where it has its Sourse 't is visible must be essentially inseparable from it therefore the actual want of Perception in so great part of the particular parcels of Matter is a Demonstration that the first Being from whom Perception and Knowledge is inseparable is not Matter How far this makes the want of Perception an essential property of Matter I will not dispute it suffices that it shews That Perception is not an essential Property of Matter and therefore Matter cannot be that eternal original Being to which Perception and Knowledge is Essential Matter I say naturally is without Perception Ergo says your Lordship want of Perception is an essential Property of Matter and God doth not change the essential Properties of things their Nature remaining From whence you infer That God cannot bestow on any parcel of Matter the nature of Matter remaining a Faculty of Thinking If the Rules of Logick since my days be not changed I may safely deny this Consequence For an Argument that runs thus God does not Ergo he cannot I was taught when I came first to the University would not hold For I never said God did But That I see no Contradiction in it that he should if he pleased give to some systems of sensless Matter a Faculty of Thinking and I know no Body before Des Cartes that ever pretended to shew that there was any Contradiction in it So that at worst my not being able to see in Matter any such Incapacity as makes it impossible for Omnipotency to bestow on it a Faculty of Thinking makes me opposite only to the Cartesians For as far as I have seen or heard the Fathers of the Christian Church never pretended to domonstrate that Matter was incapable to receive a Power of Sensation Perception and Thinking from the Hand of the omnipotent Creator Let us therefore if you please suppose the form of your Argumentation right and that your Lordship means God cannot And then if your Argument be good it proves That God could not give to Baalam's Ass a Power to speak to his Master as he did for the want of rational Discourse being natural to that Species 't is but for your Lordship to call it an Essential Property and then God cannot change the Essential Properties of things their Nature remaining Whereby it is proved That God cannot with all his Omnipotency give to an Ass a Power to speak as Balaam's did You say my Lord you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency For he may if he please change a Body into an Immaterial Substance i. e. take away from a Substance the Solidity which it had before and which made it Matter and then give it a Faculty of thinking which it had not before and which makes it a Spirit the same Substance remaining For if the same Substance remains not Body is not changed into an Immaterial Substance But the solid Substance and all belonging to it is Annihilated and an Immaterial Substance Created which is not change of one thing into another but the destroying of one and making another de novo In this change therefore of a Body or Material Substance into an immaterial let us observe those distinct Considerations First you say God may if He Pleases take away from a Solid Substance Solidity which is that which makes it a Material Substance or Body and may make it an Immaterial Substance i. e. a Substance without Solidity But this privation of one Quality gives it not another the bare taking away a lower or less Noble Quality does not give it an Higher or Nobler that must be the gift of God For the bare Privation of one and a meaner Quality cannot be the Position of an Higher and better unless any one will say that Cogitation or the Power of thinking results from the Nature of Substance it self which if it do then where ever there is Substance there must be Cogitation or a Power of thinking Here then upon your Lordship 's own Principles is an Immaterial Subâ—ance without the Faculty of thinking In the next place you will not deny but God may give to this Substance thus deprived of Solidity a Faculty of thinking for you suppose it made capable of that by being made Immaterial whereby you allow that the same numerical Substance may be sometimes wholly Incogitative or without a Power of thinking and at other times perfectly Cogitative or indued with a Power of thinking Further you will not deny but God can give it Solidity and make it Material again For I conclude it will not be denied that God can make it again what it was before Now I crave leave to ask your Lordship why God having given to this Substance the Faculty of thinking after Solidity was taken from it cannot restore to it Solidity again without taking away the Faculty of thinking When you have Resolved this my Lord you will have proved it impossible for God's Omnipotence to give to a Solid Substance a Faculty of thinking but till then not having proved it impossible and yet denying that God can do it is to deny that he can do what is in it self Possible which as I humbly conceive is visibly to set Bound's to God's Omnipotency tho' you say here you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency If I should imitate your Lordship's way of Writing I should not omit to bring in Epicurus here and take notice that this was his way Deum verbis ponere re tollere And then add that I am certain you do not think he promoted the great ends of Religion and Morality For 't is with such Candid and Kind insinuations as these that you bring in both Hobbes and Spinosa into your Discourse here about God's being able if he please to give to some parcels of Matter ordered as he thinks fit a Faculty of thinking Neither of those Authors having as appears by any Passages you bring out of them said any thing to this Question nor having as it seems any other business here but by their Names skilfully to give that Character to my Book with which you would recommend it to the World I pretend not to enquire what measure of Zeal nor for what guides your Lordships Pen in such a way of Writing as yours has all along been with me Only I cannot but consider what Reputation it would give to the Writings of the Fathers of the Church if they should think Truth required or Religion allowed them to imitate such Patterns But God be thanked there be those amongst them who do not admire such ways of managing the Cause of Truth or Religion They being sensible that if every one who believes or can pretend he has Truth on his side is thereby Authorized without proof to insinuate what ever may serve to prejudice Mens minds against the other side there will be great ravage made on Charity and Practice without any gain to Truth or Knowledge And that the Liberties frequently taken by Disputants
Particle of it having some bulk has its Parts connected by ways inconceiveable to us So that all the Difficulties that are raised against the Thinking of Matter from our Ignorance or narrow Conceptions stand not at all in the way of the Power of God if he pleases to ordain it so nor proves any thing against his having actually endued some parcels of Matter so disposed as he thinks fit with a Faculty of Thinking till it can be shewn that it contains a Contradiction to suppose it Though to me Sensation be comprehended under Thinking in general yet in the foregoing Discourse I have spoke of Sense in Brutes as distinct from Thinking Because your Lordship as I remember speaks of Sense in Brutes But here I take liberty to observe That if your Lordship allows Brutes to have Sensation it will follow either that God can and doth give to some parcels of Matter a Power of Perception and Thinking or that all Animals have immaterial and consequently according to your Lordship immortal Souls as well as Men and to say that Fleas and Mites c. have immortal Souls as well as Men will possibly be looked on as going a great way to serve an Hypothesis and as it would not very well agree with what your Lordship says 2 Answ. p. 64. to the Words of Solomon quoted out of Eccles. C. 3. I have been pretty large in making this Matter plain that they who are so forward to bestow hard Censures or Names on the Opinions of those who differ from them may consider whether sometimes they are not more due to their own And that they may be perswaded a little to temper that Heat which supposing the Truth in their current Opinions gives them as they think a Right to lay what Imputations they please on those who would fairly examin the Grounds they stand upon For talking with a Supposition and Insinuations that Truth and Knowledge nay and Religion too stands and falls with their Systems is at best but an imperious way of begging the Question and assuming to themselves under the pretence of Zeal for the Cause of God a Title to Infallibility It is very becoming that Mens Zeal for Truth should go as far as their Proofs but not go for Proofs themselves He that attacks received Opinions with any thing but fair Arguments may I own be justly suspected not to mean well nor to be led by the Love of Truth but the same may be said of him too who so defends them An Error is not the better for being common nor Truth the worse for having lain neglected And if it were put to the Vote any where in the World I doubt as things are managed whether Truth would have the Majority at least whilst the Authority of Men and not the examination of Things must be its Measure The imputation of Scepticism and those broad Insinuations to render what I have writ suspected so frequent as if that were the great Business of all this Pains you have been at about me has made me say thus much my Lord rather as my Sense of the way to establish Truth in its full Force and Beauty than that I think the World will need to have any thing said to it to make it distinguish between your Lordship's and my Design in Writing which therefore I securely leave to the Judgment of the Reader and return to the Argument in Hand What I have above said I take to be a full Answer to all that your Lordship would infer from my Idea of Matter of Liberty and of Identity and from the power of Abstracting You ask How can my Idea of Liberty agree with the Idea that Bodies can operate only by Motion and Impulse Answ. By the omnipotency of God who can make all things agree that involve not a Contradiction 'T is true I say That Bodies operate by impulse and nothing else And so I thought when I writ it and yet can conceive no other way of their operation But I am since convinced by the Judicious Mr. Newton's incomparable Book that 't is too bold a Presumption to limit God's Power in this Point by my narrow Conceptions The gravitation of Matter towards Matter by ways unconceivable to me is not only a Demonstration that God can if he pleases put into Bodies Powers and ways of Operation above what can be derived from our Idea of Body or can be explained by what we know of Matter but also an unquestionable and every where visible Instance that he has done so And therefore in the next Edition of my Book I shall take care to have that Passage rectified As to Self-consciousness your Lordship asks What is there like Self-consciousness in Matter Nothing at all in Matter as Matter But that God cannot bestow on some parcels of Matter a Power of Thinking and with it Self-consciousness will never be proved by asking How is it possible to apprehend that meer Body should perceive that it doth perceive The weakness of our Apprehension I grant in the Case I confess as much as you please that we cannot conceive how a solid no nor how an unsolid created Substance thinks but this weakness of our Apprehensions reaches not the Power of God whose weakness is stronger than any thing in Men. Your Argument from Abstraction we have in this Question If it may be in the power of Matter to think how comes it to be so impossible for such organized Bodies as the Brutes have to enlarge their Ideas by Abstraction Answ. This seems to suppose that I place Thinking within the natural Power of Matter If that be your Meaning my Lord I neither say nor suppose that all Matter has naturally in it a Faculty of Thinking but the direct contrary But if you mean that certain parcels of Matter ordered by the Divine Power as seems fit to him may be made capable of receiving from his Omnipotency the Faculty of Thinking that indeed I say and that being granted the Answer to your Question is easie since if Omnipotency can give Thought to any solid Substance it is not hard to conceive that God may give that Faculty in an higher or lower Degree as it pleases him who knows what Disposition of the Subject is suited to such a particular way or degree of Thinking Another Argument to prove That God cannot endue any parcel of Matter with the Faculty of Thinking is taken from those Words of mine where I shew by what connection of Ideas we may come to know That God is an Immaterial Substance They are these The Idea of an eternal actual knowing Being with the Idea of Immateriality by the intervention of the Idea of Matter and of its actual Division divisibility and want of Perception c. From whence your Lordship thus argues Here the want of Perception is owned to be so essential to Matter that God is therefore concluded to be Immaterial Ans. Perception and Knowledge in that one Eternal Being
your Words which you did not intend me in them But on the other side I would not willingly neglect to acknowledge any Civility from your Lordship in the full extent of it The Business is a little nice because what is contain'd in those two Passages cannot by a less skilful Hand than yours be well put together though they immediately follow one another This I am sure falls out very untowardly that your Lordship should drive me who had much rather have been otherwise imployed to drive your Lordship to do that which you were unwilling to do The World sees how much I was driven For what Censures what Imputations must my Book have lain under if I had not cleared it from those Accusations your Lordship brought against it when I am charged now with Evasions for not clearing my self from an Accusation which you never brought against me But if it be an Evasion not to answer to an Objection that has not been made what is it I beseech you my Lord to make no reply to Objections that have been made Of which I promise to give your Lordship a List whenever you shall please to call for it I forbear it now for fear that if I should say all that I might upon this new Accusation it would be more than would suit with your Lordship's liking and you should complain again that you have opened a Passage which brings to your mind Ramazzini and his Springs of Modena But your Lordship need not be afraid of being overwhelmed with the Ebullition of my Thoughts nor much trouble your self to find a way to give check to it Meer Ebullition of Thoughts never overwhelms or sinks any one but the Author himself but if it carries Truth with it that I confess has force and it may be troublesome to those that stand in its way Your Lordship says You see how dangerous it is to give occasion to one of such a fruitful Invention as I am to write I am obliged to your Lordship that you think my Invention worth concerning your self about though it be so unlucky as to have your Lordship and me always differ about the measure of its Fertility In your first Answer you thought I too much extended the Fertility of my Invention and ascribed to it what it had no Title to And here I think you make the Fertility of my Invention greater than it is For in what I have answered to your Lordship there seems to me no need at all of a Fertil Invention 'T is true it has been hard for me to find out whom you writ against or what you meant in many places As soon as that was found the Answer lay always so obvious and so easie that there needed no labour of Invention to discover what one should reply The Things themselves where there were any strip'd of the Ornaments of Scholastick Language and the less obvious ways of learned Writings seemed to me to carry their Answers visibly with them This permit me my Lord to say That however fertil my Invention is it has not in all this Controversie produced one Fiction or wrong Quotation But before I leave the Answer you dictate permit me to observe that I am so unfortunate to be blamed for owning what I was not accused to disown and here for not owning what I was never charged to disown The like Misfortune have my poor Writings They offend your Lordship in some places because they are new and in others because they are not new Your next Words which are a new Charge I shall pass over till I come to your Proof of them and proceed to the next Paragraph Your Lordship tells me You shall wave all unnecessary Repetitions and come immediately to the matter of my Complaint as it is renewed in my Second Letter What your Lordship means by unnecessary Repetitions here seems to be of a piece with your blaming me in the foregoing Page for having said too much in my own defence and this taken altogether confirms my Opinion That in your Thoughts it would have been better I should have replyed nothing at all For you having set down here near twenty Lines as a necessary Repetition out of your former Letter your Lordship omits my answer to them as wholly unnecessary to be seen and consequently you must think was at first unnecessary to have been said For when the same Words are necessary to be repeated again if the same reply which was made to them be not thought fit to be repeated too it is plainly judged to be nothing to the purpose and should have been spared at first 'T is true your Lordship has set down some few Expressions taken out of several parts of my Reply but in what manner the Reader cannot clearly see without going back to the Original of this Matter He must therefore pardon me the trouble of a deduction which cannot be avoided where Controversie is managed at this rate which necessitates and so excuses length of the Answer My Book was brought into the Trinitarian Controversie by these steps Your Lordship says That 1. The Vnitarians have not explained the Nature and Bounds of Reason 2. The Author Of Christianity not Mysterious to make amends for this has offer'd an account of Reason 3. His Doctrin concerning Reason supposes that we must have clear and distinct Ideas of whatever we pretend to any Certainty of in our Mind 4. Your Lordship calls this a new way of Reasoning 5. This Gentleman of this new way of Reasoning in his First Chapter says something which has a conformity with some of the Notions in my Book But it is to be observed he speaks them as his own Thoughts and not upon my Authority nor with taking any notice of me 6. By vertue of this he is presently entituled to I know not how much of my Book and divers Passages of my Essay are quoted and attributed to him under the Title of The Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning for he is by this time turned into a Troop and certain unknown if they are not all contained in this one Author's Doublet They and These are made by your Lordship to lay about them shrewdly for several Pages together in your Lordship's Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity c. with Passages taken out of my Book which your Lordship was at the pains to quote as Theirs i. e. certain unknown Anti-trinitarians Of this your Lordship's way strange and new to me of dealing with my Book I took notice To which your Lordship tells me here you replyed in these following words which your Lordship has set down as no unnecessary Repetition Your Words are It was because the Person who opposed the Mysteries of Christianity went upon my Grounds and made use of my Words although your Lordship declared withal That they were used to other purposes than I intended them and your Lordship confessed that the Reason why you
I am apt to think it will last in the World and do service to Truth even the Truths of Religion notwithstanding that imputation laid on it by so mighty a hand as your Lordships's In your two next Paragraphs your Lordship accuses me of Cavilling in the 43d and 44th Pages of my second Letter whither for shortness I refer my Reader I shall only add That though in the Debate about Mysteries of Faith your Adversaries as you say are not Heathens yet any one among us whom your Lordship should speak of as not owning the Scripture to be the Foundation and Rule of Faith would I presume be thought to receive from you a Character very little different from that of a Heathen Which being a part of your Complement to me will I humbly conceive excuse what I there said from being a Cavilling exception Hitherto your Lordship notwithstanding that you understood the World so well has imploied your Pen in Personal Matters how unacceptable soever to the World you declare it to be How must I behave my self in the Case If I answer nothing my silence is so apt to be interpreted guilt or concession that even the deferring my answer to some Points or not giving it in the proper place is reflected on as no small Trangression whereof there are two Examples in the two following Pages And if I do answer so at large as your way of writing requires and as the matter deserves I recall to your memory the Springs of Modena by the Ebullition of my Thoughts 'T is hard my Lord between these two to manage ones self to your good likeing However I shall endeavour to collect the force of your reasonings where-ever I can find it as short as I can and apply my answers to that though with the omission of a great many incidents deserving to be taken notice of If my flowness not able to keep pace every where with your uncommon Flights shall have missed any Argument whereon you lay any stress if you please to point it out to me I shall not fail to endeavour to give you satisfaction therein In the next Paragraph your Lordship says Those who are not sparing of writing about Articles of Faith and among them take great care to avoid some which have been always esteemed Fundamental c. This seems also to contain something Personal in it But how far I am concerned in it I shall know when you shall be pleased to tell me who those are and then it will be time enough for me to answer This is what your Lordship has brought in under your second Answer in these four Pages as a defence of it and how much of it is a defence of that second Answer let the Reader judge I am now come to the 3d of those Answers which you said p. 7. you would lay together and defend And it is this That my Grounds of Certainty tend to Scepticism and that in an Age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are too much exposed by the promoters of Scepticism and Infidelity it is a thing of dangerous consequence to start such new methods of Certainty as are apt to leave Mens Minds more doubtful than before This is what you set down here to be defended the defence follows wherein your Lordship tells me that I say These Words contain a farther Accusation of my Book which shall be consider'd in its due place But this is the proper place of considering it For your Lordship said That hereby I have given too just occasion to the Enemies of the Christian Faith to make use of my Words and Notions as was evidently proved from my own Concessions And if this be so however you were willing to have had me explained my self to the general Satisfaction yet since I decline it you do insist upon it That I cannot clear my self from laying that Foundation which the Author of Christianity not Mysterious built upon In which I crave leave to acquaint your Lordship with what I do not understand First I do not understand what is meant by this is the proper place for in ordinary construction these Words seem to denote this 20th Page of your Lordship's second Letter which you were then writing tho' the sense would make me think the 46th Page of my second Letter which you were then answering should be meant This perhaps your Lordship may think a nice piece of Criticism but till it be cleared I cannot tell what to say in my excuse For 't is likely your Lordship would again ask me whether I could think you a Man of so little Sense If I should understand these Words to mean the 20th Page of your second Letter which no body can conceive your Lordship should think a proper place for me to consider and answer what you had writ in your first 'T would be as hard to understand this is to mean a place in my former Letter which was past and done but 't is no wonder for me to be mistaken in your priviledge word this Besides there is this farther difficulty to understand this is the proper place of the 46th Page of my former Letter because I do not see why the 82d Page of that Letter where I did consider and answer it was not as proper place of considering it as the 46th where I give a reason why I defend it Farther if I understood what you meant here by this is the proper place I should possibly apprehend better the force of your Argument subjoined to prove this whatever it be to be the proper place the causal Particle For which introduces the following Words making them a reason of those preceding But in the present obscurity of this matter I confess I do not see how your having said that I gave occasion to the Enemies of the Christian Faith c. proves any thing concerning the proper place at all Another thing that I do not understand in this Defence is your inference in the next Period where you tell me If this be so you insist upon it that I should clear my self For I do not see how your having said what you there said for that is it which this here if it be not within Priviledge must signifie can be a reason for your insisting on my clearing my self of any thing though I allow this to be your Lordship's ordinary way of proceding to insist upon your suggestions and suppositions in one place as if they were Foundations to build what you pleased on in another Thus then stands your defence My Grounds of Certainty tend to Scepticism and to start new Methods of Certainty is of dangerous consequence Because I did not consider this your Accusation in the proper place of considering it This is the proper place of considering it Because your Lordship said I had given too just occasion to the Enemies of the Christian Faith to make use of my Words and Notions and because your Lordship said so therefore you insist upon it
that I clear my self c. This appears to me to be the connection and force of your defence hitherto If I am mistaken in it your Lordship's Words are set down the Reader must judge whether the construction of the Words do not make it so But before I leave them there are some things that I crave permission to represent to your Lordship more particularly 1. That to the Accusation of Scepticism I have answer'd in another and as I think a proper place 2. That the Accusation of dangerous consequence I have consider'd and answer'd in my former Letter but that being it seems not the proper place of considering it you have not in this your Defence thought fit to take any notice of it 3. That your Lordship has not any where proved That my placing of Certainty in the perception of the Agreement or disagreement of Ideas is apt to leave Mens Minds more doubtful than they were before which is what your Accusation supposes 4. That you set down those Words of mine These Words contain a farther Accusation of my Book which shall be consider'd in its due place as all the answer which I gave to that new Accusation except what you take notice of out of my 95th Page and take no notice of what I say from Page 82 to 95. where I consider'd it as I promised and as I thought fully answer'd it 5. That the too just occasion you say I have given to the Enemies of the Christian Faith to make use of my Words and Notions wants to be proved 6. That what use the Enemies of the Christian Faith have made of my Words and Notions is no where shewn though often talked of 7. That if the Enemies of the Christian Faith have made use of my Words and Notions yet that as I have shewn is no proof That they are of dangerous consequence Much less is it a proof that this Proposition Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas is of dangerous consequence For some Words or Notions in a Book that are of dangerous consequence do not make all the Propositions of that Book to be of dangerous consequence 8. That your Lordship tells me You were willing to have had me explained my self to the general satisfaction which is what in the place from which the former words are taken you expressed thus That my Answer did not come fully up in all things to that which you coùld wish To which I have given an answer and methinks your defence here should have been applied to that and not the same thing which has been answer'd set down again as part of your Defence But pray my Lord give me leave to ask is not this meant for a Personal Matter which though the World as you say is soon weary of your Lordship it seems is not 9. That you say You insist upon it that I cannot clear my self from laying that Foundation which the Author of Christianity not Mysterious built upon Certainly this Personal Matter is of some very great consequence that your Lordship who understands the World so well insists so much upon it But if it be true That he built upon my Foundation and it be of such moment to your Lordships business in the present Controversie methinks without so much intricacy it should not be hard to shew it It is but proving what Foundation of Certainty for 't is of that all this dispute is he went upon which as I humbly conceive your Lordship has not done and then shewing that to be my Foundation of Certainty and the business is ended But instead of this your Lordship says That his account of Reason supposes clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty That he imagined he built upon my Grounds That he thought his and my Notions of Certainty to be the same That there has been too iust occasion given for the Enemies of the Christian Faith to apply my Words in I know not what manner These and the like Arguments to prove that he goes upon my Grounds your Lordship has used but they are I confess too subtile and too fine for me to feel the force of them in a Matter of Fact wherein it was so easie to produce both his and my Grounds out of our Books without all this talk about Suppositions and Imaginations and Occasions so far remote from any direct Proof if it were a matter of that consequence to be so insisted upon as your Lordship professedly does Your Lordship has spent a great many Pages to tie me to that Author and you still insist upon it that I cannot clear my self from laying that Foundation which the Author of Christianity not Mysterious built upon What this great concern in a matter of so little moment means I leave the Reader to guess For I beseech your Lordship of what great consequence is it to the World What great interest has any Truth of Religion in this That I and another Man be he who he will make use of the same Grounds to different purposes This I am sure it tends not to the clearing or confirming any one material Truth in the World If the Foundation I have laid be true I shall neither disown nor dislike it whatever this or any other Author shall build upon it because as your Lordship knows ill things may be built upon a good Foundation and yet the Foundation never the worse for it And therefore if that or any other Author hath built upon my Foundation I see nothing in it that I ought to be concerned to clear my self from If you can shew that my Foundation is false or shew me a better Foundation of Certainty than mine I promise you immediately to renounce and relinquish mine with thanks to your Lordship But till you can prove That he that first invented Syllogisme as a Rule of right Reasoning or first laid down this Principle That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be is answerable for all those Opinions which have been endeavoured to be proved by Mode and Figure or have been built upon that Maxim I shall not think my self concerned whatever any one shall build upon this Foundation of mine That Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any two Ideas as they are expressed in any Proposition much less shall I think my self concerned for what you shall please to suppose for that with submission is all you have done hitherto any one has built upon it though he were never so opposite to your Lordship in any of the Opinions he should build on it In that case if he should prove troublesome to your Lordship with any Argument pretended to be built upon my Foundation I humbly conceive you have no other Remedy but to shew either the Foundation false and in that case I confess my self concerned or his deduction from it wrong and that I shall not be at all
Matter so disposed a thinking immaterial Substance It being in respect of our Notions not much more remote from our Comprehensions to conceive that God can if he pleases superadd to our Idea of Matter a Faculty of Thinking than that he should superadd to it another Substance with a faculty of Thinking From my saying thus That God whom I have proved to be an immaterial Being by his Omnipotency may for ought we know superadd to some parts of Matter a faculty of Thinking it requires some skill for any one to represent me as your Lordship does here as one ignorant or doubtful whether Matter may not think to that degree that I am not certain or I do not believe that there is a Principle above Matter and Motion in the World and consequently all Revelation may be nothing but the effects of an exalted Fancy or the heats of a disordered Imagination as Spinosa affirm'd For thus I or some Body else whom I desire your Lordship to produce stands painted in this your Lordship's Argument from the supposition of a Divine Revelation which your Lordship brings here to prove That the defining of Knowledge as I do to consist in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the Credibility of the Articles of the Christian Faith But if your Lordship thinks it so dangerous a Position to say It is not much harder for us to conceive that God can if he pleases superadd to Matter a faculty of Thinking than that he should superadd to it another Substance with a faculty of Thinking which is the utmost I have said concerning the faculty of Thinking in Matter I humbly conceive it would be more to your purpose to prove That the infinite omnipotent Creator of all Things out of nothing cannot if he pleases superadd to some parcels of Matter disposed as he sees fit a faculty of Thinking which the rest of Matter has not rather than to represent me with that Candour your Lordship does as one who so far makes Matter a Thinking thing as thereby to question the being of a Principle above Matter and Motion in the World and consequently to take away all Revelation which how natural and genuine a Representation it is of my Sense expressed in the Passages of my Essay which I have above set down I humbly submit to the Reader 's Judgment and your Lordship's Zeal for Truth to determine and shall not stay to examin whether Man may not have an exalted Phancy and the heats of a disorder'd Imagination equally overthrowing Divine Revelation tho' the power of Thinking be placed only in an immaterial Substance I come now to the sequel of your Major which is this If one who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas does not know but Matter may Think then whoever places Certainty so cannot believe there is an immaterial intelligent Being in the World The consequence here is from does not to cannot which I cannot but wonder to find in an Argument of your Lordships For he that does not to Day believe or know that Matter cannot be so ordered by God's Omnipotency as to think if that subverts the belief of an immaterial intelligent Being in the World may know or believe it to Morrow or if he should never know or believe it yet others who define Knowledge as he does may know or believe it Unless your Lordship can prove that it is impossible for any one who defines Knowledge to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas to know or believe that Matter cannot Think But this as I remember your Lordship has not any where attempted to prove And yet without this your Lordship's way of Reasoning is no more than to argue that one cannot do a thing because another does not do it And yet upon this strange consequence is built all that your Lordship brings here to prove that my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of Articles of Faith v. g. It weakens the credibility of this fundamental Article of Faith that there is a God! How so Because I who have so defined Knowledge say in my Essay That the Knowledge of the Existence of any other thing but of God we can have only by Sensation For there being no necessary connexion of real Existence with any Idea a Man hath in his Memory nor of any other Existence but that of God with the Existence of any particular Man no particular Man can know the Existence of any other Being but only when by actual operating upon him it makes it self perceived by him For the having the Idea of any thing in our Mind no more proves the Existence of that thing than the Picture of a Man evidences his Being in the World or the Visions of a Dream make thereby a true History For so are the Words of my Book and not as your Lordship has been pleased to set them down here and they were well chosen by your Lordship to shew that the way of Ideas would not do i. e. In my way by Ideas I cannot prove there is a God But supposing I had said in that place or any other that which would hinder the proof of a God as I have not might I not see my Error and alter or renounce that Opinion without changing my definition of Knowledge Or could not another Man who defined Knowledge as I do avoid Thinking as your Lordship says I say That no Idea proves the Existence of the thing without it self and so able notwithstanding my saying so to prove that there is a God Again your Lordship argues that my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of the Articles of Faith Because it takes away Revelation and your Proof of that is because I do not know whether Matter may not Think The same sort of Argumentation your Lordship goes on with in the next Page where you say Again before there can be any such thing as assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation there must be a Certainty as to Sense and Tradition for there can be no Revelation pretended now without immediate Inspiration and the Basis of our Faith is a Revelation contained in an antient Book whereof the parts were delivered at distant times but conveyed down to us by an universal Tradition But now what if my grounds of Certainty can give us no assurance as to these Things Your Lordship says you do not mean That they cannot demonstrate matters of Fact which it were most unreasonable to expect but that these Grounds of Certainty make all things uncertain for your Lordship thinks you have proved That this way of Ideas cannot give a satisfactory Account as to the Existence of the plainest Objects of the Sense because Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas How then can we arrive to any Certainty in perceiving those Objects by their Ideas All the force of which Argument lies in this that I have said
fair and ingenuous this is Words which I should not use but that I find them used by your Lordship in this very Passage and upon this very Occasion I grant my self a mortal Man very liable to Mistakes especially in your Writings But that in my Mistakes I am guilty of any Vnfairness or Disingenuity your Lordship will I humbly conceive pardon me if I think it will pass for want of Fairness and Ingenuity in any one without clear Evidence to accuse me To avoid any such Suspicion in my first Letter I set down every Word contained in those Pages of your Book which I was concerned in and in my second I set down most of the Passages of your Lordship's first Answer that I replied to But because the doing it all along in this would I find too much increase the bulk of my Book I earnestly beg every one who will think this my Reply worth his Perusal to lay your Lordship's Letter before him that he may see whether in these Pages I direct my Answer to without setting them down at large there be any thing material unanswered or Vnfairly or Disingenuously represented Your Lordship in the next Words gives a Reason why I ought to have understood your Words as a consequence of my Assertion and not as your own Sense viz. Because you all along distinguish the way of Reason by deducing one thing from another from my way of Certainty in the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas Answer I know your Lordship does all along talk of Reason and my way be Ideas as distinct or opposite But this is the thing I have and do complain of That your Lordship does speak of them as distinct without shewing wherein they are different since the Perception of the Agreement of Disagreement of Ideas which is my way of Certainty is also the way of Reason For the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas is either by an immediate Comparison of two Ideas as in self-evident Propositions which way of Knowledge of Truth is the way of Reason or by the Intervention of intermediate Ideas i. e. by the Deduction of one thing from another which is also the way of Reason as I have shewn where I answer to your speaking of Certainty placed in good and sound Reason and not in Ideas in which place as in several others your Lordship opposes Ideas and Reason which your Lordship calls here distinguishing them But to continue to speak frequently of two things as different or of two ways as opposite without ever shewing any Difference or Opposition in them after it has been pressed for is a way of Ingenuity which your Lordship will pardon to my Ignorance if I have not formerly been acquainted with and therefore when you shall have shewn that Reasoning about Ideas or by Ideas is not the same way of Reasoning as that about or by Notions or Conceptions and that what I mean by Ideas is not the same that your Lordship means by Notions you will have some reason to blame me for mistaking you in the Passages above quoted For if your Lordship in those Words does not except against the Term Ideas but allows it to have the same Signification with Notions or Conceptions or Apprehensions then your Lordship's Words will run thus But what need all this great noise about Notions or Conceptions or Apprehensions And the World has been strangely amuzed with Notions or Conceptions or Apprehensions of late which whether it be that which your Lordship will own to be your meaning I must leave to your Consideration Your Lordship proceeds to examine my new method of Certainty as you are pleased to call it To my asking whether there be any other or older Method of Certainty Your Lordship answers That is not the point but whether mine be any at all Which your Lordship denies Answer I grant to him that barely denies it to be any at all it is not the point whether there be any older but to him that calls it a new method I humbly conceive it will not be thought wholly besides the point to shew an older at least that it ought to have prevented these following Words of your Lordship's viz. That your Lordship did never pretend to inform the World of new Methods which being in Answer to my desire that you would be pleased to shew me an older or another Method plainly imply That your Lordship supposes that whoever will inform the World of another Method of Certainty than mine can do it only by informing them of a new one But since this is the Answer your Lordship pleases to make to my Request I crave leave to consider it a little Your Lordship having pronounced concerning my Definition of Knowledge which you call my Method of Certainty That it might be of dangerous Consequence to an Article of the Christian Faith I desired you to shew in what Certainty lies and desired it of your Lordship by these pressing Considerations That it would secure that Article of Faith against any dangerous Consequence from my way and be a great Service to Truth in general To which your Lordship replies here That you did never pretend to inform the World of New Methods and therefore are not bound to go any farther than what you found fault with which was my new Method Answer My Lord I did not desire any new Method of you I observed your Lordship in more places than one reflected on me for writing out of my own Thoughts and therefore I could not expect from your Lordship what you so much condemn in another Besides one of the Faults you found with my Method was That it was New And therefore if your Lordship will look again into that Passage where I desire you to set the World right in a thing of that great Consequence as it is to know wherein Certainty consists you will not find that I mention any thing of a new Method of Certainty my Words were another whether old or new was indifferent In truth all that I requested was only such a Method of Certainty as your Lordship approved of and was secure in and therefore I do not see how your not pretending to inform the World in any new Methods can be any way alledg'd as a Reason for refusing so useful and so charitable a thing Your Lordship farther adds That you are not bound to go any farther than what you found fauls with Answer I suppose your Lordship means That you are not bound by the Law of Disputation nor are you as I humbly conceive by this Law forbid Or if you were the Law of the Schools could not dispense with the Eternal Divine Law of Charity The Law of Disputing whence had it it s so mighty a Sanction It is at best but the Law of Wrangling if it shut out the great Ends of Information and Instruction and serves only to flatter a little guilty Vanity in a Victory over an Adversary
less skilful in this Art of Fencing Who can believe that upon so slight an account your Lordship should neglect your Design of writing against me The great Motives of your Concern for an Article of the Christian Faith and of that Duty which you profess has made you do what you have done will be believed to work more uniformly in your Lordship than to let a Father of the Church and a Teacher in Israel not tell one who asks him which is the right and safe Way if he knows it No no my Lord a Character so much to the Prejudice of your Charity no-body will receive of your Lordship no not from your self Whatever your Lordship may say the World will believe That you would have given a better Method of Certainty if you had had one when thereby you would have secured Men from the danger of running into Errors in Articles of Faith and effectually have recalled them from my way of Certainty which leads as your Lordship says to Scepticism and Infidelity For to turn Men from a way they are in the bare telling them it is dangerous puts but a short stop to their going on in it There is nothing effectual to set them a going right but to shew them which is the safe and sure way a piece of Humanity which when asked no body as far as he knows refuses another and this I have earnestly asked of your Lordship Your Lordship represents to me the Vnsatisfactoriness and Inconsistency of my way of Certainty by telling me That it seems still a strange thing to you that I should talk so much of a new Method of Certainty by Ideas and yet allow as I do such a want of Ideas so much Imperfection in them and such a want of Connection between our Ideas and the things themselves Answer This Objection being so visibly against the Extent of our Knowledge and not the Certainty of it by Ideas would need no other Answer but this that it proved nothing to the point which was to shew that my way by Ideas was no way to Certainty at all not to True Certainty which is a Term your Lordship uses here which I shall be able to conceive what you mean by when you shall be pleased to tell me what false Certainty is But because what you say here is in short what you ground your Charge of Scepticism on in your former Letter I Shall here according to my Promise consider what your Lordship says there and hope you will allow this to be no unfit place Your Charge of Scepticism in your former Letter is as followeth Your Lordship's first Argument consists in these Propositions viz. 1. That I say P. 125 That Knowledge is the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas 2. That I go about to prove That there are very many more Beings of which we have no Ideas than those of which we have from whence your Lordship draws this Conclusion That we are excluded from attaining any Knowledge as to the far greatest part of the Vniverse Which I agree to But with Submission this is not the Proposition to be proved but this viz. That my way by Ideas or my way of Certainty by Ideas for to that your Lordship reduces it i. e. my placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas leads to Scepticism Farther from my saying that the Intellectual World is greater and more beautiful certainly than the material your Lordship argues That if Certainty may be had by general Reasons without particular Ideas in one it may also in other Cases Answer It may no doubt But this is nothing against any thing I have said for I have neither said nor suppose That Certainty by general Reasons or any Reasons can be had without Ideas no more than I say or suppose that we can reason without thinking or think without immediate Objects of our Minds in thinking i. e. think without Ideas But your Lordship asks Whence comes this Certainty for I say certainly where there be no particular Ideas if Knowledge consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas I answer we have Ideas as far as we are certain and beyond that we have neither Certainty no nor Probability every thing which we either know or believe is some Proposition Now no Proposition can be framed as the Object of our Knowledge or Assent wherein two Ideas are not joined to or separated from one another As for Example when I affirm that something exists in the World whereof I have no Idea Existence is affirmed of something some Being And I have as clear an Idea of Existence and something the two things joined in that Proposition as I have of them in this Proposition something exists in the World whereof I have an Idea When therefore I affirm that the intellectual World is greater and more beautiful than the material Whether I should know the truth of this Proposition either by Divine Revelation or should assert it as highly probable which is all I do in that Chapter out of which this Instance is brought it means no more but this viz. That there are more and more beautiful Beings whereof we have no Ideas than there are of which we have Ideas of which Beings whereof we have no Ideas we can for want of Ideas have no farther Knowledge but that such Beings do exist If your Lordship shall now ask me how I know there are such Beings I answer that in that Chapter of the Extent of our Knowledge I do not say I know but I endeavour to shew that it is most highly probable But yet a Man is capable of knowing it to be true because he is capable of having it revealed to him by God that this Proposition is true viz. That in the Works of God there are more and more beautiful Beings whereof we have no Ideas than there are whereof we have Ideas If God instead of shewing the very things to St. Paul had only revealed to him that this Proposition was true viz. That there were things in Heaven which neither Eye had seen nor Ear had heard nor had entred into the Heart of Man to conceive would he not have known the Truth of that Proposition of whose Terms he had Ideas viz. of Beings whereof he had no other Ideas but barely as something and of Existence though in the want of other Ideas of them he could attain no other Knowledge of them but barely that they existed So that in what I have there said there is no Contradiction nor Shadow of a Contradiction to my placing Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas But if I should any where mistake and say any thing inconsistent with that way of Certainty of mine how I beseech your Lordship could you conclude from thence that the placing Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement of Disagreement of Ideas tends to Scepticism That which
to tell which are those Maxims or how they may be known is I humbly conceive so far from laying any sure grounds of Certainty that it leaves even the very Foundations of it uncertain When your Lordship has thus setled the grounds of your way of Certainty by Reason one may be able to examine whether it be truly the way of Reason and how far my way of Certainty by Ideas differs from it The second Difference that you assign between my way of Certainty by Ideas and yours by Reason is that I say That Demonstration is by way of intuition of Ideas and that Reason is only the Faculty imploy'd in discovering and comparing Ideas with themselves or with others intervening and that this is the only way of Certainty Whereas your Lordship affirms and as you say have proved That there can be no Demonstration by intuition of Ideas but that all the Certainty we can attain to is from general Principles of Reason and necessary Deductions made from them Answ. I have said That Demonstration consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of the Intermediate Idea with those whose Agreement or Disagreement it is to shew in each step of the Demonstration And if you will say this is different from the way of Demonstration by Reason it will then be to the Point above-mentioned which you have been so long upon If this be your Meaning here it seems pretty strangely expressed and remains to be proved But if any thing else be your Meaning that Meaning not being the Proposition to be proved it matters not whether you have proved it or no. Your Lordship farther says here That all the Certainty we can attain to is from general Principles of Reason and necessary Deductions made from them This you say you have proved What has been proved is to be seen in what has been already consider'd But if your Proof That all the Certainty we can attain to is from general Principles of Reason and necessary Deductions made from them were as clear and cogent as it seems to me the contrary this will not reach to the Point in Debate till your Lordship has proved That this is opposite to my way of Certainty by Ideas 'T is strange and perhaps to some-may be matter of thought that in an Argument wherein you lay so much stress on Maxims general Principles of Reason and necessary Deductions from them you should never once tell us what in your account a Maxim or general Principle of Reason is nor the Marks it is to be known by nor offer to shew what a necessary Deduction is nor how it is to be made or may be known For I have seen Men please themselves with Deductions upon Deductions and spin Consequences it matter'd not whether out of their own or other Men's Thoughts which when looked into were visibly nothing but meer Ropes of Sand. 'T is true your Lordship says you now come to Certainty of Reason by Deductions But when all that truly learned Discourse which follows is read over and over again I would be glad to be told what it is your Lordship calls a necessary Deduction and by what Criterion you distinguish it from such Deductions as come short of Certainty or even of Truth it self I confess I have read over those Pages more than once and can find no such Criterion laid down in them by your Lordship though a Criterion be there much talked of But whether it be my want of Capacity for your way of Writing that makes me not find any Light given by your Lordship into this Matter Or whether in Truth you have not shewed wherein what you call a necessary Deduction consists and how it may be known from what is not so the Reader must judge This I crave leave to say That when you have shewn what general Principles of Reason and necessary Deductions are the World will then see and not till then whether this your way of Certainty by Reason from general Principles and necessary Deductions made from them be opposite to or so much as different from my way of Certainty by Ideas which was the thing to be shewn In the Paragraph under Consideration you blame me that in my Chapter concerning Reason I have treated it only as a Faculty and not in the other Senses which I there give of that Word This Exception to my Book is I suppose only from your Lordship's general Care of letting nothing pass in my Essay which you think needs an amendment For any particular Reason that brings it in here or ties it on to this part of your Discourse I confess I do not see However to this I Answer 1. The Understanding as a Faculty being the Subject of my Essay it carried me to treat directly of Reason no otherwise than as a Faculty But yet Reason as standing for true and clear Principles and also as standing for clear and fair Deductions from those Principles I have not wholly omitted as is manifest from what I have said of self-evident Propositions intuitive Knowledge and Demonstration in other parts of my Essay So that your Question Why in a Chapter of Reason are the other two Senses of the word Neglected Blaming me for no other Fault that I am really guilty of but want of Order and not putting every thing in its proper Place does not appear to be of so mighty weight but that I should have thought it might have been left to the little Niblers in Controversie without being made use of by so great a Man as your Lordship But the putting things out of their proper Place being that which your Lordship thinks fit to except against in my Writings it so falls out that to this too I can plead not guilty For in that very Chapter of Reason I have not omitted to treat of Principles and Deductions and what I have said there I presume is enough to let others see That I have not neglected to declare my poor Sense about self-evident Propositions and the cogency and evidence of demonstrative or probable Deductions of Reason Though what I have said there not being back'd with Authorities nor warranted by the Names of ancient Philosophers was not worth your Lordship's taking notice of I have I confess been so unwary to write out of my own Thoughts which your Lordship has more than once with some sort of Reprimand taken notice of I own it your Lordship is much in the right The safer way is never to declare ones own Sense in any material Point If I had fill'd my Book with Quotations and Collections of other Mens Opinions it had shewn much more Learning and had much more security in it and I my self had been safe from the Attacks of the Men of Arms in the Common-wealth of Letters But in writing my Book I had no Thoughts of War my Eye was fixed only on Truth and that with so sincere and unbiassed an Endeavour that I thought I