and so indeed are perfect cheat And therefore however laudable or allowable Oratory may render them in Harangues and popular Addresses they are certainly in all Discourses that pretend to inform and instruct wholly to be avoided and where Truth and Knowledge are concerned cannot but be thought a great fault either of the Language or Person that makes use of them What and how various they are I shall not trouble my self to take notice the Books of Rhetorick which abound in the World will inform those who want to be informed Only I cannot but observe how little the preservation and improvement of Truth and Knowledge is the Care and Concern of Mankind since the Arts of Fallacy are endow'd and preferred and 't
in our Minds the Ideas themselves without reflecting on the Names But when we would consider or make Propositions about the more complex Ideas as of a Man Vitriol Fortitude Glory we usually put the Name for the Idea because the Ideas these Names stand for being for the most part imperfect confused and undetermined we reflect on the Names themselves because they are more clear certain and distinct and readier occurr to our Thoughts than the pure Ideas and so we make use of these Words instead of the Ideas themselves even when we would meditate and reason within our selves and make tacit mental Propositions In Substances as has been already noted this is occasioned by the imperfection of our Ideas we making the Name stand for the real Essence of which we have no Idea at all In Modes it is occasioned by the great number of simple Ideas that go to the making them up For many of them being very much compounded the Name occurrs much easier than the complex Idea it self which requires time and attention to be recollected and exactly represented to the Mind even in those Men who have formerly been at the pains to do it and is utterly impossible to be done by those who though they have ready in their Memory the greatest part of the common Words of their Language yet perhaps never troubled themselves in all their Lives to consider what precise Ideas the most of them stood for Some confused or obscure Notions have served their turns and many who talk very much of Religion and Conscience of Church and Faith of Power and Right of Obstructions and Humours Melancholy and Choler would perhaps have little left in their Thoughts and Meditations if one should desire them to think only of the Things themselves and lay by those Words with which they so often confound others and not seldom themselves also § 5. But to return to the consideration of Truth We must I say observe two sorts of Propositions that we are capable of making First Mental wherein the Ideas in our Understandings are without the use of Words put together or separated by the Mind perceiving or judging of their Agreement or Disagreement Secondly Verbal Propositions which are Words the signs of our Ideas put together or separated in affirmative or negative Sentences By which way of affirming or denying these Signs made by Sounds are as it were put together or separated one from another So that Proposition consists in joining or separating Signs and Truth consists in the putting together or separating these Signs according as the Things they stand for agree or disagree § 6. Every one's Experience will satisfie him that the Mind either by perceiving or supposing the Agreement or Disagreement of any of its Ideas does tacitly within it self put them into a kind of Proposition affirmative or negative which I have endeavoured to express by the terms Putting together and Separating But this Action of the Mind which is so familiar to every thinking and reasoning Man is easier to be conceived by reflecting on what passes in us when we reason judge or suppose than to be explained by Words When a Man has in his Mind the Idea of two Lines viz. the Side and Diagonal of a Square whereof the Diagonal is an Inch long he may have the Idea also of the division of that Line into a certain number of equal parts v. g. into Five Ten an Hundred a Thousand or any other Number and may have the Idea of that Inch-Line being divisible or not divisible into such equal parts as a certain number of them will be equal to the Side-line Now whenever he perceives believes or supposes such a kind of Divisibility to agree or disagree to his Idea of that Line he as it were joins or separates those two Ideas viz. the Idea of that Line and the Idea of that kind of Divisibility and so makes a mental Proposition which is true or false according as such a kind of Divisibility a Divisibility into such aliquot parts does really agree to that Line or no And when Ideas are so put together or separated in the Mind as they or the Things they stand for do agree or not that is as I may call it mental Truth But Truth of Words is something more and that is the affirming or denying of Words one of another as the Ideas they stand for agree or disagree And this again is is twofold either purely Verbal and trifling which I shall speak of Chap. 10. or Real and instructive which is the Object of that real Knowledge which we have spoken of already § 7. But here again will be apt to occurr the same doubt about Truth that did about Knowledge And it will be objected That if Truth be nothing but the joining or separating of Words in Propositions as the Ideas they stand for agree or disagree in Men's Mind the Knowledge of Truth is not so valuable a Thing as it is taken to be nor worth the Pains and Time Men imploy in the search of it since by this account it amounts to no more than the conformity of Words to the Chimaeras of Men's Brains Who knows not what odd Notions many Men's Heads are fill'd with and what strange Ideas all Men's Brains are capable of But if we rest here we know the Truth of nothing by this Rule but of the visionary World in our own Imaginations nor have other Truth but what as much concerns Harpies and Centaurs as Men and Horses For those and the like may be Ideas in our Heads and have their agreement and disagreement there as well as the Ideas of real Beings and so have as true Propositions made about them And 't will be altogether as true a Proposition to say all Centaurs are Animals as that all Men are Animals and the certainty of one as great as the other For in both the Propositions the Words are put together according to the agreement of the Ideas in our Minds And the agreement of the Idea of Animal with that of Centaur is as clear and visible to the Mind as the agreement of the Idea of Animal with that of Man and so these two Propositions are equally true equally certain But of what use is all such Truth to us § 8. Though what has been said in the fore-going Chapter to distinguish real from imaginary Knowledge might suffice here in answer to this Doubt to distinguish real Truth from chimerical or if you please barely nominal they depending both on the same foundation yet it may not be amiss here again to consider that though our Words signifie nothing but our Ideas yet being designed by them to signifie Things the Truth they contain when put into Propositions will be only Verbal when they stand for Ideas in the Mind that have not an agreement with the reality of Things And therefore Truth as well as Knowledge may well come under the distinction of Verbal and Real that being only verbal Truth
wherein Terms are joined according to the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas they stand for without regarding whether our Ideas are such as really have or are capable of having an Exstence in Nature But then it is they contain real Truth when these signs are joined as our Ideas agree and when our Ideas are such as we know are capable of having an Existence in Nature which in Substances we cannot know but by knowing that such have existed § 9. Truth is the marking down in Words the agreement or disagreement of Ideas as it is Falshood is the marking down in Words the agreement or disagreement of Ideas otherwise than it is And so far as these Ideas thus marked by Sounds agree to their Archetypes so far only is the Truth real The knowledge of this Truth consists in knowing what Ideas the Words stand for and the perception of the agreement or disagreement of those Ideas according as it is marked by these Words § 10. But because Words are looked on as the great Conduits of Truth and Knowledge and that in conveying and receiving of Truth and commonly in reasoning about it we make use of Words and Propositions I shall more at large enquire wherein the certainty of real Truths contained in Propositions consists and where it is to be had and endeavour to shew in what sort of universal Propositions we are capable of being certain of their real Truth or Falshood I shall begin with general Propositions as those which most employ our Thoughts and exercise our Contemplation General Truths are most looked after by the Mind as those that most enlarge our Knowledge and by their comprehensiveness satisfying us at once of many particulars enlarge our view and shorten our way to Knowledge § 11. Besides Truth taken in the strict sense before-mentioned there are other sorts of Truths as 1. Moral Truth which is speaking Things according to the persuasion of our own Minds though the Proposition we speak agree not to the reality of Things 2. Metaphysical Truth which is nothing but the real Existence of Things conformable to the Ideas to which we have annexed their Names This though it seems to consist in the very Beings of Things yet when considered a little nearly will appear to include a tacit Proposition whereby the Mind joins that particular Thing to the Idea it had before setled with a name to it But these Considerations of Truth either having been before taken notice of or not being much to our present purpose it may suffice here only to have mentioned them CHAP. VI. Of Universal Propositions their Truth and Certainty § 1. THough the examining and judging of Ideas by themselves their Names being quite laid aside be the best and surest way to clear and distinct Knowledge yet through the prevailing custom of using Sounds for Ideas I think it is very seldom practised and every one may observe how common it is for Names to be made use of instead of the Ideas themselves even when Men think and reason within their own Breasts especially if the Ideas be very complex and made up of a great Collection of simple ones This makes the consideration of Words and Propositions so necessary a part of the Treatise of Knowledge that 't is very hard to speak intelligibly of the one without explaining the other § 2. All the Knowledge we have being only of particular or general Truths 't is evident that whatever may be done in the former of these the latter which is that which with Reason is most sought after can never be well made known and is very seldom apprehended but as conceived and expressed in Words It is not therefore out of our way in the Examination of our Knowledge to enquire into the Truth and Certainty of universal Propositions § 3. But that we may not be mis-led in this case by that which is the danger every-where I mean by the doubtfulness of Terms 't is fit to observe that Certainty is twofold Certainty of Truth and Certainty of Knowledge Certainty of Truth is when Words are so put together in Propositions as exactly to express agreement or disagreement of the Ideas they stand for as really it is Certainty of Knowledge is to perceive the agreement or disagreement of Ideas as expressed in any Proposition This we usually call knowing or being certain of the Truth of any Proposition § 4. Now because we cannot be certain of the Truth of any general Proposition unless we know the precise bounds and extent of the Species its Terms stand for it is necessary we should know the Essence of each Species which is that which constitutes and bounds it This in all simple Ideas and Modes is not hard to do for in these the real and nominal Essence being the same or which is all one the abstract Idea the general Term stands for being the sole Essence and boundary that is or can be supposed of the Species there can be no doubt how far the Species extends or what Things are comprehended under each Term which 't is evident are all that have an exact conformity with the Idea it stands for and no other But in Substances where a real Essence distinct from the nominal is supposed to constitute determine and bound the Species there the extent of the general Word is very uncertain because not knowing this real Essence we cannot know what is or is not of that Species and consequently what may or may not with certainty be affirmed of it And thus speaking of a Man or Gold or any other Species of natural Substances as supposed made by Nature and partaking of that real Essence which is supposed to constitute that Species we cannot be certain of the truth of any Affirmation or Negation made of it For Man or Gold taken in this sense and used for Species of Things constituted by real Essences different from the complex Idea in the Mind of the Speaker stand for we know not what and the extent of these Species with such Boundaries are so unknown and undetermined that it is impossible with any certainty to affirm that all Men are rational or that all Gold is yellow But where the nominal Essence is kept to as the boundary of each Species and Men extend the Application of any general Term no farther than to the particular Things in which the complex Idea it stands for is to be found there they are in no danger to mistake the bounds of each Species or be in doubt on this account whether any Proposition be true or no. I have chose to explain this uncertainty of Propositions in this scholastick way and have made use of the Terms of Essences and Species on purpose to shew the absurdity and inconvenience there is to think of them as of any other sort of Realities than barely abstract Ideas with Names to them To suppose that the Species of Things are any thing but the sorting of them under general Names according as they
different Ideas to be different Ideas For when a Man has in his Understanding the Ideas of one and of two the Idea of Yellow and the Idea of Blue he cannot but certainly know that the Idea of One is the Idea of One and not the Idea of Two and that the Idea of Yellow is the Idea of Yellow and not the Idea of Blue For a Man cannot confound the Ideas in his Mind which he has distinct That would be to have them confused and distinct at the same time which is a contradiction And to have none distinct is to have no use of our Faculties to have no Knowledge at all And therefore what Idea soever is affirmed of it self or whatsoever two entire distinct Ideas are denied one of another the Mind cannot but assent to such a Proposition as infallibly true as soon as it understands the Terms without Hesititation or need of Proof or regarding those made in more general Terms and called Maxims § 11. What shall we then say Are these general Maxims of no use Yes they are of great Vse in Disputes to stop the Mouths of Wranglers but not of much Use to the discovery of unknown Truths or to help the Mind forwards in its search after Knowledge For whoever began to build his Knowledge on this general Proposition What is is or it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be and from either of these as from a Principle of Science deduced a System of useful Knowledge Wrong Opinions often involving Contradictions one of these Maxims as a Touch-stone may serve well to shew whither they lead But yet however fit to lay open the Absurdity or Mistake of a Man's Reasoning or Opinion they are of very little Use for enlightning the Understanding And it will not be found that the Mind receives much help from them in its Progress in Knowledge which would be neither less nor less certain were these two general Propositions never thought on 'T is true as I have said they sometimes serve in Argumentation to stop a Wrangler's Mouth by shewing the Absurdity of his Opinion But it is one thing to shew a Man that he is in an Error and another to put him in possession of Truth and I would fain know what Truths these Propositions are able to teach and by their Influence make us know which we did not know before or could not know without them Let us reason from them as well as we can they are only about identical Predications and influence if any at all none but such Each particular Proposition concerning Identity or Diversity is as clearly and certainly known in it self if attended to as either of these general ones and there is nothing more certain than that by these Maxims alone we cannot evidence to our selves the Truth of any one thing really existing As to other less general Maxims many of them are no more than bare verbal Propositions and teach us nothing but the Respect and Import of Names one to another The Whole is equal to all its Parts What real Truth I beseech you does it teach us What more is contained in that Maxim than what the Signification of the Word Totum or the Whole does of it self import And he that knows that the Word Whole stands for what is made up of all its Parts knows very little less than that the Whole is equal to all its Parts And upon the same ground I think that this Proposition A Hill is higher than a Valley and several the like may also pass for Maxims But yet Mathematicians do not without Reason place this and some other such amongst their Maxims that their Scholars having in the entrance perfectly acquainted their Thoughts with these Propositions made in such general Terms may have them ready to apply to all particular Cases not that if they be equally weighed they are more clear and evident than the particular Instances they are brought to confirm but that being more familiar to the Mind the very naming them is enough to satisfie the Understanding But this I say is more from our Custom of using them than the different Evidence of the Things But before Custom has setled Methods of Thinking and Reasoning in our Minds I am apt to imagine it is quite otherwise and that the Child when a part of his Apple is taken away knows it better in that particular Instance than by that general Proposition The Whole is equal to all its Parts and that if one of these have need to be confirmed to him by the other the general has more need to be let into his Mind by the particular than the particular by the general For in particulars our Knowledge begins and so spreads it self by degrees to generals Though afterwards the Mind takes the quite contrary Course and having drawn its Knowledge into as general Propositions as it can makes those familiar to its Thoughts and accustoms it self to have recourse to them as to the Standards of Truth and Falshood by which familiar use of them as Rules to measure the Truth of other Propositions it comes in time to be thought that more particular Propositions have their Truth and Evidence from their conformity to these more general ones which in Discourse and Argumentation are so frequently urged and constantly admitted And this I think to be the reason why amongst so many self-evident Propositions the most general only have had the Title of Maxims § 12. One thing farther I think it may not be amiss to observe concerning these general Maxims That they are so far from improving or establishing our Minds in true Knowledge that if our Notions be wrong loose or unsteady and we resign up our Thoughts rather to the sound of Words than to setled clear distinct Ideas of Things I say these general Maxims will serve to confirm us in Mistakes and in such a way of use of Words which is most common will serve to prove Contradictions v. g. He that with Cartes shall frame in his Mind an Idea of what he calls Body to be nothing but Extension may easily demonstrate that there is no Vacuum i. e. no Space void of Body by this Maxim What is is For the Idea to which he annexes the name Body being bare Extension his Knowledge that Space cannot be without Body is certain For he knows his own Idea of Extension clearly and distinctly and knows that it is what it is and not another Idea though it be called by these three names Extension Body Space which three Words standing for one and the same Idea may no doubt with the same evidence and certainty be affirmed one of another as each of it self And it is as certain that whilst I use them all to stand for one and the same Idea this predication is as true and identical in its signification that Space is Body as this predication is true and identical that Body is Body both in signification and sound § 13.
is an ambling Horse or a neighing ambling Animal both being only about the signification of Words and make me know but this That Body Sense and Motion or power of Sensation and Moving are three of those simple Ideas that I always comprehend and signifie by the word Man and where they are not to be found together the name Man belongs not to that Thing And so of the other that Body Sense and Motion and a certain way of going with a certain kind of Voice are some of those simple Ideas which I always comprehend and signifie by the word Palfry and when they are not to be found together the name Palfry belongs not to that thing 'T is just the same and to the same purpose when any term standing for any one or more of the simple Ideas that altogether make up that complex Idea which is called a Man is affirmed of the term Man v. g. suppose a Roman signified by the word Homo all these distinct Ideas united in one subject Corporeitas Sensibilitas Potentia se movendi Rationalitas Risibilitas he might no doubt with great certainty universally affirm one more or all of these together of the word Homo but did no more than say that the word Homo in his Country comprehended in its signification all these Ideas Much like a Romance Knight who by the word Palfry signified these Ideas Body of a certain figure four-legg'd with sense motion ambling neighing white used to have a Woman on his back might with the same certainty universally affirm also any or all of these of the word Palfry but did thereby teach no more but that the word Palfry in his or Romance-Language stood for all these and was not to be applied to any thing where any of theâ—e was wanting But he that shall tell me that in whatever thing Sense Motion Reason and Laughter were united that Thing had actually a notion of GOD or would be cast into a sleep by Opium made indeed an instructive Proposition because neither having the notion of GOD nor being cast into sleep by Opium being contained in the Idea signified by the word Man we are by such Propositions taught something more than barely what the word Man stands for And therefore the Knowledge contained in it is more than verbal § 7. Before a Man makes any Proposition he is supposed to understand the terms he uses in it or else he talks like a Parrot only making a noise by imitation and framing certain Sounds he has learnt of others but not as a rational Creature using them for signs of Ideas he has in his Mind The Hearer also is supposed to understand the Terms as the Speaker uses them or else he talks jargon and makes an untelligible noise And therefore he triâ—les with Words who makes such a Proposition which when it is made contains no more than one of the Terms does and which a Man was supposed to know before v. g. a Triangle hath three sides or Saffron is yellow And this is no farther tolerable than where a Man goes to explain his Terms to one who is supposed or declares himself not to understand him and then it teaches only the signification of that Word and the use of that Sign § 8. We can know then the Truth of two sorts of Propositions with perfect certainty the one is of those trifling Propositions which have a certainty in them but 't is but a verbal Certainty but not instructive And secondly we can know the Truth and so may be certain in Propositions which affirm something of another which is a necessary consequence of its precise complex Idea but not contained in it As that the external Angle of all Triangles is bigger than either of the opposite internal Angles which relation of the cutward Angle to either of the opposite internal Angles making no part of the complex Idea signified by the name Triangle this is a real Truth and conveys with it instructive real Knowledge § 9. We having no knowledge of what Combinations there be of simple Ideas existing together in Substances but by our Senses we cannot make any universal certain Propositions concerning them any farther than our nominal Essences lead us which being to a very few and inconsiderable Truths in respect of those which depend on their real Constitutions the general Propositions that are made about Substances if they are certain are for the most part but trifling and if they are instructive are uncertain and such as we can have no knowledge of their real Truth how much soever constant Observation and Analogy may assist our Judgments in guessing Hence it comes to pass that one may often meet with very clear and coherent Discourses that amount yet to nothing For 't is plain that Names of substantial Beings as well as others having constant and setled significations affixed to them may with great truth be joined negatively and affirmatively in Propositions as their Definitions make them fit to be so joined and Propositions consisting of such Termsâ— may with the same clearness be deduced one from another as those that convey the most real Truths and all this without any knowledge of the Nature or Reality of Things existing without us By this method one may make Demonstrations and undoubted Propositions in Words and yet thereby advance not one jot in the Knowledge of the Truth of Things v. g. he that having learnt these following Words with their ordinary Acceptations annexed to them v. g. Substance Man Animal Form Soul Vegetative Sensitive Rational may make several undoubted Propositions about the Soul without knowing at all what the Soul really is and of this sort a Man may find an infinite number of Propositions Reasonings and Conclusions in Books of Metaphysicks School-Divinity and some sort of natural Philosophy and after all know as little of GOD Spirits or Bodies as he did before he set out § 10. He that hath liberty to define i. e. determine the signification of his Names of Substances as certainly every ones does in effect who makes them stand for his own Ideas and makes their Significations at a venture taking them from his own or other Men's Fansies and not from an Examination and Enquiry into the Nature of Things themselves may with little trouble demonstrate them one of another wherein however Things agree or disagree in their own Nature he need mind nothing but his own Notions with the Names he hath bestowed upon them but thereby no more increases his own Knowledge than he does his Riches who taking a Bag of Counters calls one in a certain place a Pound another in another place a Shilling and a third in a third place a Penny and so proceeding may undoubtedly reckon right and cast up a great summ according to his Counters so placed and standing for more or less as he pleases without being one jot the richer or without even knowing how much a Pound Shilling or Penny is but only that one is
view of humane Knowledge in the whole Extent of it And perhaps if they were distinctly weighed and duly considered they would afford us another sort of Logick and Critick than what we have been hitherto acquainted with § 5. This seems to me the first and most general as well as natural division of the Objects of our Understanding For since a Man can employ his Thoughts about nothing but either the Contemplation of Things themselves for the discovery of Truth Or about the Things in his own Power which are his own Actions for the Attainment of his own Ends Or the Signs the Mind makes use of both in the one and the other and the right ordering of them for its clearer Information All which three viz. Things as they are in themselves knowable Actions as they depend on us in order to Happiness and the right use of Signs in order to Knowledge being toto caelo different they seemed to me to be the three great Provinces of the intellectual World wholly separate and distinct one from another FINIS THE CONTENTS BOOK I. Of Innate Notions CHAP. 1. Introduction 2. No innate speculative Principles 3. No innate practical Principles 4. Other Proofs against innate Principles BOOK II. Of Ideas CHAP. 1. Of Ideas in general 2. Of simple Ideas 3. Of Ideas of one Sense 4. Of Solidity 5. Of simple Ideas of more than one Sense 6. Of simple Ideas of Reflexion 7. Of simple Ideas both of Sensation and Reflexion 8. Other Considerations concerning simple Ideas 9. Of Perception 10. Of Retention 11. Of Discerning 12. Of complex Ideas 13. Of Space and its simple Modes 14. Of Duration 15. Of Extension and Duration considered together 16. Of Number 17. Of Infinity 18. Of other simple Modes 19. Of the Modes of Thinking 20. Of the Modes of Plâ—asure and Pain 21. Of Power 22. Of mixed Modes 23. Of the complex Ideas of Substances 24. Of the collective Ideas of Substances 25. Of Relation 26. Of Cause and Effect and other Relations 27. Of other Relations 28. Of clear and distinct obscure and confused Ideas 29. Of real and phantastical Ideas 30. Of adequate and inadequate Ideas 31. Of true and false Ideas BOOK III. Of Words CHAP. 1. Of Words and Language in general 2. Of the Signification of Words 3. Of general Terms 4. Of the Names of simple Ideas 5. Of the Names of mixed Modes and Relations 6. Of the Names of Substances 7. Of abstract and concrete Terms 8. Of the Imperfection of Words 9. Of the Abuse of Words 10. Of the Remedies of the foregoing Imperfections and Abuses BOOK IV. Of Knowledge and Opinion CHAP. 1. Of Knowledge in general 2. Of the Degrees of our Knowledge 3. Of the extent of Humane Knowledge 4. Of the Reality of our Knowledge 5. Of Truth in general 6. Of universal Propositions their Truth and Certainty 7. Of Maxims 8. Of trifling Propositions 9. Of our Knowledge of Existence 10. Of the Existence of a GOD. 11. Of the Knowledge of the Existence of other Things 12. Of the Improvement of our Knowledge 13. Some other Considerations concerning our Knowledge 14. Of Iudgment 15. Of Probability 16. Of the Degrees of Assent 17. Of Reason 18. Of Faith and Reason as contradistinguished 19. Of wrong Assent or Errourâ— 20. The Division of the Sciences THE CONTENTS BOOK I. CHAP. I. Introduction SECT 1. An Enquiry into the Vnderstanding pleasant and useful 2. Design 3. Method 4. Vseful to know the extent of our Comprehension 5. Our Capacity proportioned to our State and Concerns to discover things useful to us 6. Knowing the extent of our Capacities will hinder us from useless Curiosity Scepticism and Idleness 7. Occasion of this Essay 8. Apology for Idea CHAP. II. No innate speculative Principles SECT 1. The way shewn how we come by any Knowledge sufficient to prove it not innate 2. General Assent the great Argument 3. Vniversal Consent proves nothing innate 4. What is is and It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be not universally assented to 5. Not on the Mind naturally imprinted because not known to Children Idiots c. 6 7. That Men know them when they come to the use of Reason answer'd 8. If Reason discovered them that would not prove them innate 9 11. 'T is false that Reason discovers them 12. The coming to the Vse of Reason not the time we come to know these Maxims 13. By this they are not distinguished from other knowable Truths 14. If coming to the use of Reason were the time of their discovery it would not prove them innate 15 16. The steps by which the Mind attains several Truths 17. Assenting as soon as proposed and understood proves them not innate 18. If such an Assent be a mark of innate then that One and Two are equal to Three that Sweetness is not Bitterness and a thousand the like must be innate 19. Such less general Propositions known before these universal Maxims 20. One and One equal to Two c. not general nor useful answered 21. These Maxims not being known sometimes till proposed proves them not innate 22. Implicitly known before proposing signifies that the Mind is capable of understanding them or else signifies nothing 23. The Argument of assenting on first hearing is upon a false supposition of no precedent teaching 24. Not innate because not universally assented to 25. These Maxims not the first known 26. And so not innate 27. Not innate because they appear least where what is innate shews it self clearest 28. Recapitulation CHAP. III. No innate practical Principles SECT 1. No moral Principles so clear and so generally received as the forementioned speculative Maxims 2. Faith and Iustice not owned as Principles by all Men. 3. Obj. Though Men deny them in their Practice yet they admit them in their Thoughts answered 4. Moral Rules need a Proof ergo not innate 5. Instance in keeping Compacts 6. Vertue generally approved not because innate but because profitable 7. Men's Actions convince us that the Rule of Vertue is not their internal Principle 8. Conscience no proof of any innate Moral Rule 9. Instances of Enormities practised without remorse 10. Men have contrary practical Principles 11 13. Whole Nations reject several Moral Rules 14. Those who maintain innate practical Principles tell us not what they are 15 19. Lord Herbert's innate Principles examined 20. Obj. Innate Principles may be corrupted answered 21. Contrary Principles in the World 22 26. How men commonly come by their Principles 27. Principles must be examined CHAP. IV. Other Considerations about innate Principles both Speculative and Practical SECT 1. Principles not innate unless their Ideas be innate 2 3. Ideas especially those belonging to Principles not born with Children 4 5. Identity an Idea not innate 6. Whole and Part not innate Ideas 7. Idea of Worship not innate 8 11. Idea of GOD not innate 12. Suitable to GOD's Goodness that all Men should have an Idea of Him therefore
I be in one which I leave to be consider'd by those who with me dispose themselves to embrace Truth where-ever they find it § 2. There is nothing more commonly taken for granted than that there are certain Principles both Speculative and Practical for they speak of both universally agreed upon by all Mankind which therefore they argue must needs be the constant Impressions which the Souls of Men receive in their first Beings and which they bring into the World with them as necessarily and really as they do any of their inherent Faculties § 3. This Argument drawn from Vniversal Consent has this Misfortune in it That if it were true in matter of Fact that there were certain Truths wherein all Mankind agreed it would not prove them innate if there can be any other way shewn how Men may come to that Universal Agreement in the things they do consent in which I presume may be done § 4. But which is worse this Argument of universal Consent which is made use of to prove innate Principles seems to me a Demonstration that there are none such because there are none to which all Mankind give an universal Assent I shall begin with the Speculative and instance in those magnified Principles of Demonstration Whatsoever it is and 'T is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be which of all others I think have the most allow'd Title to innate These have so setled a Reputation of Maxims universally received that 't will no doubt be thought strange if any one should seem to question it But yet I take liberty to say That these Propositions are so far from having an universal Assent that there are a great Part of Mankind to whom they are not so much as known § 5. For first 't is evident that all Children and Ideots have not the least Apprehension or Thought of them and the want of that is enough to destroy that universal Assent which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate Truths it seeming to me near a Contradiction to say that there are Truths imprinted on the Soul which it perceives or understands not imprinting if it signifie any thing being nothing else but the making certain Truths to be perceived For to imprint any thing on the Mind without the Mind 's perceiving it seems to me hardly intelligible If therefore Children and Ideots have Souls have Minds with those Impressions upon them they must unavoidably perceive them and necessarily know and assent to these Truths which since they do not it is evident that there are no such Impressions For if they are not Notions naturally imprinted How can they be innate And if they are Notions imprinted How can they be unknown To say a Notion is imprinted on the Mind and yet at the same time to say that the Mind is ignorant of it and never yet took notice of it is to make this Impression nothing No Proposition can be said to be in the Mind which it never yet knew which it was never yet conscious of For if any one may then by the same Reason all Propositions that are true and the Mind is capable ever of assenting to may be said to be in the Mind and to be imprinted Since if any one can be said to be in the Mind which it never yet knew it must be only because it is capable of knowing it and so the Mind is of all Truths it ever shall know Nay thus Truths may be imprinted on the Mind which it never did nor ever shall know for a man may live long and die at last in Ignorance of many Truths which his mind was capable of knowing and that with Certainty So that if the Capacity of knowing be the natural Impression contended for all the Truths a Man ever comes to know will by this Account be every one of them innate and this great Point will amount to no more but only to a very improper way of speaking which whilst it pretends to assert the contrary says nothing different from those who deny innate Principles For no Body I think ever denied that the Mind was capable of knowing several Truths The Capacity they say is innate the Knowledge acquired But then to what end such contest for certain innate Maxims If Truths can be imprinted on the Understanding without being perceived I can see no difference there can be between any Truths the Mind is capable of knowing in respect of their Original They must all be innate or all adventitious In vain shall a Man go about to distinguish them He therefore that talks of innate Notions in the Understanding cannot if he intend thereby any distinct sort of Truths mean such Truths to be in the Understanding as it never perceived and is yet fully ignorant of For if these Words to be in the Vnderstanding have any Propriety they signifie to be understood So that to be in the Understanding and not to be understood to be in the Mind and never to be perceived is all one as to say any thing is and is not in the Mind or Understanding If therefore these two Propositions Whatsoever is is and It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be are by Nature imprinted Children cannot be ignorant of them Infants and all that have Souls must necessarily have them in their Understandings know the Truth of them and assent to it § 6. To avoid this 't is usually answer'd that all Men know and assent to them when they come to the use of Reason and this is enough to prove them innate I answer § 7. Doubtful Expressions that have scarce any signification go for clear Reasons to those who being prepossessed take not the pains to examine even what they themselves say For to apply this Answer with any tolerable Sence to our present Purpose it must signifie one of these two things either That as soon as Men come to the use of Reason these supposed native Inscriptions come to be known and observed by them Or else that the Use and Exercise of Men's Reasons assist them in the Discovery of these Principles and certainly make them known to them § 8. If they mean that by the Vse of Reason Men may discover these Principles and that this is sufficient to prove them innate their way of arguing will stand thus viz. That whatever Truths Reason can certainly discover to us and make us firmly assent to those are all naturally imprinted on the Mind since that universal Assent which is made the Mark of them amounts to no more but this That by the use of Reason we are capable to come to a certain Knowledge of and assent to them and by this Means there will be no difference between the Maxims of the Mathematicians and Theorems they deduce from them All must be equally allow'd innate they being all Discoveries made by the use of Reason and Truths that a rational Creature may certainly come to know if he
them no more than their Names but got afterwards So that in all Propositions that are assented to at first hearing the Terms of the Proposition their standing for such Idea's and the Idea's themselves that they stand for being neither of them innate I would fain know what there is remaining in such Propositions that is innate For I would gladly have any one name that Proposition whose Terms or Idea's were either of them innate We by degrees get Idea's and Names and learn their appropriated connection one with another and then to Propositions made in such Terms whose signification we have learnt and wherein the Agreement or Disagreement we can perceive in our Idea's when put together is expressed we at first hearing assent though to other Propositions in themselves as certain and evident but which are concerning Idea's not so soon nor easily got we are at the same time no way capable of assenting For though a Child quickly assent to this Proposition That an Apple is not Fire when by familiar Acquaintance he has got the Idea's of those two different things distinctly imprinted on his Mind and has learnt that the Names Apple and Fire stand for them yet it will be some years after perhaps before the same Child will assent to this Proposition That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be Because that though perhaps the Words are as easie to be learnt yet the signification of them being more large comprehensive and abstract than of the Names annexed to those sensible things the Child hath to do with it is longer before he learns their precise meaning and it requires more time plainly to form in his Mind those general Idea's they stand for Till that be done you will in vain endeavour to make any Child assent to a Proposition made up of such general Terms But as soon as ever he has got those Idea's and learn'd their Names he forwardly closes with the one as well as the other of the forementioned Propositions and with both for the same Reason viz. because he finds the Idea's he has in his Mind to agree or disagree according as the Words standing for them are affirmed or denied one of another in the Proposition But if Propositions be brought to him in Words which stand for Idea's he has not yet in his Mind to such Propositions however evidently true or false in themselves he affords neither assent nor dissent but is ignorant For Words being but empty sounds any farther than they are signs of our Idea's we cannot but assent to them as they correspond to those Idea's we have but no farther than that But the shewing by what Steps and Ways Knowledge comes into our Minds and the grounds of several degrees of assent being the Business of the following Discourse it may suffice to have only touched on it here as one Reason that made me doubt of those innate Principles § 24. To conclude this Argument of universal Consent I agree with these Defenders of innate Principles That if they are innate they must needs have universal assent For that a Truth should be innate and yet not assented to is to me as unintelligible as for a Man to know a Truth and be ignorant of it at the same time But then by these Men's own Confession they cannot be innate since they are not assented to by those who understand not the Terms nor by a great part of those who do understand them but have yet never heard nor thought of those Propositions which I think is at least one half of Mankind But were the Number far less it would be enough to destroy universal assent and thereby shew these Propositions not to be innate if Children alone were ignorant of them § 25. But that I may not be accused to argue from the thoughts of Infants which are unknown to us and to conclude from what passes in their Understandings before they express it I say next That these two general Propositions are not the Truths that first possess the Minds of Children nor are antecedent to all acquired and adventitious Notions which if they were innate they must needs be Whether we can determine it or no it matters not there is certainly a time when Children begin to think and their Words and Actions do assure us that they do so When therefore they are capable of Thought of Knowledge of Assent can it rationally be supposed they can be ignorant of those Notions that Nature has imprinted were there any such Can it be imagin'd with any appearance of Reason That they perceive the Impressions from things without and be at the same time ignorant of those Characters which Nature it self has taken care to stamp within Can they receive and assent to adventitious Notions and be ignorant of those which are supposed woven into the very Principles of their Being and imprinted there in indelible Characters to be the Foundation and Guide of all their acquired Knowledge and future Reasonings This would be to make Nature take Pains to no Purpose Or at least to write very ill since its Characters could not be read by those Eyes which saw other things very well and those are very ill supposed the clearest parts of Truth and the Foundations of all our Knowledge which are not first known and without which the undoubted Knowledge of several other things may be had The Child certainly knows that the Nurse that feeds it is neither the Cat it plays with nor the Blackmoor it is afraid of That the Wormseed or Mustard it refuses is not the Apple or Sugar it cries for this it is certainly and undoubtedly assured of But will any one say it is by Virtue of this Principle That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be that it so firmly assents to these and other parts of its Knowledge Or that the Child has any Notion or Apprehension of that Proposition at an Age wherein yet 't is plain it knows a great many other Truths He that will say Children join these general abstract Speculations with their sucking Bottles and their Rattles may perhaps with Justice be thought to have more Passion and Zeal for his Opinion but less Sincerity and Truth than one of that Age. § 26. Though therefore there be several general Propositions that meet with constant and ready assent as soon as proposed to Men grown up who have attained the use of more general and abstract Idea's and Names standing for them yet they not being to be found in those of tender Years who nevertheless know other things they cannot pretend to universal assent of intelligent Persons and so by no means can be supposed innate It being impossible that any Truth which is innate if there were any such should be unknown at least to any one who knows any thing else Since if they are innate Truths they must be innate thoughts there being nothing a Truth in the Mind that it has never
not appear so much a Paradox to any one who will but consider how far Men are yet from knowing all the Properties of that one no very compound Figure a Triangle though it be no small numbers that are already by Mathematicians discovered of it § 11. So that all our complex Ideas of Substances are imperfect and inadequate which would be so also in mathematical Figures if we were to have our complex Ideas of them only by collecting their Properties in reference to other Figures How uncertain and imperfect would our Ideas be of an Elypsis if we had no other Idea of it but some few of its Properties Whereas having in our plain Idea the whole Essence of that Figure we from thence discover those Properties and demonstratively see how they flow and are inseparable from it § 12. Thus the Mind has three sorts of abstract Ideas or nominal Essences First Simple Ideas which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Copies but yet certainly adequate Because being intended to express nothing but the power in Things to produce in the Mind such a Sensation that Sensation when it is produced cannot but be the Effect of that Power So the Paper I write on having the power in the Light I speak according to the common Notion of Light to produce in me the Sensation which I call White it cannot but be the Effect of such a Power in something without the Mind since the Mind has not the power to produce any such Idea in its self and being meant for nothing else but the Effect of such a Power that simple Idea is real and adequate the sensation of White in my Mind being the Effect of that Power which is in the Paper to produce it is perfectly adequate to that Power or else that Power would produce a different Idea Secondly The complex Ideas of Substances are Ectypes Copies too but not perfect ones not adequate which is very evident to the Mind in that it plainly perceives that whatever Collection of simple Ideas it makes of any Substance that exists it cannot be sure that it exactly answers all that are in that Substance Since not having tried all the Operations of all other Substances upon it and found all the Alterations it would receive from or cause in other Substances it cannot have an exact adequate Collection of all its active and passive Capacities and so not have an adequate complex Idea of the Powers of any Substance existing and its Relations which is that sort of complex Idea of Substances we have And after all if we could have and actually had in our complex Idea an exact Collection of all the secundary Qualities or Powers of any Substance we should not yet thereby have an Idea of the Essence of that Thing For since the Powers or Qualities that are observable by us are not the real Essence of that Substance but depend on it and flow from it any Collection whatsoever of these Qualities cannot be the real Essence of that Thing Whereby it is plain that our Ideas of Substances are not adequate are not what the Mind intends them to be Besides a Man has no Idea of Substance in general nor knows what Substance is in it self § 14. Thirdly Complex Ideas of Modes and Relations are Originals and Archetypes are not Copies nor made after the pattern of any real Existence to which the Mind intends them to be conformable and exactly to answer These being such Collections of simple Ideas that the Mind it self puts together and such Collections that each of them contains in it precisely all that the Mind intends it should they are Archetypes and Essences of Modes that may exist and so are designed only for and belong only to such Modes as when they do exist have an exact conformity with those complex Ideas The Ideas therefore of Modes and Relations cannot but be adequate CHAP. XXXI Of True and False Ideas § 1. THough Truth and Falshood belong in Propriety of Speech only to Propositions yet Ideas are oftentimes termed true or false as what Words are there that are not used with great Latitude and with some deviation from their strict and proper Significations Though I think that when Ideas themselves are termed true or false there is still some secret or tacit Proposition which is the Foundation of that Denomination as we shall see if we examine the particular Occasions wherein they come to be called true or false In all which we shall find some kind of Affirmation or Negation which is the Reason of that Denomination For our Ideas being nothing but bare Appearances or Perceptions in our Minds cannot properly and simply in themselves be said to be true or false no more than a single Name of any thing can be said to be true or false § 2. Indeed both Ideas and Words may be said to be true in a metaphysical Sense of the Word Truth as all other Things that any way exist are said to be true i. e. really to be such as they exist Though in Things called true even in that Sense there is perhaps a secret reference to our Ideas look'd upon as the Standards of that Truth which amounts to a mental Proposition though it be usually not taken notice of § 3. But 't is not in that metaphysical Sense of Truth which we enquire here when we examine whether our Ideas are capable of being true or false but in the more ordinary Acceptation of those Words And so I say that the Ideas in our Minds being only so many Perceptions or Appearances there none of them are false The Idea of a Centaur having no more Falshood in it when it appears in our Minds than the Name Centaur has Falshood in it when it is pronounced by our Mouths or written on Paper For Truth or Falshood lying always in some Affirmation or Negation Mental or Verbal our Ideas are not capable any of them of being false till the Mind passes some Judgment on them that is affirms or denies something of them § 4. When ever the Mind refers any of its Ideas to any thing extraneous to them they are then capable to be called true or false Because the Mind in such a reference makes a tacit Supposition of their Conformity to that Thing which Supposition as it happens to be true or false so the Ideas themselves come to be denominated The most usual Cases wherein this happens are these following § 5. First When the Mind supposes any Idea it has conformable to that in other Men's Minds called by the same common Name v. g. when the Mind intends or judges its Ideas of Iustice Temperance Religion to be the same with what other Men give those Names to Secondly When the Mind supposes any Idea it has in it self to be conformable to some real Existence Thus the two Ideas of a Man and a Centaur supposed to be the Ideas of real Substances are the one true and the other false the one having
complex Idea of Gold being made up of such simple ones as have no union in Nature may be termed false But if he leave out of this his complex Idea that of Fixedness quite without either actually joining to or separating of it from the rest in his Mind it is I think to be looked on as an inadequate and imperfect Idea rather than a false one since though it contains not all the simple Ideas that are united in Nature yet it puts none together but what do really exist together § 19. Though in compliance with the ordinary way of Speaking I have shewed in what sense and upon what ground our Ideas may be sometimes called true or false yet if we will look a little nearer into the matter in all cases where any Idea is call'd true or false it is from some Judgment that the Mind makes or is supposed to make that is true or false For Truth or Falshood being never without some Affirmation or Negation Express or Tacit it is not to be found but where signs are joined or separated according to the agreement or disagreement of the Things they stand for The signs we chiefly use are either Ideas or Words wherewith we make either mental or verbal Propositions Truth lies in so joining or separating these Representatives as the Things they stand for do in themselves agree or disagree and Falshood in the contrary as shall be more fully shewed hereafter § 20. Any Idea then we have in our Minds whether conformable or not to the existence of Things or to any Ideas in the Minds of other Men cannot properly for this alone be called false For these Representations if they have nothing in them but what is really existing in Things without cannot be thought false being exact Representations of something nor yet if they have any thing in them differing from the reality of Things can they properly be said to be false Representations or Ideas of Things they do not represent But the mistake and falshood is § 21. First When the Mind having any Idea it judges and concludes it the same that is in other Mens Minds signified by the same name or that it is conformable to the ordinary received signification or definition of that Word when indeed it is not Which is the most usual mistake in mixed Modes though other Ideas also are liable to it § 22 Secondly When it having a complex Idea made up of such a Collection of simple ones as Nature never puts together it judges it to agree to a Species of Creatures really existing as when it joins the weight of Tin to the colour fusibility and fixedness of Gold § 23. Thirdly When in its complex Idea it has united a certain number of simple Ideas that do really exist together in some sorts of Creatures but has also left out others as much inseparable it judges this to be a perfect compleat Idea of a sort of things which really it is not v. g. having joined the Ideas of substance yellow malleable most heavy and fusible it takes that complex Idea to be the compleat Idea of Gold when yet its peculiar fixedness and solubility in Aqua Regia are as inseparable from those other Ideas or Qualities of that Body as they are one from another § 24. Fourthly The Mistake is yet greater when I judge that this complex Idea contains in it the real Essence of any Body existing when at least it contains but some few of those Properties which flow from its real Essence and Constitution I say only some few of those Properties for those Properties consisting mostly in the active and passive Powers it has in reference to other Things all that are vulgarly known of any one Body and of which the complex Idea of that kind of Things is usually made are but a very few in comparison of what a Man that has several ways tried and examined it knows of that one sort of Things and all that the most expert Man knows are but few in comparison of what are really in that Body and depend on its internal or essential Constitution The essence of a Triangle lies in a very little compass consists in a very few Ideas three Lines meeting at three Angles make up that Essence But the Properties that flow from this Essence are more than can be easily known or enumerated So I imagine it is in Substances their real Essences lie in a little compass though the Properties flowing from that internal Constitution are endless § 25. To conclude a Man having no notion of any Thing without him but by the Idea he has of it in his Mind which Idea he has a power to call by what Name he pleases he may indeed make an Idea neither answering the reality of Things nor agreeing to the Ideas commonly signified by other Peoples Words but cannot make a wrong or false Idea of a Thing which is no otherwise known to him but by the Idea he has of it v. g. When I frame an Idea of the Legs Arms and Body of a Man and join to this a Horse's Head and Neck I do not make a false Idea of any thing because it represents nothing without me But when I call it a Man or Tartar and imagine it either to represent some real Being without me or to be the same Idea that others call by the same name in either of these cases I may err And upon this account it is that it comes to be termed a false Idea though indeed the falshood lie not in the Idea but in that tacit mental Proposition wherein a conformity and resemblance is attributed to it which it has not But yet if having framed such an Idea in my Mind without thinking either that Existence or the name Man or Tartar belongs to it I will call it Man or Tartar I may be justly thought phantastical in the Naming but not erroneous in my Judgment nor the Idea any way false § 26. Upon the whole matter I think That our Ideas as they are considered by the Mind either in reference to the proper signification of their Names or in reference to the reality of Things may very fitly be called right or wrong Ideas according as they agree or disagree to those Patterns to which they are referred But if any one had rather call them true or false 't is fit he use a liberty which every one has to call Things by those Names he thinks best though in propriety of Speech Truth or Falshood will I think scarce agree to them but as they some way or other virtually contain in them some mental Proposition The Ideas that are in a Man's Mind simply considered cannot be wrong unless complex ones wherein inconsistent parts are jumbled together All other Ideas are in themselves right and the knowledge about them right and true Knowledge but when we come to refer them to any thing as to their Patterns and Archetypes then they are capable of being
distinct Species from killing a Man's Son or Neighbour it is because of the distinct punishment the one deserves different from the other Murther and therefore they find it necessary to mention it by a distinct name which is the end of making that distinct Combination But though the Ideas of Mother and Daughter are so differently treated in reference to the Idea of Killing that the one is joined with it to make a distinct abstract Idea with a name and so a distinct Species and the other not yet in respect of carnal Knowledge they are both taken in under Incest and that still for the same convenience of expressing under one name and reckoning of one Species such unclean mixtures as have a peculiar turpitude beyond others and this to avoid Circumlocutions and tedious Descriptions § 8. A moderate skill in different Languages will easily satisfie one of the truth of this it being so obvious to observe great store of Words in one Language which have not any that answer them in another Which plainly shews that those of one Country by their Customs and manner of Life have found occasion to make several complex Ideas and give names to them which others never collected into specifick Ideas This could not have happened if these Species were the steady Workmanship of Nature and not Collections made and abstracted by the Mind in order to naming and for the convenience of Communication The terms of our Law which are not empty Sounds will hardly find Words that answer them in the Spanish or Italian no scanty Languages much less I think could any one translate them into the Caribee or Westoe Tongues And the Versura of the Romans or Corban of the Iews have no Words in other Languages to answer them The reason whereof is plain from what has been said Nay if we will look a little more nearly into this matter and exactly compare different Languages we shall find that though they have Words which in Translations and Dictionaries are supposed to answer one another yet there is scarce one of ten amongst the names of complex Ideas especially of mixed Modes that stands for the same precise Idea which the Word does that in Dictionaries it is rendred by There are no Ideas more common and less compounded than the Measures of Time Extension and Weight and the Latin names Hora Pes Libra are without difficulty rendred by the English names Hour Foot and Poâ—nd But yet there is nothing more evident than that the Ideas a Roman annexed to these Latin Names were very far different from those which an English-man expresses by those English ones And if either of these should make use of the measures that those of the other Language design'd by their names he would be quite out in his account These are too sensible proofs to be doubted and we shall find this much more so in the names of more abstract and compounded Ideas such as are the greatest part of those which make up Moral Discourses whose Names when Men come curiously to compare with those they are translated into in other Languages they will find very few of them exactly to correspond in the whole extent of their Significations § 9. The reason why I take so particular notice of this is that we may not be mistaken about Genera and Species and Essences as if they were Things regularly and constantly made by Nature and had a real Existence in Things when they appear upon a more wary survey to be nothing else but an Artifice of the Understanding for the easier signifying such Collections of Ideas as it should often have occasion to communicate by one general term under which divers particulars as far forth as they agreed to that abstract Idea might be comprehended And if the doubtful signification of the word Species may make it sound harsh to some that I say that the Species of mixed Modes are made by the Understanding yet I think it can by no body be denied that 't is the Mind makes those abstract complex Ideas to which specifick names are given And if it be true as it is that the Mind makes these Patterns for sorting and naming of Things I leave it to be considered who makes the Boundaries of the Sort or Species since with me Species and Sort have no other difference than that of a Latin and English Idiom § 10. The near relation that there is between Species Essences and their general Names at least in mixed Modes will farther appear when we consider that it is the Name that seems to preserve those Essences and give them their lasting duration For the connexion between the loose parts of those complex Ideas being made by the Mind this union which has no particular foundation in Nature would cease again were there not something that did as it were hold it together and keep the parts from scattering Though therefore it be the Mind that makes the Collection 't is the Name which is as it were the Knot that ties them fast together What a vast variety of different Ideas does the word Triumphus hold together and deliver to us as one Species Had this Name been never made or quite lost we might no doubt have had descriptions of what passed in that Solemnity but yet I think that which holds those different parts together in the unity of one complex Idea is that very word annexed to it without which the several parts of that would no more be thought to make one thing than any other shew which having never been made but once had never been united into one complex Idea under one denomination How much therefore in mixed Modes the Unity necessary to any Essence depends on the Mind and how much the continuation and fixing of that Unity depends on the Name in common use annexed to it I leave to be considered by those who look upon Essences and Species as real established Things in Nature § 11. Suitable to this we find that Men speaking of mixed Modes seldom imagine or take any other for Species of them but such as are set out by Names Because they being of Man's making only in order to naming no such Species are taken notice of or supposed to be unless a Name be joined to it as the sign of Man's having combined into one Idea several loose ones and by that Name giving a lasting Union to the Parts which would otherwise cease to have any as soon as the Mind laid by that abstract Idea and ceased actually to think on it But when a Name is once annexed to it wherein the parts of that complex Idea have a setled and permanent Union then is the Essence as it were established and the Species look'd on as compleat For to what purpose should the Memory charge it self with such Compositions unless it were by Abstraction to make them general And to what purpose make them general unless it were that they might have general Names for the convenience
of Discourse and Communication Thus we see that killing a Man with a Sword or a Hatchet are looked on as no distinct Species of Action But if the Point of the Sword first enter the Body it passes for a distinct Species where it has a distinct Name as in England in whose Language it is called Stabbing But in another Country where it has not happened to be specified under a peculiar Name it passes not for a distinct Species But in the Species of corporeal Substances though it be the Mind that makes the nominal Essence yet since those Ideas which are combined in it are supposed to have an Union in Nature whether the Mind joins them or no therefore those are looked on as distinct Species without any operation of the Mind either abstracting or giving a Name to that complex Idea § 12. Conformable also to what has been said concerning the Essences of the Species of mixed Modes that they are the Creatures of the Understanding rather than the Works of Nature Conformable I say to this we find that their Names lead our Thoughts to the Mind and no farther When we speak of Iustice or Gratitude we frame to our selves no Imagination of any thing existing which we would conceive but our Thoughts terminate in the abstract Ideas of those Vertues and look not farther as they do when we speak of an Horse or Iron whose specifick Ideas we consider not as barely in the Mind but as in Things themselves which afford the original Patterns of those Ideas but in mixed Modes at least the most considerable part of them which are moral Beings we consider the original Patterns as being in the Mind and to those we refer for the distinguishing of particular Beings under Names And hence I think it is That these Essences of the Species of mixed Modes are by a more particular Name called Notions as by a peculiar Right appertaining to the Understanding § 13. This also shews us the Reason Why the complex Ideas of mixed Modes are commonly more compounded and decompounded than those of natural Substances Because they being the Workmanship of the Understanding pursuing only its own ends and the conveniency of expressing in short those Ideas it would make known to another does with great liberty unite often into one abstract Idea Things that in their Nature have no coherence and so under one Term bundle together a great variety of compounded and decompounded Ideas Thus the Name of Procession what a great mixture of independent Ideas of Persons Habits Tapers Orders Motions Sounds does it contain in that complex one which the Mind of Man has arbitrarily put together to express by that one Name Whereas the complex Ideas of the sorts of Substances are usually made up of only a small number of simple ones and in the Species of Animals those two viz. Shape and Voice commonly make the whole nominal Essence § 14. Another thing we may observe from what has been said is That the Names of mixed Modes always signifie when they have any distinct Signification the real Essences of their Species For these abstract Ideas being the Workmanship of the Mind and not referred to the real Existence of Things there is no supposition of any thing more signified by that Name but barely that complex Idea the Mind it self has formed which is all it would have express'd by it and is that on which all the properties of the Species depend and from which alone they all flow and so in these the real and nominal Essence is the same which of what Concernment it is to the certain Knowledge of general Truths we shall see hereafter § 15. This also may shew us the Reason Why for the most part the Names of mixed Modes are got before the Ideas they stand for are perfectly known Because there being no Species of these ordinarily taken notice of but what have Names and those Species or rather their Essences being abstract complex Ideas made arbitrarily by the Mind it is convenient if not necessary to know the Names before one endeavour to frame these complex Ideas unless a Man will fill his Head with a Company of abstract complex Ideas which others having no Names for he has nothing to do with but to lay by and forget again I confess that in the beginning of Languages it was necessary to have the Idea before one gave it the Name And so it is still where making a new complex Idea one also by giving it a new Name makes a new Word But this concerns not Languages made which have generally pretty well provided for Ideas which Men have frequent Occasion to have and communicate And in such I ask whether it be not the ordinary Method that Children learn the Names of mixed Modes before they have their Ideas What one of a thousand ever frames the abstract Idea of Glory or Ambition before he has heard the Names of them In simple Ideas and Substances I confess it is otherwise which being such Ideas as have a real Existence and Union in Nature the Ideas or Names are gotten one before the other as it happens What has been said here of mixed Modes is with very little difference applicable also to Relations which since every Man himself may observe I may spare my self the Pains to enlarge on Especially since what I have here said concerning Words in this Third Book will possibly be thought by some to be much more than what so slight a Subject required I allow it might be brought into a narrower Compass but I was willing to stay my Reader on an Argument that appears to me new and a little out of the way I am sure 't is one I thought not of when I began to write That by searching it to the bottom and turning it on every side some part or other might meet with every one's Thoughts and give Occasion to the most averse or negligent to reflect on a general Miscarriage which though of great consequence is little taken notice of When it is considered what a pudder is made about Essences and how much all sorts of Knowledge Discourse and Conversation are pester'd and disorder'd by the careless and confused Use and Application of Words it will perhaps be thought worth while throughly to lay it open And I shall be pardon'd if I have dwelt long on an Argument which I think therefore needs to be inculcated because the Faults Men are usually guilty of in this kind are not only the greatest hinderances of true Knowledge but are so well thought of as to pass for it Men would often see what a small pittance of Reason and Truth or possibly none at all is mixed with those huffing Opinions they are swell'd with if they would but look beyond fashionable Sounds and observe what Ideas are or are not comprehended under those words with which they are so armed at all points and with which they so confidently lay about them I shall imagine I
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
conformable to this Archetype and intends the Name should stand for an Idea so conformable § 46. This piece of Matter thus denominated Zahab by Adam being quite different from any he had seen before no Body I think will deny to be a distinct Species and to have its peculiar Essence and that the Name Zahab is the mark of the Species and a Name belonging to all Things partaking in that Essence But here it is plain the Essence Adam signified and made the Name Zahab stand for was nothing but a Body hard shining yellow and very heavy But the inquisitive Mind of Man not content with the Knowledge of these as I may say superficial Qualities puts Adam upon farther Examination of this Matter He therefore knocks and beats it with Flints to see what was discoverable in the inside He finds it yield to Blows but not easily separate into pieces he finds it will bend without breaking Is not now Ductility to be added to his former Idea and the Essence of the Species that Name Zahab stands for Farther Trials discover Fusibility and Fixedness Are not they also by the same Reason that any of the others were to be put into the complex Idea signified by the Name Zahab If not What Reason will there be shewed more for the one than the other If these must then all the other Properties which any farther Trials shall discover in this Matter ought by the same Reason to make a part of the Ingredients of the complex Idea which the Name Zahab stands for and so be the Essence of the Species marked by that Name which Properties because they are endless it is plain that the Idea made after this Fashion by this Archetype will be always inadequate § 47. But this is not all it would also follow that the Names of Substances would not only have as in Truth they have but would also be supposed to have different Significations as used by different Men which would very much cumber the use of Language For if every distinct Quality that were discovered in any Matter by any one were supposed to make a necessary part of the complex Idea signified by the common Name given it it must follow that Men must suppose the same Word to signifie different Things in different Men Since they cannot doubt but different Men may have discovered several Qualities in Substances of the same Denomination which others know nothing of § 48. To avoid this therefore they have supposed a real Essence belonging to every Species from which these Properties all flow and would have their name of the Species stand for that But they not having any Idea of that real Essence in Substances and their Words signifying nothing but the Ideas they have that which is done by this Attempt is only to put the name or sound in the place and stead of the thing having that real Essence without knowing what that real Essence is and this is that which Men do when they speak of Species of Things as supposing them made by Nature and distinguished by real Essences § 49. For let us consider when we affirm that all Gold is fixed either it means that Fixedness is a part of the Definition part of the nominal Essence the Word Gold stands for and so this Affirmation all Gold is fixed contains nothing but the signification of the Term Gold Or else it means that Fixedness not being a part of the definition of the Word Gold is a Property of that Substance it self in which Case it is plain that the Word Gold stands in the place of a Substance having the real Essence of a Species of Things made by Nature in which way of Substitution it has so confused and uncertain a Signification that though this Proposition Gold is fixed be in that sense an Affirmation of something real yet 't is a Truth will always fail us in its particular Application and so is of no real Use nor Certainty For let it be never so true that all God i. e. all that has the real Essence of Gold is fixed What serves this for whilst we know not in this sense what is or is not Gold For if we know not the real Essence of Gold 't is impossible we should know what parcel of Matter has that Essence and so whether it be true Gold or no. § 50. To conclude what liberty Adam had at first to make any complex Ideas of mixed Modes by no other Pattern but by his own Thoughts the same have all Men ever since had And the same necessity of conforming his Ideas of Substances to Things without him as to Archetypes made by Nature that Adam was under if he would not wilfully impose upon himself the same are all Men ever since under too The same Liberty also that Adam had of affixing any new name to any Idea the same has any one still especially the beginners of Languages if we can imagine any such but only with this difference that in Places where Men in Society have already established a Language amongst them the signification of Words are very warily and sparingly to be alter'd because Men being furnished already with names for their Ideas and common Use having appropriated known names to certain Ideas an affected misapplication of them cannot but be very ridiculous He that hath new Notions will perhaps venture sometimes on the coining new Terms to express them Men think it a Boldness and 't is uncertain whether common Use will ever make them pass for currant But in Communication with others it is necessary that we conform the Ideas we make the vulgar Words of any Language stand for to their known proper Significations which I have explain'd at large already or else to make known that new Signification we apply them to CHAP. VII Of Particles § 1. BEsides Words which are names of Ideas in the Mind there are a great many others that are made use of to signifie the connexion that the Mind gives to Ideas or Propositions one with another The Mind in communicating with others does not only need signs of the Ideas it has then before it but others also to shew or intimate some particular action of its own at that time relating to those Ideas This it does several ways as Is and Is not are the general marks of the Mind affirming or denying But besides affirmation or negation without which there is in Words no Truth or Falshood the Mind does in declaring its Sentiments to others connect not only the parts of Propositions but whole Sentences one to another with their several Relations and Dependencies to make a coherent Discourse § 2. The Words whereby it signifies what connexion it gives to the several Affirmations and Negations that it unites in one continued Reasoning or Narration are generally call'd Particles and 't is in the right use of these that more particularly consists the clearness and beauty of a good Stile To think well it is not enough that a
in another's use is not so certainly known And however we are apt to think we well enough know what is meant by Gold or Iron yet the precise complex Idea others make them the signs of is not so certain And I believe it is very seldom that in Speaker and Hearer they stand for exactly the same Collection Which must needs produce Mistakes and Disputes when they are made use of in Discourses wherein Men have to do with universal Propositions and would settle in their Minds universal Truths and consider the Consequences that follow from them § 19. By the same Rule the names of simple Modes are next to simple Ideas those that are least liable to Doubt or Vncertainty especially those of Figure and Number of which Men have so clear and distinct Ideas and amongst them those that are least compounded and least removed from simple ones Who ever that had a Mind to understand them mistook the ordinary meaning of Seven or a Triangle § 20. Mixed Modes also that are made up but of a few and obvious simple Ideas have usually names of no very doubtful Signification But the names of mixed Modes which comprehend a great number of simple Ideas are commonly of a very doubtful and undetermined Signification as has been shewed The names of Substances being annexed to Ideas that are neither the real Essences nor exact Representations of the patterns they are referred to are liable yet to greater Imperfection and Uncertainty especially when we come to a philosophical use of them § 21. The great disorder that happens in our names of Substances proceeding for the most part from our want of Knowledge and Inability to penetrate into their real Constitutions it may probably be wondered Why I charge this as an Imperfection rather upon our Words than Understandings This Exception has so much appearance of Justice that I think my self obliged to give a Reason why I have followed this Method I must confess then that when I first began this Discourse of the Understanding and a good while after I had not the least Thought that any Consideration of Words was at all necessary to it But when having passed over the Original and Composition of our Ideas I began to examine the Extent and Certainty of our Knowledge I found it had so near a connexion with Words that unless their force and manner of Signification were first well observed there could be very little said clearly and pertinently concerning Knowledge which being conversant about Truth had constantly to do with Propositions and though it terminated in Things yet it was for the most part so much by the intervention of Words that they seem'd scarce separable from our general Knowledge At least they interpose themselves so much between our Understandings and the Truth it would contemplate and apprehend that like the Medium through which visible Objects pass their Obscurity and Disorder does not seldom cast a mist before our Eyes and impose upon our Understandings If we consider in the Fallacies Men put upon themselves as well as others and the Mistakes in Mens Disputes and Notions how great a part is owing to Words and their uncertain or mistaken Significations we shall have reason to think this no small obstacle in the way to Knowledge which I conclude we are the more careful to be warned of because it has been so far from being taken notice of as an Inconvenience that the Arts of improving it have been made the business of Mens study and attained the Reputation of Learning and Subtilty as we shall see in the following Chapter But I am apt to imagine that were the imperfections of Language as the Instrument of Knowledge more throughly weighed a great many of the Controversies that make such a noise in the World would of themselves cease and the way to Knowledge and perhaps Peace too lie a great deal opener than it does § 22. Sure I am that the signification of Words in all Languages depending very much on the Thoughts Notions and Ideas of him that uses them must unavoidably be of great uncertainty to Men of the same Language and Country This is so evident in the Greek Authors that he that shall peruse their Writings will find in almost every one of them a distinct Language though the same Words But when to this natural difficulty in every Country there shall be added different Countries and remote Ages wherein the Speakers and Writers had very different Notions Tempers Customs Ornaments and Figures of Speech c. every one of which influenced the signification of their Words then though to us now they are lost and unknown it would become us to be charitable one to another in our Interpretations or Misunderstandings of those ancient Writings which though of great concernment to us to be understood are liable to the unavoidable difficulties of Speech which if we except the Names of simple Ideas and some very obvious Things is not capable without a constant defining the terms of conveying the sense and intention of the Speaker without any manner of doubt and uncertainty to the Hearer And in Discourses of Religion Law and Morality as they are matters of the highest concernment so there will be the greatest difficulty § 23. The Volumes of Interpreters and Commentators on the Old and New Testament are but too manifest proofs of this Though every thing said in the Text be infallibly true yet the Reader may be nay cannot chuse but be very fallible in the understanding of it Nor is it to be wondred that the Will of GOD when cloathed in Words should be liable to that doubt and uncertainty which unavoidably attends that sort of Conveyance when even his Son whilst cloathed in Flesh was subject to all the Frailties and Inconveniencies of humane Nature Sin excepted And we ought to magnifie his Goodness that he hath spread before all the World such legible Characters of his Works and Providence and given all Mankind so sufficient a light of Reason that they to whom this written Word never came could not when-ever they set themselves to search either doubt of the Being of a GOD or of the Obedience due to Him Since then the Precepts of Natural Religion are plain and very intelligible to all Mankind and seldom come to be controverted and other revealed Truths which are conveyed to us by Books and Languages are liable to the common and natural obscurities and difficulties incident to Words methinks it would become us to be more careful and diligent in observing the former and less magisterial positive and imperious in imposing our own sense and interpretations of the latter CHAP. X. Of the Abuse of Words § 1. BEsides the imperfection that is naturally in Language and the obscurity and confusion that is so hard to be avoided in the Use of Words there are several wilful Faults and Neglects which Men are guilty of in thâ—â— way of Communication whereby they render these signs less clear and
distinct in their signification than naturally they need to be § 2. First In this kind the first and most palpable abuse is the using of Words without clear and distinct Ideas or which is worse signs without any thing signified Of these there are two sorts I. One may observe in all Languages certain Words that if they be examined will be found in their first Original and their appropriated Use not to stand for any clear and distinct Ideas These for the most part the several Sects of Philosophy and Religion have introduced For their Authors or Promoters either affecting something singular and out of the way of common apprehensions or to support some strange Opinions or cover some Weakness of their Hypothesis seldom fail to coin new Words and such as when they come to be examined may justly be called insignificant Terms For having either had no determinable Collection of Ideas annexed to them when they were first invented or at least such as if well examined will be found inconsistent 't is no wonder if afterwards in the vulgar use of the same party they remain empty Sounds with little or no signification amongst those who think it enough to have them often in their mouths as the distinguishing Characters of their Church or School without much troubling their heads to examine what are the precise Ideas they stand for I shall not need here to heap up instances every one's reading and conversation will sufficiently furnish him Or if he wants to be better stored the great Mint-Masters of these kind of Terms I mean the Schoolmen and Metaphysicians under which I think the disputing natural and moral Philosophers of these latter Ages may be comprehended have wherewithal abundantly to content him § 3. II. Others there be who extend this abuse yet farther who take so little careâ— to lay by Words which in their primary notation have scarce any clear and distinct Ideas they are annexed to that by an unpardonable negligence they familiarly use Words which the Propriety of Language has affixed to very important Ideas they use them I say without any distinct meaning at all Wisdom Glory Grace c. are Words frequent enough in every Man's mouth but if a great many of those who use them should be asked What they mean by them they would be at a stand and not know what to answer A plain proof that though they have learned those Sounds and have them ready at their Tongues ends yet there are no clear and distinct Ideas laid up in their Minds which are to be expressed to others by them § 4. Men having been accustomed from their Cradles to learn Words which are easily got and retained before they knew or had framed the complex Ideas to which they were annexed or which were to be found in the things they were thought to stand for they usually continue to do so all their Lives and without taking the pains necessary to settle in their Minds clear and distinct Ideas they use their Words for such unsteady and confused Notions as they have contenting themselves with the same Words other People use as if their very sound necessarily carried with it constantly the same meaning This though Men make a shift with in their ordinary Occurrences of Liâ—e where they find it necessary to be understood and thereâ—ore they make signs till they are so Yet this insignificancy in their Words when they come to Reason concerning either their Tenents or Interest manifestly fills their Discourse with abundance of empty unintelligible noise and jargon especially in moral Matters where the Words for the most part standing â—or arbitrary and numerous Collections of Ideas not regularly and permanently united in Nature their bare Sounds are often only thought on or at least very obscure and uncertain Notions annexed to themâ— Men take the Words they find in use amongst their Neighbours and that they may not seem ignorant what they stand for use them confidently without much troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning Whereby besides the ease of it they obtain this advantage That as in such Discourses they seldom are in the right so they are as seldom to be convinced that they are in the wrong it being all one to go about to draw those Men out of their Mistakes who have no setled Notions as to dispossess a Vagrant of his Habitation who has no setled abode This I guess to be so and every one may observe in himself and others whether it be or no. § 5. Secondly Another great abuse of Words is Inconstancy in the use of them It is hard to find a Discourse written of any Subject especially of Controversie wherein one shall not observe if he read with attention the same Words and those commonly the most material in the Discourse and upon which the Argument turns used sometimes for one Collection of simple Ideas and sometimes for another which is a perfect abuse of Language Words being intended for signs of my Ideas to make them known to others not by any natural signification but by a voluntary imposition 't is plain cheat and abuse when I make them stand sometimes for one thing and sometimes for another the wilful doing whereof can be imputed to nothing but great folly or greater dishonesty And a Man in his Accompts with another may with as much fairness make the Characters of Numbers stand sometimes for one and sometimes for another Collection of Unites v. g. this Character 3 stands sometimes for three sometimes for four and sometimes for eight as in his Discourse or Reasoning make the same Words stand for different Collections of simple Ideas If Men should do so in their Reckonings I wonder who would have to do with them One who should speak thus in the Affairs and Business in the World and call 8 sometimes seven sometimes nine as best served his advantage would presently have clapp'd upon him one of the two Names Men constantly are disgusted with and yet in Arguings and learned Contests the same sort of proceeding passes commonly for Wit and Learning But yet to me it appears a greater dishonesty than the misplacing of Counters in the casting up a Debt and the cheat the greater by how much Truth is of greater concernment and value than Money § 6. Thirdly Another abuse of Language is an affected Obscurity by either applying old Words to new and unusual Significations or introducing new and ambiguous Terms without defining either or else putting them so together as may confound their ordinary meaning Though the Peripatetick Philosophy has been most eminent in this way yet other Sects have not been wholly clear of it There is scarce any of them that are not cumbred with some Difficulties such is the imperfection of Humane Knowledge which they have been fain to cover with Obscurity of Terms and to confound the Signification of Words which like a mist before Peoples Eyes might hinder their weak parts from being discovered That Body and Extension
in common use stand for two distinct Ideas is plain to any one that will but reflect a little For were their Signification precisely the same it would be as proper and as intelligible to say the Body of an Extension as the Extension of a Body and yet there are those who find it necessary to confound their Signification To this abuse and the mischiefs of confounding the Signification of Words Logick and the liberal Sciences as they have been handled in the Schools have given Reputation and the admired Art of Disputing hath added much to the natural imperfection of Languages whilst it has been made use of and fitted to perplex the signification of Words more than to discover the Knowledge and Truth of Things And he that will look into that sort of learned Writings will find the Words there much more obscure uncertain and undetermined in their Meaning than they are in ordinary Conversation § 7. This is unavoidably to be so where Mens Parts and Learning are estimated by their Skill in Disputing And if Reputation and Reward shall attend these Conquests which depend mostly on the fineness and niceties of Words 't is no wonder if the Wit of Man so employ'd should perplex involve and subtilize the signification of Sounds so as never to want something to say in opposing or defending any Question the Victory being adjusted not to him who had Truth on his side but the last word in the Dispute § 8. This though a very useless Skill and that which I think the direct opposite to the ways of Knowledge hath yet passed hitherto under the laudable and esteemed Names of Subtility and Acuteness and has had the applause of the Schools and encouragement of one part of the learned Men of the World and no wonder since the Philosophers of old the disputing and wrangling Philosophers I mean such as Lucian wittily and with Reason taxes and the Schoolmen since aiming at Glory and Esteem for their great and universal Knowledge easier a great deal to be pretended to than really acquired found this a good Expedient to cover their Ignorance with a curious and unexplicable Web of perplexed Words and procure to themselves the admiration of others by unintelligible terms the apter to produce wonder because they could not be understood whilst it appears in all History that these profound Doctors were no wiser nor more useful than their Neighbours and brought but small advantage to humane Life or the Societies wherein they lived◠Unless the coining of new Words where they produced no new Things to apply them to or the perplexing or obscuring the signification of old ones◠and so bringing all Things into question and dispute were a thing profitable to the Life of Man or worthy Commendation and Reward § 9. For notwithstanding these learned Disputants these all knowing Doctors it was to the unscholastick Statesman that the Governments of the World owed their Peace Defence and Liberties and from the illiterate and contemned Mechanick a Name of Disgrace that they received the improvemnts of useful Arts. Nevertheless this artificial Ignorance and learned Gibberish prevailed mightily in these last Ages by the Interest and Artifice of those who found no easier way to that pitch of Authority and Dominion they have attained than by amusing the Men of Business and Ignorant with hard Words or employing the Ingenious and Idle in intricate Disputes about unintelligible Terms and holding them perpetually entangled in that endless Labyrinth Besides there is no such way to gain admittance or give defence to strange and absurd Doctrines as to guard them round about with Legions of obscure doubtful and undefined Words Which yet make these Retreats more like the Dens of Robbers or Holes of Foxes than the Fortresses of fair Warriours which if it be hard to get them out of it is not for the strength that is in them but the Briars and Thorns and the Obscurity of the Thickets they are beset with For Untruth being unacceptable to the Mind of Man there is no other defence left for Absurdity but Obscurity § 10. Thus learned Ignorance and this Art of keeping even inquisitive Men from true Knowledge hath been propagated in the World and hath much perplexed whilst it pretended to inform the Understanding For we see that other well-meaning and wise Men whose Education and Parts had not attained that accuteness could intelligibly express themselves to one another and in its plain use make a benefit of Language But though unlearned Men well enough understood the Words White and Black c. and had constant Notions of the Ideas signified by those Words yet there were Philosophers found who had learning and subtilty enough to prove that Snow was black i. e. to prove that White was Black whereby they had the advantage to destroy the Instruments and Means of Discourse Conversation Instruction and Society whilst with great Art and Subtility they did no more but perplex and confound the Signification of Words and thereby render Language less useful than the real Defects of it had made it a Gift which the illiterate had not attained to § 11. These learned Men did equally instruct Mens Understandings and profit their Lives as he who should alter the signification of known Characters and by a subtile Device of Learning far surpassing the Capacity of the Illiterate Dull and Vulgar should in his Writing shew that he could put A. for B. and D. for E. c. to the no small admiration and benefit of his Reader it being as sensless to put Black which is a Word agreed on to stand for one sensible Idea to put it I say for another or the contrary Idea i. e. to call Snow Black as to put this mark A. which is a Character agreed on to stand for one modification of Sound made by a certain motion of the Organs of Speech for B. which is agreed on to stand for another modification of Sound made by another certain motion of the Organs of Speech § 12. Nor hath this mischief stopped in logical Niceties or curious empty Speculations it hath invaded the great Concernments of Humane Life and Society obscured and perplexed the material Truths of Law and Divinity brought Confusion Disorder and Uncertainty into the Affairs of Mankind and if not destroyed yet in great measure rendred useless those two great Rules Religion and Justice What have the greatest part of the Comments and Disputes upon the Laws of GOD and Man served for but to make the meaning more doubtful and perplex the sense What have been the effect of those multiplied curious Distinctions and accute Niceties but Obscurity and Uncertainty leaving the Words more unintelligible and the Reader more at a loss How else comes it to pass that Princes speaking or writing to their Servants in their ordinary Commands are easily understood speaking to their People in their Laws are not so And as I remarked before doth it not often happen that a Man of an ordinary
Capacity very well understands a Text or a Law that he reads till he consults an Expositor or goes to Council who by that time he hath done explaining them makes the Words signifie either nothing at all or what he pleases § 13. Whether any by Interests of these Professions have occasioned this I will not here examine but I leave it to be considered whether it would not be well for Mankind whose concernment it is to know Things as they are and to do what they ought and not to spend their Lives in talking about them or tossing Words to and fro Whether it would not be well I say that the Use of Words were made plain and direct and that Language which was given us for the improvement of Knowledge and bond of Society should not be employ'd to darken Truth and unsettle Peoples Rights to raise Mists and render unintelligible both Morality and Religion Or that at least if this will happen it should not be thought Learning or Knowledge to do so § 14. Fourthly Another great abuse of Words is the taking them for Things This though it in some degree concerns all Names in general yet more particularly affects those of Substances And to this Abuse these Men are most subject who confine their Thoughts to any one System and give themselves up into a firm belief of the Perfection of any received Hypothesis whereby they come to be persuaded that the Terms of that Sect are so suited to the Nature of Things that they perfectly correspond with their real Existence Who is there that has been bred up in the Peripatetick Philosophy who does not think the Ten Names under which are ranked the Ten Predicaments to be exactly conformable to the Nature of Things Who is there of that School that is not persuaded that substantial forms vegetative Souls abhorrence of a Vacuum intentional Species c. are something real These Words Men have learned from their very entrance upon Knowledge and have found their Masters and Systems lay great stress upon them and therefore they cannot quit the Opinion that they are conformable to Nature and are the Representations of something that really exists The Platonists have their Soul of the World and the Epicureans their endeavour towards Motion in their Atoms when at rest There is scarce any Sect in Philosophy has not a distinct set of Terms that others understand not But yet this Gibberish which in the weakness of Humane Understanding serves so well to palliate Mens Ignorance and cover their Errours comes by familiar use amongst those of the same Tribe to seem the most important part of Language and of all others the Terms the most significant And should Aërial and AEtherial Vehicles come once by the prevalency of that Doctrine to be generally received any where no doubt those Terms would make impressions on Mens Minds so as to establish them in the persuasion of the reality of such Things as much as that peripatetick Forms have heretofore done § 15. How much names taken for Things are apt to mislead the Vnderstanding the attentive Reading of philosophical Writers would abundantly discover and that perhaps in Words little suspected of any such misuse I shall instance in one only and that a very familiar one How many intricate Disputes have there been about Matter as if there were some such thing really in Nature distinct from Body as 't is evident the Word Matter stands for an Idea distinct from the Idea of Body For if the Ideas these two Terms stood for were precisely the same they might indifferently in all Places be put one for the other but we see that tho' it be proper to say There is one Matter of all Bodies one cannot say There is one Body of all Matters we familiarly say one Body is bigger than another but it sounds harsh and I think is never used to say one Matter is bigger than another Whence comes this then Viz. from hence that though Matter and Body be not really distinct but where-ever there is one there is the other Yet Matter and Body stand for two different Conceptions whereof the one is incomplete and but a part of the other For Body stands for a solid extended figured Substance whereof Matter is but a partial and more confused Conception it seeming to me to be used for the Substance and Solidity of Body without taking in its Extension and Figure And therefore it is that speaking of Matter we speak of it always as one because in Truth it expresly contains nothing but the Idea of a solid Substance which is every where the same every where uniform And therefore we no more conceive or speak of different Matters in the World than we do of different Solidities though we both conceive and speak of different Bodies because Extension and Figure are capable of variation But since Solidity cannot exist without Extension and Figure the taking Matter to be the name of something really existing under that Precision has no doubt produced those obscure and unintelligible Discourses and Disputes which have filled the Heads and Books of Philosophers concerning Materia Prima which Imperfection or Abuse how far it may concern a great many other general Terms I leave to be considered This I think I may at least say that we should have a great many fewer Disputes in the World if Words were taken for what they are the signs of our Ideas only and not for Things themselves For when we argue about Matter or any the like Term we truly argue only about the Idea we express by that Sound whether that precise Idea agree to any thing really existing in Nature or no. And if Men would tell what Ideas they make their Words stand for there could not be half that Obscurity or Wrangling in the search or support of Truth that there is § 16. But whatever inconvenience follows from this mistake of Words this I am sure that by constant and familiar use they charm Men into Notions far remote from the Truth of Things 'T would be a hard Matter to persuade any one that the Words which his Father or School-Master the Parson of the Parish or such a Revend Doctor used signified nothing that really existed in Nature Which perhaps is none of the least Causes that Men are so hardly drawn to quit their Mistakes even in Opinions purely philosophical and where they have no other Interest but Truth For the Words they have a long time been used to remaining firm in their Minds 't is no wonder that the wrong Notions annexed to them should not be removed § 17. Fifthly Another Abuse of Words is the setting them in the place of Things which they do or can by no means signifie We may observe that in the general names of Substances whereof the nominal Essences are only known to us when we put them into Propositions and affirm or deny any thing about them we do most commonly tacitly suppose or intend they should stand
is plain how much Men love to deceive and be deceived since the great Art of Deceit and Errour Rhetorick I mean has its established Professors is publickly taught and has always been had in great Reputation And I doubt not but it will be thought great boldness if not brutality in me to have said thus much against it Eloquence like the fair Sex has too prevailing Beauties in it to suffer it self ever to be spoken against And 't is in vain to find fault with those Arts of Deceiving wherein Men find pleasure to be Deceived CHAP. XI Of the Remedies of the foregoing Imperfections and Abuses § 1. THe natural and improved Imperfections of Language we have seen above at large and Speech being the great Bond that holds Society together and the common Conduit whereby the Improvements of Knowledge are conveyed from one Man and one Generation to another it would well deserve our most serious Thoughts to consider what Remedies are to be found for these Inconveniences above-mentioned § 2. I am not so vain to think that any one can pretend to attempt the perfect Reforming the Languages of the World no not so much as that of his own Country without rendring himself ridiculous To require that Men should use their Words all in the same sense and for clear distinct and uniform Ideas would be to think that all Men should have the same Notions and should talk of nothing but what they have clear and distinct Ideas of which is not to be expected by any one who hath not vanity enough to imagine he can prevail with Men to be very knowing or very silent And he must be little skill'd in the World who thinks that a voluble Tongue shall accompany only a good Understanding or that Mens talking much or little shall hold proportion only to their Knowledge § 3. But though the Market and Exchange must be lest to their own ways of Talking and Gossippings not robb'd of their ancient Privilege though the Schools and Men of Argument would perhaps take it amiss to have any thing offered to abate the length or lessen the number of their Disputes yet methinks those who pretend seriously to search after or maintain Truth should think themselves obliged to study how they might deliver themselves without Obscurity Doubtfulness or Equivocation to which Mens Words are naturally liable if care be not taken § 4. For he that shall well consider the Errours and Obscurity the Mistakes and Confusion that is spread in the World by an ill use of Words will find some reason to doubt whether Language as it has been employ'd has contributed more to the improvement or hindrance of Knowledge amongst Mankind How many are there that when they would think on Things fix their Thoughts only on Words especially when they would apply their Minds to moral Matters And who then can wonder if the result of such Contemplations and Reasonings about little more than Sounds whilst the Ideas they annexed to them are very confused or very unsteady or perhaps none at all who can wonder I say that such Thoughts and Reasonings end in nothing but Obscurity and Mistake without any clear Judgment or Knowledge § 5. This Inconvenience in an ill use of Words Men suffer in their own private Meditations but much more manifest are the Disorders which follow from it in Conversation Discourse and Arguings with others For Language being the great Conduit whereby Men convey their Discoveries Reasonings and Knowledge from one to another he that makes an ill use of it though he does not corrupt the Fountains of Knowledge which are in Things themselves yet he does as much as in him lies break or stop the Pipes whereby it is distributed to the publick use and advantage of Mankind He that uses Words without any clear and steady meaning What does he but lead himself and others into Errours And he that designedly does it ought to be looked on as an Enemy to Truth and Knowledge And yet who can wonder that all the Sciences and Parts of Knowledge have been so over-charged with obscure and equivocal Terms and insignificant and doubtful Expressions capable to make the most attentive or quick-sighted very little or not at all the more knowing or Orthodox since Subtilty in those who make profession to teâ—ch or defend Truth hath passed so much for a Vertue A Vertue indeed which consisting for the most part in nothing but the fallacious and illusory use of obscure or deceitful Terms is only fit to make Men more conceited in their Ignorance and obstinate in their Errours § 6. Let us look into the Books of Controversies of any kind there we shall see that the effect of obscure unsteady or equivocal Terms is nothing but noise and wrangling about Sounds without convincing or bettering a Man's Understanding For if the Idea be not agreed on betwixt the Speaker and Hearer for which the Words stand the Argument is not about Things but Names As often as such a Word whose Signification is not ascertained betwixt them comes in use their Understandings have no other Object wherein they agree but barely the Sound the Things that they think on at that time as expressed by that Word being quite different § 7. Whether a Bat be a Bird or no is not a question whether a Bat be another Thing than indeed it is or have other Qualities than indeed it has for that would be extremely absurd to doubt of But the question is 1. Either between those that acknowledged themselves to have but imperfect Ideas of one or both of those sorts of Things for which these Names are supposed to stand and then it is a real enquiry concerning the Nature of a Bird or a Bat to make their yet imperfect Ideas of it more complete by examining whether all the simple Ideas to which combined together they both give the name Bird be all to be found in a Bat But this is a Question only of Enquirers not Disputers who neither affirm nor deny but examine Or 2. It is a Question between Disputants whereof the one affirms and the other denies that a Bat is a Bird And then the Question is barely about the Signification of one or both these Words in that they not having both the same complex Ideas to which they give these two Names one holds and t'other denies that these two names may be affirmed one of another Were they agreed in the Signification of these two Names it were impossible they should dispute about them For they would presently and clearly see were that adjusted between them whether all the simple Ideas of the more general name Bird were found in the complex Idea of a Bat or no and so there could be no doubt whether a Bat were a Bird or no. And here I desire it may be considered and carefully examined whether the greatest part of the Disputes in the World are not meerly Verbal and about the Signification of Words and that if
Reason that makes the defining of mixed Modes so necessary especially of moral Words is what I mentioned a little before and that is That it is the only way whereby the signification of the most of them can be known with certainty For the Ideas they stand for being for the most part such whose component Parts no-where exist together but scattered and mingled with others it is the Mind alone that collects them and gives them the union of one Idea and it is only by Words enumerating the several simple Ideas which the Mind has united that we can make known to others what their Names stand for and not by any application to the Senses as we can do in sensible simple Ideas and also to some degree in Substances § 19. Thirdly For the explaining the signification of the Names of Substances as they stand for the Ideas we have of their distinct Species both the fore-mentioned ways viz. of shewing and defining are requisite in many cases to be made use of For there being ordinarily in each Sort some leading Qualities to which we suppose the other which makes up our complex Idea of that Species annexed we give the Name to some Quality or Idea which is the most observable and we take to be the most distinguishing Idea of that Species These leading or characteristical as I may so call them Ideas in the sorts of Animals and Vegetables is as has been before remarked mostly Figure and in inanimate Bodies Colour and in some both together Now § 20. These leading sensible Qualities are those which make the chief Ingredients of our specifick Ideas and consequently the best Definitions of our specifick Names as attributed to Sorts of Substances coming under our Knowledge For though the Sound Man in its own Nature be as apt to signifie a complex Idea made up of Animality and Rationality united in the same Subject as to signifie any other combination yet used as a mark to stand for a sort of Creatures we count of our own kind perhaps the outward shape is as necessary to be taken into our complex Idea signified by the word Man as any other we find in it And therefore why Plato's Animal implume Bipes latis unguibus should not be as good a Definition of the Name Man standing for that sort of Creatures will not be easie to shew for 't is the Shape as the leading Quality that seems more to determine that Species than a Faculty of Reasoning which appears not at first and in some never And if this be not allow'd to be so I do not know how they can be excused from Murther who kill monstrous Births as we call them because of an unordinary Shape without knowing whether they have a Rational Soul or no which can be no more discerned in a well-formed than ill-shaped Infant as soon as born And who is it has informed us that a Rational Soul can inhabit no Tenement unless it has just such a sort of Frontispiece or can join it self to and inform no sort of Body but one that is just of such an outward Structure § 21. Now these leading Qualities are best made known by shewing and can hardly be made known otherwise For the shape of an Horse or Cassuary will be but rudely and imperfectly imprinted on the Mind by Words the sight of the Animals doth it a thousand times better And the Idea of the particular Colour of Gold is not to be got by any description of it but only by the frequent exercise of the Eyes about it as is evident in those who are used to this Metal who will frequently distinguish true from counterfeit pure from adulterate by the sight where others who have as good Eyes but yet by use have not got the precise nice Idea of that peculiar Yellow shall not perceive any difference The like may be said of those other simple Ideas peculiar in their kind to any Substance for which precise Ideas there are no peculiar Names The particular ringing sound there is in Gold distinct from the sound of other Bodies has no particular Name annexed to it no more than the particular Yellow that belongs to that Metal § 22. But because many of the simple Ideas that make up our specifick Ideas of Substances are Powers which lie not obvious to our Senses in the Things as they ordinarily appear therefore in the signification of our Names of Substances some part of the signification will be better made known by enumerating those simple Ideas than in shewing the Substance it self For he that to the yellow shining Colour of Gold got by sight shall from my enumerating them have the Ideas of great Ductility Fusibility Fixedness and Solubility in Aq. Regia will have a perfecter Idea of Gold than he can have by seeing a piece of Gold and thereby imprinting in his Mind only its obvious Qualities But if the formal Constitution of this shining heavy ductil Thing from whence all these its Properties flow lay open to our Senses as the formal Constitution or Essence of a Triangle does the signification of the word Gold might as easily be ascertained as that of Triangle § 23. Hence we may take notice how much the foundation of all our Knowledge of corporeal Things lies in our Senses For how Spirits separate from Bodies whose Knowledge and Ideas of these Things is certainly much more perfect than ours know them we have no Notion no Idea at all The whole extent of our Knowledge or Imagination reaches not beyond our own Ideas limited to our ways of Perception Though yet it be not to be doubted that Spirits of a higher rank than those immersed in Flesh may have as clear Ideas of the radical Constitution of Substances as we have of a Triangle and so perceive how all their Properties and Operations flow from thence but the manner how they come by that Knowledge exceeds our Conceptions § 24. But though Definitions will serve to explain the Names of Substances as they stand for our Ideas yet they leave them not without great imperfection as they stand for Things For our Names of Substances being not put barely for our Ideas but being made use of ultimately to represent Things and so are put in their place their signification must agree with the Truth of Things as well as with Mens Ideas And therefore in Substances we are not always to rest in the ordinary complex Idea commonly received as the signification of that Word but to go a little farther and enquire into the Nature and Properties of the Things themselves and thereby perfect as much as we can our Ideas of their distinct Species or else learn them from such as are used to that sort of Things and are experienced in them For since 't is intended their Names should stand for such Collections of simple Ideas as do really exist in Things themselves as well as for the complex Idea in other Mens Minds which in their ordinary acceptation they
continuation of a Discourse or the pursuit of an Argument there be hardly room to digress into a particular Definition as often as a Man varies the signification of any Term yet the import of the Discourse will for the most part if there be no designed fallacy sufficiently lead candid and intelligent Readers into the true meaning of it but where that is not sufficient to guide the Reader there it concerns the Writer to explain his meaning and shew in what sense he there uses that Term. BOOK IV. CHAP. I. Of Knowledge in general § 1. SInce the Mind in all its Thoughts and Reasonings hath no other immediate Object but its own Ideas which it alone does or can contemplate it is evident that our Knowledge is only conversant about them § 2. Knowledge then seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas In this alone it consists Where this Perception is there is Knowledge and where it is not there though we may fansie guess or believe yet we always come short of Knowledge For when we know that White is not Black what do we else but perceive that these two Ideas do not agree When we possess our selves with the utmost security of the Demonstration that the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones What do we more but perceive that Equality to two right ones does necessarily agree to and is inseparable from the three Angles of a Triangle § 3. But to understand a little more distinctly wherein this Agreement of Disagreement consists I think we may reduce it all to these four sorts 1. Identity or Diversity 2. Relation 3. Co-existence or necessary Connexion 4. Real Existence § 4. First As to the first sort of Agreement or Disagreement viz. Identiy or Diversity 'T is the first Act of the Mind when it has any Sentiments or Ideas at all to perceive its Ideas and so far as it perceives them to know each what it is and thereby also to perceive their difference and that one is not another This is so absolutely necessary that without it there could be no Knowledge no Reasoning no Imagination no distinct Thoughts at all By this the Mind clearly and infallibly perceives each Idea to agree with it self and to be what it is and all distinct Ideas to disagree i. e. the one not to be the other And this it does without any pains labour or deduction but at first view by its natural power of Perception and Distinction And though Men of Art have reduced this into those general Rules What is is and it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be for ready application in all cases wherein there may be occasion to reflect on it yet it is certain that the first exercise of this Faculty is about particular Ideas A Man infallibly knows as soon as ever he has them in his Mind that the Ideas he calls White and Round are the very Ideas they are and that they are not other Ideas which he calls Red or Square Nor can any Maxim or Proposition in the World make him know it clearer or surer than he did before or without any such general Rule This then is the first agreement or disagreement which the Mind perceives in its Ideas which it always perceives at first sight And if there ever happen any doubt about it 't will always be found to be about the Names and not the Ideas themselves whose Identity and Diversity will always be perceived as soon and as clearly as the Ideas themselves are nor can it possibly be otherwise § 5. Secondly The next sort of Agreement or Disagreement the Mind perceives in any of its Ideas may I think be called Relative and is nothing but the Perception of the Relation between any two Ideas of what kind soever whether Substances Modes or any other For since all distinct Ideas must eternally be known not to be the same and so be universally and constantly denied one of another there could be no room for any positive Knowledge at all if we could not perceive any Relation between our Ideas and find out the Agreement or Disagreement they have one with another in several ways the Mind takes of comparing them § 6. Thirdly The third sort of Agreement or Disagreement to be found in our Ideas which the Perception of the Mind is employ'd about is Co-existence or non-Co-existence in the same Subject and this belongs particularly to Substances Thus when we pronounce concerning Gold that it is fixed our Knowledge of this Truth amounts to no more but this that Fixedness or a power to remain in the Fire unconsumed is an Idea that always accompanies and is join'd with that particular sort of Yellowness Weight Fusibility Malleableness and Solubility in Aq. Regia which make our complex Idea signified by the word Gold § 7. Fourthly The fourth and last sort is that of actual real Existence agreeing to any Idea Within these four sorts of Agreement or Disagreement is I suppose contained all the Knowledge we have or are capable of For all the Enquiries that we can make concerning any of our Ideas all that we know or can affirm concerning any of them is That it is or is not the same with some other that it does or does not always co-exist with some other Idea in the same Subject that it has this or that Relation to some other Idea or that it has a real Existence without the Mind Thus Blue is not Yellow is of Identity Two Triangles upon equal Basis between two Parallels are equal is of Relation Iron is susceptible of magnetical Impressions is of Co-existence GOD is is of real Existence Though Identity and Co-existence are truly nothing but Relations yet they are so peculiar ways of Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas that they deserve well to be considered as distinct Heads and not under Relation in general since they are so different grounds of Affirmation and Negation as will easily appear to any one who will but reflect on what is said in several places of this Essay I should now proceed to examine the several degrees of our Knowledge but that it is necessary first to consider the different acceptations of the word Knowledge § 8. There are several ways wherein the Mind is possessed of Truth each of which is called Knowledge 1. There is actual Knowledge which is the present view the Mind has of the Agreement or Disagreement of any of its Ideas or of the Relation they have one to another 2. A Man is said to know any Proposition which having been once laid before his Thoughts he evidently perceived the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas whereof it consists and so lodg'd it in his Memory that whenever that Proposition comes again to be reflected on he without doubt or hesitation embraces the right side assents to and is certain of the Truth of it
knowing If it be true that all Knowledge lies only in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own Ideas the Visions of an Enthusiast and the Reasonings of a sober Man will be equally certain 'T is no matter how Things are so a Man observe but the agreement of his own Imaginations and talk conformably it is all Truth all Certainty Such Castles in the Air will be as strong Holds of Truth as the Demonstrations of Euclid That an Harpy is not a Centaur is by this way as certain knowledge and as much a Truth as that a Square is not a Circle But of what use is all this fine Knowledge of Men's own Imaginations to a Man that enquires after the reality of Things It matters not what Men's Fancies are 't is the Knowledge of Things that is only to be prized 't is this alone gives a value to our Reasonings and preference to one Man's Knowledge over another's that it is of Things as they really are and not of Dreams and Fancies § 2. To which I answer That if our Knowledge of our Ideas terminate in them and reach no farther where there is something farther intended our most serious Thoughts would be of little more use than the Resveries of a crazie brain and the Truths built thereon of no more weight than the Discourses of a Man who sees Things clearly in a Dream and with great assurance utters them But I hope before I have done to make it evident that this way of certainty by the knowledge of our own Ideas goes a little farther than bare Imagination and I believe it will appear that all the certainty of general Truths a Man has lies in nothing else § 3. 'T is evident the Mind knows not Things immediately but only by the intervention of the Ideas it has of them Our Knowledge therefore is real only so far as there is a conformity between our Ideas and the reality of Things But what shall be here the Criterion How shall the Mind when it perceives nothing but its own Ideas know that they agree with Things themselves This though it seem not to want difficulty yet I think there be two sorts of Ideas that we may be assured agree with Things § 4. First The first are simple Ideas which since the Mind as has been shewed can by no means make to it self must necessarily be the product of Things operating on the Mind in a natural way and producing therein those Perceptions which by the Wisdom and Will of our Maker they are ordained and adapted to From whence it follows that simple Ideas are not fictions of our Fancies but the natural and regular productions of Things without us really operating upon us and so carry with them all the conformity our state requires which is to represent Things under those appearances they are fitted to produce in us whereby we may distinguish the Substances they are in and apply them to our Uses Thus the Idea of Whiteness or Bitterness as it is in the Mind exactly answering that Power which is in any Body to produce it there has all the real conformity it can or ought to have with Things without us And this conformity between our simple Ideas and the existence of Things is sufficient for real Knowledge § 5. Secondly All our complex Ideas except those of Substances being Archetypes of the Mind 's own making not intended to be the Copies of any thing nor referred to the existence of any thing as to their Originals cannot want any conformity necessary to real Knowledge For that which is not designed to represent any thing but it self can never be capable of a wrong representation nor mislead us from the true apprehension of any thing by its dislikeness to it and such excepting those of Substances are all our complex Ideas which as I have shewed in another place are Combinations of Ideas which the Mind by its free choice puts together without considering any connexion they have in Nature And hence it is that in all these sorts the Ideas themselves are considered as the Archetypes and Things no otherwise regarded but as they are conformable to them So that we cannot but be infallibly certain that all the Knowledge we attain concerning these Ideas is real and reaches Things themselves Because in all our Thoughts Reasonings and Discourses of this kind we intend Things no farther than as they are conformable to our Ideas so that in these we cannot miss of a certain undoubted reality § 6. I doubt not but it will be easily granted that the Knowledge we may have of mathematical Truths is not only certain but real Knowledge not idle Chimeras of Men's Brains And yet if we will consider we shall find that it is only of our own Ideas The Mathematician considers the Truth and Properties belonging to a Rectangle or Circle only as they are in Idea in his own Mind for 't is possible he never found either of them existing mathematically i. e. precisely true in his Life But yet the knowledge he has of any Truths or Properties belonging to a Circle or any other mathematical Figure are nevertheless true and certain even of real Things existing because real Things are no farther concerned nor intended to be meant by any such Propositions than as Things really agree to those Archetypes in his Mind Is it true of the Idea of a Triangle that its three Angles are equal to two right ones It is true also of a Triangle where-ever it really exists What ever other Figure exists that is not exactly answerable to that Idea of a Triangle in his Mind is not at all concerned in that Proposition And therefore he is certain all his Knowledge concerning such Ideas is real Knowledge because intending Things no farther than they agree with those his Ideas he is sure what he knows concerning those Figures when they have barely an Ideal existence in his Mind will hold true of them also when they have a real existence in Matter his consideration being barely of those Figures which are the same where-ever or however they exist § 7. And hence it follows that moral Knowledge is as capable of real Certainty as Mathematicks For Certainty being but the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas and Demonstration nothing but the Perception of such Agreement by the Intervention of other Ideas or Mediums our moral Ideas as well as mathematical being Archetypes themselves and so adequate and compleat Ideas all the Agreement or Disagreement we shall find in them will produce real Knowledge as well as in mathematical Figures § 8. That which is requisite to make our Knowledge certain is the Clearness of our Ideas and that which is required to make it reâ—l is that they answer their Archetypes Nor let it be wondred that I place the Certainty of our Knowledge in the Consideration of our Ideas with so little Care and Regard as it may seem to the real Existence of
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
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
of Gradations or impatient of delay lightly survey or wholly pass over the Proofs and so without making out the Demonstration determine of the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas as it were by a view of them as they are at a distance and take it to be the one or the other as seems most likely to them upon such a loose survey This Faculty of the Mind when it is exercised immediately about Things is called Iudgment when about Truths delivered in Words is most commonly called Assent or Dissent which being the most usual way wherein the Mind has occasion to employ this Faculty I shall under these Terms treat of it as least liable in our Language to Equivocation § 4. Thus the Mind has two Faculties conversant about Truth and Falshood First Knowledge whereby it certainly perceives and is undoubtedly satisfied of the Agreement or Disagreement of any Ideas Secondly Judgment which is the putting Ideas together or separating them from one another in the Mind when their certain Agreement or Disagreement is not perceived but presumed to be so which is as the Word imports taken to be so before it certainly appears And if it so unites or separates them as in Reality Things are it is right Iudgment CHAP. XV. Of Probability § 1. AS Demonstration is the shewing the Agreement or Disagreement of two Ideas by the intervention of one or more Proofs which have a constant immutable and visible connexion one with another so Probability is nothing but the appearance of such an Agreement or Disagreement by the intervention of Proofs whose connexion is not constant and immutable or at least is not perceived to be so but is or appears for the most part to be so and is enough to induce the Mind to judge the Proposition to be true or false rather than the contrary For example In the demonstration of it a Man perceives the certain immutable connexion there is of Equality between the three Angles of a Triangle and those intermediate ones which are made use of to shew their Equality to two right ones and so by an intuitive Knowledge of the Agreement or Disagreement of the intermediate Ideas in each step of the progress the whole Series is continued with an evidence which clearly shews the Agreement or Disagreement of those three Angles in equality to two right ones And thus he has certain Knowledge that it is so But another Man who never took the pains to observe the Demonstration hearing a Mathematician a Man of credit affirm the three Angles of a Triangle to be equal to two right ones assents to it i. e. receives it for true In which case the foundation of his Assent is the Probability of the thing the Proof being such as for the most part carries Truth with it The Man on whose Testimony he receives it not being wont to affirm any thing contrary to or besides his Knowledge especially in matters of this kind So that that which causes his Assent to this Proposition that the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones that which makes him take these Ideas to agree without knowing them to do so is the wonted Veracity of the Speaker in other cases or his supposed Veracity in this § 2. Our Knowledge as has been shewn being very narrow and we not happy enough to find certain Truth in every thing we have occasion to consider most of the Propositions we think reason discourse nay act upon are such as we cannot have undoubted Knowledge of their Truth yet some of them border so near upon Certainty that we make no doubt at all about them but assent to them as firmly and act according to that Assent as vigorously as if they were infallibly demonstrated and that our Knowledge of them was perfect and certain But there being degrees herein from the very neighbourhood of Certainty and Evidence quite down to Improbability and Unlikeliness even to the Confines of Impossibility and also degrees of Assent from certain Knowledge and what is next it full Assurance and Confidence quite down to Conjecture Doubt Distrust and Disbelief I shall come now as having as I think found out the bounds of humane Knowledge and Certainty in the next place to consider the several degrees and grounds of Probability and Assent or Faith § 3. Probability then is likeliness to be true the very notation of the Word signifying such a Proposition for which there be Arguments or Proofs to make it pass or be received for true The entertainment the Mind gives this sort of Propositions is called Belief Assent or Opinion which is the admitting or receiving any Proposition for true upon Arguments or Proofs that are found to persuade us to receive it as true without certain Knowledge that it is so And herein lies the difference between Probability and Certainty Faith and Knowledge that in all the parts of Knowledge there is intuition each immediate Idea each step has its visible and certain connexion in Belief not so That which makes me believe is something extraneous to the thing I believe something not evidently joined on both sides to and so not manifestly shewing the Agreement or Disagreement of those Ideas that are under consideration § 4. Probability then being to supply the defect of our Knowledge and to guide us where that fails it is always conversant about things whereof we have no certainty but only some inducements to receive it for true The grounds of it are in short these two following First The conformity of any thing with our own Knowledge Observation and Experience Secondly The Testimony of others vouching their Observation and Experience In the Testimony of others is to be considered 1. The Number 2. The Integrity 3. The Skill of the Witnesses 4. The Design of the Author where it is a Testimony out of a Book cited 5. The Consistency of the Parts and Circumstances of the Relation 6. Contrary Testimonies § 5. Now Probability wanting that intuitive Evidence which infallibly determines the Understanding and produces certain Knowledge the Mind before it rationally assents or dissents to any probable Proposition ought to examine all the grounds of Probability and see how they make more or less for or against it and upon a due balancing the whole reject or receive it with a more or less firm assent proportionably to the preponderancy of the greater grounds of Probabily on one side or the other For example If I my self see a Man walk on the Ice it is past Probability 't is Knowledge but if another tells me he saw a Man in England in the midst of a sharp Winter walk upon Water harden'd with cold this has so great conformity with what is usually observed to happen that I am disposed by the nature of the thing it self to assent to it unless some manifest suspicion attend the Relation of that matter of fact But if the same thing be told to one born between the Tropicks who never
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
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
keep out the Enemy Truth that would captivate or disturb them Tell a Man passionately in Love that he is gilted bring a score of Witnesses of the Falshood of his Mistress 't is ten to one but three kind Words of hers shall invalidate all their Testimonies Quod volumus facilè credimus what suits our Wishes is forwardly believed is I suppose what every one hath more than once experimented and though Men cannot always openly gain-say or resist the force of manifest Probabilities that make against them yet yield they not to the Argument Not but that it is the Nature of the Understanding constantly to close with the more probable side but yet a Man hath a Power to suspend and restrain its Enquiries and not permit a full and satisfactory Examination as far as the Matter in Question is capable and will bear it to be made Until that be done there will be always these two ways left of evading the most apparent Probabilities § 13. First That the Arguments being as for the most part they are brought in Words there may be a Fallacy latent in them and the Consequences being perhaps many in Train they may be some of them incoherent There be very few Discourses are so short clear and consistent to which most Men may not with satisfaction enough to themselves raise this doubt and from whose conviction they may not without reproach of Disingenuity or Unreasonableness set themselves free with the old Reply Non persuadebis etiam si persuaseris though I cannot answer I will not yield § 14. Secondly Manifest Probabilities may be evaded and the Assent withheld upon this Suggestion That I know not yet all that may be said on the contrary side and therefore though he be beaten 't is not necessary he should yield not knowing what Forces there are in reserve behind This is a refuge against Conviction so open and so wide that it is hard to determine when a Man is quite out of the Verge of it § 15. But yet there is some end of it and a Man having carefully enquired into all the grounds of Probability and Unlikeliness done his utmost to inform himself in all Particulars fairly and cast up the whole Summ on both sides may in most Cases come to acknowledge upon the whole Matter on which side the Probability rests wherein some Proofs in Matters of Reason which are suppositious upon universal Experience are so cogent and clear and some Testimonies in Matters of Fact so universal that he cannot refuse his Assent So that I think we may conclude that in Propositions where though the Proofs in view are of most Moment yet there are sufficient grounds to suspect that there is either Fallacy in Words or certain Proofs as considerable to be produced on the contrary side there Assent Suspense or Dissent are often voluntary Actions But where the Proofs are such as make it highly probable and there is not sufficient ground to suspect that there is either Fallacy of Words which sober and serious Consideration may discover nor equally valid Proofs yet undiscovered latent on the other side which also the Nature of the thing may in some Cases make plain to a considerate Man there I think a Man who has weighed them can scarce refuse his Assent to the side on which the greater Probability appears Whether it be probable that a promiscuous jumble of printing Letters should often fall into a Method and Order which should stamp in Paper a coherent Discourse or that a blind fortuitous concourse of Atoms not guided by an understanding Agent should frequently constitute the Bodies of any Species of Animals in these and the like Cases I think no Body that considers them can be one jot at a stand which side to take nor at all waver in his Assent Lastly when there can be no Supposition the thing in its own Nature indifferent and wholly depending upon the Testimony of Witnesses that there is as fair Testimony against as for the Matter of Fact attested which by Enquiry is to be learned v. g. whether there was 1700 years agone such a Man at Rome as Iulius Caesar In all such Cases I say I think it is not in any rational Man's Power to refuse his Assent but that it necessarily follows and closes with such Probabilities In other less clear Cases I think it is in a Man's Power to suspend his Assent and perhaps content himself with the Proofs he has if they favour the Opinion that suits with his Inclination or Interest and so stop from farther search But that a Man should afford his Assent to that side on which the less Probability appears to him seems to me utterly impracticable and as impossible as it is to believe the same thing probable and improbable at the same time § 16. As Knowledge is no more arbitrary than Perception so I think Assent is no more in our Power than Knowledge When the Agreement of any two Ideas appear to our Minds whether immediately or by the Assistence of Reason I can no more refuse to perceive no more avoid knowing it than I can avoid seeing those Objects which I turn my Eyes to and look on in day-light And what upon full Examination I find the most probable I cannot deny my Assent to But though we cannot hinder our Knowledge where the Agreement is once perceived by our Minds nor our Assent where the Probability manifestly appears upon due Consideration of all the Measures of it Yet we can hinder both Knowledge and Assent by stopping our Enquiry and not imploying our Faculties in the search of any Truth if it were not so Ignorance Error or Infidelity could not in any Case be a Fault Thus in some Cases we can prevent or suspend our Assent But can a Man versed in modern or ancient History doubt whether there be such a Place as Rome or whether there was such a Man as Iulius Caesar Indeed there are millions of Truths that a Man is not or may not think himself concerned to know as whether Richard the Third was crook-back'd or no or whether Roger Bacon was a Mathematician or a Magician In these and such like Cases where the Assent one way or other is of no Importance to the Interest of any one no Action no Concernment of his following or depending thereon there 't is not strange that the Mind should give it self up to the common Opinion or render it self to the first Comer These and the like Opinions are of so little weight and moment that like Motes in the Sun their Tendencies are very rarely taken notice of They are there as it were by Chance and the Mind lets them float at liberty But where the Mind judges the Proposition has Concernment in it where the Assent or not Assenting is thought to draw Consequences after it of moment and Good or Evil to depend on chusing or refusing the right side and the Mind sets it self seriously to enquire and examine the
Probability there I think it is not in our Choice to take which side we please if manifest odds appears on either The greater Probability I think in that Case will determine the Assent and a Man can no more avoid assenting or taking it to be true where he perceives the greater Probability than he can avoid knowing it to be true where he perceives the Agreement or Disagreement of any two Ideas If this be so the Foundation of Errour will lie in wrong Measures of Probability as the Foundation of Vice in wrong Measures of Good § 17. Fourthly The fourth and last wrong Measure of Probability I shall take notice of and which keeps in Ignorance or Error more People than all the other together is that which I have mentioned in the fore-going Chapter I mean the giving up our Assent to the common received Opinions either of our Friends or Party Neighbourhood or Country How many Men have no other ground for their Tenets than the supposed Honesty or Learning or Number of those of the same Profession As if honest or bookish Men could not err or Truth were to be established by the Vote of the Multitude yet this with most Men serves the Turn The Tenet has had the attestation of reverend Antiquity it comes to me with the Pass-port of former Ages and therefore I am secure in the Reception I give it other Men have been and are of the same Opinion for that is all is said and therefore it is reasonable for me to embrace it A Man may more justifiably throw up Cross and Pile for his Opinions than take them up by such Measures All Men are liable to Error and most Men are in many Points by Passion or Interest under Temptation to it If we could but see the secret motives that influenced the Men of Name and Learning in the World and the Leaders of Parties we should not always find that it was the embracing of Truth for its own sake that made them espouse the Doctrines they owned and maintained This at least is certain there is not an Opinion so absurd which a Man may not receive upon this ground There is no Error to be named which has not had its Professors And a Man shall never want crooked Paths to walk in if he thinks he is in the right way where-ever he has the Foot-steps of others to follow § 18. But notwithstanding the great Noise is made in the World about Errors and Opinions I must do Mankind that Right as to say There are not so many Men in Errors and wrong Opinions as is commonly supposed Not that I think they embrace the Truth but indeed because concerning those Doctrines they keep such a stir about they have no Thought no Opinion at all For if any one should a little catechise the greatest part of the Partisans of most of the Sects in the World he would not find concerning those Matters they are so zealous for that they have any Opinions of their own much less would he have Reason to think that they took them upon the Examination of Arguments and Appearance of Probability They are resolved to stick to a Party that Education or Interest has engaged them in and there like the common Soldiers of an Army shew their Courage and Warmth as their Leaders direct without ever examining or so much as knowing the Cause they contend for If a Man's Life shews that he has no serious Regard to Religion for what Reason should we think that he beats his Head about the Opinions of his Church and troubles himself to examine the grounds of this or that Doctrine 'T is enough for him to obey his Leaders to have his Hand and his Tongue ready for the support of the common Cause and thereby approve himself to those who can give him Credit Preferment or Protection in that Society Thus Men become Professors of and Combatants for those Opinions they were never convinced of nor Proselites to no nor ever had so much as floating in their Heads And though one cannot say there are fewer improbable Opinions in the World than there are yet this is certain there are fewer that actually assent to them than is imagined CHAP. XX. Of the Division of the Sciences § 1. ALL that can fall within the compass of humane Understanding being either First The Nature of Things as they are in themselves their Relations and their manner of Operation Or Secondly that which Man himself ought to do as a rational and voluntary Agent for the Attainment of any Ends especially Happiness Or Thirdly The ways and means whereby the Knowledge of both the one and the other of these are attained and communicated I think Science may be divided properly into these Three sorts § 2. First The Knowledge of Things as they are in their own proper Beings their Constitutions Properties and Operations whereby I mean not only Matter and Body but Spirits also which have their proper Natures Constitutions and Operations as well as Bodies This in a little more enlarged Sense of the Word I call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or natural Philosophy The end of this is bare speculative Truth and whatsoever can afford the Mind of Man any such falls under this branch whether it be God himself Angels Spirits Bodies or any other of their Affections as Number and Figure c. § 3. Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Skill of Right applying our own Powers and Actions for the Attainment of Things good and useful The most considerable under this Head is Ethicks which is the seeking out those Rules and Measures of humane Actions which lead to Happiness and the Means to practise them The end of this is not bare Speculation and the Knowledge of Truth but Right and a Conduct suitable to it § 4. Thirdly The third Branch may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Doctrine of Signs the most usual whereof being Words it is aptly enough termed also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Logick the business whereof is to consider the Nature of Signs the Mind makes use of for the understanding of Things or conveying its Knowledge to others For since the Things the Mind contemplates are none of them besides it self present to the Understanding 't is necessary that something else as a Sign or Representation of the thing it considers should be present to it And these are Ideas And because the Ideas of one Man's Mind cannot immediately be laid open to the view of another nor be themselves laid up any where but in the Memory which is apt to let them go and lose them Therefore to communicate our Ideas one to another as well as record them for our own use Signs of our Ideas are also necessary Those which Men have found most convenient and therefore generally make use of are articulate Sounds The Consideration then of Ideas and Words as the great Instruments of Knowledge make no despicable part of their Contemplation who would take a